Nasty spot with a set in the Sunday Million

Call. We are ahead of 88 and two pair. We're behind a lot but have outs. If you had more you could consider folding, but I think you need to take this opportunity to triple up rather than having what looks like a well below average stack.

Sure I get what you're saying. I guess the question really is what does it take for me to be ahead here? The SB to be check-raising the NFD and the BB to be 3bet jamming with exactly a set of eights? Is he really going to 3bet jam two pair? Maybe, but I'm not convinced.

Other things to consider - how often should I be 3betting preflop? Should I just call on the turn when the BB bets the initial 5bbs, or should I raise/jam?

The good news is that your opponents shouldn't ever have bigger sets. So you should almost never be drawing dead. When you run into a straight you've still got about 23% equity.

I do think it's reasonable to include 2-pair combos in both villains' ranges, especially considering that the flop checked through. Even if it's arguably an overplay villains will show up with two pair hands at a fair frequency.

Also I don't think you can rule out all the pair plus straight and or flush draw combos. There are a ton of those and you're in great shape against them.

All things considered lifefitnit pretty much summed it up. Your average equity vs pot odds is just going to be enough to justify the call.

Re: Your other questions.

1: I like to mainly flat the 9s preflop as you did, but will raise given the right circumstances. I am more likely to raise if opener is opening too wide, other players yet to act will make life difficult when I flat by squeezing but respond honestly to a 3-bet, and/or if I expect to rarely face a 4-bet.

2: I like your call on the turn given flop action and knowing other players are still yet to act on the turn. I think you should be relatively capped on the flop, while SB and BB will be checking all their strong hands and will continue checking their strong hands a lot on this turn with the intention to check raise. So calling is good for your overall range construction, protecting your weaker combos. Obviously a raise is fine though too.

Thanks for the response. I agree that opponents shouldn't have bigger sets, although perhaps the BB can have JJ some of the time? They certainly have QTs and T7s in any case.

Sure, when I'm behind I have around 23% equity. But when I face the 3bet jam from the BB, I need to call 27bb to win around a 92bb pot. So in that case I need around 28.7% equity to call, which I don't have with my hand - especially as the pot is still 3-way when I'm making my decision.

However, that is of course assuming I'm behind, and I may not be. There are 4 combos each of QTs and T7s. As far as two-pair combos are concerned, the small blind can have KJs (2 combos), K9s (1 combo), K8s (2 combos) and J9s (1 combo), and the big blind can have KJs (2 combos), K9s (1 combo), K8s (2 combos), J9s (1 combo) and J8s (2 combos). Both can have pocket 8s (3 combos).

The player I'm most concerned about is the BB. If he plays all two pair combos as he did in this hand (which is a pretty big ask in my opinion), as well as some combo draws, then he has perhaps:

4 combos of QTs
4 combos of T7s
1 combo of AQdd
1 combo of ATdd
1 combo of JTdd
3 combos of 88
2 combos of KJs
2 combos of K8s
2 combo of J8s
1 combo of K9s
1 combo of J9s

So in that case I would be behind 8 combos and ahead of 14 combos, and obviously have a clear call. Equilab says I have 33.53% hand vs range equity:

But can we really credit the BB with having all these combos? We'd played about 100 hands at this point - which I realise it a pretty small sample - but he had barely played a hand, and certainly no big pots. Personally, I think that many of these two pair combos would be huge overplays to 3bet jam the turn with - and if we remove those from the BB's range, then of course my decision is much closer.

I agree that mainly flatting 99 is best in this situation preflop. A friend of mine thinks otherwise, so I'd like to have some discussion of that here if possible, and see what people in general think of the pros and cons of calling/raising are in this setup.

I'm glad you agree about the turn call. I was wishing that I had jammed it instead though!

Can’t see a fold here given stacks.
Would almost certainly be jamming flop over the BB open.
If we’ve run into JJ then meh. It is what it is.
If it’s Q10 or 107 then let’s pair the board on the river.

How much does the tournament cost to enter and can we re-buy at this point?

I think we have to include QTo and KJo in BB's potential range. I do think we are behind at least one of the players here.

