So the blinds are 1/1€ at my local casino.

Villain: White male maybe 40 years old. Didn´t sit there for long time, he came to table just about 15 minutes before and played only one hand, which he raised big preflop and took pot by c-bet on flop.

Hero: Young white guy, I played my standard TAG game whole time.

Hero in UTG+1 (350€) is dealt 4h4d. I limp. Folded to villain at MP (350€), he raises to 12€. BB calls and I call also.

Flop came Kd Td 4c. I check, villain bets 20€, BB folds. I raise to 60€. Villain shoves (about 320€).

What should I do? As I don´t have much information about him, I don´t think I can fold here even when I put him mostly on set of kings or tens.

Any ideas?

I would call.
He might have shoved with Top pair, 2 pair, etc.
If he had KK, he'd have raised preflop?
Plus with 2 cards, you have odds of boat with another K or T

Pre: fold or raise. Open limping small PP is not TAG

As played, call, his range is probably {AA, AK, KK, TT, possibly AdQd, AdJd}

I think you're getting heavy on the AA and AK side because people love to slow play their big hands

First of all limping 44 is fine. You shouldn't ever make a decision base on whether or not something fits into a standard "TAG" game.

Don't fold the flop. I'd expect to see AA or AK most of the time. Sometimes TT, and rarely KK considering both of those hands are very likely to slow play. You are really deep though so it's a close spot. But I'm not folding this hand.

This is a pretty easy call in my mind. V may have KK or TT, but there are only 3 combos of each. Jam actually looks like a combo draw to me (AQ. AJ or QJ of hearts) or could be two pair or AA or AK. Too many combos we're ahead of.

If we're folding when we hit bottom set then we have to fold pre

Open limping just screams weak. At better tables and higher limits it's just lighting money in fire because someone will raise to attempt to get the dead money.

That leads to either folding or calling OOP. We're not going to hit the set a ton and check fold most of the time. In the off chance that we hit our set, we either check to the raiser and hope they build the pot for us or donk and possible throw up flags.

Contrary to that, we raise, with a TAG image and raising from EP, we probably don't get 3! a lot, except by hands were dominated by, so we see a flop at our price. When we miss we cbet appropriately, either taking it down or essentially ending our attempt at the pot. When we hit, we still cbet and build the pot and hope they stay interested.


In this specific hand we get lucky that V is still interested after our c/r, to many Vs that sends huge flags up and they shut down.

But I will concede that limping small PPs in LP after the pots been opened is 100% acceptable.

While I agree this spot is a call blanket statements like this are bad. There are absolutely times where we will make the hand we were drawing to and the board plus action dictate the situation is a fold. Limping pp in loose games is fine but just because you make bottom set doesn't mean you should always stack off. Call here though because there are plenty of combos you beat that he coukd do this with. Sorry if this was a cooler.

In a game higher than 2/5 live or in any online format you are 100% correct. The reason it's profitable to limp small pp's from early position is that people don't generally isolate at these stakes so we're likely to see a multiway flop with deeper effective stacks where villains will often stack off far too light. In this case we were raised and it's an easy call to set mine considering villain is likely to be very strong. It's obviously fine to open, but limping definitely isn't a mistake at almost any 1/2 and most 2/5 tables.

Fair enough. Should have said if you're folding 175bb deeps when you flop a set and the only hands that beat your are other, better flopped sets you shouldn't call pre.

You have 350bbs here and nobody is considering a fold?

Calling, but not feeling great. 40 year old white guys do this with AA, KK, TT, and a ton of combo draws like QJ, AQdd AJdd and could even be doing this with AK some of the time. The truth of the matter is there's no straight or flush, so the only hands you're losing to are exactly TT and KK. Really, there isn't any other way to play it once he jams on you. NH

You played it fine as long as you called the shove. As deep as you are, I don't mind the l/c pf. Yeah, you're set mining but you're getting good odds to call.

He can easily have you on a FD and be looking to shut you out.

^^ This. Plus, he could have the draw and be looking to semi-bluff (though this is rarer the older players get).

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this be AK, though. I'd say it dominates his range

Limping is 100% ok.

I'm just not folding bottom set on this board. There are too many draws V can have and you are ahead so often.

This is a pretty trivial call imo.

There are too many hands he can have to think about folding. Throw his likely opening range that shoves on this flop into stove and check your equity.

Think you'll be pleasantly surprised as there are more combos of TPTK/TPGK, combo draws than of over sets.

Also think limping pre was fine as opening will lead to some tough/thin spots post and if you're not super good at hand reading (you're thinking about folding a set on a non-monotone, non straight board) then it's probably better to limp the hand up front as you did and either set it or forget it.

Thank you guys! As far as he may have some combo draws, there are many hands I beat, but I can´t forget, that even these draws are beating me in 30-40% of cases. But finally, I called even I didn´t feel really good. He showed me a set of kings, but what I wanted to know when I´ve written here was, if I made a good call and I did. Thank you again, I can sleep still now haha.

It sucks you run into the nuts, but just for the record we should be thrilled when we get out money in with 60-70% equity. It sounds like you're playing scared money, so I would recommend just cashing out if you're afraid of having too much of your bankroll on the table.