Calling in the field.

As always, it depends on the players/stacks and my read of the original raiser. I limp or flat a lot more than other players on here at certain tables where I feel I have an advantage post flop. I can see flatting all of those hands under the right circumstances (enough money on the table and I will win some of it if I hit, nobody is going to squeeze or 3bet w/o AA/KK, original raiser is a weak player, I can bluff the right flops, etc.).

IMO, if we're expecting a field of callers, we really want to lean to nutmaking hands, such as Axs and setmining pocket pairs (and possibly some of the bigger suited broadway, although they could also be 3bet). As the nutmaking potential plummets, a lot of hands become very problematic in multiway small SPR pots (assuming we're not playing very deep) because our non-nut flush / trips / two pear / etc. will be put to stack commitment decisions ASAP (and we won't have the streets to sus out what is going on).

I really don't like being the first flatter (unless on the Button) due to the off chance someone can always wake up with a 3betting hand / no guarantee it is going multiway / poor relative and absolute position. Also don't think flatting HU in the BB (even with the price break) is ever going to be profitable with speculative hands OOP to a non-moran in a raked game.

So I'd be cool with flatting A3cc / 77 / 22 after some callers (especially in position, but ok with enough callers OOP), although 22 can have RIO. JTcc can have a lot of RIO issues multiway and I'd actually dump it (although the more expert you are the more you can consider continuing).

GcluelessNLnoobG

We're behind a 10% raiser's range with all those hands, so no reason to enter the pot cold with half the table LTA.

Some spots where I flat for EV reasons: Obviously BTN and BB as you pointed out. I occasionally flat as a slowplay in earlier position than HJ. There are conditions where I form a flatting range in the SB, but those aren't common at 2/5NL- live games. I think the EVs of flatting and raising in the CO can run close together for decent range of hands in some common table conditions, but rake and raise sizes often aren't favorable at said tables and I don't bother finding those spots TBH.

Flatting 4bbs in specifically the HJ would really require some consideration outside of direct EV to do, like I'm playing on TV or trying not to appear too tight in a private game. Hands 1, 2, and 4 all seem ~0EV enough to call or maybe light re-raise in those situations. 22 is too bad for me to VPIP there even for the cameras, barring some truly insane 1kbb deep with a nit button and blinds who are blackout drunk type scenario.

Obviously none of those really apply when the raiser is opening 10% though. Even in a private game against someone nitty enough that I know they're opening 10%, probably the better way to get an invite back is to show my neighbors my cards on the way to the muck and guffaw about how big of a fold it was and how I refuse to pay off such an insufferable nit.

To anyone suggesting we cold call 22 in that spot when we're deep enough, I look forward to the "DISGUSTING spot with bottom set 500bb deep" threads that ensue.

Coming from a guy that used to absolutely love J10 suited I've started to play it less and less over the years. It is def one of those hands that you can crack big pairs with b/c they will never see it coming, but alas a dump in most cases.
22 dumping pretty much anywhere except button or BB unless I'm micro stacked less then 20bb and its a jam hand.
77 calling all day to a reasonable amount.
Ax suited calling all day (nut flushes are the best flushes! And I'm a nuT!) just don't get overly sticky with when an ace comes and the pot starts to grow could be costly af if your kicker is blown away by a light breeze.

The decreased appeal of flatting is coming from both sides.

1) Fundamentally, cold entry into a pot is just not an appealing option. Almost nobody's leak (including nits') is that they're not VPIPing enough in spots where they have nothing already in the pot and they have no reasonable expectation to scoop the blinds.

To emphasize a point I made above: A3cc, 77 and JTcc are already behind the one player who has already acted, and there are 4 players left to act with uncapped ranges. What incentive do we have throw our hat in the ring knowing we're behind, have no chance of taking the pot down immediately, and face the possibility of losing the pot without even seeing a flop. (Even if everyone LTA is blithering loose-passives, the combined possibility of one of them waking up with AK/QQ+ already taxes our EQR by 10%. Obviously flatting also taxes the pot by upwards of 10%.)

2) At the same time, more linear 3bing strats have become more appealing, getting rid of the necessity of flatting even what few hands were left as reasonable flatting candidates.

Of course, hands that are doing well against the opener's range, like ATs and 99 might eke out some EV by flatting, but now we get to the other reason cold-calling has fallen out of favor: linear 3bs have proven to be an effective strat. For whatever hands can ACTUALLY get 0EV+ out of cold calling, those hands can also very easily 3b.

Also, people underfold to 3bs so there's really no incentive to try to polarize your ranges, so you might as well just 3b KJs and fold worse hands rather than flat them hoping to increase your VPIP by pulling 3bing candidates out of the muck. If you identify someone who overfolds to 3bs, then maybe it's worth it to flat 99/ATs/KJs and 3b KTs/A5s, even from MP. Even so, we're finding pretty exceptional cases where we have like a 1.5% cold call percentage lol.

