How To Play Small Pocket Pairs

 How to play small pocket pairs

Small pocket pairs are the most problematic.

A small pocket pair is more likely to be flipped than a larger one. This will result in an underpair to board and it will prove very difficult to find out if we are ahead.

When we call a bet, it doesn't give us much information about whether our hand is ahead. The opponent could have a higher hand, a drawing hand or any other type of hand. The simple call and bet does not reveal much about the opponent's hand. It will be expensive to attempt to find out if they are ahead by betting on turn and river.

Pairs and sets for small pockets.

When they are able to make a set, a small pocket pair becomes a strong hand. A set is when you get 3-of-3 on the flop with a small pocket pair. This is very different from trips which you only need one holecard, two cards from the deck, and you can only make 3-of-3 using a single card. It is possible to make lots of money with a set because they are very strong and secretive.

Instead of trying to figure out if our hand is ahead by looking at small pocket pairs, we should focus on hitting a set and folding. It's not profitable, and it is difficult to play a low-priced pair after flop if the situation does not improve. So try to avoid it.

Small pocket pairs are best served by aiming to make a pair on the flop. If you fail to hit a set, play on.

The odds of hitting a match and the math behind it.

The odds of flopping a set with a pockets pair are 7-1, which means we will win a set 1 out of every 8 flops. These odds are not very good and, according to pot odds, it means that we will seldom be getting good enough pre-flop odds to call to see the flop and attempt to make our set.

The pot odds suggest that we are paying too much to get something that is not likely to happen enough often to be worth it. The implied odds that we will hit a set are something we're ignoring in the pot odds equation.

It is worthwhile to play small pocket pairs with implied odds.

The implied odds show how much we are likely to win after making our hand. And I can tell you, the implied odds that we have for sets is huge. Players can lose all of their money to sets even if they get a decent flop because they rarely suspect their opponent has one.

Play small pocket pairs with strategy.

For small pockets pairs, there are two requirements:

Your opponents should have a relatively large stack. It should be around 70BB+.

I would not call raises above 7BBs to be considered a flop.

1) Play small pocket pairs against deeply stacked opponents

The bigger the stack of our opponent, the better. This is because while we may not hit a set often, we want to be able to receive a handsome reward. When our opponent has a small amount of money, it is not worth calling raises if we hit our set and get all-in. We will only hit one set per 8.

The stack deeper, the higher the implied odds of hitting a set. More information about this topic can be found in the article on stack-to-pot ratios.

2) You can call 7BB raises preflop.

Preflop raises that are larger than 3 or 4 BBs will have a negative impact on the pot odds. It also makes it less profitable to call a set in the long-term. However, the average preflop raise is around 3 to 4 BBs. This is acceptable for calling in an effort to hit a pair.

However, the implied odds of hitting a pair are very high so we can afford to spend a bit more to see one fail.

As such, I would advise calling up to 7BB raises in advance of the flop. We can expect to get paid pretty well when we hit our set. Poker Strategy - Small Pocket Pairs