When you play poker, you’ll often hear the term “open raise.”

In this article, we’ll explain the open raise, one of the most common and important preflop actions in poker.

1. What Is an “Open Raise”?

An “open raise” means entering the pot by raising preflop when no one has entered the pot yet.

For example, if you’re in the Cutoff (CO) and everyone folds up to you from the Hijack (HJ), then you raise to enter the pot, that action is an open raise.

A typical raise size is around 2.5bb to 3bb, but if many players tend to call, you may choose a larger open size.

2. What About Calling?

If no one has entered the pot yet and you want to play the hand, you can also choose to call instead of raise. This is called an “open limp.”

3. Enter the Pot with an Open Raise

In poker, open limping (except from the Small Blind) is considered a mistake in many situations. That’s why, when no one has entered the pot, it’s usually best to enter with an open raise.

Key benefits of open raising include:

• You can win the blinds (steal) by making everyone fold

  When you open raise, you give yourself a chance to make all other players fold. If you open limp instead, the Big Blind can check, so you can never make everyone fold preflop.

• You reduce the number of players seeing the flop

  This is closely related to the first point, but playing postflop against fewer opponents is a major advantage. If you open limp, more players are likely to enter, which increases the chance your weaker hand gets outdrawn and you lose the pot.

• You build a bigger pot and earn more with strong hands

  Raising creates a larger pot than limping. If you limp, the pot stays small, making it harder to profit even when you pick up a strong hand.

4. Which Hands Should You Open Raise?

Even though open raising is generally the best way to enter the pot, open raising too many weak hands will increase your losses. That’s why you need to choose your open-raising hands carefully. Let’s look at what kinds of hands work well.

Depending on the rules and your position, an appropriate open-raise frequency is often said to be around 20% to 30%. When no one has entered the pot, it’s usually best to open raise with roughly the top 20% to 30% of hands.

Hands that are well-suited for open raising include:

• Two high cards

  Hands like A-T or K-Q tend to have strong equity. Another reason they perform well is that when you make a pair, your other card (your kicker) is often strong, which helps you win bigger pots.

• Pocket pairs

  Hands like 9-9 or 5-5 are called pocket pairs. You start with at least one pair guaranteed, and against non-paired hands you often have around 50% equity or more. You also have a good chance to make three of a kind, and when you hit a set you can win a large pot.

• Suited connectors

  Hands like J-T suited or 6-5 suited are called suited connectors: two cards of the same suit with consecutive ranks. Even if their raw equity is not high, they can make strong hands like flushes and straights, and those hands can win big pots when they connect.

Here we covered the general characteristics of hands you should open raise, but there are also “open range charts” that list specific hands to open from each position. For more details, see this article:

https://pokerqz.com/blog/range

Summary

In poker, preflop is the most important street because you play it every single hand. If you learn to open raise correctly as a preflop fundamental, your results can improve dramatically. Put what you learned here into practice and start building a stronger preflop strategy.