Introduction:

I always have trouble knowing what to do when min-raised. There are many hands of this type posted in this forum by others as well. Not all, but a lot of replies tell the poster to fold to the min-raise, probably because the replier assumes the poster lost the hand, which is why (s)he is posting it in the first place. But it cannot be correct to always fold to a min-raise, as others have pointed out. How often are you really behind?

To help figure this out, I wrote a program that parsed all the hand histories that I have, which are all from 25NL and 50NL. Any flop or turn min-raises that went to showdown were analyzed. I'm not sure how many hands that covers (would love to know where to find that in pokertracker), but I do have history on 33,000+ players. The sample size should be suffice.


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

These are the hands that the min-raiser had at showdown. One thing to keep in mind is that these are not the hands that the min-raiser had at the time of the actual min-raise (flop or turn). But it still shows some interesting things.

76% of the min-raisers had 2-pair or better hand.
97% had 1 pair or better.

The min-raiser obviously improved a lot of times after they did the min-raise, but not enough to invalidate the data (enhancements could be made to the program to figure out the hand at time of min-raise but hey, this is my hobby not my job).

For instance, for the 3-of-a-kind hands, ~80% of the time the min-raise was done with 3-of-a-kind made. The other ~20% were with overpairs or to a lesser extent top-pairs that improved.

Also, even if the min-raiser only had an overpair that turned into 2-pair, it still beats your top pair hand that turned into a smaller 2-pair.


RapidEvolution's recommendations:

Probably the best response to a post on min-raised hands that I've seen was from RapidEvolution (I'm not trying to pick on you, trust me). I'll list his/her recommendations here and give my thoughts on them. They are typically dead on (RapidEvolutions, not mine).

a) Take notes on players (especially regs) and get an idea of what a flop/turn raise means from that specific player. Some players love to coldcall hands like JJ/QQ out of the blinds and then attack postflop. If they start getting aggro, there's a larger chance that you're ahead with KK/AA.

Definetely take notes on the regs tendencies. The data shows that maybe ~20% of min-raises are with an overpair or top pair, so some people do min-raise without 2-pair or higher.

b) Consider the flop and villains AF. On wet flops, there are many more hands that villain can be raising you with. ... If it's a dry flop and you're getting action from a tight player, consider folding.

c) The c/c flop, c/r turn line is almost always a set. Most draws prefer to get money in on the flop where they have the most pot equity.

I totally agree that line is almost always a set. I think RapidEvolution meant draws want to get money in when they have the most FOLD equity, not pot equity, but I could be wrong. At any rate, I initially thought the villain would do a bigger raise than just a min-raise with a draw to increase their fold equity.

However, looking through the data, for the flush hands, ~40% of the min-raises were done with a flush draw (a lot of times with a pair as well) and not a made flush. This was a lot higher than I expected.

d) Be aware of the effective stack size and be less willing to get all-in with one pair hands as the effective stacks get bigger. Obv, you're not gonna fold AA against a shortstacker ever, but if you're 150BB deep you may want to consider alternate lines such as checking behind on the flop if the boards dry.

Spot on, you have to keep stack sizes in mind always. I have a hard time checking behind on flop with an overpair since my continuation-bet percentage is so high, but thats maybe a story for a different day.


Summary:

Take notes: Always important, but top pair would be easy to get away from if villain only min-raises with sets and you have no other draws. (Now I just gotta find the time to enter all this data into my player notes).

Not best hand: It's probably safe to say that when min-raised, your top pair hand is behind 75% of the time, or will be by the river without any draws. Maybe a little less than that for your overpair.

No Fold Equity: 99% of the time the min-raiser will go on to see a showdown, so don't try to bluff him/her out unless you have a good read/notes.

Great Implied Odds: This does give you GREAT implied odds if you have a good draw.

Let me know if you can think of some other data that would be interesting, I will try to fulfill any reasonable requests.

OP I WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU!!!

THIS POST IS GOLD, THANK YOU SIR!

FIRST

This is a fantastic post. Fantastic. NH, sir.

triple nh sir

quads nh...46 posts and this much insight, just proves new people to the forum arent automatically not good.

CMAR put this in FAQ

nh, interesting information.

Post of the month.

ddgat, i was looking for some strong info about the minraise and you came in the right moment!
If you make your post Nº 43 with such quality, i cant wait for your poh bah!!

If we face a minraiser on the flop, when we hold a drawing or second best hand we can check call for pot control?

Great post! Based on this it would be safe to say the following:

1) When facing a minraise - don't push back without a strong hand
2) If villian is generally going to showdown (as this post suggests) and you both have reasonable stack sizes, the implied odds should be there to call with many types of draws to exploit villain's mistake of betting too small.

I would be interested to see some data (if possible) on what % of the time the min-raiser bet the next street when called?

Interesting analysis. I wonder if a minraise-bluff would start to become effective against the right players?

Damn this is good.
You realise how hot this? I dont know whats going to be in pokertraker 3 but stuff like this should.

Do you mind if I ask what programming language you used for this? Was it AHK?

Hehe... can you check to see how often KK comes out on top when all the money goes in Preflop?

Also, if your having trouble getting your notes in on time check out this http://www.overcards.com/wiki/moin.cgi/SmartNotes

Thank you all for your compliments, glad it was helpful!

It depends on the stack sizes. If you have a good draw to go with it, and the stack sizes are big enough, then I think the only thing that makes sense is to just call since you have no fold equity. Or of course if most of your money is in already then you have to go all in. But I don't think raising gets you anything.

But if you know you have second best hand (always the tricky part, thats where reads/notes come in) and no draw, fold.

I agree, that would be interesting, probably pretty high. I'll try to find some time tomorrow to put that in.

Thanks. I actually sent a note to PT support to see if it existed today, they said those kind of stats would be in the next version, not sure when that comes out...

Not at all, I used Perl, pretty much just a lot of pattern matching and some math, program is ~300 lines long I think.

Don't hold your breath I'll look into it

Thanks, I'll take a look!

If you do end up doing it then it would have to be for effective stacks of 90bb+
If its a whole new program then dont worry - its not important, just curiosity.