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Cash game wizards required
It is a long time since I've read anything on cash strategy and so there may be a quick answer to this.
Short version
Min raising the button in cash
Why?
Longer version
I've noticed more and more that players are min raising the button. Now I understand it in tourneys. The blind levels are ever increasing and we need to maintain our stack. When we say min the tight bb and he 3 bets, we can fold having lost the bare minimum.
In cash. We can reload at anytime. We have no concerns about blind levels going up. When we choose to enter a pot in cash we are generally thinking we have the best hand? We are not interested in just stealing blinds normally? I guess there's the argument that it makes our bluffs cheaper but does this apply to cash that much?
I know poker is evolving all the time but...
I remember reading a post on another forum a while ago from a very good player and writer about bet sizing in cash. He argued that there can be times when 20x can be the right size.
I think what he meant by this was that if I'm in a pot then I want to find the most amount that someone will call with? be it 3x or 10x.
I know live plays differently but when I used to go to DTD on a regular basis at 50/1 raises were around 5x as 'standard' and the same at 1/2. It could be argued that in an uncapped 1/2 the regs there were in reality playing it as a 2/5. One thing I never saw though was a min raise.
This is by no means critical of Lambert but I was a bit confused by a hand he posted recently in his diary. He minned the button 200bb deep against Offshoot. He was 3bet to 10 and thought that that was a bit big. Not sure why. I imagine Offshoot thought he had the best hand and wanted to set up the hand so that they could be playing for stacks with the right run out?
I've been playing so long that I remember the days that if in any format someone min raised the it was generally met with a very mature chorus of "ooohhh gayyy raise" by the rest if the table and "it must be aces". I probably way behind with how poker changes but I would be really interested in views on this.
Ta
Comments
- Gives you a better price to steal
- Allows you to raise btn with a wider range
- Allows you to defend 3-bets with a wider range
Min raising the btn is standard these days in online cash, especially if you have regs in the blinds. If there's a 'recreational' player in the sb/bb then 3x is more standard.
Live cash often plays much deeper so naturally your opens should be bigger.
If you're opening the BTN vv wide like you should, then you give aggressive blinds too good an opportunity to 3bet light and you'll be losing tons cos you can't peel the 3bets as much and end up getting owned. Your success rate with stealing the blinds can be lower cos you're risking less for the same reward.