I think the concept of minimum raises is lost for even some of bigger winners when it comes to No Limit Texas Hold'em. Some incredibly successful players seem not to think about it at all, and they don't really even consider the benefits there can be from actually doing minimum raises. Before we get more into this article, I want to state though that min. raises aren't going to be the best option too often. It's quite rare, so if you're min. raising opponents all the time, I think there's a decent chance you're doing something wrong. It might even work for you, but I'm certain there's something working a lot better.
What makes min. raising so unprofitable (generally), is the fact that you're giving your opponent cheap cards with ridiculous pot odds. If, for example, your opponent bets $30 to a $40 pot and you min. raise it to $60 (meaning you raise $30 more), he's only got to call $30 in order to take part into a $160 pot, and 30/160 = 0,1875 = 18,75%. He's only got to pay under 20% of the pot in order to participate and that's cheap, since for example flush draw will always be profitable here. It's hard to find a hand he would bet with and won't call here.
And we get on to the next point. If your opponent is actually bluffing, and you somehow know that, this might be a way to make more money. Some players call a min. raise here just to "save their faces", since it's quite clear if you fold to this raise, you didn't really have anything. A 3/4 of the pot or pot sized raise would probably scare a bluffing opponent away. Naturally, this opens up a variety of options.
First, the player who's bluffing, your opponent in other words, can benefit from this. If your minimum raise almost always (or always) means a strong hand, he can actually fold his medium sized hands in case he's got no real chance to have a better hand than you. And this fools you in what way? Well, you'll probably think he had complete air right there. So for example, the next time he's got a medium sized hand in a same kind of situation (except for you've got air) it might get pretty beneficial for him. He'll have to know a bit about extracting value, though.
Secondly, saving your face is not good play. Play poker, don't care about saving your face - I'd rather mix up my play later on than pay the minimum raise and possibly get into trouble during later streets (in case I might hit something semi-good like medium pair). Only call a minimum raise with air if saving your face is important, or if you feel like your opponent's weak and you can bluff him out of his hand (obviously). Otherwise, fold.
And minimum raises can help you with getting your opponent to tilt, too. It's incredibly frustrating to get min. raised when you're bluffing. A pot sized raise would be so much easier to give up (although you'll still hate it), but when you have to fold to a minimum raise - well, makes it even more frustrating. Frustration often leads to bad decisions and tilt. An opponent on tilt should make us some decent money.
The idea behind min. raises is usually to extract some money out of your opponent, and figuring out the power of your opponent's hand. Likewise, if you min. raise your opponent, you've got something quite good and he's got a really strong hand, he'll actually miss value by just calling here, I think. By just calling with a strong hand, he's most of the times giving you a free card to improve your hand and misses out on value. Therefore it's generally not good play. However, if he thinks he'll get you to basically "throw away" your chips on later streets because of that call, then it might be a good move.
The key point in deciding whether to min. raise or not (well, you should actually be thinking "how much to raise" rather than "to min. raise or not") is; will you get more value by doing it?
Conclusion: you make a minimum raise when that's the only way to get more value (if any other raise works, that would obviously be over "minimum") or when you want to find out more about your opponent and his hand. The fact that your opponent's frustration level might increase just makes it better, although it isn't enough in itself to justify the raise. You can also fool opponents who make min. raises with strong hands (if you know you can't beat his hand on later streets) by laying down even medium sized hands (next time he'll think you've got nothing, too).
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