I've read Phil Gordon's little green book and I've read Harrington on Hold'em, and one thing I noticed was that each of them have a very different position on PF raising.

Gordon argues that you should not really vary your raise at all. He says beginners should always open the pot for a standard amount, 3bb. It doesn't matter if you're raising with A's or on a button steal, you should always raise the same amount.

Harrington, on the other hand, argues that you should randomly vary your raise between 2-5 bb.

I understand that they are both trying to accomplish the same thing, which is to conceal the actual strength of your hand, but which way do you feel would be more effective?

You should have an optimal amount that you would like to raise with each hand depending upon position and game conditions and then very that only slightly in order to mix up your play.

E.g I prefer to raise 4bb with Ak but 7bb with AA/KK for fairly obvious reasons. If you play with someone frequently then you should probably stick to your optimum conditions 75% of the time and the other 25% (or less) make a larger/smaller raise than usual or flat call.

If you always raise to 3bb with aces then you are giving enormous implied odds for small-medium pairs to hit trips on you and take your entire stack.

I've been varying my raises for a long time, but that's from being a cash gamer and my raise size is completely independent of my hand. I can have any 2 cards. The size of my raise is dependent on the limpers in front, the amount of limpers in front, how many are to act, who's to act, and how short my stack is at the time (my Q).

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I don't agree with Gordon on the 3bb either so let's adjust his argument slightly.

You should always raise the same amount, xbb. By that I mean
Tight table, always raise 3bb.
Loose table, always raise 5bb.

For the record, I agree that you should vary your raise and do the same myself. I just wondered if anyone agreed with Gordon's method and if so, why?

I don't do it based on the table because your position changes on different people every hand. It's hand by hand for me in the early to mid stages of an MTT. Last 5 tables, I stay between 2.5-3.5bbs because I play a lot of small pots instead of sitting back for big cards to play big pots.

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Somewhere in Gordons book he writes that he uses lower raises from early positions and raises more from later position. I do that sometimes but cannot really say it has improved my game. The problem is that those 2xBB raises are too easily called, and the 4xBB raise spoils trouble when you steal with garbage (more invested than necessary to get the job done). The other problem is that people may associate 2xBB with a weak hand, which is a problem if your hand really is weak (KJo etc).

Later in tourneys I like to do standard raises (3xBB) to not give away any information (no implied odds for small pairs anyways)

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the 3bb thing sounds far too rigid...so you may gain in keeping people from figuring your out slightly but surly with a hand like qq kk you wanna raise more than say AA to get 1 caller as your scared of overcards on the flop...thats just an example but you'll misout on tons of important pre-flop advantages to varying your raise to an amount that helps your position in the hand

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My raises are all over the place.. tends to average 4+ (what I feel will do the job) bb in late. In early 4bb + position is enough to fire off overwhelming hands I find. On average I puty much more money in laste than early...

I'm opposed to any static approach to poker. If I've been banging away at the blinds with 4bb+ for a few orbits - I may, as first in on the button just minimum raise - from an aggressive player his can be quite disturbing...and assures the table that my 4bb "means" something-- lol..

This is about how you "couple" with the table...If the table has been minimum raising for a few orbits then you can easily take out three limpers preflop with 5bb. If there's a maniac out there left to play 5bb will tend to stir him up - this can be good or bad...

I often play off stacks. If theres a short stack there I will tune my bet into getting him pot committed and hopefully bounce up the pot through him..

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I think Gordon overestimates how quickly people will get reads on your raises in big tournaments.