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playing small pocket pairs


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Im not exactly sure how to play small pocket pairs in late position to a raise. I just played a .25/.50 hand 10 handed where utg raises and there were 5 callers to me on the button(gotta love the fish). Now with this many callers and a very good chance that both the small and big blind will call is it profitable to call or should i fold, or even reraise knowing everyone will call. Im thinking that i have about a 1 in 7 chance to hit my set. Since there are eight other players that calling or raising would be correct considering pot equity. But since with that many people in i may only win say 2/3 of the times i hit my set, and hardly ever if i dont, which would make it unprofitable to call. Is my reasoning here correct or i am totally off track? Any advice is greaty appreciated.

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In that situation, where you have an early raiser and so many callers, I would actually fold 22, 33, etc., rather than call 2 bets cold. You are a vast underdog to hit your set to start with ... you can also almost safely assume someone else has a pocket pair which, by default, will be higher than yours. That means even on the flop, there's two other cards that don't make your set that will make someone else's. Not to mention the two cards to come. You could make your set, and end up losing quite a bit to the dude that called or raised with even 66 or 77.Yes, you would win a lot if you hit your and no one else did. But I'm not sure you'd get that situation enough to make it a positive play overall.

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Arn't trips from 222-888 as likely to hit and win as each other?I mean sure AA are much more likely than KK.. but, what are the chances someone would have trips to out kick your 222? I personally treat all pocket pairs the same below 888. Am I wrong? Guessing I am... lol

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Arn't trips from 222-888 as likely to hit and win as each other?I mean sure AA are much more likely than KK.. but, what are the chances someone would have trips to out kick your 222? I personally treat all pocket pairs the same below 888. Am I wrong? Guessing I am... lol
Nah, not saying your wrong at all. Everyone has their way to play, whatever works for them. It's just to me, if there's a raise, and that many callers, somebody has a pocket pair, and if mine is that low, there's a good chance I ain't going to win that battle (and never mind the crackhead in Seat 4 that calls the 2 bets with 8-3 spades and has a flush on the turn to bust everyone). :)The one argument on the other way around there is at micro limits especially, you'll see a lot of fully checked flops after a pre-flop round like that, so you *could* get a free second shot at hitting your set, but you really have to have a grip on the table that you are at to be able to make that judgment. Playing 4 tables at once, I usually don't have that info so I'm a bit more robotic in those situations.
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lol well no, I evaded the question about calling a raise cold with PP's. No, I don't with anything smaller than TT. But, on general, from any position, as long as I'm sure no one else is gonna raise behind me, I'll treat 22's and 88's the same as drawing hands. What are the chances my 88's will hold up in low limits without improving?If my 22's improve to trips.. the chances, to me anyway, seem low that anyone else hit "just trips" to beat me. I haven't seen a hand lose to trips by a larger set yet, anynway.

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With six players in for two bets before the flop, I think I'd have to call with a small pair in late position. Your implied odds if you flop a set are just tremendous. Come to think of it, even without implied odds, you've got the pot odds to call right now if the blinds stick around as well.I wouldn't worry too much about set over set. It's going to happen but rarely. I think I read somewhere that if you played 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a typical live cardroom, you could expect to be on the losing end of set over set once every six months. In the faster paced, multi-table online envrionment, it would happen more frequently, of course. Still, I think it's a long term profit move to call with that many players calling ahead of you.

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if i may pitch in my two cents...your chances to hit a set on the flop are roughly 11.5%, about 1 in 9 times. so to justify calling pre-flop with a small pocket pair (which you can consider a drawing hand), you want to have 8 opponents. with implied odds, you can do with less, as low as 4 if you know they'll call a bet on the flop (which isn't always the case), so to be more realistic, call if about 5 or 6 other people are in the pot at least.this is also the reason you don't play small pocket pairs below 9's in early position (unless the game is very passive), because you don't know if you'll get enough opponents to justify drawing to a set on the flop. even in late position, if no one's entered the pot yet, i'll muck my low PP's (or i'll go for a blind steal, depends on the game... but i won't call).and NEVER play them after the flop against over-cards aiming for a set. you're worse than 20:1 to hit on the set, so unless the pot's a monster $25 pot to a $1 call somehow, don't play them past the flop.aseem

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Wow. Reading those above odds about set-over-set confrontations makes me feel special...sort of.I've only been playing hold 'em for a little more than a year. That's happened to me three times! Once in a fun game with my friends, and friggin' twice on PokerStars. And of course, all three times, I lost. I'm not one to pity anyone's bad beat stories, but when someone gets busted set-over-set, especially on a zero board...that might get a heartfelt "that sucks, dude."

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That does suck- but oddities happen. The other night I hit 3 sets of quads within a half hour, two of them within 5 minutes of each other. 2 hit on the flop, and the third hit on the turn.Numbers do weird things... back to watching The Apollo. muhuhhahaha makes me feel like I got talent.

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In limit especially, I like havin small pocket pairs preflop...If they hit the flop you are almost guaranteed to take some some decent cash that hand. Several times tonight alone I hit sets on the flop and had people hit an ace on the flop...After cappin every round they realized they had lost the hand. Some fish just dont seem to bother lookin to see if theres a set possibility

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Best reply I have read so far was akishore's. No doubt implied odds are going to rule the day in this hand. Given your late position and the size of the pot/number of players, you should call, try to hit your set 1/9 of the times and then toss it if you don't. This is a really stock play as far as I am concerned, it's just one of those hands that if you hit your set you are almost gauranteed some sort of play and if you miss it, you just toss it away knowing that you only paid two bets. Remember though, you probably don't want to go up against less than 4 players, like akishore said, given this number of players, the implied odds drop dramatically and you are almost never going to get your set paid off.Good luck with your game and keep up the grind. :-)

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