Bring in raise in NL Tournies

Chugs

I know that 3X the BB is considered a typical bring-in bet in NL tournies and also in blind steal situations etc...

I've been wondering though if early in tournies (especially online) if a 4xBB may more appropriate, becuase at blind levels like 10/20, 15/30 a 3xBB is simply not a significant enough raise it seems for people to really decide to poke around with junk etc...

Simply put i'm wondering if people feel simply being consistent with somethin close to a 3xBB bet is a better approach, or essentially pushing it a little more at the early levels.

yubyub1978

through out the early stages of a tournament i prefer to use about 5-6x the big blind until about level 4-5.I find with the initial starting chips and low blinds people will generally call with weaker hands (J9,low pairs)for any small raises.

magithighs

The key to getting the right raise is to figure out what you're trying to accomplish with the raise.

It really depends on the type of tournament you're in, and the "tightness" of the players, on what will be accomplished by a bigger/smaller raise.

These days, I'm more inclined to look at how many players limped in front of me and how many behind me, to determine the size of the raise. If a couple of players limped, I go 4X, if no one has limped I go 3X. I generally want action on my raising hands, so I'm not that interested in narrowing the field.

The biggest challenge I have in going with 5X or bigger, is that I'm narrowing the field to hands which are better than mine and are more likely to play back at me.

The beauty of the stdn. 4x/3x raise, is that you can do this with hands that are not strong pre-flop, but can flop monsters like JTs, or KQs, or AQs, or 78o, or 63o. So, many times I'm raising to build a nice pot that can smack me in the face, and provide the cheese to my opponents to keep going.

Also, position is extremely important when stacks are deep. So, if I have a big hand in the blinds, I generally raise 10% more than the pot to isolate, or take down the pot.

Finally, in keeping with position is important, I try to buy the button even if I have a limping hand, with a 3X or 4X raise.

Just my thoughts.

Cheers
Magi

SirWatts

I raise it to 4xBB as my standard raise in the first couple levels usually to punish the loose callers more, then make 3xBB my normal raise once the blinds hit about 50/100 (Magi's advice about adjusting your raise for limpers/position is bang on though). Late in the tournament when the blinds are huge compared to the size of people's stacks I'll even drop to 2.5xBB when I'm not way out of position as long as the big blind doesn't have enough chips to reasonably call this with random holdings.

Mike

Chugs

The BB raise levels i'm assuming as you bring in the first bet at different levels. I find raises once limpers are in is a different story.

pkrfce9

What I've read is 3X BB plus 1X BB for each limper. It kind of makes sense so callers won't get great pot odds.

Pigga

usually ill make 3-4x BB raise

if theres 4-5 limpers in front of me, ill make it maybe 6-7-8.......no cheap flops