Raising Pre-Flop No Deceptive Value?

[Wolffink]

I'm a newbie and fish. Here's something that's bothering me:

Raising early or middle with AA or KK.

I'm reading some books that say that if you have AA, KK you should raise preflop. I'm wary to do this if I'm in early position because I've had about everyone drop out on me then or soon thereafter. I understand with QQ you want this to eliminate overcards coming. I wait and wait for a good hand, get AA, raise, and find myself winning a meagre hand when everyone folds. It's disappointing. True, I'd love to get more money into the pot since I have the best hand--but raising tells everyone I have a good hand.

To me it seems like raising preflop early when you have these hands is giving away too much information, unless you randomly raise other times with just for the hell of it.

I'd rather limp in, being happy if someone raises, and see if I can win a decent pot without telling everyone I have a good hand. Sun Tzu said if you're strong, pretend to be weak, deception is key. Why let your opponents know you're pretty proud of yourself at-the-moment? Why not let them think they've got a good hand that might win?

I understand weeding out the people that might play 10-9 suited. But you can't be afraid of everything. Sure, any two cards can win, why not make 'em pay to play after the flop when they might stick around for their draw and pay MORE (v. just folding).

Any thoughts?

[trumpman84]

Not raising preflop with AA or KK is a very dangerous thing to do unless you are SURE someone will raise behind you. Limping in with AA or KK might cause a large multiway pot between 6 or 7 opponents and yes, while AA or KK will win more than your share of the pot, they are less than a 50% favorite against the field and much more likely to get busted (they are only about a 30-40% favorite against 6 or 7 random hands.) One thing I've learned since playing limit is that, if you're going to get action, you're going to get it slow played or not and the only thing that "creating action" (ie slow playing aces) will get you is beat.

By raising early, you win more somewhat smaller pots (not by much)

By limping and creating multiway action, you win some big pots, but lose a lot of pots to hands you would of eliminated on the flop or preflop by raising.

In addition, no one is going to give you a lot of action (preflop raise or not) unless they have your aces beat, so in order to win big pots with aces, they need to improve.

[Richard Berg]

You are both wrong. Raise AA for value and hope everyone calls (or 3bets). Raise a goodly percentage of your hands in general, and more people will.

AA is more likely to win a small pot, it's true. So what?

[submariner]

You don't say what limit you're playing (or even if it is limit or NL), but it seems to me like you need to work on table selection. If your EP raises are getting the whole table to fold, you need to find some looser tables. BTW, AA and KK isn't the only hands you raise with, is it? If it is, that's a big problem.

[Wolffink]

Thanks for the replies. I am trying to understand.

No, I raise with other stuff, but probably not as often as I should. Now QQ--I dont have a problem raising with, but I understand this. It's too easy for someone to pair kings and you gotta make 'em pay. I raise with others, like AK, even though I've heard this is debatable by experts--since I want to be not so predictable.

But AA, with pot odds--if you do get multiplay, and didn't raise--let's say the flop has K, Q, J, or 10 in it, someone will give action. Maybe more than one. You should be able to make money off the AA--if 6 people come in, and I'm the underdog now, I've still got favorable pot odds.

Poker is a game of information, if I come in with a raise, early, I've given quite good information to my opponents. If this happened to me, I know I'd be gun shy--wouldn't you? After the flop, wouldn't you be thinking you might be facing a pocket high pair?

Maybe the answer is to raise with more hands, but if I raise early with KQ, and get re-raised, I'm not confident (though again, I've gotten good information someone out there has a top hand, probably better than mine).

Basically, what I've seen is that a preflop raises scares folks off. That's what it is designed to do.

But on the other hand, I've seen a lot of hands played when nobody thought anyone had anything. You dont have to have a good hand to bet, just a feeling that your hand might be the best one out there. My feeling is that I'd rather limp in and PLAY with AA against multiple opponents than raise preflop, thin out the field, bet on the flop and then have them all go bye-bye. --Maybe I should check or just call after the flop? How would you play AA or KK ?

[cnfuzzd]

You, sir, are weak-tight, and need to not be such. Sun tsu doesnt know [censored] about poker.

peace

john nickle

[coyote]

For one thing, not raising those Aces let's people play trash hands cheaply, then when their 96o hits a K 9 6 flop, you really don't have much idea you're behind. Probably won't find out until the turn or river, depending on how you both play it.

Obviously this doesn't happen much, but the idea is, you have the very best hand possible (preflop) you want to charge people the max to play their bad hands, which at low limits, they WILL do. Or as someone else mentioned, you are at the WRONG TABLE!

In the above example, your raise may well have prevented the opponent from playing the 96o, winning you the hand. And you probably would have gotten play from any K's out there.

[Wolffink]

I just found this

Internet Texas Hold'em by Mathew Hilger


p 105

"Consider slow playing your premium hands AA KK and AKs in a tight, aggressive game."

[bugstud]

So why are you playing in that type of game when there are loose, easy games to crush?

[Bukem_]

This is assuming your opponents play well, and you can use this occasional tricky move to trap them for more bets.

You should also be raising with other hands than these, so they aren't going to assume you can only have these few hands.