Not if you flop a set.

And you would be raising in the BB after several limpers, not raising from the BB into several limpers.

If you bet the flop, you would be betting into several limpers. But you would not do that if the board was not magical.

You only FLOP a set 12 percent of the time. And sometimes your set gets beat. So that looks -EV with a small pair even against a big field.

Now in late position, where you might get a 4 card flop, that might be different.

The amount of times you get beat is so minuscule compared to the number of times you can bloat the pot having much of the field drawing to running cards, that it still becomes a worthwhile play.

Moreover, in the rare event that you do get set over set'd, you were going to lose a lot of money anyway. It's not like you're going to fold 33 6+ way for 2 bets from the BB, and it's not like you aren't going to put in tons of action against TT on T63.

Well, one benefit would be that nobody would have the read on you that I had on Villain here. Once they see you turn over 22, your BB raises are not going to be given much respect. Which is great.

How many bets does the bb raise cost, one or two?

Let's say there's 5 players in the pot. That's 5 bets already in the pot. You still get that money if you DON'T put in another bet.

If you raise, you are getting 4 to 1 on your raise, and you are a lot less than 20 percent to flop a set. Plus you have to factor in pot odds. So your immediate pot odds are not in your favor.

Indeed, in general setmining is an implied odds play. Implied odds = total expected pot divided by the amount you put in pre-flop. Increasing the denominator of that fraction DECREASES your implied odds. You wouldn't want to do that.

Bloating the pot isn't good, because it increases the likelihood that you will have to call an additional bet on the flop with a 1 in 22 chance of TURNING a set.

I highly doubt table image considerations outweigh the above.

33 has a very slight equity edge against 4 limpers 22 has a very small disadvantage. Having a wide range raising out of the bb is a good thing. I'd rather have one hand with a very small disadvantage than have my rand be ajs+ 99+ kqs

So why not just raise every pocket pair except deuces? Would that really unbalance you and your opponents would notice?

About 8 percent of that equity is hitting sets on the turn and river which you often won't get to see.

Ok, people have covered the table talk issue so meh, that's done.

What really confuses me is this: You say that villain perceives you as a winning regular. You view his BB 2! as horribly unbalanced and almost always (let's be generous here) and call it TT+, maybe even the QQ+ that you speculate.

Why would you EVER lead 9-high (NINE HIGH!!!!!) into this guy? If you want to check raise the field for value, knowing that a 6 or flush is likely to be good and you (probably) have an equity edge, that's fine. You also get the benefit of seeing how the field reacts to his bet... if it comes back to you at 2 or 3 bets, your outs get sloppier, but you get information on how to proceed on the turn.

It's possible you're a (solid) winner at 20/40 in part because the other players are Brutes McGoots, but really, if I saw someone make this play (assuming you won at showdown or, in a parallel universe, rivered straight/flush/2p and won), I would put you in the, best case scenario, "thinking donk" category.

I've certainly been wrong before (and if I was good at poker, wouldn't be playing 20-40 to 40-80 semi-cheezburger steaks).

-Dan

In a vacuum, you're right, but factoring in metagame, balance, implied tilt odds, getting people scared of you and/or thinking you're ******ed, the miniscule amount of EV you give up by sometimes raising 44, 88, A9s, or QTs here is just LOL if you're ****kicking the average 15 or 20 ******athon.

You can win with pocket pairs without flopping a set.

It's been unanimous ITT that I shouldn't have and I now agree with the reasons why. If I had it to do over again, I'd c/r flop, call a 3! and then c/c the turn.

That's accurate. I started playing limit less than a year ago and have done well against bad players. Against good players, not so much. I'm still learning.

Yeah

I can comes across like an ******* sometimes and I hope my last post didn't do that.

Just by refining your process you're ahead of the curve in most California 20s.

OP you sound like a massive dbag in denial of your dbagness. Dont worry its commonplace these days.

True. But since we are out of position, we will, on average, end up making more FTOP mistakes with small pocket pairs than we would in position. We will have to fold them on scary boards when they are still good, and call or raise with them on less scary boards where they are nonetheless behind.

The result is that there is no way even an expert player realizes anything close to the entire 20 percent or so of equity a small pocket pair has out of the BB. The EV of the play is correlated very close with the chances of flopping a set-- we will also win a few pots where we don't flop a set, but we will lose a few pots where our set loses. I think 12.5 to 14 percent is a fair estimation of what you are going to get out of a pocket pair in the BB if you are an expert player.

Why is this great if we're raising 22? I would rather take it down on the flop every time than get action when i raised from the BB in a 4-5 way pot if my range goes down to 22.

Thanks, you too!

My point is that my range is far more reasonable than 99+ AJs+ KQs. Like you guys really just look down at 87s and check? I teach the limpers a lesson.

I don't want to teach them not to limp.

I have a narrower range than OTR when I play BB vs. a bunch of limpers. I realize it's not as balanced but I feel like I am going to have a hard time playing those shabbier hands profitably. I think I'd sometimes check a hand as strong as AJo or 88 here. I would raise with significantly more hands if suited, probably A9s and any 2 broadway suited.

While I do realize I won't win quite as much with my premium hands because my range is not so disguised, I think I will still do alright because there are enough hands in my range that I can represent strength on just about any board texture.

Also, I think the number of players in the pot and the size of the pot forces us to play fairly honestly post flop, costing us some of the benefit gained from the preflop balance.

I feel like raising 87s for me here will be mildly unprofitable, not because of an immediate equity disadvantage but because I'm out of position. It feels close enough that I'd not be shocked if otr could play it for a raise profitably while I could not.

I'm pretty certain OTR raises even more hands than I do from the bb here, but that's ok, because everyone in my game thinks I'm raising OTR's full range + 30% anyways

But it's hard to imagine checking hands as strong as AJo/88 in the bb (maybe if you have a game full of HEFAP-ish limpers?). You are for sure raising 99 I assume?

Ethics:
I'm gonna side with mubsy though I agree he argues like a Dbag. Table talk happens, can be good for the game, and this was very harmless statement. There is a greyness scale of whether a statement is friendly banter or possible cheating. I rate "fold your KK" to be a 5/100. Hero is repping a big hand and projecting a read that BB might have KK. Big Whoop. Discouraging or banning all poker-related table talk is absurd. Let's use our discretion here.

BB 2! Ranges:
Assuming there is no tight EP LRRer, 6+ way, I'd insta raise JQo+ 78s+. I remain unconvinced on 33-66.

Just keep saying this. Let it sink deep down in your soul. Seriously.

I'm for sure raising 99 and AQ and for sure checking 77 and AT. 88 and AJ feel borderline and I probably don't always play the same way. Perhaps I'm too passive here.