To all of you who stumble upon my little blurb area, welcome and enjoy my rants generally related to poker!

And to get this rolling first let me introduce myself. My name is Les and I co-own an entertainment company specializing in Poker. Texas Hold’em to be more specific. Our company operates mostly in the bar industry, doing private parties from time to time as well.

So the topic of today’s rant: Pre-flop raising.

(Now understand that in no way do I declare that my opinions should be taken as gospel, in fact I can guarantee that there will always be someone who doesn’t agree with me, but the beautiful thing is that this is my page and my rant so my opinion is all that will matter here…)

One of the more annoying things that I hear and deal with are people who get upset, and take offense to people who raise pre-flop. “You know it’s my big blind right?” or “you raised on my big blind!?” are just a couple of the more tame comments I hear as I deal cards to these people…

Understanding that this is just a bar game and by design, our goal is to do everything we can to insure that all the players are having a good time, it becomes difficult when players complain every time someone raises… There is nothing worse dealing to a table with a player or two who do nothing but complain…

Now, it is my opinion that the most important part of betting happens pre-flop. If everyone was allowed to smooth call and see every flop, 7-2 would no longer be considered the worst hand in poker… In fact, hand rating would be completely taken out of the game… Let’s all just ante up and turn our cards over, and see who wins, because as much as these people complain I feel like that’s what they want! There is a strategy to raising pre-flop, first is to weed out all the inferior hands, second is to establish control of the hand. Eliminating players before the flop is shown increases your chances at taking down the pot… Ultimately the goal for anyone who raises, is to minimize your number of opponents in the hand. There’s nothing worse than opening with A-A and knowing they have to stand through eight or nine other players in the hand. Thus we raise with A-A to get the 7-2’s of the world out of the hand.

So when you say “you know it’s my big bling right?” All you’re telling me is that you don’t want to play the game. You want everything handed to you for free… As A player, every time I hear that, all you’re doing is instigating me to do it more regardless of what two cards I have…

My suggestion to all of the people who hate having their big blind raised, forget that your big blind is even out there. At some point it’s every persons big blind, chalk it up to a fee to play that every nine or ten hands you’ll have to pay for. And if you don’t like that thought process the other option is be the one raising. Nothing in life is free, and if you don’t want to pay the price, fold and move on to the next hand… Complaining about it will get you no where!