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Chris Ferguson
August 1, 2005
I never get tired of saying it: If
you're the first to enter the pot in a
No-Limit Hold 'em game, never call. If
you aren't prepared to raise, throw
your hand away.
Why, you ask? Simple. By raising,
you put pressure on the blinds and the
other players at the table, making
them consider just how strong their
hands really are. Chances are that by
raising, you'll force marginal hands
to fold before you even see the flop,
limiting the number of players you
have to beat through the rest of the
hand.
OK, with that out of the way, the
next obvious question becomes: How
much should I raise?
To that, I say; it depends. First
off, you shouldn't allow the strength
of your to hand affect the size of
your raise. A tough poker game is like
real estate. The three most important
factors in deciding how much to raise
are: Location, location, location.
You always want to make your
opponents' decisions as difficult as
possible. In choosing the size of your
raise, you want to give the big blind
a tough decision between calling or
folding if the rest of the table folds
around to him.
Raising from early position is to
advertise a very strong hand - one
that can beat the seven or more other
players who still have to act. Since
you are representing such strength, it
doesn't take much of a raise to
convince the big blind to fold. Also,
since your hand is so strong, you
actually don't mind a call from the
big blind anyway. The real reason for
a small raise is that you have so many
players acting after you, any of whom
might wake up with a monster and
re-raise you.
When you raise in late position,
you're representing a hand that can
beat the two or three remaining hands.
This gives you a lot more freedom to
raise with marginal hands, but your
raise must be bigger or the big blind
can call too easily. Another reason to
raise more from late position is that
you're trying to put pressure on the
big blind to fold, not call and, more
importantly, you don't have as many
remaining opponents who can re-raise
you.
One of the most common mistakes in
No-Limit Hold 'em is coming in for a
raise that's too big. In early
position, you want to keep your raises
at about two times the big blind. With
four to six players to act behind you
when you're in middle position, raise
to about two and a half big blinds,
and raise to about three times the big
blind from late position.
If you're representing a big hand
by raising from early position, it
stands to reason that you'll only get
played with by huge hands. Why risk
four, five or more bets to win only
one and a half bets in the blinds when
you're often going to be running into
monsters along the way? If you're
holding A-Q rather than A-A and a
player comes over the top, you can lay
it down without having risked much.
Some beginners raise more with
their strongest hands to build a
bigger pot or raise less with these
monsters to get more action. Instead,
I recommend that you play your
starting hands the same way no matter
what you have. With A-A or A-J, raise
the same amount so you're not
telegraphing the strength of your hand
to watchful opponents. An exception
would be if you know your opponents
aren't paying attention and you feel
sure that you can manipulate them.
These numbers need to be modified
if there are antes. You should
generally add about half the total
antes to any raise. Your early
position raise should be two big
blinds plus half the total antes, and
three big blinds plus half the antes
for your late-position raises.
There are many loose live games
these days. If you find yourself in
one of these games and you can't steal
the blinds with a normal raise,
tighten up your starting requirements
slightly and make larger raises. If
this raise still can't take the
blinds, don't tighten up anymore, but
choose to raise an amount that you
expect to get called once or twice
behind you. Since your opponents are
playing too loose, take advantage of
it by building bigger pots when you
think you're getting the best of it.
The last exception is when you're
short-stacked. If making your typical
raise means putting over a quarter of
your stack in the pot, just go ahead
and move all in instead. Betting a
quarter of your stack before the flop
commits you to calling just about any
re-raise or, at the very least, it
gives you a very tough decision.
Moving all in here instead of raising
less forces the tough decision on your
opponents and eliminates one of your
tough calling decisions. All of which
brings us back to my first principle:
Avoid being the one to just call.
Chris Ferguson
Play Online Poker
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