Calling A Reraise

I received the following message from one of the Sit N Go Poker Strategy and Training site readers. He wrote:

I love your blog, but I’m confused about the pre-flop strategy section.  You advocated raising in circumstances where you have good EV relative to the M of your stack, but you don’t give any guidance what to do if you get re-raised?  For example, in my last tournament, I was at an M of 15-20, with two consecutive hands where my cards were EV of 0.25 to 0.30 (I think I had AJos and then K10s).  Both times I was first to enter the pot, but both times someone after me re-raised me to put me all in.  Both times I folded, causing my chip stack to drop substantially.


My question is, if you are re-raised, how do you know whether to call their re-raise?  Furthermore, is it really a good strategy to raise (rather than limp) if you KNOW you would fold to a re-raise, as is probably the case with those marginal hands like AJos and K10s?

Great questions. He is getting to the heart of what I am writing for the advanced lessons. The answer is simple...

The answer is... it depends!





OK, so simple answer, but explaining the answer is a bit harder. Should you call, reraise, or shove someone who reraises you? As I said... it depends. It depends on a few things. It depends on your stack size, it depends on where you are at in the tournament, it depends on the other players at the table, and it depends on your observations of the reraiser's previous actions. Let's take them one at a time.

Stack Size
This one is fairly straightforward. If you lose the hand, will you still have enough chips left over to play to the money? Remember, as I teach in the lessons, single table sit-n-gos are about survival, not about building big chip leads like in multi-table tournaments. So typically the better approach is to back down and conserve chips. But if you have a good chip lead and losing to this hand will still keep you in a good lead, you need to look further (at the next three).

Tournament Status
Are you early in the tournament? If so, probably best just to let it go with marginal hands. On the bubble? This is a tougher situation. I tend to play the bubble like I am not on the bubble--in other words, I ignore the bubble. The reason why is that many of the other players will tighten up on the bubble and play more conservatively. If you just play your normal game, that means you will be more aggressive than you were previously (compared to the other players) and can take advantage of their sudden tightening. Keep reading...

Other Players
This one ties into the next one. You MUST pay close attention to what all the players are doing at the table. This is the key to success. Most people think poker is about cards. It isn't. It's about people. Once you know how people play, your cards don't matter much. The key question you  must ask here is that if you call the reraise, will anyone behind you shove? The only way you can know this is if you have been observing the other players and have seen their responses to this situation. If you have a person on your left that has a big stack and likes to shove just to steal the blinds (or a weak raise), chances are he will shove here, especially if the reraiser has been frequently reraising (covered below). But if you are in late position and not concerned about those left to act, your final decision needs to be based on the previous actions of the reraiser.

Reraiser's Previous Actions
This is by far the most important of the four areas. As I said earlier, if you know how someone plays, it doesn't really matter what cards you have. This is the situation here. Based on your observations of the reraiser, does he have a strong hand? If you can't answer that question, you might want to just fold and wait for a better situation. How do you answer that question? You answer it based on your observations. What observations? The key is to watch how your opponents play before the flop and to factor in the information discussed above from their perspective. For example, if your opponent is the big stack at the table and you are at the bubble, the "correct" play for him is to reraise to force people to fold (because of their fear of getting knocked out or a confrontation with a bigger stack). So if you noticed that the reraiser is reraising every hand, it is unlikely that the reraiser has a big hand. You should probably shove and hope that he folds. However, if the reraiser has been quietly sitting there folding hand after hand and then all of a sudden wakes up and reraises... well, that's an indication that this is a very tight player and is only playing big hands, probably AA or KK or AKs, something like that.

I could go on all day with different scenarios, but I hope this is enough to get you thinking and to explain why "it depends" is the only answer I can give!!!

To the other question... should you just limp instead of raising if you know you will fold to a reraise. Now you can draw on the information above to answer that question. If you M is still high and you have a person on your left that has been consistently reraising, I would just fold and wait for a better situation. The "better" situation is when you are dealt a big hand and you just limp in, expecting the aggressive player on your left to raise you. Then when it comes back around to you, you can reraise or even shove. Hopefully he calls and your big hand holds up!

Feel free to contact me with additional scenarios or questions! Good luck at the tables!