The SB c/r which is 50% effective stack means SB is very strong and will be all in on the river (or will call the BB jam). I don't think SB would do this with a double draw or KJs but I could be wrong. I don't play online tournaments...

The BB bet and then jam is also very strong. It has basically no FE against the SB so its not a drawing hand IMO.

I do think it is unlikely anyone has KK and JJ though BB can have JJ since it was a UTG open. So even though we are not getting the right price against QT/T7s I probably call because we could be ahead a small % of the time. I also call because if I fold and it turns out I would have won I can't function moving on in the tournament. It takes me about an hour to get past this and I typically don't last that long anyway...

If someone has kj, k9, j9 you don't have 25% equity to hit your full house, you probably only have 10%. With your stack however I think it's a call.

Hopefully, they both got there on the turn so all your outs are available.

PLO has certainly taught me to consider what happens if I hit my set and it puts up a 5 card card hand be it a flush or a straight or both.

I assume you mean jamming turn over the BB's bet. Yes, I thought about it. I'm 50-50 on calling/raising and went for the call this time as the BB had been playing super tight.

Sure I mean the board can pair on the river, which would be great - but the question is whether or not I'm getting the right price, and what the ranges involved look like.

I included only suited combos because I figured the BB might tighten his range up a bit given the raise and two callers. But you're right, QTo and KJo can certainly be in his range.

Yes, the BB was a nitty Belarussian (although we'd only played about 100 hands). A lot of those eastern European accounts are nitty bots - which of course factored in to my eventual decision.

The tournament is $109 and yes there are rebuys still available for several hours (but I satellited in).

Agreed we can include QTo and KJo in the BB's range - I shrank his range a little due to the multiple callers, but these hands could certainly still be there.

I agree the SB's raise appears not only extremely strong, but also commital - making the BB's jam also extremely strong. Agreed that the BB has no fold equity and is clearly happy to get a call from the SB. Also agreed that we can certainly be ahead some percentage of the time - it's just unclear how often that is.

Well if someone has one of those two-pair hands then I'm happy and not concerned about outs as I'm ahead of them and they're drawing slim. It would be ideal indeed if all of my outs were live.

20 second computation:

Eh, I fold.

Lots of JJ, KK, QT, T7 all shipped for protection reasons.

And dubious anyone ships 2pr very often. And the ~10% of the time you end up losing to 2pr matters as well.

Right, but your problem is if one of them has you beat and the other is blocking your outs when you are in a multiway all in.

Yeah that would be a nasty setup. But the important to figure ouot is hand vs range equity, rather than specific hand vs hand situations.

Yeah this is pretty much where my head was in the hand as played.

If you're including offsuit straight combos in the villains' ranges then you should likely be considering the possibility of offsuit 2 pair and pair plus straight draw combos. When you start adding up all the offsuit combos it's a LOT of combos.

That's why I still lean towards a call being correct. Even if you discount a substantial portion of these combos you're still likely getting the right price to call.

Another thing to consider that may or may not be relevant. I've noticed that a lot of generally nitty players will be the type to put too much emphasis on their absolute hand strength and fail to consider the relative hand strength. I see nits stack off with aces in bad postflop spots all the time, for example.

So I just don't think you can be confident enough that you're behind to justify folding. In some ways a more vulnerable hands like two-pair has more incentive to shove for protection compared to a five-card made hand like a straight.

The SB might not have many offsuit combos, but the BB absolutely could.

I also don't know how you extend that to "they could definitely shove two pair if they're shoving straights and sets."

I don't know if I'd actually find a fold in the moment but I'm suspecting it's correct. You're basically hoping you're against exactly KJ and 88, or maybe one of them (I think only the BB, as SB could and should just flat here with these) has something like JdTd.

It’s all well and good to talk ranges but it’s a min-raised pot that was checked round on the flop.
Original raiser has folded so we’re now looking at pretty wide ranges from the blinds.

I’m still struggling to find a fold, BUT
Q10 is definitely in the BBs range and probably the SB too, along with a lot of broadway combos, small pairs including 88 and maybe 10s that decide to set-mine.

