Raising from the button (in cash games)

When you read a lot of books, strategy posts, and magazines, they all advocate raising from the button with a wide variety of hands. This obviously depends on the action of other players before it gets to you but since you are the last one to act each round, you have a tremendous advantage when you are on the button. So, if it's folded to you, a lot of these publications advocate raising with almost anything... I don't mean total rags but if there's any sort of coordination, it seems that you should raise. So, like everyone else, for a while, that's what I did. I'm on the button, it's folded to me, I look down and find A4, I raise. 5-7 suited, I raise. 4-6, why not? 2-7, ok. Ok, so I exaggerate. But I think the point is well made. If it's folded to you on the button, then you should raise because you can take the blinds or if you see the flop, you can possibly take it down with a continuation bet.

Well, personally, I'm not a big fan of raising from the button with weak hands. It also depends on the blinds but generally, here's where I have a problem:

a) if I raise and it's uncontested, I win the blinds. Unlike a tournament, I'm not convinced that taking down the blinds in a cash game is really all that important. Actually, I believe that it's not. Risking 3.5x the BB just to win 1.5x BB really isn't much in terms of risk vs reward when your stack is like 100x BB.

b) if I am one to raise with a wide variety of hands, then I'm also susceptible to a reraise from one of the blinds by a wide variety of hands. In other words, if I'm a tight player who's starting requirements from the button is not too different from my starting requirements in other positions, then I'd probably get a lot of respect for my raise. However, if they know that I raise a lot more from the button, then the blinds would tend to play back with a lot more holdings as well. I will not be able to narrow down their holdings. This is good if you're comfortable with the post flop play since you have position but I'm not too crazy about playing huge pots with super aggressive players.

In other words, raising with a wide variety of hands from the button has started to become a very widely accepted strategy and so now, there are players who are starting to react to that. Which is why recently, I've started to tighten up my raising requirements from the button. If it's folded to me, I will still raise with hands like KJ which is a hand that I would most likely fold UTG or even MP. Actually, with any two face cards, I will probably raise. But that's probably as loose as I get. And even then, it really depends on the blinds. If the blinds are also very aggressive, I don't want to start building big pots with hands like JT, QJ, QT, KT, etc. Instead, I don't mind just smooth calling, even with hands that you might normally raise with like AQ, AJ, etc, just for deception purposes.

So, last night, I was playing in my usual 2-4NL cash game and decided to raise a few times from the button with a wide variety of hands early and then tighten up later on. So, nothing eventful happened in the early going. Occasionally, when I raised from the button, I took down the blinds and maybe a limper or two. Other times, I've had to fold when I had callers and there was action after the flop that I missed completely. And then this hand came up...

One limper and I'm on the button so I raise to $18 with KQ. SB folds and BB reraises me to $38. Now, this was a warning sign for me. Usually, if the BB is raising because he knows that I could be raising with a bigger range than usual, they'd reraise a lot so that I can't make the call. However, this raise meant (or that's what I'm thinking) that he wanted action... Plus, he had to consider the MP limper... So, I was a little worried about what he had (ie, I'm starting to think that he has AA, KK, QQ or maybe AK even though I'd guess even AK would raise more because he wouldn't want a caller). But getting approx 3:1 to odds ($20 more for me to call with a pot of $62), I had to call (limper obviously folded). Flop comes K-x-x ($82 in pot). He bets out $38. Such a "call me" bet... or a "I didn't want to see that K" bet... but, in case it was the former and not the latter, I just called. Turn was a Q ($158 in pot), giving me top 2 pair. He now bets $120. Now, he could have either KK or QQ and have me killed but that means that the last K or the last Q in the deck hit... so very unlikely. Now, based on this sequence, I'm almost convinced he's got AA and this big turn bet was just a donkish bet on his part. So I push the rest of my stack which was like $200 more and he instacalls... and flips over his AA. A blank on the river gives me the $800+ pot...

In his chat box, he was like "are you serious???" I have to admit though that his play was pretty poor. Maybe my call on the flop was a little donkish but getting 2:1 odds and hitting top pair with a possibility (albeit, very small) that it was the best hand, was not that bad, I don't think. I think where he went wrong was to make such a big bet on the turn when a dangerous card hit. I mean if I didn't have any piece of it, a smaller bet would still have taken it down but instead, by him betting so big, he probably felt committed when I pushed and couldn't let go of his aces. Before calling so quickly, he should have thought about what I could be holding that he could beat... Only possible answer at that point would be AK and even that's unlikely...

I kinda got off topic with the example but I think the main thing to consider is to not become one dimensional in your play on the button. Sometimes, you can raise and sometimes you can just call. I think mixing up your play on the button is just as important since you will keep the opponents guessing and you'll have the benefit of acting after the opponents act.