You will no doubt have read in numerous pieces of poker literature about what has become known as the standard raise in NL Texas Holdem. If it as been folded around to you in a $25-$50 NL Hold’em game then if you want to raise with a hand like AK then make it either 3 to 4 times the big blind so $150-$200 in this example.
But many of today’s professional players are steering away from this conventional wisdom and making “minimum raises” and this is a tactic that I regularly employ in my games. I frequently only raise to about 2-21/2 times the big blind. You may think that this “under-raise” merely serves to keep players in and you would be right. Let me go into the reasons behind why I do this.
Firstly it helps to stop other poker players from raising themselves. A player who raises to about 4-5 times the big blind seems to be signalling that they would be happy to just take the blinds and other players seem to instinctively know this. Many poker players MAY view this raise as a tricky attempt to induce action with a premium hand and would be reticent about re-raising with hands like AJ or AQ so they just call and this gives me the initiative because they are merely responding to my action.
So my minimum raise helps to prevent other players from raising themselves. Secondly, we get back to the subject of wanting to play hold’em from the flop onwards. This is where my opponents will make the mistakes. I want them to MAKE those mistakes because pre-flop play is a lot more straight forward than flop play. They are not going to make nearly as many errors before the flop so this is not an area where I am going to make the most money.
So my minimum raise gets the initiative, prevents raises and keeps players in so that they can lose even more money in the more complicated betting rounds. Three great examples of just why minimum raising is a great poker strategy.
Another reason why the minimum raise is very useful is to do with controlling the size of the pot. Let us say that our “standard player” makes a “standard raise” of four times the big blind with AJ suited from middle position after it has been folded to them. In our $25-$50 they have raised to $200 and the big blind calls.
The flop comes 8-5-2 rainbow and the big blind checks. There is now $425 in the pot and the pre-flop raiser feels that he has to follow through with a bet. A “standard bet” here is somewhere between half pot and pot. We shall meet halfway and make a ¾ pot size bet of $300.
Suddenly they have put $500 into this pot and what if they get called. The pot would now be $1025 and our player would be forced with a very tricky decision on the turn whether they improve or not. If the turn card fails to improve their hand and the big blind checks again then what is he to do. Top players would fire a second barrel but this would mean ANOTHER bet in the region of $700-$800.
But look what would happen with a minimum raise to only $125 before the flop and only the big blind calling. Now instead of $425 in the pot before the flop there is only $275 in the pot and a ¾ pot size bet on the flop would only be about $210 instead of $300 in the previous example.
My strategy also has the advantage that it does not look to my opponent that I am trying to “blast them” from the pot because some of them will suspect that I am raising with a big hand. So now you can begin to understand just why I use this tactic and all of the potential uses and advantages that it has.
Playing successful NL hold’em beyond a certain level is all about messing with your opponents train of thought and understanding how they think and then plotting strategies to counter how they think and the minimum raise is a tactic to take such an advantage.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson
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