I'm a fairly experienced low/mid stakes grinder and while I read a lot of the information on here I don't ask too many questions. This is something that comes up quite a bit though so I wanted to weigh some other opinions.


We have just sat down at the table and are maybe 10 hands in. So there aren't really any reads available. I am in middle position with something like 77, 88, 99, etc. For this example we will use 77. Let's say stacks are 100BB deep.

I raise to 3.5BB and I am met with a re-raise from the BB to 9BB. Of course, I have implied odds to call and maybe flop a set. But what happens when the flop is low, something like 964 rainbow. I check the flop and villain bets 15BB. I call. Turn card is also an essential 'brick' for this example let's say it's a 3. I check again and villain fires another 32BB barrel. Should I almost always be folding here? Should I call most of the time and re-evaluate on the river? Should our action be completely be based upon reads? Without a read is it an easy fold?

Like I said, this is based solely on read-less poker. I've called someone down on 3 streets with pocket 4's on a read, I've also folded 10's on a small flop because of a read. So that's not the issue. I'm just wondering how you guys go about this right when you sit down at a table and 10 minutes into the game you're faced with this situation.

Thanks so much!

Well obviously in that spot with no read you should fold a medium pocket pair. The problem here is reverse implied odds. If you call the 2nd barrel you might have to call a third barrel and if you are wrong that could be disastrous. But I think you should play it different altogether. Limp in with hands like 22-99 and try to flop a set. By just calling it also makes it easier to call if someone raises behind you. If you raise preflop to 3.5bb you could could chased off by a big reraise by someone with AA or KK which is what you want to be up against with a medium pocket pair. Also just calling instead of raising allows loose callers to come in behind you with KJ, QJ, etc and they can hit top pair vs your set in a spot where they would probably fold to a raise preflop. A pair of sevens just isnt that strong. Even if I was coming into a lot of pots preflop raising with garbage like J7 sometimes I would still generally rather call with 22-99.

Raising first in is fine but 3.5 BB seems like a pretty large open. Are you opening your entire range that large first in?

this is spot on nice post chip!

how are you checking first when villain is in the BB?

are we talking about online 6max?

Given we're readless in this type of spot, this is a good spot to use GTO to determine your calling ranges by street.

Yah OP just do the leg work and come up with your own calling range here against his perceived range of a standard readless tag. I would assume it would be to float the flop and fold to a turn barrel.

This is clearly live poker, post in the relevant forum.

Hero always will be 99,66,44 for 3bet call range,so if V continue fire the turn, for readless V, I will fold actually.