Don’t Min-Raise Me, Bro

13 thoughts on “Don’t Min-Raise Me, Bro”

1. I can’t help but think that he made a mistake at every decision point in that hand.

   • I pretty much agree, except preflop. I think the 3b is okay, especially given the short stack in the BB still to act. Raising much more puts BB in shove-it-or-dump-it mode and loses the value to be had from hands BB would have called but won’t shove.

     • If he’s decent he’s in shove-it-or-dump-it mode already. I don’t think you can justify that raise size on the hopes that the BB calls for almost 30% of his stack. Even if he’s capable of it the chances of him having a hand he wants to do it with are slim. It’s probably more likely that he shoves a hand he wouldn’t have anyway hoping that he has fold-equity, but since SB would be getting almost 2:1 I don’t see that either.

     • The 3b is OK, but I think it’s a bit small, if you have to play OOP the rest of the hand. Unless he’s 3 betting a pretty wide range, 500 seems better.

       I’m with Bond2King. Any decent BB isn’t going to flat a 3 bet for 30% of his stack. It’s shove or fold. Especially with the button behind that may actually have a hand. Actually, if he does flat the 3bet, suspect aces or incompetence. 🙂

       • 23%, actually.

         More to the point, if he calls, it leaves him with about 13BB, which is enough that he can afford to see a flop (hands like suited aces, KQ, QJs, JTs etc. will often call here, whether they should or not) and fold if he misses. If you raise much more than this, all those hands I just listed probably get folded, and you lose that value.

         Also, forgive me for a moment while I launch into one of my pet rants, titled, “You don’t make money at poker when your opponents play correctly.”

         If you truly believe that BB is the reanimation of Chip Reese and therefore will play perfectly here no matter what you do, then don’t worry about BB and just try to figure out how to stick it to Andrew.

         However, chances are ~100% that BB does not play perfectly. Even good players make mistakes. Give him a chance to make one.

         Also, give the OR a chance to make one.

         The thing about KK is that you’re all over every possible opposing hand except another KK or AA. You don’t want your opponents to fold. You want them to call no matter what they have. If we were talking about AQo here, that would be an entirely different matter. But if you make too-big raises with KK (or AA), people fold hands you’d rather they play, and that costs you profit.

         There’s a legitimate argument for making a bigger raise here than 400. I’m not saying 500 or 600 is wrong, just that 400 isn’t wrong either. If the BB is a tight player who won’t make a loose gambling call despite his short stack, then you probably should ignore him and concentrate on maximizing your value against the OR. So raise bigger if you the BB is tight and the OR makes loose calls of big three-bets. Just don’t raise so much that OR folds most of his range, because your hand is worth way more than the 3.5BB in the pot.

         • I’m not assuming that BB plays perfectly. Mostly that I don’t think they’re all that sensitive to 3b size here. If they’d call 400, they’d call 500. In that case, 500 is better.

           Same with OR. They’re either minraising air, trying to steal the blinds, or minraising something between a speculative hand, and a real hand. You know you’re ahead preflop, so get as much money in now as you can.

           Sure, you want them to find an excuse to call, but you don’t want to give away your hand strength and invite them to outflop you/outplay you either. If you’re 3betting a wide range, go for 400. If you aren’t, you should 3bet bigger.

           The thing about KK here, is that it wants to get the money in as early in the hand as possible, while it’s still ahead. 3betting small, cbetting 25% on the flop into a drawy board, checking the turn, and then betting 2/3 pot and calling a shove after the flush hits? With this board texture, you want your chips in the middle by the turn. End of story. If you lose the other player along the way, so be it. But keeping the pot small when you’re ahead, and making it big when you’re behind? Not well played.

         • I would argue that OOP with relatively deep stacks, he does want me to fold 96s, or at least he wants me to pay more than this to see the flop with it. I think this would be true even if he had a balanced range for small-3-betting, which in all likelihood he does not. I wrote about this concept in No Such Thing as a Free Hunch.

           When he has KK, the hands that he most wants me to have are smaller pairs and broadway hands that can flop one pair and feel good about it. Most of those are hands that can stand a larger re-raise. Hands that are calling a small 3-bet but folding to a bigger one are mostly “cracking hands” like small pairs and suited connectors that are not going to make a big mistake post-flop.

2. Love when they price you in with Monsters….Great hand!

3. LOL at his turn check. Also, good job getting there, I am working on lessening the impact of the minraise on my tilt level, but it still tilts the **** out of me, and I’m always happy to see a minraiser get owned.

   • I agree with the sentiment, but in this case, Andrew was the one who min-raised, not Villain. 🙂

     The title had me scratching my head, too.

4. Lin sometimes I wonder if you actually Read the Hand before you type in your comments. Andrew did NOT min raise pre, Villain did.

   • Technically I did min-raise to open the action. I’d argue that’s pretty different from making a small 3-bet from OOP, though.

5. My bad on critique of Lin. Never looked at blind structure on this one, only looked at what Andrew got raised. (whack-wrist slap!) Sorry so harsh Lin. Looking foward to more min-raising hi-jinks!

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