Hello All,

I would like to hear about some techniques for how to handle being dealt a low pair for example 22 or 33, 44 etc.

As I have been playing there are times when I have considered raising considerably preflop to scare off other players and make the best of my hand being that it is a pair but a low pair. However, I get into trouble in doing so when all the other players call me.

I realize that position plays a role in this as well as does knowledge of other players etc.

That being said what are some of your thoughts and techniques in general for how to best play a low pair.

Thanks!

I prefer to set-mine with 22/33/44 more so in early position because it is a coin flip to any hand above 56, call a raiser but muck to 3 bets. In the SB if nobody has entered the pot I think you should raise the BB x3 a min raise will be called and you have no idea where you are of course on the button I am raising with any PP. IMO with a small PP you want to see a flop as cheap as you can, if you hit the set bet every street for value. If you get called and and we have draws try and control the pot size we are better winning a small pot with these hands than losing a large pot.

I'm going to assume you are just starting out to play.

Fold them in early position, limp or call in mid to late position. I know you're thinking, "but Venice, I can make a set and win a whole bunch of money." You'll eventually learn that you can make a small set and lose a whole bunch of money too. Play them with position and knowing that the odds are low that you'll get raised off your hand preflop.

An easy and pretty effective way to play small pairs, and a generally recommended strategy when starting out is to try to get in cheap and flop a set. you're generally going to win more with a set than you lose without because of your opponents' mistakes. hands that flop well play well in multiway pots where players enter the pot with weak holdings (which is probably the kind of games you play in).

this strategy may or may not be sound, when you say things like "raising to scare other players" you have a ways to go before you can really evaluate what's sound or not. when you have a small pair, any 2 higher cards have ~50% equity against you. raising can be good if you make villains fold this trash that nonetheless is doing well against you, but if they don't fold, then by raising you're validating their propensity to play trash. that's why in some games (like in soft live games) you should limp in as much as you can get away with, while in others (like tight online games) you should never limp. but after you raise pre you have to play poker. you don't want to expose yourself to spots where you're likely to make mistakes even if you know raising is the "correct" play.

One reasonable way to play small pairs is to limp in early position if they let you limp and otherwise fold unless you are seeing small raises or massively multiway pots. In late position, its reasonable to call, especially if you can bluff when you don't ht your set. With several limpers ahead of you, it may make sense to make a pot-building raise that will fold no one, if it helps you win more when you hit a set. It also makes sense to "buy the button" by raising several limpers when you are one or two seats ahead of the button, if he is a tight player who will fold to a small raise with hands he will limp with and no one will try to 3bet to punish you. That way, you have a chance to see the turn card for free for another chance to hit your set. If you do, be careful, though, because pushing the action too hard creates a situation where you only get played with if someone was slowplaying a bigger set.

Its game dependent imo, if its a weak crap shoot type game then raising small pairs pre is going to put u in a tough spot too often, in these types of games I lean towards limp/call and set mining, understanding implied odds is important to playing baby pairs profitably and knowing the villains tendencies will help a lot with this, if hes an aggro type player who Cbets a lot then u can use tht against him and add any Cbets into ur preflop odds calculations, however if the game is of a decent standard with decent players then u should really be thinking about putting sum small PP's in ur opening and 3bet range, range balancing is the key to being hard to play agaisnt and small PP's are great deceptive hands and should be used

Hope this helps, GL

No disrespect but with regard to small pairs in EP the dumbest thing you hear is "I raise big because I don't want to see a flop"......and you hear it a lot.

You don't want to scare off other players.

If you consider that on the majority of runouts your hand will remain one pair and you will be facing a bunch of overcards, it doesn't matter how many players in the pot, if you are betting your hand you are essentially bluffing when there are multiple overcards to your hand on the community cards and realistically your hand has very poor playability, especially if you try and play your hand for value. You get into far too many guessing games, will fold to a lot of pressure from betting opponents when you do have the best hand or you might end up putting in a lot of chips on a weak hand that has very poor equity against a higher pair.

Now you might say it is easier to bluff fewer opponents, and that is correct, but really you want to get the fundamentals of poker down pat first before you start bombing multiple betting rounds with a raggedy little pair, all guns blazing.

