Playing Small Pocket Pairs

There’s always a twinge of excitement every time you look down to see a pocket pair. Pocket pairs can turn into sets, and sets can turn into big paydays. While small pocket pairs can be some of the most straightforward hands in no-limit hold’em, they do present a pitfall or two for the unwary player. I’ll discuss their strengths and weaknesses here.

Great in Multiway Pots

Small pocket pairs are truly excellent hands in multiway pots. If you play a lot of live no-limit, you’ve no doubt played in games in which most pots have four, six, and even eight players see a flop. Small pocket pairs are dream hands in these games, because they flop sets that you can count on being the best hand the vast majority of the time. The more opponents you have, the greater the chance you’ll find an unsuspecting sap with top pair who’s happy to pay you off. Simple enough. But I do have two comments about pairs in multiway pots.

First, be cautious in truly wild games. They aren’t common, but I’ve played in a few games in which three or more players would routinely see nearly every flop for 15-20 big blinds each ($75 to $100 in a $2-$5 game). If it costs you $100 to see a flop, even in a crazy game in which you’re very likely to get paid off if you hit, the odds might not be there for you to flop a set. Remember that you will flop a set only one time in 8.5, and neither winning nor getting paid off is guaranteed. Also, you could get caught calling a big raise, only to have an opponent shove all in behind you. So, check the stack sizes and make sure that you have enough potential upside to make up for the times that things don’t go according to plan.

Second, if several players limp in front of you, it’s not always best to limp along. Sometimes, putting in a raise is better, even if you’re sure that nearly everyone will call. It depends on your stack size and the stack sizes of the majority of your opponents. The deeper everyone is, the more advantageous raising is.

If raising a small pair seems strange to you, think about it this way: There’s no doubt that playing a small pair in a six-handed pot for $5 is profitable when most of the players have around $500. Playing a small pair in a six-handed pot for $10 is roughly twice as profitable when the same players have around $1,000. It’s not exactly proportional, of course, but the basic idea holds. When you have a profitable situation, the more you can pump up the stakes without making the stack-to-pot ratio much lower, the more profitable the situation will be. Therefore, it’s often worth it to put in a modest raise in a multiway pot with a small pocket pair.

Good When Heads Up, Too

Small pairs are good when you’re heads up, too, particularly if you have position. Whereas in multiway pots, most of the value of the hand comes from flopping a set, in heads-up situations, you’re counting on winning some pots unimproved. For this reason, position helps a lot. Having position will help you get your weak pair to showdown cheaply when that’s what you want.

But you don’t always have to check it down when you have an unimproved pocket pair. Sometimes you can bet it for value. For instance, let’s say you are playing $2-$5, and a loose player opens for $25. You call from the button with the 7 7. The blinds fold.

The flop comes 10 8 4. Your opponent checks, and you check. The turn is the 2. Your opponent checks, and you check. The river is the 2. Your opponent checks again. You can bet $50 or so here for value. Because your opponent has checked three times, you can be fairly certain that your hand is the best. Suspicious opponents will call with hands like 3-3 and A-Q.

You certainly shouldn’t automatically bet all of your unimproved pocket pairs on the river. But against opponents who like to try to snap off bluffs, you will find profitable situations to squeeze extra value out of your hand.

No Good in Reraised Pots

One situation in which small pocket pairs play particularly poorly is heads-up reraised pots. If you open, an opponent reraises approximately a pot-sized amount, and everyone else folds, you usually need to fold. For example, let’s say you open to $20 with 4-4 in a $2-$5 game, and the player on the button reraises to $70. Against most players and with most common stack sizes, you should fold.

The problem with calling the $50 is that it’s very difficult to win enough money when you flop a set to make up for all the times you miss. With $500 starting stacks, for instance, you’d have to get all of the money in the middle virtually every time you flop a set to hope to make a profit. Even knowing that your opponent has a strong hand that’s worth a preflop reraise, you can’t expect him to want to get it in every time. He might hold A-K and miss the flop, or he might hold Q-Q on a king-high flop.

In practice, you won’t stack your opponent remotely often enough to justify calling the reraise only for set value. To justify calling the reraise, you’d have to have other ways to win the pot. Perhaps you could win unimproved at showdown, or steal sometimes. But small pocket pairs are poor candidates to win reraised pots unimproved, as they frequently flop badly, forcing you to adopt a check-and-pray post-flop strategy. And they also are relatively poor hands with which to try to steal a reraised pot, because they rarely flop draws.

Unless the stacks are extremely deep and your opponent loves to shovel money into the pot, you’re better off folding small pocket pairs to a big preflop reraise.

Conclusion

Small pocket pairs are fun hands to play, because they immediately get you thinking about winning a huge pot. In multiway pots, they’re terrific, but watch out for big preflop raises. And don’t be afraid to put in a modest raise yourself if the stacks are deep.

They also are good when heads up, particularly with position. And in some situations, you can even bet them for value unimproved.

But if someone reraises preflop, don’t make the mistake of calling automatically. Calling big reraises with small pairs is a no-no. Flopping a set in a huge reraised pot is a rush, but it won’t happen often enough to make it pay in the long run.

Ed’s latest book, Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em, is available for purchase at smallstakesnolimitholdem.com. He is a featured coach at cardrunners.com, and you can also check out his online poker advice column, notedpokerauthority.com.