i did some equity calculations on this and it was closer than i thought, but i'm still leaning toward a call. i may have been exaggerating when i said, "i snap call this."

we're getting a little bit better than 6:1 immediate with the likelihood of 7:1 when the small blind calls. we need to win 12.5% of the time when all the cards are dealt to breakeven on a call. versus the limpers range equilab gives us about 13.3%, which is more than we need to breakeven on a call.

one of the problems i see with this hand is our RIO. we want to avoid putting in lots of bets preflop that we won't likely make up post flop. i don't think that's going to happen in this spot mainly because in a loose passive low limit game people aren't likely to raise from the blinds. the crazy "action" player has already refused to raise and op hasn't given us a read that he's worried about anyone in the blinds raising.

i think our hand should be fairly easy to play postflop. although, given that this post even exists, for op that statement may not be true. sure there are going to be spots where our hand is going to be ambiguous, and we'll have no idea what the right option is, but other times will be fairly easy. also, the times we flop big and win should make up for the times we call a few times with the worst hand. is this fuzzy logic?

i just feel like not calling in this specific spot has the potential to cost us a lot of $ from pots we could've won. don't we want to play speculative hands on the button in really loose passive games? i get that 56s is a much better hand in the "speculative hand" category, but it's redheaded stepchild second cousin 56o will likely win us enough money in the long run that calling here can't be that bad.

what range of hands are we playing on the button with 5 limpers in front of us, and the likelihood that the blinds won't raise?

it's not a no limit all in preflop situation where we're putting in 1/7 of the money with roughly 1/7 of the equity, or whatever. that's something to be careful with when using pokerstove. there are going to be decision points postflop and it's difficult to realize all of our equity, even in position, with offsuit connectors. are you limp 65o guys limping k5o too? why not? it's a better hand!

Fold pf. Raise the flop for reasons already mentioned and also because there are bad turn cards that will slow down the action.

Whoops, I meant I would have folded if I thought the blinds would raise. No need to make myself out to be worse than I already am...

I agree. With 5 limpers, 65o is a perfectly fine hand to overlimp on the button.

EDIT: I see there's some pushback.

Here's my point. I don't think PokerStove has that much to do with the question here. The point is that against bad players, you should be looking to see cheap flops in position. Doing that is +EV if you are a good player.

65o has decent equity. It doesn't have to have its fair share in this situation. You should be able to outplay your opponents from the button, folding when it is obvious, taking free cards when needed, raising for maximum value, and buying the occasional pot.

If you can do those things well, you should be playing very, very wide on the button with 5 limpers.

Pf is Meh and it sounds like everyone who's put.money in this flop isn't going anywhere so charge em up.

65o looks like it's in the bottom 30%. Playing 70% of your hands otb cannot be right, even in most steal situations.

The issue isn't where the hand ranks on the hand ranking scale. The last time I checked, hand rankings don't take into account the number of players in the pot, the relative skill of the players, or position, all of which factor into whether a play is +EV.

In general, tables full of limpers are tables full of players who don't read boards or hands very well, don't get maximum value when they are ahead, can be bluffed in the proper situation, give out free cards, and pay you off when they can't get away from their hands. Further, multiway pots can get large when you make a big hand. And you get to act last against these guys.

We have a couple of stoves here that say we are either getting 10 percent or 13 percent of the equity here. Acting last, we will be able to control the size of the pot, take free cards when necessary, and get maximum value on our hand when we do hit big. Even if we assume the worst (only 10 percent of the equity), we don't need much of a boost from our position and superior skill to the other players to make this a +EV play.

As far as I'm concerned, if I am up against a bunch of people who let me see a lot of cheap flops on the button, I am in Nirvana. And yes, I'm playing a pretty wide range for 1sb. I'll let the nits fold and give up their advantage.

This thread is quite interesting.

The real answer has to be "it depends". On one extreme, every opponent caps to showdown and we make the max whenever we hit; on the other extreme, we get isolated and forced to draw expensively. As is always the case in poker, whether to play a hand preflop is contingent on its ability to extract bets postflop. This is a function of our collective opponents' competency, our competency, and our hand strength (both absolute and relative).

The main value in a hand like 65o is making straights. In this particular example, we can extract bets from overcards/overpairs/sets/two pair/one pair, etc. That is very profitable.

But does it happen often enough? Flopping a straight with 65o is something like 3.26%; flopping a straight draw is something like 9.8%. Realize that on some boards (e.g. 478), hands like T9 can outdraw you to a higher straight. On boards like 789, you will get coolered by hands like T6 and JT. Not being suited means you have no "backup".

It's rather complex; the textbooks say fold. My approach in this spot is to look around the table. If I can identify at least two people who will call 2bets cold on the turn with stuff like 2nd pair, then I feel like I have enough IO to make the hand profitable. Also, how confident are you in your postflop skill? Do you know when to 3barrel, when to give up, when to valuebet 3rd pair like it's the nuts, bet/fold, etc?

