Hi all

I've recently been thinking about raising preflop bigger to isolate LIMPERS and prevent players from calling IP against us.

Commonly in the 1/1 games i used to play in, typical raise sizes are 7$ to 10$ and the occasional 15$ or 20$ raise which most players fold to, or play fit or fold postflop.

Due to the fact that in those games that i frequent, raise sizes are usually 7$ but it gets tons of limp callers and button blinds who joins in the gsme making it a family pot, raising to 7$ - 10$ seem to be a higher variance play(correct me if I'm wrong, thanks )

But, to open raise to 15$ or 20$ Everytime we enter a pot seem to be counter productive as well because players will catch that and might just limp call or limp raise knowing that their AA/KK, AK is good against our SC, SG, setminers(well, AA/KK, AK certainly is good against all of our draws^^^), and as well, it gives the players(especially alert regs) more incentive to 3bet bluff us PREFLOP.

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

27,720 trials (Exhaustive)

board: QJ2

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AA,KK,AK	47.12%	13,061	0
Ts9s	52.88%	14,659	0

For example ^^^

But of course, we shouldnt be putting anyone on any specific holdings but rather, a range.
So, there's no telling that we will have straight/flush draws here instead of just a straight draw, or a flush draw, or maybe even just a GUTSHOT or TP

So, how did you go about countering this issue?

I always bought in for 200$ but because I stopped playing for about 2 years and wanna get back into the game.

Due to my limited bankroll, 500$~, I wanna just start off on 0.5/0.5 games first, which actually shares the samr player pool as 1/1 and some 2/2 games.

I've been contemplating about buying for 100bb instead of 200bb even though the usual raise size feels like a 0.5/1.0 game instead and most players buyin for 100$ or more(1/1, 200$ or more and 2/2, 400$ or more and so on)

Please advice

All advice and suggestions are welcome

I honestly opened this post intending to write something helpful, but reading it all and attempting to understand it has given me a headache.

I raise the same amount every time I open and then I add 1bb for every limper in the pot.

I think your post is going to need some clarification before you can get any meaningful feedback. What problem are you saying we need to combat and what is it exactly you need help with?

You're creating a problem out of nothing. It's really quite simple:

1) Raise the same size with every hand you play - regardless of whether it's AA or JJ or T9s, you should have a standard preflop raise sizing that you choose with your entire range.

2) Raise larger in loose games and smaller in tight games - if the game is tight, then you should raise to 3x + x per limper ($6 + $2 per limper at a 1/2), whereas if the game is loose, then you should raise to 6x + x per limper ($12 + $2 per limper at a 1/2).

3) Be very selective (tight) with your preflop range - when you're in early position, you should be folding hands like ATo and 98s. Only play premiums. That will lower variance and ensure that you almost always have a range advantage over your opponents when you see a flop.

4) Fire a continuation bet on most flops when there are less than 4 players to the flop - if you raise to $12 preflop with AKo, 2 people call, then the flop comes J43r, we should fire out a Cbet of about $15 here, even though we missed the flop. There are some exceptions though, such as J98 flops where there is very little fold equity, but this rule applies on most flops, particularly when the board is dry and disconnected.

Hey guys thanks for pointing out

Will try my best to write it in a clearer manner, thanks once again

I was rereading Ed's book, "The Course".

In the book, he mentioned about open raising to 20$ preflop instead of a smaller sized bet in 1/2 games because it will do one of this two things, thin out the field so that we can play a more "normal" game with only one or two opponents instead of a family pot or to artificially create a shallower SPR so that we can GII when we have TP or better if it's a family pot.

The problem with raising to 20$ though, is that if V realises what we are doing our opponents can easily attack us when we raise to 7$ and avoid calling or raising us when we raise to 20$.

That's because we will be open raising to 20$ with good to great hands(big pp, big broadways), while open raising smaller to 7$ with not so great hands(SC, SG, setminers and suited BWX).

So I was wondering if we could mix up the two ranges up so that V will not be able to exploit us by how we size our open raising bet



Looking forward to hearing from you guys thanks once again!

Size your bet to accomplish what you want to do. Generally, you want to be up against 1-2 players on the flop. If you are seeing 4 or more, you need to increase the bet size. If everyone is folding, you bet less. The bigger the necessary bet, the tighter your range will want to be. There's no magic formula.

Note that this amount will change from table to table and over time.

I'll keep this open a bit, but general questions like this tend to derail fairly quickly. I reserve the right to lock this thread.

The obvious solution to raising $7 is to not do it in your question above.

Hey 6bet me!

Thanks for the advice

Haven't been playing for a long while and your advice really helps a lot

Hey Venice 10

Thanks for the advice

Me too. That was definitely my first instinct.

Read this thread on 1/2 raise sizing.

Do not make "pot sweetener" raises with only the speculative part of your range, either do it with everything (not recommended unless you are very good post and can handle a lot of variance), or don't open speculative hands. Depending on the table, you can just fold them, call others' opens with them, or sometimes open-limp them (this one is controversial).

6bet me's advice is pretty good. Please note that "less than 4 players to the flop" includes you and is not "less than or equal to 4", but only "less than." In other words, if you get more than 2 callers pre, generally do not c-bet unimproved. For more on when to c-bet, read this thread.

Due to your bankroll I would suggest getting a job so u can at least play 1/2. What's the rake in these low games? Is it even beatable?

Hey Garick!

Thanks for the links!

Really appreciate it that you took the time to explain too

Good Day!

The rake is insane but doable, I made 1k+ per month on average playing 1/1 in the past with a 5% rake capped at 50$ usually

Some games are more forgiving with only hourly time charge and no rake

Yeah I am currently working part time and have already came up with a plan on how I'm going to play full time with a part time exit plan if the bankroll is down to a certain amount

Thanks for asking Whatnow88 ^^

Any other suggestions or advice guys?