A PLO example, why you raise preflop.

[Acesover8s]

I have made numerous posts here espousing the idea that you should raise most hands preflop in PLO. My theory being that suddenly many players lose the ability to decide what is a rational hand to play after the flop. Now you may not bet after the flop, but after a few preflop raises you are thought of as a maniac.

Hand in example.

Blinds are .50-1.00. A few limpers to me and I raise with A /images/graemlins/spade.gifT /images/graemlins/spade.gifT /images/graemlins/heart.gifK /images/graemlins/heart.gif. Get one caller behind me and one caller in front of me.

Flop comes 9 /images/graemlins/spade.gif4 /images/graemlins/spade.gif2 /images/graemlins/heart.gif. Checked to me ($80). I bet the pot. Player behind me folds, player in front of me checkraises all in ($40-50$ish).

His hand is 28JQ rainbow. I miss the flush, but my pair of tens holds up.

[crockpot]

after playing some more on party, i think that i greatly underestimated this valuable concept. it is still really the only reason to raise preflop in this game unless you have a true monster.

[Zag]

Surely you don't mean "most hands." Surely you mean "most hands that you were going to play anyway." You still fold the 3/4 of the hands which are just garbage, right? If that's what you mean, then I nearly agree. There are still a lot of hands that I limp with in good position, hoping to see a flop cheaply.

I do agree that you raise with a lot more than just the AA hands that are most people's raising requirements. I really like putting in the first raise with hands like KQJTd, because so many people put you on aces if you raise. Any flop that does have an ace in it is very likely to contain a decent draw for me, at least. I can make a very legitimate semi-bluff and it will work an extra percentage of the time because of the fear of top set.

The very best is when someone finally gets fed up with my "obviously manic raising standards" just when I do pick up AAQJd.