Small pair OOP with low flop in raised pot

[ras52]

This hand came up early in a live deep stack tournament. Blinds 75/150, effective stacks > 50BB. UTG raises to 500, one caller from MP, both solid players. I have 77 in the big blind. I folded - that's a mistake, right? With the given stack sizes I'm getting implied odds for hitting a set.

Ah well, let's assume I called. The pot's now 1575 and the flop comes 9-8-2 rainbow. Can I go any further with this? Would it be different if I had only one opponent? My thinking is that with one opponent there's a good chance he raised with two high cards and the flop missed him, so I should bet out and try to take down the pot now. With two opponents I must put at least one of them on an overpair, so I check/fold. Thoughts?

[bluesbassman]

[ QUOTE ]
This hand came up early in a live deep stack tournament. Blinds 75/150, effective stacks > 50BB. UTG raises to 500, one caller from MP, both solid players. I have 77 in the big blind. I folded - that's a mistake, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, that's a mistake. That's the perfect situation to set-mine.

[ QUOTE ]

Ah well, let's assume I called. The pot's now 1575 and the flop comes 9-8-2 rainbow. Can I go any further with this? Would it be different if I had only one opponent?

[/ QUOTE ]

Your underpair has negligible showdown value on that board in a multiway pot. So if you continue, it's based on exploiting fold equity, not your cards. I would check/fold, unless I had a read that my opponents were so weak/passive I could steal the small pot.

Against one villain, a bluff has a better chance of succeeding, so yes, you can be aggressive more often.

[wizard]

I disagree with the one must be on an over pair part of the question and, in the example, think that this might be a good time for a check raise. Leading will get you raised by a big A too often to be valuable but the chk raise may tell you a lot.

As to seeing the flop in the first place, it is probably worth the extra 350 but I would never argue with the fold.