Ferguson's theory about never entering a pot without raising

[betgo]

Ferguson's article on bet sizing in the "Full Tilt Strategy Guide" is interesting. I don't agree with his points about not letting your hand influence your preflop raise size or flop bet size. I think it should be a factor, but not in an obvious way.

Ferguson does not believe in open limping, which I of course do not agree with. He also says that when he won the WSOP ME he used the approach of never entering a pot without a raise. That is, if there were limpers, he would raise. If there was a raise, he would reraise. If it was reraised, he would 4-bet if he played. He says that is how he played then, but he doesn't play that way entirely now. He said it helped him win the WSOP, because people overestimated his hands when he reraised.

First of all, this depends on personal style, and someone like Negreanu, who likes to outplay postflop, is not a big reraiser.

Also, you have to take into account the nature of your hand, your position, the action, the stacks, and so on. Sometimes a flat call or limp behind is better.

A raise or reraise also reopens action for a limpreraise or 4-bet, so there are advantages to not raising.

However, I think there is a lot of point to what Ferguson is saying. People will flat call or limp behind and see a flop taking the "safe route", when a raise puts more pressure on.

Obviously, "resteals" have become common for short stacks late in tournaments.

I think that with deeper money, often times a reraise is more effective. People have the attitude that a reraise needs to be a very strong hand, but this is not true. I realize also that loose reraises are common in major tournaments and other relatively tough tournament tables.