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One
of the biggest leaks I see a lot
of tournament players doing is
open raising too much late in a
tournament, when most of their
raises are obvious
"steal" raises.
Especially in an online
tournament, where the blinds and
antes will be a large portion of
your stack, you need to be smart
about raising to steal blinds.
You of course don't have a
choice in your raise size if
you're short stacked, because
you only have one move.
If, however, you have 20 big
blinds or more, you should be
finding the MINIMUM raise size
necessary to make blind steals,
and raise that amount whether
you have a hand, or you're
stealing from the cutoff with j7
off suit.
At
a lot of online tournaments,
this raise size can be as small
as 2.25-2.75x the big blind
(sometimes even doubling the
blind will get the job done). I
personally like to raise 2.5x
the big blind nearly always,
EVEN when antes have kicked in.
Why? Because it works. I risk a
very small amount of chips, and
if I'm first in the pot, I'll be
taking down the blinds a large
portion of the time. If I'm
called, I still have a hand, or
I may even steal it on the flop.
A
lot of people tend to think that
if you raise more, then you'll
discourage action. Really, the
size of the raise isn't as
important as the ACTION itself.
If you raise, a person behind
you is unlikely to call, or
raise, unless they really have a
hand. If your opponent has AK,
and will likely push in, they're
going to do it whether you raise
2.5x the big blind, or 6x the
big blind. Again, it's not the
amount, but the ACTION.
The
point though is to maintain
constant aggression, while
risking the smallest amount
possible. If you are raising 3,
4 or even 5 times the big blind
with a hand like KT, and then
someone pushes all-in over the
top of you, you'll have to fold
(unless you have odds to call of
course), then you've risked a
much larger amount, where the
2.5x raise would have
accomplished the same thing.
I
see this constantly though late
in a tournament (at various
different stakes), even today as
a matter of fact. With only ~25
people left in an online MTT
(which I won btw :) ), a guy
raised 5x the BB from the
button. The guy in the BB pushed
all-in, and he folded. What a
waste of chips.
All
of these raises, and wasted
chips add up over time. So the
smarter you are about your raise
sizes late, the more chips
you'll have to bust people and
win some multi-table
tournaments! Good luck!
John
Anhalt is a poker
coach and owner of training
site www.pokerzion.com
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