Why minraising is retarded

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Game #1435243489 - Tournament $100,000 R&A - 400/800 No Limit Texas Hold'em -
2006/04/24-21:27:06.7 (CST)
Table "$100,000 R&A 66" (MTT) -- Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: ninja3680 (14,026 in chips)
Seat 2: nyceguy2 (59,905 in chips)
Seat 3: *ACES UP* (32,270 in chips)
Seat 4: twentycent (12,922 in chips)
Seat 5: SewandSo (16,175 in chips)
Seat 6: chardrian (32,050 in chips)
Seat 7: Riddick18 (11,920 in chips)
Seat 8: deejayli (19,249 in chips)
Seat 9: ADEX1 (5,243 in chips)
Seat 10: plo8genius (21,085 in chips)
nyceguy2: Ante (50)
*ACES UP*: Ante (50)
twentycent: Ante (50)
SewandSo: Ante (50)
chardrian: Ante (50)
Riddick18: Ante (50)
deejayli: Ante (50)
ADEX1 : Ante (50)
plo8genius: Ante (50)
ninja3680: Ante (50)
SewandSo: Post Small Blind (400)
chardrian: Post Big Blind (800)
Dealing...
Dealt to chardrian [ Jc ]
Dealt to chardrian [ 7s ]
Riddick18: Raise (1,600)
deejayli: Fold
ADEX1 : Fold
plo8genius: Fold
ninja3680: Fold
nyceguy2: Fold
*ACES UP*: Call (1,600)
twentycent: Fold
SewandSo: Fold
chardrian: Call (800)
*** FLOP *** : [ 4h Js 8s ]
chardrian: Check
Riddick18: Bet (3,500)
*ACES UP*: Fold
chardrian: Call (3,500)
*** TURN *** : [ 4h Js 8s ] [ Jd ]
chardrian: Check
Riddick18: Check
*** RIVER *** : [ 4h Js 8s Jd ] [ Jh ]
chardrian: Bet (6,900)
Riddick18: Call All-in (6,770)
*** SUMMARY ***
Pot: 26,240 | Board: [ 4h Js 8s Jd Jh ]
ninja3680 lost 50 (folded)
nyceguy2 lost 50 (folded)
*ACES UP* lost 1,650 (folded)
twentycent lost 50 (folded)
SewandSo lost 450 (folded)
chardrian bet 12,050, collected 26,370, net +14,320 (showed hand) [ Jc 7s ]
(four of a kind, jacks)
Riddick18 lost 11,920 (showed hand) [ Qs Qh ] (a full house, jacks full of
queens)
deejayli lost 50 (folded)
ADEX1 lost 50 (folded)
plo8genius lost 50 (folded)
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I knew Riddick had a good hand preflop. But there was almost 5k in the pot when it came to me and I just had to call for 800 more. With my stack, and Riddick's and ACEs stacks giving me a huge boost if I were to destack them, I am basically going to call with any two cards here with 6 to 1 odds. Riddick's minraise forced me to call.

The flop wasn't as nice as I has hoped (looking for 2 pair, a flopped str8, or trips) and I seriously considered folding the flop bet because I was pretty sure Riddick had an overpair. However, there was enough of a chance that he had a a hand like AK or AQ or even 88-TT that I felt a call was justified.

The turn clearly scared him, and the river was gin for me as he can't get away there and I knew he couldnt get away.

But the real lesson from all this, is that I was NOT the donk for calling a raise with a crappy 7Jos. Instead Riddick was the donk for minraising - minraising will occassionally win you some small pots - but it will also often crack your big hands. Don't do it.

sorry to jump on your thread Char, but this happened to me in a SnG last night. I think it pretty much highlights what you're saying ...

Now, the CO in this hand had been min-raising pretty much the whole way through this tournament. Lots of hands raised, but always a min-raise. If the CO raises to 450 preflop, I am done. I can't call this. The SB (an FTRer himself) calls from the SB which further opens up the opportunity for me to do this in the BB because I am now being offered 5:1 to call this, which, with the size of my stack, I am prepared to do.

