77 early position, very tight game

I'm in early position(UTG+1) and look at a pair of 77's in the hole. The game is very tight. I assess that there is about a 90% chance that if I raise, everyone will fold behind me. If I just call, I may get one or two limpers. Is raising my best option or should I just call and hope to flop the set for a bigger pot? My instinct is to just take the pot down now....

Thanks!

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I'm in early position(UTG+1) and look at a pair of 77's in the hole. The game is very tight. I assess that there is about a 90% chance that if I raise, everyone will fold behind me. If I just call, I may get one or two limpers. Is raising my best option or should I just call and hope to flop the set for a bigger pot? My instinct is to just take the pot down now....

Thanks!

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Wow - a 90% chance that a raise will cause EVERYONE to fold.

I would love to know where you got that number - because it seems highly unlikely. I seriously doubt that there is a 90% chance that no one after you has a hand that they simply could not fold with.

If this is a tight game, you FOLD with 77.

[4_2_it]

Limit or NL? If limit, el foldo is correct. If NL, then the answer is it depends on stack sizes and whether you believe you could take 10BB from someone if a 7 hits the flop.

[aargh57]

I think if the game is that tight it might be time to find a new table.

[Kaeser]

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I think if the game is that tight it might be time to raise every hand .

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fyp

[Kaeser]

Seriously if this is a limit game were talking about then I can't believe you'll fold 8 players 90% of the time. Small PP's don't do well in tight games like this, just fold and find a better table.

im not trying to be rude here, but man this was some very bad advice on this thread about folding 77.

RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE

the proper way to adjust to a tight tablke is to LAG it!!
you willbe surprised at the amount of $ you c`an win at a tight table and i am speaking from experience here.

[Pov]

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im not trying to be rude here, but man this was some very bad advice on this thread about folding 77.

RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE

the proper way to adjust to a tight tablke is to LAG it!!
you willbe surprised at the amount of $ you c`an win at a tight table and i am speaking from experience here.

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Depends on if it is weak tight or tight aggressive. You will get killed raising 77 UTG against a table full of TAG's. In that situation it is a clear fold. However, if the OP's stat of 90% chance of folding everyone is true this is likely a weak-tight table and some additional raising is warranted, particularly if your opponents will continue to be weak on the flop and automatically fold if they don't hit hard. My guess is the truth is somewhere in between which could make playing this hand a very interesting decision.

To the OP: You should probalby either raise to take it down now or fold. Limping is your worst option. The only reason to limp small pocket pairs from early position is because you know you're getting a bunch of callers and your call encourages them even more. If you get enough of them it offsets all the times you miss your set and likely at least one or two of them will pay you off big when you do hit it. You'd like to see 5 other players in the pot with you. In the tight game you describe this will not be happening so I think you need to choose between raising or folding. If the players behind you generally play well (particularly post-flop) and are apt to re-raise you with position then I'm not sure you can play this hand profitably for a raise either.

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im not trying to be rude here, but man this was some very bad advice on this thread about folding 77.

RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE RAISE

the proper way to adjust to a tight tablke is to LAG it!!
you willbe surprised at the amount of $ you c`an win at a tight table and i am speaking from experience here.

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My advice was predicated on him being wrong that his raise with 77 will cause 9 folds 90% of the time.

That would mean that, of 9 other players at the table, there is only a 10% chance of someone else having a hand that they wouldn't fold to that raise.

Assuming this is limit, you have hands that people will call 100% of the time and raise probably 80% of the time - AA-JJ, AKs-AJs, AK

Then there are hands that there is a strong possibility that they will call say something like 70% and perhaps a 50% chance that they will raise - TT-99, AQ-AT, KQs, KQ

Then there are a range of hands that may have a 50% chance of being called, and so on.

With all that in mind, I would find it highly suspect that it would be possible to say that there is a 90% chance of 9 players folding to a raise.

Also - what you are suggesting seems to be at odds with SSHE which says that you would not play 77 from early position in a tight game.

First off... thanks for all the input. And it is limit that I was playing

I couldn't believe this game - if nobody had limped to 2 or 3 off the button, a raise was pretty much automatic, usually resulting in folding the blinds. Raising UTG had pretty much the same effect. Which su..ked, because I was getting good hands and couldn't get any more money into the pot preflop. I had to slow play any raising hand(using SSHE's chart for tight games). Maybe "90% of the time" is an overestimation, but if so, it wasn't by much. I'll use 85% in my math and explain below where that comes from....

Here's how I thought about it.....please let me know if this is right or wrong

If I limp, 88% of the time I see the flop I won't get my trips. So 9 times out of ten, I lose one bet. One time out of ten I may hit trips and pull in a pot of 3 to ten bets(just estimating). This doesn't count the times that my hand could end up with a straight or that my trips wouldn't hold up. So after ten times I'm looking at a net result of -6 bets to +1 bets.

If I raise, 85 times out of a hundred I'll fold everyone and win 1.5 bets. The other fifteen times, I'll get called (remember that according to the SSHE preflop chart, there is only 26 hands(15% of all hands) that you would play against a raise, even in late position; of those, you re-raise with only 4 hands) or re-raised, which lets me know where I'm at. Of those fiteen times, I'll hit trips on the flop about 12% of the time(a little more than one time out of our hundred) and most likely win(yes I know this doesn't account for when opponent hits his trips, straight, flush etc...also doesnt count for when I pull out a straight, FH etc) but the other fourteen times I'll miss the flop and fold, losing two bets. SO...85*1.5=127.5(when they fold to the raise) + 1*X=X (when they call and I hit my trips and win, x being the size of the pot) + 14*-2=-28 (when opponent calls and I fold post flop)....for a total of 99.5 bets in a hundred tries without figuring pot size on the rare occasion I'm called and win.

I didn't do all this math at the table, I just went with what felt right and took the blinds a bunch. I wouldn't even play that way if I hadn't noticed everyone folding to my truly good hands that I raised with in early pos. Forgive my math if it's a little off(but don't be afraid to let me know)...I should have been sleeping hours ago.


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Also - what you are suggesting seems to be at odds with SSHE which says that you would not play 77 from early position in a tight game.

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My copy says to play this from early position in a tight game...maybe it's a different edition?