Hello all. As you can tell I haven't played on here in forever (for those wondering why my chip count is so low, yet I have the audacity to write strategy articles).

I was going to begin my shift to real money online poker, but with the FBI indicting fulltilt, party poker and others that will have to wait.

Instead I want to write about preflop raising and why you should do it. This is mainly geared towards real money/keep your money play sites. But can be used here some.
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In poker you first have to take into account how many big blinds you are playing with. Big blinds are the minimum bet you have to make to enter the hand.

On here the tournaments start with $50 big blinds and a $1500 stack. So you have 30 big blinds to work with.
In the cash games you will have those same $50 big blinds but instead have a $5000 stack or 100 big blinds. The strategys and goals are different for tournament and cash game poker. So lets go through them.
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Tournament poker (30 big blinds or less)

The goal in tournament poker should be to steal the blinds and win more hands preflop. As you progress through the tournaments the blinds will increase rapidly. That $5000 stack you had awhile back when the blinds were $50 don't look so hot now that the blinds are $1000. So you want to keep increasing your stack to stay ahead of those blinds.

What you want to do is follow classical strategy of folding your weakish hands when you are in early position and raise when you're in later position (either you're the D button or are not far from it.)

So how much to raise? Well here we finally get into the meat and potatoes of this article.
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Small ball raise-standard raise (2.5-3 times the big blinds)


You're on the button (the big D you see) which means you'll act last in post flop betting. You see that no one has entered the hand. The blinds have jumped to 100/200, so what do you do? Well all together the blinds are 300 chips. Here you should raise at least 2.5 times the big blind (2.5 times 200=500 chips). If the small bind doesn't like his hand he won't call the extra 400 chips, same for the big blind if his hand really sucks.

You call these type of raises when your stack is big relative to the big blinds, (30 big blinds or more). So if your stack is say $5000 at this point in the tourney then go ahead and attack the blinds with small raises.

If your stack is ever 10 big blinds (short stacked) or less then forget this small raise and go all in, as that will be your only leverage.

I can almost hear the question now, "but what if this guy defends his blind?" Well the key here is to have a hand that has some type of value. Here are the various hands of value

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(Premium hands)

Obviously the AA,KK,QQ hands you're probably going to shove all in if you're short stacked.

(Good stealing hands)

A-10 and up

Pocket 8's-Jacks....goal is to hit a set or hit a board that has cards that aren't bigger than your pocket pair.

Suited connectors 6-7,7-8,8-9,9-10....Goal of these obviously is flopping two pair, a straight or a flush. Easy to get away from if the board doesn't hit your hand.
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So when you're deep stacked in the tourney (relative to the big blinds) keep attacking those blinds with good small ball raises and stealing hands
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Medium raises (4-8 times the big blinds).

You might want to pull out this move when you're close to the button or the cutoff and there is a bunch of dead money on the table (means everyone in front of you limped) So if the blinds were 200 and everybody in front of you limped that means there is about 1600-1700 chips out there. Here I'd raise to 1800 chips if I was deep stacked. If nobody calls I'll steal a nice chunk of change and increase my stack. So what hands to pull this move off with? Well depends on whether the room is more likely to shove all in on you or not.

(Shovers)

In tournament poker the less stacked the guy is the more likely he's going to shove on you if he has a A-10 and up or a pocket pair.

So if you suspect this you might want to do the intial raise "heavy", meaning A-10 and up or pocket 8's-Jacks. These cards have good one on one value.

(Callers)

If you suspect the room will just call at most then you can afford to steal the dead money "light". For me light is the suited connectors of 6-7 and up. Reason is that they are easier to get away from if you don't hit your hand and you save money. The heavy cards are harder to get away from. Let me give you an example of "heavy vs light"
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You go in "heavy" with AQ suited and the other guy goes in light with 98 suited.

The flop comes down

A,9,8.....

The pot is 1000 and the AQ guy bets 700 into it. The guy with the 9,8 realizes the other guy went in heavy with an ace and comes over the top with a 1700 raise. After some reraises both guys eventually go all in and the "light" guys 9,8 holds up and he stacks the AQ guy.

Now if you don't overvalue top pair-top kickers you can avoid this situation when you go in "heavy". But sometimes its hard to get away from this. You could plug in Jacks in the above scenario and it would be hard to get away from that scenario if the flop came down

2,9,8

You'd think your Jacks are good and might be tempted to overplay it

So basically the whole point of this article is to think of preflop strategy in terms of small to medium raises with "heavy" or "light" hands.
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Huge raises or all in shoves

These are pretty easy, save these for the pocket QQ,KK or AA, or maybe AK, AQ if you're feeling bold. Shoving with anything less and chances are you'll probably lose a ton of money.
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Another key note is that in poker you really want to play at buy in levels that are small relative to your overall bank roll (total money you have set aside for poker).

On Full House poker I built my bankroll to 1.6 million by not playing in buy ins that are more than 10% of my bankroll. My own personal standard is not more than 5%.

So right now I feel real comfortable playing at the 50/100 level or the 10K buy in. Most rooms don't shove all in to my standard raises.

Most of the time I raise 3 times the blinds every time I have small pairs, small suited connectors or 1 gap cards ect. I throw away cards that have more than two gaps in it....K3...29..Q3...10,3 offsuit ect

I'll even raise my A-10's and up with small raises. The goal with the small raise in deep stack cash games is to show strength while having a broad hand range. After awhile folks have trouble putting me on a hand because they've seen me raise with a broad range of hands. After awhile folks see this and start "3 betting me".

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3 betting

What the heck is 3 betting you ask? Simple first remember that the blinds are the first bet. Here let me write it in a simpler format.

1.blinds are posted at 50/100, this is the first bet

2. I come out and do a small raise to 300, or 2 bet if you want to call it that.

3. Other guy figures its time to put me in my place and raises to 1000, this is a 3 bet

4. I come back and raise to 2500, this would be a 4 bet, you can keep going on down the line.
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I know this was a ton of info but I want to summarize and simplify it here.

1. Big blinds and your stack. Always think of your stack in terms of big blinds. The deeper the stacks the more you can afford to do small raises. You have more room to wiggle. The shorter your stack the more likely you have to go all in with what you have.

2. Your goal with raises in tournament poker is to steal blinds and increase your stack. In deep stack (100 big blinds or more) cash games the goal of your raises is to disguise your hand ranges (what you're going in with). Also its to discourage less people to enter the hand with complete junk. (less folks in the hand means your chances of winning increase!).

3. Raises sizes can be small (2.5 times to 3 times the big blind) or medium (4-6 times the big blinds) or big (8-12 times the big blind).

4. You can raise with "heavy hands" A10-AK, or pocket Queens and up. Or you can raise "light" 6-7 suited all the way up to 9-10 suited or pocket 8's and up.

5. A key note is that hands such as J10,Q10,K10,KQ ect are neither heavy or light. If someone raises you huge I'd fold those hands simply because if you hit a K or Q you'd be dominated by the heavy A10- and up hands. Or if someone raises you light they can hit a two pair or straight/flush and stack you. You can definately play those those hands, but if you're reraised heavy I'd fold them.

6. Heavy hands are good to raise against guys who like to shove all in on your standard raises. If folks just like to 3bet and 4 bet you then you can mix and match "heavy" and "light hands".

7. Remember think in terms of "heavy" and "light hands" and in terms of small-medium raises. If you mix the combos up (small raise/heavy hand, medium raise/light hand, medium raise/big hand ect) you'll keep your opponents off guard.

Hope this all helps. If you have any questions just post below and I'll try to answer them as best I can.