100 bb effective:

Villain raises to 4bb with AA = good.

Villain raises to 8bb with AA = bad.

200 bb effective:

Villain raises to 8bb with AA = good.

Villain raises to 4bb with AA = great!

Note: good and bad in the sense that we are going to play our hand.

You're right of course, and that's my point, there are lots of games where 8bbs or 10bb raises are callable with speculative hands, so it's all relative/all depends. That's all I mean to say.

Actually I think in super deep games, making it REALLY big OOP is a mistake with most of one's range is asking to be exploited because there's no range configuration I can think of that doesn't let you get exploited; you either make it so big with strong hands that you only get action from better hands, or you play too weak and get 2x or 2.5x 3bet tonnes by people IP who're willing to go batsh*t with you. When you're REALLY deep you can't even stack off KK comfortably preflop, so you're really tied when EP. I'd rather raise smaller EP but have a wider range that's tougher to play against. Having a range of only AK QQ+ actually makes you SUPER easy to play against when you're deep (how many flops can you stack off QQ KK AA and AK on when 200bbs deep, I mean?), but doing 8x with your entire loosish range is just burning money, too.

But back to the issue in question; if villain makes it 8x with entire range deep, that's even better for us, imo, as we can go street with him and make it 18bbs. If he plays so tightly that we can't bluff him much, then we can call and make life hell for him postflop and put him on a very narrow range of hands.

I have tried raising anywhere from $6 to $12 PF if first to act and/or no limpers before me with different results (i'll add $2 more to the raise for each limper). Obv it is table/players dependent too. Lets discuss.

Why would you have a standard raise amount? Raises should vary widely. Anything that resembles a pattern is exploitable by good opponents. There is no 'right' answer, it all depends on the table dynamics and opponents.

Merged this with our "best of" thread discussing the same thing. We haven't had this discussion in a while, but keeping it in one place made sense to me.

Those who posted in the last iteration, still feel the same way, or have game conditions and/or your views changed?

The whole certain amount plus one limper equation is a little skewed. Raise as much as your opponents will call. Adjust to loose and nit games. Oh, and you don't have to balance your range in live low stakes. Most players aren't paying any attention, besides us twoplustwo lurkers lol.

Most aren't paying attention, but I've noticed a couple of scenarios where even the donkeys can't help but pay attention.

1. The table has established a "standard" raise. It could be that everyone at the table raises to $12 pre-flop and they've all fallen into this habit. When you sit down and start raising to something else (either smaller or larger), players will notice.

2. If you establish a "standard" raise by always coming in for the same amount. Again, people will notice when you suddenly make it more than the "standard" that you've established.

Either way, someone will usually make a comment if they've noticed. If they do, know that you're being watched and use that info to your advantage. The argument here is to not let a "standard" raise be established, either by you or the table. Without a "standard" raise, it's a lot easier to mix up your raises for a variety of reasons without being noticed.

I want to keep this short and to the point. Something I've been struggling with is how much to raise, whether it be an opening or an iso.

The games I play (1/3 and .25/.50 home game) often have loose-passive players who are willing to cold call and limp call 4.5x-6x. I understand everything is situational but in general, should I be opening larger amounts if I know I'm going to get sticky cold calls, should I iso players 6x+ if I know theres a good chance I'll get a limp call by a worse hand? ANY help is appreciated! If anyone could take the time to PM me that would be cool!

JShep, read the above thread. I merged your question in with it. You'll see that the question is somewhat controversial. Pick your answer based on your game conditions, but I suspect that the large raise camp will fit your game conditions better.

Feel like MD Live and Horseshoe Baltimore are some ideal candidates for this discussion.

at the 1/2 or 1/3 games you can fairly regularly go 3-5 on the flop with a $15-18+ raise.

Anyone have any thoughts on this specific topic on those specific venues? (Sorry, little specific, I know)

If you have a bunch of loose-passive players who are sticky and will limp-call a lot so that most normal raises will lead to multi-way pots, I prefer limping with hands I would normally raise with instead of raising larger. If stacks are deeper, I might be more likely to make pot-builder raises with hands where I expect to be called.

I'm pretty happy playing in a game with a bunch of multi-way pots against a loose-passive lineup, so I wouldn't try to change the flow of the game and I am pretty good at targeting an aggressive player who is clearly uncomfortable with that type of game.

MD Live is my primary game. There are definitely tables where $15-18 will attract multiple callers. There are also tables where $10-12 will get it heads up most of the time. Really depends on the table dynamics.

This thread brings up memories.

I cant believe all the talk about balancing ranges in a 1/2 game in the first few pages. Games must be geting softer because its nothing I have had to worry about. Especially against tourist in Vegas?? You are only playing like 150 hands max against them and you worry about balance?

