Effective pre flop raise out of position

FatRambo78

I play mainly 15 / 30 cash and in a recent hand picked up QQ under the gun, I raised 3x and picked up 3 callers without a 3 bet including the bb. The board came T K K..K..6. Needless to say I made a bad play and ended up all in against the bb who had K 8 off. I can easily understand were i played terrible post flop, but what im really interested in is everyones views on preflop raises, with 2 callers the bb was probably getting priced in, i wanted action but not 4 way. Is it just an unlucky spot or should i be 4 or 5x ing? Does a min raise look stronger and have more effect?   

MP33

I,d say its a bit of an  unlucky spot although it depends how deep you are and the other players and how the table was playing proir to that hand which would affect my decision on whether to min raise

MP

Talon

  There are 2 main things to remember about raising preflop.

 The reason for the raise: Are you looking for action or to take it down there and then.

 The size of the raise: Your raise size at no point should reflect your hand strength but  should be the reverse of your position.This means you should be raising bigger from UTG and UTg+1 and smaller from CO and BTN.

 The point of any raise is to build the pot and thin the field out somewhat. As soon as one person calls the raise others left to act feel they have the odds to call no matter what their holding. So a larger raise with more people to act discourages the looser callers and thereby increases your chance of taking it down there and then or getting it to HU.

  With a hand Like QQ it does not play as well multiway as HU so you really need to make sure your raise would be big enough to discourage players from turning it into a multiway pot. With no knowledge of the table and players i am unable to say if the BB would have called without the other callers before him. But if he would then i for one want to be playing pots against this guy.

 Hope some of this is of some use.

rancid

oop = raise more
ip = raise less
charge em to play postion on you


tight table - raise less
loose table - raise more


thats about it

FatRambo78

Thanks all, interesting points. sorry i was a bit vague on table and stacks. This hand came only 3 hands in to me sitting down so info was limited but had watched for 15 min and two of the three callers (Btn BB) were in several pots, all stacks were still about 100bb. Post flop i know i was cack, the flop was checked and after the turn was bet by the btn and flat called by the blind i called, the river was similar and with the pot now about equal to my remaining stack I shoved, somewhere in dreamland I had hoped for lower pairs, i have also seen some fishy calling with an ace before, but I did call myself several words within a millisecond of hitting the button!!! (you might now see why i didnt describe the action greatly earlier lol!!

I was mainly concerned pre flop because big hands in early position seem to make me loose. The hand ranges that i expect to c r maybe a bit narrow. This example may not be the best as the post flop play had so many mistakes but it is a situation i come across quite often and end up folding and muttering!! or calling and throwing the mouse out the window!!