One of the most frequent questions I am asked is about how to play hands like middle pairs against a raise. This comes up when someone raises in front of you and you have the choice of flat calling the raise or re-raising with a hand like 10-10 (this comes up whether or not there are any callers in between you and the raiser).

There are arguments for playing it both slow and fast: Some players prefer the call and some prefer the raise. The justifications I hear have to do with risk and trapping and small-pot poker and the like; but in the end, the decision on whether to raise or not really comes down to math and decision making. I personally have no predetermined preference for either play. Instead I look at the specific situation I am in to determine which play is likely to be more profitable and give me fewer headaches – and that’s the choice I make.

So, let’s look at how you make the most profitable mathematical and game-theoretical choice. Suppose you have a single raiser in front of you and you are playing $10/$20 blinds, the raiser makes it $60 to go and you look down at 10-10. You must analyse the math of the call versus the raise. Basically calling will create some problems. Assuming you are against a reasonably aggressive player, you can suppose the player is going to bet at nearly all the flops. Over 50% of the time, the flop is going to have an overcard in it. Now you have gotten yourself into a guessing situation: You aren’t sure whether your 10-10 is good in the face of the jack, queen, king or ace that just fell on the board.

Even worse, if the board does come all undercards to 10-10, you are still in a guessing situation if your opponent puts any amount of pressure on you. You are likely to end up committing a lot of chips in that kind of spot. The only card you can be really happy to see on the flop is a ten – and you are 7.5 to 1 dog to flop a set. Since you are only against one guy at this point, he is going to have to sail off to you for 7.5 times your initial call or $420 bucks just for you to break even to the original call, assuming you break even to all other boards – which might be stretching it since you don’t have the lead.

The take away is that in poker, it is generally a good idea to avoid situations that are likely to present you with headaches down the road. When the overcard flops to your 10-10, you are scratching your head wondering why you played the hand so soft. When the board comes up nine-high and your opponent puts pressure on you, you’re left wondering what on Earth you can beat besides a complete bluff and are in danger of either folding to the worst hand or losing your stack to the best one. Trouble.

But that does not mean that raising is always correct, because raising is not always the most profitable choice. When is it correct? When you believe that you will win the pot over 50% of the time from the moment of the raise. Why? Because in order to justify putting in the extra chips beyond the call, those chips have to be earning and serving a real and describable purpose. Let’s looks at the earn first.

You know that at a minimum you’re going to call with the 10-10. That means that the $60 call is already part of the pot. But now you are considering a raise, trying to decide whether putting the extra chips in the pot will do something good for you. The price you get on the raise will be about even money. With blinds of $10 and $20, the original raise of $60, and your call of $60, you should be raising the pot, which is $150. That means you will be putting in a total of $210 or so ($150 beyond the $60 call you were going to make anyway). So you are risking an extra $150 to win $150. That means your break even point on the raise is 50/50. If you think there is a greater than 50/50 chance that you will win the pot by raising, either right there or down the road, then you should go ahead and make the raise. Mathematically, 50/50 is going to be your break even point (this holds true even if there are other callers in the hand, since you will be raising the pot then as well).

But there are also compelling decision-making and game-theory reasons for choosing the raise instead of the call. First, you can knock out the rest of the field even if your original raiser doesn’t fold. And with a hand like 10-10, which you would really like to win without improvement, narrowing the field is super important. Second, you can take the lead away from the raiser so, when the overcards come, your decision becomes less difficult; since your opponent will check you, you can bet and find out right there where your hand is (you will usually just win it right there). Third, when the raiser does call, you can determine a very, very narrow range of hands he can have. You have much more information about his holdings and that will help you make better decisions after the flop.

Most importantly though, you are avoiding the tougher decisions you will be put to when you leave the lead to the other guy. This means that if you conclude the raise will be profitable, you should generally take that choice to make things easier on yourself. The reason I have no overall preference on the play is that there are lots of games where the raise doesn’t really buy you anything. It doesn’t increase your chances of winning enough. When your opponents are playing loose, they are going to call with too many hands, so you don’t really buy any information. And they are not laying down when they catch part of the flop, so you aren’t buying much of a lead. This kind of game comes up a lot in the early stages of online poker tournaments, for example. In those kinds of games I strongly lead towards the flat call.

Poker is totally situational. Once you understand the implications of the choice you make, like raising or calling, you can adjust your choices effortlessly to the type of game you are in.

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