Funny you should say that. I just busted out of a tournment with a pair of 4s. The flop brought 3, 5,6 so an open ended straight draw. The player on my left, who has a very low Replay Poker rating overbet the pot on the flop.
At this point I had 2 outs to make a set, so 1 in 22, plus 8 outs to make the straight on each of the turn and the river, so slightly less than a 50/50 proposition. However, I was a late reg in the tournament and was only a few hands in and decided to take a shot, as it seemed likely that I would take almost the whole stack of the villain if I succeeded, and at this point I did not have any time invested in the tournament.
As it turned out I lost out , and all he had was top pair which was 6’s. He was taking a horrific risk overbetting the pot with top pair, but it paid off.
In a lot of these games players simply will not fold even though they do not have the odds in their favor, and it is often necessary to overbet the pot.
One of the biggest mistakes, though, that players make is not being clear in their own mind whether they are trying to make opponents fold, or hoping to make them call when they have the nuts. For example, if I flop a set with a small pair, I will hardly ever slam in a big bet or go all in on the flop, because I want opponents to put in more money, or better still try to bluff, not to take a small pot at the flop with a monster hand.
In this case I suppose, on reflection, that the opponent was betting 750 chips to win 400 chips and did not wish to be called at all. However I think he would have called if I had led out on the turn (see below).
However if it is later in the tournament and my stack is small, then I may go all-in on the flop so that a bigger stack may see this as a desperation bluff and call me, or just call with a couple of overcards or some kind of draw. And if the blinds are really high at that point, winning the pot at the flop is not such a big loss.
Here is my beat. I know my play was not optimal, but at least I knew what the odds were and decided to go for it. With a small pair and three overcards on the flop and no straight or flush draws, your odds of improving is only about 1 in 11 and your opponent who has any overcard pair has the same odds of improving his hand too. In this hand my hole cards are a pair of 4s.
Incidentally, the villain has a gutshot draw for a straight flush in spades on the river, so I doubt whether he would have folded had I raised all in first on the turn. Had the four of spades come on the river to give me a set, I would still have lost all my chips as villain would have completed the straight flush.
https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/437186111
Usually I do not try to raise the pot preflop with small pairs such as this, but had I done so in this hand, I think he would have folded preflop. The reason I don’t raise these hands early in a tournament is that it is practically impossible to push opponents off the pot preflop without putting a lot of chips at risk, and if you do get calls, they will be higher pocket pairs or two overcards.