every option seems bad here

Abusing UTG as a spot to steal may work for you but I think that's because you don't play 33's (correct me if I'm wrong). In the 33's you may even have someone shoving with a smaller pair infact I see this move quite a bit even at the 55's and in this case folding to the raise doesn't work out well at all.

In the 33's you will rarely see 7 people folding here to a 2.5 BB raise which is what you will need to steal the blinds.

[cha59]

[ QUOTE ]
what about raising here?

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Bump it to 300 if this seems like a tight table. At a tight table, you'll pick up the blinds frequently.

I think folding is best most of the time.

Comments?

[Pudge714]

Limp fold or open fold

[tigerite]

[ QUOTE ]
Abusing UTG as a spot to steal may work for you but I think that's because you don't play 33's (correct me if I'm wrong). In the 33's you may even have someone shoving with a smaller pair infact I see this move quite a bit even at the 55's and in this case folding to the raise doesn't work out well at all.

In the 33's you will rarely see 7 people folding here to a 2.5 BB raise which is what you will need to steal the blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

He's right, you know.

[Nicholasp27]

5/10 rule states that if limping is 5% or less of your stack, limp...if 10% or higher, fold...in between it's your discretion

if u think they will raise, then fold...if u think they will just let u limp in, then call, as 1500 vs 1400 isn't really different and if u hit that 7, u could get some good chips, vaulting u into the >2k chip territory where you can do some damage

With stacks like that, this is a fold. Dunno what it is when stacks are more even with 13x BB. In a cash game, it's a call on a passive table and a fold an aggressive table.

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]
What the who the what the huhuhuhuh?

What the fck is going on in this thread.

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It's easier to beat weak/tight opponents than people who know to raise here?

[fnord_too]

13BB is a borderline for 77 in my book. Sometimes I raise, sometimes I limp. Right on this cusp, I like to see a flop or two cheaply since it doesn't really impact me if I miss, but stacking someone is a real bonus. If I limp and only the blinds come along, that is fine since I have position on them and will play well post flop. Other times I just make my standard raise and play. Some times I even open push here. It would have to be a pretty amazing situation for me to open fold.

In this particular case, with the only two bigger stacks in the blinds, my decision will have a big read component. What I really want with this hand is to get one of the short stacks all in against me with dead money from the blinds, or to spike a set and double through one of the blinds. There are several ways this can unfold preflop, and what the players are like will really influence my decision.

The fact that there are 8 players left at level 4 (I think it is level 4) suggests the table is playing tight and/or passive, and I really have to go with the "it depends" cop out because I think it really does depend here. (I mean say one of the big stacks is really loose passive, and the rest of the table is folding too much, I like limping there a lot more than raising.) If the blinds are apt to (re)raise any two here if you limp or make a standard raise, I think you are in a push or fold spot.

If you raise and seat 6 (the next largest stack after the blinds with 9.3BB) pushes, what are you going to do? Fold getting right about 2:1? There are only two people you will be folding to a push from if you raise 2.5BB, so raising here is not a simple raise and fold to a push. There really is a lot of context that needs to be filled in here.

[tigerite]

For what it's worth, I would raise here to 275 most times, limp sometimes, fold very rarely.

[Ixnert]

This is the single situation I hate the most -- 11-14 BBs, small pair (though this is the top end of what I'd consider a small pair), UTG or UTG+1, blinds getting high. I hate open-limping for almost 10% of my stack (and playing almost 10% of my stack for set value seems very suspect), I don't like raising ~3 BB with a pair that's going to be a coinflip or worse against almost anything that calls, I won't have room for gathering much more information after the flop. But I REALLY hate folding, especially with a pair as high as sevens.

My default play here is to raise (usually a straight 3BB), with the occasional fold and hardly ever limping, if I don't have any solid reads on the table (if I've been mostly paying attention to other tables). Though I think if I had doubts about my ability to play it post-flop (because of lack of reads, feeling like I'm not playing my best, or whatever), this is one of those marginal situations where I wouldn't lose much by just avoiding the issue and folding, especially since I'm fairly comfortable going to 75/150 with an 8-9 BB stack.