Q&A #85: Resisting the Raising Reflex in No-Limit

Ok first off threads13
You are thinking in a too standardised way!

We should not think ok we have QJ the flop comes Q74r shoudl we raise or call here.
Adjust your play to suit your opponent and his tendancies.

Sometimes we should fold.
Other times we should call.
Other tiems we should raise.

In your example, we need to look at your opponents style of play and their tendancies, to determine their range. Once we decide what their range is we can easily make a decision.

For instance we know villain could have a set leading in here, but his overall range suggests we are ahead most of the time, adn that his calling a raise range is pretty wide too (ie he will call with a worse hand most times) therefore this becomes a raise for value.

If we believe villain is betting with a wide range, but his calling range is narrow, then raising for value has no merit as he will fold out our value raises. Instead we should just call, play the next street, and determine his range using his actions.

This is probably the one most people dont understand. WE play QJ hit TP and oyu wnat to fold on the flop.

Well Yes
Some situation calls for a flop fold!
For instance if we raise preflop, and a villain calls us. Thnen he suddenly leads into us on the flop.We know he is tight passive. What range does that?
If he has never lead into us and usually check-called down with a good marginal hand then this often suggests we are behind, and we should fold out early on in the deal.

A good example of this is here:
I should have folded but didnt…….

Villain is 30/3/1.35
Image is reasonable.Been aggressive but not that wild and didnt expect a lot of playback here.

Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 2: Villain 1 ( $116.15 USD )
Seat 3: Villain 2 ( $113.12 USD )
Seat 5: Hero ( $124.80 USD )
Seat 4: Villain 3( $100 USD )
Seat 1: Villain 4 ( $34.25 USD )
Villain 2 posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
Villain 3 posts big blind [$1 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Kh Qh ]
Hero raises [$4 USD]
Villain 4 folds.
Villain 1 folds.
Villain 2 calls [$4 USD]
Villain 3 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qd, 3h, 2s ]
Villain 2 bets [$6 USD]
Hero calls [$6 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 7c ]
Villain 2 bets [$17 USD]
Hero calls [$17 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Th ]
Villain 2 checks.
Hero checks.
Villain 2 shows [ Ah, Qc ]a pair of Queens.
Hero doesn’t show [ Kh, Qh ]a pair of Queens.

As you can see I should not have called the turn bet, and the flop bet is also questionable as his range is usually ahead to justify a fold.

Craig,

I agree that there are times that we always be adjusting to opponents. My question was related to the protection thing that Ed mentioned. I spent a long time playing limit HE so I do have the tendency to want to make a raise there. I was really thinking about that making a raise is often not good here. Although there certainly are times when it can be.

I think smooth calling is a better choice for most of these medium strength hands.

Here though:

…snip…
You decide to make a steal and raise to 3BB and only the BB calls. The pot is 6BB and your SPR is 16. This should be a good SPR to make a steal. The flop again comes Q74r and the BB bets 5BB.
…snip…

I think you mostly want to raise or fold. I think if you smooth you will end up getting priced into bad calls on the turn and river. Folding keeps you out of trouble. You were really on a steal and it didn’t work out. No shame in folding. If you raise, you are representing a hand you don’t have, but you are reclaiming your initiative. Most of the time, the villain is going to have a middle Q or a draw and won’t really be able to call. Sometimes he’ll have a monster and you can get away from the hand for the cost of that flop raise. You are passing the commitment threshold and the plan is not to commit. But, I think this is often a good time to disabuse this fellow of the notion that he can take control of your hand.

I like what Todd says here.

A min-raise does two things for you here, gets you back the initiative, and gains you information.

You have to switch it up of course.

But if you min raise, and he re-raises you it’s a pretty easy fold.

And if he calls your min-raise and bets into you on the turn then it’s an easy fold as well.

Smooth calling on the flop many times leads to larger priced in bad calls on the turn and river.

betting on the flop is usually small, and gains you information the cheapest, you need to see where he’s at. Often, if you smooth call the flop, turn and river… you could have just saved money by min-raising the flop and folding alot earlier.

I know people having over-pairs in this situation is rare, or people with sets is rare… but those will be the ones bet, bet betting into you, and if you are just smooth calling you never know what your’re up against and lose extra money unnecesarily.

I disagree here of the notion we should min-raise most of the time…….

It makes no sense.

What are we hoping to achieve by this min raise?
Also most players will not call and bet the turn.
They will usually either 3bet the flop, call the min raise and check-call the turn or check-fold it.

I believe postflop play there are only 2 reasons we should raise.

They are:

Bet/Raise for Value
Bet/Raise as a Bluff

What is this min raise going to achieve?
Well it may get us value from a worst queen, but then a normal good sized raise would have done the job too.

Raising as a bluff is stupid.
Why?? Because our hand has showdown value.
Raising to bluff here, then we might aswell have 23o! Our equity is better in just calling most of the time in these spots, and raising a decent amount when you think he will call with worst.

I also disagree, that every hand villain has here he is going to bet the turn and river.
How do we know this??? You are assumign that if we call he is going to fire again all the time. That just doesnt happen. If he does then we are ahead most of the time as he wont have hands often enough to keep firing.

Think properly about the reason your min raising does and what situation it gets us in.
If he overplays because he calls small donk min raises with a weaker queen, but he wouldnt call a proper raise then min raise him, however this usually gives info on the type of hand you have if you make this more of a regular play.

Craig i disagree with you.

Yes AK has nice heads up value.

But alot of our moneys from AK comes from fold equity, it’s almost like a semi bluff. You can make money by everyone folding, and since it’s AK if you get called then you always have a 33% chance of hitting your flop to back you up… and it dominates weaker aces that miss the flop. So thats why we raise with AK and not 23… our AK has power even when called, when 23 has none when we are called. yes AK is a psychological hand, and we could play 23o just like it, but when we need the goods to back up play, then AK provides it when needed.

Min raise limping may stimulate raises after us when we are UTG, when action is back on us we can re-raise big to gain the most fold equity, if they call our re-raise then we still have a great heads-up hand.

If no one raises our limp/min-raise so what… who cares, the pot is small, if you only flop a good not a great hand then it’s easy to get away from since we have so little invested.

If I limp/min-raise with AA UTG and flop comes QQ2, I can get away from that flop easily when there are many players… who cares you have nothing invested! Only a donk would get stacked with that flop after min limpin/raising with AA.

Cold Raising big in early position against good/tricky/sticky players is a donk move and is going to get you in trouble. Cold Raising big in early position against donks is fine because they will call with dominated hands.

I also like Ed’s play of min-raising in early position with small PP to “sweaten” the pot. This min-raise keeps are opponents off balance, so when we do min-raise with AK, AA or KK, and then re-raise big our opponents have no clue whats going on.

woops, sorry about above post craig, thought I was in a different thread, my bad sorry…