Gotta Love the River

This was just in a regular freeroll on PS that i ended up winning btw out of 10,000 people but w/o this river Q i wouldn't have survived @ all. The blinds were big & i had to push being in good position w/ a good hand As Qc. You gotta love tha riva!

PokerStars Game #9356684343: Tournament #47147049, Freeroll Hold'em No Limit - Level XVIII (10000/20000) - 2007/04/10 - 19:21:45 (ET)
Table '47147049 201' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: bigdad1949 (1025427 in chips)
Seat 2: hiloson2u (368929 in chips)
Seat 3: Jonny Will (220952 in chips)
Seat 4: Bredie (207129 in chips)
Seat 5: Rhino_Zoo22 (107728 in chips)
Seat 7: zeus1530 (179394 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 8: 2vicious4u (233630 in chips)
Seat 9: Giovanni76 (676551 in chips)
bigdad1949: posts the ante 1000
hiloson2u: posts the ante 1000
Jonny Will: posts the ante 1000
Bredie: posts the ante 1000
Rhino_Zoo22: posts the ante 1000
zeus1530: posts the ante 1000
2vicious4u: posts the ante 1000
Giovanni76: posts the ante 1000
Bredie: posts small blind 10000
Rhino_Zoo22: posts big blind 20000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Rhino_Zoo22 [Qc As]
zeus1530: folds
2vicious4u: calls 20000
Giovanni76: folds
bigdad1949: calls 20000
hiloson2u: folds
Jonny Will: folds
Bredie: folds
Rhino_Zoo22: raises 86728 to 106728 and is all-in
2vicious4u: calls 86728
bigdad1949: folds
*** FLOP *** [3d 9h 2s]
*** TURN *** [3d 9h 2s] J♠
*** RIVER *** [3d 9h 2s Js] Q♦...saved me
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Rhino_Zoo22: shows [Qc As] (a pair of Queens)
2vicious4u: shows [5s 5d] (a pair of Fives)
Rhino_Zoo22 collected 251456 from pot
2vicious4u said, "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"...this guy was upset lol
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 251456 | Rake 0
Board [3d 9h 2s Js Qd]
Seat 1: bigdad1949 folded before Flop
Seat 2: hiloson2u folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Jonny Will (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Bredie (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: Rhino_Zoo22 (big blind) showed [Qc As] and won (251456) with a pair of Queens
Seat 7: zeus1530 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: 2vicious4u showed [5s 5d] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 9: Giovanni76 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Dont know why he was upset, how can you call an all in with pp 5s? Nice hand for you though.

i do it a lot maybe thts where im going wrong

Well, the low pair (TT and lower) before flop in NL is rather dangerous, because they can make the player over confident. However, even with JJ you have about 50% chance to get beaten by a higher pair!
Maths follows: when you have a pocket pair, you have 2 outs, so chances for set are about 18% until the river.
The others have six outs, so it will look like:
(1-((50-6)/50)^5)=0,47
(here I assume that the one that goes all in before flop is not a moron to do that with A2o, but he has at least AQo, as our buddy had in the game described before)
This means that a combination of two high cards will win twice as many times over a pocket pair than the pocket pair will win against them. In NL this means that with low pocket pairs you basically call before flop, and if you have the set, you may go all in. You can also do that if your pair is higher than the cards showing up at flop, and there is no real danger of flush, straight or fullhouse.
This strategy works actually with at least 7 players at the table. With fewer players you should rise a bit, because you don't want anyone in (sort out the blinds at least, because they may easily flop a two pair or a straight and do you in) with low value cards, as they can lower your chances, thus ruin your investment/income ratio.


If there is any mistake in what I wrote here, don't say only that "Dude, you're just being a smartass, this is not true", but rather try to ad some constructive thoughts. Thank you.
As a conclusion: If you have high cards, you can be more confident before flop than you are/were with a low pair.