Sole Survivor

Good Decisions

If you’ve been playing online for as long as I have (since about one minute into my 18th birthday) you will have no doubt noticed the change in trends when it comes to bet sizing. Back in the day x3 the blind was the preflop raise size. Except with a tricky, but strong hand like pocket tens or jacks, and then it was x4 (Exploitable much?).

As the game evolved x2.5 became the norm. With the sound reasoning that it reduced the pot size when called and hence reduced the variance. It also meant that anyone threebetting you would be doing so for a smaller amount making it easier for you to either call or re-raise.

A little later and x2.25 became the norm or even just a “click” raise to x2 the big blind, with the same reasoning as above but combined with more people learning that investing more money passively out of position (OOP) from the blinds with marginal hands was a bad thing.

The problem that some players have is that they stick to a rigid bet size with the thinking that people won’t get a read on them based on it. I’ve always considered that thinking a bit woolly. If you aren’t disciplined enough to make sure that when you raise twice the big blind you do so with a variety of hands and not just K-K+ then your problem isn’t your bet sizing, it’s your discipline and your whole game would do well if you improve upon it.

There are a number of factors that make me want to change how much I am raising preflop.
Let’s say the big blind is on x12 the blind and seldom threebets light. He is also at least semi-competent, so you assume he is either going to be pushing or folding, not passively investing any more chips OOP with a precarious stack. You look down and see 7-6 suited and next to those beautiful cards is the dealer button. Everyone folds to you. Does it get more exciting?

You notice that the small blind (SB) has x20 the big blind (BB), which is around the same as you. What is a correct raise size?

There is no need to raise too much here. In fact I would personally min-raise my entire range in this situation. If either player does wake up with a threebet then I lose less when I fold my seven high. I don’t think raising an extra quarter or an extra half a BB gives us that much more fold equity at all in this specific situation, so there’s no point putting it into the pot. A penny saved and all that. Note it is extremely important to have the discipline to min-raise your monster hands here as well in order to balance your range. That’s how you become unexploitable, not by having a rigid opening raise size for every situation.

If the BB has a bigger stack and has shown a tendency to defend his BB then make it a larger raise and force him to invest more chips OOP against you. It would be a mistake to stick to a rigid x2 the BB raise here since he is willing to put in more money when you have a positional advantage on him.

Let’s look at a different situation. It’s in the early stages of the tournament and the players are all deep stacked and we look down at A-A. Now with the blinds so small in relation to the stacks I want to be raising x3. I’m raising larger so that Jonny-set-miner has worse implied odds against me. I make the same raise with J-10 so that, again, I am unexploitable. The same raise size for each unique situation, not the same raise size period.

When I was in Las Vegas recently there was often five or more players going to the flop, even if it was raised. In these situations you can go ahead and make your raise sizes even bigger preflop to minimise your number of opponents and to punish the limpers. I’d also put even more focus on exploiting your position vs. loose-passive players by widening your range with favourable position. ♠

Science teacher Ian Simpson came fourth in the Irish Open 2012 for €107,500 and, as the last paddypowerpoker.com online qualifier standing in the main event, won the Sole Survivor contest netting himself another €100,000 =- €50,000 in cash, €50,000 in tournament buy ins.