Hi Tuan
Tuan said:
I have seen a lot of Min Raises in online tournament? Is this a trend because live tournament they usually raise 3x or 3.5x. I see the value of min raise when the pay jump is bigger, and there are many short stacks; but I do not understand early tournament MIN Raise?
Can someone explain why we MIN raise? and What are the benefits of raising MIN?
Thanks
Tuan
the min raise is used to hide your game from your opponent's reading if you keep changing your raise according to your cards the good players will notice and they won't call your bet and you will pull 1 and a half blinds + ante only, the purpose of poker and steal your opponents' chips.
at the beginning of a deep stack tournament when you have a lot of chips and the blinds are low, it's okay for you to open 3x or 2.5x, I suggest you switch to 2x when the starting chips are worth 50 blinds even if you have more blinds is this strategy I use and I'm being profitable.
an example for you:
you are UTG+1 and you have pair AA and you raise 4x bb, nobody calls.
in the next orbit
you are CO and you have A10s and you raise to 2x bb and the big blind calls and your cards are revealed at showdown and everyone will see that you made that play.
in the next orbit
you are in HJ and you have pair QQ and you raise to 4x bb, everyone knows you have a hand but for your bad luck the big blind has pair of AA and makes you all in, you confidently call and the showdown is horrible for you .
so you are eliminated without having a chance to escape this move.
if you had raised to 2x bb and he would 3-bet you would call and see the flop if he kept betting you would fold and thus you would survive the tournament.