I'm wondering what should my raise size preflop be at a table where everyone is limping $3 all the time with some occassional $12 raises and stuff?

I feel uncomfortable playing with $300 making it $20 preflop getting 4 callers or something and then letting their fishy suited stuff cracking my big pairs... I feel chicken and fold them when raised, because these players would just call if they werent that good..

My standard would be to open to $10 with no limpers, $15 with 1/2 limpers, $20 with 3/4 limpers. Add $5 if oop.

Don't be so worried about getting a lot of flatters. You'll hit sets and flushes too and yours will always be better than theirs. And they're not always going to smash the flop so you will pick up big pots a lot of the time.

Isn't the standard at live games like 8x? My friend raises to 16$ pre at 1/2 so I assume, at 1/3 it should be 24$ or something?

Also, remember that these players just don't fold even to 25$ opens, so is it a better idea to raise bigger OR keep it small so that we lose the minimum when their suited crap hits..?

Also, can it be a better idea to buy in a little smaller, like 70bbs at these kind of games? Because sometimes, AA/KK gets cracked too with their junk..

I don't really like the overly large opens. I think it makes you very unbalanced. I guess it's ok if no one is paying attention, but it still feels ugly to me.

Worrying about getting cracked is not the right mindset. If you raise AA and get 7 callers, you just have to adjust your play for the flop. You still have way the best of it equity wise, you just have to realize that you're not going to have the best hand on the flop all that often. But when you do, you're going to win a really big pot. Just be cautious on wet boards and don't be afraid to give up the hand. The only reason to be worried about getting your hand cracked is if you don't have the discipline to fold it.

Blasting preflop with 8x+ huge raise sizings is bad. It creates terrible SPR and puts us in tough spots when we miss.

At 1-3 i would make it $10+2 for each limper from the HJ to the button, and from UTG to MP i would make it $12+2 for each limper. However, your raise size should never really be static, sometimes you will need to alter it depending on what situations are likely to develop, stack sizes, etc


Also, always buy in full

Vary your raise sizes based on the SPRs that you want for your hands. I would have no problem raising anywhere from 12-40 at a table like this. The more they will call, the more I will raise until I find their pain threshold.

Edit: Oh, and I'm guessing 300 is full for this game, yeah?

in this 1/3 game what denominations of chips do you use?

if it uses 1 and 3, i would open to 9 and raise limpers to 10/13/16/19 depending on their stack size, players left to act and the blinds.

if it uses 1 and 5, i would open to 10 and raise limpers to 13/18/23

in my head i think this speeds up the game and makes it so the dealer has to provide as little change as possible. maybe in the long run, i get an extra hand every two hours if the dealers dont have to fiddle around making change before dealing a flop.

if you happen to have good dealers who can provide change quickly without slowing down the game. you are lucky and im super jealous of you.

for the actual poker reasoning for raise sizes, i dont think there is a wrong raise size pre. if there is a random calling everything preflop, make it 25 to go with your premiums. if there are fish behind you, raise smaller with something like JTs. if you want to play more heads up pots, raise it 8x or even 10x.

there is a ton of value if 4 players limp in 1/3 and you raise to 23, get the pot heads up and win it on the flop with a cbet of 30.

These are the kind of tables u should love to play on. If $20 is getting called in 4 spots, raise to $30-35 instead. Flop tpgk+ on most flops and bet bet bet and get it in (but prob folding to a raise from a passive player). They just won't flop two pairs+ often enough

Is this highly exploitable??? Yes but if nobody is exploiting u for it then it doesn't matter and can be optimal at times. At these tables I stick to raise with AQ+,TT+ from OOP and may increase raising range a bit in late position at times. Again....highly exploitable and unbalanced but if people are that bad then it doesn't matter

Two varying opinions in this thread...

The answer to this question is "the largest amount that they will call". You want donks putting in huge %'s of their stacks in with terrible ROI.

At loose tables where you might not have a lotta FE, you should be first playing very passively preflop and only raising with premiums. Don't "punish the limpers" with mediocre hands, cuz it ain't going to work. With premium hands, your goal is to get the pot HU or 3way at worst with a raise and set an SPR around ~4 so you can easily stack off postflop on safe boards with TP / overpair. If you don't think an opening raise can accomplish that with your big hands, then limp/raise them, and play postflop very passively if it limps around (check/folding a lotta flops if fireworks break out). Otherwise, see a flop for cheap with speculative hands, hopefully in position, and stack one of these idiots when you make a hand.

FWIW, my typical open at my 1/3 NL table is $15+, and as soon as there is one limper it's easily $20+. Again, one of my primary goals with a raise is to narrow the field, and typically that is going to be larger raise size than lots of your opponents are opening with. If they are going 5ways to the flop with their raise size, they are making a big mistake; don't be them. My secondary goal would be to create a smallish SPR where I can stack off safely postflop with TP, but sometimes this isn't always possible, especially with bigger stacks, in which case I'm pot controlling raised pots postflop (by letting a street check thru and not playing for stacks).

GimoG