Making the Pot Bigger vs. Keeping it Small?

[Mike]

Perhaps this will help? You play QQ 100 hands. You lose twenty five times to straights and flushes. You lose 25 times to either a bigger pair or two pair. You lose ten times to a set. So out of your forty wins when do you make the most cash?

If you do not raise on the forty hands you win, but did raise on the sixty you lost, you are in trouble as you aren't showing much if any profit.

If you do not raise any time, your win and loss rate are in a ratio to each other. If you raise all the time, the ratio is about the same, but the actual $ difference is greater. So there is not much difference except the $ you are willing to risk.

I am guessing you read the more important previous post. So, you should understand the trick is to mix your calling and your raising to the quality of the players in that particular hand. Bad players play to the river because they came to play. Better players play to the river because they feel they are going to win the hand.

If I am seventh in with a strong draw preflop and it's capped by the time it gets to me, my odds are the ~ same as if there were no raise at all - assuming the prior raisers also call the raises. The amount of money I have to put in the pot is greater, but the odds are the same.

You really have two variables to manipulate depending on your players. How good are they and how much do they value their chips? Anything you do should be done with those two parameters in mind.

In wrapping up there is no magic in pot size and players, only a good idea of how well they play, what they are willing to call, and when will they throw in the towel. Include this idea in your raising requirements and it will help you plan when and how to manipulate the pot.

[muck_nutz]

"My advice to take a 2.5BB profit as an 85% favorite over a 3BB profit as a 65% favorite stands, however. It just has nothing to do with what I was trying to get across."

I think maybe a nomenclature issue (or a misunderstanding) made you come to this conclusion, but I believe its wrong. Lets take an all heads up all in equity example. YOu get all in with 65% = 3BB net of a pot (total pot is 20 bets; .65*20 = 13 = .5*20 + 3). Over a hundred trials you will expend 1000 bets to get back 1300 for a 300 bet profit. In the 2.5/85% case (total pot = 7.2 bets; .85*7.2 = 6.12 = 3.6 + 2.5) you will expend 360 bets to get back 612 for a 250 (plus round off error) bet profit.

The reason I made what I thought was an obvious statement (you want to favor making 3.0 bets/hand over one of 2.5 bets/hand) is that in the examples in your post you seemed to be favoring making 43 bb/100 hands over making 65.5 bb/100 hands. Thats why I prefaced my earlier post with some confusion.

Unlike my examples the typical limit holdem multiway pot contains a lot of dead money. In those cases it might make sense to control the pot size, but in the end your expected average win on the hand should be higher (not lower) then if you didn't control the pot size. In many cases, eventhough you pump up the pot to a size that makes your opponents future calls correct, you will make so much earlier in the hand that getting a smaller fraction of a bet later in the hand still makes for a larger average win. Its only in those cases that what you get from earlier bets isn't so large that making more on fewer later bets makes sense. This is far more frequently common in NL (and to a lesser extent in PL) when you can take a big chunk of your opponent late in a hand.

[cbloom]

This has been answered pretty well, but let me try to sum up the facts clearly.

You have the best hand, so just calling or raising are both +EV moves. The question is which is more +EV?

The answer to that depends on the details of the game. The problem is that when you raise before the flop, the winning pot will be much bigger, but there will also be many more people going to the showdown, so your chances of winning are less. Exactly which way is more +EV is depends on a lot of details.

One thing you can say for sure is that raising increases your variance *a lot*. If the EV both ways is not very different, most people will prefer the move with the smaller variance, which is to not raise.

[Max Weinberg]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I understand the differences between, and reasoning for both options now.

[Bokonon]

I understand that not raising pre-flop in the BB with AK or AA or KK minimizes variance, but I've always wondered why Slansky recommended maybe not raising in those positions with those cards. Admittedly, he's played a little bit more poker than me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

It's certainly true that people will be less likely to chase with a small pot, and that if no one hits you'll have a lot more luck bluffing them out with overcards. But . . . well, certainly for the big pairs like AA and KK, it seems to me I would far prefer walking in preflop with it capped than with just one bet each, even if there are six or seven limpers. I mean, you're wrecking the implied odds of all those doofuses with suited connectors and such, right? Even it it means that one or two of them may have the odds to chase to the river.

Someone sharper than me needs to set up a few simulations using the TTH software, where Our Hero gets AA on the button and raises preflop, vs getting AA and not doing so.

[CrackerZack]

Sklansky never advocates not raising AA/KK pre-flop. there is a small section about checking the flop thru, raising the turn to knock out long shot draws that would be getting odds to call if you bet the flop, bet the turn, but most people tend to misunderstand it and misapply it.

[Bokonon]

Oops on me -- I was conflating advice on raising with AA/KK preflop in the BB with raising with AK. I *think* that he may have suggested not raising with AK in a many-limper pot when you're in the BB, but correct me if I'm wrong. (That happens a lot.)

[CrackerZack]

this came up in a seminar he gave. the response contained a quote (paraphrased) "Understand that when you raise PF with AK from the BB, you will win the pot less often, but the pots you win will be bigger" Which is the crux of this argument. You have to evaluate how well your opponents play and will they pay you off all the way when you flop big? Can you manipulate them out of position? Is the most aggressive people on your close right? All of these factors have to be taken into account when deciding whether or not to raise. Raising is +EV, but you have to decide if you can make more EV by not raising. Most players aren't good enough to make back up EV they're giving up PF (myself included I believe), so I raise PF. If I feel very in control of the table, or think I have a large post flop edge, I'll consider not raising, but its rare.

[huzitup2]

alot of us play in games where A/rag [off] and oft-times K/rag[off] - not to mention some other truly horrible hands - are played as a matter of course.

When I know this is the case in the game I'm in - wow - I just can't keep myself from raising QQ/JJ out of either blind.

If an overcard flops, I usually wind up having to check and fold.

However, there is a better than 50% chance that there will be no O/C when I have QQ, just over a 50% chance that an O/C will come to my JJ, not to mention that the occasional flop does come with an O/C AND my set card.

Am I wrong to be raising QQ and JJ in THESE games ?

*

I seem to recall another essay - I think YOU wrote this one - that said (basically), "if your opponents are playing absolute trash it probably IS correct to raise with hands such as AQ/off etc., even in multiway pots. You are gaining so much equity from calls by hands such as 64/off, etc., that you more than make up for the POST FLOP equity you surrender". (This is paraphrased; the ""'s may be inappropriate here).

Best wishes,

- H

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
this came up in a seminar he gave. the response contained a quote (paraphrased) "Understand that when you raise PF with AK from the BB, you will win the pot less often,

[/ QUOTE ]

How can that be? It makes no sense to me. A raise isnt going to keep more people in, it can only drive people out which means you will win more often. The only scenario where you could win less often is if you are reraised and you fold yourself, but, at least in limit, you would only fold if you believed you were up against AA or KK, and you still would have lost to those hands in most circumstances.