50+5 Lvl4+: What's the best way to play vs min raises?

[AA suited]

blinds are 50/100 or higher.

more and more often i see people min raising.

i usually take this as weak. and if i'm the bb and the min raiser has less chips than me, then i re-raise all in w/any2. if someone does it again when i'm the bb, then i call and do a stop and go.

i've been pretty successful doing that. but there have been times when the villian has had power (ie: top5).

What other ways are there to handle smaller opponenents min raising when you're the sb/bb?

[rachelwxm]

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i usually take this as weak. and if i'm the bb and the min raiser has less chips than me, then i re-raise all in w/any2.

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Is this really working for you at this level? My observations is that if people has 800 chips and min raies 200, there is a good chance he would call especially if he has small pps. Of course, I am speaking of 20-30 levels. Is there more FE at higher level?

If they have top 5, I would consider this as a trapping min raise.

[ColdestCall]

I'm not sure that moving in with any two from the BB is the best way to combat this, but if it's working for you I could easily be wrong.

I think a better way may be to just loosen up your pushing standards if you think that min-raising means a weaker than usual raising hand. Also, I think the previous play of the person doing the min-raising is very important, i.e, do they usually push, are they the type of player who can fold to a reraise, etc. There's no point pushing 5-3s against someone you don't think can fold 66.

I've been giving the min-raise a little more thought lately. Usually, I just push when I'm trying to steal and have less than 10BB, but lately I've been experimenting with, and having some success, identifying players and tables where almost as much FE can be achieved with a min-raise. Specifically, will try to identify players who weakly surrender their blinds to a min raise, occasionally putting in a min raise or two early in Level 3 or so just to find out how the BB will react. Also, a lot of information can be gathered by closely observing the hands you are not involved in - i.e., watch other people min raise and see how everyone else reacts. If I can identify just one weak player, who I KNOW wont play back unless they have a big hand, it helps immensely when it comes time to steal and I have 8 BB or so, because I don't have to risk my whole stack to achieve the desired result, and the weak player may as well be playing with his cards face up.

Conversely, when I am in the BB, I will try to vary my play in case someone else is paying attention to this. Specifically, I will try to mentally keep track of how I've played my BB against other players over the course of the SNG, and use the "impression" I think I've created on that player, if any, to my advantage. There's nothing like picking up a nice hand in the BB and moving in on a SB raiser to keep that player off your back for a while (and when he raises next time, you can be pretty sure he's got a hand, etc.)

I realize that this may not be of much value to folks who are playing 4-8 of these things at a time for a living, but I figured I'd share some recent thoughts on the min raise anyway (I usually only play 1 50+5 at a time).