Hi guys, pretty new here but have lurked from time to time for years. Had a question about a hand i played. UtG who just sits, no history makes it $35 UTG, folds to the highjack who calls, I'm in the c/o with 22, button ONLY raises with premium hands, even in positon, do i call here or just fold? With only 1 caller in front of me?

Depends how deep u are? Starting stacks?

WOW, sorry V just sat for a max buy of 500, i have him covered close to 800, have only been there myself for an hr.

Hj stack? I prolly call

Ty, i will include this next time i make a post, hj stack was ~400.

Not a bad call, not a bad fold.

easy call. Use the old 10% rule. If you can win 10x the preflop bet, you can setmine... so the open was to 35. Theoretically you can flat if you stand to win up to $350 more when you flop a set. (that's the rule of thumb I use)

Let's see three

we should be hesitant to call $35 with 22 vs only two opponents

if we whiff we have burnt money

if we hit there is no guarantee it will be good

and right now odds are we are way behind, if we are LUCKY we are flipping with four overcards against us

we might consider getting it in with better cards

which is a delicate way of saying "dang i wish the guys i played against would play 22 for $35"

Hahahaha my favorite part of ur post a was even if we hit a 2 it might not be good haha

This is a good nugget, will use in the future

Don't use it. The vast majority of players, even winning players, set mine in the wrong spots. Let's do some basic quick math. Numbers are perfect but they're pretty close enough. You flop a set 1 out of 8.5 flops so in theory you need 7.5:1 in odds to breakeven on set mining. This is assuming you stack villain every single time and your set holds up every time. Let's say villain has QQ+ always. ~24% of the time there will be an overcard to his PP. In other words, ~24% of the time you flop a set, there will be an overcard to his PP and you win maybe one bet at most post flop. On top of that, you still have ~12% of losing against an overpair after the flop depending on the board (whether he has a FD with his overpair, etc). Take all that into account and you need over 10:1 (if not more) just to breakeven. On top of that he may or may not hero fold on scary boards (such as T98 flop or monotone flops).

And if he has TT, AK, AQ in his range, you need even more. Which is why 15:1 is the bare minimum you want against a super tight range (like QQ+, AKs) and 20:1 or more if his range is wider.

This is a close one. With 12-15x stack depth, we're close to being deep enough. Utg's range is dominated by big pocket pairs, which means it should be easy to get a lot of $ in when we hit. HJ being in the hand is also good, as it means there's another person who can pay us off when we hit, and our call might entice one or more of the blinds to come along, which is also good.

On the other hand, HJ's range should have a lot of med to small PP's in it if he's competent, as will any overcallers. Combined with utg, that makes it slightly more likely that we'll get set-over-setted if we get heavy action from one of those players (I can never fold a set at this stack depth barring a very scary board). And we might still get raised from button/blinds.

So call if you want to gamble, fold if not. That said, if you had any reads, say that HJ is a loose caller or that utg can never fold an overpair, then it can easily become a snap call.

$35 is a lot to call. I'd assume UTG has JJ+, AK+ and the occasional TT, AQ. HJ has SCs, 22-QQ, AJ, KQ, and maybe some weaker hands (98o, 78o, etc). Even with the button, i'd want ~$500 at the min to call here.

Remember that the HJ has a weak range. He improves your pot odds but you are unlikely to win a big pot from him (how do you win a big pot with 22 against 87s??).

Seems a bit conflicted on the answers, i know we can not be results oriented but UTG had AA, i would have flopped a set of 2s and the hj stacked off to AA. What I'm taking from this, is that it's just unfortunate timing as UTG just sat down and A, didn't have me covered, B. I had no read on him. Anyone like to add anything?

Seems close. Depends how aggressive(how likely they are to squeeze) the players left to act are and if there are any marks in the blinds that are deep with you.

Also something i will include in future post, though i did think about it, sb was super tight, saw him play 5 hands in 2 hrs and only showed up with the nuts. Bb had just lost a bigish pot and had less than $200 in front, was also concerned about a reship from him if i flat. Forgive me for my lack of info in the O.P next post will be more complete.

In a 2/5 game I'm calling this pretty much always. Utg stands to have a premium hand here on average and in your typical game you can expect at least one more call behind which puts you in a nice situation with a good multi-way hand.

In general, in these "close" set mining spots vs unknowns in low stakes games id rather go ahead and call because most people overplay their overpairs/top pair hands rather than fold them too much.

With that info I think folding is best since he will be much more likely to squeeze jam a lighter range such as AQ+, TT+ if you call.

Ultimately this is what i decided on. Thanks, as i said i will include entire table in my next post.

I often think about the pots from every time I made the "right fold" and then, to my dismay, "would have got there". An UFB lot of $$.

AND THEN I think about the pots I would have lost had I stayed and learned over and over why making the good fold saves $$ in the short, medium and long run. Probably 10-20x as much multi-UFB $$.

(But then I am an OMC geezer and can look back farther than many who post here.)

Making the right play is +EV, it's all one long session unless we bust out.

We should have a support group to help us distinguish "run good", "run bad", "cooler", "suck out for us", "suck out against us", etc.

Oh, wait, we do, this is it.

Solid post, this is a great breakdown for why we need 15x1 or better.

Yup.

Well done Slim.

Hero + OR and caller is a bit too thin.

If we can have 3 others in the pot (including OR) it becomes close but this is a 7x raise and we better have somebody with top pair if we want to make our necessary quota postflop. So if the blinds look like they may call, then fine. If not, then fold.

Hero + 4 others obv. call.


Note: If hero knows the OR and his turn air brrl frequencies and feels he can outplay the OR postflop, then its a different story if heros call gives absolute position. All the above info. is talking only of set mining.

Minus the OMC geezer comment, I do this as well.

Based on my own anecdotal memory, I'd say there are more in the latter than the former for me. So yeah, I feel better about those folds!