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dvda
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02-06-2006, 04:22 PM
Post subject: How to play a small pair!
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#1 (permalink)
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 76
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How do you play a small pair especially from an early position? I have been thinking about just folding these because they never really work out, but they do have a lot of potential for a big win or a big letdown.
Usually I’ll just call and see what the flop brings. If I don’t hit on the flop, and the flop brings some high cards, straight draw, or flush draw, I’m pitching the pair as soon as somebody calls.
Should I hold on to this pair if the betting is light and hope the turn or river comes good?
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relayer
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 68
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Their value is as a potential set. See the flop if you can do it cheaply.
Sets rule...
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ihategnomes
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Full House
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 1,225
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Basically what was stated above. If I found myself in a tight or aggressive game, then I will pitch them from EP. But if I found myself at a table like that Id have more problems than limping small pairs UTG anyways.
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Field mice are fast, but owls can see in the dark.
<Bbickes> i still wanna know if the thing in your avatar is a real chick or not
<Bbickes> or am i e-crushing a dude
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halo777
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 5
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According to Sklansky, small pairs have their value in flopping a set, as Relayer mentioned above, in large multiway pots. If you play them in early position and dont get enough other players in the pot, you have bad odds, and will lose money in this situation over time. If, however, the table is loose passive pre-flop, and you can anticipate four or more limpers in after you, go for it.
Small pairs play best in late position on a table that is loose aggressive, but fairly passive pre-flop. That way you can get many players in, enter the hand cheaply, and anticipate a lot of action on the flop if you get your set.
Also, if no one else has entered the pot and Im on the button, or one to the right, Ill raise with small pairs hoping to steal the blinds, or in worse case go heads up.
All strategy above is for a ring game with 10 players. Small pairs go up in value short-handed.
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Demiparadigm
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Party 6 max
Posts: 1,602
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by halo777
Small pairs go up in value short-handed.
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This seems to be a common misconception. Small pairs are very hard to play post flop against any type of opposition. While small pairs do well against a random hand hot and cold, you will rarely take small pairs to showdown unimproved. Shorthanded you are rarely getting odds to call just for set value, so any added value comes from the times that neither you nor your opponents improve. In that case, most opponents will fold if they can't beat a small pair, so what you actually held becomes irrelevant.
Hand values shorthanded change almost just as they would change if action was folded to you at a full table in the same position from the button. i.e. you open raise the same hand range from CO no matter how many players started the hand, so in a 5 handed game, you will raise the same hands UTG that you would from the HiJack (MP3) in a 10 handed game.
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To win in poker you only need to be one step ahead of your opponents. Two steps may be detrimental.
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halo777
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 5
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Demiparadigm
Quote:
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Originally Posted by halo777
Small pairs go up in value short-handed.
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This seems to be a common misconception. Small pairs are very hard to play post flop against any type of opposition. While small pairs do well against a random hand hot and cold, you will rarely take small pairs to showdown unimproved. Shorthanded you are rarely getting odds to call just for set value, so any added value comes from the times that neither you nor your opponents improve. In that case, most opponents will fold if they can't beat a small pair, so what you actually held becomes irrelevant.
Hand values shorthanded change almost just as they would change if action was folded to you at a full table in the same position from the button. i.e. you open raise the same hand range from CO no matter how many players started the hand, so in a 5 handed game, you will raise the same hands UTG that you would from the HiJack (MP3) in a 10 handed game. |
Makes sense 
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relayer
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 68
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Was looking at PT last night, and in ~12K hands, I have won BY FAR the most pots with sets. Nothing else is even close...
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Fnord
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Moderator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: I'll Do You Like A Truck
Posts: 19,333
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Demi play g00t.
22-55 go DOWN in value with 6 or fewer players at the table because people are taking weak hands further and playing them more aggressivly. Hence you won't see cheap multi-way pots, won't be able to push people off pairs and won't hit sets that get paid off big often enough to compensate for your lack of multi-way action and bluff equity.
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Xanadu
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Full House
Join Date: May 2005
Location: st. paul, MO
Posts: 966
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There is a definite difference between theory and practice. Although it is true in a short handed game that all pairs go way up in value, this has to be reconciled with true value in practice. As Demi and Fnord said, the small pairs actually go down a little in practice.
An example. Against 2 random hands, 66 is in the top 12% of hands. Good enough for a 3-bet preflop by most standards. That's the theory though. In practice you will often be met with a situation where you are in late position, UTG raises, CO calls, suppose you raise. Now the flop comes something like 8TK. UTG bets, CO calls. Although your hand was probably a favorite preflop, it's hard not to fold here. You can't think both UTG and CO are betting/calling without a pair. If just one of them has a pair you are a huge dog and should fold.
