How do you play small pocket pairs?

I’ve noticed lately that I often struggle with small pocket pairs (22–66).
Especially from early position I’m never sure if it’s better to just fold or call and hope to hit a set.

My current approach:

• From early position I usually fold them, unless the blinds are very passive.
• From middle/late position I rarely limp, I prefer to make a small raise so I keep the initiative.
• If I miss the set on the flop, I usually just give up right away.

I’m curious to hear:

• Do you play small pocket pairs more aggressively or defensively?
• Do you still think set mining is profitable when the blinds are already high?

Looking forward to your thoughts and experiences – maybe I can improve my strategy with your input.

And I don't trust small pairs, I play defensively waiting for the triple.

In the early stages (deep stacks of 50–100bb)

Small pairs are great for set mining (playing sets against big stacks).

You can call if the raise size is small and the effective stack is deep.

🎯 In the middle/late stages (20–40bb)

The strength of pairs decreases.

It is important to use a push/fold chart: for example, with 15bb, pairs like 55–66 can be pushed from late positions, while 22–44 are better to fold.

🎯 In the late stage (10–15bb)

Small pairs become pure pushes, especially on the button or from the small blinds.

Exception: strong ICM situations (bubble, final table) → it is better to play more cautiously.

leoniq888 said:

In the early stages (deep stacks of 50–100bb)

Small pairs are great for set mining (playing sets against big stacks).

You can call if the raise size is small and the effective stack is deep.

🎯 In the middle/late stages (20–40bb)

The strength of pairs decreases.

It is important to use a push/fold chart: for example, with 15bb, pairs like 55–66 can be pushed from late positions, while 22–44 are better to fold.

🎯 In the late stage (10–15bb)

Small pairs become pure pushes, especially on the button or from the small blinds.

Exception: strong ICM situations (bubble, final table) → it is better to play more cautiously.

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I do agree that it's the matter of stacks size.
Cause once the blind level is high enough, I don't think the ev is high enough for small pairs especially for multi entry pot. I would like to do aggressively during chip leading, but defensively at only avg stacks. Or maybe i'll just limp when short stacks.

Depends.

FFinesser said:

From early position I usually fold them, unless the blinds are very passive.

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It is generally right for 10BB-20BB deep. Deeper you should technically mix folds and open-raises with very small pocket pairs (22-44) for board coverage and pure open 55+. 10BB- you mostly just open-jam them without looking.

FFinesser said:

From middle/late position I rarely limp, I prefer to make a small raise so I keep the initiative.

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You either don't limp them (or anything else) at all at stronger tables or purely limp them at weaker tables to induce multiway pots in order to make more buck from set mining.

FFinesser said:

If I miss the set on the flop, I usually just give up right away.

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Heads-up against a balanced GTO opponent or an overbluffer (unless they overbluff big and/or always bluff barrel three streets) you are going to overfold, if you will always fold them on the flop. Against normal bets you generally tend to give up pocket pairs on the turn, despite the low chances to hit a set, as you still have some equity from the fact that you have a pair by default. You may fold them on the flop multiway, against big bets, against people who always bet three streets (regardless of if they always go three streets for value or as a bluff, just consider their bets as one delayed big bet) or against unbalanced value-heavy opponents though.

FFinesser said:

• Do you play small pocket pairs more aggressively or defensively?
• Do you still think set mining is profitable when the blinds are already high?

Click to expand...

You kinda miss an important pocket pair fact that you can just jam them when you are shortstacked. Consult the exact rejamming ranges for 20BB- to see from what positions you can open or rejam which pocket pairs, as it varies, but in general the simple fact that against any unpaired hand you will have 50% equity or more makes them good candidates for preflop all-ins in some spots.

An easy trick to calculate things in your head is by using a 1:10 ratio. If you hit a set on the flop, can I get paid 10x the price of my call?

It is usually easier vs weak players, but it also works in high stake games

If I have a big stack and sb with a small stack shoves I might call with a po for the flip . EP iight limp with a small pp , see the action that follows . In LP I might call with good odds and many players in the hand

I play small pairs but not so often. The smaller the pairs are the least I play them. But there are the times where the conditions allow me to play them!

I do to like to see a flop with the smaller pocket pairs ...I mean how doesnt )

FFinesser said:

В последнее время я заметил, что мне часто трудно играть с мелкими карманными парами (22–66).
Особенно в ранней позиции я никогда не уверен, что лучше — просто сбросить карты или сделать колл и надеяться собрать сет.

Мой текущий подход:

• Из ранней позиции я обычно сбрасываю их, если только блайнды не очень пассивны.
• Из средней/поздней позиции я редко лимпингую, предпочитаю сделать небольшой рейз, чтобы сохранить инициативу.
• Если мне не удаётся собрать сет на флопе, я обычно сразу же сдаюсь.

Мне интересно услышать:

• Вы разыгрываете мелкие карманные пары более агрессивно или оборонительно?
• Вы все еще считаете, что сет-майнинг выгоден, когда блайнды уже высоки?

