Little Pocket Pair Hand Values . . .

[Toasty]

First of all, this site Rox!! and I'd like to try to make a contribution after recieveing lots of great information and advice from this site and its players. I hope this information is accurate and useful and i welcome any criticism.

I've been looking at the numbers on the small pocket pairs and excluding the situation you may be in (i.e. super tight player goes all in with an ace on the flop) you are generally safe to place a large bet on trips small pocket pair.

Its great when they hit the flop, but a lot of the time its a flop / fold situation, unless of course you steal the pot, but i'll ignore that for this analysis.

ok, you have roughly a 1 in 8 chance of catching trips with a pair. I then ran this through the hand player 2s Vs Aces and Kings (3 player pot, rags on the flop, which include your trip card 2 7 9 ) 10,000 times 3-4 times. The trip 2s won 82% of the time :)

This said we can rely on these cards being a winner for us 1/8*.82=10.25% of the time. The great thing about low pocket trips is that noone sees them coming. Whenever they hit you are usually in for a nice pot. This said, I wanted to know how much I could pay to limp in with them to stay profitable . . . enter the hand value.

=SUM((1/8)*(82/100)*Pot)-SUM(7/8*Call1)-SUM((1/8)*(Large Bet+Call1))

Hand Value 0.84 0.41 -0.47 0.53
Pot Size 22.50 22.50 22.50 42.50
Call 1 0.50 1.00 2.00 2.00
Large Bet 10.00 10.00 10.00 20.00

Hand value shows us what we will make everytime we get and play that hand to the specs shown. This shows that in an avg showdown where you can expect to win 22.50 (Blinds and early calls 2.50 + are callable bet).

As we can see calling with a low pocket pair for $2 + will lose money if you can only win a $22.50 pot. Play that hand 1000 times and you are down $457.00!!!! << Now that is a big leak!!! However If you know you can make a $42.50 pot from them, they are now worth the money :)

Summary if the avg pots are only hitting the $20.00 and you have small pocket pair they are not worth a $1.50 call, doing so is gambling and that's not we are about. :D

If however the pots are big with big bank rolls, you could probably push the call upto $3 a pop and still have a positive hand value.

A second important point to note:

If you play with a limited bankroll playing small pocket pair hoping for trips is not for you, the 7 times you lose $0.50 and the 2 times you lose a large bet could kill off your cash and stop you from playing. If your bankroll can easily take it as long as the hand value is in the + play this hand all day long for 0.5 - $2+ pot dependant.

Personally I will only limp in with a 0.50 call as I have to uterlise some areas to fill leaks in my play in other areas, I'm still new and make stupid mistakes.

Finally if there is a flush draw on the board your trips will drop 12% effectiveness, from 82% to 70%. This can of course be fixed with a heavy flop bet or fake bluff.

Also I remember seeing that you have a 1 in 5 chance after you hit trips to then go on to hit a boat, but I havn't double checked that...

Well thats it let me know what you think.

Toasty
Toasty

[Toasty]

I'll just add I know the points are pretty much common sense but i wanted to try to show the line between making money on them to loseing money on them. As i noticed a few hand histories people paying up to $3 to play them.

[Fnord]

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=83

There are circumstances where calling $2.5 to $3 with a pocket pair can be correct. Although at that point I'd like more than just Ducks to make the call.

Also consider you need to look at each call individually, you can't consider the 50c or so from a failed limp when determining if you should call a re-raise pre-flop. Just consider the additional amount you have to pay and factor in the chance of being re-raised.

[Toasty]

Nice points Fnord, seems you have covered this one already

I'm going to do some analysis on Ax next as this also seems like a wasted hand especially in Limit. I know Ax is a late position call anyway, but i'm starting to think that dropping the A6 - A9 might increase the value of these cards. (I also have noticed you have already mentioned this) But I'd like to put some values on the hands to try to see the breakeven point.

[Iconoclastic]

Does anyone else like to go All in with small pocket pair when you're near the bottom half of tournament standings when you're pretty sure you'll be up against ONE player? Statistically you have an advantage over High Connectors and there are about twice as many High Connectors as High Pairs that people will call an All-In with, especially when they have more chips. Any thoughts on the validity of this strategy?

[BoondockSaint]

I do it if in 2-3 times around or less my stack will be completely eaten by the blinds. I will also do it if someone has gone all in with a stack less than half my size and I'm the only one left to call. This depends a little on how big there stack is compared to the average stack and size of the current blinds.

