The Pre Flop Raise

[onesandzeros]

I have found the best way to size a preflop raise is by position.

Early Pos: 2.5xbb
middle: 3x
late" 4x

This is Phil Gordan's preflop raise sizing methodology, and I find it hides hands strength and makes it almost all but impossible for anyone to "read", especially if you eliminate "limping" from your game. If I can't come in for a raise or re raise I fold preflop. I see no advantage to limping in any tournaments preflop. Not even when your M is 20+...

[semu]

Well thats right... Early position: You are going to raise only with good hands so you want action! Middle positon: You are also raising with good hands but also with weaker holdings. Late Position: Raise 4x cause you want to get more money in the pot when you are in position. Also it puts more pressure to the blinds. Thats a good strategy!

[onesandzeros]

I do it exactly the same regardless of the cards when I choose to play. In tourneys its dependent on M. When I have chips (+20M) I'm likely to be raising tons of pots preflop with any 2 in certain spots, especially when antes kick in and the "bubble fear" turns opponents into dazed venison.

[pococurante]

The correct amount to raise is "as much your opponents are willing to call". This tends to be 3-4bb in online poker. If you get dealt AK, you want to get the trash hands out of the pot, and maybe get someone with KJ to call you.

In casinos, people are bored and less willing to wait, so the correct amount can be 10bb or more. You always want as much money in the pot as possible when you are the favorite.

[LegendLength]

The problem is that if you are going to minraise good hands such as AJ or KQ then you really have to minraise great hands like JJ+. If you bet 3x BB for only your great hands then it will stand out too easily.

By minraising you are allowing people to see flops cheaply with hands such as 44, 97s, KT etc.. Unless you are at a super tight table and can get away with minraising I think it is a bad idea.

At the lower limits such as NL5 to NL25 you see it happen a lot. Minraise 3bets are also common with AA & KK. If I am ever minraised then I call with anything except total rubbish because I am getting great odds. That is especially true for minraise 3bets where you have a great chance to stack off if you hit 2 pair or better.

For tournaments it is different and minraises can be useful when the blinds are large. Someone else in the thread summed it up by saying you should raise more for loose players and less (possibly down to 2x BB) for tight players. For example, at NL10 I often need to set my standard raise to 7x BB because of one or two very loose players at the table (and they still call with Q5s).

[JulioYalil]

god damn it... so many replys and noone gives the answer to the original question...

if u raise the minimum u r always givin the big blind 3.5 to 1 on his/her money (and over 4 to 1 when there's antes). that means the big blind has odds to call u w/ almost any two cards. this prevents u from stealin the blinds @ times where u could've. it also brings a lot of complications to postflop play since u can't really put them on a small range of hands. by raisin 3x the blind u r only givin them 2.25 to 1 on their money. so now, even tho it's a "small" difference in the raise they'd be makin a mistake (a huge one) by callin w/ any two cards.

also, no it is not "wrong" to minraise. u should identify what's the cheapest effective raise @ any table u r at. if u can get away w/ stealin the blinds or gettin only one caller w/ a minraise then go for it. if a minraise is gettin called by multiple opponents too often then go for 3x. if 3x is gettin called by multiple opponents too often then u need to go to 3 and 1/2 or 4 times the blind. if this is still gettin called by multiple opponents way too often then u should be happy b/c u r @ a dream table. play tight and punish them w/ some strong bettin w/ ur big hands.

[LarryLaughs]

This thread seems to be talking more about minraising in tournaments. What about cash tables? Any difference in raise sizes?

[ QUOTE ]
if u raise the minimum u r always givin the big blind 3.5 to 1 on his/her money (and over 4 to 1 when there's antes). that means the big blind has odds to call u w/ almost any two cards. this prevents u from stealin the blinds @ times where u could've. it also brings a lot of complications to postflop play since u can't really put them on a small range of hands. by raisin 3x the blind u r only givin them 2.25 to 1 on their money. so now, even tho it's a "small" difference in the raise they'd be makin a mistake (a huge one) by callin w/ any two cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you minraise from EP and raise 3-4BB from later positions, then the ability to steal the blinds is still there. You are not trying to steal the blinds anyway from EP as your range is quite tight compared to LP. If the BB loosely calls (ATC even) the EP minraise after everyone else folded, he is playing out of position against pretty good hands. Not too great for BB.

I am thinking that it does not make a huge difference if you minraise EP and 3-4BB raise other positions or just make fixed size raises in non-blind positions.

