raising helps... but??

[elmitchbo]

i'm trying to be more aggressive. i think that my game has suffered from my tendency to call. i've gone from raising 2% of the time and re-raising 0% to a whopping total of raising 4% of the time and re-raising 2%. it has helped significantly. it seems like i win more pots, and the pots i win are bigger.

i'd like to be even more aggressive, but my question is how do you guys raise preflop 7% of the time? i don't think i get enough cards worthy of raising to reach that percentage. i feel like i'm plenty loose enough, i see about 22-25% of the flops including blinds. the card distribution doesn't seem to be there for that type of raise percentage. where am i going wrong? do you need to raise with any pocket pair? raise with any high suited connector?

[flopwell]

in the decision to raise or not raise preflop, the most important thing to consider (after your holding)is POSITION. Are you in the cutoff or button and do you want to attack the blinds? Raising preflop from an early position is inadvisable with any hand but a premium hand. This is of course just my $.02 worth, and I am by no means anything other than a novice.

[slickterp]

i agree, position is key. say you are in MP and there is a raise in front of you w/ one caller. you hold KQs, you reraise so that everyone after you has to call 3 cold and you isolate. a raise/reraise is to knock out hands that could potentially beat you, such as AJ or AT that may be held in later positions, or to punish those who call with inferior hands.

[CORed]

I'm going to offer a few situations to raise that you might have been missing. As with anything in poker, it depends on your opponents, so theses are not absolute.
I play a very agressive preflop game, so some of these may be borderline.

Pocket pairs > 10: always raise, usually 3-bet if raised in front of you.
Consider limp-reraising AA and KK if game is very tight or very agressive. This is controversial. Many here would say always raise. However, stealing the blinds with these hands (very tight game) is a disaster, and if the game is agressive, getting 3 bets in preflop instead of two is very good. When in doubt, raise.

Mid pocket pairs: 7-9. Raise if opening or with one limper in front. Reraise to isolate loose raisers. If your raises routinely get lots of cold calls, you may want to limp. Raising is best if you can thin the field to heads-up or 3 way. This gives the pairs a decent chance to win unimproved. If lots of people are seeing the flop, you usually need a set, and you need good implied odds, so seeing the flop cheaply is better, unless you have 8 or more seeing the flop.

Big suited broadway: AKs, AQs, AJs, KQs, KJs, ATs. Raise. Reraise with AKs, AQs, coldcall with the rest. These are strong hands in multiway pots.

AKo, AQo: Raise. Reraise AK. Reraise AQ against a loose or unkown raiser, fold against a tight raiser. Raise in blinds if not raised.

AJo, KQo. Raise in middle position if opening or with one limper. Raising in early position is borderline. You should raise in EP at least some of the time, especially if EP raises with stronger hands are only getting the blinds. I usually raise thise in EP, but the main advantage of this is image. In a losse game where you are getting lots of cold callers, it's proabably better to limp.

LP open raises. Here your goal is to steal the blinds or get heads up with a blind with a worse hand. Heads up, A high and K high have a decent chance to win unimproved, and top pairs, even with bad kickers, will usually win. Ax and Kx become playable. Button and SB: Ax with x > 2 Kx with x > 8 Qx with x > T. Cutoff: Ax with A > 7. Kx with x > 9, QJ. Two off button: Ax with x > 9, KJ, KT.

This is not a complete preflop listing, this is just a listing of preflop raising opportunities that you may be missing

Agressive preflop play helps you in several ways. The most important is getting more money in the pot with more than fair share pot equity. Everything else is secondary, but thinning the field is a significant advantage with big offsuit cards and pocket pairs < QQ. Stealing the blinds is also significant. Another advantage is that it disguises you really good hands, like AK, AQ and big pocket pairs. If you only raise preflop monsters, observant opponents will pick up on this and get out of your way. If you raise with more hands, they may call or reraise with worse hands a lot of the time.

There are a few disadvantages. Your variance will increase. If you raise preflop a lot, and miss the flop, it's obviously going to cost you more money. Preflop raises can sometimes make it harder to read your opponents. Some will play strong hands very passively, fearing that you have aces. Be careful with middle pair or top-pair, fair kicker hands if you have raised prefop. You may bet all the way and get called down by a better hand. However, tha advantages of reasonably agressive preflop play far outweigh the disadvantages.

[bisonbison]

if you're regularly 3-betting with KQs, you're in for a world of hurt.

[emonrad87]

I'm assuming you haven't read any basic, low-limit poker book, as they all have good (and similar) discussions of preflop play. Go pick up Winning Low Limit Hold'em by Lee Jones. I'm sure that your post flop play could use a lot of work too (everyone's can, for that matter).

[CORed]

If you get Lee Jones' book, be sure you don't get the first edition. The preflop advice in the First Edition is way too passive and just plain wrong. In general, Jones' book isn't bad for beginners, but tends to be a little too weak tight.

[Zetack]

4 percent raising is so incredibly low the qustion is what in the world to you actually raise with, not what should you be raising with.

You call a lot. What are you trying to accomplish, see if the flop hits you before you invest money in the hand? That's just not the way to go. You need to build pots for when you hit, and make it expensive for the trash to beat your good hands. Plus raising scares people.

--Zetack

[EliteNinja]

I raise 9.65% of the time, actually.
Is that too much?

[Stork]

Will you raise ATs after a couple limpers? What about JJ? Do you raise AKo UTG? Do you raise KQs after limpers? How about 99 first in from the MP3?
I consider these all straightforward raises, but they might seem borderline to you if you're only raising 4%.