Dear all,
Here goes the concept of mini raises again, hopefully with a new slant.

Situation:
Several limpers, you are in LP and have a hand you’d normally just limp with.
You do however have a positional advantage that will last, which by itself enhances your relative chances of winning the pot.

If you here just mini-raise the pot with the intention of having all limpers just call, you are building the pot a little when you have a relative advantage without risking much.

Also, when you are known for sometimes raising with crappy hands like 85s, or 65o, you probably will also enhance your chances of having weak callers when you have great hands and raise big time.

So, given the above argument – what, if anything, is fundamentally wrong with mini-raising in the situation described?

?

I read about this kind of play somewhere, but can’t remember where.

Happy for any feedback on this!

/rush

My fundamental problem is that the raise does not define your hand as a strong one, but implies that it is weak, most likely AJo possibly a suited connector or small pair. If you can't put in a real raise, don't bother, you are just building the pot and allowing the blinds in for too cheap. You are often building the pot for someone else to take from you as well, or even worse start raising you with very marginal hands if you frequently reraise and then outplaying you on the flop. The mini-raise does not effect the BB at all, and he will call with any close to playable hand.

The only use for the min raise in cash game that I can see is if there an aggressive player that loves to come over the top of them at the table that will pop you with raise or check raise 70% of the time that you make this play.

I am under the belief that there are times where min raising in tournaments are a great idea, but the blinds and ante has to be huge.

The reasons that I can find for mini-raising...

In cash games
To trap an over-aggressive opponent
Umm... that's it.

In tournaments
To steal blinds from people who actually fold to mini raises
To steal blinds from people using the auto check/fold function
To trap an over aggressive player

In PLO8
In late position against several limpers with a good low hand like A24x to start building a pot, of which you're looking to claim half.

Rush,

One thing to keep in mind with a mini raise in late position with several limpers, is the concept of someone in early position having limped in with a monster (AA, KK) with the mindset of reraising the raised pot. With you mini raising this gives the early position player exactly what he wants, which is the chance to come back over the top. Inversely if you just limp in with everyone else, then you give the early position player with a monster exactly what he does not want. A flop with 5 or 6 players.

I also like what rdale said in that it does not define your hand as a very strong one. Everyone at the table should know that you are not going to want to see the flop with that many people if you have a good hand, so you would raise a lot more than the mini raise. Good players will spot the mini raise as weakness and come back over the top of you.

-twelver