The practice of raising just the minimum amount is generally scoffed at, especially in No Limit Holdem and other No Limit poker games. But I just read an excellent article pointing out 2 specific scenarios in which “min-raising”, as its sometimes called in poker lingo) may be just the right thing to do.
1. The first is kind of obvious. If you and/or your opponent doesn’t have much more than the minimum bet in your chip stack, the minimum or not, it’s still percentage-wise a sizable bet. Maybe you don’t want to scare your opponent out of the hand because you’ve got the nuts and would rather milk him. If calling your minimum raise would still leave him a few chips to play with, even if he loses, he might be more inclined to call than should you go All-In.
2. The second is when you’re playing heads-up. The player “on the button” (holding the dealer button) is in a much more advantageous position than their opponent. So everytime you’re on the button, you want to play more hands through than you might off the button. Raising just the minimum allows you to stay in more hands, throw your opponent off tilt a bit – being scared into holding hands he should have stayed in and, alternatively, paying the “small” fee to stay in mediocre hands he should have just folded pre-flop.
How do you like that? Even raising the minimum has its time and place.
Popularity: 89% [?]
Fri, Oct 3, 2008
Poker Tips