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In the previous part, I discussed some different starting hands by position and the action you should take if you are dealt them. Let me make it clear that this was not a fixed "you should only play these hands" guidelines. Everything in poker is dependent on many factors and you must always evaluate your decisions based on the information you have available to you. The main purpose of those guidelines was to show you the kind of hands you should be playing in various positions so that you can use position to your maximum advantage.

Many players, when they are learning poker, want the magic solution. I'm going to let you in on a not so little secret... there isn't one. When you are playing poker and trying out things you have read, you need to study them with an open mind, and not just think this is boring or does not make any sense. Ask yourself why the writer/player wants you to do that. Why do I say call a raise with 6-4 on the button? Why do I not have you play A-10 out of the big blind to a raise? Why do I have you limp with small pairs in early position and call raises with them? If you are able to answer these questions then you will be on the path to figuring out the concepts behind proper pre-flop play.

Now that I'm not going to tell you the answers to the starting hand guidelines (how else will you learn?), I am going to go over some betting guidelines to help you when you are raising and re-raising.

When you are first to act and are raising, you should raise the least amount required to accomplish what you are seeking to achieve and this raise amount should be consistent. I know some authors recently have advocated varying your raises based on hand strength, position, etc; but I think this is problematic for several reasons. While you might think you can be truly random, you will often find yourself falling into patterns and giving your opponent's information that you might not have given. The second thing you'll find is that you are much more likely to generate action on your strong hands when you make consistent raises. They see you raise, raise, raise, not knowing what you have and then you make the same raise and they are tired of it and have finally decided to do something about it.

Another big reason for having a standard raise is to control the size of the pot. Early in the tournament, your goal should be to win big pots and lose small ones. When you make larger raises pre-flop, you tend to lose big pots and win small ones. Let me give you an example of how this plays out. Let's say you have Q-Q and use a varying raise of 6 times the big blind. If everyone folds you've won a small pot... the blinds. I don't think we are dealt premium pairs enough time to think that this is a +EV play. We want people folding when we have hands like K-J and 8-7, not when we have Q-Q.

If you are called when you have Q-Q, the pot will contain 12-15 big blinds. An ace flops and your opponent checks and you fire out a 2/3 pot continuation bet of 10 big blinds. Your opponent check raises and you fold... out a total of 16 big blinds. Now if you had made a raise of 3 times the big blind and been called and made the same size continuation bet, you would have been out 9 big blinds... same results for nearly half the cost. The smaller raise also makes stealing more cost-effective. Nothing sucks more than trying to steal the blinds with a 5-6 times the big blind raise and getting called or re-raised and having to fold.

Long discussion just to get to tell you that you should raise to 3-4x the big blind if you are first to act, but I want you to understand WHY.

When one or more players have limped into the pot and you are going to raise, you should raise the same amount as if you were first to act PLUS one times the big blind for each limper. If there are two limpers and your standard raise has been 3 times the big blind, you should raise to 5 times the big blinds.

The same thing can be said when it comes to re-raising. If you re-raise a standard amount then you don't give up any information. I know many players who will min raise with their big hands and make larger raises with their draws or marginal hands. However, I want to throw out a caveat here... if you have a strong hand and are facing an aggressive player or calling station that you KNOW will call a larger re-raise then you should make the biggest possible raise that is within their calling range.

Generally speaking, however, I've found that a raise that is effective at defining your opponent's hand and at keeping the pot reasonable is 2 times their total bet amount. Say you are in the big blind with A-K and the button has raised 400 to 600 with the blinds at 100/200. A good re-raise would be 1200 (600*2) to 1800. This amount is enough that your opponent shouldn't be playing marginal hands like Q-J, will have them just calling with their marginal hands (like A-J/9-9) and re-raising with their premium hands (thus giving you more information to make your decision based on whether they called or re-raised).

But what about if someone has raised and there are callers of that raise? Obviously this raise amount will not work then because it will be giving everyone sufficient odds to call. A better re-raise in this amount would be to make your total bet 1.5 times the pot size. Here's an example:

Player A raises 400 to 600 with the blinds at 100/200. Players B and C both call. You are in the big blind with K-K. There is 2100 in the pot. 1.5 times the pot size is 3150. You would raise 2550 to make your total bet 3150. This raise, while large (and it's meant to be because of the action) will usually accomplish the goal of getting worse hands to over commit and hands you don't want (small pairs/suited connectors) seeing a cheap flop.

In the last part, I will take you through some of these guidelines and show you them as they are applied in a real money tournament at Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars.

Part I - Part II - Part IV

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