This is my first post (been lurking for about 6 months). Compelled to contribute a strategy post after an in-person game yesterday at the local casino that created much discussion. Did my best to follow posting guidelines - Thanks for any replies!

Hero = Seat 8
Hand Information
(9 handed).
Hand History converter courtesy of pokerhandreplays.com

Table Information
Seat: 1 seat 1 ($145) Small Blind
Seat: 2 seat 2 ($130) Big Blind
Seat: 3 seat 3 ($200)
Seat: 4 seat 4 ($200)
Seat: 5 seat 5 ($200)
Seat: 6 seat 6 ($200)
Seat: 7 seat 7 ($200)
Seat: 8 seat 8 ($610)
Seat: 9 seat 9 ($200) Dealer
Dealt to seat 8
**

Preflop (Pot:3)
seat 3****CALL
seat 4****FOLD
seat 5****FOLD
seat 6****CALL
seat 7****FOLD
seat 8****CALL
seat 9****FOLD
seat 1****RAISE $12
seat 2****CALL
seat 3****FOLD
seat 6****FOLD
seat 8****CALL

Flop(Pot: $29)
***

seat 1****BET $21
seat 2****CALL
Hero?

especially given how short both players are, I'm just going to put in a raise right now and go with it. once you call the $21 the pot will be around $90 and seat 1 and 2 are going to have like 120 or so left. I'd prob raise to like $75 or $80 or something. maybe one of them will be bad enough to bluff shove you every blue moon. more importantly though someone might just see the $75 as only $50 more and hope you don't bet anymore. it's going to be a small difference between that and shoving but if it helps now and then, why not.

anyway if seat 1 has a hand like 99-JJ, you don't want an overcard or a heart to peel off. looks like seat 2 either has a mid pair or a flush draw himself. he's prob going to fold his midpair if seat 1 calls or jams and will prob call his flush draw if seat 1 just calls.

btw without the flush draw, i would just call and let them keep betting. if the turn checked to me (again in my no flush draw hypothetical), I'd bet something pretty small just to juice it up a bit. like $35. then jam rivers. (depends a bit on the turn card...but let's say a brick - which is most cards).

if you were deeper, this hand could get a lot tougher. you would have to worry about being beat, about sizing to price out draws, etc.

Raise, but limp calling with these types of hands is burning money. Fold pre. Occasionally completing, fine. oop and limp calling isn't good.

Agreed. Also since you said this was your first post, the terminology is you flopped "trips", not a "set" (would need 2 in your hand for a set).

Welcome to the forum! I thank you for reading the stickies and the forum for a while before posting. Your game is going to improve rapidly.

Most of the people will answer your questions on the flop, so I'm going focus on pre-flop. The first thing to consider is if you want to play the hand and how. While I wish everyone did (more profit for me), enough LLSNL players go on auto pilot in this situation. If there is even a thought process, it is "I could hit my hand and win the hand. It just costs $2, so let's see a flop." Poker isn't about winning hands, it is about winning money. The way you win money is have enough in the pot when you win to cover all the times that you lose.

I know that sounds super basic, but it requires first understanding how often you will win and how much you can win. Let's start off with first assuming that hitting TP with 63s isn't going to win the hand and you aren't going to get odds to draw. That means while you'll often have a FD or a SD, nobody with a decent hand is going to let you get a free card. Now if you're HU, you have a chance. In this particular case, at least other people will be in the hand. One of them is likely to hit a pair and will bet out to prevent a draw from getting odds. Therefore to keep the math somewhat simple, we'll ignore these events pf to retain equity.

So in this case with 63s, you're going to need to hit 2 pair or better. You have a 4% chance or so of doing it. To breakeven for the 96% of the time you'll c/f and lose $2, you need to win $50 from someone else. If you decide to not chase them off and limit it to 2/3 pot bets, you win 6+5+12+28 or 51. But how likely is that? If they fold on the river, you don't win enough.

That's why I'd fold this hand pf the first go around. Under the circumstances, I don't know who going to be able to pay me off.

Now the same situation applies after the raise. It is going to cost us $10 and the pot is $30. In this case, we know who can pay us. He has a good enough hand to raise pf. The problem is he can't pay us enough. He has $133 left in his stack and we need to get $250. Since we can't get paid, we need to fold again.

All this doesn't mean you never play 63s. Let's say we're at a passive table and the raiser is a strict fit or fold player. Nobody else will call. We have position. We know that he won't bet unless he has TP or better and will c/f to a bet. In this case, we'll call pf almost all the time and and bluff to take the pot on the flop if he checks. The reason is he'll only have a hand about 1/3 of the time. We'll take the pot 2/3 of the time.

The moral of the story is that if you are just trying to hit a lucky flop, you need players that can't fold and deep stacks. In the capped buy in era, that just doesn't happen frequently. Most of the time, you need a plan on how to win the money if you don't hit the flop.

Thank you very much for the replies!

I apologize for the confusion with the title (I already learned something )

I must admit, I would not typically play 63 suited when raised. I was easily the biggest stack at the table and had taken down 4 or 5 raised pots in the previous hour with some big hands - so I probably succumbed to adrenaline in this hand.