I'll never say it's a big mistake to play small pairs. Heck, at one time I was of the opinion that they were profitable from all positions in pretty much any game. But my opinion has changed, and I highly doubt (or at the very least question) whether they are profitable in EP at most LLSNL rake traps now. I certainly could be wrong, but if I am it ain't by much.

FWIW, you would be crazy to fold them in my annual family reunion poker tourney. But those tables don't exist in casino LLSNL any more, imo.

Gdowhatyouwantwiththem,imoG

No way thats true.

Sure it is. If anything we might see more flops by raising because 3bets will be narrower/far less frequent when we open raise (and we can call most of them). Play the scenarios out in your head.

We limp, a call, someone 2b the limps and now someone will 3b here and theyre wider than usual bc the 2b is just less daunting as is our utg limp. Now we might actually have to fold. When open raising UTG, so many more players are gonna call and 3b ranges are more defined. It isn’t a fairytale. Besides, this game was not described as aggro, just loose which is fantastic news for our utg raises. Even bad players take notice/have pause when someone open raises UTG.

We can come up with different scenarios all day, but I think we have a better chance of seeing a flop vs a premium hand if we limp. Some people 3 bet way too big for us to call, when they wouldve made a more normal 4-5x raise if we limp.

Also, if we limp, its much more likely to go multiway if someone raises so we can call with 77 getting good odds, as opposed to us raising, getting 3 bet and it being HU because its much less likely that anyone cold calls a 3 bet before it gets back to us. Now we need stacks to be much deeper to call.

The biggest problem with raising this UTG is that most people feel married to the hand and will try to win the pot a lot more often than they wouldve if they limped and missed.

They will c-bet the flop that will almost always have multiple overcards. Sure we win more on avg when we raise and flop a set but we also lose more on avg when we raise and miss the set.

I have stats that show that when I flop a set with a small to middle pp like this, I win more BBs compared to the amount I risked by limping than when I raise (I do both at times.)

In other words, I risk 1 BB when I limp. I risk 4 BBs when I open raise. My profit from sets when raising is less than 4 times my profit from sets when I limp. Also, profit from sets with small to middle pps is higher when calling a raise than it is when raising yourself.

There's just way too many factors involved and combinations of flops where we have no idea where we are for anyone to ever be able to prove if raising or limping is more profitable, but Im almost 100% sure that a newbie will do better limping than raising.

That’s a tough lay down with top set. Ur a better player than i am for even considering it, i would have beat him into the pot like I have the immortal nuts