Playing small pocket pairs in the SB when it is folded to you
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 1,075
How do you play these in the following situations:
1) BB is tight / loose / an absolute maniac
2) BB is short stacked / medium stacked / covers you. You are at 100BB...
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 2,968
Raise always. You can adjust your play if you are constantly getting 3bet in BvB situations by a particular villain
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 849
Small pocket pairs? thats deuces through fives?
tight = raise any stack depth.
loose/(passive?) = raise deep, call if short.
Maniac = call if deep, fold if mediumish/short. (30-50 bbs)
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 2,968
Why do we want to want to open limp from the SB ever?
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 546
Raise always. Lets say the villain only calls/3bets with 30% of their range.
70% of the time we win 1.5bb and lets say we always lose if they call or 3 bet. So 30% of the time we lose 3bb( assuming we raise to 3.5bb). That is an expected value of (1.05-.9)
Or .15 of a bb.
So as you can see raising is the best option. Once you take into account that a large part of that 30% of the time you could win the hand your EV goes up even more.
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 849
Well, it depends on the tendencies of villain. I made the assumption that a maniac would 3-bet us a lot. I'd rather limp/call vs a maniac deep than raise/call, no? As for passives who are short. This depends a lot if the guy is a calling station or not. If he calls a lot preflop and folds postflop, i'm comfortable raising pretty much ATC, even when hes semi-short. But if he is a loose calling station, i dont see much value in starting putting in the big bucks until im ok with my hand.
I might even change my answer to fold in sb vs a short loose villain.
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 849
Excellent analysis Hodgie. I assumed a loose/maniac would call/3bet far higher than 30% tho'.
Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 755
You are in the SB, and it has been folded to you.
You have...two cards.
You raise.
Repeat until opponent adjusts, then start playing poker.
