when to call with a pair

Gettheshades and Racingdog,

Thank you for the very good comments.

Are there a lot of pros who only raise? I feel like that is best for me. There are tons of callers in the games I play. The only position I feel like calling in is in the small blind with a low or medium pair or a suited connector, preferrably higher cards. Otherwise, I think I'm going to only raise, and not play any hands weaker than KJ. I've had many hours with these weak players and this is what I've refined to.

I'm absolutely sure that agains better players I would play differently, and I would start bluffing once in a while.

I'm open to criticism. If some pros only raise, that sounds great to me. What do these pros that only raise do on the button or in the small blind?

Trapping seems important at the micro level, you are absolutely correct.

Again, I'm open to criticism.

Well, I think saying always raise is too simplistic in general. Let's ignore first to bet situations, we've more or less covered that. So at the risk of repeating myself....

What if there are already limpers? Suppose you have a strong hand, but not a premier hand. What have these limpers got? They haven't all got 87s. Some of them may have your cards. Some of them could be slow playing a seriously strong hand. If you are at micro limits and you raise you are unlikely to thin the field much and worse, you have no idea where you stand. You might as well have no idea where you stand at a smaller cost and just join in the limping. At higher limits you raise. This will not only thin the field, and maybe pick up the chips immediately, but you will have a much better idea where you stand. You may be unsure about the guys behind you, but you can start to put the guys in front of you on some sort of slow play. The situation is just so much healthier because it is clearer.

What if there has already been a raise? Well this is much the same at any limit. Call with a hand you would have raised with, reraise with a premium hand. Having said that, at micro limits, depending on your stack size, you can easily fold a hand that is at the bottom end of the range of raising hands because bieng wrong is too expensive.

But, if you are playing at a smaller site, some of the small buy in tourneys are much tighter than at larger sites. You need to just take stock during level one and figure out what is going on. Err on the side of caution if you get a playable hand. Then play the individuals as appropriate thereafter.

I guess my question would be, then, why does playing tight help so much with loose players.

If I can break down why it works, maybe I can be more flexible.

Also, as you hinted, reads are at least half of NLTH.

The strategy is just a framework. Like I played a $3 buyin a couple of days ago, and I was playing my usual strategy I told you of, and someone kept going all in and I saw his cards and they were crap. The next time he went all in, I had KQo which I would normally not call an all in with, but I knew that was the right play and it worked. I think he had like J9o or something similar.

So saying always is unrealistic, like you said.

So again, why is playing tight so helpful at loose tables? I have some ideas, but it's been mostly trial and error.

At loose tables, pots are much bigger than tight tables. Now, if you happen to hit a monster on a loose table, you should get payed off nicely - but if you are loose at a loose table, you are losing blinds with each loose preflop call you make. By the time you are dealt a monster, you might be able to get a little above break-even, but realistically you won't be making much.

Meanwhile, if you are playing tight, only premium cards, there is a much higher probability that the hands you play will win at showdown. And so, while you will win the same monster pots as if you were loose, you aren't throwing away blinds - so you can win quite a bit.

I know you didn't ask about tight tables, but it's related so I'll go into it. At tight tables, its generally good to play loose-aggressive. This is because any time you raise, if you don't pick up the blinds you at least isolate an opponent, and you will have a good idea of what your opponent could hold - thus making post-flop play much simpler. The blinds you lose when you're reraised preflop are easily made up for by all the times you successfully pick up the blinds.

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