Raising, Then OOP The Rest of the Hand

[Snickers99]

Help me out here. I'm trying to be more aggressive. I'm trying to raise if I'm the first in a pot with a hand I want to play (although I haven't done this a lot yet...still trying to get used to it), I'm raising most pocket pairs if I'm the first in, of course raising the big hands.

But I'm having trouble post flop because when I'm first in the pot preflop and raise, it usually means I'm out of position for the rest of the hand. And you know you miss the flop more often than connect. I'm talking in cases like mid pocket pairs where there's a couple overcards on the flop (especially face cards), or having AK, AQ, and missing. Not big pairs where obviously you already have a good hand. I almost always c-bet, depending on the situation. But it seems often people are flat calling, creating a bigger pot than I want considering I have no real hand. Then the turn comes and I'm faced with making a bigger pot with no real hand or giving up control and check/folding. Or I c-bet the flop and am raised since the c-bet is pretty much standard now. Seems like I'm wasting money since I either win a small pot (everyone folds pre or folds to my c-bet) or lose a biggish pot by eventually giving up on the turn or river when I miss...which seems to happen often.

This is 10NL, BTW, although it was happening at 25NL before I stepped down. So what do I do? Is it just the nature of 10NL? Mix it up and play back with no hand occasionally? Stop the c-betting the majority of the time? Check/raise occasionally? I don't think it's a case of individual people knowing my game and knowing I'll give up.

And before I try to look up hands in PT, is it just perception that I think I'm losing more than winning in these situations?

[Peepers]

lol i would consider myself a 10NL reg, and yes this does happen alot...lol
with those specific hands you mentioned where you have a med pair and there's high cards on the flop, no shame in check foldeding. Just remember these people aren't playing close enough attention so you don't have to worry to much on ppl picking up on this. IF you do Cbet when missed, you're going to have to fire two barrels to really weed out the medium hands which they're calling your Cbet with. Read the plays and read the board, you think you can push em off it? Thats not such a simple question to answer

[Ugignadl]

It's pretty situation dependent. The only general advice I can give here is to be not scared of a larger pot. You have to be comfortable with the fact that the cbet is really a standard play now and against some people the "real" cbet comes in the form of the second bet on the flop. I mean: you cbet, they raise. Now you can see their raise as the first cbet. If you really wanted to cbet then here you can 3bet. Don't be scared of the larger pot if your initial cbet was effectively ignored.

Let me give a quick explanation of another situation where you may have actually used this advice without really understanding it explicitly. Live play. IME people raise typically 6x-8x the BB preflop as a standard raise. Anyone raising 2.5x, 3x even 4x will not be given the time of day. The correct strategy is to adapt and continue as if that is the new standard PFR. Another strategy which I have seen people attempting at live play is to continue to raise 3x, 4x preflop and then when they are reraised to 9x, 10x, to go ahead and raise again. It's a similar situation.

As a poker player you have to adapt and this is just another aspect of that.

Good luck!

[puckhead23]

There's never a simple answer to questions like these; it's all read-dependent. In general, you find a lot of calling stations at these stakes. It doesn't make sense to bluff a calling station, so I won't cbet OOP against a station. I think I more than make up for this when they call me cbet when I hit the flop, and get paid.

When I run into a competent players, I will cbet them with impugnity since they are likely to have also missed the flop and will fold to aggression. I'll cbet them until they fight back.

[bigloser2448]

I think some of the others hit on what I was going to say already. And I hate when strategy posts start out with "At these stakes"... But in this case it applies from my limited experience with $10NL and $25NL. imo, it's not usually worth C-Betting into multiple players on wet boards, and although I do it (and end up regretting it) all the time, I don't think it's worth C-Betting OOP into multiple players on dry boards either.

It's true what Peepers said that people don't pay attention at this level, I can't tell you how many times I've thought to myself, "Well, I've been playing really tight, surely they'll fold if I bluff here". NOT. Image/Shmimage at $10NL & $25NL imo.

[Peepers]

word^

yea, i raise it UTG w/ small pairs all the time. If i've got a full stack, i raise pairs 100% of the time. And trust me, more often than not i check/fold the flop....

[Snickers99]

Thanks guys...I'll fiddle around and see what works best.

[whateverman]

I generally play these stakes and have come to, what I think is a pretty easy system to go by due to the lack of respect that raising gets. Some people may disagree but this really seems to be working very well. It can be boring so I try and play multiple tables. I limp everything,in every position with exception to AA,KK and I raise 6 X + 1 per player in pot with these hands. once every 5 minutes I will play any two and show it just t to make sure I still get some action. Well this works for me.

[Peepers]

......^^ not for long

PLEASE come sit at one of my tables, please.....

[sevens]

You don't *HAVE* to raise all pairs from all positions, or c-bet every flop HU.

Also you probably should be raising something like 3x or 3.5x, no more than 4x, when first in. I think 4x is too much though.