I’m wavering, maybe 50/50 on a call. Toss a coin time?

In a previous post the OP calculated that he would have about 33.5% equity vs. a range including suited straights, lower sets and suited 2-pair combos (sort of a best case scenario). Then people started discussing offsuit straight combos.

I didn't say villains would definitely shove 2-pair, but was just pointing out that if you allow for many more straight combos you also need to allow for the increased combos of possible 2-pair and pair plus draw hands that "could" be in their range.

This spot turns into an equilab problem where whether you should call depends on how many combos you allow for that you are ahead of. My point was that there are a lot of potential combos that you "could" be ahead of. I'm not saying they all shove, but you probably only need something like 1/4 of these questionable combos to be getting it in for your hand to become a call due to the large number of potential 2 pairs and combo draws.

I suspect that we're going to be ahead enough mainly because the flop checked through, as pokerpops pointed out below. You don't think the big blind could be sitting there with something like JT or T9 for a pair plus open-ender, decide to bet then jam over the raise to apply max pressure to hands they're behind like 2-pair? And from SB's perspective, you don't think they could see the flop check through, BB bet and one player call, then decide to raise with even a weaker 2-pair combo that they think is likely ahead but vulnerable?

Admittedly the worst case scenario where we're almost always facing a straight is a fold. I just find that people surprise me all the time by showing up with random spew and hands I would never expect, even stuff beyond what we're discussing. Like it wouldn't completely shock me if one of the players showed up with something like AT for a basic open-ended straight draw. At least I think it's hard to completely rule it out. Then with all the other combos you could imagine "might" fit in these ranges. I mean we only need +5% beyond the equity we would have facing a straight to justify a call.

The flop checking through doesn't really mean much to me for the strength of SB/BB's hands. There's an UTG/7 raise and UTG/6 call, the hand is four ways, and the board should be very good for one of them. The blinds should basically always check here.

Sure I could see those other things. I think that's a very thin needle to thread, though. BB could have some unsuited combos, but SB probably doesn't with the preflop action as it is. There are no more combos of 98s, and only one combo of K9s and J9s. SB's raise seems nearly committing to me-- it's definitely committing to hero's stack, anyway-- and this would be a dangerous board to stack off with two pair. Basically, you're hoping two people are committing 60BB with the absolute bottom of their ranges to do so to find a call. One of them, maybe, but two, that's really pushing it.

That, and if, say, one of them has a straight and the other has KJ, you're down to 4 outs to win, not 10. So it's not just that I find it unlikely you're ahead of both players, but you have a lot less equity than you normally would when you're behind.

All that said...

I am sympathetic to the simple fact of having under 30BB and a set. And more importantly...

I also didn't realize the Sunday Million was a PKO now until I looked closer. That fact does make me think there's a higher change the blinds will raise a little lighter or with combo-draw type hands to try to get the money in and pick up a bounty (or two in BB's case). That might actually be enough to swing me back to calling.

I'm not sure, though. If we were the original better, I'd be more inclined to, because I think SB might just be wanting to freeze out the other players and get the bounty, and then BB might be trying to steal that opportunity. But BB leading into the field 4 ways and SB check-raising a covering stack's lead inclined me to assign them stronger ranges again.

Not sure how much this changes opinions but SB is a more seasoned player at these stakes whilst BB is a micro stakes guy. Online at least.

^^ this.

@GreatWhiteFish @Pokerpops and @LifeNitFL are only seeing the trees for the forest. @Mr Rick what you posted is a serious leak.

Yes call if it's your typical weekday Grinder where you can snap rebuy but the sundy milly is as close as you can get to the ME online ESPECIALLY if Op satalitted into the tournament. We used to joke preBF that the milly didn't stand for dollars but the amount of hands being dealt and the ensuing bad beats.

Also initial cr'er is a reg doing so mw. Even if the mothe****ers had like AdTx or any combo draw really I would not feel bad folding and have pure admiration and inspiration for anyone having the balls to make that play.

Easy fold. Bravo homie... move on.

Yeah it's pretty close with the hand vs range equity.

Good point that two-pair hands have more incentive and inclincation to shove than made hands panic protecting.