С нетерпением жду ваших мыслей и опыта — возможно, благодаря вашему вкладу я смогу улучшить свою стратегию.

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If you start the gameplay, place the lowest cards on the preflop and meet a raise (reraise) from an opponent, you should throw the card into touch as quickly as possible. The fact is that hand strength is not enough to actively trade in accordance with the following stages of drawing a card. However, even after collecting the full set, you won't be able to be sure of the power of probability. She can't be any older on the show and you're going to lose.

Pre Flop Calling or raising 3x

Depends on a lot of things, but mainly the type of the tournament(nowadays you have to be a lot more loose in PKOs - especially in some specific ones like for example a mistery bounty game when the big bounty is still in play with few players left...) and then it's about the stake sizes/ position... TAG isn't a very successful strategy and you'll have to learn to play 'trash hands'(IMO this includes small pairs like 22 to maybe even 66/77/88/99* you need to be a pretty advanced poker player to win with this hands long term* especially when you don't hit your set you'll mostly bleed money...); also, there will never be a time when being aggressive won't be the best default strategy in poker and nowadays with 3rd party software and many sites with built in HUDs- you have to pay way more attention to your stats and from my experience LAG is the way to go* at least ATM...

Small pocket pairs, just try and see the flop as cheap as possible. Early position dump them. No set after the flop dump them. Can cause you a lot of grief otherwise

FFinesser said:

I’ve noticed lately that I often struggle with small pocket pairs (22–66).
Especially from early position I’m never sure if it’s better to just fold or call and hope to hit a set.

My current approach:

• From early position I usually fold them, unless the blinds are very passive.
• From middle/late position I rarely limp, I prefer to make a small raise so I keep the initiative.
• If I miss the set on the flop, I usually just give up right away.

I’m curious to hear:

• Do you play small pocket pairs more aggressively or defensively?
• Do you still think set mining is profitable when the blinds are already high?

Looking forward to your thoughts and experiences – maybe I can improve my strategy with your input.

Click to expand...

I think your current approach is quite sound...be prepared to make small adjustments according to whether you are playing cash or tournament, how many players in play (your table for cash game, left in tournament), your stack size compared to opponents.

Just open raise them in big stacks, it's allright, if someone opened before you, you can cold call for set mining it's good

From BTN, CO u can usually c-bet to steal blinds even if you missed the flop, you have position, you need to take advantage of it and be aggresive.

Yontox said:

An easy trick to calculate things in your head is by using a 1:10 ratio. If you hit a set on the flop, can I get paid 10x the price of my call?

It is usually easier vs weak players, but it also works in high stake games

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I think more appropriate ratio is 20:1. You have to factor in times you stack off set over set plus the times you don't get paid at all

NI usually play very cautiously, especially if I'm out of position.

Set mining
I like raising my small pairs in early positionand if I'm in the SB/BB, I just call/check. Usually miss the flop most of the times, but sometimes your set is just on the turn lol, that's why I like setting my price on the flop to see the river for a small amount, if I get raised I know I'm folding, if everyone fold it's okay because I'm stealing the pot. If I get to the river and missed my set, we evaluate and see if the opponents are showing strength or weakness

I also only pay to see the flop in good table position and at most 3bb

FFinesser said:

I’ve noticed lately that I often struggle with small pocket pairs (22–66).
Especially from early position I’m never sure if it’s better to just fold or call and hope to hit a set.

My current approach:

• From early position I usually fold them, unless the blinds are very passive.
• From middle/late position I rarely limp, I prefer to make a small raise so I keep the initiative.
• If I miss the set on the flop, I usually just give up right away.

I’m curious to hear:

• Do you play small pocket pairs more aggressively or defensively?
• Do you still think set mining is profitable when the blinds are already high?

Looking forward to your thoughts and experiences – maybe I can improve my strategy with your input.

Click to expand...

Depends on many factors and pozitions, but on ggpoker cash games you need to play max as possible because you get good jackpots with quads over quads , last week one guy won over 100 K $ with quad kings vs full AA over kings 😂😂 ggpoker best place to play poker 🍀✌️✌️

It is definitely better to call and hope for a set. At least that's what I do, and to a certain extent it gives good results. But I must also say that there are different situations, different tournaments, and different opponents, which are also factors that need to be taken into account.

Depends on how many chips I have. If I'm in top10 with chips I can mideeate raise on my turn. But, if my chip account is small, then I don't play small pair. By middle place in tourney I try to call and see what is to come.

Low pairs are deceptively strong hands and often cause inexperienced players a lot of trouble because they greatly overvalue them.A small pocket pair will be ahead of most all starting hands preflop, except for bigger pocket pairs, but will be very difficult to play postflop unless you improve.When you hold a small pocket pair, there is a good chance that over-cards to it will come on the flop. This means that you will often flop under-pairs to the board, and with these under-pairs it is very difficult to figure out whether you are ahead or behind.

At the start of the tournament I open all pairs, in late positions I only pay against several players.

mostly i look at the first 3 cards if no hit i fold the pair