5/5 (100bbs eff)

Hero is new to table. Villains are mid 20s but average players. Hero raises pre from UTG to $15 with 57 and gets raised to $50 by UTG+2, which gets called by four players. Five to the flop.

Flop ($250) 68K
Hero checks, preflop raiser checks, MP bets $135, folds to Hero.

I'm obviously not folding but should I have folded pre? It just seems really weak to call flop (and fold turn when I miss) with a straight draw OOP for almost 40% of my stack. Or is this a spot where my implied odds will make up for those times, in addition to the fact that this spot will happen quite rarely? Just wasn't sure about the situation I found myself in, what do you guys think?

I'd fold pre and would use this hand as a good example why a fold pre is correct. You're just so rarely going to flop gin with a hand like yours. What's more likely to happen is you'll flop a piece and face some aggression, all whilst being OOP. And then you'll face an ugly spot like the one you're in now where none of our options are that appealing.

I would fold pre even after the raise.

If I did decide to raise something from UTG I would never open to 3x in a 5/5 game. That is not only showing how weak your hand is it is also begging for a squeeze.

When you are thinking about opening up your range pre, playing small suited cards from EP is pretty much the last thing to consider.

Suited cards are nice against tables that tend to go multi-way OTF, and where people aren't betting aggressively. Essential that they tend to get sticky, especially with top pair. Keep these things in mind as you consider what cards to play.

Suited connectors from JT down to 54 have a lot of similarities. They can all make four straights, and it's not at all uncommon to get a flop worth continuing with. The higher you go in this range, the more likely you can do something with your hand if you spike a pair, and the less likely you are going to hold a dominated straight. Your flushes are only going to be helpful against people going to the mat with TP or 2P.

If you're OOP, you should be playing passively, with a c/c pre and the ability to read the board, and think ahead to know whether to call a cbet OTF, and hope those guys either check it through or bet light OTF.

Even assuming you have those conditions, keep in mind that gappers aren't as good as connectors. You're more likely to flop or turn a gutshot as opposed to an open-ended straight, and your low card is that much worse if you are counting on using a pair to value-bet draws.

My problem with 75s:
- Flopping a pair doesn't help you very much
- You will very seldom get to showdown with a straight, let alone the nut straight
- You'll get over-flushed a lot

Now, let's look at that flop. I agree it's a fold. But, if there were one diamond OTF, it would be a mandatory call. You might be thinking, "I can't call that. I'll be pot committed with nothing." That brings me to my second point; which is, you need a lot of bullets to play suited cards. Plan on calling a pfr and a cbet, and still have enough money to bet half-pot OTT and pot OTR. You shouldn't mind putting up to 2% of your stack in pre with small suited cards. When you called the pfr, you wound up putting 10% of your stack in. That's what you do when you *want* to be pot committed. That's how you play AA or KK, not 75s. So don't even think about it unless you're really deep. 100bb isn't enough. Following the 2% rule, if you're going to open-raise small suited cards IP to $15, you would need at least $750 behind. If you really want to put a meaningful raise out there, a $1500 stack would be the minimum. But be careful. If your opponent is on a short stack, it's easy for him to get pot committed if you're throwing your weight around. Be mindful that the effective stack size is the shortest stack between you and your opponent.

At a tight table, it's fun to open-raise small suited cards IP. Gives you lots of opportunities for mischief and it drives the nits crazy. At a passive cally table, there's an argument for limping in early or mid position with suited cards if they will let you get away with it. I dunno about small suited cards, we'll say some suited cards. But there's just no logical reason to open raise small suited cards from EP under any circumstance that I can think of.

You'll get about a bajillion "fold pre" responses. That's why.

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For further reading, consider Miller et al "Professional No Limit Hold Em." Pay particular attention to the discussion of stack-to-pot ratios.

As for playing small suited cards, that's a pretty hot topic of discussion these days, Miller's last book, "Poker's 1%" stirred a lot of that up, although the groundwork for that book was laid by a guy named Janda who has some really cool stuff on Cardrunners. But you don't have to get to that stratospheric a level; just dust off your old copy of Brunson's "Supersystem." It's all in there.

Go up to the upper left hand corner of this page, click on "2+2 books." PNLHE is for sale there. Essential.

What about 4! instead?

OP, what do you raise to w/ AA-QQ?

Definitely a fold pre. Not even close. I fold to the $50, too, although I understand the urge to call with all those players.

(Agree $15 is too small, but if that's what everyone is raising, I get it.)

For goodness sake, don't open raise 75s UTG. Just fold it.

After the raise a million calls, you're getting almost 8:1.

So sure, I would sigh call the raise.

As for right now, meh, it's marginal. You're getting just around 3:1. You're around 5:1 (8 outs = 16% equity) to hit your straight on the turn. In other words, you need to win around $135 * 2 = $270 more when you hit on the turn (understand? you are 3:1, you need 5:1, so you're short by 5-3 = 2... that means you're short by 2 $135's, and that = $270 that you need to win after the flop if you call).

If you call flop, the pot will be $520. If you hit, check, and V bets, you should win enough to make the call profitable. If V decides to check behind, that means you'll get a free card when you don't hit on the turn. And if you do hit the turn and V checks behind, you should generally be able to get the chips in on the river given the pot size and V's likely range. And another possibility... pot is $520, and you hit, you'll have only $315 left in stacks... you could lead really small on turn yourself and shove for small on river. I'd have to think about it, but you have a lot of options to get chips in after the flop. It is worth noting, looking at stack sizes, that you need to win almost all the chips left (270 of the 315 left) to make the flop call profitable. I do think that's possible, but maybe it's too thin and not enough.

