The Minimum Reraise: Classic Tells
and Mistakes
written by BeatTheFish.com
...Fishy says, "Aces or Kings, man.
Simple!"
I recently read a piece that Phil
Gordon wrote for
Full Tilt
Poker on the subject of raising for the minimum in no-limit cash
games. Phil is known for moderate tournament success, his Little
Green Book, and hosting the insufferable Celebrity Poker Showdown.
While the article was short, it was one of his more poignant essays
about a subject that is rarely discussed in classic poker strategy
outlets. What exactly are we talking about here? An example would be
the following situation:
You’re playing in a 9-handed $1/2 no-limit hold’em cash game and you
make a standard raise to $8 with A-Q suited from middle position.
Everyone folds around to the original limper who makes it $16 to go.
This mostly happens in low-limit online cash games where players
often misplay big pairs. Almost every time you make a raise and get
reraised the minimum amount preflop in one of these cash games,
you’re facing a premium hand, namely pocket A-A or K-K. My goal here
is to dissuade you from making such a play. Let’s look at 3
fundamental problems with this play and how you can use this
knowledge to exploit opponents who don’t know better…
1) A minimum reraise preflop all but gives your hand away.
While you might think that this play disguises your hand and helps
to build a pot, the truth is that you’ve given observant opponents
powerful information about your holding. You’re forcing your
opponents to think, “I’ve already put in a healthy raise. What cards
would he make a minimum reraise with?” Clearly, you aren’t trying to
win the pot right now, which probably rules out hands like A-J, J-J,
10-10, or A-Q, in which most sensible opponents are happy to take
down a pot without seeing a flop or just smooth call with. You
probably aren’t playing a small pocket pair like 8-8 or 4-4, since
that would just be silly move. Your goal with these hands is to see
a cheap flop and hit a set. If you were on a bluff with rags, you
probably would have put in a manlier reraise to intimidate me.
This all leaves you with 3 possible premium pocker pairs: Q-Q, K-K,
A-A. I don’t know about you, but with pocket Queens I’ll usually
either just call to see if the flop brings overcards or reraise
healthily to force out the tricksters and mediocre hands. Bingo!
You’ve probably got pocket Kings or Aces. Sure, someone could be
making a very savvy play and pulling a complete psychological false
tell bluff over on you with the minimum raise, but most players are
ignorant as to what this tactic means in the first place. It’s
probably an ineffective tool in the arsenal of a player who knows a
thing or two about the transparent book of plays from the typical
online poker player. The fact is that this seemingly advanced play
rarely keeps your hole cards a mystery.
2) A minimum raise gives your opponents excellent pot odds to
draw out on you. Poker players, especially the online variety,
love to bemoan about how their opponents sucked out on their pocket
Aces. While you’ll find plenty of bad players who will routinely go
against the odds to do just that, a player who makes one of these
minimum raises has nothing to complain about because he has given
his opponent excellent odds to do it. If I’ve got pocket 10-10 and
raise to $10 in a $1/2 game and you reraise me from the button to
$20 with A-A, you’re giving me over 3 to 1 pot odds on my call (it
costs me $10 to play and the pot is already $33). If, say, the big
blind calls your $20 raise before play gets back to me, I’m now
getting over 5 to 1 pot odds. That doesn’t include the implied odds
of getting all your money in the pot on the flop when I spike my
third 10. Raise less and it’s even more of a no-brainer for me. I
would be more than unobservant if I didn’t call a raise like that
with pretty much any hand. You’re simply giving too great of a price
if you make the minimum raise play.
3) You miss out on a great amount of value with the minimum
raise. When you make such a small raise, you aren’t building
much greater of a pot. Since your goal, of course, is to make the
most money with your premium hands, you should start before the flop
when you definitely have the best hand. As we’ve established above,
you’re almost giving away your hand with the minimum raise. If you
reraise 3 times the initial raise or perhaps the size of the pot,
your opponents will have less of an idea of what you have and you’ll
be building a nice pot. Sure, you’re sending the signal that you
have a big hand – but that could be something like Q-Q or A-K. Your
opponent will be more likely to blow off his chips when he hits a
pair of Kings on the flop with Big Slick since he’s already
committed a good chunk of his stack.
Hopefully we’ve all come to the conclusion that the minimum raise is
not the most effective use of the reraise option. You’re giving away
valuable information to experienced players (exactly the type of
player that you want to fool), offering excellent pot odds to the
initial raiser, and you usually won’t make as much money in the
hand. If you’re looking to be ultra deceptive, you can try to smooth
call a preflop raise with your pocket Aces (please note that I
rarely recommend this for online play… or any play for that matter).
If you’re going to take a risk, it’s much more effective at hiding
the strength of your hand. Regardless, I recommend a sizeable
reraise with your premium pocket pair. If everyone folds, you still
won the pot and your Aces didn’t get cracked, RIGHT?!
Back to General Poker
Strategy
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