Raising in SB / Defending BB

Two questions:


What's the deal with raising in SB? I rarely do it unless I know the BB is a folder, which seems rare at 3/6 5 max Paradise. I just think it is usually incorrect: you are announcing a big hand, you are out of position, setting yourself up for the rope-a-dope! I guess what I'm saying is that, for me, a superficial analysis indicates if you have a better than random hand, raise, BUT, a deeper analysis indicates this is perhaps suboptimal.


I view each game as a code I need to decrypt:


if (he folds a lot) then


{raise;}

else


{chill, man;


see flop;}

end if


On a similar note, here is my thought process defending my BB (from 1 non-SB raiser, and SB folds):


"OK, I got 10s7s. This guy likes to raise a lot and will bet the flop like 19 times out of 20. I can use this to my advantage. I'm getting 3.5 to 1 on my call, I will flop a pair a little better than one in three. If I flop a flush draw and he bets, I'm getting 5.5 to one to call. Cool, or at least borderline cool. There are other considerations here, like if I only call on the flop when I hit a pair, he will figure this out soon enough, so I gotta call some draws even when marginally taking the worst of it. Occasionally, I want to also 'take one off' on the flop, to keep him honest. Add to this that he may have a crap hand anyway, and I am very likely to be no worse than a 60/40 dog. So I call."


Comments? Thank you in advance.

It sounds like your talking about heads-up situations where just the 2 blinds are involved. If you are SB and you know BB will defend, then it makes no sense to raise on a steal. However, there are many hands which are worth a raise for value in this situation, so you should raise when your hand warrants it, and not worry about announcing the strength of your hand.


If you are BB and your opponent will raise with virtually anything, you are basically playing against a random hand. Against a random hand, a large percentage of the hands will win at showdown without pairing, so you should play hands that aren't pairs not because your opponent will figure out what you're doing, but because they're good enough to play.


With the example of your flush draw, you should raise the flop. If your opponent is playing a random hand, he's got less than a 40% chance of having a pair, meaning you could easily have as many as 15 outs, making you the favorite (even if behind for the moment), so you can't even consider folding.

Raising the SB has several advantages, making it a superior play to calling out of the small blind in this scenario.


1) Knock out the BB. This is the one you are most underestimating. Watch more closely and you will see BB's are reluctant to cold call 2 bets, but they will call with some weak stuff for 1.

Knocking out the BB increases your chance of winning the pot dramatically on its own because it decreases the chance one of your opponents hits his hand on the flop. Remember each opponent has a 1/3 chance of hitting the flop and that is it. You get enough opponents, and your chances of picking up the pot are lowered significantly....you really want to keep the ability to pick up pots open.


2) Defines the hand. Example: If BB calls after you have raised in the small blind, you know he's not limping in trying to get lucky with 64s. So when rags come, you can feel more confident. Or when overcards hit, with those two opponents, you can shut down with a clear concious. Note: Of course it depends on the players. But I am making generalizations.


3) Punishes the loose button raiser. There are a ton of these because quite frankly, raising on the button is usually a +EV play with a reasonable hand. Now, if you reraise on SB, the button has to consider that in the future, raises could cost him more bets than he'd like. A similar concept is discussed in HPFAP SH section regarding TT on the big blind. If it was just a one-hand game, maybe you limp and attempt to punish through deception. But it's not one-handed and your reraise now will pay dividends later.


4) Initiative. This is a HUGE one. See, if you call, what do you do when the flop misses you. Usually, you check and fold or check and call and later fold or check and bluff/semibluff raise. But none of these options seems very appealing, eh? Of course you could bet out, but that strange play seems to invoke calls from most opponents, or worse raises from your aggressive opponents. Simply put, they won't believe you have a strong hand usually, or they will actually have a great hand (but you won't know which). However, betting out is often the best of the four options against an opponent who will fold a missed hand. Anyways, a reraise from small blind followed by a bet on the flop does not scream "mediocre" at all. In fact, most opponents will be downright scared. You raised out of the small blind so you must have something, right? So you will definitely earn better than 6-to-1 on this bet on the flop. In addition, if the flop misses you, you see a couple overcards, and your bet is called...well, you are done with the hand unless you get lucky on the turn. Bottom line is that your reraise freezes your typical opponent into passive mode allowing you to have initiative and dictate the play.


5) More money. Hey, you've got a good hand. Adding +EV edge will help.


Note: These advantages really work in your favor best if you are only raising strong hands from the small blind. But that's OK. You wouldn't call w/ a mediocre holding in Small blind, but you are currently calling with strong holdings. So all I'm saying is that reraising is better than calling with these strong holdings. You WANT your opponent to be intimidated. You want to get more money in the pot. You want to get that big blind as dead money. And you want initiative because most opponents will fold that flop too often after you show strength.


I'm sure there are other reasons, but these are off the top of my head.

Comments welcome.


Mojay

why would you ever call preflop headsup /images/frown.gif raise or fold

If your opponent will always call if you raise, then you should not (generally) raise with hands that are not a favorite against a random hand, even though they are good enough to play.