2/3 blinds. Villain is good, has not played with me before, sitting next to me, saw me lay down a two pair hand to a bigger two pair on the flop.

I am in SB with 22. There is a $10 straddle the entire table calls, my thinking is there would be 3 bets if the callers had a premium hand. Stack size $500 I raise to $150, to try scoop up the change.

BB pushes All in for $290........

Is this a fold or a call. Do i have enough equity to call AA, KK, QQ or AK with 22. However, even though AK and qq is part of his range i really believed it was mostly AA or KK.

IE call $140 to win $660? I am getting~1:5 and have around 20% equity, so i feel it is about correct.

In hindsight i probably should have only raised to $90, so i could get away easily if things went sour.

so you have this heads up if you call? i think you are pot committed. i never get myself in this spot, though, and i hate to call with 22. honestly, raising out of the small blind with 22 is probably a major, major leak. what do you do if you get called? you are OOP and are going to be facing 3 overcards most of the time?

as for this hand, yeah, i probably puke call. i wouldn't even flip up my cards until the very end if you have him beat. you called him, so he has to show first in most if not all rooms.

YES show your cards!!

Show them proudly, like as if you are always flipping!

Your winrate after losing this massive pot will be great so long as you run average. People will think you are trash and look you up so light on your next 3 bet. Just pray you get a couple hands.

yeah valid point ... look, i'm willing to gamble for $300 pre with 22 ... call me with ATC.

hey, and welcome to the forums!

pf is pretty bad imo. our relative stack size is way to small to be trying to pull a 9 way squeeze on a double straddle pot, any short stack with 77+ and AJ+ will jam on us.

We are getting perfect odds to set mine, and stack off

in other words keep it simple stupid

as played I call. We are getting a hair under 5:1 (4.714:1) and we need to 5:1 to call vs just JJ+ and we are getting it in even money if he has AK. so then he only has to have AK... nvm the math, but it is a call even if he has AK only a tiny percentage of the hands

Your pot odds are 21.2% and your equity in the hand is probably greater so you should probably call.

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

349,310,016 trials (Exhaustive)

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
22	34.03%	117,856,188	2,014,908
AA, KK, QQ, AK	65.97%	229,438,920	2,014,908

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
22	24.24%	143,765	3,340
AA-QQ@80, AK@20	75.76%	452,895	3,340

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
22	21.10%	124,987	3,229
AA-QQ@90, AK@10	78.90%	471,784	3,229

Everyone is going to tell you the same thing. This hand was played poorly. The decision is between completing or folding preflop. This is a bad spot to be attempting a steal in a live game. In fact, for now, you should probably rule out stealing pre-flop in low-stakes live games altogether, especially when you're in the blinds. Its going to be hard to get one of these scmucks to fold 88/KQs+, so why try? Just wait till you get QQ+ then double up.

Oh and stop showing people that you're capable of laying down big hands!!!

+1

And yes, I agree this is a good spot to flip over your cards proudly. It doesn't matter that they now all think you're a complete fricken muppet.

I'm guessing your objective is to make profit rather than to make everybody think you're a great player and intelligent person. Just ignore them when they talk about how horrible your play was afterwards.

Now everybody will be prepared to stack off to you with middle pair top kicker because they think that you massively overvalue hands. Also nobody is going to bother bluffing you because they'll think you're incapable of laying down any type of hand. The unfortunate part is you'll probably have to tighten up preflop as you're likely to attract a lot of callers hungry to bust the fish.

Thanks to the other guy for the welcome and to everyone that has replied ITT, but been here for a while since 07 maybe just forgot username/pword. Anyway, I really think this was a great play but the bet sizing was a bit off. I was almost 100% sure no one would have anything decent, because it is always a 3 bet on a straddle with anything better than AJ+. I do this numerous times when i play 2/5 and 2/3 and it has never not worked. a few stacks in front were also only around $100, and there is no chance those passive fish will want to put there whole stack in on a gamble.

But yeah i dont think i will do this in the future without 77+ because 66,55,44,33 could easily call thinking i have AK.

LOL about your last sentence, the guy that called with KK said that exact same thing to me.

I dont think the majority of people would have thought that, as i think i had a pretty reasonable table image rom playing with most people 10-20 times previously.

But i did say i had 10,10 when everyone asked lol. I would have said QQ or JJ but a Q and a J on the flop made that impossible. Shoulda just said AK

OK, I don't think you understand what I'm advocating.

Pay4skool, ibelieveinkolb and I were advocating that we should advertise that we're comfortable stacking off here with 22 (even though I'm sure none of us truly are that happy about the situation).

If people at the table ask us about it or talk about what an idiot we are, we don't have to respond. We don't even have to say anything.

There will be others here who will tell you that at most LSLNL tables, at least for their own style of playing, it is better to have a tight image. This has all been hashed to death on the forums.

My point is that you should think about the reasons why you showed everbody that you folded bottom 2-pair in an earlier hand and why you felt compelled to tell them that you had TT. Are these types of behaviours done with a view to maximising your profit long-term or are they done because you desire positive affirmation from a bunch of near strangers? If its the latter then hopefully I've given you something to think about.

The majority of my $2k+ sessions in 2/5nl come about from me squeezing or isolating an all-in with what most at the table regard as a donk hand. I do it even when it is OBVIOUS. I don't have a real hand.

I'm in the small blind w 98o, UTG raises to $15, everyone calls, I calls, BB goes all in for $35, UTG calls, everyone calls, I shove all-in for $800, everyone whines and says "you got nothing, you're just squeezing" but they still fold. I proudly turn over my 98 and usually I have 2 live cards vs AT+. Regardless if I win or lose, for remainder of the session, villains are dying to call me down light.

So, later when I overshove pot for $1k w the nuts, they remember that donk 98 play and they call me with hands they would normally fold. Similarly when the board runs weird they put me on it because "you play garbage that probably hit you.

Guarantee that you flip over 22 here, you have no problems getting paid off later.

OP I'm pretty sure your math/reasoning is off here FWIW. When you're calculating pot odds, you can't count the money you have to call as money you going to "win" when you're expressing the odds as X:1

Assuming 10-handed table:

Straddle @ 10 + 7 callers = $80
your SB raise to $150
BB shove of $290

for a total of 520 (80+150+290)

So you're calling off an additional $140 to win that $520.

Therefore your pot odds are 520:140 or ~3.7:1
which is 21.2% equity.

Nogyong got the correct equity calculation out of your info I just wanted to point out that error in how you're expressing your odds.

It's still a marginal call depending on the exact composition of the villains range here but you unnecessarily got yourself into a difficult situation here.

i pretty much agree with dgiharriss here.

fold4once: on the pot odds issue, you're both right.

Actually, i calculate pot odds the same way he does (and i've had this argument on this forum at least 6 times).

The pot odds here can be expressed in 3 different ways:
As a ratio: 520:140 (same as 3.7:1)
As a fraction: 140/660
As a percentage: 21.2%

Think about it this way. I have 2 black jelly beans and 1 white jelly bean in my hat.

The chances of you picking out a white jelly bean are 2:1 against, 33.3% or 1/3.

OP, on showing your 2 pair lay down, don't do this. I'm constantly trying to rep a looser image than I have. I'm not going to voluntarily show everyone at the table that I'm here to to anything but gamble.

If I'm at the table and you showed this fold, I would be putting extreme pressure on you until I felt you've adjusted.