So UNDERSTANDING ALL OF THAT, the BB and BTN flat for different reasons. The reason the BB defends so much is because (with small enough raises) they're getting good enough direct odds to offset their poor equity realization and can continue with anything that is either racing in overall equity or has a distribution of flops where they make enough in those uncommon cases to make up for the relatively low price. (Even this often goes out the window with low stake rake and raise sizes.)

As for the BTN: Well, they barely flat at equilibrium too lol. (Especially for the rake and raise sizes of live games). BTN flatting strats and frequency vary quite a bit, even between sims using the same tool using the same assumptions.

The many ways that live low stake games deviate from equilibrium make cold calling appealing for some reasons, less appealing for others. For that reason, I think you can very easily come up with dozens of scenarios where it makes sense to form SOME sort of cold calling range. (I've included some in each of my posts ITT.) But also someone who is never cold calling outside of those two seats is probably playing approximately as close to optimal as even a very thoughtful player who deviates to find those edge cases with 2% of their range or whatever, but also occasionally misses a factor that wipes out whatever gains they've made from the edge cases.

Of course, at least half of the regs here believe they are good enough to profitably coldcall from anywhere with a PP or suited Bdwys, "since it's 1/3, LOL."

I know you're trolling (which I appreciate, btw), but I think we want to break up our opponents' exploitabilities into two different categories:

1) Future mistakes - If you account for the fact that the remaining field will raise you out of the pot a combined 10% of the time instead of 20% of the time, and you treat your postflop skill advantage as a ~1.2x multiplier on your EQR, then you'll find these are factors that would be important in a narrow EV environment but are easily wiped out. The 20%->10% tax on not seeing the flop is pretty much wiped out in almost exact measure by the rake you're paying to see the flop, and the 1.2x multiplier on your skill advantage is very easily outweighed by people literally raising like double what opponents do in the narrow EV environments.

2) Enormous EV donations *already rendered* in the pot - If UTG is a positionally unaware LAG who raises 20% and the remaining EP players are all loose-passives who all call their typical capped 30% nonsense (AND everything from point 1 is still true), then yeah, there's enough EV flying around that you can VPIP a lot wider.

FWIW, the guys I play with on a regular basis will call a raise with almost any two cards -- the same they limp in with. However, they are fit/fold or loose/passive post flop. To me, this makes limping/flatting profitable -- and more appealing than facing three or four callers every time you raise and trying to outplay them in a bloated pot -- especially when they now feel "committed" with top pair or big draws. In other words, it's easier to bluff/outplay them in smaller pots. Not sure I'm explaining it correctly, but limping/flatting works in my games.

Heck, I called a raise from a tight player with 2c3c the other night on the BTN. Checked to the river on a AKXKA board. He checked the river, I went to bet, and he said don't bother and open folded QQ. LOL.

I wish I was trolling. Maybe 50% is too high, but probably not by much.

Save me a seat at this dream table. :p

Others have said it all already... calling HU from BB is much more of an online thing where (1) pot odds are dramatically better and (2) players are usually far more positionally aware and can be raising extremely wide from MP/LP, in part due to the small open sizes. It's still a thing live as (1) you know you'll be guaranteed to be heads up - which is a big deal - and of course (2) there is still a small price discount albeit far smaller than online.

Calling on the button is OK as you're guaranteed position and want to be playing a lot of pots as a result and don't desperately mind whether they're heads up or multiway if you select your hands accordingly. That said there are few hands that are calling candidates on the button that don't work as a 3bet. Most of the hands that work as calls on the button would also work from the CO (although there are some rather inadvisable hands like ATo which you can probably just about get away with on the button sometimes that would just torch money from CO). It's just that the situation is generally worse with one extra player who can either overcall or squeeze and whatever they do it's not ideal for a condensed range.

For the same reasons I'd never want to call a raise from the HJ with anything. If I did, then A3s, 77 and JTs are all reasonable candidates (22 is a snap fold to a raise unless on the button). But for example with A3s you're just inviting someone behind you to overcall with A9o which wouldn't be an issue had you 3bet (or folded, of course, which would be perfectly sound with any of these hands)

As already pointed out, if V is really opening 10%, all these 4 hands are already behind, so no shame in just folding all of them.
Depending on stack depth and V's postflop skills, you might flat with A3s and 77.
I am not sure it is worth having a 3bet bluff range against someone opening 10%, assuming he doesn't massively overfolds to 3bets.

Against a looser V, you may want to 3bet with JTs and A3s, and call with 77, although again, a lot depends on stack sizes, V's calling range and postflop reads.

22 is always a fold.