As the saying goes, if you’re calling, you should be raising. Or, another variation, if you’re hand is strong enough to call, it’s strong enough to raise. New players might be wondering why this is the case? Isn’t there more risk associated with raising? You’re upping the stakes, and thus putting more of your poker livelihood (at least for that sitting) on the line. So at what point does this become a reasonable blanket statement?

The answer is, all the time, and here’s why. If you just call a raise or blind, especially pre-flop, simply to get yourself to the point where you can see the FullTiltPoker.net flop, that’s called limping. Limping doesn’t do a whole lot for you as a player, and it’s an incredibly transparent move most of the time. We’ll go further into that in a bit.

Limpers do so mainly on the notion that the flop will “make” their hand, which is a risky proposition to begin with. You’re basically paying into a draw before you even have a strong enough hand to consider calling it a draw. It’s also in no way a cheap way to see the flop. In reality, you’re building the pot, and if you’re just calling, it means other people are in the game, as well. As a result of this, you’re really going to have to hit a strong flop to position yourself as the favorite hand at the table, in terms of cards and/or perception.

Another detriment to limping is that it limits your options as a player. If you’re raising, you can end up “buying the pot” whether it’s intentional or not, thus affording you an early way to win. You also limit the amount of limping other players can do (which can hurt you later in the hand) if you’re raising pre-flop. Then they’re put to the decision of having to call a sizable FullTiltPoker.com bet or fold. They can’t sneak in “cheaply” to see the flop.

Getting back to transparency, raising instead of limping will keep you unpredictable. If you limp in, eventually the table will get wise to your breaking point. They’ll see enough hands turned over to take stock of when you raise and when you limp/call. Raising more often than not keeps the opponents back on their heels. Of course, I don’t advocate this as a regular method of baseless bluffing on pokerstar.com. Knowing when to fold is as strong a weapon as raising over limping in Hold ‘Em.

It’s no surprise that it all ends up coming back to unpredictability. In this case, though, there’s logical strategy behind the theme.