advice for beginners

Plz start betting more with your bigger hands at the microstakes level

k thx

and please stop raising 8xbb.

ty

What's wrong with raising 8xbb?

At a lot of the tables I play (10NL), I get three or four callers when I only raise 4xbb. Often it takes a 8xbb raise preflop just to get it down to one caller. It depends on your strategy of course, but I'd rather take the chance of scaring people away than risk getting called and then beat with a trash hand.

Poker_pup you are both right and wrong. You certainly want to charge players for playing less than premium hands against you PF however you do not want to make it so tough for them to play those hands that you lose all equity off of your big hands.

Raising 8xbb is fine if 3+ players have already just called the big blind before the action gets to you. Otherwise, 4xbb is standard plus one more big blind for each additional "limper"

preflop raise size depends more on table conditions than personal preference. At almost all of the 2NL tables Ive ever sat at 4bb preflop just doesnt do the job. Trying to stick to "standard" raise sizes when they clearly dont do the job is silly poker imo.

Betting hard at the microstakes are crucial for success, thats for sure. However I think betsizing preflop is not as simple as 4xBB and one additional per limper. At the microstakes they may be, but Im a firm believer in varying your preflop raises. Also I think its okay to aim for 3.5x or 3x at somewhat higher stakes. But things should not be so rigid. Sometimes you want to raise say the potsize, sometimes more and sometimes less and a lot of various factors are to be considered. Generally speaking you should often raise bigger from the blinds than you would from the button. Position and stacksizes matter a lot so you shouldn't just pick a number and blindy follow it. Hell, sometimes (really not often though) it may even be correct to min-raise. Like everything else poker; very situational.

Weird. I have the opposite problem, no callers at 4bb.

Not a problem. Just keep raising until they play back. They have long memory's in poker. Once a maniac always a maniac. When they start to call, tighten up.

as for the 8X raise.

i think its fine, if thats what it takes to get HU w/ your premiums. but, dont start there. try closer to standard raises first. no sense in risking more than you need to right off the bat.

however, once you see it takes 8X to do the job, dont stop betting 8X. sure, you may lose action in the beginning, but you will "loosen" up the table, or chase off the rocks. either way, if you have a solid/proven track record, you achieve your goal...

making the table leave their comfort zones and adjust to YOU.

i really meant once the three community cards were turned over

*deleted because I make no sense*

I remember when prima had just changed their interface system and I was playing over at a friend's place on a turbo table and after a while I noticed the button we were using was raising 8BB instead of the intended 4BB. The reason I hadn't noticed was we were playing a higher stake than I was used to (so not intuitively familiar with the money amounts) and because.. people were calling them like normal lol. Maybe I should do it some more, it's really great to raise premiums hard and get many callers, a lot easier to get people allin. But you'd have to play rather nitty to do that. In my monthlong absence prima seems to have been infested with weak tighties so I've now adopted a 30/20 style to combat that.

This was my biggest problem, and fixing it turned me from small loser to big winner in my game.

Bet your big hands. Stop slowplaying. Theyll call, its what they do. You know they shouldnt call, but they do do do do do.

Yeah...you have to not make the mistake of playing like you would if you were the opposition. The opposition is generally far more stupid:P

This was merely a joke when I first posted it but I'm bumping this for the beginners on this topic:

WHEN YOU RAISE ANY STREET YOU STILL NEED TO RAISE IN REFERNCE TO THE POT!

I see too many players here making raises in reference to their opponents bets. That's all well and good if your opponent bet a full amount however if they donk out their little 1/4pot flop feeler bets it doesn't mean we just raise that bet 3X. For instance

We raise AK from the CO to 4xbb and the BB calls

Flop (8.5bb) A x x
BB bets 3bbs.

We do not raise this to 9bbs. Why? well look what price you're offering them. They have to call 6bbs to win 20.5bbs. They're getting quite a good price to continue which could mean we're allowing them to play perfectly.

Once they bet and you call that bet the pot has 14.5bbs in it, therefore you need to be raising 3/4 of that pot from there. Therefore your total raise size should be ~14bbs. Now they're faced to call 11bbs to win 25.5bbs. We've greatly reduced their odds to continue in the hand meaning if they do call with their weak Aces and the like they are doing so more incorrectly.

