Limping QQ under the gun

[BigBiceps]

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Low pocket pairs 55 or less, I fold, because I hate stacking people when I flop a set

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FYP

I would be interested in Aseem's thoughts on set mining in deep stack games.

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1) just because you flop a set does not mean you will win the pot - and sometimes you lose your own whole stack.
2) just because you flop a set does not mean that you will someones whole stack.
3) you only flop a set ~1/4 times (I think) you see the flop
4) you are going to have to fold after you limp alot of times when you are raised
5) you are going to have to fold on the flop alot when you don't hit a set.

As a whole limping UTG with 22-55 is a money loser, even if you sometimes win someone's whole stack. I am not saying that I fold these hands in other positions, but I like to have other limpers already in the pot.

[BigBiceps]

It is not like I am talking about alot of hands anyway. How often do you get 22-55 UTG ....

1/17 (chance of pocket pair) * 4/13 (chance it is 22-55) * 1/10 (frequency of being UTG) =.0018

So you are only going to run into this situation about 1 in 500 hands, and will only flop a set in this situation every 2000 hands, every 4000 hands, if you count that you are going to have to fold after limping half the time.

Also, as far as pot control and not wanting to play for a big pot OOP, I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference the way you play it (limping) vs. raising. If you limp UTG, you're encouraging your opponents too limp to because of the pot size. So say two others limp behind you and the blinds come along, that 5bb in the pot preflop. Now say you raise the pot to 3.5bb and get one caller, that's still 7bb. Obviously more than one caller gets a little tough, but it would not be substantially different if you limp, someone raises and you call. Obviously every situation would be different, but that's the point, right? You will handle a multitude of different situations well, while your opponents will have problems. And frankly, I like to raise from UTG with QQ so that I'll, I hope, have fewer opponents behind me to worry about.

[Godfather80]

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3) you only flop a set ~1/4 times (I think) you see the flop


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Yikes. You should have a better grasp of the math before posting something like this. You are ~7:1 or ~1/8 to flop a set with a pp. But I think you are missing the point of implied odds.

[4_2_it]

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As a whole limping UTG with 22-55 is a money loser, even if you sometimes win someone's whole stack. I am not saying that I fold these hands in other positions, but I like to have other limpers already in the pot.

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In the 60k hands I have in Pokertracker all my pocket pairs are profitable. I have won more $$ with 44 and 55 than 77 88 or 99.

If the stacks are deep, why wouldn't you limp? It's easy enough to get away from if the flop doesn't hit you.

Look at some of the set mining posts in this forum and I think you will see many others have similar stats. Are you familiar with the 5/10 rule? There are some good threads on that as well. (Sorry I did not link, but I suck at the Interweb and can't seem to ever find what I am looking for using the 2+2 search engine.)

[Macquarie]

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I play the hand differently postflop if I limp preflop. Of course I'm not going to pay off a bunch of hands just because I have QQ.

To address the reasons:

1. Thin the field - I have already addressed this. I don't mind if more Ax and Kx comes along. Even though my winning chances decrease, I believe my expectation does not.

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I think this is at the heart of the problem. Of course with more players your chance of winning decreases. Problem is this.

Say with a field of 5 you have a 1 in 3 chance of winning the pot at showdown. This is fine if you only put in a fifth of the money in the pot, but not so good if you put in half the money in the pot. While you do put in only a fifth of the money preflop, after the flop it will often be heads up, and to continue in the hand you you're now putting in half of the money.

Now most of the money goes in postflop. Lets simplify and say it always goes head-up after the flop. So if you raise before the flop and get it heads up, you are playing against one hand and putting in about half the money. If you limp before the flop and then it gets heads up on the flop, you're playing against the best flopped hand of all the hands that limped, and will still end up putting in about half the money if you get to showdown!

You're out of position either way. The pot is bigger if you raise, but that's just a question of variance. Your expectation will be higher with the raise in my opinion, and so will your variance.

On top of all this, you will make incorrect decisions more often if you don't raise since it is very hard to put opponents on a hand.

Of course position is vital, but you seem to be unusually uncomfortable playing out of position.

[amoeba]

at a 2+2 full ring 100 game. I will probably limp this alot UTG preflop.