NLH:TAP, Raising PF

[AAAAx]

One thing baffles me: there isn't much mention about raising to thin the field.

For example, in the Concepts, #28

#28: Raise with KK to build pot even with multiple opponents. Or, raise a lot (that nobody will probably call).

Well, do you really want to keep a lot of opponents in the pot with KK? Why wouldn't you want to raise an intermediate amount to drop most of them but keep one opponent in the pot?

I'm a 0.25/0.50 NL player if that explains, but would appreciate more thoughts about this.

[SplawnDarts]

There's a bug in NLH:TAP here. I'll explain tomorow when I have time. I've got poker to play tonight.

[Perkin]

My opinion on their thinking (without reading the book):

With maybe 3-4 limpers I don't think there's any amount you can raise so that 1 caller is probable. That's why it's better to raise a lot so it's more probable that no-one calls instead of >2 calling. (Unless you want to build the pot in which case you're wanting them all to call and trying to hit the set)

[GiantBuddha]

There's a good discussion of this section here.

The chapter discusses raising for isolation, which is essentially thinning the field. There are raise sizes that will often end up with one or sometimes two callers. Online, that's usually raising slightly larger than the size of the pot. In live games it's more like ten big blinds.

[rakemeplz]

[ QUOTE ]
One thing baffles me: there isn't much mention about raising to thin the field.

For example, in the Concepts, #28

#28: Raise with KK to build pot even with multiple opponents. Or, raise a lot (that nobody will probably call).

Well, do you really want to keep a lot of opponents in the pot with KK? Why wouldn't you want to raise an intermediate amount to drop most of them but keep one opponent in the pot?

I'm a 0.25/0.50 NL player if that explains, but would appreciate more thoughts about this.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not smart enough to answer this but my guess its for balancing reasons/game theory related etc.