PokerStars $20+2 No-Limit Hold'em SnG, Big Blind is t150 (6 handed)

SB (t1965)
Staresy (t4090)
UTG (t1310)
MP (t2845)
CO (t2625)
Button (t665)

Preflop: Staresy is BB with 5:heart: 3:spade:
2 folds, CO raises to t300, 1 fold, SB calls t225, Staresy calls t150.

Flop: (t900) K:heart: 3:heart: 3 :diamond:
(3 players)
SB checks, Staresy checks, CO bets t150, SB folds, Staresy calls t150.

Turn: (t1200) 7:club:
(2 players)
Staresy checks, CO bets t250, Staresy calls t250.

River: (t1700) 4:diamond:
(2 players)
Staresy bets t750, CO raises to t1500, Staresy raises to t2250, CO calls t425 (All-In).

Final Pot: t5875

What happens? CO shows AK and loses his stack which he could have avoided simply by adding a little more (as little as 150-200) to his pre-flop raise.

This is something I've been a little concerned about. I can see 65% of flops at 5NL and 10NL because they only raise with monsters. I don't want it to become a leak but if you see my stats, I'm calling way to much and my vp$ip is way to high, but I'm just making sure I get out if I miss. I find I can crack alot of TP or 2 pairs with flushes and straights for min. calling $$'s and can make up for it by letting them hit on the river for TP or a set then letting them raise into my min. bet. Is it considered ok if you are aware of that or would it still be considered a leak? Bye the way I'm up about $66 in 5 hours over two nights since starting to do this. aAnd I don't want to let the fortunate cards and flops decide that I'm doing things right for the long run.

The only time I ever minraise is on the turn and river when the betting's big enough for a minraise to actually mean something.

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Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

This is something I've been a little concerned about. I can see 65% of flops at 5NL and 10NL because they only raise with monsters. I don't want it to become a leak but if you see my stats, I'm calling way to much and my vp$ip is way to high, but I'm just making sure I get out if I miss. I find I can crack alot of TP or 2 pairs with flushes and straights for min. calling $$'s and can make up for it by letting them hit on the river for TP or a set then letting them raise into my min. bet. Is it considered ok if you are aware of that or would it still be considered a leak? Bye the way I'm up about $66 in 5 hours over two nights since starting to do this. aAnd I don't want to let the fortunate cards and flops decide that I'm doing things right for the long run.

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A bit confusing reading, but I think you mean you are slowplaying a flopped/turned monster in hopes of your opponent going over the top?

In general, I have found this to be effective only against certain types of opponents. When facing the typical passive opponents, those who will call everything but are very hesitant to raise themselves, this is not a good idea - you extract more value by betting harder, they'll call it anyway, big or small.

Against those opponents that like to jump on weakness, a slowplay can work. I'd say the "leak" here would be to stick to one approach - either always slowplaying or always value-betting - and not adjusting it to how your opponents play.


Then there is also the thing about the opportunities the flop holds. If you flop a set on a dead board, that is very different from flopping a set on a board with obvious flush and straight possibilities. Slowplaying on the latter is really stupid. And in general, slowplaying in an unraised pot sucks, because it'll only extract value against really dumb opponents - the kind that would push on a nothing pot with a mere TP or two pair because they think "you have nothing".

Well I agree that min-raising is almost always a bad play, but I don't think this hand supports the concept. It worked great for him here. If you can get other people to see the flop for cheap, a lot of times they'll make mistakes on the flop even if they didn't hit it very hard. In this case that's what happened, as he got you to call a bet of over two-thirds the size of the pot when you were less than 20% to win the hand. Then the river was the only card in the whole deck (other than a queen that would beat you) that made it impossible for him to get away from his hand. No offense but it seems like you got outplayed here and got tremendously lucky.

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Originally Posted by mcatdog

Well I agree that min-raising is almost always a bad play, but I don't think this hand supports the concept.

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Didn't want to say it, but this is what I thought too when I read the hand history.. seems like a well played hand by villain, he just had horrible luck.

