Where do you stop playing for set value ?

Obviously you play AA and KK as made hands in their own right, 22 is normally played for set value and usually dumped unless it improves.

OK in the below situation where do you stop playing for set value and raise up your pair for value.

$100 NL table, your on the button. Everyone has an equal stack of $100 and you have no reads. 5 limpers, assume if you raised youll get called in the min of 1 place.

You look down at your pair, action is on you.

Where do you stop raising and start calling, please post an explanation.

i may stop immediatly after the flop . i base my desicion on these cards and the reactions of the other players to these cards, player notes can come in handy if you have someone that likes to slow play.

TT and better, preflop, you probably have quite a good hand. Raise, limit the no. of players in the hand and check the flop. If there's any face cards on the flop, I'll do a c-bet in early position and gauge the reaction to the flop. If reraised, I'd fold. IF there are no. face cards on the flop, I'd lead out with a pot size bet.

Pokerqueen is a PRE flop desicion thread.

Edge, your on the button not in EP

With 5 limpers I prob still limp and play for set value only.

i start at queens or better raising. anything less i may make a limp raise with. depends on whom i am up against and the vibe i get.

Can a mod include this option in the poll and delete this post plz.

5 Limpers, I'm the button. HMMMMMM.

I clicked on 9s.

I want to raise with a hand that has at least a 50% chance to still be ahead after the flop most of the time. JJ is that cutoff point. Anything lower than that and you are going to start to see scare cards more that 50% of the time.

I will assume that these are standard players. I will guess that 2-3 of them are limping with 2 painted cards or a weak suited A. 1 may have suited connectors below my 9s and 1 random hand (small PP, 1 gap cards etc.). With 4 to 6 paint cards being shared by the limpers I will lower my standards since the odds of paint showing is decreased slightly.

I will raise to isolate since I think there is a decent chance my 9s will still be good after the flop and can take the hand right there. I am a very aggressive cash game player so that is part of my style. My raise will be about 8-10BB since I don't know what the blinds are. 10BB = 5BB(1 for each limper)+ 3-5 for standard raise. This is to really make the limpers think before calling but not risking my whole stack since any caller will more than likely have 2 over and it is a race.

Ooo.. my bad. Still, that makes it all the more easier. Raise, watch the reaction to the flop.

I would raise with 10's. There is still a chance there will be no over cards. If a Jack or Queen flops you still can assume the better hand and make a bet.

If a King or Ace flops you better be very cautious but If you have a good read on your opponent as JJ or QQ you can also try to push him off the hand.

I usually call raises with Pocket tens or below unless no one raised, then I would raise. Jacks and above I consider great hands to raise with, not really to call with. If it starts becoming a reraise war, I'd probably call after the third reraise unless it was Pocket Kings or Aces, then I would push all in.

Raise with any pair. What, you want to give free cards all around? Wait for the flop and see if I've improved. If flop is low pot bet and try to take it down.

I think I'd raise with JJ or better, and then play the rest for set value. I think that narrowing your opponents range is good, but at a point you will introduce too much risk of there being an overcard that is essentially a scare card. Mike Caro's stats mention that the flop will contain an A or K 32% of the time, which is pretty high. As you go down the list of pocket pairs isolating becomes more worthless.

What about pushing value? I guess you could isolate with certain hands, say down to Jacks, and maybe push pre-flop with 10's and be down to a race. Just hypothetical I guess.

What do you mean by this TB? You'll get at least 1 caller if you were to raise?

At the current site I am at i will call raises up to 3x bb with any pockets... But only raise with Queens or better.. Reason being is the play at the site I play at is a lot worse then the average site.. Meaning people will not respect your raises preflop and you will get a few callers with A rag and K rag.. and it's just too hard to play Jacks when you have 4 people calling... with virtually anything.. So I just play them for set value.

Ummm so to answer your question.. I would just limp with JJ and under and raise with queens or better in that situation (Altho I don't play 100NL so my answer will probably change when I get some experience with 100 NL)

Exactly Chuck.

OK ty sir.

I think just by feel I'd say JJ+; I have no reads on my opponents and won't be able to use any past notes to outplay them postflop if I raise with worse. Nor will I know who the looseey-gooseys are so I won't be able to pin hand ranges too accurately...

I've got a great chart here that I keep right beside my odds chart which tells me the % of overcards hitting the flop (and board) when you hold certain pocket pairs. This might add to the discussion or at least enlighten some ppl:

(% flops with overs/% boards with overs/relating pair)

(100/100/22)
(99.9/99.9/33)
(99.4/99.9/44)
(99.8/99.9/55)
(99.6/99.6/66)
(99.2/98.8/77)
(87/97/88)
(79/93/99)
(70/87/1010)
(57/76/JJ)
(41/60/QQ)
(26.6/35.3/KK)
(0/0/AA)

We can see that even with jacks, we will only see a flop with no overcards %43 of the time here. I'd need decent reads to play a hand in which I raised with JJ and got two callers, and see a K82 flop.

