In some of the threads in this and other forums I encounter remarks about minimum raises in NL. I try to get a better understanding of the reasoning that people have (if any) when making this play in order to react better to it. Can one of the experts here give some account of their experience against minimum raisers? I try to look for patterns, but I cannot come to any conclusions except for that I don't see strong reasons to employ the play and that in most cases there is a clearly better way of playing. Maybe we can limit ourselves to the $25 Party tables, where I've seen people min. raise UTG with AA, min. reraises from the BB, min. raises after 7 limpers (with A7, but also with JJ!) and what more. What is your first idea when people min.raise first in? When they min. raise a large field of limpers? Do you expect a high pair or a drawing hand, like suited connectors or a small pair?
I have also seen many minimum reraises, which are even more mysterious to me. Is this a subtle way to build a pot? A way to confuse the opponents? A way to induce a reraise? Sometimes it looks as if people are playing limit there.
Whatever the reasons, I am interested mostly in how to respond to this. Suppose I'm on the button with JTs. Three EP limpers, and an MP min. raises. Do you just call the min. raise and proceed as if it were limping? I am always inclined to respond aggressively to such weak raises, but sometimes they do have a very strong hand.
Anyway, I hope that someone can give me an idea of how to adjust play to these situations.
I think that if you understand why and in which situations your opponents make this play, you can benefit from it.

Pieter

Min. raises are currently one of the banes of my poker existence. I hate them. passionately. I sincerely believe that there are very few raises in which the min. raise is the correct play - and very rarely do i see that situation employed.

More often then not, when i see a play make a min. raise, i tag them as a fish. More importantly though, i take notes on any hand that they min. raise at any point.
A: Are they min. raising preflop with monsters?
B: Are they min. raising preflop with drawing hands?
C: Are they min. raising (or min. betting) post flop on a draw?
D: Are they min. raising (or min. betting) post flop with a monster?
E: Are they min. raising on hands they're unsure about?
F: Are they min. raising as a bluff?
G: Are they min. raising to induce a call?

Every single time i see a min raise i take a note of what the player is min. betting/raising with. I've even had times when i've called a min. bet on the river with a missed draw, knowing i was losing, just to get the information on what they're making that bet with.

In my experience, the min. raisers are different for different people. However, the people who use them the most generaly use them for the same reasons. For example, there's a player who i've played with a *lot* who loves to min raise AA and KK from EP. I have another person who min. raises what looks to be any pair preflop. Another guy who min raises anything that he's going to raise (at which point i look at PT to see what % of hands he's raising with in the first place and proceed from there).

Since i've started taking detailed notes on what the offenders are making these rediculous raises with, i've found myself bustinig them far more often - as they're patterns are so unbelievably boring and obvious that it's sometimes as though they're playing with their hands exposed.

Personaly, i use the min. raise in two situations.
1: When i'm against an overly aggressive opponent who i believe will see the min. raise/bet as a post oak bluff and then make a play at me, hoping to take down the pot with aggression.
2: when i have a strong holding in a large pot against a strong bet from an opponent who i don't think will call a strong raise. Say a $25 bet into a $75 pot on the river when i hold a boat and i think he may have aces or kings. Depending on how i've played the hand, and depending on who the opponent is, he may not be willing to call off the rest of his stack. Namely, if it's the smallest raise you think you can get called.

Long story short, take notes. lots and lots of notes. Figure out what people make the raises with and play them accordingly.

~Dustin

reading min raises pre-flop used to drive me up the wall

now I quite like them as they tend to mean I can put most users on a range of hands - usually medium strength - AQ (sometimes AKo) down to say AT and pocket pairs TT and down.

The other time I see min raises is where someone is slowplaying a monster from LP or blinds with only one or two other players in - they don't want to win 'just' the blinds so they min raise knowing that they will get a call.

I use min raises (pre-flop) myself very occasionally as a mix-up strategy.

Most commonly I use it folded to on or near the button with passive post-flop players in the blinds- mainly as a positional raise as you are so likely to pick up a dobled pot with a bet on the flop- I'll do it with anything from marginal hands to monsters.
I like doing it early on at a table as it just screams 'bad player' - the same reason I like to get all in pre-flop from the blinds in an unraised pot at least once with AK and then show when I'm folded to - of course I'm not going all-in without AA or KK from then on (and usually only on a maniac table or by way of re-raise) but the next time someone sees me all-in and holds a pocket pair...

Also if a player is stupid enough to complain about them in chat I'm lkely to throw in a few just to get him out of his comfort zone...

I do wish PT had a feature to track the size of raises by player though - it would be good to break down % raises by a player of 1-2 BB, 2-4BB,4-6BB and 7+BB - that would make putting them on a hand so much easier at a glance...

I love min raisers. They can usually be categorised quite quickly into one of two groups:

(1) Fish who min raise w KJ+similar and medium pairs, but raise big with premium hands. You can call min raises from these fish with anything in position, as they usually check-fold flops they miss, and bet flops they hit. When they raise big pre-flop, you basically know what they have, so can proceed accordingly.

(2) Fish who min raise with everything. That's cool too, cos they're giving you great implied odds to call with pairs and suited connectors. Just wait for two pair/straight/set/flush and bust them on the cheap the one time in three they have a hand.

My quick observation:

I only play 6 handed but the one quality the min raiser cards usually have is that they're suited, or slighly less often, they're connected.

Molina