Going back to my initial assertion, the real value of these hands as other posters have said is hitting a set on the flop. That only happens about 1 in 9 times or aka an 8 to 1 shot if I recall correctly, so you have to understand it's quite a punt to try and make a set, and that's why you should try to commit very few chips before the flop unless you are in a steal situation in late position, in which case you should come in for a standard size raise if nobody has already decided to play their hand. The only exception to that is if you and the other players at the table are extremely deep stacked, in which case it doesn't matter too much what you do preflop as long as you still have a very large amount of chips left to bet after preflop betting is over. That really only happens in live games when players are sat with >1000 big blinds.

Now... where was I? When you hit big hands you want multiple players in there so you can get paid off. The more players in, the more likely it is that someone has connected with a weaker hand than three of a kind or indeed has made a draw to beat that hand and will now want to continue putting money in the pot when you are betting.

Obviously this can backfire and you can lose. Straights and flushes are much more common in multiway pots. But as long as you play your big hands aggressively and don't miss bets instead of slowplaying you will make and win monster pots, sometimes making full houses/quads against those pesky straights and flushes and taking the players holding those hands to the cleaners.

The same can be said when you are holding a nut draw, like a nut flush draw. Lots of players play these draws very aggressively, realising that they have good equity, but miss out on value because they thinned the field too much with their aggressive play, and then nobody has anything to pay them off with.

If you were talking about/interested in what to do with these hands in Fixed Limit Holdem, the strategy is rather different, and you must play tighter with these hands and not call raises like you would in no limit because it is very rare there are the immediate pot odds available to draw to hit a set on the flop and there isn't any significant implied odds from making a set in these fixed limit games.

Just fold them in early position. Don't even think about limping or raising big. In late position it depends on how many folds you're going to get, if they fold a ton then raise 100% of the time and if people are very active and also 3bet a lot then just fold the smallest pairs.

^^ This 100%.

+1

Position is key playing low pocket pairs. ANd of course knowing your opponets as well.

Lots of good stuff here. It's OK to set mine from 'any' position, but you want to do it cheap and with a reasonable 'reward' available. You will only hit a set 1 in 8 times over the long haul, but the lower your pair the greater the possibility you will lose the hand anyway.

If we simplify the numbers and say that you will hit a set 10% of the time then you can't commit more than 10% of your stack in order to do so ... otherwise you wont get the 'minimum' reward you need for the risk you are taking. Typically for smaller pairs players don't want to risk such a large portion of their stack for such a long shot win.

So as others have indicated, if you are risking a smaller amount (say $2-10) then more than likely there will be 3-6 players who see the Flop. This will jump start the pot (your reward) AND give more players a chance to hit the Flop and continue to pay you off when you hit. At $10 you need to win a minimum of $100, so if 5 players call the Flop, then there will be $50 in the pot already. Whereas if you raise to $18-25 you may only get 1-2 callers and end up with less in the pot .. and being called by stronger hands.

There is a saying in our room ... "The bigger the raise the smaller the pair.". Now granted this isn't really true, but it gives you the mindset of a lot of players/tables. "If your hand is that strong, then why are you betting 'so' much?"

There are lots of threads here about set mining ... search for them. GL

What is the consensus on raising them in EP playing 6 max?

Well, since limping in 6-max is even less attractive than a full ring game you should raise with them a portion of the time as long as raises are being respected a good portion of the time as well.

If it's 3-bet city and you aren't deep (and ending up OOP of course) then it's better to just let them go. GL

Oh no I wasn't suggesting limping. It was between raising or folding.

Being a beginner myself, I often tend to ask myself the same question.

I don't really like low pocket pairs in general (just as pairs, they're "meh" at best), usually I try and see a flop for as cheap as possible (I'm usually willing to pay/call a little more, the higher the PP).

if I do flop a set, I proceed with caution, depending on the board and the players. low PP really isn't a hand I'm comfortable with

I would like to thank everyone that has contributed to this thread thus far! I have been reading all the posts and applying the feedback I've gotten on it.

Best to all of you and may the cards be ever in your favor... except when you're playing against me! :P
Thanks again!

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...3bets-1659605/

In the above thread, I used an implied odds model to find the implied odds needed to make set mining low pairs +EV. The model calculates win probability as Pr(hit your outs)*Pr(win|hit) and shows that the 15 : 1 convention for implied odds with low to middle pair is not too bad.