The problem with small pairs short handed is that although theoretically you have a great starting hand, in practice you usually don't know where you stand after the flop. In 5/6 max, I limit my aggressive play with pairs to 8s or higher. The chances of a favorable flop are just so much better with 8s in comparison to say 5s or 6s. Some have said I am weak/passive because of this. I just don't see the merit of raising hands like pocket 4s-7s UTG in a 6max game. Sure it is reasonable on a tight table, but on loose tables I think it just leads to flop situation where you don't know where you are at with bad position. And noone does well in that situation.
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Kessler
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Straight
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 117
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Great thread. Thanks!
-Kes
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If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
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Renton
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Straight Flush
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Posts: 5,991
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I typically will call any raise up to about 5 bb with a small pair even if I am last to act and only one person (the raiser) will see the flop with me, so long as the raisers stack is at least 10 or 12 times the raise I had to call.
Then I either, depending on the flop:
1. The flop is some garbage like 477, I will raise the raisers c-bet or bet out myself if I am first to act. This wins often enough over the times villian has an overpair to turn a small profit.
2. The flop comes all overs. I Check and fold.
3. The flop comes garbage with my 2 outer. I check and slowplay.
4. The flop comes high cards and my 2 outer. I play as agressively as I would if I had the high cards, and prepare to win a gigantic pot.
Is this concurrent with everyone elses play with small pairs?
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Ragnar4
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Full House
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Billings, Montana
Posts: 1,284
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On the note of Hot and Cold:
Hot and Cold all depends on whether you can manage to force a heads up preflop right? Argumentatively, if you've got 66 in the pocket, there are only 8 other hands that beat you out there. Shouldn't a 66 in the pocket, if he can force a Heads up be betting and raising all the way down shorthanded? (I realize I could be entirely wrong here, please explain why.)
As for playing PP form EP, The problem I always seem to have with them (Ten handed BnM) I encorage other people in MP to play hands they normally wouldn't play because there are more bets in the pot. But if I raise with a Small PP, I run the risk of getting re-raised and having to check call/check fold depending on the flop. Not where I want to be. Instead I autofold any pairs below 66 UTG and UTG+1 and UTG+2. I hate to limp with 77,88,99, here, but with 4 other players, the 20% of the time that no overs come against 77 on the flop is almost worthwhile.
I've got a very traditional mentality too, that if you aren't raising from EP, you're making a mistake., and if you're raising with a hand that isn't worth raising with, you're making a mistake. Therefore 66-22 are a mistake from EP.
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The older I get, the more I start wondering; Just what in the hell is going on here? 
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midas06
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4-of-a-Kind
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: NZ
Posts: 2,196
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Renton
I typically will call any raise up to about 5 bb with a small pair even if I am last to act and only one person (the raiser) will see the flop with me, so long as the raisers stack is at least 10 or 12 times the raise I had to call.
Then I either, depending on the flop:
1. The flop is some garbage like 477, I will raise the raisers c-bet or bet out myself if I am first to act. This wins often enough over the times villian has an overpair to turn a small profit.
2. The flop comes all overs. I Check and fold.
3. The flop comes garbage with my 2 outer. I check and slowplay.
4. The flop comes high cards and my 2 outer. I play as agressively as I would if I had the high cards, and prepare to win a gigantic pot.
Is this concurrent with everyone elses play with small pairs?
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This would be a nl strategy. This would be a LHE forum. Good game.
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Renton
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Straight Flush
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
Posts: 5,991
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by midas06
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Renton
I typically will call any raise up to about 5 bb with a small pair even if I am last to act and only one person (the raiser) will see the flop with me, so long as the raisers stack is at least 10 or 12 times the raise I had to call.
Then I either, depending on the flop:
1. The flop is some garbage like 477, I will raise the raisers c-bet or bet out myself if I am first to act. This wins often enough over the times villian has an overpair to turn a small profit.
2. The flop comes all overs. I Check and fold.
3. The flop comes garbage with my 2 outer. I check and slowplay.
4. The flop comes high cards and my 2 outer. I play as agressively as I would if I had the high cards, and prepare to win a gigantic pot.
Is this concurrent with everyone elses play with small pairs?
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This would be a nl strategy. This would be a LHE forum. Good game. |
wow I really should start reading the instructions...
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