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 How to play small pairs.
Small pocket pairs are generally pocket pairs 8 an under. There are several ways of playing small pocket pairs. Most of how to play these hands depends on position.
If you are in early position and you catch a small pocket pair you generally want to just limp in or call a small to moderate raise. Basically here since you do not have any leverage because you are in bad position you need to spike your pocket pair. If you don’t it is usually best to toss the hand. The exception to this would be if your low pocket pair is higher then the bard then you need to take a stab at the pot and see if you can take it down before over cards start to hit. So if you have a low pocket pair and you are in the blinds or in early position just limp in and try to see a cheap flop if you spike your hand and hit trips make as much money out of the hand as you can. If you don’t hit trips its generally best to just fold. That is why you should not call big preflop raises with this hand because if you do youre going to find yourself committed to a hand that has a low chance of winning because basically you only have two outs so youre chances of winning are very very low.
The other way to play low pocket pairs is when you are in good position meaning close to the button or on the button. From there you can leverage your position to take the pot down. So lets say you get pocket 8’s and you are next to the button. There you would make a raise preflop to see where everyone is in the hand. If someone goes over the top of you, you have to put them on a hi pocket pair or AK, AQ depending on the players. So if they just call you are probably up against over cards something like KJ, A10, or KQ. So now you know where you are at. Also if you get lucky enough to spike the 8 with maybe a K or an Ace on the flop you are going to double up on this hand because if you have a guy in the Hand with AK chances are the 8 isn’t going to scare him and now you have a good hidden hand that you can win a huge pot with. So lets say you make a 5 to 10 times preflop raise from there and you get one caller. The flop comes A 5 9. Should you make a bet again even with the over card on the flop. Since you get to see what the caller does with your good position. If he checks to you, you definitely want to represent the Ace by making a strong bet. If you get reraised its probably time to bail and minimize your losses. Now if you get lucky enough to spike the 8 you are going to win a huge pot especially against AK or AQ.
So these are the two ways that you can play low pocket pairs.
If you have other way of playing low pocket pairs please visit out poker forum and post youre experiences.
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