[ilya]

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If you don't think it's likely to be raised, why not see the flop?

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How am I to come to the conclusion that it is unlikely to be raised in the second round of a 33? Generally, players at 33's understand the value of basic aggressiveness. I would contend (though I have no data to support this contention, it's just a guess) that something in the vicinity of 60% of preflops are raised at a 33. So...because there have been 2 folds in front of our Hero and 2 players have been eliminated, let's assume there is only a 50% likelihood that this pot will be raised PF. Let's further assume that he makes a call like the one described in the OP 100 times.

50 of those times, there will be a preflop raise and Hero will fold, leaving his t30 on the table (Net: -t1500)

Of the 50 times he sees a flop, he will not flop a set 88.2% of the time, or 44 of those times...we'll assume Hero will not play poorly on any of those flops and will simply fold his small pair when he doesn't flop a set (Net: -t1320)

Now, 6 times out of the 100 times he calls, he will see the flop and it will contain the magical third 5. FANTASTIC!

Oh, except probably one out of those 6, Hero will end up losing all his chips to a flush, straight, higher set, etc. (~ -t800).

So, 5 winning sets later. The question is, can he make up for all the money he's lost by calling in with his pocket pair of fives? From EP? Against an unknown number of players behind him? Sometimes only the BB?

The answer is, probably not.

Now, put Hero on the Button against a minimum of 2 callers in front of him...and yeah, it's a profitable preflop call....because there's a FAR lower chance of preflop being raised behind you, you'll have a minimum of 2-3 players to hopefully make a good second best hand, and you'll be in position to more easily extract the maximum from those opponents in the cases when you hit your set.

(Note: This was clearly not a scientific approach -- I'm sure others on the site can more mathematically breakdown what I've just done and show errors...but my basic thought process shows what I think is going to happen in rough percentage terms).

Furthermore, even if open-calling from MP1 with 55 at Level 2 of a 33 is SLIGHTLY +tEV...I still think it's probably -$EV. Because by pushing a (possible) SLIGHT edge here, you take ammunition away from yourself in an awful lot of tournaments for when you reach the high-blind, larger edge situations.

I don't know if I've explained all this very well -- but these are my thoughts. Responses?

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I like your reasoning, although I think your estimates are a bit pessimistic. But on the whole I also think 55 is too low a pair to open-limp in LEP.