Which would you rather raise with QTs or 55 in LP?

Lets say there is one limper with numbers of 30/10, a small sample size so no F2Cbet stat. Would you rather have a QTs/A9s or a small pair? Looking through pokerstove today, I saw that the suited hands are in the top 10% while the latter hands are not. I was more than perplexed. I am no longer sure whether I should raise these small pp especially in early position since I have to rely so much on fold equity when I miss...

Add position to your quagmire, and things might get clearer.

just limp with small pocket pairs, they are not that valuable

LOL you used my favorite word in the vocabulary giggity. Now how would you add position to pokerstove?

I'd be isolating them with all 3 of the hands you mentioned. Don't really prefer any one particular hand.

A lot depends on you and how you've been playing (I'm assuming it's not the first hand of a session)
Even with a small sample, how has the table been playing, tight or loose?

What are the stack sizes?
A small raise with a pocket pair can hit on the flop to give you a big pot to win, a miss and you get out cheaply.

There are a lot of factors involved.

Stove gets confused sometimes

It all depends on position, and stage in a tourney. If in a cash table then all about position, or number of people on the table.
When I get small pocket pairs out of position I just limp, but If I get it on the button to BB I will raise. A 9 and Q 10, I normally fold on any position unless I can see the flop cheap or can check it down on the BB.
Best of luck, TC

Limp with the small pair and raise AQ most of the times....
Play your position + your opponent.
Look at your table image and the stacks too!

Please no. Implied odds are great and all, but it's way better to just take control of the hand.

What are you trying to accomplish? Mase is right - if you're trying to iso in position, all three hands work well - my iso range here includes, for example, any two suited cards (yes, including 72s) and any two connected cards.

Villain's playing 30% of his hands (really would like to see this by position fwiw, he may be very tight in ep and super loose in lp) and raising his top 10%, which covers the premium hands and semi-premium hands. So we can assume he doesn't have a premium/semi-premium hand, it's probably a suited/connected hand, an Ax hand, a small pair, or random junk he felt like playing like K9o. 2/3 of the time he's going to miss the flop and will have to fold to your cbet.

So relying on FE here makes perfect sense to me, we don't have to be ahead of his range per se, cuz his range sucks.

I would limp with the small pocket pairs ans be willing to fold them if somebody raised. The outs are very limited and unless you hit trips on the flop your odds are low.

I always form variations of QJ and Q10 unless cut-off or button with no previous raisers, period. I hate them - they have screwed over both myself and all of my friends, in big tournaments and freerolls alike. It seems like whenever you raise QJs from MP, someone in the button calls with KQs and hits the Q72 just like you. Yes, you can get away from it - but often from an earlier position you make the first one or two raises and lose more chips. Low pps are so much simpler: a call means look at the flop, continue playing if you trip or have an open-ender. A raise means get out, or if they are really loose and you have a large amount of chips and potential equity, make the call and hope. Anyways, sorry if I digressed, but definitely the 5s

Sorry that form was supposed to be fold. And I didn't pay as much attention to your OP as I should have. With a limp before and in good position, I would limp with both hands - no need to get invested, and hopefully you can either hit a great hand with the Q10/A9s (and have the smarts to get out if you do not), or hit that third low card and rake in the chips.

Id like to add that we are playing full ring and the limper would be in early/middle position (he's just a regular fish) and we are LP.

I wouldn't be too concerned with how the table has been playing, maybe how I have been playing and unless I have been going maniac with the raises I would not worry too much since most of us multitable and wont notice a TAG unless we have a HUD. And if our numbers are 30/10 we do not have a HUD

Pocket pairs and their values are a whole nother discussion. Its safe to assume that we will miss the flop more often than not with both hands, we will just miss it a lot more with the pockets but when we hit we also hit a lot stronger.



So both are in your range fair enough. I guess my real question here is which is more valuable to you in your range and in this instance. I think that would be a tough question to answer and to prove but then again why are forums for For example if I asked would you rather raise AA or 55 in this situation the answer is obvious. Both are in your range so you would raise both but you would have plenty more equity (hope Im using the right term) with AA. I guess what I am trying to ask is which type of hand has more equity?

Ah, ok - I ran some hands through pokerstove, trying to get a 30% range minus the top 10%, set it up w alot of weaker Ax, Kx, some Qx, a couple of Jx, T9, 77, 88, and 99 - you should try it and see what you come up w - I came up w QTs and 55 as coinflips from an equity standpoint against that range, and A9s as 60/40 against the range.

Personally I prefer QTs and A9s from the standpoint of playing flops - small pairs either hit or whiff, where suited and semi-connected hands allow you to semibluff more effectively.

raise with 55, QTs, A9s.

All of these hands you can fold for cheap if you think you're in trouble. And if they hit big, you're money.

That's my playstyle. I'm sure a more successful player would tell me I'm wrong. When the flop comes 59T rainbow and I've got 55, I want my cbet to look like AK.

If I'm playing with absolutely terrible players (my home game is 7 handed and features 4+ calling stations), I'll limp.

I don't think small pairs are worth a raise. They are just worth a call and a fold on the flop if you don't hit.

small pairs are definitely not worth a raise. they can be worth just a call or sometimes a call to a small raise to see the flop, but that is about it. i guess i like the pocket 5s more, but i do not really care for either hand.

hello, hard to say what to do so many bad beats on online poker...But I would limp with a small pair hoping to be silent but deadly if I hit...smiling...good luck at the tables

If you raise you take control of the hand, and from late position that's something you want. If you raise and get 3 callers, and you're in position on all three, and they all check to you, it's possible they've all missed, and a continuation bet will take down a smallish pot. If you flat-call, and the same three players are in the hand, how are you gonna bet anybody out, or even bet for value if you hit?

