Small pairs UTG, full ring deepish.

This is a full ring no limit hold'em senario. It can be taken as a deep stacked tournament, or a ring game with at least 8 players.

We are UTG with 22 or 33, the stack sizes vary from 20bb-120bb with the average stack being in the 70bb range. Obvioulsy we have no information as to if anyone will raise us, or who. Our stack is 100bb.

As a standard line do we.......explain with your reasoning.

Call.
Fold.
Raise.

As promised, from my sweat with Four Dogs last night. Discuss.

I whould fold if it where mp i might limp but i dont whanna play this for set value in such an early postion,most likly with a limp we whould be raised of the hand(exept if we limp and are going to call a 3-4xbb raise).

But it also depends on your table image if i been very tight and only showing premium hands or im on a super tight table i might raise it and try to take down the blinds.
But there just so many varibles to give an straight answer

I call about 50% of the time and muck the rest. This is ring and ds tourney.

There's not much I limp with utg in tournies but it does include AA and KK (and coughAKcough) in certain situations. 22 - 66 round that range out a bit more.

Implied odds are massive in the decision and table image and table stats make a huge difference as does the relationship with the BB and SB.

So, it depends

Any option is fine by me.

Of the three, I'd most of the time marginally opt to raise, although tiniest pair UTG is the worst scenario (probably why it was chosen).


Yes, ideally we're hoping to catch a set. If we limp and catch one, unless we've successfully created a multiway pot, the chances of someone else catching a piece and being willing to pay us off are not that great. If we raise and build the pot early, then we've got a head start in building a big pot. If we get called and miss the flop, standard c-betting since we took control will take a number of pots down. Standard folding to aggression also applies.

What's missing with low pairs is the chance that we get a flop with only one overcard or all lower cards and our chance that our hand is good is questionable.


But, I wouldn't do this at a really low level table. People will happily stack off with weaker hands so there's not as much need to build a pot early for when we hit our set, plus they won't fold to standard c-bets.

I usually limp and hope it stays unraised tbh. I can't raise with a hand that 89% of the time will miss the flop...especially when even if i raise 4xbb i will have at least 1 caller Preflop every time. If i limp there are usually 3 or 4 other people in the pot with me... if i hit trips i'm likely going to take down a big pot.

I've been mixing it up with raising and limping but I'm playing small pairs almost always - I'm pretty surprised some are folding, they just carry too much value not to play them.

Raising carries the added value of having the lead in the hand, taking down a lot more pots UI and balancing our hand range but also comes with the risk of getting reraised off our hand. Limping gives us a much higher chance of seeing a flop and thus flopping a set, but we give ourselves up to those who play positional poker - people could raise with 97s in position on us and take down the pot UI on the flop, forcing us off the best hand.

Ultimately it depends on the styles of the people at the table - I'll usually limp more often at the lower stakes since there tend to be more unobservant people who won't know a set mine if it slapped them in the face. They also won't play positional squeezes on you. At the higher stakes people love to isolate with position, so we lose our implied odds and the initiative in the hand, so I usually raise.

Call. Basically our money comes from implied odds against other big hands. This includes high pocket pairs, AK that flops top pair, and other top pair/2-pair type hands. If we raise this preflop we risk the majority of these hands 3-betting us, and we're no longer getting implied odds to call and probably have to fold. But if we limp, most of those hands will raise which we can then call and play for set value. I'll raise a lot more the later position I have because then I'm playing more for steal value as the odds of someone having a big hand decreases. But from UTG with a small pair I'm limping the majority of the time.

This came up in my sweat session with Tenbob last night when I was indeed dealt 33 UTG and I did fold, as I almost always do with any pp < 6. TB suggested that I should at least consider the IO's I might get from one of the LP stacks that were relatively deep.
I was playing .10/.25 and the stack sizes were as so...

sb $39.80
bb $19.50
UTG(me) $24.55
UTG+1 $39.25
MP $17.50
CO $24
B $16.50

So 4 of the 7 players left to act offered me in the range of 100:1 IO's should I just call and then flop my set.

