Many poker books say that you should never make the minimum raise in no limit hold'em.
It is a mistake to use the words "never" or "always" in relation to poker. On the site PokerVT.com I teach my students that a mini-raise can sometimes be the best play decision.
Don't get me wrong - mini-raising is not the preferred way to play the hand. It is usually much more effective to raise slightly more than the legal minimum. Speaking of this, there are two specific situations where a mini-raise is the best choice.
Mini-raise when playing heads-up
In a heads-up game, the player on the button posts the small blind and the other player posts the big blind. Before the flop, the button acts first, but then he acts last on all subsequent streets. This is a very strong position.
Your goal is to play as many hands as possible when you are in this strong position, and as few hands as possible when you are. A mini-raise will help you with this.
If your opponent makes the typical three-big-blind raise on the button, then tighten up your starting hand selection and only play with decent hands. If you are on the button yourself, be more liberal in your raising hands and mini-raise.
As you can see, reducing the raise size to a minimum will allow you to play more hands in good position when your opponent calls or raises 3 big blinds. This may sound wrong, but it is. A mini-raise can force your opponent to fold incorrectly with a hand he should have played or call pre-flop with a marginal hand that should have been folded.
And even more. If your opponent has a strong hand and re-raises, you can save money by folding your hand. Let's say the blinds are 10$ - 20$ and you min-raise to 40$ preflop. Your opponent promotes you to 150$. You can fold your hand right away and save the 20$ that you would have lost with a standard triple raise of 60$.
You can also mini-raise when a normal raise requires a significant portion of your stack or your opponent's.
Often times, especially in tournament play, the size of any postflop raise will be so significant that it doesn't matter if you mini-raise or bet more. Because the reaction of the opponent will be the same for any size of the raise, because the opponent becomes dependent on the pot.
Here's an example:
On board K
-9
-6
-2
and 2,000 in the pot, your opponent bets 1,500 chips, staying with 6,000. You can mini-raise to 3,000 or go all-in - your opponent's answer will be the same. He will play with you if he thinks his hand is the best.
If he accepts your min-raise, then his remaining stack will be pot-dependent. If he calls this bet, then he will also call any other.
Here's another example on the same board. This time you have pocket queens and you think your opponent has no king.
You can go all-in. If you get called, then you will probably be in big trouble. On the other hand, you can min-raise to 3,000 and save 4,500, which your opponent will definitely bet if he has a king.
So the next time your opponent laughs at your mini-raise, smile back at him - he thinks you're stupid. Just slowly but surely take all the chips from him.
Daniel Negreniu: playing poker
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