Basic Question - pocket pairs vs raise OOP

[Man of Means]

Excuse my inexperience please:

Suppose I'm in a typical 1/2 NL live game, my stack is about $150 (most stacks are $100-250) and I limp in early position (or I'm in the blinds) with Pocket Threes. Someone raises to $12, about 4 people call. I insta-call here closing the action, right?

I miss so often I feel like I'm lighting money on fire and wonder if this is correct.

[jjb108]

Fold preflop. As played call.

You might put this in either full ring or B&M.

[Gelford]

You are not lighting money on fire .... the thing is, in an (aggresive) 6 max game where you mostly play HU pots, then setmining is simply not profitable ... limping pocketpairs is a no no, you raise them.


But in a setting as you describe, where you have 4-5 on each flop, then your sets will most likely get paid of good (which isn't the case above)

But you only connect one out of seven times .... so you can easily end up not connecting 20-30 times, while at other times you end up connection three times in a row.

[barryc83]

I'm limping this all day in a normal (ie soft) 1/2 live game.

[kaz2107]

[ QUOTE ]
You are not lighting money on fire .... the thing is, in an (aggresive) 6 max game where you mostly play HU pots, then setmining is simply not profitable ... limping pocketpairs is a no no, you raise them.


But in a setting as you describe, where you have 4-5 on each flop, then your sets will most likely get paid of good (which isn't the case above)

But you only connect one out of seven times .... so you can easily end up not connecting 20-30 times, while at other times you end up connection three times in a row.

[/ QUOTE ]
also note that u dont have a 100bb stack thus makin this less profitable. sounds like ur table is fishy enough to make it still ok but u dont have to consider how deep u r playin. more deep= more implied odds= more profits from low pps and SCs

[DawnToDusk]

I would call here in this spot. There are 5 other people in the hand and you are closing the action. The initial raise may indicate strength as well as the next call, but each call could have looser calling standards are there is more money in the pot and they may be calling thinking they have high implied odds. They may and probably do have fairly high implied odds with 5 other players in the hand but in actuality it is less than they think it is because some of those hands are going to miss the board more often and aren't going to pay off big bets. Another thing to consider is the stack sizes of the people calling behind you. Since your primary goal is to flop a set and try to get someone to pay off your big bets you ought to be looking for those with big stacks. If someone comes in with $40, that is going to drasticly cut down your implied odds. These thoughts should also be running around in your head. But none the less your implied odds are significant enough to call.

Here is a problem though with flopping a set in the position that you do. You called the flop which doesn't denote a lot of stength (depending on your image it might mean strength as well) and then called a raise. So observant thinking people will probably be able to narrow your hand range down a little. I don't know what others will think but there will certainly be those who can put you on lower PP. If you do make your hand you have great relative position to the raiser (I assume he is on your left) so you get to see what others do in response to the initial raiser, but your absolute position relative to the button is horrid. If you bet the flop you are telling others you have a good hand because you were able to bet into 5 other people and aren't to worried about what the board brought (this isn't entirely true, but your hand is strong enough to try to protect itself now on this board). Observant people will notice the strength of your hand and may even be able to narrow your hand range even more now and it might be hard for you to get 1)marginal hands to call bets or 2)others to pay you off. Another line you could take to help avoid this or at least decieve the true strength of your hand a little is to raise PF.

Dependent on your image people may not put you on a PP of 33 preflop. If you were a TAG they may assume your range is something like AQs+, JJ+. And if the board came 238 you might be able to stack someone who got a little bullish or called PF with a hand that now made second best. This also allows for some other plays that will make it harder for your opponents to narrow down your range.