[fishstick]

as much as this kills me, in a long term strategy approach, i think i made the right call. please tell me i did...

what i knew: pbailey15 had been playing pretty solidly with a typical $2 raise preflop on something like AK and $3 pfr raise on something like JJ or QQ, and not raising junk preflop. on this hand, i put pbailey on AK or KQ.

pots on this table were running $15 - $20 on average. my "low pair hoping for a set" raise call cutoff is usually $1.50, unless there are interesting circumstances (loose, bluffing players, position, etc), i try to stick to this (once again, thinking long term).

so, did i blow a great opportunity? even if i had played the hand, seeing the AK on the flop when i put pbailey on AK and thinking about those 4 lethal outs (compared to my 1 out), AND the flush draw, AND the str draw...

what would i have done with a $75 (including my stack) pot anyway.


***** Hand History for Game 538881365 *****
0/0 TexasHTGameTable (NL) - Tue Apr 20 01:28:31 EDT 2004
Table Cash n Cash (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Showemymoto ( $61.35)
Seat 2: JohnnyX135 ( $30.15)
Seat 3: Kicker23 ( $23.75)
Seat 4: crakko ( $42.23)
Seat 5: ChipChip ( $26.20)
Seat 6: dormie72 ( $28.20)
Seat 7: B0NECrusher ( $24.50)
Seat 8: shadow24 ( $21)
Seat 9: fishstick ( $22)
Seat 10: pbailey15 ( $35.95)
crakko posts small blind (0.25)
ChipChip posts big blind (0.50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to acesNeightss [ 6c, 6d ]
B0NECrusher folds.
shadow24 calls (0.50)
fishstick calls (0.50)
pbailey15 raises (2) to 2
Showemymoto folds.
JohnnyX135 folds.
Kicker23 folds.
crakko folds.
ChipChip folds.
shadow24 calls (1.50)
fishstick folds.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 6s, Ah, Kh ]
shadow24 checks.
pbailey15 checks.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 2c ]
shadow24 bets (3)
pbailey15 calls (3)
** Dealing River ** : [ Jc ]
shadow24 bets (5)
pbailey15 raises (30.95) to 30.95
pbailey15 is all-In.
shadow24 calls (11)
shadow24 is all-In.
Creating Main Pot with $41.10 with shadow24
Creating Side Pot 1 with $14.95 with pbailey15
** Summary **
Main Pot: $41.10 | Side Pot 1: $14.95 | Rake: $2.15
Board: [ 6s Ah Kh 2c Jc ]
Showemymoto balance $61.35, didn't bet (folded)
JohnnyX135 balance $30.15, didn't bet (folded)
Kicker23 balance $23.75, didn't bet (folded)
crakko balance $41.98, lost $0.25 (folded)
ChipChip balance $25.70, lost $0.50 (folded)
dormie72 balance $28.20, sits out
B0NECrusher balance $24.50, didn't bet (folded)
shadow24 balance $0, lost $21 [ As Ts ] [ a pair of aces -- As,Ah,Kh,Jc,Ts ]
fishstick balance $21.50, lost $0.50 (folded)
pbailey15 balance $56.05, bet $35.95, collected $56.05, net +$20.10 [ Ad Kd ] [ two pairs, aces and kings -- Ad,Ah,Kd,Kh,Jc ]

[Fnord]

With those stacks...

Cold calling the $2 is a marginal call.
Calling the extra $1.5 is a somewhat profitable call, particularly given that no one was in a position to re-raise again behind you.

[jmrogers7]

Like you, generally I have normally set a ceiling for myself when I have a pocket pair of no more than $1.50 pre-flop. Again, depending on the table of course.

I most likely would have folded.

[fishstick]

thanks fnord and jm - i think i'll continue to play small pairs like i have been (with about $1.50 ceiling), BUT, take more of the situation into account.

in this case, the fact that i could have called without being reraised, and that i was fairly sure (due to preflop action) that no one had AA or KK, tells me that this would have been one of those situations to stay in.

it's only money, right!?!?!

[Fnord]

in this case, the fact that i could have called without being reraised, and that i was fairly sure (due to preflop action) that no one had AA or KK, tells me that this would have been one of those situations to stay in.

In this case I want them to have AA or KK, so they'll call me down with their overpair.

[fishstick]

In this case I want them to have AA or KK, so they'll call me down with their overpair.

good point!

[Bite]

I think that smaller pocket pairs is not allways playable at all. I'm not talking about the above situation now. But IF I am to play a smaller pocket pair from late position I'd rather raise with it pre-flop beeing there haven't been any raises in front of me. I do this because:
A) I probably hold the best hand at the moment.
B) If I hit the flop I have allready gotten money into the pot and limited the fields for draws and stuff like that. And there is a good chance that the caller has hit a top pair two pair or anything like that which should normally give me a great win.
C) I probably win the blinds and that's better than nothing.
D) I am a slight favourite even against AK and premium hands like those. (Oki this is similar to point A).

I think this has been a successful tactic especially if the table has tightened up a little. Off course I throw them at once if I get to face a big re-raise or if I'm sure the other player has made his hand on the flop. Aggression is almost allways good on weak tables. If the table is very weak I'd even consider raising it from early position. Oki so I'm a maniac