Raise Size

[Fonzi]

Carefully consider the size of your raises

By Johnny Kampis

When playing No-Limit Hold’em, you have to be careful about how you size your raises because you can become too pot-committed if you make the raise too big. This happened to me recently,

The blunder I made recently in an online game was to miss-size my raise during a hand in a $2-$5 blinds no-limit hold’em game. The game had just started and I was sitting with a $300 stack when I was dealt A-K on the button. It was folded around to me and I raised it to $15. The small blind folded, but the big blind immediately made it $50. Not knowing this guy, he easily could be making a play back at me as a message to leave his blinds alone, thinking I was making a standard button raise. Or he could have a decent hand such as 9-9 and want to win the hand without seeing the flop.

I figured I either was the best in this spot or could get him to fold a medium pocket pair if I came over the top, so I re-raised to $150. Therein lies my blunder. I now had half my stack in the pot. The big blind went all in and I was pretty well forced to call with half my chips already in the middle and getting 3-1 odds on my money ($450 in the pot and $150 more to call). He flipped over K-K and I found myself in a really bad spot as a nearly 3 to 1 dog. I could not find an ace to scoop the $600 pot.

This wasn’t the worst play in the world, since A-K is only horrible crippled by A-A (it’s about 7 percent to win against this hand, 30 percent to beat K-K and around a coin flip against anything else), but in this spot I easily could have flat called to see the flop and then make a decision. Alternatively, I could have pushed in but that would have seemed desperate and would certainly have been called in this spot anyway.

The problem with big raises is that it can get us hold’em players into a heap of trouble since we create pot odds for ourselves when we get re-raised, as in the above example. When you are in the middle of a hand, don’t forget to think about what would happen if you got re-raised and size your bets accordingly.

Making big bets can unnecessarily put more of your chips at risk. In a no-limit hold’em game, never raise more than 4x the big blind when putting in an initial raise unless you have a big hand like A-A or K-K and you think an unusually large raise might get action. If you’re in a $2-$5 game, never make it more than $20. This keeps the pot reasonably small until you can better figure out where you stand after the flop.

[Mist]

Originally Posted by Fonzi

...In a no-limit hold’em game, never raise more than 4x the big blind when putting in an initial raise unless you have a big hand like A-A or K-K and you think an unusually large raise might get action...

I dissagree with this. Making standard preflop raises with mediocre/good hands, and large preflop raises with premium hands is by no means a good strategy. You don't have to be the best player in the world to figure out what this guy is holding when he raises 5-6x the BB.

[Fonzi]

Mist, I didn't write that article and I would agree with you. I personally vary my raises for deception. But for a new player, it may be good advice.