Flop comes 955. gg. Flopped the nuts and guaranteed no action short of somebody flopping a boat, or catching a pair on the turn/river.

I know, I know. I KNOW!! How many times is the flop going to come 955? More like AJ5, right? Because we always get the flops we want?

If you make it 3 BBs with 55, and the flop comes ugly, or the flop comes with a 5, there's 12 BBs in the pot worth playing for. And I, for one, hate playing for pots with nothing in them.

Perhaps a stronger player than me would tell me that's a leak in my game. I'll let you know I've flopped a lot of sets in unraised flops (somewhere around 12% of them), and more times than not I'll end up raking a pot worth well over 8x what it costs to call.

I read once a set is a stacking opportunity, and I agree. It's a hidden hand you're not going to get credit for if you play it correctly. You're going to have a hard time stacking off a hand on a flop with 4 BBs in it, unless your opponents have like . . . 6 BBs each. If that's the case, what are you doing playing at the table?

Oh yea. All these strategies apply to cash games. But I'd play the tournament hands the same way, based on the table. (If their flat calls tend to be honest rather than deceptive - If I've been getting call/raised a bunch from crafty players, I would call with any of the hands in question, otherwise I want something in the middle to play for other than a few BBs, except in late stages of a MTT, where 55 and I'm SS? If I'm playing it'll be for all my chips.

None of those hands are reraising hands, though.

Nicee major props on this. I am still new to pokerstove but I will check this out.

Remember - if you raise with a hand like say . . . 55 . . . you still have a pair. Each opponent has six outs to make a pair, three times on the flop. Each out is worth ~2%, three cards to come, 6*2 = 12 * 3 = ~36% chance to flop a pair. Round up to 40% because it's a lot closer. You raise, you can isolate the pot, steal the blinds, etc.

You raise, you get one call. They check, you Cbet. They missed and their precious A8o doesn't look so good any more.

An argument for raising. Not to mention if they check you can check, giving you another 4% chance to win the hand with a free turn.

Thanks goat, I don't have the heart to try tonight, and you spoke for me.

@Mase - yup. A little complexity takes your game further. what people don't always realise is that they're ahead with their pocket pair. AK needs an A or K to get better, and still needs to me to dodge a 5.

@ Seuatx - A gigantic overbet is a tactic I've seen work to take down a huge pot, it's too easily to get called by one coinflip, or even two coinflips, or worse case scenario, a better pair. While I'm a fan of people folding their hands and getting one other person to the flop, all-in with 55 is not the way to do it unless I'm shortstacked.

@Limping Set-Miners: How many unknown hands do you want to play against? In a limped pot you don't know anything about your opponent's hand. And the more to the flop, the more money for you if you hit, but if the flop comes 567, not only are you all-but dead to 66 and 77, but you're drawing pretty thin against 34, 48, 89, and 67 has four outs to beat you. I'd expect to get called on any action from a 4, and 8.

As for the equity scenario you said it's small sample size. Someone who's open limping, I'm assuming is going to have numbers that actually get a little looser and more passive overall, to something like a 35/8.

I did a lot of work on profiling player types awhile back, so long story short, the average Loose/Passive preflop player type will have a limping range that is virtually identical UTG and in MP.

Their VPIP range =
{22+, A6o+, A2s+, Any two cards 9+, Any two suited 8+, 65s+, 75s+}

Their PFR range =
{TT+, AQo+, AJs+}

Their limping range = (VPIP range) - (PFR range)

Against this limping range the following equities were found

QTs: 50%
55 : 52%
A9s: 59%

So if you wanted, you could say that A9s is the best hand against this villain, which makes sense if you think about how much of villain's range includes worse aces. His random junk will often hold two overs to a small pp, and as stated, he plays lots of random aces, so with QTs it's really only his suited connectors that we crush in terms of equity.

But, like I said in practice, you want to isolate this guy with all three hands, because we'll enforce our skill edge, and positional edge on this player postflop. These two factors are large enough that playing marginally profitable or breakeven/barely losing cards is still going to be +EV.

That's interesting info mase.

Another point came to me, by the way, while walking home from work just now. If you raise with 55, your opponent sure as hell isn't gonna know what you have, so unless they have Tp or an overpair, they're going to check. When you CBet the flop, you will know what they have (at least one pair, or a draw, or two overs) when they call on the flop. Now you're at the turn, two streets to go, and you've narrowed your opponents hand down to one pair, a draw, or two overs.

So you've got information, they still don't know that the five on the turn made you, as a matter of fact that didn't even help you. I play a home game with a bunch of terrible poker players. A seemingly worthless 3 falls on the river and they say "And this changes nothing." Incorrect commentary, as it just made my set, but with a little tricky play you can win a lot of money from people who don't bother to learn the math of poker.

/thoughts

Now time for nap. I've got an Army Day ahead of me, and something tells me it's not going to be a straight one.

If I had to pick I would say pocket pair... maybe its cuz i like sets too much the problem with doing that is that you've commited yourself to making a set or folding to aggression on the flop because you don't have the hand to back it up...

Nevermind it's the 10th best starting hand in hold'em.

Wow this should be added to the thread on how to exploit loose passive players. Amazing information!

Great point quite often I would cbet with a draw or my pp oop. If/when I hit my draw/set on the turn I know I am making some money here with a check.