I've been in a lot of NL cash and/or tournament games over the years where the topic of the betting sequence comes up. Inevitably I run into a person that doesn't understand the idea that if you want to raise your minimum raise has to be at least the amount of the last bet or raise.

In other words (simply put), you can't raise $1 after a guy opened the betting at $5.

I can point them and convince them that the rule exists rather easily - plenty of support in the various standard rule sites, etc. What I have trouble doing, however, is EXPLAINING why it makes sense. Intuitively I know, I guess. If someone feels like opening the betting at $10, they are "setting the betting standard", so-to-speak. It wouldn't be fair that someone could reopen the betting by raising only $1 after calling a $10 bet. For whatever reason, though, I either suck at explaining that or there is actually a better explanation and I don't get it.

Comments? What is the most succinct and understandable way to explain this concept to someone?

Why would you want to raise so small? It doesnt make any sense imo.

Lets say in a 1/2 game. UTG raises to $6. The pot is now $9. If you are in middle or late position and raise to $7, the pot is then $16. If everybody folds to utg he needs to put in $1 to win a $16 pot. Those are ridiculous odds. He can never fold. So what's the point in raising? If it is for value, you dont maximize your edge and give villain actually the right odds to call with atc. If it is a bluff, he'll never fold.

Read the OP. He wasn't saying it was a good idea.

Wooooooosh!

That would be the sound of the point flying over your head.

I know. But that's the question he should ask his friend.


???

I dont get it.

Exactly.

To OP: it's just a rule. You can't make small reraises like that in no-limit. It's not bloody limit.

Please explain. I dont get this "point flying over your head" expression. English is not my first language.


No. It's not "just a rule".

OP asked why that rule makes sense. He thinks it's about fairness. As I explained in my first reply that's not the most important reason.
The rule makes sense, because these mini-raises dont make sense in poker. They give unbeatable odds and basically turn poker into bingo.

If you disagree with my argument please explain.

It means you didn't understand the 'point', concept, or idea of the post.

Not sure if OP is asking how to quickly and succintly explain the rule to people, or asking what he can tell people for why it exists?

It most certainly has a "fairness" aspect to it, or it wouldn't be a rule. I can explain all day that it's a poor strategic decision, but there are a million poor strategic decisions in poker that are not protected by rules.

For instance, here is one way to explain it. Let's say it's a family pot pre-flop. Flop is dealt, first guy leads out with a 10 dollar bet. 6 guys call. Last guy to act raises it 1 dollar - total bet is now 11 (I realize it is a dumb decision and doesn't happen). This is where I think the rule was made. That guy just re-opened the ability for EVERYBODY to re-raise, and he bought that right for only $1 on a $10 bet.

This is I think the crux of rule. It is just a difficult thing to explain to a new person. My explanation above makes sense to me, but doesn't click with everybody so I'm looking for a better way to convince them that it makes sense.

I agree with you that raising so small doesn't make sense from a game strategy point of view, but that doesn't explain why the rule exists. There are many games where the rules allow you to do stupid things from a strategic point of view, but you still can do them. Rules exist because otherwise the game would fall apart, or because certain rules make the game easier to understand or make it more streamlined.

In this case I think why you are not allowed to make raises of less than the original bet is to prevent people from making small reraises which would never close the betting.

For example, player A makes a 10BB bet. Player B raises it to 11BB. Player C raises it to 12BB. Player A now calls, but player B can reopen the betting by reraising to 13BB and player C can make it 14BB, etc. I'm not sure, but I think it is possible to collude in this way.

Granted, this still is possible in no-limit with the current rules, but at players have to invest a bit more of their stack to do it. In limit the betting is capped after a fixed number of raises to prevent this from happening.

The way I would explain it would be that if you could raise a small amount like that, we could have endless bet and re-bet battles. The game would get pretty frustrating and annoying if I was playing 100/200 and every hand someone would bet $1 and re-raise every bet $1. This rule prevents that by setting a minimum bet and a minimum raise at every point in the hand.

Without that rule, if you had two of those kinds of players in a heads-up hand who's to say they couldn't endlessly go on raising each other quarters or dollars until they have their entire $2000 stacks in the pot (and everyone else has left the table out of boredom)?

Sure, I could say that in support of the rule. But (and I appreciate the response - I'm not really arguing with you here) - it doesn't seem to me to be the actual point of the rule. Maybe it is - or it is part of it, anyway - but it just seems to me that the rule has more to do with the bettor/raiser setting the standard for the round and preventing another player from re-opening the betting for less than the amount that the original bettor paid to establish it in the first place.

This is my issue - I know what I'm trying to say and I think it makes sense, but I can never find the simple words to express it. Which makes me wonder if I'm actually just plain WRONG in the first place.

