Personally I don't like tiny pairs eg. 22,33,44 when EP
. These pairs, no matter what, are consistent Losers (highlight) no matter how good you play them from EP. I've read and checked database results (not mine) and they explain that it's just bad to play them on EP
.
Regardless of this, your call is good for set mining since your stack is > 40 BB
(my favourite amount) to give implied odds a chance, although the effective stacks
are what you should make use of. For example, if you have 150$ and 2 short rat-holers
called you with 15$ and 10$ left, no it's not a good play and should have folded. If you're against similar stacks it's good for set mining, but I prefer higher pairs.
Your flop
situation is more interesting. Yay, you hit your set but the flop contains a draw. Your primary thought now is to reduce the field eg. kicking out the chasers
. You did a horrible
(highlight) play by checking/calling eg. slowplaying your 22 set
in a drawy, multi-way board.
What if the turn came on a club with a load of players in it ?
My preferred move would be to just raise the pot
eg. by applying what Harrington referred to as The Hammer
(in his book: Harrington on Hold 'em); simply check/raise to what seems to be an aggro opponent. The only way for the others to continue is:
- to already have a set and sadly a higher one
- to have a 2-pair; tiny chance, not enough good cards on board for a 2-pair
- calling station or aggro drawing aggressively (the case)
Let's see the odds.
Starting pot has 1+2+7+7+7+7 = 31$
. You didn't mention how many that couple callers
were so I added 2 more callers with a 7$
call here. Big stacker bets 15$
(half pot) into a 31$
pot, thus making it 46$
. A couple of calls as well so 46+15+15 = 76$
. It's your turn and have around 140$
left, am I right? This is just double
the pot. If you call 15$
against an army of callers it's like inviting them to beat your hand. The preferred move here is to Check/Raise
the initial raiser. In fact this pot is a dreamy one for those who have hit their set.
In fact, with too many callers still in hand and my relatively low stack vs Pot, my x3 raise (45$) is not enough. I would move in.
If that means everyone will fold, that's equally good! But if a calling station / chaser is stubborn enough to follow, no problem; he has around 20%
to beat you anyway with 1 card to come and around 35%
for the showdown. But also consider that you have odds to make a full house as well with 2 cards to come.
Villain is just aggro with his draws, you should make a note that this dude barrels his draws
so next time punish him properly on flop / turn
; by the looks of it, he's going to call you.
He said 'he had odds[sic]' to call you? lets see:
91$ on the flop (raiser bets, couple and you calls: if my calculations are correct)
116$ on the turn (after raiser bets 25$
)
216$ on the turn (after your 100$
raise all-in)
Now the big stack has to call 75$
to win a pot of 291$
(let's say 300$
)
75 / 300 = 0.25
-> 25%
9 cards to hit flush
= 20%
If my calculations are correct, no, he doesn't have the expressed cold odds. But this changes if he played you with a bigger set. In this case you're the one walking on thin ice. Opponent could fold or not by preferred choice (check/raise flop + turn)
but against aggros you need to either win their whole stack or die. Your passivity lost this pot and it's bad since you had the perfect opponent for this type of hand.
UPDATE
Actually the 35%
and 20%
equity by a flush chaser is decided vs a random hand. I fell victim of not pokerstoving your actual hand, a set
. In this case the real equities are:
- Set vs Flush draw on the flop: -> 75% vs 25%
- Set vs Flush draw on the turn: -> 85% vs 15%
As you see, unless you're beaten by another set, you're so ahead you can barrel him to death. Another fun equity:
- Set vs made Flush on the flop: -> 35% vs 65%
- Set vs made Flush on the turn: -> 25% vs 75%
Even if the guy flops the flush, you still have 35%
equity against him! In contrast with his hand, your hand can get better with more cards to come. Sets are just so powerful. Not strange since only this hand can form full houses and quads.