Playing Small Pockets From Mid Or Late Position

[king0fhearts80 0]

I read a phil helmuth book a long time ago, and he advises to raise up with small to medium pocket pairs, from any position in order to generate a huge pot if you set on the flop. There has been times where it has paid off huge for me. Other times its pumped up so big I hit a set, and I kinda set myself up for a bad beat when up against a strong drawing hand. Overall its kinda been a bankroll burner for me. Usually i play online tourneys and live cash, But now i recently put alot of faith in small ball, limping or betting out a smaller size bet with smaller pockets works way more effectively. I dunno i guess it just all depends on your read of your table in what you can do with different hands, changing it up a bit is probably good, but im just sayin small ball is far superior to other styles ive tried. Thanks Daniel!!

[rdtedm 0]

A lot of factors. Stack sizes, # of players, table aggression, and of course position. If the table is passive I like raising from EP/MP, but if it's aggressive I'll usually just limp because a lot of PP's can't be played out of position to 3bets.

[ChuckP 0]

I am not a huge fan of playing of raising small pocket pairs but of course will raise them along with anything else from late position. With the occasional early position raise. Hitting a set is a huge money maker and one of the hardest things to put your opponent on. So of course very few are going to put you on a set. Raising with small pairs make pots bigger than they need to be. You want to play small pots with small hands and big pots with big hands. So raising and creating a big pot when you ultimately have 2 outs to make you a winner of a big pot. I am also a big fan of small ball. It is much easier to make money off of more small pots than that one or two huge pots.

[Killrus 0]

sometimes you can just call peoples raises,,,hit your set and they will be doing the betting for you..some people cant let go of their bigger pp on a non threatening board..

[copernicus 0]

Full raise 60%, min raise 20%, limp 20%. In late position especially you are going to have trouble getting the implied odds for set or fold, and you want to raise a good portion of the time to supplement the hand equity with fold equity. Play a similar strategy for suited connectors and the blinds will never be confident that a dry board is safe because you could have the set. It also balances your min-raise/limps with monsters.