Quote:
Suppose you are in late position and hold
3:club: 3:diamond:
There is a raise by a player in early position, and three other players call him. Should you call the two bets cold?
First notice that you almost always need to flop a set if you play to win the pot, and that it is 7½-to-1 to flop a set with a standard 52-card deck. Furthermore, just because you do catch that third trey, it doesn't mean that you have a guaranteed winner. We have all flopped sets and have gotten them cracked, and that's not any fun. So what this means is that your implied odds when you flop a set and win need to be higher than 7½-to-1. I think that 10-to-1 is probably about right.
Notice that in this spot you're likely to get immediate odds from the pot of approximately 5-to-1 since there is blind money in there as well as the other four active players, and one or more of the remaining players, including the blinds, may come. So this means you need to make on average an additional five double-sized bets those times you flop a set and have your hand hold up for this call to be correct. In many games that seems like a tough order to me, so the obvious conclusion is that the pair of treys should quickly hit the muck.
But not so fast. Let's think a little about bunching. Since the initial raiser is in early position, he should have a good hand which probably does not include a trey. Furthermore, by the same argument, none of the callers should hold a trey. Of course a trey could be out there in the discarded hands, but in this situation there are fewer of them than normal. So it seems to me that it is a little more likely to flop your set here than it would typically be. My educated guess is that instead of being 7½- to-1 to catch that third trey, a better estimate is more like 5-to-1.
This means that your implied odds don't need to be 10-to-1 to make this hand playable. Indeed 7-to-1 might be acceptable, and that should be easily achievable those times you make a set and it holds up. So I'm definitely playing any small pair here.
Let's switch to another example. This time you have the same pair of treys in the big blind. Everyone has passed to the button who raises — you know that in this spot he will raise with a large range of hands — and the small blind also folds. Do you call?
For your call to be profitable, it means you must win the pot a fair amount of time. This includes those times you flop a set, plus those times you are able to win without improving. But what are your chances of flopping a set here?
It's my conjecture, due to bunching, that it again is no longer 7½-to-1. Instead 10-to-1 is probably a better estimate. That's because given the way this hand has developed with everyone folding, it should be more likely than normal for a trey to have been discarded. This also means that one of the ways in which you rely on winning the pot, namely flopping a set, is a little less likely. Thus, in my opinion, this hand should be folded here, and I doubt if many players do it.
Another point I thought of is flopping a straight draw with 2 broadway cards in a mutiway raised pot. It is very likely that someone holds some of your outs, or you could be up against a set with a strong redraw if you happen to hit on the turn.