My problem with limping is one of principle only and one I may be willing to adjust in these situations. I've had it drilled into my head that limping in such specific cases gives my opponents too much information about the nature of my hand. Well surely I could just mix it up a bit to resolve this, but even so, the majority of the time an astute opponent will be able to correctly assess my range of hands.

So why not just raise? I actually do this occasionally with low pocket pairs, not in hopes of winning the hand, but rather of showing down a weak hand and perhaps getting action with the premium hands which is what I'll have the majority of the time. But even raising is better than limping IMO. At least if I raise and get an LP caller or better yet, a blind caller, I have a reasonable chance of winning the hand should it be checked back. Those times I don't flop a set may add up to nothing more than a slow leak which will easily be paid for when I do.

But I didn't raise, I folded which with 6 left to act is IMO the best play. If I limp I might create a family pot which if I set up could be profitable, or I could end up facing an overset, or a draw, or get donked out by a rivered FH which did happen to me last night.

Or, you might limp and then face a raise. This is the heart of the problem. The idea of playing small pp's for set value is that the IO's are going to be high when you face made hands like AA-QQ or premium hands like AK and AQ when they flop top pair. These hands are easily stackable. But these are also the hands that you should expect to RR PF. In order to go heads up your going to have to invest at least 3-4 units just to get a 1 in 8 chance to maybe stack them IF they also flop top pair which will be less than the usual 30% +/_ due to the fact that one of the 3 flop cards will be taken up by your set card.

I could work out the math, but for times sake, lets just say they make there stackable pair 20% of the time you make your set. Thats about 1/8 * 1/5 = 1/40 chance that you'll get the results your hoping for. Not to mention that stacking these opponents is NOT a given.

My conclusion is that these low pp's from EP should just be smothered in their cribs.

Gotta go. Date night!

This thread has suprised me somewhat. It seems that a lot of people are unsure as to what to do in these situations. There is an arguement from all sides on this though. If I said in the OP that the table was aggressive and we see people stacking with TP in unraised pots then surely the answers would be different. With some nice table selection skills they are the tables we should be aiming to play anyway

Calling. Whilst it can be a dead give away as to our hand strength, especially if we call a raise, on the lower limits this isn't that much of a problem. The majority of the time our opponents are on the OMG I haz cards mentality, and we can stack someone more often than not when they hold a relatively marginal holding. A good example of this was last night when I managed to stack a player over playing KQ on a Q high flop vs my set. Again I limped from EP so a "good" player puts me on a set, but in all seriousness there isn't that many good obversant players around on the lower limits. There is a crux when we go get involved with a "reg" though. There are reg's on nl$100 that limp all small pairs UTG, and tbh its a dream to play against them because we know their hand ranges. Its a matter of raise in position, c-bet and fold to any resistance. I'll even take this line with some of the bigger pairs, because their range is so narrow.

There is also situations that we can get ourselves into where we can win medium sized pots UI especially against reg's who may have our range set, donk betting any flop, check raising c-bets, and some floats have their merits in some situations where we have a decent read on our opposition. Add some of these little weapons into your arsnel and you find that lots of the time we dont actually need to flop a set every time to win the pot.

Raising, has its issues, because if we are 3-bet then we can rarely continue in the hand, and we potentially lose out on some value. The most profitable situations is flopping a set against a big pair, and if we raise that situation is almost never going to happen. On the opposite side of things though, flopping a set in a raised pot, even if we are leading it is great. People stack much much lighter in raised pots, and we can find some people going much too far with TPTK in these situations.

Folding- Its the safest one, but its something that personally I hate, if we have a table full of shortstacks then we can fold because the implied odds are not there. But the deeper the stacks the more likely we should be looking to see a flop. I think we lose a tremendous amount of value simply folding here.

I may call the BB 20% of time but will fold 80%.
I will never bet on it, but would be able to call a small raise later.
UTG is really a hard position to raise on a small pocket pair, in my opinion. But, i know some will push it. I guess it all depends on the way you play.

It is written that playing small pp's UTG is not profitable in the long run. That said I will ussually try limping, and fold to any significant raise preflop. If someone raises behind me I can get away from the hand cheaply, and if it isnt raised I have a 1/8 chance in getting paid off, so I will ussually try to see the flop with a pp regardless of position. If someone doesnt protect their premium hand preflop and lets me draw to a set, its their mistake and I intend to make them pay for it.
This is of course dependent on my table image and my read on the rest of the table. I say this because I will from time to time represent strength on the flop, even if I miss my set. If my image is correct I can win the hand by hitting the set or by representing a scare card on the flop.

I'll usually min raise, which I often do from early position regardless of what hand I'm opening with, still get good implied odds and people can't tell what kind of hand I have since that's my standard opening from early position. It depends how I'm playing in general though and against whom. If I'm making mostly larger bets because people aren't paying attention to smaller ones I'll raise 3x if most stacks are about 60BB+, otherwise I'll fold them. And against especially weak opponents I'll consider limping.

Usually only limp, and i made the call on pot odds... No set, no Bet, lol


regards


chikiloka

Raise. It means that you will be getting money in the pot so it will be more likely to be a large pot that gives you the implied odds to play these hands aswell as giving you the lead in the hand and allowing you to steal on alot of flops. Lower stakes players tend to slowplay there big hands to much or be really obvious that the have AA/KK to make worring about the 3 bet not much of an issue.

sometimes im calling against players with 8:1 or 9:1 odds with small pp's as i know they will never let there AA/KK go no matter what the flop.

Example from today:

POKERSTARS GAME #16923093630: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.10/$0.25) - 2008/04/22 - 19:15:10 (ET)
Table 'Ausonia' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: Jitz ($28.40 in chips)
Seat 2: Piri1 ($5 in chips)
Seat 4: drunoo ($14.40 in chips)
Seat 5: niisama ($25.10 in chips)
Seat 6: ennis ($16.40 in chips)
Seat 7: T2CARTER ($18.60 in chips)
Seat 9: Munchers94 ($25.35 in chips)
ennis: posts small blind $0.10
T2CARTER: posts big blind $0.25
swytersoft: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Munchers94 [4c 4d]
Munchers94: raises $0.75 to $1
Jitz: folds
Piri1: folds
drunoo: folds
niisama: folds
ennis: folds
ennis is sitting out
T2CARTER: raises $2 to $3
Munchers94: calls $2
*** FLOP *** [Qd 7s 4s]
T2CARTER: bets $3
Munchers94: calls $3
*** TURN *** [Qd 7s 4s] 3♣
T2CARTER: bets $12.60 and is all-in
Munchers94: calls $12.60
*** RIVER *** [Qd 7s 4s 3c] 3♦
*** SHOW DOWN ***
T2CARTER: shows [Ks Kh] (two pair, Kings and Threes)
Munchers94: shows [4c 4d] (a full house, Fours full of Threes)
Munchers94 collected $35.50 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $37.30 | Rake $1.80
Board [Qd 7s Ts 3c 3d]
Seat 1: Jitz folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Piri1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: drunoo folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: niisama (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: ennis (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: T2CARTER (big blind) showed [Ks Kh] and lost with two pair, Kings and Threes
Seat 9: Munchers94 showed [4c 4d] and won ($35.50) with a full house, Fours full of Threes

just realized i was gettin 6:1 but you still ge the idea about what im saying.

Depends on many things, but 80% of the time i call. If there is a raise I will usually fold, unless the table dictates that i do otherwise. 10% of the time I fold, this is at a real loose table that I know I wont see a flop by limping in. 10% of the time I will raise, to set up a chance to catch a set or maybe buy the pot on the river. But there is no blueprint for how to play any hand, way too many factors involved.