Small pocket pairs in 45 person sit and go tournaments

Margaret aked me to post this question for her, as apparently she can only open two new threads a day here.

A lot of advice seems to suggest that set mining is not worth doing unless you are deep stacked. However, some advice also seems to say that in a tournament you should be playing all pocket pairs.

Now on the button with some limpers before us that might feel OK, but in early position we don't really feel comfortable with raising small PPs.

Is this a leak?

yes, i flopped a set with poket 22s today.... slow played it the turn was a 5 i end up all in and find out he hit a set of 55s on the turn dame.....

No, I don't think it is a leak. If you are re-raised when you lead out with a small pocket pair, you will be put in a very difficult spot. At best, you are probably flipping with the raiser. It is also quite possible, though, that he holds a bigger pocket pair, in which case you are a 4:1 dog to win the hand.

If you are at a tight table, you might want to limp in or call a small raise with them, even in early position. If you don't hit the flop it's an instafold and you have not suffered much damage. The blinds have to be reasonably low also.

It really is table dependent. I'd like to give a cut & dried answer ie. > Fold <66 in EP in early levels, raise with 77+ (but this isn't realisitc... although it might be a bit of a guideline..but again 'it depends').
If you're playing in a $1 -45, I'm assuming that in early levels most EP raises get 3 or 4 callers anyways, & if you actually just 'limp/call' (they likely won't raise enough over limpers anyways) it probably won't be so bad... they're also less likely to put you on a range for when you do actually hit a set.
In a higher buyin, usually 'tighter & more aggress.' table, I'm more likely to just raise or fold sm pp's (usually raising).
So to answer the orig. question (relating to a $1 buyin 45plyr sng).. 'it depends', lol. limp/call, raise, fold.. probably all are okay.

Poker Orifice said:

If you're playing in a $1 -45, I'm assuming that in early levels most EP raises get 3 or 4 callers anyways

Click to expand...

Actually there are a lot of Eastern European nits and multi-tablers in these tournaments. Also a google search of some of the better players brings up some interesting results, quite a few have turned out to be pro or semi-pro.