In that case you may either call or raise. A call involves matching the amount already bet in order to see the next card (or to see the showdown, if the last card dealt was the river card). However, if you particularly like your hand you may also raise, forcing the original bettor to match your raise if he wants to continue in the hand. Player 1 would then be able to call or raise the amount of Player 3's raise. If the third player just calls, however, Player 1 can't re-raise as it would essentially be re-raising his own original bet. Player 1 can only call the extra $15 from both players and would contest an extra side pot of $30 with Player 3.
More and more in today's poker, aggression is the key. This is particularly true in tournament play. The best poker players know how to pick their spots and are great at sensing weakness. One aggressive play that should be in everyone's arsenal is the re-raise (also known as a re-steal). We will use the two terms interchangeably, but this poker lesson will focus on situations when the goal of re-raising pre-flop is to get the other player to fold.
The first step in learning the power of the re-raise is to be able to recognize situations in which the re-steal is more likely to be effective and profitable over the long run. Sure, there are times when you re-raise and the guy wakes up with Aces, but you have to take that chance sometimes to win a poker tournament.
Risk/Reward
Plain and simple, there must either be enough chips in the pot to make the risk of re-raising profitable or your stack in relation to the binds must dictate that you are in a situation that you need to take risks. For example, if the blinds are 10/20, you and your opponent both have 1500 and he raises from the button to 60, there is little value in re-stealing here and he's not as likely to fold.
Stage of the Tournament
Bubbles are the best time to re-steal in poker because people are less likely to take big risks that might cost them their tournament life. This could be the money bubble stage, the final table bubble or near any significant jump in pay.
Stack Sizes
If stacks are deep and there are enough chips in the pot to make re-raising worth it, you can re-steal and have two ways to win:
- They fold
- They call and you continue your aggression post-flop.
If there's a chance your opponent will call, you are much better off re-stealing from the button or cut-off so that you have position after the flop.
Caution – make sure you're deep stacked enough in order to re-steal effectively without pushing all-in pre-flop. If you are mid-stacked it's easy to commit yourself in an awkward flop situation. If you are somewhat short stacked, the best re-steal is to push all-in. Depending on how much fold equity you have (see below), this can put a lot of pressure on your opponent. Re-steals tend to be more effective and valuable during the late stages of a tournament since stacks are shorter on average and pots contain more blinds and antes.
Fold Equity
Assuming your re-steal is pushing all-in, it is best to do this when you are not going to give your opponent the correct odds to call. Most conventional advice says that if you are getting around 2-1 you have the odds to call with almost any two cards. It doesn't always make it a correct call, but since many people use this as a guide you should start looking for re-steal opportunities around 7-10M (M = your stack divided by the size of the pot pre-flop). Depending on their stack size, by giving incorrect odds to call you are increasing the amount of fold equity you have.
Damage to the Other Player
When looking for profitable re-steal situations you must consider your opponent's stack size. Generally you want to avoid re-stealing into a huge stack because they have the chips to gamble with. At the same time, you don't want to re-steal into a short stack who may feel desperate. The best stacks to re-steal against are the ones who you can do damage to if they called and lost. If you have 15,000 and your opponent has 22,000 with blinds at 500/1000 they are going to risk dropping down to 7BB. Even if they have a hand that is possibly ahead of your range, they will often still fold because they can pick a better spot to risk their chips.
Your Opponent's Image
Have they been stealing a lot, are they capable of folding to a re-raise, are they willing to gamble, are they a new player who overvalues their hand? These are some of the questions you have to ask yourself. Generally, re-steals are the most effective against loose aggressive players who know how to let go of a hand. By shoving into them, you are taking away their play and they will likely pick another spot. But pay close attention to who you are re-stealing from. Because re-steals have become more prominent, people are loosening their calling re-requirements. Where it used to be common place for someone to fold AT to a re-raise, some people are now insta-calling with this hand.
Your Image
The main question to ask yourself is 'what hand range will they put me on based on how I've been playing?' If you have re-stolen the last 3 times you were in the blinds, you are probably going to be called by someone who decides to look you up. If you've been playing like a rock, you could probably re-steal with any two cards and someone will fold AQ to you.
Position
The most popular positions to re-steal from are the blinds because people will often raise with any two cards from the late position. While these are still effective, an often more believable re-steal position is from the button. Since a late position player may be stealing with a marginal hand, a button push is still effective against his range. In fact, a re-raise from the button looks much more believable that you have a very strong hand and will get the blinds and your opponent to fold a decent hand such as a mid pocket pair or AJ.
