$5 NLHE Full Ring: playing 22: Big leak?

Villian Stats (VPIP/PFR/AF): 9.82/9.04/58

full tilt poker $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 1021789
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $6.32
BB: $5.00
UTG: $5.00
UTG+1: $3.51
UTG+2: $3.25
MP1: $5.00
MP2: $1.21
Hero (CO): $5.00
BTN: $5.00

Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is CO with 2 :diamond: 2 :club:
5 folds, Hero calls $0.05, BTN raises to $0.25, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.57) 8 :club: 4 :club: J :heart: (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $0.36, Hero folds

Is this a big leak? I find myself confused on how to play a lot of small to mid PP. Obviously they are one of the tougher hands to play, but I am looking to get any improvement possible.

Raise pre-flop! Folding the flop is fine.

Am I raising all PP preflop when there is no action in front of me?

In LP yes you must if you want to play them.

The thing is, its really hard to win a pot when limping in, esp. with a small PP. You are basically sayin, "I have a weak hand".

HomeBrewer said:

Am I raising all PP preflop when there is no action in front of me?

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Yes, never open limp. If you limp with sm pps & scs and raise with big pairs then it's pretty obvious what your holding. If you raise whenever you open a pot your opponents won't know if you have AA 22 or 56s. Furthermore if you limp you need to have a hand to take the pot, plus your limp may be seen as weakness and you will often get raised, like in your example.

You shouldn't limp, and here's why. The reason is not that anyone would notice you have a different range limping because they won't at 5NL, the reason is what happened this hand.

The button did what you should do in his position, isolate the limper with a really wide range. perhaps any two cards, likely a bit tighther though.

Now, when you don't make a set you c/f the flop and lose 25c. If a 2 does come on the flop, how much are you going to get from villain on average? You need to get at least $2.25 since you flop a set about 1 time in 9. Considering his range is really really wide, do you think you will get half his stack on average when you flop a set? Then consider the situations when you do flop a set but end up losing the hand to a straight/flush/higher set and you can see it can only be profitable against a total maniac / spewtard

That kind of logic applies to any hand, not just small pocket pairs

Depends

Once again, very dependent on your opponents tendencies. If you are up against a very loose player, you can't just fold your bottom pair. However, otherwise a very marginal situation. Unless you flop a set or some sort of possible st draw, your likely done here...LizaBuv

LizaBuv said:

If you are up against a very loose player, you can't just fold your bottom pair.

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Yes you can. and should. especially if the plan preflop was to setmine, and considering op limp-called pre, thats about all we can hope for.