[UATrewqaz]

Well its a trade off really.

By raising and getting lesser hands to fold you win the pot MORE OFTEN.

By letting them remaing in you will most likely win a bigger pot but win it less often.


The fundamental point is simply this. The 73o will only continue to play with you IF he has you beat. He will simply fold if he doens't flop good (barring insanity). Thus you are granting HIM good implied odds by not raising (good being relative to you raising).

Thus by not raising you do not increase the pot size on later streets by that much but decrease your % chance of winning it substantially.

If you RAISE preflop with KK two things happen:

1 - junk hands are forced to either fold (thus increasing the % chance you win) or begin bloating the pot you are favored to win.

2 - hands that will continue to put in bets with you are hand that would have anyway. If someone is holding JJ they are going to probably pay you off the entire way (assuming a low board). Might as well charge them the whole way, you see.

As Ed Miller states in SSHE, "Take their money now while you have the chance!"


To put it in math terms, say if you raise with KK you win the pot 75% of the time (on average let's say it's a 5 BB pot). Every 100 KK you have won 75 x 5 = 375BB.

Let's assume by not raising you win the pot 50% of the time. In order to win the same 375 BB the average pot will need to be 7.5 BB. Thus you need to find a way to get 2.5 MORE BB into the average pot and you are starting from behind (because preflop the pot will have LESS money than if you raised most likely).