Open raising

Is it true...that generally speaking...if you're 1st into the pot...and it has been folded around to you...regardless of whether or not you are in EP, MP or LP...you should open the pot for a raise...maybe 80% of the time...if you want to play your hand...unless you're flat calling for deceptive or trapping purposes

[Tom1975]

No. There are no absolutes in poker. It depends on what cards you have, how many people have folded so far, and what the players behind you are like.

[glean]

I usualy deside this based on my hand. For instance if I have KQo I would like to win if I spike a pair, so I raise to try and drop out weak A's. But if I am in mid pos and I have say T9s I want alot of people around, since I'm not counting on a pair to win it for me. I want to hit a flush/strt. And when I do I will win against a big feild, so the more the merrier.

[Onaflag]

You will need to decide what the desired outcome is. Is your hand vulnerable to a large field or does the hand not mind many callers? It is entirely too complicated to explain in a paragraph or two, but some hands like big pocket pairs need you to clear the field as much as possible and a raise is the only way to accomplish that.

On the other hand, small pocket pairs, in a loose small stakes game, usually need to hit a set on the flop to be profitable. In this case, you just want to limp into the pot which does nothing to limit the field. That's okay, though, because if you hit your set, you stand a very good chance of whooping even a large crowd of contenders.

These concepts are fully explained in Ed Miller's Small Stakes Holdem book. You should get it.

Onaflag............

[donkeyradish]

A random thought for you

Re-raising to indicate strength only works if people are actually paying attention to what you are doing.

[Student]

Excellent advice! Dave

[AKQJ10]

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generally speaking...maybe 80% of the time...

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
No. There are no absolutes in poker.

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I hate to be a nit, but where did the OP imply that there are absolutes in poker, or that one pat answer would always apply? (It drives me crazy that people take care to qualify their question as a general one and still get scolded for asking for one-size-fits-all answers.)

At any rate, it's not clear to me whether this thread is about NL or limit hold 'em. In NL I would think 80% of the hands you open should be for a raise (either with a strong hand in bad position or occasionally on a steal), whereas in low-limit poker there are plenty of drawing hands like the aforementioned small pairs (http://poker.wikicities.com/wiki/LHE:Preflop:Small_pair) and small suited connectors that it's pointless to play for a raise but you want to limp with. (Occasionally in tougher games you would want to raise with these drawing hands, to mix up your play. At low limits it doesn't matter because no one's putting you on hands anyway.)

[OrianasDaad]

If it's folded to you in middle position, often limping hands that need multiple callers is a marginal play because there's 1) a stronger chance the pot will be short-handed, 2) a chance someone after you will raise, cutting down your implied odds further, and 3) it was folded to you and your relative position is still the same as UTG.

For these reasons, I tend to avoid open-limping from middle position. The factors that decide it aren't in my hand, they are in my opponent's playing tendancies.

There's less chance of a re-raise from late position, but you are almost guaranteed of either having the pot raised or having the pot be only 3-4 handed.

That's my .02BB