Number of players is taken into account:
http://www.propokertools.com/simulat...6h5d&s=generic

Position is nearly irrelevant when there are 8 players in the hand and there are such few draws you can flop. What are you going to do, raise the flop with bottom pair for a free card? And yes, if players are bad enough, ATC is profitable. But I would contend that the larger the number of players in a hand, the less ability you have to cause them to make mistakes. In other words, it's very difficult to jedi mind-trick 7 players, especially in a limit game.

You can't bluff 7 players. You can't flop very many big hands, and that's the crux of why this hand sucks. When you flop two pair, you flop bottom two pair that is counterfeitable. When you flop straights or open-enders, you make the big end of it only half the time (actually probably less than half). When you flop trips, you flop trips with the near worst kicker. Even when you flop a boat, you never have top boat on the turn/river. So even the monsters you make are always the worst possible monsters.

It's arguable that 54o is better than 65o, because at least when you flop a wheel, you can get extra action from Ax.

I dont think option 2 is bad at all you have the nuts still and why not punish a set and any draws with the best hand, if he fills up thats unfortunate but hero is getting a c/r with a flopped set all day long, if your tight I guess you can slow down and wait to see what the board brings

I don't think position is irrelevant at all. Position does several things:

1. It allows you to make free card plays. You say the only time you would do this is with a straight draw. That depends. If one of the guys acting before you takes stabs at flops, you might also do it with a one pair-type hand as well.

2. It allows you to maximize value. This is huge. Indeed, one of the things about this situation is that even though your immediate pot odds are lower, I think it is much, much better to be playing trash on the button than it is to play trash in the blinds, and a lot of this has to do with this point. When you are on the button, you never have to worry about not getting your check-raise in or the flop checking through. Nobody can take a free card on you. You can charge every draw and every second-best hand. And yet if I advocated folding 65o in the blinds in a mass multiway pot, including one that has a raise (i.e., someone has a big hand), I'm sure people would break out their Stoves and start lecturing me about equity. (For the record, I have no problem with playing 65o out of the blinds multiway. I'm just using it an example.) This is a BETTER situation than that.

You can also raise for free showdowns, or check behind when you get counterfeited, when you are playing on the button.

I suspect, by the way, that you don't really mean what you say about position being irrelevant in a multi-way pot because of this point-- in other words, even if you don't play 65o, you play a wider range on the button than you do in say middle position in a limped pot. I am not going to claim that folding 65o specifically is missing a lot of value, but if you really do play as if position is irrelevant in multiway pots, you ARE, indeed, missing value.

3. Somewhat obviously, position reduces the likelihood that someone has a big hand and will put in a pre-flop raise, and ensures we act last and after that player even if it happens.

4. Position allows for bluffs. "You cannot bluff 7 players", you say. That's reminiscent of the no limit players who make comments like "you can't bluff in hold 'em". Yes, it's true, you can't bluff all that often. But on occasion, yes, you can buy pots that nobody expresses an interest in, or bluff scare cards after the field is narrowed down. And you can semi-bluff and take down pots too. I've bet A87 flops against a bunch of limpers and gotten everyone to fold.

5. I think the rest of your comment is just MUBS. It's true. You sometimes hit second-best hands. As you do with 65 suited as well-- but you surely think it would be crazy to fold THAT here. And guess what-- you will be playing against players who FAIL to get maximum value out of their coolers. Because they are bad players who like to limp.

Again, if you don't think you can outplay a bunch of bad players with position and a hand with decent equity, go ahead and fold. But it's definitely not wrong to play-- it's a classic example of a good player exploiting his or her advantages.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I REALLY reject the concept of a "top ____ %" of hands in multi-way pots. Obviously, there are hands that are super-strong even multiway (KK) and hands that have a lot of value multi-way (JTs), but when overlimping on the button, your position and your opponents are much, much more important than where your hand ranks. Indeed, even though I don't think equity / Stove is that important in this situation, it's still more important than a ranking-- at least equity tells you how often you are going to have the best hand.

To put it simply, the mathematical calculation (probably unknowable without a massive PokerTracker database) that we are looking for is EXPECTED VALUE, and I can't see how "top __ % hand" even factors into that calcuation (equity, on the other hand, plays a role).

Seems like the preflop argument is the only potentially interesting thing about the hand, so here are results.

With a 5$ drop this hand is even more unprofitable that it already is.

and lol at this being easy to play postflop.

With a $5 drop OP shouldn't be playing 6/12. But nonetheless, people play raketrap live limit games for various reasons and it's still good to discuss the issues in this thread as they come up with other games with beatable rakes as well.