It’s hard to contribute to the conversation, because all I have is anecdotal evidence from the thousands of hours of LLSNL i’ve played. I probably call this 20-30% of the time and fold the rest based on, like others have said, likelihood of squeezes, skill of preflop raiser, and if i get that special tingle in my pants which means i’ll be flopping a set.

This.

For 50:1 odds I am definitely calling and hoping a few more people behind tag along. But, if the table or certain players in LP are 3b happy, then I might fold, but I'm still probably taking my chances.

Your focus with PPs preflop should just be about PO and IO and after the hand, your analysis should not be about whether you hit the set or not.

Ironic. Like how you have no idea if calling 22-33 is +EV here at all UTG + UTG 2? And that it’s your opinion that it is when you only have a sample size of 5-15 hands of similar or exact positions, and thus effectively no data. “Similar” data like set mining from obviously +EV spots like MP and onwards doesn’t count. Knowing intuitively doesnt count either. There are a lot of things people think are +EV intuitively in poker, but hard data says otherwise. Including me.

It’s fact because this spot hardly comes up combinatorically and it’s not highly +EV if at all, both of which are true and thus lend themselves to the conclusion that the impact on WR is negligible. A much more logical conclusion than the one you’re drawing in this thread. Can you explain how something that doesnt come up at a high proportion at all (<.5%) and is not massively +EV could possibly affect the WR to a conspicuous amount? I simply said folding 22-33 from UTG + 2 vs UTG (and thus you can assume UTG + 1 vs UTG as well) would not change your WR holding everything else constant, nothing else. If you can provide me a proof or even semblance of a proof that something that combinatorically unlikely, which is approximately BE to slightly +EV, can have a conspicuous change in WR I promise you $1000.

You may not like to admit it because you think you’re such a great player and have an edge, but the vast majority of your profits come from 55+, AJs+, AQo+ just like every other player out there. The fact you think that flatting or folding/flatting 22/33 at 0 or 100% frequency in this spot can make a difference in a WR under the the assumption that everything else is held completely constant (yes unrealistic but I pointed that out) is pretty absurd. It’s not like you’re getting an extra .1bb-3bb extra out of your winrate by flatting SPECIFICALLY 22-33 UTG + 2 vs UTG instead of folding. If you did the math and multiplied by the possible pocket pairs for set mining and possible positions and added that to 1010-AA/AQo+, AJs+, your winrate would be 100BB/hr+ easily. That’s not opinion either. That’s fact.

Depends on the table

If you havn't seen a threebet in a rotation then safe to call any PP in EP.

If it's threebet every other hand probably fold. You're going to be paying 100$ to have a chance at a set. When you make that set it's not likely you will get someone all in when you do..

Also there are bad runnouts, you losing money to straights/flushes and higher sets as well. Sets are not unbreakable.


People think making sets entitles them to win a stack. Many times i've had little action on my sets or just terrible runnouts that lose me money or where i can't extract any value.

It just so happened that you got a perfect board to get max value from top pair GK. This is going to be very rare.

Folding pp's under 77 is never a mistake from UTG or UTG +1/2 in a full ring game.

fyp

To the original question, the simple answer depends on game dynamics. As others have pointed out, if the game you are currently in has a bunch of aggro 3! squeezers to your left, then obviously small pp's are folds from the first 2 or 3 spots. If it is a more passive game, then calling is totally fine assuming we are deep enough.

In general, I will flat probably twice before determining that the game may be too squeezey to do so. And clearly, the later we are IP to the original raiser, the more we call in all games. So really the answer is that you need to be aware of your gameflow dynamics at all times and adjust your calling ranges appropriately.

Maybe majority but not vast majority.

Keep folding 22 in EP. It makes no difference to me. I hope everyone folds it to be honest. I wish the guy on my left wouldve folded it yesterday.

I’m terrible at linking but if you’re interested in this kind of thing: google “profit per hand poker” and look at some of the database analysis that was done back in the day. It’s shocking. Also shows why NL isn’t a very long term sustainable game, too top heavy.

I’ve pondered what profit per hand looks like in live poker and I’m sure it’s “smoother” (AA having less value and low pps having more value, for example) because of the multiway nature of the game, but I’d guess it’s still a pretty steep curve overall.

Yeah I’ve seen some databases. How much profit coming from AA alone is crazy, KK is good but nowhere near as good, same applies downward to QQ/JJ, etc. AQo+ actually isnt a huge money maker, AK isnt either. But yeah overall it’s pretty steep, although I agree it’s probably a little different wrt live

Lulz....

I even said I call in these positions given at least 100bb+ but whatever.

Why would you want to look at databases which are put together from 100s and 1000s of people?...when 90%+ of people suck at poker.

I know tons of people who play AA so badly that their results should never be lumped into a database for this purpose.

They’re databases of crushers/good regs. People who destroyed the games. Obviously we arent looking at databases of losers at the game or people who suck, so 90%+ of people sucking at poker is completely irrelevant.

