average midpair hands

[adi]

i'm talking about shorthanded tables. let's say you have a mid pair like 77-TT or a sc T9s type and you call a raise from an aggro player who will almost always make a cb but you don't know if he'll fire a 2nd if you just call and if it's just another bluff or value betting. flop comes something like 549 and you think you're ahead but not really sure.

what do you do when you're in position and when you're oop( cold calling from the blinds)? why? and how important is what position he raised from? will you fold a lot more if it was from utg?

also how many overcards do you need on the flop to fold to a cb when you have an average hand like in my example? will an ace or a king be enough to make you fold pocket tens to a cb?

[aislephive]

It all depends, a line I've taken recently that works pretty well is to just call the c-bet and lead the turn for 2/3 pot. Most players don't have the balls to try and make a move on you there since it might get expensive. Usually I'll check-call two bets at most if I have a very marginal hand like second pair that I think might be good. If they fire three times usually I'll just give them credit for a hand unless I've got a monster read.

[dalecooper]

In position against a tight player I like a call. It's cheaper than a raise and it tends to slow them down if they don't have anything. In position against a more loose or aggressive player I like to raise - make them pay if they're going to get tricky or chase, and take control of the hand early. This is also based on the fact that a tight player is raising less and a LAgg is raising more, so you're more likely to be raising for value against the LAgg. A LAgg may keep firing away. Calling here is borderline-floating (although you have a hand, so not really) - but I find that the float approach works best against TAggs and other tighties.

OOP I mix it up a lot, no matter who I'm up against. Check-call and lead the turn sometimes. Check-raise sometimes, especially against players with loose pre-flop raising ranges. I'll even check-fold a hand I think *might* be good, because I'm not out to win every single pot of this type that I can... there are meta-game considerations to take into account, and better, clearer situations for wrestling pots away from raisers, than say, pocket sixes on a T83 board. Out of position I go with my gut a lot, I don't have a set line for every time this happens.