What amount do you preflop raise?

As far as I can tell there are 3 schools of thought for open raising in NLH tourneys.

1) Every raise is the same in relation to the blinds. typically 2.5 - 3 x BB no matter what cards you hold and decide to raise with

2) Your raise is in relation to your cards. Big pairs = Big raise , weaker cards = smaller raise.

3) Mixing it up. Doing anything from limping to a big raise with no relation to your hand strength to keep your opponents off balance.

I typically use the first theory but have run into several successfull players using the third. The second seems to be a little to predictable and I like it when an opponent does this at the table as it provides me with more information. Any thoughts as to which way is better against different styles of players? Which do you typically use?

you always want to mix up everything you do.

Im having trouble responding to this... are you sure you're not a gimmick account?

there is no clearer way to telegraph your cards than to raise more with better hands.

[burningyen]

School of thought #2 = school of fish.

I believe Thunder Keller has said that he likes to open small in early position and big in late position.

Against bad calling stations, I tend to raise my better hands bigger. When the blinds are big, I tend to raise smaller.

no. not a gimmick account, just asking questions. as i pointed out, i think raising bigger with big hands is wrong (obviously) just wanted some feed back between mixing up your raises and keeping them the same.

[HeroInBlack]

As a general rule, I raise 3xBB + 1xBB for each limper ahead of me. Of course, the number of limpers cuts down what hands I actually raise.

My standard preflop reraise is triple the original raise.

Harrington advocates varying your raise size from 2-5xBB randomly, and there's nothing wrong with that either.