Min-Raise in Double Up or Nothing Poker SNGS
The “minimum raise” is a move that is more common in Double up or Nothing Sit N Goes than in any other format. The hand gets folded to a player in the Cutoff seat or the Button, and they raise to 2 big blinds in an attempt to steal the blinds. Usually there will be antes, so if you win the pot even 50% of the time you will show a profit in terms of tournament chips over the long run. In a Double or Nothing SNG, the temptation is to make these small raises rather than pot committing raises, so that you can get away from the hand if someone contests the pot aggressively.
The min-raise should really only be used in particular situations however, because you open yourself up to re-steals. A player who routinely min-raises, and then folds their hand to a shove is very easy to exploit.
These are the general rules to keep in mind when considering a min-raise in a Double Up, or Double or Nothing SNG:
1. Don’t min-raise if the raise is more than 20% of your stack. Either fold or jam instead. If you are putting that much of your stack into the pot, it’s better just to get it all in. Any less that 10 Big Blinds is too short a stack to min-raise.
2. Don’t repeatedly min-raise perceptive players as they will start to re-steal you with nothing. I have notes on at least 20 players which say that they min-raise and then fold to re-steals. I will re-steal against them with top 50% of my hands, including hands as weak at Q2 suited or 33.
3. The min-raise is best when you are already a very big stack. The counter move to the min-raise is to jam over the top. If you are a big stack and have them covered significantly however, people will be less inclined to jam over the top of you when you min-raise, because they will assume (perhaps rightly) that you are more likely to call.
4. The min-raise is successful more often when you are NOT playing with antes. (Party Poker is a site that doesn’t introduce antes until very late in a Double or Nothing SNG) With antes, the big blind is usually getting ridiculously good odds to call, so they often will. Without antes, you will win the pot more often preflop (even though the big blind is still getting great odds). Obviously the trade off is that you win less when you are blind stealing without antes. . . but c’est la vie. . .
The min-raise can be a useful move to have in your arsenal, but make sure that you use it selectively, to avoid becoming exploitable.
