NLHE Full Ring: DISCUSSION: Mid-pairs, EP/UTG, loose table

I've been told by a few different people to raise 77+ from EP. I've also read a few sources that say limp to setmine 22-88 from EP.

I know the eternal poker qualifier of "it depends" applies here. But I'm looking to improve my play of mid-pairs from early position at loose tables specifically. It seems like limping 66, 77, or 88 could have it's drawbacks at loose tables, but it also seems like standard-raising always gets a call or 2 by loose players and leaves me OOP up against unknown holdings due to the wider range of loose players.

(The definition of "loose" for this discussion is... Frequently having 2 or more players call a standard 3x-4xBB EP raise.)

I'm looking for discussion of this situation, mostly regarding the following aspects:

- How loose must a table be before we change how we play these mid PP's?
- When we do adjust to table looseness, what pair is the threshold of our change (IE: Limp 55 & raise 66? or Limp 88 & raise 99?, etc.) and why?
- How much should our raise be considering being OOP post-flop? Make it standard or smaller so we can bail out easier if an Ace flops? OR make it larger than standard to try to "thin the field" while building a bigger pot?

Discuss, specifically "WHY?"

******
Here's a sample hand for reference:


Poker Stars, $0.25/$0.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 8 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

CO: $48.75 (97.5 bb)
BTN: $49 (98 bb)
SB: $52.75 (105.5 bb)
BB: $17.10 (34.2 bb)
HERO (UTG): $48 (96 bb)
MP1: $50 (100 bb)
MP2: $28.75 (57.5 bb)
MP3: $87.25 (174.5 bb)

Pre-Flop: HERO is UTG with 8 8
HERO .... ???

Great topic. I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately, especially since playing live. As most people probably know you will almost never win a pot preflop live, most people don't understand position, so basically you always end up oop in a shitty spot when you raise with like 3-4 callers and overs on the board. I think if it's a weak table with not much raising open limping those is fine.

The question is what happens when some are super-passive and will call all raises with super-wide range and others will raise limpers and such. There's the approach of limping a wider range and balancing it with monsters and such (then balancing limp-raise etc.) but I don't like that approach because it's so hard to figure out what other people perceive your range to be. My response I think would be to raise a bit more with them, because obviously the people who call are calling with worse, so if you can get it HU you can probably play it reasonably well even oop.

(bump)

Obviously too well worded to get a ton of response. Something like "How do you play pocket 22?" gets at on of crap posts.

Anyway, from my PT3 db 22-66 are small losers from the UTG/UTG+1 and 77 is basically break even so I generally just fold less than 88 from the 1st 2 positions (occasionally I'll open with 77). I don't generally like open limping but as Zach suggests at some tables it may be best, if there are several players willing to call pretty much anything preflop and will spew with TP post. If you have a person attacking all limpers, raising larger and trying to get HU is probably best as long as stack sizes are relatively deep (100bb+).

Just title it "AK overrated" or "which is better 22 or AK?" and it'll have pages and pages of responses. People don't like posting in these topics, it makes them think .

to me this is kind of a marginal topic

i open 77's or better utg personally

to me the more confident you are in your postflop play the more hands you can open, basically the better you are the more these hands are worth playing

although i think it may be hard to show profit with 22-55 utg just because there are less flops you can take the pot when you dont hit a set as opposed to other pairs

Edit: what i mean by marginal is that i dont think changing the way your playing this generally wont add or subtract a huge amount from your winrate unless you play them terribly to begin with

Any difference in your play between loose or average or tight tables?

well with tighter tables i may open 55's but generally i keep it unchanged

and it depends on what kind of players these loose ones are

if they are the type to call pf bets but give up with lil or no resistance after the flop i may open more as well

but if they are the kind that just dont give up i'll just stick to my normal game plan

that's interesting. about how big of a sample is this? that seems to perfectly support conventional wisdom these days, and i mostly follow that guideline

at 100NL and 200NL i open 77 most of the time, fold 22-66 in early position as a standard, but may limp or raise if i think the table conditions are right for it. if the table is (or certain active players at the table are) really bad and prone to stacking off light, i'm much more likely to play it. i'm also particularly more likely to raise it if i've been super card dead and not playing pots, so i can give a bit of action and the first hand i play at the table won't end up being a monster just to watch everyone snap fold to the nit. those are the main factors for me

but how bad the players are is probably the major one. i actually think a couple years ago it may have been profitable to play any pair from any position with 100+ BBs behind for that reason: people really weren't very good at poker and would stack off with something like TPTK much more easily than today. so a lot of the reason these small pairs aren't profitably in early position is that most players have wised up a bit. i have a hunch that it's still profitable to play any pocket pair at many micro stakes tables though, using the same logic

