Raising pockets

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i don't know about this, considering the odds of you actually hitting that set, you'd be spewing off quite a bit of cash when you combine all the times you miss, which will be most of the time. If you meant to preflop raise to get more people out to hopefully get into a heads up situation then i'd understand it.

I totally agree that it's often a good idea to raise pocket pairs pre-flop. Even if the flop doesn't hit you at least you have driven out the blinds from seeing it for free. And even a small pair is better heads up than against multiple opponents in case you don't hit the set. And raising pre-flop opens up for semi-bluffs in case your opponent didn't hit the flop either. I think raising is allways better than limping (well almost allways).

And besides. A pocket pair is a coinflip against any two overcards such as AK etc. Who wouldn't raise AK pre-flop? I seen a lot of players that seems to think AKs is the absolute nuts

Yeah, but aks has so many draws its crazy.

Agreed, but pre-flop there aint any draws and heads up they are coin-flips so why not raise smaller pockets?

yeah but he said bet to keep as many people in the hand

Originally Posted by Ragingguitarist18

yeah but he said bet to keep as many people in the hand

Yeah, I noticed this too. The point of betting pre-flop with pairs is to try to get players to fold and possibly get into a heads-up situation. Is it not?

Yup! My mistake. Didn't see that. Off course you don't want too many callers.

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Wouldn't it be better to keep more people in the hand by not raising too much preflop? Nobody can see the set coming, and you can ambush them afterflop. If you force people out before, you'll have less chance of somebody actually getting a hand and calling you and giving you money if you do hit the set.

I like to ambush those people with OK hands like KJ or QT cuz they think they have top pair or two pair.

I think by letting more people see the flop when you have a LOW pocket pair is the way to go.

With a higher pocket pair then you have to raise.

I guess it depends on what tables you are at. But at many tables people treats Ax off as a playable hand and calls ur raises with it. Now assume you and the other guy both hits the flop. You with a set and he with an ace. He will most definitely bet into you if he's a bad (or loose) player. The other way is- you hit your set he doesn't. Assume you have 77 and the board is 7 3 4 rainbow. A lot of players would think they had the best hand with A high here and bet or even better if he's got A3...then you surely got him if another Ace hits. The thing I don't like with many callers is this: What if you hit your set and have 5 callers. Most of the times the flop gives some of them a draw of some kind and we all know what happens then...you bet big and gets drawn out and lose your entire stack well at least that happens to me all the time. And besides you bet preflop to get the money into the pot. In case the flop brings nothing for the other players then you won't get called and your set will only win the blinds...and that sux. I guess it all depends on table conditions and stuff anyway.

i personally dont ever raise pre flop with pocket pairs unless i have KK or AA. even raising with KK is a risky proposition in my opinion because any ace can beat you and we all know how often an ace falls on the board... let's just say i have lost enough times to be cautious with KK. the other thing about pocket pairs is that you need enough callers to make the play profitable. the lower your pocket pair, the more people you need in the pot. raising pre flop with them just doesn't make sense. if you hit the set on the flop and the board doesn't look threatening, then that is the time to put in the big bets. the danger also with playing low pocket pairs is that someone else may have flopped a bigger set. i think we all know how hard it is to let go of a set, so these are the kinds of situations where you can lose your whole stack. just things to keep in mind... of course, you always want to vary your play. sometimes, if you feel like gambling, and someone has raised in front of you, you can call with your low pocket pair, and see what happens. they just don't hit often enough to make it worth playing that way every time.

mrpokah

Originally Posted by mrpokah

they just don't hit often enough to make it worth playing that way every time. mrpokah

exactly what I was thinking, I think this site says the odds of hitting that set are 8 to 1 which seems about accurate (yes I know we've all had that day when we hit that set almost every time.) So if you're raising it preflop with a baby pocket pair and getting multiple callers and are getting 8 to 1 odds, you're going to be losing quite a bit of money, just what i'm thinking.

However, K-K's is a must raise, more times than not the ace won't flop.

Sure thing. The odds of hitting the set on the flop is 1 to 8 and the odds of hitting it on any of the five cards are about 1 to 5. I still don't think it's a bad idea to raise if you have position. Partly because if you raise you can win the pot anyway if you bet the flop as well. Now this off course won't work with 3-4 callers and that is why I think it's a good idea to bet preflop. As soon as you get heads up it's just you and the other guy. He can't know that you hold a tiny pocket pair. He must think that since you bet pre-flop and bet ON the flop you might have a hand. Now the tricky part is if he calls you down or even raises you. IF you flopped the set then this is a lovely situation. Otherwise you can just fold or try to bluff him. I'm not saying this is right. There are a lot of more experienced players than me on this board. I just think I personally have had more success playing aggressively than passive. If I flop a set with multiple callers I usually get outdrawn anyway. I'd rather extract the same amount of money from one or two callers. Then again. On the wrong table this can be a terrible tactic. About playing the KK carefully. That just doesn't make any sense at all. Pre-flop you most definitely have the absolutely by far best hand ( OK I know sometimes ur up against AA but that's too unbelievable to consider here ). The more money in the pot pre-flop the better. Unless you're heads up and you're setting a trap or something.

I pretty much follow the advice I've seen on this site when playing pocket pairs. I rarely raise with less than QQ. When I have pockets I'm looking for a big pot and I want to see a flop as cheaply as possible. If I don't hit my set with small pockets, I get out at any sign of strength.

From where I sit, the more callers the better, and the more likely someone else will hit a second best hand like two pair or a high pair. If there is a flush or straight draw on the board, I bet aggressively to make them pay.

My question is how important that is. Given my set and the two other cards in the flop, I've got 7 outs that can make me a full house or quads. Thats just a few less than the flush draw (9, 8 if I've got one of their suits). At the turn, I get 3 more outs if I haven't made it, for a total of 10, so I've got better odds than the flush draw or the straight draw. So I figure I've got close to even odds of hitting a better hand than they do, and the top hand at the time.

Am I missing something?

As far as KK or QQ goes, there I want to win whether I hit my set or not, so I don't want the 89s or Ax to stay in. A good size raise makes it expensive for them to make that bad call pre-flop. Most of the people I know who cuss KK, QQ, or AA for that matter, are those who sit on them hoping for a huge pot. In my opinion, they want their cake and eat it to. They don't want bad draw outs, but they want people to call with bad draw out hands. For me, its pot size raises with those hands, and hope for a tame flop.

Originally Posted by mrpokah

I had AA about 5 times. I went all-in either pre-flop or on a non-threatening flop, and 4 of those times I got beaten by lesser hands that outdrew me, some by miracle cards. It takes a lot to get me on tilt. Let's just say I came close today! Just goes to show you that sometimes it pays to be safe than sorry. But again, it all depends on how you feel and who you are playing against.

Can you say "Implied Pot odds" boys and girls? Sure, I knew you could.

The dilema of AA is that the cheaper you let them in the more +EV you're giving them, since you're likely to bet most flops big and they will only call with a hand that either flat has you beat or has lots of outs against you. So the weaker you play it pre-flop, the more you're setting yourself up to lose post-flop. Yet, if you raise it too much, your +EV degerates towards the size of the pot when you make your bet as very few hands will call.

Which is why in NL you should raise AA big in or limp/re-raise from early position (if and only if you can lay it down if you can't re-raise, but I covered all that in a different thread.) Weak raises and flat calling give you the worst of it.

i think he was mostly talking about low pocket pairs fnord