The more likely scenario of no J on the turn means he would have bet hard again, leaving you with having leaked 5100 chips on a nothing-hand. (a 7 would be a possible destacking in your favor too, but again, low odds) And even with the J showing up, he knew you had it, so you weren't going to extract any more value. But with the J showing up again on the river.. he had no choice but to call. In truth, it was more likely a Q would show up - twice as likely as a J -, leaving you with having doubled him up.

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Originally Posted by jackvance

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Originally Posted by mcatdog

Well I agree that min-raising is almost always a bad play, but I don't think this hand supports the concept.

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Didn't want to say it, but this is what I thought too when I read the hand history.. seems like a well played hand by villain, he just had horrible luck.

The more likely scenario of no J on the turn means he would have bet hard again, leaving you with having leaked 5100 chips on a nothing-hand. (a 7 would be a possible destacking in your favor too, but again, low odds) And even with the J showing up, he knew you had it, so you weren't going to extract any more value. But with the J showing up again on the river.. he had no choice but to call. In truth, it was more likely a Q would show up, leaving you destacked.

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Of course Hero got lucky, isn't that what we hope for when calling a hand that is behind when we have the odds to do so?

From looking at this from my limited experience; it appears the hand was well played by the villian, with the exception of the mini-raise. The mini-raise gave odds for Hero to see the flop. From what I've read and seen, each choice in Poker is made independantly of previous choices. So while villian made have made the perfect choice on the flop/turn/river, his intial and argueably only mistake cost him the hand. Lets face it, who wouldn't have folded J7 offsuit to a 4xBB raise?

I'm not experienced enough to call that size bet on the flop with TPLK, but it looks like less than the pot, so its callable. My respect to Hero.

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Originally Posted by mcatdog

Well I agree that min-raising is almost always a bad play, but I don't think this hand supports the concept. It worked great for him here. If you can get other people to see the flop for cheap, a lot of times they'll make mistakes on the flop even if they didn't hit it very hard. In this case that's what happened, as he got you to call a bet of over two-thirds the size of the pot when you were less than 20% to win the hand. Then the river was the only card in the whole deck (other than a queen that would beat you) that made it impossible for him to get away from his hand. No offense but it seems like you got outplayed here and got tremendously lucky.

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Originally Posted by jackvance

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Originally Posted by mcatdog

Well I agree that min-raising is almost always a bad play, but I don't think this hand supports the concept.

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Didn't want to say it, but this is what I thought too when I read the hand history.. seems like a well played hand by villain, he just had horrible luck.

The more likely scenario of no J on the turn means he would have bet hard again, leaving you with having leaked 5100 chips on a nothing-hand. (a 7 would be a possible destacking in your favor too, but again, low odds) And even with the J showing up, he knew you had it, so you weren't going to extract any more value. But with the J showing up again on the river.. he had no choice but to call. In truth, it was more likely a Q would show up - twice as likely as a J -, leaving you with having doubled him up.

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You guys are crazy. And results oriented.

Minraising with ANY HAND sucks in early position.

You say he outplayed me and got tremendously unlucky. I say he outplayed himself and let me get lucky.

If he makes a standard raise I fold there preflop.

I am also not so sure he could have got away from his hand after the turn no matter what fell on the river. He only had 7k left.

I am not denying that his play almost worked. All I am trying to point out is that you are asking for your big but vulnerable hands to get cracked when you minraise preflop.

I won't eevn say his minraise here was as retarded as it normally is. He was getting shortstacked so inducing some weak hands to call here is not horrible. But when your monster is cracked by a weak hand, you simply have no right to say how "unlucky" you are. He let me get lucky by minraising.

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Originally Posted by Renton

You guys are crazy. And results oriented.

Minraising with ANY HAND sucks in early position.

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I think it's hard to argue that I'm the one being results-oriented in this thread. Would this post be here if chardrian hadn't called a pretty big bet on the flop and hit his 5-outer?