I love playing vs someone who will only raise 3x. You can make a silly little 2 or 3xbb bet and know they'll raise 3x, giving you odds to call and chase, in addition to paying you off when you hit.

i, too, love when my aggressor thinks he is raising me out, and is only sweetening the pot. its actually a nice move to bet out real small when you have a read that your villain will do this...to keep his raise small.

then, he gets mad at me in the chat for hitting my draw, and nailing him with the old river c/r for value.

they berate me in the chat, and all i can say is: "thanks for the odds."

the most common place you see it, imo, is when someone habitually minbets. their opponents lose track of the pot on the turn, and raise 3X into a big pot...giving everyone else odds to call.

thank you, minbettors.

Originally Posted by Chopper

they berate me in the chat, and all i can say is: "thanks for the odds."

This is off topic but you shouldnt tell them how to play better...unless they come to FTR to learn.

in general, you dont raise enough, not just preflop but when you have a big hand versus bad opponents, and you dont push solid hands really hard
In small stakes games you should be getting all in lots with AA etc type hands on the turn because you opps are bad enough to take one pair to the river with you.
Also. you are too focused on results and not the reason for getting to a decision, which is pretty difficult to do when your br is only $250, but you need to consider this.

One thing I have said to SNG players is "if you never ever slowplayed with anything less than a flopped full house, I doubt that would be -EV at low buyins".

Originally Posted by SHAKE

and please stop raising 8xbb.

ty

Depend on table .

I have a question about bet sizing with premium hands. Let say:

UTG bet 4bb, CO calls 4bb (Let's assume that both UTG and CO have pocket pairs lower than QQ). I'm on the button with AA. How much should I raise so that it is incorrect for UTG and CO to call if they want to play for set.

I've heard something about 15:1 rule. I tried using the search but did not find anything. Anyone knows about it?

If you all have 100bb stacks then making it more than 1/10th their remaining stacks is standard. Therefore, I make is 13-14bb total if it's just one player and ~16 if the pot is multiway.

Also depends on position, I'll tend to raise larger OOP in order to cut down on the implied odds someone might have by getting to play the hand in position against me.

raise it to what the pot would be and you take away almost anyones odds.

4 + 4 = 8

raise it 8 more bb's and the first guy is only getting 2:1 on his money. not enough, technically, but ask yourself if you would fold here with 99? thats your dilema. you CANT make them fold...even if you take away odds.

besides, if you have AA, and you know they both have pp's, why do you want them to fold? you just want to sweeten the pot rather nicely pf.

if you dont know they have pp's, you want to discourage action from 3+ callers. its not the pp's you worry about, or AK for that matter, its the smaller sc's that have the enormous implied odds against you. make it too rich for them to call.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
NO

don't sweeten the pot, build it, don't give them odds, make them play incorrectly by 3betting just enough to make them think they have odds when they don't. You'd rather not have 2pp's seeing this flop as the are 3:1 against to hit a set.

i didnt say sweeten the pot with a minraise. i said "rather nicely." meaning, charge a price, but not too high because you are still a monster favorite.

you still have majority equity in this pot...so long as its under 3 people. you have to go to 4 players before your equity falls to under 50%.

i can see the point that 50% equity isnt great, but it is when compared to the other pp's having under 25%.

i guess what i am saying is that, while you guys are correctly talking about odds (per OP), i am talking about equity.

in a tourney, pp's are widely considered big hands, especially later in the tourney. but, against AA, the AA has a huge equity advantage, and should not be so concerned, imo, about taking away odds when he KNOWS that his opponents are on pp's. he should be worried about getting as much money into the pot as possible w/o folding off his suckers.

even if they are 3:1 combined against me...i will win 3 times out of 4. meaning, i have 75% equity pf. i like 'dem numbers, and i want to avoid driving off customers MORE than i care about laying odds to draw...long term.

if i KNOW they are on pp's, then, when the flop comes J 5 8, and i get check/raised all-in...i am confident i can get away from that one with my AA.

but i understand that wasnt the point of the OP...sorry.

Given 50BB stacks, would you still ever opt for 8BB to narrow the field (say with, AQo on the button on a loose table)? Or would you raise 4-5BB and play v. 2 or 3 knowing you have the best hand?

I's a headsup pot after an 8BB raise provide more expected value than a three or four-way pot after a 4BB raise? HU play is easier (duh that's what the raise is for), but does the smaller raise, if called down by more players, lose value?

This assuming you got a read that AQ is best preflop hand given the action.

double post