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2xbb raise, are you a fan?
When i started playing poker it was standard to raise 3x bb. Then end of last year i spoke to a player on here who i respect very much and who is a winner and he said 2x raise in tournies.
I tried it out, but i seemed to be letting people in too cheap and they were hitting the flop and beating my hands, or not folding to my ak/aq type hands, where as the 3x raise seemed to make more people fold pf. I was being outplayed on the flops i missed a lot.
I have seen a lot of the better players on here 2xbb raise with great success, (vs me espicially!) Is it something I should try again? If so I guess i will need to improve my post flop skills to be able to make the most profit and lose the least on the increased number of flops i will be seeing, espicially the flops i miss....
I am playing tournies more at the moment, any thoughts please?
merlin
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Comments
The most important of these are (imo) what kind of player you are, and whether there are antes.
Antes (where they exist) mean that it is important to get involved in enough pots, which is easier if in cheaper. However, none on Sky.
On here, it is largely a matter of personal choice. I think it is more important to be consistent (so as to be unreadable) than to worry about sizing. If you like 3x, then that is fine (tho risky if antes)-it is important to have a style that suits your play
Good luck.
Greg.
I also adjust raise sizes according to position-tend to raise smaller from early position, particularly early in an MTT
From someone that plays predominantly cash I take the complete opposite approach - 2x the button because I'm opening a wide range of hands and therefore my average hand strength is fairly weak, vs the tighter range (and therefore strong average hand strength) that I'd raise 2.5x - 4x (position and table dependant).
The fact I don't deviate much from this sort of thinking when I play tournaments is almost certainly a reason why I do so poorly in them!
However, the main reason I bet smaller in early position is that there are more people to come, so there is more likely to be callers and raisers. I am always happy to take the blinds from the button.
That makes some sense if I understand right, 3x in LP will take down more pots, 2x in EP helping with a tighter range of hands that can call or jam over 3bets.
Interesting debate, some good thoughts on this thread.
As mentioned a lot of it is personal preference. The intention of smaller opens is obviously to control the pot, get more mileage out of our stack and give us more room to manoeuvre in 3bet and 4 bet spots as the resultant 3 & 4 bets should be smaller as a result. Rule of thumb would have it then that smaller bet sizing suits better players more than it suits poor players as in general it should reduce variance to some extent.
It is important to understand the likely outcomes of each option and be content with them. I.E. if you 2x open you will be playing a lot more hands post flop. If you are happy to do this then great. If you want to be playing less hands post flop then the higher end of your opening betting size is obviously more preferable.
Also, while it isn't great to alter bet sizes based upon hand strength. It is fine to alter it based upon (amongst other things) (a) our stack sizes (b) our opponents stack size and (c) our table position. If the open means you get to play the hand in position post flop then we can afford to give our opponent slightly better odds as we will have a post flop advantage so this lends more support to bet sizing in the lower sizing range. If however we are going to have to play the hand OOP postflop then we might not be wanting to give our opponent such great odds to call preflop as they will have the positional advantage post flop and therefore bet sizing towards the higher end of our bet sizing range can be better.
The last part obviously goes for any betting whether it is an open or a 3bet/4bet etc.