Why Raising Is Better Than Calling

Things you will learn:

• When to raise and when to fold
• Why you need to commit to a course of action

Never calling is usually something your mum probably accuses you of, but in poker it’s a viable, if difficult tactic, to pull off. But if you can get used to always entering the pot for a raise your results will improve. There are many pots out there that no one wants and by being the raiser or the initial bettor these pots add up and get added to your stack.

In general if you think you have the best hand then raise for value to get paid by a worse hand and if you think you’re behind then you should fold unless the pot is laying you good enough odds to hit your draw or to improve to a better hand. A good rule to refer to is: if it’s not good enough for a raise it’s not good enough for a call.

• 25c/50c full ring cash game
• Your position: mid-position
• Your hand: 9♣ 9♦
• Action to you: folded round

Pocket nines fall into the large grey area in poker. They aren't a premium hand, they aren't a small pair, they're somewhere in between. So what to do in this situation?

Raising is preferable to calling (although limping to flop a set is not terrible). Your position and hand strength mean that by raising you give yourself many more ways to win the pot than if you just call.

Firstly, everyone could fold and you take the blinds, not a terrible result. Secondly, you can get called and continuation bet and take the pot on the flop. Thirdly, you flop a set and win a big pot against an opponent who holds an overpair.

I’m sure you’re thinking, "What happens if someone calls me pre-flop and I don’t flop a set and the flop contains over cards to my nine?" Well, the flop will almost certainly contain at least one over card to your nine, but you need to ask yourself, "Who does that card scare more? My opponent or myself?"

The fact is that as the pre-flop raiser many opponents, who call pre-flop will by default wait to see what the pre-flop raiser does. Your raise pre-flop has basically said, "I’ve got a strong hand," so if the flop contains just the one over card say K-5-2 go ahead and bet it. You’ll often make players fold hands that are beating you. Something you could not have done if you called.

Have you ever heard or used the phrase, ‘check to the raiser’? Well it’s another indicator that raising rather than calling is a good strategy. Quite often, especially at low limits, players who have called a pre-flop raise will check (if out of position) to the pre-flop raiser. If you’re up against a single opponent and they check the flop to you then you should almost 100% of the time bet somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of the pot to win the pot right there regardless of your cards.

Opponents miss the flop two thirds of the time, but being the pre-flop raiser gives you the edge here as you are being the aggressor and putting them to a decision by betting, more often than not their decision is to fold. Against multiple opponents if you’ve missed the flop you need to be more careful, however.

Top tip: Raising pre-flop gives you control of the hand and if you are the initial pre-flop raiser you should make a continuation bet on the flop almost 100% of the time if you’re just up against a single opponent.

• 25c/50c six max cash game
• Your Position: Button
• Your hand: J♦ 10♦
• Action to you: two folds, cut-off player limps

While you could just limp behind raising is better for a variety of reasons. Firstly, by raising in position you can charge the blinds, who are out of position for the rest of the hand, a premium to see a flop. Secondly, the fact that the cut-off limped should tell you that, more often than not, he has a marginal hand that he’d like to see a cheap flop with. Disappoint him by raising!

Yes, you may receive a call, but you should welcome one. A continuation bet on any flop will win the pot enough of the time to make raising pre-flop in this situation the optimal play. Be sure though to raise a sensible amount so you don’t price out the limper(s).

In this instance you would raise to $2.50 total. Meaning that when it folds back to the original limper he has to call $2 into a $3.75 pot to see the flop.

Never calling doesn’t mean you need to play more hands, you just need to be more selective about when you play and also be more aggressive when you do enter a pot. The popular term to describe someone who plays this way is tight-aggressive, or TAG for short. As the name suggests, players who utilise this strategy have a tight image and are more likely to be given credit for a big hand when they do play a pot

• 25c/50c 6 max cash
• Your position: UTG
• Your hand: J-J
• Action to you: first to act

About 95% of the time you should open for a four-times-the-big-blind raise. In this example the flop comes A-Q-4 rainbow. You should bet to represent the ace. You’ve raised under the gun and have represented a big hand, one that could very well contain an ace so there is no reason to not bet. Yes the board is a little scary, but if you check here you are basically telling your opponent you do not have the ace, he can bet and you’ll of course be forced to fold

If you get called then unless the turn card is very bad for you, a K, Q or 10 in this situation are probably bad cards, you should bet again on the turn. Continuation betting has become so common these days that many players will call a bet on the flop with any piece of it. Faced with a second bullet, often they will fold thinking, "Well he must have it to fire for a second time." Again by raising pre-flop and continuing to take the lead in the hand we’ve won far more than if we had just limped.

• 25c/50c Full Ring
• Your position: cut-off
• Your Hand: 10-10
• Action: folds to hijack who raises to $2

While you can flat-call in this spot, by raising you gain far more information than you give away as your opponents reaction to your re-raise can help you significantly narrow his likely holdings. So let’s say you raise to $7 and your opponent re-raises to anywhere between $20 and $30 (a sensible re-raise size) if you both have $50 stacks not only is it clear your opponent is not folding (he has around 50% of his chips in the pot already) but it should be clear that you’re way behind or at best up against A-K.

Here you can swallow the $7 loss, safe in the knowledge that you probably lost the minimum and could’ve lost your whole stack if the flop came nine high. Now if he folds to your pre-flop re-raise great. But assuming he calls what can we deduce from that action. It most likely tells us that our opponent has a hand he likes and wants to see a flop with, but not one that he wants to go crazy with just yet. And crucially it also tells us that if the flop is anything but favourable to his hand then he will probably give it up.