Top pair in a small pot

[Aaron W.]

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I don't know why everyone wants to call the flop; because you got 3bet?

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In a small pot, Hero makes money by inducing postflop errors, not protecting his share of the pot.
--> Villain left to act is likely to make an error by peeling
--> When hero is behind, he's making a substantial error by raising
--> When hero is ahead, villain is less inclined to call down with a weak hand

[MacGuyV]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't know why everyone wants to call the flop; because you got 3bet?

[/ QUOTE ]

In a small pot, Hero makes money by inducing postflop errors, not protecting his share of the pot.
--> Villain left to act is likely to make an error by peeling
--> When hero is behind, he's making a substantial error by raising
--> When hero is ahead, villain is less inclined to call down with a weak hand

[/ QUOTE ]
I think we can induce MP1 to make larger errors by raising. The beauty of this game is that he will call 2 cold with A7/K7/A3/J9/J8 all day. Furthermore if MP1 overcalls, BB will frequently check draws on the turn. Furthermore we're rarely outkicked given BB's 14 PFR.

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't know why everyone wants to call the flop; because you got 3bet?

[/ QUOTE ]

In a small pot, Hero makes money by inducing postflop errors, not protecting his share of the pot.
--> Villain left to act is likely to make an error by peeling
--> When hero is behind, he's making a substantial error by raising
--> When hero is ahead, villain is less inclined to call down with a weak hand

[/ QUOTE ]
I think we can induce MP1 to make larger errors by raising. The beauty of this game is that he will call 2 cold with A7/K7/A3/J9/J8 all day. Furthermore if MP1 overcalls, BB will frequently check draws on the turn. Furthermore we're rarely outkicked given BB's 14 PFR.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that's an optimisitic assessment of MP1 because it's a small pot, but it's hard to aruge this in concrete terms. I suspect that the liklihood of him holding a coldcalling hand is small relative to the number of peeling hands that he has (peeling hands may include two cards higher than the second highest rank on the board or hands containing a lone high heart, but coldcalling hands almost certainly will not).

I can say that your assessment of BB is probably wrong. I have a PFR that hovers around 12, and I'm often checking KT, QT in the big blind. AT will sometimes get checked depending on the table conditions. You can unequivically say that you're rarely outkicked because there are more Tx hands that are worse than JT than better.

[MacGuyV]

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[I can say that your assessment of BB is probably wrong. I have a PFR that hovers around 12, and I'm often checking KT, QT in the big blind. AT will sometimes get checked depending on the table conditions. You can unequivically say that you're rarely outkicked because there are more Tx hands that are worse than JT than better.


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Fair enough - I was going to edit that because I worded it wrong and because I knew you were going to be a nit about it; but the point is we have the best hand very very often.

I don't think my assumption of MP1 is terribly optimistic unless the 5/10 game is softer than 1/2.

[paiz]

grunch

I think you call the 3-bet and go into WA/WB mode.

[Xhad]

With 3 overcards that beat us, a flush draw, and five cards that make us top 2 pair or better this is not WA/WB.

[rjacobs003]

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I'd be very interested in the responses here as the big blind after a pre-flop limp is a big unknown quantity - which is probably why I try to go as aggressive as possible pre-flop to weed 'em out [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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That's a dangerous preflop mentality.

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Agreed and its something I'm working on although I do tend to lapse now and then. Tightening up my starting selection has really helped with this as in a lot of cases I can now AFFORD to be aggressive as I'm starting with good hands.

[Stoo_Pot]

Interesting arguments for both raising and calling. We don't need to raise to protect our hand because mp1 would be making a mistake by calling with overs or a lower pair.
I usually raise this in the heat of things but I like the argument for raising a safe turn. Are we taking a free showdown if offered?
Would you raise the flop in a large pot Aaron because folding mp1 will have a larger equity gain in terms of BB and also fold equity?

[Buckmulligan]

ya, i raise this flop.

Aaron pointed out that since the pot is small we can screw around. I agree with McGahee though. OUr raising does not really force villain to make correct choices;.

[Aaron W.]

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I usually raise this in the heat of things but I like the argument for raising a safe turn. Are we taking a free showdown if offered?

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Usually not. If he's checking to us on the river, we usually have the best hand.

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Would you raise the flop in a large pot Aaron because folding mp1 will have a larger equity gain in terms of BB and also fold equity?

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Yes. In that case, folding out villain behind us earns us more money than him making a bad call.