Defending your blind with a medium pair

Here is a situation that comes up quite often. Middle stage of a tournament, folded round to the button who raises. You are in the BB with say 88 and it is 15% of your stack to call. What should you do ?


"Conventional wisdom" seems to be that you should either fold or raise. However I think you can put up a strong argument for calling. If the button is a loose raiser you have too much of a hand to fold. For example if he will raise with any Ace, pair or two face cards then you are at least 55% to win the hand "hot and cold". Furthermore, if he like the "lone Ace" button raise, and God knows too many people do, then a very high proportion of his hands include an Ace. And a lot of the others (smaller pairs) are miles behind. So if the flop does not contain an Ace you can be very confident of being in front and can play the hand accordingly, betting or check-raising according to your opponent. If an Ace flops you can give it up.


This is a related to the principle that AK wants to get all the money in pre-flop. Surely this must mean that in an overcards v pair situation, the pair does not want to get all the money in pre-flop.


Needless to say the downside is that you might lose to a hand which would have folded to a pre-flop raise. But if your read is correct then this is quite unlikely, because you get away when an Ace flops and many hands which beat you otherwise (overpairs) would not fold pre-flop anyway. You also get a second chance to read your opponent's reaction to the flop. If you read it correctly and your opponent calls on the flop with only 3 or 6 outs that's good in my book, whatever happens on turn or river. Finally of course you can flop a set and trap at your leisure.


Comments welcome,


Andy.