Your Cards
Notice we are waiting until now to talk about your cards. 1001 giochi gratis. That's because these should be the last thing you think about when determining if the situation is right for a re-steal. Ideally, you will want to have live cards to re-steal with in case you do get called. A hand like is still only a 40% underdog against two over cards. When you factor that, along with the % of time they will fold, it makes the re-steal profitable.
Be careful re-stealing with hands like KQ or A-rag because if you do get called you are likely a 25-30% underdog. Obviously, if you have a hand that you feel is the favourite pre-flop you aren't necessarily 'stealing'. A shove might still be the correct play, but it's more of a shove for value than for fold equity.
Hand Example – Re-Steal with Suited Connectors
The following hand example is from the money bubble stage of a no-limit hold'em tournament. It folds to your opponent in the cut-off who raises to 3,000. You are in the small blind with :
Figure 1
Your opponent is an experienced loose aggressive player. While he isn't in every pot, you can be assured that if it folds to him in late position he is going to be raising. Your image is pretty solid. You haven't been involved in too many pots and you have shown down good hands the last few that you have won. The big blind in the hand is a new, but very tight player who keeps commenting about making the money.
Should you fold, call or raise? Well, the worst play is to call. You are out of position with a marginal hand against an aggressive player. Unless you hit the flop perfectly, you are going to have to let the hand go.
There is nothing wrong with a fold here, but given the table image of each player still in the hand, the stage of the tournament and the stack sizes involved, I would re-steal and shove all-in. You will be giving your opponent 1.5-1 (23,900 in the pot and 15,400 to call), which makes it mathematically incorrect to call and he's experienced enough to know that. Your stack can also do a lot of damage since it would leave your opponent with 7,500 if he lost.
If for some reason the big blind or your opponent wakes up with a hand, you are still not that big of an underdog. Regardless, the likelihood of them folding in this situation is very high and makes it move with positive expected value. You shove, the big blind folds and your opponent folds .
Strategies for Playing Against a Re-Steal
Since more and more players are utilizing the re-steal in their bag of tricks, you have to be observant and watch who may be using this technique and adjust your play. Here are some ways to counteract its effects:
Randomize your play by limping in late position
If you normally raise in late position when it folds to you and are now limping, this could freeze the action and cause the other players to be suspicious and worry you might have a monster. Since there are fewer chips in the pot to win, it also reduces their likelihood to raise from the blinds and you will have position on the flop.
Open up your calling requirements
Depending on your opponents' propensity to re-steal, your stack size and need to gamble; you can make the call of a re-steal with a hand like AJ, KQ or a mid pocket pair and be confident that you are ahead.
Steal more from early position rather than late
Button steals have become so common place that many players automatically assume it's a steal. But if you are stealing from an early position, it puts a lot more pressure on the other players because they are going to give you credit for a good hand.
Make your big hands look like a steal
If you pick up AA or KK in late position, consider raising larger or smaller than normal depending on what you think the re-stealer will think of your size (if you typically randomize your raise sizes). If you always raise the same amount, then just stick with that since any variation might look suspicious.
Reduce the size of your pre-flop raise
Instead of raising 3-4 times the big blind, start raising 2.25-2.75. These raise sizes are just as effective late in a tournament and reduce the amount you lose if someone does decide to come over the top.
This brings our lesson on re-stealing to a close. Hopefully you've picked up a few tips that will help you in future poker tournaments. Just remember that the best poker players know how to pick their spots and are great at sensing weakness – which is what you should be doing too.
Related Lessons
By Donovan Panone
Donovan started playing poker in 2004 and is an experienced tournament and cash game player who has a passion for teaching and helping others improve their game.
Related Lessons
The first thing that any beginner-level poker player needs to understand is the different actions of a poker game. The basic actions in a poker game include folding, checking and calling, betting, raising, re-raising, and check-raising, and a skilled poker player will use all of these different actions countless times throughout the course of a game, as knowing how to use each of the actions allows a player variability and lets him or her change up the pace and keep opponents on their toes.
While the actions may seem simple enough, mastering them isn't. Many players who have played for years still don't fold often enough or check when they should raise. You can miss out on the chance for larger winnings if you raise right off the bat instead of holding out for a check-raise, and if you raise too often from certain positions, players will soon start to call your bluff. The best thing that you can do for yourself as a poker player is to learn how and when to employ each poker action-- and the best way to do that (after reading our strategy guides, of course) is to practice, practice, practice.