[jay_shark]

[ QUOTE ]
god damn it... so many replys and noone gives the answer to the original question...

if u raise the minimum u r always givin the big blind 3.5 to 1 on his/her money (and over 4 to 1 when there's antes). that means the big blind has odds to call u w/ almost any two cards. this prevents u from stealin the blinds @ times where u could've. it also brings a lot of complications to postflop play since u can't really put them on a small range of hands. by raisin 3x the blind u r only givin them 2.25 to 1 on their money. so now, even tho it's a "small" difference in the raise they'd be makin a mistake (a huge one) by callin w/ any two cards.

also, no it is not "wrong" to minraise. u should identify what's the cheapest effective raise @ any table u r at. if u can get away w/ stealin the blinds or gettin only one caller w/ a minraise then go for it. if a minraise is gettin called by multiple opponents too often then go for 3x. if 3x is gettin called by multiple opponents too often then u need to go to 3 and 1/2 or 4 times the blind. if this is still gettin called by multiple opponents way too often then u should be happy b/c u r @ a dream table. play tight and punish them w/ some strong bettin w/ ur big hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

The original question has been answered and there have been some good answers . It is clear you didn't read all the posts because I explicitly mentioned that if you mini-raise , you give the BB good odds to call with more hands .

[Nougat]

Let me see if I can weigh in on this in an rational fashion:

A)Min-raise opening is +EV for you if the calling range for the players in the blind in this circumstance is anything less than any two cards. Considering that the BB's call equity is 22.22%, a fold by the BB in this circumstance is decidedly -EV. Against any reasonable range of hands that you could be opening with, whether that is any two cards or 88+, ATs+, etc., a random hand has a better than 22.22% equity in the pot. The difference in the random hand's equity against your range and the call equity of the big blind (22.22%) determines the marginal gain in EV from making a call.

B)3xBB opening limits your the BB's call equity considerably. In this instance, the call equity is 30.77% for the BB. While your 3x opening range could still be quite wide enough to make calling with any two cards in the BB here correct if you were all-in, the implied odds of playing a hand OOP against a continuation bet (almost guaranteed in a limit game FWIW) on the flop (where you will only be playing five cards, instead of the seven total in an all-in) make the call equity unplayably higher than the 30.77% value, given the value the BB loses by having difficulty getting paid off if ahead and folding the best hand to a bluff or continuation bet from the raiser.

As for an example, the best I can think and a fairly simple one for explaining why it's best (from Rawls' original position) to raise 3x is if the BB has pocket deuces. A min-raise is laying a call equity of 22.22% for a hand that makes a set ~11.7% of the time. Since we can reasonably expect implied odds to be greater than 4BBs in a pot of 4.5BBs, a call out of the BB with deuces is the correct play for someone to make.
Now if we suppose that this same BB is a calling station with a highly inelastic distribution of hands (i.e. the hands he calls with do not change much relative to the size of the bet, which is common enough), open-raising 3x into the BB is much better. Now the deuces call equity is 30.77% with a hand that is dominated by a higher pocket pair approximately 33% of the time against one opponent and has horrible implied odds OOP and HU even when making the 11.7% set on the flop and you're folding the best hand a fair amount of the time to continuation bets or bets on later streets. Pocket pairs' value actually increases in AI situations where you have the proper call equity because you don't risk any danger of folding the best hand if your opponent's hand misses the flop.

I think for your particular situation where people will fold or call as readily to a min-raise as a 3x raise, you can exploit your opponent's best by limping a whole lot of hands out of position and raising a wide range of hands in position against limpers PF. I might be wrong and am at work now, so I'm not hyperconfident in that.
All the same, one of the biggest mistakes I made when started playing poker is raising a value that will only be called by a range of hands that has a winning equity against my hand. While a hand like JJ is better than a lot of hands that may limp in behind it, raising with it is guaranteed to fold just about every speculative hand that might have limped and put you on a collision course with hands of two overcards. That's -EV because that 76s that was planning to put in a BB when way behind is now going to fold PF and give you zero instead of boosting your EV. For many beginning players it is maddening to see a hand like Q3o call your raise and then beat you out of a pot and can cause some to think they want to raise some amount that would make that Q3o fold. Truth is, even on the hand that you got slaughtered by Q3o, you want that call every time.

Most of this is applicable only to ring games where I make the assumption that you are deep-stacked relative to the blinds. In tournaments where your stack is a discrete object and not a continuous distribution (because of infinite rebuys in ring games), you treat the stack as your entire bankroll and determine equity in relation to percentages of your stack along with other important considerations.

Hopefully this wasn't too rambling or too off-base (I'll admit I'm not proofreading this post prior to posting). The variance of playing with idiots can piss a lot of people off and confound a lot of hand ranges that you make your reads of the opposition. You will make scads of moolah playing against such fools though and I urge you not to get less aggressive with your good hands because your opponents may do something stupid. If they may do something stupid, you wanna be there to grab up as much of their money as possible and then tell them that they played a nice hand so that they keep on being your personal ATM.