Min. reraises confuse me(late stages)

[John Hurst]

So here is a situation that occurs fairly often and I'm often surprised by what my opponent has. It's the late stage of a $55 or $109 tournament(level 5) and I've switched into aggressive mode. Raised several times in the last ten hands. Suddenly an opponent who I have no solid notes on min. reraises me. Against a tight player this most likely is a monster but what does it mean from a random party yahoo. I've been shown AA, A2, J10, utter trash. I would guess at the 55s it's 30% monster, 50% solid holding, 20% utter trash from a frustrated opponent. I know this in not a detailed question, but how do you deal with a generic player who reraises you for the first time? Folding 100% gives up way too much equity, IMO.

[jt1]

mini raises??? I'm new to SNG's and if I could only figure them out....

BTW, Texas is going down Sept. 10'th

[John Hurst]

Here is an example. But I wanted a more general discussion.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (4 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

UTG (t1695)
Hero (t3046)
SB (t3131)
BB (t2128)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J/images/graemlins/heart.gif, J/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t450</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">BB raises to t750</font>

[fluorescenthippo]

yes! i just had this happen. villian thought i had crap, he had T7s and i had AQ and he sucked out.

i have no insight to post whatsoever, i just agree.

[Xenod]

There's no hard and fast rule as to what you should do when you get raised for the first time by an opponent you have no reads on. Obviously, the answer isn't "it depeneds on how he's playing" because you don't have a clue for whatever reason. What you need to do is go by what you DO know instead of obsessing with what you don't.

1) Your cards. Do you have a mid-pp that will usually miss the flop? Do you have a good drawing hand like QJh that can live or die based on a flop? The better a flop can define YOUR hand, then the more likely you should be to call. That way, if the flop gives you great information about the potential of your hand against random hands it makes knowing about his hand less important.

Lets take 2 hands with the same flop. QJh and 99 with a flop of Q52. 99 doesn't learn much with that flop. He's ahead of most random hands still, but is way behind Qx. On the other hand QJh has a pretty good idea that he's ahead, but could still lay the hand down.

2) What are the stack sizes? If your stack dwarfs his, certainly you're more willing to put him all-in. If his stack dwarfs yours then you're reduced to push or fold. If your stack is small relative to the blinds it also steers your decision to push or fold rather than call.

[Newt_Buggs]

If I really have no reads, then I sort of treat it halfway between strength and weakness. For example, if someone who hasn't caught my attention position mini raises, I'll probably tighten up but as much as if he had pushed (since you sometimes have FE). Obviously though you can sometimes tell when a miniraise is a trap, either based on the player or the action/position.

In your example you're in a really tough spot and I don't know if you can make an argument for the perfect play there. I would probably call and take a flop, most likely go broke on a "safe" flop.