So I voted JJ. I can't see limping with them; maybe i overvalue them too much but I think they warrant a raise. TT I think is good enough for limping in my mind.

5 limpers ill raise any pair from the button just because of the immediate odds. then prolly take a stab at most disconnected flops

Id say 1010 and better, even though i often limp in with tens, i always have bad experiences with them. Id have to have some experience with the players and what theyd call raises with, so i can have better decision making after flop since i always seem to mess it up.

1010 is the borderline hand to me, JJ i definitely raise without hesitation

I still only play micro stakes (0.05-0.10 at the highest) so my answer is based on the fact that in this situation if I raise to 3-5xBB I will normally get at least 3-4 callers regardless of what they have.
So I will raise with QQ, KK, AA sometimes J,J and very occasionally 10,10 though very rarely for 10,10.
.... I just noticed that you said in a $100 NL game, so I would have ot base my decision on table reads. Really LAG tables Q,Q or better only, if the table is playing fiarly tight then I would raise with J,J as well. If the table seems to be playing really tight then I would maybe raise 10,10.

I voted J,J as that would be my normal cutoff.

I voted JJ, thinking along the line of Chuck, although, given that there will be one caller, now I'm thinking TT.

My normal play would be JJ and up, but that's because the tables I play, with that many limpers I'm gonna get more than 1 caller. JJ I'm thinking to raise as much out of fear of the overcards as for it's value but then, like a lot of others, I've never played 100 NL.

Not quite the point, this could be a $10 NL table just as easily, I just put in $100 for the ease of reference.

Mininum of one caller That would depend on your bet size once you decide to raise, well do that part in a few days.

K. I'll keep an eye out for it.

With 5 limpers I've got to assume I'm up against at least one other pair. So my question to myself is what rank pair is likely not to have raised already. I can't imagine that TT would have limped, therefore I would feel comfortable heads-up with that pair or better. However, a raise in this position will often induce an all-in from an earlier limper which I would not call with less than QQ.

I raise with TT and above because JJ and up would have raised already, so you have the best hand. Raise for value. 99 is also worth raising with for value, but I prefer to limp because there is more implied value the times you hit a set.

I picked TT and better but it depends on the situation.

I say JJ or better. (And thanks for the chart Chuck, made me feel good about my choice)

I answered 9's. I've a got a pretty decent hand, and want to maximise my chances preflop. Even if the flop doesnt suit me, chances thats its checked to me are pretty good, even a small blocking bet would still give me odds to chase the set.

Anything below 9's I'd limp or raise 60/40 of time, to change my play.

I dont even need a pair here. Ill will raise on my button with 5 limpers with almsot any two. Weak passive play is exploited by constant position raises. Ill rasie here as weak as 57 offsuit.



Bill H.

honestly...I tend to dump low pairs early...

in limit poker i play all pairs to 1 raise. Always.

I voted TT or better... I'm not really sure why... but I'd just figure you may as well get some sort of information PF. If you just limp here, no matter what the flop his you can get pushed off... which brings me to why not a smaller pair. The answer to that question is just a gut feeling type play.

Ah but Bill, the question isn't what 2 cards you'll raise with, but what pair. Surely you're not suggesting that you would raise with dueces, are you?
I don't want to get too far away from the theme of the thread, but maybe you could elaborate on that 57o in another post. It's great having you back and I'd be interested in hearing you're thoughts on this. I'm all for feeding off limpers from LP, but it seems to me that this range of hands is to weak to take on 5 limpers with the blinds yet to act.

Ok i think ive found what ive been looking for here, 1010 seems to be the hand that people feel is the hand that is worth raising with. The distribution is very very interesting, interesting point is that some people rate 99 as just a powerful hand in this situation as QQ.

Edit: Just looked at the graph and seen the distribution is almost perfect, even though i figured that ye guys would vote for JJ.

Its also interesting who didnt vote (nough said, maybe i should have made it a private poll).

There was no real reason for this and personally i dont think there is an incorrect answer. You could argue for a raise with any of them because of your position, and the fact that the pot is already large enough to take a stab at. Personally id raise here with 99+ but that in a lot of cases comes down to my style of play and by no means saying that anyone else is incorrect.

Im gonna follow on with this after i watch this movie thats starting.

I think this is a pretty good test to assess tightness and aggression factors of players by looking at where on the distribution you sit.

i agree with joosebuck. Ive been thinking a bit about situasion like this lately. Say two of the limpers have small pairs and calls for "setvalue". If you would raise alot with say 66 then and theyll call, would u make money with a c-bet if they would allways fold if they dont hit? I think there is pretty much value in stealing pots when oppentent have "set-tunnelvision" with smallpairs.