WHEN TO ADJUST RAISE REQUIREMENT
Tight Games
In tight games you should raise with most of the hands that you will be playing.
With the very strong hands, you should often limp, intending to reraise.
With the weaker hands, you should often limp with the intention of calling if you’re raised.
Loose Games
In loose games you should raise less frequently with drawing, speculative, or gambling hands, but you should limp and reraise more often with these hands.
These hands depend on volume pots.
You should not raise initially because you don’t want to discourage callers, but once you have enough callers, a reraise is usually a value raise.
Very Loose Games
In very loose game, the dominating power hands are also strong drawing hands.
You should play them accordingly, limping to encourage callers and reraising to take the odds.
The dominated power hands tend not to flop such good draws though, and with these hands you should usually raise initially.
If a raise discourages one or two callers, it’s not costing you that much.
IMPORTANCE OF IMPLIED ODDS
Much of the value from starting hands comes from implied odds.
If the bet is small relative to future bets, then a lot of hands such as small pairs, suited connectors, or suited Aces have high implied odds and are big moneymakers.
You’re more likely to get implied odds when you’ve got lots of callers seeing the flop.
It increases your implied odds if those callers don’t play well after the flop.
Another thing that increases your implied odds is if some of the callers tend to be hyper-aggressive after the flop, and two or three others tend to be willing to call raises with weak hands.
Your implied odds come from mistakes that your opponents will make.
Pick the Right Table / Picking a Seat / Theories of Poker / Betting Theory: The Odds
A Theory of Starting Hand Value
A Theory of Flop Play: Counting Outs and Evaluating Draws
The Dynamics of Game Conditions / Table Image / Player Stereotypes
Women and Poker / Spread-Limit Games / Double Bet on the End Games / Kill Games
Short-handed Games / Tournaments / No-limit and Pot-Limit Poker