I would also argue that if the stacks are deep enough, the preflop raise size doesn't matter so much as whether you're capable of outplaying people after the flop. Look at what Alan Goehring said in a recent interview with Cardplayer (link):

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When I won the WPT championship, I would say that 98 percent of my opening raises were for exactly two times the big blind, and in the recent LAPC I won, I would say that 90 percent of my raises were exactly two times the big blind, with the other 10 percent being, at a maximum, two and a half times the big blind.

I have never read a poker book that suggests regularly making such a small raise, and in fact some books explicitly state that this is poor play. On occasion, a player who doesn’t know me will advise me to raise more, saying I will not be able to get the blinds to fold with such a modest raise. My response is, well, maybe I don’t want the blinds to fold, because if the blinds fold, I am not going to win much. So, it doesn’t matter what I have or if I am in early or late position, it is going to be two times the big blind. Maybe it works for me because of the range of hands I play or how I play after the flop — but I would say, get used to it, because there is no way I will ever change that part of my game.

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More important than having the best hand pre-flop, is putting yourself into situations where you outplay your opponents after the flop, and that's exactly what the villain in this hand did.

That being said, I'm not all that great at playing after the flop, so I just play a standard game of making 3X and 4X raises and taking down pots on the flop with continuation bets.

I didn't mean to if I offended. I just think its nuts to actually say "well played hand by villain".

Don't forget what position villain is in. He could have went to a 6 way pot with that wimpyass raise. I don't care how good you can out play, you aren't winning a 6 way pot with Q's unless you hit a set.

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Originally Posted by Myke

So while villian made have made the perfect choice on the flop/turn/river, his intial and argueably only mistake cost him the hand.

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I watched a few episodes of "european poker tour" two days ago and I saw the real pros make this mistake too?..

If I minraise QQ and then flop overpair and an opp will call my 2/3 pot bet with TP.. that's a dream scenario really.

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I'm not experienced enough to call that size bet on the flop with TPLK, but it looks like less than the pot, so its callable. My respect to Hero.

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Villain only had 6700 left, and Hero called a 3500 bet. Not too much implied odds there. Hero was beat, and had 4% to hit a jack on the turn and 6% to hit a 7 on the turn. That's about 10%.. he would have had to fold to a raise after the other 90% of the cards show up on the turn. Doesn't really look +EV to me?

Then he got his 4% chance J. Villain sensed he was beat as he checked. After this there's a 2% chance on another J on the river, which means Villain has to auto-call. Also a 4% of a Q, making him the winning player. All the other cards.. he might have called a raise, or an all-in, but this isn't too sure.

Also note that his stack was 15BB.. so even a minraise is more than 1/8th of his stack. The implied odds here aren't all that great.

Just trying to discuss it btw.. if I miss something, plz point it out to me.

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Don't forget what position villain is in. He could have went to a 6 way pot with that wimpyass raise.

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More likely he wanted a weaker hand to push over him. Saw a guy do this with JJ on the "European Poker Tour".

Renton, I wasn't even offended when Ripptyde called me a fucking dipshit, so you can be assured that I wasn't offended by anything you said.

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You say he outplayed me and got tremendously unlucky. I say he outplayed himself and let me get lucky.

If he makes a standard raise I fold there preflop.

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And then he never gets half his stack into the middle as an 80% favorite. How is that a good thing?

When you set a trap, you are accepting that there is a risk you'll get outdrawn and lose a big pot. As long as you induce your opponents to make Fundamental Theorem of Poker mistakes along the way, your trap "worked," regardless of whether you actually win or lose the hand.

What would you have done if the turn was a complete blank like the 3:club: and he'd gone all-in?

Don't forget - hero has our "crafty" villain otustacked here. You guys are only looking at the actual hands and outcomes. You say I had 5 outs to win. But what if a K or A came on the turn? Will this "crafty" villain who you say clearly knew I had a J and would have folded a non J river, fold when he checks to a scary K or A and I push? If so, I had 11 outs. If not, then it is not so clear he really woulda given up on a blank river than is it?

I will admit I got lucky. But as I said before, it was his minraise that let me get lucky.

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Originally Posted by jackvance

I watched a few episodes of "european poker tour" two days ago and I saw the real pros make this mistake too?..

