Hello, and thank you for your questions and comments!
Small pairs can be difficult to play, but I think if you stick to a conservitive approach, you will see a profit. I would play 99 like I play TT and JJ's. In early position (when you have a relativly healthy stack, like at the begining of the tourney), you need to play a mixed strategy of raising and calling with these hands. I like 70 percent raise, 30 percent call. But remember, when you do raise, you should raise a larger amount than with the premium pairs, since you prefer to win the pot right away. While they are probabaly the best hand at table right now(preflop), the become difficult to play when they are called and overcards appear on the board. With Hands like these I like to raise four to five times the big blind givin that noone has entered the pot yet.
With hands like 88, 77, 66 , these hands are obviously weaker, and have to be played accordingly. You will still play these hands in early position, but with more caution. You want to limp in with these low-middle pairs, but you need a mix in a few raises for the sake of deception. I like a mix of 20 percent raises, 80 percent calls. If you are in middle position, it's a little trickier, You can play third position the same as the earlier positions, in fourth, raise with 88, but limp with 77 and 66. In fifth position, you should switch over to raising with all three pairs. In late position, these are all raising hands. I like a mix of 75 percent raise, and 25 percent call. And finally, the lower pairs like 55, 44, 33, 22 are dangerous for two reasons. Low pairs are, of course beaten by high pairs, In addition, however, low pairs can be counterfeited when high pairs appear on the board.
Now lets say your in fifth position, and someone calls in third position then play 99 with 50/50 mix of calls and raise. 88-22 you will get slightly better
pot odds with the small pairs, so you can call with 88, 77, and 66. On the button, instead of fifth position, I would call with all these pairs. With the lower pairs, your hoping to flop trips or catch and otherwise exceptionally favorable flop.
One more senerio. Lets say your on the button, The player in third position raised three times the big blind, and the player in fifth position raised nine times the big blind. Then with 99-22 you should just call. If you floip trips, you can look foward to winning a big pot. If not, you can let the hand go with out having invested too much.
*A note on inflection play- small pairs become unplayable in early position late in a tournament when your stack is shrinking, because the implied odds don't make up for the times that you don't hit your hand big. But also not, that when you are severly short stacked, the become very playable, and you can be very aggressive with them.
good luck
Luckytokenz
--As long as we are lucky we attribute it to our smartness; our bad luck we give the gods credit for.--
Josh Billing