Choosing/playing hands preflop to a min raise

[creedofhubris]

There's this one regular in the game I play who never makes more than a min raise preflop. He'll do this with any pair 66 or better, any two face cards (I think), any reasonable aces. His postflop play and judgment are both pretty good, is how he gets away with this.

My question is, what hands that I might limp with should I be folding to this guy's raises? What hands should I be reraising him with, and under what circumstances?

Hands that I am not happy about folding include KQ, suited aces, and AJ.

Right now, I tend to delightedly call (if I have company) with suited connectors and small pairs, fold the suited aces (except ATs), call with KQ and AJ but play them gingerly, and reraise in position with AK, TT or better to try to push out the other callers.

[AdamsPappa]

When you have position on him you raise him with all your hands you figuerd to call a single bet with anyway. That will cool him of and he will certainly make bigger raises with his top hands to come. That makes the guess work for you so much easier.

As for starting hands: KQ, AJ offsuit is not much of a hand. Those are trouble hands. In a raised pot and an A or a K comes on the flop... where are you at?? These are dominated hands. Tend to fold them considering you can not get a grip on this mini-raiser.

Rgds

[Maddenboy]

Do other players fold to his min-raises? Do they re-raise? How many usually see the flop when he min-raises?

Also, when he is raised preflop, how often does he come over the top? With what range of hands?

I ask these because I think re-raising is the best option.

If he will come back over with a certain range of hands, you will better define his hand, using a few chips to gain lots of info. It also sounds like you have position on him, so you can slow him down when he's got big hands (if he doesn't come back over you preflop), and can use position for all its worth.

I also like thinning the field with most of the hands you mentioned. I think i would play the AJ with a raise, and muck the KQ without hesitation. At least with the AJ, you can be a little aggressive with a top pair flop and position.

I'd muck pairs under 88, because i dont want to draw against this guy, (you said he plays well postflop, which means i'm not likely to get paid off) and pairs under 88 are drawing hands (unless the raiser is easily moved off a hand).

Its player dependent (as always) but I think you should pump it or dump it, to see where you're at, and take control of mr. Minraise.

[creedofhubris]

[ QUOTE ]
Do other players fold to his min-raises? Do they re-raise? How many usually see the flop when he min-raises?

Also, when he is raised preflop, how often does he come over the top? With what range of hands?

[/ QUOTE ]

Very few people reraise him. Most just call, and treat it like a straddle or something.

I don't think he ever comes over the top; he calls with the high end of his hands if reraised and folds the worst of them.

He leans a bit toward the calling station direction, so raising him and pushing him with moderate holdings, unless your bets are enormous, will lead to him calling you down with things like underpairs.

His min raises tend to provoke people to sense weakness and fire bluffs into him, which is how he makes money.

His big weakness is overpairs; if he happens to have an overpair, he pays off trips and two pair.

[TStoneMBD]

i dont like any of the advice that was given here. this player will profit minraising in a game like this because noone in your game is playing against him correctly. against a player who minraises with any hand worth limping is trying to get players behind him to fold so that he can get the pot shorthanded. any hand that he minraises with should be treated as a limp if hes doing it with marginal hands. reraise him with any hand that you were going to raise a limper with preflop as long as you dont mind a hand like KQ or 77 calling you. playing tight is fine, but you cant let this guy force you to fold profitable hands, and simply call with dominating hands with a move as weak as a minraise. if you cant outplay him postflop then maybe the best thing you could do is fold to his minraises, but you are probably better off finding another game if this is the case.

[Zag]

This game is clearly profitable. Consider

[ QUOTE ]
He leans a bit toward the calling station direction, so raising him and pushing him with moderate holdings, unless your bets are enormous, will lead to him calling you down with things like underpairs.

His min raises tend to provoke people to sense weakness and fire bluffs into him, which is how he makes money.

His big weakness is overpairs; if he happens to have an overpair, he pays off trips and two pair.

[/ QUOTE ]
Three big profit centers at work, here. The one that I think our hero has overlooked is the second one. You now know how the rest of the table misplays against min-raises. Therefore, you should be making min raises with your monsters, and let them fire into you, especially when the habitual min-raiser is not in the pot. In order to provide cover for this, try an occasional min-raise as a bluff, and be prepared to abandon to pressure, but do this even less than game theory would suggest (which is already pretty infrequently, for a min raise).

By the way, given points 1 and 3 from the quote, you should be pretty happy about calling the min raise preflop with any pair, whether or not you have company, and even whether or not you have position. In fact, if you don't have position, you'd rather be heads up with the guy and NOT have company. If he makes the bad calls you describe, you are clearly getting the implied odds you need to try for your set.

However, dump the KQ and AJ, unless you have position and everyone else has folded. You can't raise with these profitably, because he you know you are in trouble if he calls. Therefore, you can't afford to raise to isolate. If you only call and there are players left to act after you, you won't be happy if they call, too, because you will be playing out of position against them and you have practically no idea what they have. Finally, even if you call and get heads up, if you make TP3K, you can't really stand any pressure, anyway, so you are setting yourself up to win a little pot or lose a big one. So just pitch them preflop, unless, as I said, you have the button and everyone else has folded. Even then, play them carefully.