If I minraise QQ and then flop overpair and an opp will call my 3/4 pot bet with TP.. that's a dream scenario really.

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Umm... are you drawing a comparison to TV poker? I really mean no offense, but I honestly can't take that reasoning seriously.

You're explaination of the action on the flop was helpful, and a better analysis that what I'm capable of at the moment. Thanks Jack.

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Originally Posted by chardrian

You guys are only looking at the actual hands and outcomes. You say I had 5 outs to win. But what if a K or A came on the turn? Will this "crafty" villain who you say clearly knew I had a J and would have folded a non J river, fold when he checks to a scary K or A and I push? If so, I had 11 outs. If not, then it is not so clear he really woulda given up on a blank river than is it?

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I personally wouldn't be afraid of a K or A here. When you call a 2/3 pot bet, you typically already have some sort of a made hand, ie a J or an 8 in this case, since there are no realistic draws. If an A or a K shows up (12%), would you push? He probably would call. And yes, there's a good chance he's going to call your all-in on the river with the second J.. even if he "knows" you have it, because his stack is below the pot, so a crying call.. but does that really matter?

The facts:

pot 5000
raise 3500 (70%)

So you call 3500 into 12000 or 30% for a 10% to hit your 5 real outs on the turn.

So then,
4% for a J.. he senses he is beat, but will probably have to call a river push due to his stack size. Not sure though.
6% for a 7. Here he will call your push, and you take his extra 6700.
12% for an overcard, A or K. Are you going to push? There is a good chance he will call. Most people really call in this scenario.
78% for a blank. He raises/pushes, you have to fold. Or call with again 10% to actually win.

Also no implied odds to make a below-odds call justifiable, since he only had 6700 left.

Any mistakes in my reasoning?

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I will admit I got lucky. But as I said before, it was his minraise that let me get lucky.

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Isn't the whole point that you got lucky against the odds, which means he did the right thing afterall?

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Umm... are you drawing a comparison to TV poker? I really mean no offense, but I honestly can't take that reasoning seriously.

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It's this irrational fear I have that people dismiss everything I say simply because they have the experience on me. So I thought I'd call in some credentials to justify that there are indeed exceptions to not minraising when you do this as a thought-out strategy. Ie to induce over-the-top bluffs, over-the-top weaker hands or to outplay people on the flop.

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You're explaination of the action on the flop was helpful, and a better analysis that what I'm capable of at the moment. Thanks Jack.

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you're welcome :)

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Originally Posted by jackvance

Isn't the whole point that you got lucky against the odds, which means he did the right thing afterall?

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To me the whole point is that he gave me the odds to get lucky.

I have to admit that since he was relatively shortstacked, I hate his play less than when I first posted it.

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Originally Posted by chardrian

To me the whole point is that he gave me the odds to get lucky.

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Well, if slowplaying, that's a calculated risk you take. You called for 16% (800 into 5000) for a 5% chance to hit your lucky flop of 2 pair or better. Fair chance with implied odds. And, well, he didn't have much of a stack so it is defendable to say he can take this 5% risk on any caller he gets.

He might have been an idiot who doesn't know why he does things, but if it was a calculated preflop play, I'd say he was either hoping someone was going to try to steal the pot with a weaker hand (like AQ/low pp push). Or if not, that someone hitting a little something on the flop was gonna chase against the odds, which it seems happened here.

Yeah, I slowplay sometimes with a top hand that might be vulnerable if I am getting shortstacked in a tourney - if I get three callers I'm much more likely to bust out but if I don't I'm in a great position to quadruple up.

minraising is retarded 98% of the time

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Originally Posted by flomo

minraising is retarded 98% of the time

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I agree...it's usually a bad idea but it still can be useful. I'll use it as a change up now and then or if there's a good chance to induce a push when you have a big advantage. (I'm referring more to ring then tournaments)

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Originally Posted by Aces

I'm referring more to ring then tournaments

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and quite possibly not having a thoughtful player behind you who might sense something is up?

I only minraise in limit poker.

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Originally Posted by stranglin

I only minraise in limit poker.

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That actually made me chuckle.