Folding
Can You Re Raise A Call In Poker Card Game
For some reason, many novice players consider folding a sign of weakness, which is likely part of the reason why they don't fold nearly often enough. Folding is a natural part of any poker game-- if you try to play all the cards that you're dealt, you'll end up losing your money pretty quickly. Instead, you want to focus on your good hands and not waste money on the bad, so if you have a hand or a position that isn't good, you're going to want to fold. If the stakes get too high and you're quite far from having the nut hand, you should fold before you get trapped. Folding just means that you're choosing to bow out of the action for the rest of the hand by tossing your cards in. When you fold, you don't show your cards (as it would give an advantage to anyone who has position on you).
Getting to a point where you can choose whether to fold or play your cards is essential-- in most online games, you only have about 10 seconds to choose. If you're sure that your opponent has a better hand than you do, you should probably fold. No matter how good your hand is, if you know that your opponent's hand will beat yours, fold and get out while you can.
Checking
When you check, you basically pass when other players haven't bid. This can happen either while you're the big blind, when you've already put in the minimum bid and everyone else has done the same or folded, or when you're playing another round and the other players have all checked. Checking is considered a pretty weak move, and some schools of poker thought will tell you that if you have a decent enough hand, you should consider raising instead, as it offers you some protection (by getting less-confident players to fold). This is completely dependent on the situation, however-- raising on a hand where everyone else has checked can leave you vulnerable to a check-raise and leave you pot committed with someone else holding the better hand. Likewise, you can use a check when you have a very strong hand and you're afraid of scaring off other players if you come out raising-- this is a tactic called the check-raise. The main reason that people check is so that they can see the next card for free-- especially if they're on a draw hand, where the value of their hand is dependent on whether or not the right card hits (e.g., missing a card for a straight or flush).
Calling
Calling is a lot like checking in that you're basically passing on an opportunity to bet, but the difference is that you check when no one has bet and you call when someone has. Like checking, calling generally represents weakness or, at the very least, that you're not completely sure of your hand. If an opponent raises and you're sure that you have a better hand, it's better to re-raise (even just a little) to get your opponent to commit more chips. If you re-raise and your opponent calls, then you make more money, and if your opponent folds, then you get the same amount that you would have if you'd just called (but if your opponent is pot-committed, he or she will probably not fold). If your opponent raises and you're not sure about your hand, it's better to fold. Calling is often used like checking-- to get a chance to see the next cards so that you can potentially make a draw or strengthen your hand.
Raising
There are two forms of betting in a game of poker (well, there are a lot of different kinds of bets, but they all come down to variations on these): raising and re-raising.
Can You Re Raise A Call In Poker Winnings
Something that a lot of novice players overlook is the amount of the bet, and a lot of online poker rooms and casinos only make it easier to miss the mark in this regard. There's a minimum amount that you can bet in any poker game, and this is often set as the default in poker rooms, but betting the minimum doesn't really do much: it doesn't offer a lot of protection (especially with smaller stakes), because other players are generally willing to call a small amount, and it doesn't make for a particularly powerful bluff, as it doesn't convey a lot of confidence. If you're trying to slowly draw money out of other players, this can be useful (if you have the nut hand and want to get as many players pot-committed as possible to increase your win, for instance), and raising the same small amount during every betting phase can confuse your opponents, but you just might cost yourself a potentially bigger win by being conservative.
Your Image
The main question to ask yourself is 'what hand range will they put me on based on how I've been playing?' If you have re-stolen the last 3 times you were in the blinds, you are probably going to be called by someone who decides to look you up. If you've been playing like a rock, you could probably re-steal with any two cards and someone will fold AQ to you.
Position
The most popular positions to re-steal from are the blinds because people will often raise with any two cards from the late position. While these are still effective, an often more believable re-steal position is from the button. Since a late position player may be stealing with a marginal hand, a button push is still effective against his range. In fact, a re-raise from the button looks much more believable that you have a very strong hand and will get the blinds and your opponent to fold a decent hand such as a mid pocket pair or AJ.
Your Cards
Notice we are waiting until now to talk about your cards. 1001 giochi gratis. That's because these should be the last thing you think about when determining if the situation is right for a re-steal. Ideally, you will want to have live cards to re-steal with in case you do get called. A hand like is still only a 40% underdog against two over cards. When you factor that, along with the % of time they will fold, it makes the re-steal profitable.
