Calling minimum bets with no hand after flop

[gobby888]

Similar to my other post, after playing drawing hands or small pocket pairs in multiway pots and not hitting anything after the flop, usually some donk players start minimum betting...e.g. $0.04 (0.02/0.04 $5NL at party) ...such that everyone just donk calls as the pot odds are usually quite high - is this just bad play, to keep adding to the pot even though I could be drawing to nothing?

[Jetto]

In general..Calling a bet/raise with almost or close to nothign is -EV.


Unless you think you can "out kick" your opponent.

[mutiger91]

I play a lot of live $1/$2 NL and you will see a lot of passive play like that preflop. Sometimes I call if:

1) I have position
2) There are one or more weak players in the pot
3) My hand has SOME value (suited, connected, small pair - actually I'll almost always raise this to build a pot in case I make my set or to set up a continuation bet)

The idea is that with position I have 2 ways to win - actually hitting my hand or having position to bluff (if my opponents are bluffable and the texture of the flop is right for a bluff.

Jetto netted it out for you above, but why on earth after missing the flop would you want to chase with more money? Your odds of pairing one of your cards on the turn is only 12% and that may not be good enough to win the hand. If you need further improvement, you will have only a 10% chance on the river - 1.2% chance overall if there is an over to your hand on the board and someone has paired it. How big do you think you can get paid off?

I won't work out the odds for str8 or flush runners, but it's the same idea.