Quick discussion point for any grinders out there - 6 or more tables at the same time.

Do you think that there is any merit in open raising 4BBs or even 5BB at the first 2 levels in MP+ instead of the 'standard' 3BBs?

Couple of arguments for this:

- Make future decisions easier
- Thus reducing your post-flop varience
- Gets more money in the pot with your good starting hands (and we assume that is all you are playing if multi-tabling)

Against

- If rer-raised and having to fold you are wasting more.

So - what do the SNGers here think??

Mark

I've just gone back to 3x-ing it in the first couple of levels. For probably the last year I have been either 4x or 5x raises but I just felt that it was starting to advertise exactly what I had, a premium hand and I was getting no action on those hands.

My main reason for raising more was to just to get more money in the pot. I don't really like the reasoning of it making play simplier postflop as my raising range is pretty tight in those first couple of levels anyway and I can get away from just a pair postflop, so that sort of takes care of that angle. Also if your reason for raising is to get more money in the pot you know that the looser players calling a 90 bet with garbage will still call a 120 bet, so that kinda defeats the aim of easier/less variable postflop play.

As for the reason against raising more, because of losing more if you are folding to a reraise, then you are probably raising too loosley. Against most randoms I would welcome a reraise and against a good regular, it may be different, however for how often that would occur an extra 30 or 40 chip loss is no real cause of concern. In fact because you might get reraised by a random with AQ or 99 could be a pretty sound arguement for raising more rather than against.

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Still Trying to Learn the Science & Discover the Art

Good points, guess this is largely level dependant:

- As you move up opponents are more aware that your raises are from decent hands trying to build a big pot.

- While at the lower limits ($10 <) you'll be called with the same trash regardless

Wonder if there is a sweet spot with the buy-in levels??!?

Mark

This is a great question. It is a SNG question but it touches on the debate: Raise for a reason or raise with nothing as a strategy.

I am going to input on this question by touching on a fundamental in poker: the evolution of a sophisticated approach to poker.

Early raise strategies will work for lower levels, I suppose, , but isn't it a bit early to play the players ... before you even know them and their tendencies?

Isn't an early raise with no information a bit like using a blowtorch to light a candle or using a sledgehammer to put a nail in a wall for a picture?

Does sacrificing your table image early in a poker game with any two cards make you think of an Aztec ceremony where something is getting killed on the pyramid of the Sun?

A sophisticated poker player understands table image and its importance in SNGs ... giving away that edge early seems very dubious, but lets consider what an early raise mean in a SNG.


An early raise in a SNG - to me - means either:

1. A big hand,
2. A speculative hand,
3. A loose player,
4. A raising SNG specialist aka 'raising weasel'

. Well, your opponent's odds are good to call because you are even (or ahead 3) out of 4 situations. The blinds are low enough to call and put the player to the test.

Maybe this is not a SNG question, but a more basic question. Maybe the idea of an early raise, or early aggression without a hand, is a step on the ladder up to become a better poker player

The 'hammer & tongs' school of poker generates aggressive, raising poker players, but this kind of good poker player generally runs into another type of good poker player: the "tough poker player willing to see you make a hand AFTER he calls your raise" type .

This is a common situation.

In fact ... even better ... it is a documented common poker situation.

Documented by none other than Daniel Negreanu early in his career in his article in Cardplayer in 2001 called "Look out Vegas, Here I Come" where he faced the fact that naked aggression was not enough.

Read the article and think about it.

I think that setting up some standards are a better idea in a SNG, if only to build an exploitable image, but mainly to play better hands, so when you raise, and inevitably get called by that tough, other poker player ... you have better odds of winning the plot.

Raising is easy ... making a hand generally needs some sort of help from the cards, and I guarantee that in a tough SNG ... someone is going to call your raise. Find out who that tough player is before you start raising like an elevator at the beginning of the SNG .

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flintsword

"The lucky player is usually the player that knows how much to leave to chance."

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