[Shillx]

Calling the flop (with a variety of hands) is best done in limped pots. There are essentially 3 reasons for this:

1) People aren't getting good odds to draw so it becomes less critical to raise. Not a lot of hands can call correctly getting 5:1 while all kinds of stuff should call getting 9:1. You need to prevent them from drawing with good odds hense you raise in raised pots.

2) You are going to be raising hands like 1 pair a lot in raised pots for the reason I describe. So it looks natual for you to raise with big hands like sets as well. You aren't going to call on this flop with something like KQ, so why would you with three 5's? A good player will pick up on what you are doing instantly. While it might not be important now, you should start thinking about these types of things if you intend to move up the ranks.

3) You are confident that the PFR will raise the flop and allow you to 3-bet. So in this case you would call, hope for a raise and then reraise. Don't do this when you have no reads.

Say I have T8s in the BB. There are 2 limpers and the SB completes. I check. The flop is T [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].

If the SB bets out, you can make a good argument for just calling (and reraise should someone raise). Now if the SB raised preflop, I would most certainly raise here to either raise my equity or force gutshots into making bad calls. By calling I don't get either of those since they are getting proper odds to call. Notice how I don't care if they call getting 6:1 because they are taking the worst of it.

Brad

Edit - It is probably never correct to just call on the flop with a set when the pot is > 10 SB. Raise this one up on 3rd street.