why minraise preflop?

[theBruiser500]

In what situation, i.e. - what position, against what sort of opponent, with what cards, stack sizes, would it be correct to minraise someone preflop. This is as opposed to either calling or raising more. Or is this like doubling the blinds preflop, a move that almost everyone here hates. Comments?

[theBruiser500]

Cornell says

"actualyl, i was just playing a 3/6 nl 6 max where
<BK_> i was min raising like 50% of the time for 5 min
<BK_> because they were so bad/weak/passive"

But if this is the case, why minraise, if one of those weak players bets $30 why not raise to $90? Also, please ignore tournament situations.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

The reason most of us (especially me) HATE the min raise preflop is that ...

1. it serves virtually no useful purpose in any circumstances

2. it shows a complete lack of creativity - i.e. "I am too stupid and lazy to use the slider bar, so i just press the raise button"

It should be noted that in live no limit games even the dumbest opponents rarely use the min raise preflop.

al

[theBruiser500]

I'm not defending the minraise preflop move, I never make it.

[cornell2005]

the reason i was min raising was because i felt that if the pot was down to 1, and the pot was larger, i had an extreme advantage, as i was only getting called with top or middle pair and people were way too passive when the pot grew. they were sitting on pretty short stacks also. who knows why i felt the urge to do it for those couple orbits. other than that, i never min raise pf

[SaintAces]

hey bluetiger.

It just hit me.

[turnipmonster]

this is a different beast, but pot sweetener raises can be a great move in position. not minraising, but for example raising 20 more after a bunch of limpers in a 5/10 game or something.

--turnipmonster

[theBruiser500]

I never do this either. Could you be more specific?

[turnipmonster]

I used to play with some guys that would do this all the time. the idea is that instead of limping in late position they would almost always raise small behind limpers with almost any hand they were going to play. so in a 5-5 game, any hand like JTs or 88 or whatever they would make it 15 to go. no one folds to a raise like that, so it accomplishes many things:

1) a lot of times they buy the button if they don't have it already (until the people on their left catch on at least)

2) they end up playing consistently larger pots (because of the preflop raise) in position.

3) a lot of times they get checked to and get to take a free card.

this is actually a pretty good play, I need to start doing it more. the general theme is that anytime you have position on a bunch of limpers you build a pot. good things happen when you build pots with hand that can take action in position.

the bad thing is that because your raises have a nonuniform size (full pot or small) you become somewhat readable and need to take measures to mix your play up.

--turnipmonster

[cornell2005]

haha, hey who is this?