some people (like twizzy perhaps?) like to argue that 22 is almost the same as 77, that you're just looking to hit a set or that your opponent has missed overcards and you get to showdown/soul-read him/make him fold. but obviously there are differences, and those differences add up. A3-A6 (which some players will still play to an EP raise, especially suited) can pair their rag. 22 gets counterfeited by any two pair on board, 77 doesn't. and since players rarely fold a pocket pair to an EP raise, you have to look at set-over-sets vs. set-under-sets. yes, these are rare, but when you're talking about the difference between your opponent stacking you and you stacking your opponent, i think it adds up. 22 of course can't set-over-set anything. and if you play 22 UTG, whether you're raising or calling, nearly every other small and medium pocket pair out there is coming along. this means when you do hit your set and get action, in today's game that will mean an overset more often than you might think

cliffnotes: you didn't read this

Ive just checked my HEM database, over 70k hands (not huge sample) 22-55 show a loss when raising in EP. 66 is the beak even point for me, so pretty similar to WVH. The losses arent huge either, so its seems to be only a slightly -ev play.

Raising these hands in EP is usually too disguise your hand surely? Your representing strength (for a future cbet)/hoping to get payed off on low board when you hit a set and where say AK ect look like theyve missed. Im starting to think limping these hands is losing its profitablity, as combuboom said people are getting better at online poker and now alot more people can recognise a flopped set for what it is. I played 5nl this morning and flopped a set, raised a bad player AI (hed bet 1/3 his stack already), he thought about it and folded claiming 'set of 6's everyday'. This shows that even at the low levels players are starting to realise a limped hand suddenly showing strength is more often then not a set.

Hmm im starting to confuse myself, ill come back to this after a think..

Total sample is 160K hands at 25 and 50nl. I used to open all pairs from all positions so my sample as far as playing them is also fairly large (looks like I played them from UTG/UTG+1 for about the first 120K hands).

I'm playing those micro stakes ($25nl) and l tend to open raise all pairs from any position and call full stacks with any pair from any position, except when I'm running bad like now and then I try to throttle back the number of pots that I get involved with in general. At $10nl I think 22/33/44 were amongst my biggest winning hands, right up there with the Skansky group 1 hands.

Live, it depends on the "type" of loose table. There are loose tables that are limpish and loose tables that are betish.

At the loose limp table, I'm going to start the limping spree, but I really WANT to see a raise. I want to see a good sized raise, too. If I see that raise, I'm going to call, because I want to take a turn with my little pair and try and felt someone. It's very similar to the way I'd play two suited connecting cards. But I think I'd be inclined to call a bigger preflop raise with the wired guys, especially 8s or 9s, since the flop could very easily come low and my hand could be fit to fight.

If it just limps around, it's up to the flop texture.

Now, at the more aggressive table, I might open the pot up. Of course, when I do this, I'm expecting the 3-bet and already have my mind made up to call any reasonable re-raise.

Let's say I raise to $1.50 UTG. Someone in MP pops it to $4... I need to call $2.50 to win a pot with $6.25 in it. I'm 7:1 to flop a set and am getting 2.5:1, so I need to extract about $11ish when I hit my set to make my call profit. This is a no brainer to me vs a LAG, because even when I flop a set on a drawy board I can probably get him to chase. If he comes up with air he's going to push back because he doesn't want to just be bullied after he threw in his $4 shot.


Looking forward to hearing the flaws in my logic.
If it's set-over-set, all the money is going in the middle. At a really LAG table, when he flops two pair and I flop a set, the money is still probably going in the middle. Cold decks are just that and will work both ways. There's no way I'd be able to put a loose, bluffy opponent on an overset. Load the cargo and ship it. If a pirate nabs me, then yarrr, I say. Yarrr.

oh no, i'm not saying you should be able to put them on an overset and get away. i'm just saying the fact that you will sometimes get oversetted with 22 (and more often than people might like to believe), and that you'll sometimes overset smaller pairs yourself with 77 means there's a pretty meaningful difference between those hands in early position

Sorry combu, I misunderstood. My friend cites a funny quote when someone flips over ducks: "There's a 100% chance of an overcard flopping." He still doesn't know our deck has five deuces...

These are the odds of overcards flopping to your pocket pairs.
KK 22.6%
QQ 41.4%
JJ 57.0%
TT 69.5%
99 79.3%
88 86.7%
77 92.1%
66 95.8%
55 98.1%
44 99.4%
33 99.9%

Pulled off of 2+2.

Combu, you'll notice some interesting things here about these numbers. The odds of an overcard flopping with 66 are only 4% lower than with 22! In fact, it's not until we get to Jakes that we stand a reasonable chance of holding an overpair. Even your Tens are highly susceptible to paint on the flop.

I think the chart above will help players decide where their ranges will be. It's going to be a personal decision and will change based on the table you're playing.