After thinking it through, it's really really close.

If you do call and the original raiser c/r, you're going with the hand given overlay, but that's also very marginal.

Biggest mistake in the hand is the very first play pre-flop.

Yup fold pre the first time around and the second time around.
I'd prolly shove now.

MP can eaisly be taking a stab with a weakish King, or a lower pocket pair and we can get folds a decent portion of the time.

As played, I probably shove now when you have some FE. You raised/called with 57, and OESD is about as good as you can hope for.

You get more than enough SC's and SG+1's from the CO/BTN that you should never have to play them in EP.

Yeah, shoving is an option, but I think it's just a touch worse than calling.

V put in 40% of his stack. He's also betting 5-way. I really don't think he's folding.

To think about the odds when he calls, we should look at his initial bet as essentially being an all in. That means he's shoving 450 into 250. If he's always calling, we're not getting the right odds, so yes, we are relying on a certain % of folds.

This is a spot where call, shove, and fold are probably just about the same.

If we call, we probably can win just enough to make it +EV.

If we shove, he could fold just often enough to make it +EV.

If we fold, it's obviously neutral.

Doubt it makes much of a difference.

Yeah what everyone else said. We are 100bb deep and playing this hand from up front isn't going to show a profit. Super deep I'd throw it in the mix once in a great while with a low frequency.

Reads on mp?

Now that we are where we are I kind of want to ship it. Being oop to the pf raiser our range is still uncapped. A c/rai is credible. Need some reads on the guy betting the flop though.

Fold Pre - but be sure to understand why you hear it so often. Whether you open limp or raise SC In EP, you're often going to end up multiway OOP with a hand that is difficult to play on almost every street and is often dominated in larger pots. Whatever skill edge you have is washed away with these factors, and you'll do better eliminating it entirely from your EP range. To take it one step further, this HH can help illustrate it further... You're in a 5 way 3b pot UTG and flopped huge yet there are still problems and questions to its profitability.

AP, on 100BB, I am betting always around 200-PSB. I can pretty reasonably rep 88,66 and any AK that didn't want to spew shove PF --- Let UTG+2 decide how do play NON Ak,KK,AA with bad relative position and should force fold/shoves from the rest.

Not only fold this pre, but get used to folding 9Ts pre UTG too. Way too loose full-ring to play these types of hands from up front.

For the people saying fold the first time, do you never play these hands UTG? Are you opening KQs?

I raise 88+/AQ+/KQss/AJss UTG. If the table is super passive, I'll limp in with smaller pockets and suited aces.

If you're going to cite Ed Miller, it's worth noting that his most recent book, The Course, recommends raising suited connectors as low as 76 in EP in small-stakes games, and limping with no hands whatsoever.

I don't personally have strong opinions about preflop ranges, so I won't defend him here. And as The Course is a beginner's book, I suspect Miller recommends raising hands like this because he wants readers to learn something by doing so. But he does say "raise 76s".

Why did you raise PF? I'd really like to hear your reasoning. Everyone is saying fold, but I'm more interested in why you made the raise in the first place because you might apply the same reasoning to other decisions you make at the table.


I never play those hands UTG. Why would I?

KQs is a MUCH stronger hand than 75s and I do open with KQs. I'm not sure why you'd ask about KQs.

75s is a hand I'll play in late position after nobody else has raised.

Yeah when I read that range I thought it was wide for ep. A couple notes though. First he lumps "EP" together for simplicity including utg through hijack and admits there should be a difference between utg and hijack . Second 7-6s is the bottom of a range he's defined which includes 14% of hands. It's not like he's using a stove ranking all the way down to 76s which would be a 45% range.

75s is about 20:1 to hit 2 pair+ on the flop. You need to win 20*35 or $700 every time you hit to break even. So you need someone else to stack off every time. I'm sure by now you've noticed that people don't stack off every hand in a multi-way pot.

I've not read Miller's book, but my sense of the audience is the player that believes he's one of the top two players at any table he sits at and wants to move himself to the level where he's the top couple of players in a medium to large room. Since that encompasses the wide majority of the players in the room, it is a good sized audience. The problem is most of them don't have the skill set to pull off what Miller is able to do. So what is a slight money winner for Miller becomes a leak for most players.

Just fold 75s while UTG in LLSNL. There's plenty of other leaks that you can fix that will be easier and more profitable to plug.

Thank you for your responses everyone

Started reading No Limit Theory & Practice for the first time today, and am finding it very, very useful
Slowly but surely, I'll get to the other books too, including PNLHE

And of course, even more obviously, even if you are willing to play 76s UTG, 75s is a significantly weaker hand 😉

All of this. The fact that we are greater than 20:1 to hit a hand we can put stacks in with is also why the fact that we are getting 8:1 or whatever to call the 3 bet is completely irrelevant.

Calling pre is a VERY fundamental misunderstanding of the effects of stack to pot ratio.

OP, you should stop reading NLTAP and get PNLHE immediately.

Almost never. And usually yes.

There's no value in raising small suited gappers in EP in a full ring game, it's much too loose. On the contrary, there's some value missed in open folding KQs UTG, as it's a fairly strong hand that flops pretty well.

KQs is basically a premium hand, so the comparison is inapt.