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The G-Spot: Sizing Your Preflop Raises

By Tony Guerrera   07/25/2007

When it comes to preflop raises in no-limit hold’em, many players look for rigid guidelines. They want rules such as “raise to three big blinds if you’re the first to enter the pot and add an additional big blind for each limper.” With only 169 possible starting hands, such guidelines for preflop play are seemingly possible. However, no two games are the same when playing poker hands. You should have some basic guidelines for when you’re facing unknown opponents. But once you get a better feeling for how your opponents play, you should optimize your preflop play accordingly.

What’s the Going Rate?

As soon as you sit at a table, your only job is to acquire as much information as possible. One key piece of information will be the going rate for preflop raises. See how much other players are raising to and how the players at your table respond to raises of different amounts. In many online games, opening for a raise to three big blinds will usually win you the blinds uncontested or leave you shorthanded postflop. Meanwhile, in many live games, opening to three big blinds may result in you being in a multiway pot postflop (the $100NL, $200NL, and $400NL games at Commerce, LA’s Friendliest Casino, immediately come to mind).

What Do You Want to Accomplish?

Knowing how your opponents respond to raises of varying sizes, you can then focus on answering the question you should always ask yourself before taking an action at the poker table: “what do I want to accomplish?” Whenever you do anything at the poker table, you need a reason.

If you want to take the pot immediately because you have a good hand and the pot is already large, but you don’t like the postflop playability of your hand, then make your preflop raise large enough to make everyone fold. If you have a big pocket pair, you’d usually prefer to be heads-up or three-handed, meaning that you should make the raise that will get you one or two callers. By thinking about your preflop raises through this filter, you’ll be focusing on goals first and raise sizes second instead of solely focusing on raise sizes.

Be Flexible and Take Everything In

Many people complain about certain tables, saying things like, “I raise to three big blinds with my aces, get six callers, and someone always seems
to suck out on me.” My response to these people is always, “change the size of your preflop raises so that less people call.” Properly sizing your preflop raises, like pretty much everything else in poker, is ultimately about being flexible and being aware of all the variables at play.

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Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers.

The G-Spot: Some Merits of Calling

By Tony Guerrera

"If it's good enough to call with, then you should raise," cry the pundits. This advice is from poker's hands past...saying this is like saying that the best way to start a fire is to rub two sticks together! Most games will require you to trend aggressive, but completely ignoring the potential merits of passive play in certain circumstances is a big mistake.

Calling Is Sometimes the Best Way to Extract Maximum Value

Suppose you're in position against a highly aggressive and observant opponent who has the tendency to fire two bullets when he bluffs. He raises preflop, and you call in position. You flop top-pair/top kicker.

If you have a somewhat tight image, a raise on the flop might induce your opponent to fold immediately, meaning that you won't get any further value from your
hand. By just calling, you risk the possibility that your opponent will catch up on the turn. But since your call on the flop keeps the pot small, losing the occasional pot when your opponent catches up isn't a disaster. In the long run, calling and inducing certain aggressive opponents to bet into you on later betting rounds can be more profitable than showing aggression immediately.

Calling Keeps Pots Smaller

In limit hold'em, the size of bets and raises is constrained. In no-limit hold'em, they aren't. Your bottom line will improve dramatically if you keep the following in mind: play big pots when you know you have an edge, and play small pots when you're uncertain as to where you stand. By calling in dangerous situations, you keep pots smaller.

Calling Allows a Hand to be Played Across Four Betting Rounds

When you reraise preflop or on the flop, you set-up a giant pot...one in which any mistake is disastrous because of the quantity of chips involved. And because
players usually won't have sufficient chips to make it to the river without going all-in during such large pots, you're forced to make big decisions without
having four betting rounds in which you can gain information. As a skilled player, the more information you have at your disposal, the better. Sometimes, the way to maximize your available information is to have a hand play out across four betting rounds instead of only one or two.

Balance is the Key

It's usually no good to be incessantly aggressive, just like it's usually no good to be perpetually passive. Some situations will exist in which you'll get lots of value, and possibly more information, by 3-betting your foes on the flop. Others will exist in which check/calling all the way to the river is best. As always, be flexible, and don't literally abide by every one-liner poker edict you encounter.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers.