Calling Chip Stacks, Not Hole Cards

I would rather call against multiple limpers then re-raised my middle pair to isolate in the early going.Set mining can be a profitable play for you when you can keep your entry costs low. In the early stages, loads of players are correctly playing for implied odds. If you raise it that much, it's still not a big hit to thier situation, and you will likely NOT get others to fold. What usually happens here is a tough decision to continuation bet or not into a large pot so many over cards on the board resulting in tough decisions.  Why not open raise, but once there are limpers, avoid attacking them when its deep stacked and when the blinds are very small.

You also can't forget about the 2:1 odds. If the pot is 1.Five big blinds, with one caller, which makes it two now.5BBs. You now decide to raise to three big blinds, making the pot five.5BBs and the limper (assuming everyone else folds) has to call 2BBs to see a flop with 5.5BBs in it. So your opponent is getting nearly three to one odds by calling.

You are pretty much never more than a 3:1 under dog pre flop, which is what Gus is on about. But there is a problem. Maybe even more than one problem.

Firstly your problem is bet-ability of a marginal hand. You might have 95s and might be up against AK. The flop comes down 5 J Q. You are in front by quite a long way, but can you put much money into this pot? What about the continuation bet? But what if you just bet into the pot? Then what are you going to do when he smooth calls? Do you fire again on the turn? How deep a hole are you going to dig for yourself with your bottom pair hoping that it is good?

What about if you have 33 pre flop? There are 3 over cards (which statistcially are likely to have missed your opponent), but how much can you bet at this situation?

So yes, you had correct odds pre flop, if you could get to showdown for something approximating that pre flop investment. However, in big stack scenarios you really shouldn't. You still have 3 betting rounds before you get to fifth street.

However there is another problem as a result. You are out of position and that's not good poker tournament strategy. What this also means is that when you do actually hit the flop, the pots will be smaller. It also means when you don't make a big hand, you will lose more than your fair share because the player in position will bet you off marginal hands with a worse hand himself.

So really, for these deep stack situations, pot odds are completely irrelevant IMHO. This is where you should be measuring up your opponents stack.. i.e. what is the size of my chip stack and my opponents chip stack. My calling range is rather wide if this bet represents 5% of my stack or less. Even if they have pocket aces, my small cards and when a huge pot. I want them to have AA when I am playing 53s for a raise. But if the raise is getting up to around 10% of my stack, then I fold all the weired stuff, except PPs. Still, I am only concerend about the size of the bet compared to my effective tournament stack.

My cards may be 56s and be up against big slick. But unless I make and OESD, Flush draw or 2 pair or better, I will be surrendering pretty much every pot on the flop especially if I am OOP. Once in a while you might just want to check here if you hit a low pair, especially if you can put your opponent on a hand.

In Gus Hansen's poker tournament strategy book, he often sounds angry at himself for calling early position raises from his big blind blind. Understandably, these regrets come about as soon as you see the flop which invariably are difficult to play. Gus can look at his opponent for tells, and after all his is The Great Dane. There are no person to person tells and we can't play like Gus. Take into account, your opponent is weaker than the players Gus plays against. It's also important to know if your opponent can get away from a top pair, or are more willing to let it ride.

To sum it up, pre-flop pot odds are less important than post flop implied odds. You might choose to play a given hand anyway, but do it for the reason of implied odds and not pot odds, if that makes sense. You have to know how to calculate poker odds when getting into hands like this becuase it may very well determine your long term success in tournaments. Just knowing Poker rules are not enough to win, you need strategy too.