playing a middle pair out of position 10 ft daily dbl

[Sherman]

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I shove. It sounds dumb because you don't win anything from hands that you are ahead of and always lose to hands that you are behind, but it is the only way to protect your hand if you are ahead.

Basically, this is a barely ahead/way behind situation because even if we are ahead, villain probably has at least 6 outs. So, if we just call, we might get more value out of hands that we are ahead of, but we also let those hands draw for free (at least on the turn if he so chooses to do so after our check). Also, too many cards can come that cause us to fold the turn/river anyway.

You have to protect your hand if you are ahead. If you are behind you are probably screwed anyway. It's shove or fold time here and if his c-bet frequency is high enough, I am shoving.

BTW, there are a few ways out of this situation, but they all must be decided PF. For example, raising PF will better define your hand and villain's range. It may also give you the c-bet edge on the flop. You could also limp/fold PF. Finally, you could limp/call and play for set value (deciding to fold any non-set flop).

In any case, now that you are here, I like a shove.

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Wouldn't calling with a lot of your stack PF to hit a set be -EV? Hitting it every 7 1/2 times with 1/7th of your stack?

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I agree. From a pure math perspective, calling for set value PF is -EV. That is why I assume hero isn't only playing for set value. Which is also why I assume hero should shove here.

Oh BTW, leading at this pot is WAY worse than check-raising. Leading at this pot is -EV because villain folds all his worse hands and raises his better hands (or at least he should). That means you lose more when behind and win nothing else when ahead. The check/raise shove is the most +EV while still protecting your hand.

The only reason leading could be good is if villain is expected to check behind with high unpaired cards. However, in the modern c-bet era, I doubt he checks behind often.