$7.50 MTT: holding 66 facing a 3bet pre-flop
When holding small pairs and making a small raise to try to see a flop, I noticed often times, there will be a 3bet that requires you to make a call where the odds of the call vs the size of your implied odds are about 10-1.
The odds of hitting a set on the flop are 7.5 or 8 to 1 to round it up. Even when hitting the set, you may still not be ahead in the hand. Also, even if you hit your set, there is no guarantee of extracting the full value of your implied odds.
So my question is that in these situations, where you have 10-1 odds on a call, is that good enough odds to call, or do you need better odds of say 20-1 to call?
The reason I ask is that I believe I've heard you want around 20-1 implied odds on a call with small pairs. At the same time, I often see players calling with approx 10 to 1 odds or worse to hit a set with small pairs.
Just wondering what is the right play here in the long run?
Here is an example of that situation:
PokerStars - 25/50 Ante 6 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4
BTN: 87.12 BB
SB: 142.98 BB
BB: 66.86 BB
UTG: 96.6 BB
UTG+1: 171.34 BB
MP: 119.38 BB
MP+1: 99.88 BB
Hero (CO): 95.74 BB
8 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 2.46 BB) Hero has 6♠ 6♥
fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, BTN raises to 9.96 BB, fold, fold, Action is to Hero. Do I call 7.5BB more out of position with about 92BB in my stack remaining, OOP?
2 Replies
The 60BB ranges in Acevedo's book has this as a pure call. It's probably not a high value call, but you can't think of this as a pure set mine in order to profit.
Villain will have plenty of hands like AJo or QTs that won't give you the full double on a K62 board. But, notice, you are ahead of them with 66 on a K52 board.
In other words, you will need to be able to play this hand well postflop. If you think you are at a big skill disadvantage, and the ONLY value of this hand is hitting set, it won't be profitable for you.
To echo this point, I almost always call a cbet after calling here on dry boards with only one broadway card, and will mix in a x/r on occassion depending on the V and texture. I will x/r very often on low boards with or without the set.
