Randomising your play

corblimey

In all the books I've read (okay, just Harrington) the idea in entering unopened pots seems to be to randomise your raise, 2, 3, 4, 5BBs depending on anything from the hand to the way the remaining players play to the minute hand on your watch (!)

Last night, I got to thinking; why not just behave the exact the same way every single time you enter the pot. Raise 3BBs every time, regardless of whether you have a marginal hand, the nuts or muck. Wouldn't this appear just as random to your opponents - they could not put you on a hand.

5starpool

The problem with this is potentially making it 3BB from the sb with 4 limpers when you have AA. Not something you want. You have to adapt your amounts depending on circumstances.

I think Harringtons point is that always overbetting when you have a marginal hand, or underbetting when you have a big hand (or vice versa) is guaranteed to be spotted by at least the good players at your table.

If your standard raise 3bb + 1 for each limper then that is fine too. Obviously post flop betting should not be uniform each time. It should depend on pot size as well as the other players left, position, hand etc.

One of the main problems with the uniform thing is that sometimes you will not want people to call, and you will be pricing them in with reasonable holdings. This is dangerous.

Dub13

Say you always raise 3BBs and its a starting stack of 2000,you play 4 hands in the first level (25/50) and miss the board each time so you have to bin the hand.You have now pissed away 600 chips or just over 1/4 of your stack.

corblimey

yeah, 5starpool, after giving it some more thought this afternoon, pricing people in would be a major disadvantage. Also, not getting paid off for big hands would be bad too.

Not sure of your point there, dub. If you played those 4 hands anyway, unless you limped in each time, you're gonna be raising between 2BB and 5BB each time, so the average is about 3BB regardless.

Dub13

corblimey wrote:

Not sure of your point there, dub. If you played those 4 hands anyway, unless you limped in each time, you're gonna be raising between 2BB and 5BB each time, so the average is about 3BB regardless.

I was talking about limping in which most players try to do in the early stage of a tournament trying to hit a monster,if your standard bet was 3 bb you would be leaking alot of chips.

Or you could stop limping in but then you have the problem of not being able to narrow the field.

DeVore

Donnacha O'Dea tends to enter pots either with a limp or a triple the blinds bet (according to the man himself).

Dub, I know what you are saying about pissing away chips but you are kinda taking a negative view of it too. You're presuming you dont hit even one hand out of 4, that you never make a continuation bet that gets through and you dump all the hands, regardless of whatever draw you might have. Thats pretty unlucky (and given that most likely you have position, pretty passive play) and still you only have lost just short of 1/3rd of your stack.

Personally, I like to raise 4 times the big blind with most hands. The reasoning behind this is that there are few hands that can call and have the right odds to call (presuming I havent walked into a monster).

DeV.

The C Kid

Is it H@llingoll who uses the uniform bet on all streets?

I see alot of players using it in heads up cash games now.

Dub13

I suppose I am taken a bit of a negative view but I am a big a fan of mixing it up and keeping everybody on there toes.I have used the standard raise tactic HU and it is very effective against the right player.I just don't think it would be very effective at a full table.

Remember the OP is talking about raising 3BBs every time, regardless of whether you have a marginal hand, the nuts or muck.So he will completely cut limping out of his game.IMO he will hemorrhage chips,which is not a good start.Maybe you would have a better chance playing this way in a big starting stack game but IMO it would not work in most games.

corblimey

Dub13 wrote:

Remember the OP is talking about raising 3BBs every time, regardless of whether you have a marginal hand, the nuts or muck.So he will completely cut limping out of his game.IMO he will hemorrhage chips,which is not a good start.Maybe you would have a better chance playing this way in a big starting stack game but IMO it would not work in most games.

Not quite, dub13. I'm talking about entering the pot with the same bet each time. Sometimes I like to mix things up by entering a pot with rubbish and hoping for the miracle flop. If i've just raised 3BBs with KK and do it again with 27o, there's no way my opponent can put me on any hand.

ArmaniJeanss

corblimey wrote:

Not quite, dub13. I'm talking about entering the pot with the same bet each time. Sometimes I like to mix things up by entering a pot with rubbish and hoping for the miracle flop. If i've just raised 3BBs with KK and do it again with 27o, there's no way my opponent can put me on any hand.

In the STTs/MTTs that I play (generally $10-20) a 3xBB raise will tend to get at least 1/2 callers in the early stages. You will have to be extremely confident in your post flop play/hand-reading ability to use this tactic. OK, no-one can put you on 7-2 and the flop comes 772, but who's going to pay you off? But what sort of cont bet are you going to do on a (more likely) AT7 type flop?

Its a valid tactic which I'm seen some people use to good effect, but by and large they tend to be the 'shooting star' types who accumulate early and then exit soon after having walked into made hands.

Fatboydim

I like to play standard and then change gears... But so much deppends who you are playing against. I have found against bad or inexperienced players for example that there is often no point to raising a hand at all unless it's aces. As if you raise with AK they'll still call with marginal hands and you can't play at all post flop. But playing with a standard raise and a standard 10 second wait before acting is a valid tactic - try it and see if it works for you. If it is an approach you're going to take then it gives you one less thing to worry about and time to dedicate your brain to other functions during the hand.

Hectorjelly

Theres two completely seperate topics being confused here. Firstly, what is your standard opening raise should you raise, and secondly how to sufficently randomise your play.

Randomising means playing the same hand in many different ways to throw your opponents off.