I also looked at my own database from 5NL-200NL which I wrecked for over a yr and it basically said the same thing. A lot of hands that were “standard” opens were actually breakeven, almost negligbly +EV, or very slightly -EV. So just because you have a huge edge on the table doesnt mean opening KQo/KJo from UTG 6-max let alone 7/8/9-max will be too much better than breakeven amd is a fistpump open

OK. Makes sense then

This was my first instinct but after some thought, I think 200BB deep pocket 22/33 is an auto call barring no 100% 3-bettors left behind. I also think we need to fold to any 3 bet as well. So we are risking 4BB at a chance to see a flop.

The live aspect of poker definitely plays a role in this strategy. The limited number of live hands forces you to go after bigger pots which favors sets obviously. The RIO is pretty much what separates the really good players from the rest. It's really really hard to fold that set.

Online and Live is such a different style that it's hard to equate the stats between the two. I get that MikeStarrs number of hands isn't enough to draw definitive conclusions on certain hands but it can still give a general baseline of what is true (similar to a Lie Detector Test.)

I feel like my ability to fold sets vs good players deep warrants an auto call pre. Too bad I folded.

I'd wager it's not just a little bit different wrt live, but almost completely different. The majority of pots live are mutliway

I tend to be with Mike that good players especially underrate PP's

Found this discussion very interesting

I would think most people overrate set mining especially oop. A lot of this really just depends on how bad your opponents are (which of course many tend to think their opponents are worse than they are). To me, most "good" players realize how difficult it is to get multiple large bets and build large pots on a significant portion of runouts especially oop unless their opponents are making massive mistakes (which most don't) or hero is able to have enough bluffs/be aggro or capable enough (which most aren't) at certain stack sizes. If your opponents are really bad then you get a lot of slack but that degree of bad tends to be the exception not the norm. I think most people overrate their ability to profitably play pp's in many scenarios just like people tend to overestimate their ability and underestimate everyone else's in many other aspects of life.

I strongly suspect that AA has just as much comparative value in LLSNL and still makes up a massive % of our winnings. I think all hands would benefit from the rising tide effect i.e. if you crush harder than online because it’s easier, all hands make more money or lose less than online. Presumably more so for hands that make the nuts like Axss and pockets.

Would be interesting to see how much people are torching by completing ATC in the SB getting 8:1 or flatting KJo in the BB vs.a 5bb open.

I think I qualify as someone who "crushed" mid-stakes online back in the day and AA and KK alone were something like 70% of my overall profit IIRC. This doesn't mean 70% of all the profit from hands I won, but overall profit from all hands played. The vast majority of hands are small losers because you'd never VPIP them but you still lose with them when you get them in the blinds and have to fold to raises.

Also IIRC pairs under 55 were very small winners for me but I imagine most of those pots I either opened myself or flatted multi-way in LP or BB. In this specific scenario of facing an UTG raise from EP 22 is a turbo-muck. The table would have to be extraordinarily soft and passive for a flat to not be losing here.

Ill copy Minator and say how do you know? Do you have data on 100s of 22 hands calling raises from UTG? Clearly not. Your instinct tells you its a fold and Im sure your instinct is good....but Ive been told lots of things I do were wrong and I disagreed and when that happens I start tracking profits and losses from doing them. Some Ive been right about and kept doing. Others I was wrong about and stopped doing.

Nobody else here seems to be willing to do that. They just assume they are right and stick to their guns like they have concrete proof that they dont have.

Seems to me like you are the one that's assuming.

Where do you go from "pocket pairs are profitable" to "it's profitable to call EP vs EP with the lowest pairs and 6 players behind you?"

I'm assuming based on some kind of math related evidence. While I don't keep track specifically of each pp separately, I do record results of all set mining attempts.

I dont believe there much difference between 22-66. There are very few hands that we will win with 66 that we wouldnt win with 33 (without a set). It just doesnt happen that often in raised pots.

If you are folding 22-33 in spots like this you probably aren't paying much attention to the hand afterwards like you would be if you were in the hand, so I doubt you can make any accurate guesstimates as to whether or not you couldve been profitable over 30-50 of these. I know how much money I lose calling to set mine and then folding the flop. I record all of that. I know exactly how much I win when I hit a small to middle set in a raised pot.

Do I know exactly that I win calling with 22 vs an UTG raise? No, but that judgement comes from a totality of my experience as well as the overall math evidence that I have.

In more aggro games where more people are 3 betting, then its a clear fold, but there was no indication of that in the OP. In a 5/10 game, Id say its a fold. In your average 2/5 or lower game Im calling every time unless the UTG raiser is a strong player and that was indicated in the OP either.

So in other words, you are making assumptions based on different situations and have no evidence that calling 22 with 6 players behind you is a profitable play?

Quick math quiz, do you know the odds of someone having QQ+, AK, with 6 players behind you (a tight 3-betting range). No cheating.

My estimate without doing any maths at all is between 20-25%.
Maybe a touch higher?