Theory and Practice-Preflop

[Zybomb]

Here's a cut and paste of the the post


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I meant to comment on this as well.

In David Sklansky's new Book No Limit Holdem: Theory and Practice, there is a section on preflop raises where he goes against common practice to raise the same amount with every hand (or vary it by position). He says you should want to play big pots with certain hands and thus raise more and smaller pots with other hands and thus raise less.... he states that the information you give away by allowing opponents to put you on a tighter range of hands is trivial compare to the benefits of deciding the pot size depending on your hand (he encourages you to occassionally mix up your raises, saying that simply mixing in a few different amounts here and there is enough to keep the opponent from getting too good of a read on your hands) Im not gunna quote the entire section, but he basically states there are different reasons for raising (for value, for isolation, to blind steal, as a semi bluff, for deception, and to manipulate pot sizes) and you should raise different amounts depending on the reason why.

He goes behind what he calls the Pot Size Philosophy, which basically states big bets and big pots are for big hands.

He states that big raises make big pots and small (or no) raises make small pots.

Without recopying his example, he uses pocket 4s in this instance. You're playing 5-10 holdem with 1500 stacks. You raise to $30 on the button when its folded to you and your opponent calls from the BB with AKo

The flop comes K 9 4, and your opponent leads out with 60

He basically says that theres 1400 left in his stack and u wanna figure out how to get it

If you make a move early in the hand, a good player will know he's in trouble, and even if you smooth call the flop and then smooth call his 120 or so bet on the turn, he's gunna know somethings up and either lead with a blocker bet on the river or check.

He estimates you'll make a few hundred more off the hand, not 1400

He compares this to raising to 60 instead preflop, making the pot 120. Your opponent now leads for 120 and you call making the pot 360. If he pots it again on the turn and you move all in, theres 1900 in the pot and 800 to him to call with TPTK and 2.4:1....which may may it hard pressed to fold. Or you could min raise the turngiving a 1420 pot and 360 to him 4:1 odds, then obviously committ him into calling the last shell on the river (although a good player would realize if he calls this 360 the rest is going in on the river)

The downside to this is the more you raise preflop the more getting reraised costs you, which is why he says when raising with speculative big pot hands (small pairs for example) raise enough to build a big pot, but no more.

He says with a hand like AK a $60 raise makes no sense, as rarely can AK win a big pot, since if you connect it will likely scare away many players unless they can beat TPTK. Furthermore you can win a moderate pot if you run into AT/AJ or KJ/KT -- so why would you make a larger bet preflop and force these hands to fold preflop?

Very interesting section with some interesting points...although Im not sure if I agree with it completely (simply because I think an aware opponent would eventually pick up the type of hands you are raising different amounts with, even if you mix it up every once in a while) -- just thought I'd add this in, since we were discussing pre flop raises (the section didnt mention big pairs in the discussion)