Tourney question - wtf is it with the minraise?

fuzzbox

Right - in order to practice for the upcoming tourney, I played a few online tourneys last night.

I notice that there seems to be a disease where players just minraise preflop all the time. What does the minraise mean .... just that they like their hand? A big pair? A medium pair? .... what?

Is it a useful tactic? I personally dont use it much (certainly not on the early streets), but it seems to be pretty prolific.

Is it rife in live tourneys also? What tactics do you employ against it?

So, all you tourney regs ... hit me with the info (dont just hit me).

brianmc

fuzzbox wrote:

Right - in order to practice for the upcoming tourney, I played a few online tourneys last night.

I notice that there seems to be a disease where players just minraise preflop all the time. What does the minraise mean .... just that they like their hand? A big pair? A medium pair? .... what?

Is it a useful tactic? I personally dont use it much (certainly not on the early streets), but it seems to be pretty prolific.

Is it rife in live tourneys also? What tactics do you employ against it?

So, all you tourney regs ... hit me with the info (dont just hit me).

I find a lot of monkeys min raising from EP turn out to have low to mid pairs. They seem to think they should raise with them but aren't really sure so a min-raise is a compromise.

Live - not so common in the small tourneys I play but it still happens too much - generally only done by idiots.

Useful?? I can't see how.

califano

I find the min-raise is usually the preserve of twits especially pre flop min raises. Most that use it will fold to a steep reraise. Its like they havent the gumption to raise more than the min with KJs or A9 but feel they should raise something.
Others use it as a "I dont want to fighhten them away" bet with mid to big pair. And the min bet can get more frequent when the blinds increase.
Overall the players that employ it as a tactic are generally not that good and neither are the hands they are min raising with.

GL in the big one.

sunzz

Have to admit in my expierience it stink of suited connectors or a mid pairs most of the time online, it's when the mins raiser starts to raise on all the streets that you should get worried

I don't actually see it much in live tournaments, the odd time I see it is if someone is trying to act very strong but are actually week, generally tho like said in the above post is normally done by retards

careca

I could be wrong but if you see a minraise in the IO (presume this is the tournie you are on about) then beware. from my experience it is rarely seen live and if it is its normally a player with very little experience or a huge hand.

I honestly don't think you can make any general assumption about minraising online. I play some omaha online (50/1 or 1/2) and after about 5 players limp in you will see some moron raise the absolute min ($1) and then berate some player when his AAxx gets sucked out on. Some do it to annoy players and some just think they are so cool doing in every hand (just to say I raised every hand). Between minraising and the plonkers who raise $2.37 and the like, it would do your head in.

As you can see, I've had little sleep !!

ps gl in the IO

MrPillowTalk

Min raise has its uses against certain players, if a player is tight or passive or both and I have position on them the min raise is a useful weapon.

I often min raise with hands I like against these type players as they often give you a lot of info for your min raise ie tight players reraise a hand they like flat call something they arent mad about and usually give you a free card on the next street. I never use it pre flop though, I find that pre flop it can mean allmost anything depending on the player I like to see them showdown a hand before I categorise what it means.

ocallagh

When the blinds are low:

For 90% of MTT muppets, treat a minraise as 77 and act accordingly.
Some players who think they know how to play poker do it with AA/KK.
If the person can actually play poker it was a mistake.


When the blinds are high a min raise is normally a sign of weakness....


edit: rarely see it live

bill_ashmount

I see it the whole time online. It absolutely wrecks my head, (Maybe that's their plan).

Betweeen that and betting the exact amount to the dollar to set a player all in really gets me going. If a player has $437 left in a tourney why bet $437 exactly....I'm easily annoyed, lol....

dunkamania

Min raising is a very poor play,

It usually indicates a poor player playing with half decent cards who will fold to a re-raise.


Sometimes you will run into a muppet who believes that this is the best way to get maximum value from premium pairs.

Iceman78

ocallagh wrote:

When the blinds are low:

For 90% of MTT muppets, treat a minraise as 77 and act accordingly.
Some players who think they know how to play poker do it with AA/KK.
If the person can actually play poker it was a mistake.


When the blinds are high a min raise is normally a sign of weakness....


edit: rarely see it live

I agree that you will rarely see min-raises live and if you do see them at the weekend, it will most likely be by some fool who will be out early doors.

When the blinds are high, min raises get used a bit more and for me it depends where they come from. If someone in early position min raises, for me they have a middle pair but people close to the cutoff could min raise with anything. I try it now and again when on button with big pairs looking for action or hoping someone will reraise in the blinds trying to steal.

ianmc38

The only time I find a minraise useful is to extract an extra bet on the river. Check-minraise on the flop often means set.

I think you should warm yourself up at the 50dc!

fuzzbox

50dc ? That tomorrow?

I might go somewhere 2nite.

cardshark202

fuzzbox wrote:

50dc ? That tomorrow?

I might go somewhere 2nite.

Come along to the 75 DC in the SE tonight. I've yet to meet the famous Fuzz.

ecksor

dunkamania wrote:

Min raising is a very poor play,

It usually indicates a poor player playing with half decent cards who will fold to a re-raise.

Doesn't Alan Goehring always open a pot for a min-raise pre-flop?

The C Kid

ecksor wrote:

Doesn't Alan Goehring always open a pot for a min-raise pre-flop?

Almost always, yes. As he is probably in the top-five post flop players in the world he is allowed too.:D Howard Lederer wrote an article about him which is a great read.

careca

The C Kid wrote:

Almost always, yes. As he is probably in the top-five post flop players in the world he is allowed too.:D Howard Lederer wrote an article about him which is a great read.

Any link to it ?

The C Kid

Yeah, was just trying to find it.

The Lederer article is:

http://www.howardlederer.com/howard-lederer-poker-article8.html

An interview with Alan where he discusses the tactic briefly is:

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/?a_id=15347

Hitman Actual

I dont play online enough to know why players do it, but usually when I see it live it tends to be by players making the transition from online to B&M play.

The only time I've heard of it being of any use is when you think a min-raise will be enough to steal the blinds. It was possibly Greg Raymer who said that when he's stealing he'll use the least amount which will work, and if that's a min-raise, then so be it.

shaydy

This post reminds me of a programme on one of the poker channels a while back called Poker Godfather. This particular episode was with Gary Jones and when it got to the late stages in the multi tournament Gary told his student to min raise in late position a lot but only where it had been folded around to him and this method stole the blinds quite a lot. Obviously he could have got lucky and had a few complete muppets to his left but it was surprising to see the amount of blinds they picked up and the fact a top pro like Jones used such a tactic.

Shay

Waylander

When blinds are that big late on in a tournie I can understand the rationale behind min raising, but there are alot of players who do it early in tournaments, and to me it does not achieve anything. It is a move I hate, and see very rarely see any benefit to it.

DubTony

I don't play live often enough to know if min-raising is rife but online at the fish levels, there are a couple of simple explanations. Lazy bastards who cant be arsed to type in the bet amount or use the slider and guys who don't know any better and think that a raise is just a raise. I've lost count of how many times I've gone over the top of min raisers only to be called or min-raised, and then have them show huge hands at the end. I don't read a lot into it anymore, unless I know a player and a min raise would be unusual. But I am playing at the minnow level.