The first decision in every hand is whether to get into the pot before the flop, and how. The most common version goes like this: it is your turn, everyone in front of you has folded, and you are holding a hand that is neither good nor bad — say, K9 offsuit (K9o).
You have three buttons: fold, call, raise. A lot of players press the cheapest one, put in one big blind, and wait to see the flop. The reasons all sound sensible: it only costs one big blind, so it is the cheapest option; the hand is not good enough to raise, but too good to throw away; if the flop hits, play on, and if it misses, fold, and you have not lost much.
Nobody has raised and you just match the big blind to get in: that is called limping (the term is explained in the six actions at the table). It is the most common preflop habit beginners have, and the action most likely to cost you a lot. The problem is not that one big blind. It is that a limp gives up three things that affect your chances of winning, all at once.
(This post only covers the spot where nobody has raised in front of you. Calling after someone has already raised is a different decision, called a cold call, and what a cold call is covers it separately.)
1. You give up the chance to win without seeing a flop
Before every hand starts, there are already two blinds in the pot: half a big blind from the small blind and a full one from the big blind, 1.5 big blinds in total.
When everyone has folded to you, you have reached the first moment in the hand where this can happen: you raise, everyone behind you folds, and the 1.5 big blinds are yours. No flop needed, and it does not matter what you are holding. The later your seat, the fewer players are left behind you to get past, and the more often this happens; it is one of the reasons the button can open nearly half of all hands (the blind stealing in what ATS is is exactly this).
A limp throws this chance away entirely. Matching one big blind makes nobody fold, and the big blind does not even have to put in another chip. The pot is left with only one way to be won: beating someone after the flop.
That is the problem with “let’s just see the flop”. The flop is not free information: you are paying a big blind for a chance to win later, and only later. And on the flop, the player who raised can keep betting even after missing, because before the flop they already said they had a hand; the player who limped said nothing before the flop, and after missing can usually only check and wait for someone else to decide.
2. The chips you save, everyone behind you saves too
“It only costs one big blind, so it is the cheapest” — but that price is not just for you.
Once you limp, everyone behind you can come in at the same price. Limp first in from under the gun (UTG) at a six-handed table and there are five players still to act behind you; hands they would fold to a raise can now see a flop for one big blind. In Texas Hold’em your chances of winning a pot are usually better the fewer players are in it, but a limp actually invites more players in, because the pot has grown.
Apart from the two blinds, these players all act after you on every street after the flop. They decide after seeing what you do; you have to commit first, and often against several players at once.
Nor is one big blind necessarily the final price: the players behind you can raise. Raising to isolate a limper is the standard answer to spot 5 in the complete guide to preflop play; the moment you limp, you are on the other side of that spot, the player being targeted. Raised to the default 3.5 big blinds (2.5 for the open plus 1 for each limper), you are usually left with two options: put in another 2.5 big blinds and play a bigger pot with a hand you yourself did not think was worth a raise, or fold and give away the big blind you just put in.
3. The big blind sees the flop for free with any two cards
The big blind already has one big blind on the table.
Raise to 2.5 big blinds and the big blind has to put in another 1.5 to continue, so the bad hands get folded. In RushCraft’s default ranges, the big blind keeps only 16.1% of hands against a raise from UTG (and that is the tight version); even against an opening range as wide as the button’s, it keeps less than half (48.4%; the five positions are compared side by side in section 4 of the preflop range charts).
Limp, with nobody raising behind you, and the big blind does not have to put in a single chip — they just check. Every one of a hundred hands gets to see the flop, including hands like 7-2 offsuit that the big blind knows full well should be thrown away.
Why this matters: the edge you have over your opponent before the flop is that you chose your hand. You picked something better than two random cards, and a raise is what makes that choice pay: either they fold and you take the pot, or they play against you only with hands that made it through the filter. A limp gets you nothing for it. Their hand has not been filtered, the flop might give two pair to the 7-2 they would otherwise have folded, and you have no way of guessing it, because they could be holding anything.
4. Instead: raise, or fold
When nobody has entered the pot and it is your turn, there are only two choices: raise, or fold. The decision comes down to one sentence: if the hand is not good enough to raise, it is not good enough to call.
The K9 offsuit from the start of this post is, in RushCraft’s default opening ranges, a fold from UTG, MP and the cutoff (CO), and a raise only from the button and the small blind. In none of the five positions is the answer a call; in this spot the default ranges do not even have a cell for calling (all five charts are in section 1 of the preflop range charts).
This also settles the “not good enough to raise, too good to throw away” dilemma. A hand that is good enough is a raise from that seat; one that is not gets folded and costs you nothing more. Calling looks like a compromise between the two, but it actually gets you the downsides of both: you spend chips, and you get none of what a raise would have bought you.
As for how much, the default raise is 2.5 big blinds, plus 1 big blind for each player who has already limped in front of you (the complete guide to preflop play).
5. A few spots that look like exceptions
You are in the big blind, someone has limped and nobody has raised. Checking to see the flop costs you nothing more. That is not a limp: you are the player from section 3 who sees the flop for free. With a good enough hand, you can still raise.
You are in the small blind and only need to add half a big blind. It is the cheapest limp at the table, but it is still a limp: the big blind can see the flop for free or raise and put you under pressure, and after the flop you have to act before the big blind on every street. The answer in the small blind post is the same: raise or fold.
Several players have already limped in front of you. That is no longer “nobody has entered the pot”; it is a different spot. With just one limper, the answer is still to raise and isolate them; once several players are in, it is spot 6 in the complete guide to preflop play, which has its own take: the more players there are, the better small pairs and suited connectors become, relatively speaking.
Calling to see the flop looks like the cheapest, safest option, but it gives up three things at once: the chance to win without seeing a flop, the price you should be charging the players behind you, and the step that forces the big blind to fold their bad hands. When nobody has entered the pot, you have two options: raise, or fold.
To make it a reflex, this is exactly the question the preflop trainer asks: everyone has folded to you — open, or fold? Those are its only two buttons; there is no call. The action this post asks you to drop is one you cannot even press there.
Read this next: once raise or fold are your only two choices, the next question is which hands are good enough to raise — which starting hands to play covers the three reasons beginners use to talk themselves into a pot (an ace, a shared suit, a possible straight) and why they are also the three most common traps.
If the rules still have gaps, or you want to know what to read next, go back to what Texas Hold’em is; it ends with a map that puts every guide on this site in order.