If you sit down at any Texas Holdem poker table, you will notice that before the flop there will usually be a raiser. This will force other players at the table to call more bets instead of just the blind alone to see a flop. To the amateur this may seem a little frustrating; why are players making each other pay more to see a flop? Why don’t they just call the Big Blind and see a flop for cheap? Surely that way everyone has a chance to make a good hand, instead of cutting everyone out preflop.
If you re-read the last sentence above, you will probably find that the question has already been answered. The preflop raise is made to prevent opponents from seeing a flop to make a better hand than the original raiser. In Texas Holdem there are some hands that are far better than others because they are more likely to win. However, these types of hands have a better chance of winning when they are up against fewer opponents. Therefore by raising with a good hand preflop, the raiser can help to prevent poor hands from entering to pot to see a flop and therefore increasing the chances of their hand winning.
Raising preflop can also help on further betting rounds, as it can set you up to win more often even if you do not hit any part of the flop. By making a raise preflop, you are taking the initiative and letting your opponents know that you have a strong hand. So if your opponent checks to you on the flop, there is no reason as far as they are concerned that you haven’t hit any part of the flop. If you bet and continue to show strength, they have no reason to not believe you and so they should fold unless they have hit a good part of the flop themselves.
A further advantage of raising is that it can tell you about the strength of your opponent’s hand. If you are in middle position and decide to limp in with AJo and everyone folds except for the Big Blind who checks, what have you learnt about the strength of your opponent’s hand? The Big Blind could literally have any two cards, as they could be slowplaying a huge hand or checking with a weak hand. Poker is a game of information, and the more that you know the better you can play, so by not raising you have no obtained any information about the strength of your opponent’s hand. Furthermore, you have allowed the Big Blind to see a flop with a potentially weak hand, which is not a profitable way to play as mentioned above.
The preflop raise is a fundamental part of the Texas Holdem game. There are some situations in which it is not a bad play to limp in, but the majority of the time you should be trying to raise if you feel that you have a strong hand. Aggression is an important weapon to have in your poker arsenal, as it allows you to win pots with the worst hand along with the best hand. So try to play aggressive and make raises preflop with the better hands, it will be a profitable play in the long run.
