Small PP?

[McNeese72]

With small pocket pairs, I want to be in late position with a lot of limpers before me before the flop. But if I don't hit a set and with a flop like that, I'll just fold and move on to the next hand.

[Cooker]

From time to time with several limpers in front, I stick in a raise with even small PP preflop hoping to buy the button and see the turn cheap if I don't make a set on the flop. This will also add deception if you hit your set on a middle to low flop and you might get payed off handsomely by 2 pair figuring you for overplaying an overpair. I don't have a rule, but I want a pretty passive table if I am going to do this. I don't want to be 3 bet preflop or even bet at very often when I miss my set on the flop. Maybe I should do an EV calculation to see if this is better or worse than flat calling preflop and folding when you miss the set, but like I said, I don't do it every time, just to mix things up.

I will also say that there is no feeling like checking behind 6 people on the flop (with at least one looking to check raise with his 2 pair), hitting a set on the turn which must look like a total blank, and then getting to trap the whole field for 2 or 3 big bets after the attempted flop check/raiser bets out on the turn.

[Pov]

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From time to time with several limpers in front, I stick in a raise with even small PP preflop hoping to buy the button and see the turn cheap if I don't make a set on the flop. This will also add deception if you hit your set on a middle to low flop and you might get payed off handsomely by 2 pair figuring you for overplaying an overpair. I don't have a rule, but I want a pretty passive table if I am going to do this. I don't want to be 3 bet preflop or even bet at very often when I miss my set on the flop. Maybe I should do an EV calculation to see if this is better or worse than flat calling preflop and folding when you miss the set, but like I said, I don't do it every time, just to mix things up.

I will also say that there is no feeling like checking behind 6 people on the flop (with at least one looking to check raise with his 2 pair), hitting a set on the turn which must look like a total blank, and then getting to trap the whole field for 2 or 3 big bets after the attempted flop check/raiser bets out on the turn.

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With 3-4 limpers and loose blinds this play is useful for creating a big pot no one can bring themselves to fold out of. Very nice if you hit your set. As recommended in HEPFAP this play is probably only worth it if the players are likely to pay off *because* the pot is larger. If most of them would have paid off anyway (or will fold anyway) then the play loses much of its value. If you can actually get a free turn card out of it that's impressive with that number of players in. Probably not going to happen frequently enough to make it very valuable on its own though.

[Cooker]

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With 3-4 limpers and loose blinds this play is useful for creating a big pot no one can bring themselves to fold out of. Very nice if you hit your set. As recommended in HEPFAP this play is probably only worth it if the players are likely to pay off *because* the pot is larger. If most of them would have paid off anyway (or will fold anyway) then the play loses much of its value. If you can actually get a free turn card out of it that's impressive with that number of players in. Probably not going to happen frequently enough to make it very valuable on its own though.

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I agree that this shouldn't be your standard line with a hand like this, but it is a play I try from time to time. I get checked to almost every time I raise preflop no matter how many limpers at the low limits or how well someone hits the flop. I see tons of attempted check raises and actual check raises with things like TPGK and 2 pair. I think there is some definite value to getting a free 4th card at low limits with this play, because I think you will get it very frequently if you in fact do end up acting last on the flop.

[Pov]

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With 3-4 limpers and loose blinds this play is useful for creating a big pot no one can bring themselves to fold out of. Very nice if you hit your set. As recommended in HEPFAP this play is probably only worth it if the players are likely to pay off *because* the pot is larger. If most of them would have paid off anyway (or will fold anyway) then the play loses much of its value. If you can actually get a free turn card out of it that's impressive with that number of players in. Probably not going to happen frequently enough to make it very valuable on its own though.

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I agree that this shouldn't be your standard line with a hand like this, but it is a play I try from time to time. I get checked to almost every time I raise preflop no matter how many limpers at the low limits or how well someone hits the flop. I see tons of attempted check raises and actual check raises with things like TPGK and 2 pair. I think there is some definite value to getting a free 4th card at low limits with this play, because I think you will get it very frequently if you in fact do end up acting last on the flop.

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Well that would add some value. This is unlikely to occur in the games I've been frequenting, but every game is different and adjusting to the game you're in is of course very important.

For fun, let's make a stab at calculating how valuable this free card is - I will only be calculating the value of a raise for free card purposes. Obviously the raise may have other benefits such as discussed above that will be ignored in this analysis. To start out, let's assume we get our free card every time if we want it. We'll flop a set or better 11.8% of the time so on those times we don't need the free card. On the turn we'll hit our set about 4.26% of the time so that's .0426 * .882 = 3.76% of the time we'll miss the flop and hit a set on the turn.

This was a multi-way pot and we just gave a free turn card to our opponents as well, so let's say our set on the turn still loses to some bigger draws occasionally. We'll say we win 80% of the time when we hit our set on the turn. That means our free card play (alone) is worth about 3% of a pot. But of course this presumes we'll actually be checked to on the flop after missing. I'm not sure realistically how often that will really occur in a pot with 4-5 other players in it, but we've at least determined that in perfect conditions we win the pot an extra 3% of the time.

That's worth maybe a quarter of a small bet so it clearly doesn't justify the cost of a raise by itself, but it does go a ways towards discounting the cost of the raise if you're thinking of doing it for other reasons such as tying people to the pot, etc. Anyone care to try a different approach?