There isn't a rule that says that a player is prohibited from throwing his cards away when he could have otherwise checked, but I see people do that all the time when tilting or when they think they have a clear loser even though there are cards to come. It isn't a strategically sound decision, but the rules weren't established to help idiots make better playing decisions.

Meh I'd just say it's 'just a rule'. It's a rule that makes sense, but it's not really 100% clear why exactly it's a rule. It's just one of those rules that makes sense while playing but doesn't really prevent anything unfair or any unwanted situations. If anything I think the games would be even juicier if we'd allow fish to raise less than the previous bet.

But they can do this under the current rules in N/L. If the initial raiser bets the minimum (size of the BB), and gets re-raised the minimum, then opponent 3-bets the minimum, etc. This could continue until one of them is all in without anyone ever violating the rule, even if they had 500BB stacks.

OP, it might be interesting to post this question in the B&M forum where there are a lot of dealers and floors who don't often make it over to the Beginner's forum (if it doesn't annoy the mods).

I think you are on the right track, though.


--klez

Actually I walked away saying that same thing to myself - that rule doesn't prevent unlimited min-betting-until-the-stacks-are-depleted from occurring.

It is easy enough to point people to the rule - and it isn't so much that it's difficult to get people to act accordingly. This is more that I have the proper explanation on the tip of my brain and I can't seem to coax it out. It's frustrating.

Thanks for the tip to move it to a different forum. I'll try that.

Thanks.


Yeah. I agree that you dont need this rule for Holdem to not fall apart. But OP's question was "why the rule makes sense". Imo it makes sense because minraising like that doesnt serve any purpose. Not for value, not as a bluff. It basically changes anything. The game just doesnt move forward. It's like stalling. Obv you dont need to prevent it. But it helps for a better game flow.

Actually there is a situation where you can minraise like this. Isnt it, if you have just $1 more you can go "All-In" with that money?



I am not sure why ... but I kind of disagree with this ... I am pretty sure if you think hard enough there should be a situation where it's good to muck your cards like that. Maybe if you think revealing your hand would give villain to much information. But meh ... I still wouldnt do it ever.

Well, I might toss away a hand if I was tilting and knew that if I hit a certain card I'd probably play it and lose. Sometimes it's easier to just get it out of your possession while it is valueless.

To your point about the (let's call it a microbet) microbet not having any value and serving only as a game-delayer, I think there is some merit to that. But I'm still stuck on the idea that the original bettor has set a betting standard that "deserves" to be stuck through for the remainder of that round. Just can't articulate why.

What does this have to do with limit? In limit the raise is exactly the amount of the previous bet or raise. Any raise that's legal in limit would be legal in no-limit.

No, because you aren't really raising. You're just making the calling amount larger, in almost every single situation.

As for "why" it's a rule- iirc it was to prevent collusion and slowing down the game. I think it's similar to the PL rule I've heard about- after a certain number of initial raises, all further raises must be pot-sized.
not sure if that rule is used anywhere, anymore

As to the OP's question, convincing people that it has to be this way: It doesn't. But, you have to be prepared for some unusual scenarios and you have to be vigilant for team-playing colluders.

No, because an "All-In" for $1 more, doesn't re-open the betting.

I don't think I was completely clear on my example - my point was that in a game of 100/200, if two players have stacks of 20k each and one puts in a bet of 200 and the other one could then raise to 200.25, and the other to 200.50, and back to 200.75, ad infinitum, the game would digress into a fairly awful affair.

Generally speaking, the fact that there is a max buy-in to a table of NL plus the minimum bet/raise rule that we are talking about prevents this kind of ridiculous bet/raise situation from ever occurring. But the absence of either would allow this situation to take place (though I don't see why it ever would).

We had a pretty long discussion on this in Home Poker:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/24...inimum-842575/

It's a rule because it's a rule. Explaining the specifics of pot odds and the like is counter-productive, since the basic rules of poker shouldn't involve the strategic implications of actions.

Here's the easiest way: It's a rule because otherwise things would take too long. Imagine someone bet $100 and everybody kept raising $1 around the table. It's not worth the extra effort for the miniscule change in value.

There's your way around "pot odds" while getting across a similar concept.

But really, it's just the rules. Telling the newbie "that's just the way it is" with a shrug tends to work for me.

I appreciate the feedback and the link. And again, I have no problem enforcing the rule and most people have no problem living by it. There is something about the aspect of re-opening the betting with the min raise that sticks in my craw as an important aspect of the rule. The "it slows the game down" and the "it's not worth the effort" reasons don't fit as cleanly to me.

Oh well. No biggie.