Be careful re-stealing with hands like KQ or A-rag because if you do get called you are likely a 25-30% underdog. Obviously, if you have a hand that you feel is the favourite pre-flop you aren't necessarily 'stealing'. A shove might still be the correct play, but it's more of a shove for value than for fold equity.
Hand Example – Re-Steal with Suited Connectors
The following hand example is from the money bubble stage of a no-limit hold'em tournament. It folds to your opponent in the cut-off who raises to 3,000. You are in the small blind with :
Figure 1
Your opponent is an experienced loose aggressive player. While he isn't in every pot, you can be assured that if it folds to him in late position he is going to be raising. Your image is pretty solid. You haven't been involved in too many pots and you have shown down good hands the last few that you have won. The big blind in the hand is a new, but very tight player who keeps commenting about making the money.
Should you fold, call or raise? Well, the worst play is to call. You are out of position with a marginal hand against an aggressive player. Unless you hit the flop perfectly, you are going to have to let the hand go.
There is nothing wrong with a fold here, but given the table image of each player still in the hand, the stage of the tournament and the stack sizes involved, I would re-steal and shove all-in. You will be giving your opponent 1.5-1 (23,900 in the pot and 15,400 to call), which makes it mathematically incorrect to call and he's experienced enough to know that. Your stack can also do a lot of damage since it would leave your opponent with 7,500 if he lost.
If for some reason the big blind or your opponent wakes up with a hand, you are still not that big of an underdog. Regardless, the likelihood of them folding in this situation is very high and makes it move with positive expected value. You shove, the big blind folds and your opponent folds .
Strategies for Playing Against a Re-Steal
Since more and more players are utilizing the re-steal in their bag of tricks, you have to be observant and watch who may be using this technique and adjust your play. Here are some ways to counteract its effects:
Randomize your play by limping in late position
If you normally raise in late position when it folds to you and are now limping, this could freeze the action and cause the other players to be suspicious and worry you might have a monster. Since there are fewer chips in the pot to win, it also reduces their likelihood to raise from the blinds and you will have position on the flop.
Open up your calling requirements
Depending on your opponents' propensity to re-steal, your stack size and need to gamble; you can make the call of a re-steal with a hand like AJ, KQ or a mid pocket pair and be confident that you are ahead.
Steal more from early position rather than late
Button steals have become so common place that many players automatically assume it's a steal. But if you are stealing from an early position, it puts a lot more pressure on the other players because they are going to give you credit for a good hand.
Make your big hands look like a steal
If you pick up AA or KK in late position, consider raising larger or smaller than normal depending on what you think the re-stealer will think of your size (if you typically randomize your raise sizes). If you always raise the same amount, then just stick with that since any variation might look suspicious.
Reduce the size of your pre-flop raise
Instead of raising 3-4 times the big blind, start raising 2.25-2.75. These raise sizes are just as effective late in a tournament and reduce the amount you lose if someone does decide to come over the top.
This brings our lesson on re-stealing to a close. Hopefully you've picked up a few tips that will help you in future poker tournaments. Just remember that the best poker players know how to pick their spots and are great at sensing weakness – which is what you should be doing too.
Related Lessons
By Donovan Panone
Donovan started playing poker in 2004 and is an experienced tournament and cash game player who has a passion for teaching and helping others improve their game.
Related Lessons
The first thing that any beginner-level poker player needs to understand is the different actions of a poker game. The basic actions in a poker game include folding, checking and calling, betting, raising, re-raising, and check-raising, and a skilled poker player will use all of these different actions countless times throughout the course of a game, as knowing how to use each of the actions allows a player variability and lets him or her change up the pace and keep opponents on their toes.
While the actions may seem simple enough, mastering them isn't. Many players who have played for years still don't fold often enough or check when they should raise. You can miss out on the chance for larger winnings if you raise right off the bat instead of holding out for a check-raise, and if you raise too often from certain positions, players will soon start to call your bluff. The best thing that you can do for yourself as a poker player is to learn how and when to employ each poker action-- and the best way to do that (after reading our strategy guides, of course) is to practice, practice, practice.
Folding
Can You Re Raise A Call In Poker Card Game
For some reason, many novice players consider folding a sign of weakness, which is likely part of the reason why they don't fold nearly often enough. Folding is a natural part of any poker game-- if you try to play all the cards that you're dealt, you'll end up losing your money pretty quickly. Instead, you want to focus on your good hands and not waste money on the bad, so if you have a hand or a position that isn't good, you're going to want to fold. If the stakes get too high and you're quite far from having the nut hand, you should fold before you get trapped. Folding just means that you're choosing to bow out of the action for the rest of the hand by tossing your cards in. When you fold, you don't show your cards (as it would give an advantage to anyone who has position on you).
