Proper Raise Sizes
Bet sizing is an extremely crucial skill to learn when playing poker. It will dramatically increase your win rate if you are able to consistently get the most from your bets. One big blind may not seem like much when playing an individual hand, but if you multiply that hand 100,000 times it really adds up. Pre flop is a great time to extract those one or two extra big blinds. Your opponents will often not even recognize the increased size of your raises. In addition to squeezing some added value from your standard raises pre flop is the money that you can make from exploiting calling stations pre flop. You always want to exploit another player’s weakness in poker and maxing out your pre flop raises is one fantastic way to do it.
What are proper raise sizes pre flop?
For 6-Max and Full Ring games it is easy to set guidelines for raise sizes pre flop. If you are the open raiser you would simply raise to 4x BB. This means that you would raise four times the big blind. If there are limpers ahead of you just add one BB per limper. For example, if the UTG and UTG+1 both limp and the action is on you in MP, your raise would be 4x BB +2 BBs. Here is an example of this.
You are dealt AsQs in MP at .50.1.
UTG calls the big blind, UTG+1 also calls. The action is on you.
Your raise would be to $6. 4x BB ($4) + 2x BB ($2).
If the action folds around to you in the cutoff or button and you plan on stealing the blinds you can adjust your raise sizes. In the cutoff a raise should be made to 3x BB, on the button you can make the raise 2.5x BB. The reason for this decreased raise size is the decrease in number of players left to beat. Since you only need a couple of players to fold to take down the pot you can effectively make a smaller raise and expect to win it quite often. If you are raising for value it is better to stick to the same guidelines as above.
When to adjust your raise sizes
If you are at a loose table it would be a great opportunity to make your pre flop raises bigger. Since the table is loose it will be easy to get calls from 6x BB raises that you would normally size around 4x BB. Even if you are at a moderately tight table that has one calling station you can still exploit this one player. If you happen to encounter a calling station you can make your pre flop raises much bigger. The best way to determine what the max you can get from a player pre flop is to add a BB or two each time you raise. Once he stops calling your raises you can slow down and revert to raising to the amount that previously garnered a call. These are the types of players who are easiest to adjust against. You do not want to make raises smaller pre flop against tight players as your raises will cease to be effective. Look at how a table is playing and adjust your raise sizes accordingly, make them bigger at looser tables and keep them the same at tighter tables.