11's Postflop Minimum Bet

Hi. I've been playing SNG home games for about 2 years, and have spent the last 3 months paying online SNG's with moderate success. I found this site recently and it has been very instructive. This is my first post, so please excuse me if I'm not as concise or explicit as I should be.

My basic question is this: Without a specific read on a player, how to you view a postflop minimum bet?

My observation tells me that this bet generally means that the bettor has middle pair or top pair with a weak kicker. If I have a player isolated, I generally reraise this weak bet for about the size of the pot. During multiway play, however, I find this type of betting to be quite frustrating, particularly when everyone in the hand just limps along. Any thoughts or pointers on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

[liucipher]

I'm not sure if you mean reraising when you have something or when you're bluffing. As a general rule, you should be extremely tight in the first few levels of blinds (e.g. lvl 1-3 in a Party Poker SNG). Tricky play is not particularly well rewarded when players are loose (e.g. in a Party Poker SNG). I'm not check-raising at these stages unless I have top pair or better and even then I'm usually leading out.

Even in the later stages, you need to have a read on your opponent (will he check to the river with nothing or will he stab at every pot). Otherwise, pushing over the top will only be worthwhile if you have some sort of semi-legitimate draw (as low as overcards will sometimes do).

[kevkev60614]

Welcome. It's a good idea to use the search function before you post a question. Pretty much anything you ask has already been answered. Also, posting a hand is often looked at as more helpful than a general question. You'll usually get more and more useful responses. Here's an archived post that helped me.

Thanks for the link to the thread. It was a good debate, but focused mainly on whether the mini-bet was a good move in low limit SNGs (I personally hate it). My question is how to respond to players who like this move.

To be more specific about how I deal with this bet, I usually reraise a mini-bet when heads up against someone regardless of what I hold. At the low levels most players will lay down their hand when I do this. If they call or come over the top, I can safely assume they have at least top pair and a good kicker.

My problem is what to do with this type of play in multiway pots. I simply HATE to lay down my cards to this weak play unless I've completely missed the flop. But what if I'm on a draw or have middle pair? Do I just call along with the rest of the calling stations because of the pot odds? I don't think my implied odds are great in these situations because you usually don't get paid when you hit your hand unless there's a King or Ace out there that someone has paired up.