$100NL Raising to 3xBB instead of 4

BobSloane

Last few tables I've played i've played more smallball pre-flop and raised to 3xbb instead of 4. Its been going really well partly I think because if re-raised pre-flop I can make less costly calls in position once the stack sizes are a bit over 100bbs.
Like I raise to 3 with 55. I'm only usually getting re-raised to 9 or 10 instead of the 13 or 14 when i raise to 4. I'm surprised as well that 3 is sufficent to steal around the same amount of blinds as i stole with raises of 4.
I've ran ok as well though which always helps

Any thoughts. Good idea/bad idea?

Edit : This is on party btw if that makes any difference

fuzzbox

I open to 3.5x (which is pot) + 1 per limper as standard really.

3 is fine
4 is fine

Choose your own poison.

ozpoker

This is a great topic for discussion. IMO, most players open raise for too much.

I like to raise the smallest amount that will still be respected or accomplishes my goal. Depending on table dynamics, that is usually anything between 2 and 7x the BB. I want raise the smallest amount for pot control purposes and to add more bets to my stack. More bets = more information = better decisions (hopefully )

Absent any other information, my default raise is to 3x. Variables pushing this higher are: antes, early stages of tourneys when people don't respect raises, loose blinds, limpers in the pot already, etc. If the table lets me get away with it though, I'll happily minraise if there is a good chance of stealing the blinds. The amount I raise is never tied to my hand value in any way; if my decision is to raise, then I raise the same amount regardless of my actual holding.

-Oz-

fuzzbox

Hey oz - I'm fairly sure he is talking about a cash game. There are far more reasons to change your relative open raise amount in tourneys, than in cash games.

Most of this is because the stacks are very shallow, in general, in tourneys as opposed to cash games.

sikes

i raise to 4x in UTG/MP and 3x in CO/BUT. Theres a few reasons that i do this and i tried to start a thread not so long ago on the topic, but nothing really came of it.

BobSloane

sikes wrote:

i raise to 4x in UTG/MP and 3x in CO/BUT. Theres a few reasons that i do this and i tried to start a thread not so long ago on the topic, but nothing really came of it.

Does this not imply that you end up playing bigger pots out of position although i suppose your utg mp ranges may be more solid than c/o and button

Van Dice

sikes wrote:

i raise to 4x in UTG/MP and 3x in CO/BUT. Theres a few reasons that i do this and i tried to start a thread not so long ago on the topic, but nothing really came of it.

I don't like this either, I know there are arguments for it, but imo they are outweighed by the main reason that BobSloane stated. I prefer standard raise amounts. But there are a lot of very good players who raise more in EP.

On the original point, your preflop raising amount should be dictated by how loose or tight you play. If you play very tight, you should raise more preflop. If you play loose, you should raise a smaller amount preflop. This is because with a loose style you do not have as much equity against an average caller's range, your edge comes from your (hopefully!) superior post-flop play. Also raising a smaller amount should (in theory more so than practice) slightly widen your opponents calling range. Which is a gain for you in two respects,
1) your hand improves against their range
2) they now have to play more flops with you

sikes

well yeah, i will be playing a slightly bigger pot with a range of hands that merits more money in than more behind. Its only slightly more than the pot sized range. however these differences do make a difference.

in lp, raising less has a lot of merits, be it encouraging people to get into pots with crap hands OOP, or to control the profitability of a 3bet regardless of their range.

BobSloane

Van Dice wrote:

On the original point, your preflop raising amount should be dictated by how loose or tight you play. If you play very tight, you should raise more preflop. If you play loose, you should raise a smaller amount preflop. This is because with a loose style you do not have as much equity against an average caller's range, your edge comes from your (hopefully!) superior post-flop play. Also raising a smaller amount should (in theory more so than practice) slightly widen your opponents calling range. Which is a gain for you in two respects,
1) your hand improves against their range
2) they now have to play more flops with you

I'm constantly trying to work on a lag gear for want of a better way of putting it. The real key to it seems to be hand reading which i'm iffy about at times. I have a problem assigning people specific hands by the time we're heading to the river instead of hand ranges. The smaller pf raise seems to mean we're not playing for stacks on the flop or turn. I make horror pushes at times. I make horror calls too if i think i'm ahead but the won at sd% is 49 so its not all bad.
The only way to get better at playing flops is probably to play more of them and get in more situations against more types of opponent. Raising to x3 seems to accomadate this

mrflash

i play 4x in early stages to make a pot, but after about three levels i'd say 3x is the way to go. until it gets too expensive in relation to stack size. but its the way to go id say, you get a caller more often, and players are less suspicious of 3x in late position that 4x which is really saying "i dont want a caller" a lot of the time.

BobSloane

Yeah in tournaments i think raising x4 is insane if you're doing much stealing at all. x2.5 often gets the job done and as oz suggested there are even goldmine players to have on your left who will fold their blind consistently to a min-raise.
I'm more on about cash games here though where there's a bit more flexability post flop

Van Dice

BobSloane wrote:

I'm constantly trying to work on a lag gear for want of a better way of putting it. The real key to it seems to be hand reading which i'm iffy about at times. I have a problem assigning people specific hands by the time we're heading to the river instead of hand ranges. The smaller pf raise seems to mean we're not playing for stacks on the flop or turn. I make horror pushes at times. I make horror calls too if i think i'm ahead but the won at sd% is 49 so its not all bad.
The only way to get better at playing flops is probably to play more of them and get in more situations against more types of opponent. Raising to x3 seems to accomadate this

If you keep in mind some of the worst hands he might have, and some of the best, it's a little easier to keep evaluating a reasonably accurate idea of his range. It also helps with the problem of assigning specific hands rather than ranges. Play just one table maybe, and keep trying to assign some type of range, especially the hands you're not involved in (it's too easy to assign a specific hand you beat/are beaten by when you're in a hand yourself).
Horror calls happen to everyone, I've made lots, some are very funny

If you play a 1 hour session on one table, and then go back over it in the Game Notes tab in Poker Tracker, watching how the hands played out, you get to reinforce reads and more accurately define hand ranges.
Time consuming, but worth it imo!

Also another way of improving reads and playing more by feel is to play some heads up games.

gl anyway

BobSloane

Thanks for the advice van dice. HU games are definetly good practice as by definition you end up playing more flops. Also betting patterns hu are often quite transparent(At the $22 dollar sit and go level anyway).
Besides hand reading the other key to successful postflop lag play seems to be thin value betting. I suppose the two go hand in hand. I think my hand reading is improving but i'm not maybe willing to value bet thin enough. This could be down to how i'm running at a particular time also and i may not play an individual hand on its merits due to this.
Like I have TPTK on the river after flopping it. Say AQ on a Q high board. I bet the flop and turn. Checked to me on the river and I feel there's a huge chance the other guy has KQ and is really happy to get to SD as cheap as possible. But I've recently lost a big pot and I check behind. That kind of thing.

And playing one table is all i'm doing now - left the dizzying heights of 2 !

HiCloy

sikes wrote:

i raise to 4x in UTG/MP and 3x in CO/BUT. Theres a few reasons that i do this and i tried to start a thread not so long ago on the topic, but nothing really came of it.

I do the same, we've been here before

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-2055045279.html