Raising low pp's oop pre-flop

[latvaniemi]

I'm gonna summarize my current opinion on raising low pp's 66-22 oop and hopefully get some good insight if i'm wrong.

Since we're talking microlimit games we shouldnt take into the account the impact raising this hands will make on our image and how other players try to adjust into it. Because simply people doesnt really take that much notice to this they often only play their cards and second level thinking is rather shallow or non existant.

My personal opinion is that i dislike raising this hands under the circumstances mention above because theres a few possible scenarios.

1) We simply take down the pot, so far so fine it was a good move nh
2) We get one or more caller and hit our set. So far even more fine it's often very easy to play from here and theres a good chance we're gonna make some money
3) We get one or more caller and doesnt connect anyway on the flop. Under the presumtion mentioned above that the villains only play their two cards we can here assume he got a rather narrow range. Other pp's, any 2 broadway and some high sc's. That means that we're likely dominated in all situations and oop. Here we got three option to proceed either check/folding , cbetting or check/calling with intention to make a move on later streets.

First cbetting wich is the usuall approach after making a pf raise. But i don't believe it overall is such a good move in this situation...

First we're out of position in comparison to the villain wich means we're leading into a hand that most likely have us dominated and we got almost zero chance of improving our hand. The late position cbetting builds on the fact that we represented a big hand pf and keep representing it post flop when villain shows weakness with checking. Here we dont know anything about the villains handstrength. Second big hands - big pots / small hand - small pots / big pots - in position / small pots oop. Raising pf and cbetting builds the pot into a decent sized pot going against the above mentioned proverbs. Last if he calls the pot becomes quite big adding to the incentive to make a move on a later street trying to take it down. Therefor the hand becomes alot harder to play and the risk of us making a costly mistake rises. Therefor atleast i feel quite uneasy cbetting in this situations.

About floating, floatings is completely read dependant and has nothing to do with your hand strength wich means that it cant be used as an argument for raising small pps oop.

About check/folding, meh dont reraise pf with the intention to always lay it down if you dont hit it.

E contrario everything above can be used as argument for raising them in position and the less callers preferably one makes the argument a stronger one. But unless you got a good table read theres no guarantee it will happen.

Ps. With oop i basically means in the blinds and utg, maybe utg+1 if the cutoff/button is wide callers.

Hmm that was all for now, anyone disagrees?

[doppelganger]

I disagree with a lot of what you said here.

I love to raise small pairs from the SB/BB on a passive table, for several reasons:

1. No one has shown strength so you likely have an equity edge PF
2. You have a solid chance of taking down the pot or thinning the field to one opponent
3. Sets are well disguised, increasing your chances to get paid
3. Most people assume that a raise from the blinds indicates a very strong hand, which makes it much easier to take down the pot w/ a cbet since your villain missed 2/3 of the time. (And their assumption is generally correct - I generally will only raise pairs, AK,AQs+, so small pairs are a tiny part of my range.)

I generally won't raise them on tables where floating is rampant or there is a tricky or station-ish player who has already limped in.

Obviously if your cbet gets called or raised then you're done w/ the hand, but you'll be surprised how often you scoop the pot on the flop after an EP raise.

[kolotoure]

I only scanned op but I disagree. It is a lot easier to get 100bb in the middle inn a raised pot then it is in a limped pot for one

[kroeliewoelie]

Another reason why I like raising: if you raise any hand you play UTG, your hand is disguised. It's so transparent when somebody limp/calls UTG. This is a pp or sc like always. If people like this are only playing this for set value, I am raising ATC and cbetting almost any flop when HU. This gives me the annoying-raiser image and gives me more action on my premiums.