Let's say you're holding a decent hand in early position, maybe TT or as strong as QQ.

If you make a normal raise, which you believe would be "correct" at a standard table, you think you'll get many callers at this table.

It's often advocated to adjust by raising larger to thin the field. I see some potential problems with this.

1) If your opponents adjust, as you hope, by folding, you've helped them correct their mistakes. Whereas before they were calling incorrectly (maybe only moderately incorrectly due to implicit collusion), they are now folding correctly.

2) As you raise larger, you are now more likely to be the one making a mistake.

3) If you don't raise large enough to accomplish your goal of thinning the field, you're now in the same situation with a bloated pot that will be harder to decommit from. And you're out of position to boot.


So you're really only happy if you manage to get 1 or 2 callers who still have bad hands.

What do you guys think?

There's usually a sweet spot for a raise size where you get (on average) the 'right' amount of action, such as getting it heads up vs the BB, or winning immediately. If you're routinely getting 3 callers (a bad result for you), then keep trying larger sizes until that stops happening. Exactly where that sweet spot is is going to depend on your opponents, and you'll only work it out by experimenting and seeing what typically happens in that game.

I don't mind having lots of callers with QQ, JJ, or TT. As long as you know how to get away from it postflop. Yes, you'll end up folding more often, but the pot is much larger than before and you are more likely to stack someone if you hit a set. The great thing about multiway pots is you can choose to be patient if you want to. If you are uncomfortable and the flop is disastrous you can get away from your hand easier.

Raising large reveals too much information. Even a recreational will know what you have. People will still make bad calls preflop, but you'll find yourself getting stacked by two pair+ or winning small pots post flop when they fold.

I would be happy if every time I opened QQ everybody at the table called. The more, the merrier.

The primary reason to raise isn't to thin the field. In tighter games we raise to win the blinds. In loose games where that almost never happens we are raising to build a pot where we have the best of it.

Raising and getting 6 callers with QQ is pretty awesome. The bigger the pot the better.

That would be a nightmare to me. I'd be x/f'ing so often and it would suck lol

Wow. I think that hand wants to play vs one and maybe two players max. 6 players and OOP is an absolute nightmare situation.