Is it wise to give a all in for Pocket pairs

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huffas

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When playing pocket pairs, it boils down to whether you have a big pair or mini pair. The big pairs are QQ, KK, AA. The safest way to play these for most newer players is to try and get all your chips in preflop. It's not the most effective way of playing them, but it's the easiest for someone not well versed. After that, we have two more sets of cards, {JJ, 1010, 99} and {22-88}. They're played pretty much the same, but the first set is reasonably stronger and is, at times, worth calling/raising all in.

The second set, {22-88} is a little more technical to play. A new player should probably call a small raise, or be the first person to raise. If anyone reraises, you should fold. When the flop comes down, you're looking to hit three of a kind. You should almost ALWAYS bet at the flop with a pocket pair as you might chase everyone off the hand, even if you missed your set.
 
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Tricky123bet

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I would classify 22-77 as the set-mining hands. That doesn't mean that you should always call a raise with them.
To profitably set mine there are plenty of factors that need to point towards a good set mining opportunity: Deep effective stacks, tight range opening from EP preferrably, and they should also be able to get sticky with top pairs and overpairs when we do hit our set, so we can get paid.
Most people probably set mine too often, since they know about the concept, but don't understand that it won't be profitable in a lot of situations. So folding small pairs to a raise is the right play a lot of the time (talking out of a cash game perspective).
I won't go into detail on when to 3bet with small pairs preflop (because honestly I don't know for sure), but I think you should do it very seldom or not at all at small stakes cash games, and you will be fine.

The big pairs QQ-AA are going to be dependant on if you play cash games or tourneys, but in general playing them aggressively. Mid pairs 88-JJ I play pretty cautiously in cash games, I think this mid tier of pocket pairs is most troubling for me to play out of all the pairs. In tournaments they are good reshoving hands.
 
TeUnit

TeUnit

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I am always amazed when I see the small pairs calling shoves for no reason.
 
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619Leafs

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When playing pocket pairs, it boils down to whether you have a big pair or mini pair. The big pairs are QQ, KK, AA. The safest way to play these for most newer players is to try and get all your chips in preflop. It's not the most effective way of playing them, but it's the easiest for someone not well versed. After that, we have two more sets of cards, {JJ, 1010, 99} and {22-88}. They're played pretty much the same, but the first set is reasonably stronger and is, at times, worth calling/raising all in.

The second set, {22-88} is a little more technical to play. A new player should probably call a small raise, or be the first person to raise. If anyone reraises, you should fold. When the flop comes down, you're looking to hit three of a kind. You should almost ALWAYS bet at the flop with a pocket pair as you might chase everyone off the hand, even if you missed your set.

Usually my strategy for big pocket pairs is to go all-in preflop. I find that if I don't, I let too many players in and therefore more hands that could beat my hand.

For middle pairs I'll raise first because I would like to see a flop, if a bigger card shows up I can still get out of the hand.

For small pairs I will limp and see a cheap flop if possible, I'm mainly looking for a set but other than that if the flop isn't favourable, I fold my small pair.
 
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