I thought viewers might appreciate revisiting this post. This is what I often find - not all rec players pay attention - some rec players do pay attention and are usually applying info learned about opponents that has value- some rec players some rec players pay attention but often times apply info that has no value in the decision making process. $7 vs. $6 raise.......

IMHO, I believe that if you think the vast majority of rec players are non-thinking players, I think that's a leak in your game. If you can identify a rec player who thinks & confirm whether he's applying the info he's gained appropriately, that's +Ev.

$7 vs. $6 raise

Agreed there. Some people are very good at observing others but terrible at the strategy of poker. You may say they lack strategic fundamentals, but are great at reading the table.

As for the original question about how much to raise AQs OOP, it all depends on table dynamics, as others have stated. It only makes sense to raise AQ if others are calling with AJ and worse. To put it into perspective: In the early stages of deepstack 10K buyin tournaments, AQo is garbage because it doesn't flop well, it makes medium strength paired hands that are transparent, it loses big pots and wins small ones. But in your local 1-2$ game, where people are raising to 15$ and getting 5 callers, AQs is going to dominate a lot of hands players call with. In fact, raising more is the one way we eek out a little edge, provided opponents aren't awake. If you're calling $10 when you're calling, but you're betting $20 when called, you're developing an edge, provided the table doesn't adjust, which it may or may not. Saying that is bloating the flop OOP belies your lack of faith in your post-flop skills imo. You don't have to stack off on an A-2-3 board when you flop TPGK and if you were to put a lot of chips in the middle that would probably be the case whether the initial raise was for 10 or 20$, either way. Vs at 1-2 are very poor at adjusting to pot sizes and are much more inclined to bet in absolute sizes. Ie. I raise to 10$ and get 5 callers, V is betting 20$ into a $50, vs. I raise to $20, get 5 callers, villian bets $30 into a $100 pot. They know to bet more the bigger the pot is, but it generally isn't a 1 to 1 ratio, so bloating the pot doesn't make decisions are difficult as one may think.

so im a winning player over 300 hrs at 1/2(17.5/ hr) and 40 hrs at 2/5(52$/hr).

ive been raising to between 12-22 usually around 16 preflop, and get 2 or more callers but most of the time they have speculative hands that will just fold to a c bet unless they have a draw or something, would it be better to raise smaller like 7-9$ so the hands that i dominate will come in???? i know when i already have my 2$ in the pot and someone makes it 7 and everyone calls that i call to. in my 2/5 game we have a poker room celebrity (everyone in the room knows him) where most people are rasing 20-45 preflop hes always making it 15 . i watched a deucescracked video series beating SSNL with danzasmack and he talks about raising to 8$ and if we get multiple callers were in a good game.

I moved your post to this discussion. As you can see when you read the above, it's controversial. Personally, my favorite part about moving up from 1/2 is that now I can get value from my raises, narrow the field, and narrow the ranges I"m against, all without having to raise so big that I lose a lot of post flop maneuverability.

On those rare occasions I find myself at 1/2 these days though, I still raise huge for fat value.

Whoa!

Ahhh...good ol' days when people still discuss pokah.

In my 1/2 games some days there are BLIND opens and blind raises.

And opening $22 or $26 to go gets three to four callers routinely.

I prefer that to small formulaic raises and am willing to ride the variance train to get paid way more if a hand stands up.

And on other days with other players $10 go wins the blinds every time.

I can win $9 an hour just stealing blinds!

I prefer more action even if they make a hand now and them.

Yesterday a player UTG opens $58 blind all in. Two callers - one also all in - and including the button with AA. Blind Man Bluff hits two pair with his ATC and wins the pot. You don't want to play there? I do.

But that's just me.

I suggest that you re-read:

And SABR's subsequent posts.

There is a pre/post flop balance that goes along with raise size pre too. Sure raising 3-5x is optimal and allows us better opportunities to manuever post flop, but if it's getting called in 5 spots every time our post flop edge decreases just as much. It's an adjustment thing. Sometimes you have to nit it up and rise the 7-8x raises because stacks are deep and whales be gamboooolin and other times we have to widen our range because the 3-5x is working and the table isnt as gamboooly. Etc etc etc. I think the worst table to be at possibly is a short stacked table where people are opening 8x+. Then we should just get up.

Point is... Adjust. There is no wrong or right answer. Obviously we all want to play on the table where our skill is greater than all the others and we can make standard/optimal 3-5x raises, but we can't always get that table.

Wow, I agree with Sabr's last post. The memories, man....

However, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and declare a winner in the 3 way discussion between Sabr, DGI, and HWSNBN. Yeah, definitely.

Only 1 of those posters is still playing poker so I think there's a clear winner from this ancient discussion.