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Explaining "the pre flop min-raise"
I was reminded of this last night against one particular opponent, with whom I must have shared a table many hundreds of times.
He min-raises pre-flop before EVERY hand, irrespective of position. I assume he is pot-building, though I'm not clear why you would want to build a pot every hand.
And the rest of us all call, of course. Which may seem a little silly, but if we are 3 or 4 way, we generally have the odds anyway. (In fact, we can sometimes squeeze here).
Comments
These threads are going along nicely, so today the topic is pre-flop min-raising. (I think post flop min-raising is a completely different topic).
When we min-raise pre, what are we trying to achieve? (Build the pot, protect our hand, confuse the opponents?)
Is it better if we are heads up?
What position - ideally - should we be in? Does position matter?
What if we are likely to get 4 customers, how much do we like it now?
What sort of hands/table/situation should we consider min-raising pre-flop?
Is it better in cash, MTT's or SNG's?
What are the pros & cons of min-raising pre-flop?
Does it have any merit at all? If so, what?
Please note - we are discussing pre-flop min-raises ONLY. We will do post-flop another day.
Thanks Chris.
Err.....
"....with j10s we open to 400....."
Why would we open with J-10? They are not even the same.
Not being rude, like, but that's where you are going wrong.
"When we min-raise pre, what are we trying to achieve? (Build the pot, protect our hand, confuse the opponents?) Is it better if we are heads up? What position - ideally - should we be in? Does position matter?"
I think 'what we are trying to achieve' depends on our position.
Some examples...
If we are in the SB and it is folded around to us (we are obviously out of position)... Two examples I can see where a min-raise may be an option in this situation is to either...
#1: Cheaply steal the blinds versus a tight player or #2: Induce a 3 bet from an aggro player who thinks you are making an extremely weak steal attempt out of position.
If we actually have position and are for example on the BTN it could be used for either reason above but also to build a pot. Some players are happy to bet less, encourage calls and draw opponents into a pot when they have position as they will get to play the hand post flop in position. If we are out of position then I would advocate a larger bet than the min-raise as obviously we will have to play the hand post flop out of position if we are called so we do not really want to give our opponent as favourable odds to call.
Some will say you should be keeping your opening betting sizes the same but this relates more to not altering your bet sizing based on hand strength. It is completely fine to alter your bet sizing based on position (the only thing you are giving away by this is your position but everyone obviously already knows your table position).
Another pertinent example is when we 'might be in position'. For example you are in the cut off and there are spewy players in the blinds (if you flat call and give the BTN nice odds to come along you will be playing out of position post flop). Obviously if the players in the blinds are spewy we might not want to be committing stacks with marginal holdings early in the hand and letting the betting get out of control, on the other hand we may want to play a lot of pots in position versus these players. In this scenario I think a min-raise can be used to hopefully 'steal the BTN' cheaply, take the initiative in the hand, employ pot control, and play pots versus the spewy players in the blinds in position.
So in relation to the "does position matter?" question, I would say it is of paramount importance.
What are the pros & cons of min-raising pre-flop? Does it have any merit at all? If so, what?
Standard opening bet sizes have generally been falling for years. Just part of the reason for this reduction was the large increase in the instances of 3/4 betting. When standard opening raises were 3-4 times the BB then obviously by the time it got to 3 and 4 betting (when this became popular), the pots were generally getting more out of control. Good players obviously want mileage out of their stacks and to be able to play as much poker as possible with less marginal flips and all ins and more opportunity to outplay opponents without simply relying on their hand holding up at showdown. Therefore there was a tendency to reduce opening bet sizes, obviously a min-raise is as low as you can go and therefore the min-raise is most optimal by that logic, or is it? Opinions will differ.
There has actually been a recent tendency amongst some players to reduce this further. Although not actually a raise, some players will now just limp quite widely in position so they can play more pots versus weaker players post flop and employ even more pot control, play a small ball game, and get even more mileage out of their stacks. This obviously has pros and cons. Some pros being you get to play in position more often, see more flops and if your opponent raises your limp they are inflating the pot out of position. Obvious drawbacks are that you aren't giving yourself the opportunity to take it down preflop, are encouraging others to come along to the flop and letting the blinds see the flop freely/cheaply.
Back to the min-raising, as mentioned position is extremely important. In general if players are min-raising out of position they will be giving great odds to their opponent(s) to call and play inflated pots against them out of position. It generally just doesn't make a whole lot of sense IMO to min-raise OOP unless you are inducing a play from someone or have some other plan that over-rides the fact you are out of position.
Okay I will stop there, as per usual this is getting long as I am close to incapable of being succinct.
That is my rather long winded take on it.
I have grown to like it and use it a lot. It gives me more play and allows me to keep weaker players in the hand with rag aces and there's plenty of chips to be made versus these players when we hit 2 pair and straights with our connecting cards/flush draws.
It's becoming quite common in Live Games too. The seasoned players hate it though and it frustrates the heck out of them. The greatest effect consistantly min raising has for me, is its ability to hide our hand.
When we are playing down the streets, folding, raising, re-raising & keeping weaker hands in the pot for maximum value becomes much easier imo.
Besides anything but 2x utg is for wimps
Great answers here again. I personally love a nice min-raise. I was the one making it £7 to go every hand when £3/£3 pot limit hold-'em was the biggest game in London for about three years. People thought I was a bit mad...I saw myself as a revolutionary.