[UATrewqaz]

Um, yes, you are correct that 2 junk cards win much more often against a single hand than 9 hands, but that wasn't my point.

My point is that when you play something like 92o out of the SB against a large field your goal is not to eck by with top pair, it's too see a flop and catch a monster (trips, straight - not int he case of 92 of course, etc.) and win many many bets on later streets from bad opponents.

If you flop badly (which of course you will the overwhelming majority of the time) you simply check/fold.

The profibility of a hand is not only how often it wins but how much it wins.

It's clear that more people in the hand makes 92o worse and worse in terms of how OFTEN it will win, but it improves how MUCH it will win on the occasions it does.

You still need to have a read on the table to know if you have the implied odds on the later streets to make it worth it to play though, because you don't want to flop a monster and then have everyone fold post flop.

You must also consider the fact that everyone limped, so normally you are not up against big pairs, so even flopping two pair will usually hold up. Anytime you play low junk you run the risk of being counterfitted, but like I said, based on the fact there were no preflop raises there normally won't be any high pairs out.

You said something like 92o wins 5.2% of the time vs. 9 random hands, which is 19-1 against.

But if 6 people limp you are getting immediate odds of 15-1 on your 1/2 SB call.

This of course is pre-factoring in any implied odds.