Thoughts on Minumum Betting and Raising?

[RPatterson]

I had been destroying pokerstars 5 dollar sit n go's for awhile but recently moved up to 25 dollar double speed whatever that is called and 30 dollar normal speed.

One thing that is tripping me out is at the 5 dollar level whenever someone would bet out like 20 chips into a 220 pot or make a minumum check-raise it almost always spoke to me that they were making a semi-bluff or a pure bluff. And I could just pidgeonhole them as a bad player with pretty good certainty.

Now much to my surprise at the 30 dollar level I'm seeing even more minumum betting and raising. Only people are doing it alot with made hands too. Why do you think this is?

My theory is alot of players have started minumum betting made hands so their better opponents will think they are making semi-bluffs. So people at the 30 dollar level are all doing this like mad and when they move up to higher level and get better they probably realize it's not working and go back to betting normal.

Or I'm wrong and making minumum chip made-hand and semi-bluff bets is smart. Another thing is I was watching Phil Hellmuth play a high stakes nl cash game on UB and there was tons of minumum betting and raising.

I'm assuming now it's a valid strategy but why? I thought the joy of no-limit was destroying pot odds.

[MissOt]

im new but i thought it was the same as check raising but making it look like a bluff n still getting money into the pot n no chance of a free card

i would like help on this too

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I would think minimum betting on the flop would only be a valid strategy if you had a very good but not great hand *and* your opponent was very aggressive.

In many cases a minimum bet on the flop is a draw trying to see the turn cheap, as the bettor thinks that if he checks, a less than great hand may be tempted to bet the pot, but would only call the minimum bet.

There was a great post by the Fossilman a couple of months back regarding just that kind of hand.