Raising preflop always scares people off

[GreatLeslie]

Yesterday I have been playing quite passive just limping in, but today I tried to play more aggressive preflop and raised whenever I entered the pot with a strong hand. There were a number of ocassions where I was dealt K10, AQ, and AK and all three times everyone folded to me. This makes me reconsider raising preflop, as I feel like i'm just wasting these good cards.

 

[Marcwantstowin]

Hi Leslie.

Do you think you are wasting the cards because everyone is folding to you? If so, you are NOT wasting them. It would be great if the BB and SB folded everytime you raised - 1.5 Blinds everytime sounds good to me. I would say that if you was at my table I would call you occasionally to keep you on your toes, but then again K10 is a bit loose, depending on your position, but if they fold every time you raise ~ roll on 72 you might as well raise with that. Gl with that.

If you feel you are wasting these cards and decide to just limp to get some action beware thats when the fish will strike like piranha fish and run over you with all sorts of rubbish. Gl with your endeavours.

 

[Propane Goat]

You raised preflop and people folded only 3 times, this doesn't indicate in any way that it's wrong to raise preflop. If you feel that the table is extremely nitty, then start raising with a wider range.

One of the reasons for raising is to gain information on your opponent's holdings, for example if a tight player is in the BB, you raise from the button, and he calls, you know he probably has a strong hand. If you limp and he checks, you have no idea where you stand post-flop. You might flop a weak top pair and think you're good, only to find out that he outflopped you with trash that he would have folded had you raised.

 

[whoami]

If everybody folds with probability of at least 4/7 (which is about 57 %) when you minraise (if you raise bigger the probability of everybody folding needs to be bigger), then you should minraise every hand, even 72o. That's because if the probability of everybody folding is p > 4/7, then the expected value of you minraising is EV(minraise) = p*(1.5bb) + (1-p)*(-2bb) = p*3.5bb - 2bb > 4/7 * 3.5bb - 2bb = 0bb so EV(minraise) > 0. As EV(fold)=0 you should definitely minraise rather than fold, even with 72o. Of course it might be that you would gain more chips by limping or raising more, but what's clear that you should not fold 72o. Of course all of this is based on the assumption that opponents fold over 57 % of time. (This doesn't mean that any one opponent folds with probability of 57 % but that the probability that all of them fold is 57 %. That's an important difference!)

 

[whoami]

Of course you would gain more with your AA if someone called or raised. However that shouldn't bother you if everybody is donating you money when you have rubbish hands.

 

[rogerdelpk]

if you dont raise preflop you are inviting everyone to crush your really good hands, and that's a bad idea!

 

[youregoodmate]

I answered this in the other thread you made, I think.

Don't limp. Whenever I see someone limp, I immediately tag them as a weak player and exploit that. We raise because we want value for our hand. Of course we aren't always going to get it but it's far more often than we get it from limping. How do you expect to get stacks in post flop if we have a 3bb pot on the flop?