33 in blind war

[StellarWind]

[ QUOTE ]
Stellar, your point is interesting, but there's a problem with it.

1. Anytime you call with a small pair you figure to be either a slight favorite or a huge dog.

2. Since the odds are against the villain holding a PP, the odds are that you are a slight favorite preflop.

3. You would therefore theoretically show value against somebody who openraised any two, and continuation bet each street, simply by calling down.

4. However, let's face it, your preflop edge sucks. Whatever preflop edge you had might well be diminished by a villain who just checked unfavorable flops, but bet when he hit any piece of the board.

5. Therefore, I like 3-betting preflop because the hand gets much easier to play postflop. Your fold equity from raising the turn/river can't be underestimated.

6. Also, metagame blah blah.

[/ QUOTE ]
Your preflop edge is negligible. The immediate EV of raising compared to just calling is roughly zero.

Postflop you have the button which is good but 33 has serious negative implied odds which is bad. Your point #4 is just an unfortunate fact of life. The most important piece of information about this pot is whether he has paired his hand. He knows, we don't, and so we are going to suffer for our knowledge disadvantage.

The key point in your argument is #5. I actually think you have it backwards. Calling and using the button to play way ahead/way behind is easy. Clobbering him when I hit a set is also easy. Trying to figure out whether to bet the turn and river after 3-betting preflop and betting the flop is much more difficult.

Anyway "easy" is not what matters. We want to maximize EV and that means maximizing his mistakes while minimizing ours. Any strategy based on fold equity is suspect in this situation. The reason is that it would be quite unusual for Villain to make an incorrect fold blind-versus-blind when we are holding a pair. Moreover most of the bad folds he will make will be minor--folding draws that should have peeled--and will spare him the much bigger mistake of putting money in on the river with a losing hand. By taking the initiative you are pressuring him to play correctly.