HOH3: Problem 17 (what's his beef w/ small pairs)

[Vincent]

Harrington says on pg.135 regarding player A (the opponent):

[ QUOTE ]
It's almost impoosible to call with smsall pairs pre-flop in a big pot with a lot of players left to act.

[/ QUOTE ]
Huh? I don't get it, doesn't that opponent have odds to play any pocket pair whether it's 99 or 22 for set value? Also, it's highly unlikely that anyone else will limp/reraise behind player A, since he was UTG. Also, it's a 1.4k call, with another 16k behind them, and a 2.8k pot.

This isn't the only instance of him mentioning his belief that these hands aren't usually playable, and is a frequent mistake by online players.

I suck at NL (actually all poker), so maybe someone can enlighten me.

Does anyone have links to discussions on HOH3? I'm just getting around to reading this and would like to read the interesting threads I missed.

Finally, this book rocks.

[smbruin22]

hope i understand properly (my book is in mail right now)..

1) obviously risk of raises behind (true of other pocket pairs).

2) higher pairs can win unimproved and you can have confidence in them. pocket 2's are horrible even heads-up, and multi-way they have no reasonable chance (they might be best, but you won't have confidence in that)

3) better set beating your "low" set... curious on this one. i guess it depends on stack sizes. they would have to be pretty big for me to worry too much about this one.

one thing about harrington's first two books. i think they're geared to playing against fairly good players who may not pay you off on the set anyway (therefore, why take the risks?)

[Yads]

I don't remember the hand very well, but from the situation you described here's my analysis. So you're getting 2.8:1.4 to call with another potential 16K so let's say you're getting 18.8:1.4. So that's almost about 13:1. Assuming no body raises. You're 7:1 against flopping a set. So initially this may seem like an easy call. Not so fast. It looks like you're getting 13:1 on a 7:1 shot, but you're not. If he misses the flop and you hit your set, you may only win a little bit of money from him. If he has something like queens and an ace comes you're also unlikely to win his whole stack. Now what happens when you miss your set? Now add in all of the times when somebody reraises and you have to let your hand go and this is a pretty easy fold.

[smbruin22]

yads, good analysis.... i think somehow over time there's developed an assumption that if you hit trips, you're going to stack someone.... as you said, they have to hit, you have to hit, no scare card and they have to make the call (and i think people are learning not to give up stack on TP-good kicker, although alot still do).