Open raising with small pocket pairs

The last few weeks I have been playing, I have began open raising my smaller Pocket pairs from every position. I haven't played enough hands to properly see if has had a decent impact or not.

What are people's general views on this?

I play micro stakes, so do people think that raising 22 UTG can be a profitable play, or is this something that could start costing me money?

First-off, I am a nit. I have accepted my nittiness. I revel in my nittiness. Having said that, my opening range EP is 99+, AK, so, yeah, easy fold for me with 22 UTG. In fact I'm not playing 2-2, ever, unless I can just limp with it from LP and table is deep-stacked. But, that's just me. I am a nit (and a decent winner at the micros).

If you play 6max I would raise it often, assuming not too many short stackers and no maniacs at the table, I play relatively tight and raise every PP UTG

Forgot to mention, I play full-ring almost exclusively. 6-max is no place for nits. So, my above strategy is obv. for full-ring only.

6 max i wud prob raise from anywhere. full ring, depends on tables. in live cash you can prob get away with limping from early position with them.

varies on personal style

if you have HEM or PT3 filter to see if you are profitable with them again if you have a decent sample size.

I personally am not profitable with 22 - 55 UTG @ 50 and 100 but i am profitable with any Axs and 67s - 9Ts UTG, so based on playing style postflop.

with SCs and Axs you flop or turn more equity so can barrel alot more frequently and attack weak ranges with equity but PPs your never going to have equity unless you flop or turn a set

Thanks for the post Jurn. I never thought about the equity issue that way. Once again I learn something. You feel that the equity that you get from the SCs and Axs outweighs playing them OOP?

It totally depends on your style, as I say I'm comfortable picking spots to double and triple where I pick up equity and hit or miss if villians turn their hand face up and its obvious they are repping a very narrow or weak range.

Obviously everyone understands barrelling with equity so your going to have far more postflop equity than small pairs oop as the aggressor. I'm at uni atm as I have an exam but if you don't get it ill get some examples when I'm home

Also another point is people will raise the issue about when you flop an A and your going to value cut yourself but once you get comfortable in spots you can shut down when villians range is weighted towards better Ax, however you can rep big aces as you raise from utg but that's another matter and will probs lead to spew and not necessary

Thanks for the reply. I may have to play around with my UTG range a little. I do understand the point on post flop equity I guess I just get a little spooked about the position issue. What you're saying makes sense though.

If I understand your last post correctly you're saying that on, for example, an Axx board against certain villians that you know flat with a lot of Ax you might c/f ?

Domination is honestly not a big deal. It's like a term from the stone ages where people happily folded AJs to a single raise.

This is something I learned from C9 -- the odds of flopping top pair and being dominated are about the same as them flopping a set. That is, if you have A3 and are facing AQ, there are only 2 more aces in the deck. If you flop an Ace you should feel pretty comfortable betting it. This doesn't mean you are going to get 3 streets of value but honestly how many hands do you get 3 streets from when you raise UTG?

I bet most of you will find suited Ax is a profitable raise from any position.

The nice thing about FR is that people fold AJ and worse all the time to UTG raises.

If you're playing at micro stakes, it's probably not too bad of a move raising with it UTG 6handed. If you get re-raised you prob should fold, because low PP's are just that weak. Some donkeys might be playing any 2 cards and if u end up with pockets 2's.... be ready for a race.. usually not in your favor.

There's some gold in this here thread.

Yeah I mean in situations where some people cannot fold top pair Ax chris because they beat all other pairs, obviously terrible logic but you get what I mean

Can you post these examples please Jurn8?

I would say this is like the stone cold nuts example

Pacific $50.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1584513
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $53.70
SB: $71.81
BB: $88.65
Hero (UTG): $75.00
MP: $50.50
CO: $50.64

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is UTG with 2 ♥ A ♥
Hero raises to $1.50, 1 fold, CO calls $1.50, 3 folds

Flop: ($3.75) 2 ♠ K ♦ 6 ♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $2.50, CO calls $2.50

Turn: ($8.75) 8 ♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $5.50

you get it bud or you need more explanation?

i think most people will have a difficult time being profitable playing 22,33,44 utg at lower stakes

so you say higher stakes you go the easier they will be to profit from?

Like the play, probably do this for the most part myself thru the turn. My problem lies when I miss the river. Are you finding it to be profitable to fire the river on a blank? Are you getting enough folds on the river to make this a profitable play?

I guess it is probably villian dependent also. I have been playing around with HUDs the last week or so. Are you looking at the villians WTSD% when you are barreling streets down to the river, is it another stat, or is it just reads on villians that you have developed over time?

yeah i mean its a combo of fold to cbet, fold to turn cbet, wtsd mixed with vpip/pfr this is done mainly to other regs as I know they play similar to how i would play hands, such as raising sets on wet boards.

you can do the simple math of bet size divided by pot to work out how much you need to win if you bet pot it needs to work 50% of the time to b/e for example, we are not betting pot though in most cases

Im just not a big fan of raising with small pairs unless im on a run.. that and im here to better my game also so i will take in what other have said here.