Quote Originally Posted by griffey24
Hey mixchange,

Its funny but I actually use the opposite strategy as you. Raising ALL pockets low/mid preflop. But I play short-handed and I'm assuming you are playing FR?
I'm playing 6 max. The strategy works well in FR too, except you need to raise faster when you hit your sets to push out drawing hands.

Have you thought about why this is not a good idea, especially with low PP? You are repping the big hand, and people are going to be sensitive of your raises. They are going to put you on a premium hand *before* the flop. You don't want that, you want the opposite situation -- someone else to be in the 'driver' seat, making the pre-flop raises, making it seem like you are making bad calls or dangerous re-raises. Best case is calling a raise while having position on them. They will likely then have to lead out betting on the flop, and you can then re-raise.

Also, by raising you thin out hands that might hit things like 2p, or shoot for expensive draws. The more people in the pot the better for you when your set hits, ESPECIALLY if you hit a FH, someone else almost for sure has 3 of a kind and will go broke.



I just had a question for you or in general , with the 10/15x rule, facing a re-raise.

Suppose we raise to 4 with a pocket and villain RE-raises us to 12. How do we decide if we have proper odds to call? Do we compare the 8 more to call, with villains stack (since the four is already in the pot, so villain needs at least $80 with 10x rule), or do we compare the 12 with villain's stack, and villain needs at least $120?

Or do we not even need 10 times in this case, since we are being re-raised, and are MORE certain that villain has a very strong hand that he will stack off with?
I just wouldn't play it all like you are. You are killing your pot odds by making the $4 raise, and not really improving your chance of stacking them much, while risking quite a bit more. Why? Say someone has AA, and that's why they were re-raising. in. Say without your $4 raise, they have to make the first raise, $4 and you just call. You could have seen the flop and had a 1/8 chance your set hit, and probably then a 75% chance you will stack villain (I think 10-12X rule is good if you suspect AA or KK, at least at 50NL people can't lay these down). By raising to $4, you have been re-raised to $12 and you no longer have odds to call and must fold.


Say you have 66 (button), one opponent has AK(sb), the other AA(bb). You called, AK raised to $2, AA raises to $4, you call. The flop comes K 6 2 rainbow. For your 2 opponents, this looks like a fantastic flop for them. The pot is $12, I would bet $7. AA is certainly going to re-raise, or if they are a slowplayer, maybe just call. Let's say they call, AK, is going to re-raise to $15. Say you just call his raise (heads up I would re-raise, but with 3 players I might just call his re-raise and try to push on the turn to get more money in the pot). AA decides to re-raise to $30, AK now has to fold or push. Let's say he folds, and now you re-raise AA all in, who definitely calls.

But if you had raised it to $4 or $2 preflop in the situation, the hand would have gotten far too expensive for you, and may have pushed out AK who really got the action going on the hand for you. You want to simply call with these hands, not raise, so that it doesn't get too expensive preflop for you and others who may make a marginal or "2nd best" type hand. If AA, KK exist, they will do the raising. If nobody has a good hand, they likely will not raise. you don't want to push these people out, you want to give them a chance to hit 2p or something if your set hits.

Basically with low/mid PP you want to see the flop cheaply and maximize the possibility that someone makes their hand

By raising preflop you push out marginal hands that may hit their hand (say 2p, or trips when you have a FH) and you will get re-raised by better hands making it too expensive for you to see the flop.