Excellent work!

What was the W%@SD for the min raisers?

Wow! Great post!I don't think I've been playing fast enough with my monsters when confronted with a min-raise. Very intriguing!

Since this thread popped up, I've been trying to find an old post on mini-raising theory that I thought was pretty good. Thought I'd post it here to sort of continue the theme. It's basic premise is pretty much backed up by ddagt's numbers. Anyway.


The AMA Theorem

OP, I have been folding my marginal hands to minraises since you posted this a large % of the time. I think you have saved me a fair amount of money in the past few days, and will continue to do so.

Maybe this will dispel the whole "I don't want to be weak and fold to a min-raise" thing.

It has for me. I have folded to at least 75% of minraises since I read the OP. I have seen two of those shown down and in both cases minraiser had flopped a set.

What are you saying here? The SPR is a one-time shot that is a snapshot before any postflop betting occurs.

Min-raise bluff, followed by a "value-bet " bluff on the next street has always worked well for me. It just screams big hand. Of course, you've got to pick your spots.

Simply a fantastic post. A+

As a corollary of the fact that a minraise means you are behind and your opponent is going to the mat with his hand, and that means weak made hands like TPTK don't do well against a minraise, let me just add what does do well against a minriase: draws.

No study, but let me just give some anecdotes instead.

I was playing on one of the tightest 100NL tables I've ever been on last night, seriously like 9% players to a flop and $5 avg pot, so of course I'm stealing blinds like its my job. Well, some dude minraises me from the button, leaving me OOP and holding some suited connectors. But he gave me great odds! I call, outflop him by hitting TP and FD, and get it in on the flop. (Results: I miss my kicker, miss my FD, but hit a backdoor straight which must've really tilted Mr. Minriaser holding aces.) Lesson 1: Min-raises give you great pot odds.

About an hour later, at a different table, I'm stealing blinds again and the same villain calls my PFR from position. I flop a FD and fire again, he calls. Turn brings me a OESD to go with my FD, so I second barrel and he hits me with the dreaded minraise. I snap call because there's still like 70bbs effective stacks on the river. (Results: I hit my flush and got his entire stack after he hit middle set on the flop, and I didn't even get an "fu" in chat.) Lesson 2: Min-raises give you great implied odds.

I think it's a combination of having more fold equity and more pot equity: if you get called you have more pot equity on the flop then on the turn obv.

+1. This is NOT idiocy. NH, Kurt.

I agree, but the program doesn't have the smarts to go into that much detail, just pattern matches the final results. My assumption (like yours) is that a turn min-raise means a lot stronger hand than a flop min-raise. FWIW, I did look at the "high card" hands, and a majority were flop min-raises, not turn min-raises, so I think that is a valid assumption.

Very good question. I updated the program, the min-raiser won 63% of the time he went to showdown.

I thought it would be a little higher than that, maybe ~75%. I looked into some of the losing hands. A majority of those were due to either the caller improving to a better hand by the river (eg flush came in, paired kicker for better 2-pair), or min-raiser was behind the whole way with a decent hand (eg lower 2-pair). A minority were just top pair hands that didn't improve.

63% is still really high considering the went to showdown rate. Considering that the caller of a min raise needs either a big draw or already made hand to continue.

This is a key stat, thanks for the follow up. I also thought the win rate would be higher, but your additional data combing went along way towards explaining this.
An outstanding post. I'm off to the tables now, to min raise my way to fame and fortune.
PS...my future screen name= "Min Raising Lite".

It would be interesting to know the % of min raiser hands at showdown that were better than TPTK.

If possible,It would even be better to know % of their hands better than TPTK at the time of the min raise.

Very nice post.

It would be interesting to know these same stats behind min-donkbets.

Unfortunately the program isn't smart enough to read the cards and figure out what the hand value is, it just pattern matches the final hand. But I can tell you the answer to your first question is somewhere between 76% and 97%.

I'm not sure if enough of those hands go to showdown to get a large enough sample size.

I've read (and implemented) to basically consider it a check and act accordingly. So if I've raised preflop, and someone min-donkbets into me on flop, I just raise (but consider it a CB) nearly the size of the pot. Most of the time they fold in my experience. Interesting to hear if others have the same view...

I think its far far more important to know what the minraiser had at the time of the minraise, than showdown

because highcard/1pair improve a lot of the time

Fantastic post ddagt, IMO one of the best since the forum split!

I only had time to skim and still took a lot from it, bookmarked so I can re-read it in more depth when I'm not at work.

Great post, I really love to see people putting such an effort into these matters.

Not to hijack but I wanted to say I feel I've been getting minraised pre at nl50 quite often the past few weeks. I've never had much trouble with minraises postflop but I have had trouble determining hand ranger from preflop minraises. It has been relatively effective against me, as the villian takes away the betting lead and does so with the absolute minimum investment. Any thoughts on this matter?

[QUOTE=ddagt;2758240]Introduction:

Data:

Total minraises: 12277
Total showdowns: 6475
Showdowns that min-raiser saw: 6425

What this is showing is that 53% of hands that had a flop or turn min-raise went to showdown. This is important for the min-raiser to know; half of the time you min-raise, you will have to showdown.

But look at the showdowns that the min-raiser saw - 99%! This is important for the min-raisee (is that a word?). If someone min-raises you, if you play back, they will go to the bitter end with you.

Straight flushes: 8
Four of a kinds: 61
Full houses: 565
Flushes: 351
Straights: 524
Three of a kinds: 839
Two pairs: 1838
One pairs: 1595
High cards: 165

QUOTE]


IMO I don't think this really tells us anything w/o having other showdown results to compare it too. For example what do the results of the players in the sample look like in all other showdowns, showdowns they made normal raises/how often do they fold etc.

navs, why would it not tell us anything?

It tells us a lot about people who do minraise a lot. Or are you saying that the minraising players go to showdown even when they did not minraise?


OP, on a related subject, can you use the program you made to analyze what flop donkbets generally mean? What I mean specifically is that a player1 limps, player2 raised in position preflop and player1 calls. Then player1 makes a 1/3 pot bet post flop.

This again is something that is based on notes, but I would really love to know the statistics on unknown players doing this.

There is no baseline to compare the results agaisnt...

OP results show:

Min raised sd:
Straight flushes:0.1%
Four of a kinds:1.0%
Full houses:9.5%
Flushes:5.9%
Straights:8.8%
Three of a kinds:14.1%
Two pairs:30.9%
One pairs:26.8%
High cards:2.8%

for example if all other raises lead to sd results like:

Straight flushes:0.1%
Four of a kinds:0.7%
Full houses:6.3%
Flushes:3.9%
Straights:5.9%
Three of a kinds:9.4%
Two pairs:20.6%
One pairs :27.9%
High cards:25.2%

or results like:

Straight flushes:0.4%
Four of a kinds:3.0%
Full houses:14.3%
Flushes:8.9%
Straights:13.2%
Three of a kinds:21.2%
Two pairs:20.4%
One pairs :17.7%
High cards:1.0%

We would have a better indicator of the strength of the min raise relative to a normal raise from the players in the sample.

Its like saying I am a good coach because after hitters finish my program they go on to hit .300 the next year. More info is needed before I can claim that my coaching is a success.