Lets talk about small pairs OOP as a shorty

[Dave D]

Ok so another thread got me thinking about small pocket pairs, OOP, when we're short late tourney. I thought I'd make a thread where we talked about it some.

I'm going to outline a theoretical situation for discussion. Lets try not to be nits about specific numbers unless there's a serious problem there, because these things are mostly always going to estimates (with the exception of chances of flopping a set, obv) and therefore impossible to determine exactly anyway.

So lets take a hand like 55. We're UTG, with 10 bb. We're halfway through the money on a "standard" table as far as stack sizes. Most people have us covered. Also a "standard" table in terms of aggression. Obviously we're more likely to push 55 at a really tight table and basically should fold it UTG if there's always been a raise PF in the last 30 hands.

The conventional advice here I think is to fold 55. Fold pretty much anything below 77. 88+ might be a push depending on how the table's been playing, and if you have a tight image.

But for me, I often call here, and I'll even call here with 22. I'm looking to be shown why this is wrong here, but here's what I'm thinking.

Lets say that 50% of the time we limp, and we get to see the flop w/o a raise. The other 50% of the time someone raises and we fold. Of the times we limp, lets say 50% of the time we get 2 other limpers, 30% of the time it's 3 limpers, and 20% of the time just BB completes.

So lets figure out our chances of winning the hand, after limping:

So we're 12% to flop a set or quads. Some of the time we're going to flop an OESD and get to push and everyone will fold. Some of the time we will flop an overpair with 55. Some of the time the flop with check thru and we'll hit our set on the turn. And rarely, we'll be able to get to the river for no extra money and have the best hand.

Obviously we have to subtract the times we hit set over set, or someone else has a better overpair on the flop, someone calls our OESD and we miss etc etc.

So after all this, lets say we're 20% to win the hand.

So the question becomes, are we getting enough implied odds to draw for our set etc. So this sorta boils down to are we getting 5:1 either with express or implied odds? I think that if we get two limpers then we are. Namely say we have one limper and the BB checks, with antes we're getting 3:1 there. I think A LOT of the time we hit our hand, we're getting doubled up. People just don't believe shorties, and they play crazy after the bubble (yes I realize this is a problem for pf, we're often gonna get raised off our hand, but I think 50/50 is a good number there). So we're really getting 13:1 (the 3bb PF+10bbs when we get doubled up). Lets say the times that we can't get someone to double us are balanced by the times that we get 2 limpers who both call our push when we have a set or whatever.

A big part of this for me as well is the chances that two people call our all in. Thats happening a fair amount of the time, and is HUGE for us in terms of our chances of making the FT.

Also, a big reason that I justify limping UTG is that if someone raises, I'm only giving up 1 BB, and to me having 9 BB is the same as having 10. I'm basically just as short. This is almost a gigastack way of looking at things in a sense. But giving up that 1 bb PF a lot of the time (already said at 50%), represents hitting it BIG some of the time too, and that's what I care so much for.

All in all, even if you could show me that limping 22 UTG is ev neutral, I still want to do it because I'm playing for the FT and 10 BBs sucks.

Paging stumpy for this thread, I think.