raises

I have been playing about a year and a half but have just begun to study poker and im probobly a fish, though not a major one.

My Question:
Anyone have any tips on preflop raises?

I play in a home game usually twice weekly. The table plays fairly loose but no more so than most home games. I maintain a tight table image but some of the stronger players know i steal more than i would let on.

I try to keep my raises typically 5 times the big blind from early poistion and 3-4 times from late position, wether i am trying to steal or am raising with a legitimate hand. Is this the correct play, or should i vary my raise sizes? The blinds remain constant.

Thanks for help.

Varying your raises based on your cards is wrong. Any observant player would notice, and you would be giving away way too much information.

I rarely hear of someone varying their raises based on position. I find this interesting. I would be inclined to do the opposite though. In EP there are a lot of players to act behind you, so you may want to throw out a smaller raise and gwt information about the texture of the hands behind you. From late position, you already have this information, so a larger raise seems like a better idea. You will thin out the field (giving you a better chance of winning the hand) and you will have position on anyone who decides to call.

I always raise 3xBB regardless of what I am raising with (and when I say always, I mean usually. Everything depends on the situation.)

If I reraise, I will reraise whatever amount is in the pot, hoping to take it down right there ( I normally have a big pocket pair in this case, but I want people to "know" that I have a big pocket pair when I reraise, it can be useful later on a big steal.)

Posting this in this thread as well just in case you don't come across it in the other.

Check out:

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_maga...550&m_id=65556

Good article on pre-flop betting strategies by Thomas Keller .. mostly related to tournament play.

However, he illustrates some interesting ideas related to varying your pre-flop bet amount based on position and how he wants his opponents to react to the bet.