All-in or Fold Theories

[SeanM]

These must be the most common words in No-Limit Hold'em Poker. I dont quite understand why it is nessecary to allways reraise your opponent or fold. How does seeing the fop hurt you badly? This is ecspecially true when you hold pairs vulnerable to over cards.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

One simple example. You have a less than average size stack, and the blinds are about 5-10% of your stack size. It's folded to you in MP with TT. Do you really want to limp and allow hands like 98s, 87s, 76s, JT, 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, etc. to come along cheaply?

Say you get a flop you like, say 8-5-4. Now you see the problem. You get a flop with no overcards, but it's now possible that you're behind. If you raised to 3x the BB pre-flop, those trouble hands go away (and many times you win the blinds outright and increase your stack by 10%).

In addition, if you get a caller to the pre-flop raise, you have a smaller range of hands to consider when playing after the flop.

[SeanM]

Thank you for the response, and I understand the principal of eliminating hands that can draw out on you pre flop. However, I was tlaking more about when someone raise you, it seems to be the common statement go all-in or fold. I dont understand why people always say this. For instance, you raise with QQ and are reraised. Why must you fold or go all-in? Why cant you just call, take a look at the flop for a Ace or King and play it from there?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Depends on the size of the reraise and the resulting size of the pot vs. the size of your stack. Depends on your position and table image vs. the reraisers position and your image of him. Given the right circumstances, you can just call the reraise.

[Justaloser]

>>How does seeing the fop hurt you badly? This is ecspecially true when you hold pairs vulnerable to over cards. <<

This is why you don't want to see the flop. You want to raise/reraise/fold because you're allowing the overcards a chance to beat you. Of course, the lower the pair, the more likely you are to be beat so the more reason to reraise (to get out those hands like KJ or AT) or fold and save your chips. You want to force them to fold. The powerful hands aren't going away anyway, so you've got to accept losing some of your chips when they've got a big hand.

This does depend on your position too. If you're in the BB and no one has raised with several (3-4) limpers, then sure, take a free flop and fold if you don't hit your set.

Let's suppose you've been dealt 88 on the button. There are two limpers. It's raise or fold time. If you call, you're allowing them a free flop to beat you. Yes free (they've already paid for the flop), you've got to make them decide if they'll pay more. Also suppose that the flop comes 49K.
What do you do now? You can't bet and feel good about it. If you get a minimum raise you don't know where you stand. He might have K9 or he might have AT.

By raising, you know pretty quickly where you stand. If you get called, you're probably in trouble. Slow down and be careful. If you get reraised, you're hosed. Get out now.

All this is of course dependant on the players, stacks, blinds, and your table image /forums/images/icons/grin.gif