 Small pocket pairs range from 22 to 66, where any other higher pair would be considered to be a medium or high pocket pair. These low pairs are deceptively strong, and will often land novice players in a lot of trouble if they are over-valued.
A small pocket pair is ahead of the majority of other hands pre-flop as long as an opponent does not hold a higher pocket pair. However, post flop play can be incredibly tricky if our hand does not improve. When holding a small pocket pair, there is a very high chance that the flop will bring over cards. This will then give us an underpair to the board, and it is going to be very difficult to try and find out whether or not we are ahead.
If we make a bet and get called, this gives us little information in whether or not our hand is ahead. Our opponent may have a higher pair, a draw, a lower pair or any other possible hand. The simple bet and call does not tell us a lot about what our opponent is holding, and it will prove to be costly to try and find out if we are ahead by betting on the turn and river.
This means that the true strength of a small pocket pair lies in when they improve to make a set on the flop. A set is when you make 3-of-a-kind on the flop with a pocket pair, which is different to trips, where you make 3-of-a-kind using one holecard and two cards from the board. A set is a very hidden and strong hand, and it is possible to make a lot of money from them when they hit because opponents will not often suspect them. So instead of looking to play small pocket pair after the flop to try and find out if we are ahead, we should just be looking to hit a set or fold. It is not very profitable and it is very difficult to play a low pocket pair post-flop if it does not improve, so try to avoid doing so.
The odds of flopping a set with a pocket pair are 7 to 1, which means that we will hit a set 1 in every 8 flops we see. These odds are not too great, and according to pot odds it means that we will rarely be getting good enough odds pre-flop to call to see a flop and try and make our set. The pot odds basically suggest that we will be paying too much for something that will not happen frequently enough to make it worth our while. But, there is something very important that we are leaving out of the pot odds equation, and that is the implied odds we have from hitting a set.
Find out why Bodog is currently rated as the best online poker site. The implied odds are how much we expect to win after we make our hand, and I can tell you now, the implied odds we have for sets are HUGE. It is not uncommon for players to lose all their money to sets if they catch a decent part of the flop, because they very rarely suspect that their opponent has one.
So now we know that we can expect to win a lot from our opponents when we hit a set, we have to try and figure out how we can go about seeing the flops as cheaply as possible. The main aim is to try and see a flop as cheaply as possible so that we can give ourselves better pot odds pre flop. The more raising there is pre-flop, the worse our pot odds will become, which can then make it unprofitable to call to try and hit sets in the long run if we are paying too much. As a general rule, it is not a bad idea to try and limp in from any position to try and see a cheap flop, neither is it bad to call a raise if the raise is within 3 or 4 times the size of the big blind. If we are calling any more than this to try and make our set, we are paying too much.
General Rule: Don't be afraid to call up to a 4BB raise to try and hit a set on the flop.
However, there is something that throws a spanner in the works of what I have just mentioned. This spanner comes in the form of the fact that our implied odds may well increase if we are calling raises to try and hit our set. This is because we can infer that our opponent has a strong hand, and there is a better chance that they will stack off (lose all of their chips) when we hit our set. But we should still try and stick to calling pre-flop raises to within the 4 big blind rule; otherwise we will surely be paying too much each time. Just prepare to be a little more excited if you call a raise pre-flop and then hit your set; there is going to be a good chance that you will get paid.
To continue with the implied odds in relation of pocket pairs and sets, we should try and keep aware of the stack sizes of our opponents, along with the size of our own stack. If our opponent has a short stack, then our implied odds will decrease greatly, because there is going to be less for us to potentially win when we hit our set. Similarly, if our opponents have huge stacks, then we are getting terrific implied odds for hitting our set. This means we can give ourselves a little more room to work with when calling raises pre-flop; if our opponents have short stacks we should avoid calling raises and try to get in as cheaply as possible, whereas if our opponent has a big stack then we can afford to call a little extra more to try and hit our set because of the good implied odds.
Evaluation
As I think you may possibly have noticed, the strategy involving playing small pocket pairs centres primarily around the concept of implied odds. The implied odds explain the reasoning behind the small pocket pair strategy, so you should try and familiarise yourself with them. The whole article basically elaborated and explained the basic strategy of seeing cheap flops with small pocket pairs, and then only continuing with the hand if you hit a set. If that is the only thing that you take away from reading this article, then don’t worry, as you have probably helped save/earn yourself a lot of money in the future from that alone.
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