Don't Touch That 'Raise' Button - A common no-limit hold'em sit-and-go tournament error

U can't touch this"

In this column, I'm returning to the topic of the sit-and-go tournament (sit-and-go). If you're an online poker veteran, just skip to the next paragraph. For those of you who aren't familiar with the sit-and-go format, it's a tournament that doesn't have a scheduled starting time; it starts when all the seats are full. It started out as a single-table format, with nine or 10 players. But the concept has grown so much in popularity that online poker sites are offering four- and five-table sit-and-go tournaments. One of their most attractive features is their speed; you can win a one-table sit-and-go in less than an hour.

Sit-and-go veterans start here: Most sit-and-go events are no-limit hold'em, and that's the format that I'm discussing here. In fact, I'll go a little off-topic here. By the time you read this column, the new third edition of my book, Winning Low Limit Hold'em, will be on the shelves at your local bookstore or online book purchasing site. It contains a lot of new information; in particular, three chapters are devoted to beating no-limit hold'em sit-and-go tournaments.


Anyway, I've written in previous columns about the mistakes that I see in sit-and-go tournaments, but somehow I never got around to this one. I'm not sure why, because it's one of the most common (and costly) errors:


In an online sit-and-go, it's almost always wrong to click the "Raise" button.


Whoa – that's a pretty strong statement. After all, I advocate tight-aggressive play, and it's hard to be aggressive if you don't raise. But what happens when you click the "Raise" button? You get a minimum raise, and that's what's wrong; you rarely want to put in a minimum raise. Partially, it's because your opponents routinely make the mistake of making a minimum bet, and also because you usually want to hit your opponent harder than a minimum raise accomplishes. Let's consider an example: You're playing in the second round of a sit-and-go. You have very near your original chip count of $1,500. Three people call the $30 blind and you have aces! Don't touch the raise button. Yes, of course you want to raise, but putting in a $30 raise at this point would be unconscionable. If you put in a $30 raise, everybody is going to call it. And you'll probably get some cold-callers behind you, too. In short, you've built a big pot, you've got one pair, and half the table is looking to outflop you. This is not the path to hold'em success.


Instead, move the bet slider to the right, or type a number into the little bet-size box. In this case, your raise should be to at least $150. Look at it this way: If you win the pot right now, you'll have picked up enough blinds to last you through two or three orbits of the button – which is a huge benefit. If not, you'll almost certainly be left with just a single opponent, and building a pot preflop against one opponent when you have aces is a fine idea. If you get really lucky, one of your opponents will be slow-playing A-K or K-K and will reraise you. Then, you will get to hit him over the head with your aces.


The same thing is true after the flop. And it doesn't matter whether you are bluffing or raising with what you believe is the best hand. At its top end, your raise should be of "pot limit" size. That is, if your opponent bets $100 into a $300 pot, you would add the amount of your call ($100) to the sum of his bet and the pot ($400), resulting in $500. So, a pot-limit raise would be $500 and you'd make it $600 total. Again, that's the most you should be raising. But in that same scenario (a $100 bet into a $300 pot), the very least you should raise is $250-$300.


The same is true, by the way, of the "Bet" button. Don't use it in no-limit sit-and-go tournaments. I see this all the time: Somebody has A-K and raises the $30 blind to $60 and gets two callers. Now, the flop comes K-7-6 and he clicks the "Bet" button. That's a huge mistake. There's at least $180 in the pot and he's giving his opponents 6-1 pot odds to call his bet, not to mention the monster implied odds they're getting. Again, our hero should be using the bet slider (or typing in a number). In this case, a good bet would be somewhere around $120-$150. Some people would argue that he should bet more than that (closer to the size of the pot), but just clicking the "Bet" button (which would bet $30) is asking to get his top pair crushed. This is not a time for slow-playing, as you don't want callers. Stop putting out teaser "come and get me" bets.


The point of all of this is: If you're going to play big-bet (pot-limit or no-limit) hold'em, the betting is more complex because you have a wider range of choices than you do in limit hold'em. If you continue to use the "Bet" and "Raise" buttons in a no-limit hold'em game or a no-limit hold'em sit-and-go, you'll get extremely poor results.


Stay away from these buttons. Use the bet slider or the bet-size dialog box.


"I told ya … u can't touch this"


Lee Jones is the poker room manager for PokerStars.com and the author of the best-selling book Winning Low Limit Hold'em, which has been released in its third edition.