Quote Originally Posted by dalecooper
The size of the raise varies considerably though. I don't have a standard raise for all so-called "raising hands." I will raise bigger with high pairs to try to take the pot down immediately, or at least limit the competition to one player. With more vulnerable hands like KJ, KQ, AJ, AQ, and AK I usually raise enough to weed out weak hands (min. 2X BB)... the raise gets bigger in late position.
This is not very good imho. If you raise high pairs bigger than other raise hands people will soon get a good read on what you're holding. But if you think you will get called you should off course try to get as much of your stack in as possible with high pairs KK,AA. Problem is people won't call you if they know you hold AA,KK. And with AA and KK at least I want to get called, or better, reraised. A lot of people says " well u will only get outdrawn". True, heads up with AA you SHOULD get outdrawn about 20% of the time. Doesn't mean I don't want to play it. I'd rather take my chances with a hand with 80% chance of winning instead of picking up the blinds with a monster. That's why I tend to allways raise the size of the pot plus maybe some extra bb for each limper in NL, and allways the size of the pot in PL (gotta build it) unless I'm up against really really fishy opponents who I know won't know the difference if I change the amount between different hands. Also after the flop it can vary a little depending on what I think my opponent has. I don't want to get reverse implied odds. But overbetting high pairs preflop is only stupid unless someone else raised before you because you will not get called by most opponents. And a call (or better a reraise) is just what you want, at least if you want to make money.