Getting to a point where you can choose whether to fold or play your cards is essential-- in most online games, you only have about 10 seconds to choose. If you're sure that your opponent has a better hand than you do, you should probably fold. No matter how good your hand is, if you know that your opponent's hand will beat yours, fold and get out while you can.
Checking
When you check, you basically pass when other players haven't bid. This can happen either while you're the big blind, when you've already put in the minimum bid and everyone else has done the same or folded, or when you're playing another round and the other players have all checked. Checking is considered a pretty weak move, and some schools of poker thought will tell you that if you have a decent enough hand, you should consider raising instead, as it offers you some protection (by getting less-confident players to fold). This is completely dependent on the situation, however-- raising on a hand where everyone else has checked can leave you vulnerable to a check-raise and leave you pot committed with someone else holding the better hand. Likewise, you can use a check when you have a very strong hand and you're afraid of scaring off other players if you come out raising-- this is a tactic called the check-raise. The main reason that people check is so that they can see the next card for free-- especially if they're on a draw hand, where the value of their hand is dependent on whether or not the right card hits (e.g., missing a card for a straight or flush).
Calling
Calling is a lot like checking in that you're basically passing on an opportunity to bet, but the difference is that you check when no one has bet and you call when someone has. Like checking, calling generally represents weakness or, at the very least, that you're not completely sure of your hand. If an opponent raises and you're sure that you have a better hand, it's better to re-raise (even just a little) to get your opponent to commit more chips. If you re-raise and your opponent calls, then you make more money, and if your opponent folds, then you get the same amount that you would have if you'd just called (but if your opponent is pot-committed, he or she will probably not fold). If your opponent raises and you're not sure about your hand, it's better to fold. Calling is often used like checking-- to get a chance to see the next cards so that you can potentially make a draw or strengthen your hand.
Raising
There are two forms of betting in a game of poker (well, there are a lot of different kinds of bets, but they all come down to variations on these): raising and re-raising.
Can You Re Raise A Call In Poker Winnings
Something that a lot of novice players overlook is the amount of the bet, and a lot of online poker rooms and casinos only make it easier to miss the mark in this regard. There's a minimum amount that you can bet in any poker game, and this is often set as the default in poker rooms, but betting the minimum doesn't really do much: it doesn't offer a lot of protection (especially with smaller stakes), because other players are generally willing to call a small amount, and it doesn't make for a particularly powerful bluff, as it doesn't convey a lot of confidence. If you're trying to slowly draw money out of other players, this can be useful (if you have the nut hand and want to get as many players pot-committed as possible to increase your win, for instance), and raising the same small amount during every betting phase can confuse your opponents, but you just might cost yourself a potentially bigger win by being conservative.
There's a huge amount of literature devoted to the subject of well-executed raises, and there's a lot of debate about how much you should raise. A common consensus in Texas Hold'em seems to be that when you want to raise before the flop, raise 3-4 times the big blind if there are no callers before you.
Re-raising
When someone places a bet and you then place a higher bet, you've re-raised, a move that indicates that you either have a strong hand or that you're bluffing. Either way, it indicates to opponents that you want them to believe that you have a strong hand. If you think that your opponent is bluffing when he or she raises, and that you have the stronger hand, then a re-raise is in order-- either your opponent will bow out, letting you take the pot, or you can gain the pot through having the stronger hand. Either way, you win.
Just as raising presents a conundrum in terms of how much to bet, re-raising is challenging in the same way. Many sources agree that you should re-raise about three times the previous bet, plus any callers. If someone before you bets 300 and there are no callers, you would bet 900. If there was one caller, you would bet 1200 (900 + 300), if there were two callers, you'd bet 1500 (900 + 300 + 300), and so on.
Check-raising
Check-raising is an incredibly useful tactic that is employed in poker games all the time (especially games with heavy betting, like Texas Hold'em, Stud, and Omaha). When you check-raise, you check on a good hand (one that you could have safely raised on) and hope that someone who comes after you raises. Obviously, this only works if you have an early position. By checking, you imply that you have a weak hand, and other players are more confident about their own hands, which will often lead them to bid when they shouldn't. Once the other player has raised, you re-raise, which forces your opponent either to fold, which they probably won't, since they're already pot committed, or call with a hand that is probably weaker than yours. The check-raise offers players in early position the ability to slow play strong hands, which helps to even out the disadvantages of being in poor position.
