JJ/TT early position preflop

[chipstacks]

Given JJ or TT early position preflop what do you do, and why?

Personally, I raise. This lets me know who has overcards and what to do on the flop.

[sunek]

To be honest I don’t raise every time. It depends on the players after me and whether I am playing tournament or NL ring game. And of cause it depends whether the table is full or shorthanded. If I am playing a tournament it depends how many players are left, my stack size and what round the tournament are in.

But with these reservations my short answer is: I raise to reduce the number of opponents I play against. I would like to make people with small pairs, small suited connecters and hands like QJo, KQo and maybe even AJo fold.

Regards

sunek

[Reef]

raise. and it's not even close.

[well]

Why would you want them to fold QJ and AJ?

[punter11235]

I think that raising is good if we are happy to win blinds.
In NL games (low stakes at least) raising in early position is not good in my opinion no matter what we have (I know its very controversial).
In limit raise is very good.
The key idea of winning NL is to win big pots, raising in EP is EV- in my opinion because we can win more call/reraisng or trapping after the flop.
I dont believe in plays to "define our hand" because they only help our opponents. Playing with "defined" hands (AK, AQ, AA-1010) out of position against good opponent when he could choose if he want to play against us or not is not fun at all.
Just my opinion.

Best wishes

[sinfulslick18]

raise it up with those two in early position

-sinful

[AApprentice]

Raise in a tight game, call in a loose game. Sklansky explains why in HEPFAP.

[BarronVangorToth]

[ QUOTE ]
Raise in a tight game, call in a loose game. Sklansky explains why in HEPFAP.

[/ QUOTE ]


Sklansky's advice has a lot to do with the quality of your opponents, however. Given that a majority of your competition is far from savvy, there is no reason, much like is pointed out in Small Stakes Hold 'em, to raise as they'll call pre-flop whether you raise or call or three bet with nonsense no matter what...

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

[OrangeKing]

Some of the advice in this thread is pretty bad, assuming that we're talking about relatively small-stakes play (I don't think a decent higher-stakes player would really be asking this question, which is a tip off).

In low-limit hold 'em, you should be raising TT/JJ from early position every time. We're doing it to increase the amount of money in the pot, since we likely have the best hand, not to get other people to fold (unless we make someone fold AA-QQ, which is extremely unlikely). These hands aren't going to hold up an extraordinarily high amount of the time like AA-QQ, but they will still hold more equity then the hands they're going to be called by in small stakes games.

[michiganfan9]

I agree with raising because you will find out that someone else has overcards or possibly pocket pair. So when the flop comes all duds you should know you are most likely ahead in the hand.