In a typical limpy, stationy 1/2 game, I tend to make a small raise to $5 in hopes of actually getting a ton of callers. I am likely them playing fit or fold on the flop, but if I make the set I’m already well on the way to the necessary 7: or 8:1 payoff to break even.
This bloats the pot decently at low risk to myself. So when I do flop the set (or the occasional straight draw on a middling flop), then usually I can make a much more sizeable cbet, and at least one player will catch enough to come along for at least one more street—again helping to get me well past the odds necessary. And sometimes I’m getting quite a lot of value against any A on an A8x board.
Sure, sometimes even the made set will get beat, by straights/flushes/the rare bigger set... But that’s true of any strong hand. Your implied odds become theirs. But a set is good a ton of the time, so the extra preflop callers don’t worry me so much.
In a more tight-aggressive 2/5 game, I’m probably playing this in much the same way as better pairs (99/TT/JJ), balanced with AK, AQs, and some other strong-but-still-speculative hands (A5s, JTs?)... That is preflop, betting them a bit heavier from early positions or 3betting them later.
I don’t know if either is correct but I find this works OK for me.
