Small pocket pairs can be difficult to play because they’re barely a made hand. In other words, you have a made hand, but you have to deal with over cards on nearly every flop, and you have maybe 50% equity in a race situation. So your small pair isn’t that valuable.
But no one must’ve told the beginners this. I often see players spewing chips with a measly pair of 5s or 7s, going all in or calling all the way to the river, only to find that they were never really good in the first place.
So I thought I’d help out. Below you’ll find a list of 6 mistakes to avoid making with baby pairs. Maybe after reading this baby pairs won’t be such a bankroll suck for you anymore.
6 Mistakes to Avoid Making with Baby Pairs
1. Never getting the hint and folding.
A common mistake I see players make with small pocket pairs is they get married to their hand and never fold, even when common sense says they should.
For example, if they call a raise preflop with a pair of 6s, the flop is A-K-5 rainbow and the preflop raiser is betting the flop, a pair of 6s isn’t going to be any good. If you have a read and float the flop to see what your opponent does on the turn, and he still bets, that’s the point where you have to say to yourself, ok, I think he might have a hand here. Then fold your hand.
The thing is, even if you think your opponent is full of it, you’re better off playing it safe and folding a small pocket pair. It doesn’t make sense to invest a lot of chips with a so-so hand.
2. Betting when you should be checking.
Another mistake I see players make is they bet with their small pairs when they should be checking instead. There are a couple of reasons why this is a bad idea.
When you bet you’re doing so for value or to bluff. Realistically, though, there aren’t a whole lot of hands that you can get value from when you have a small pair. A lot of times you’re value-towning yourself. Turning a made hand into a bluff doesn’t make a lot of sense either, unless you think your hand is second best and won’t win at showdown.
More important, however, is that when you bet you build a pot. You don’t want to build large pots with small hands.
3. Making (tiny) blocker bets.
Tiny blocker bets isn’t a good tactic either. I think the reason why players make blocker bets with their small pairs is to try to get to showdown cheap. It makes sense in theory, however, the cons outweigh the pros. For example:
- Blocker bets are transparent to any player with a clue. We’ll know what you have, and then can outplay you – either by folding or getting you to fold.
- Blocker bets tend to induce re-raises. I don’t know why, but they do. When you’re re-raised you don’t know if your opponents are just trying to make a play or they really have a hand. If you call you have no idea what will happen on the next street.
Ultimately, blocker bets are ineffective. They don’t work very often (unless against other fish), and just puts you in awkward situations.
4. Folding too quickly on the flop.
Although this sounds counter-intuitive based on what I said above, I think folding on the flop can be a leak too. In other words, if you’re folding to every donk or continuation bet then you could be losing money.
In this case, you should either stop playing small pocket pairs or learn to play post flop better.
It’s too situational to tell you exactly what to do. But you might call flop bets if you have second pair, or if you think the person’s range is weighted towards aces and broadway cards, but the flop is all lower cards like 2-6-9. If you had a pair of 8s here, I wouldn’t give up on the flop. I’d call at least 1 bet, and possibly 2 bets depending on the player.
5. Raising too much or going all in preflop.
Another mistake players make is treating their pocket pair as if it’s a pair of aces, kings or queens – like they have a top starting hand.
Newsflash. A pair of 7s or 8s is not the nuts. What you have is a hand that is usually a coin flip in an all in situation, if not crushed altogether. That’s also the reason why you shouldn’t be 3-betting with these hands. You start to narrow your opponents’ range to the point to where if they re-raise or shove on you, you’re crushed.
Overall, re-raising or going all in with a small pocket pair is swingy at best, and costly at worst.
6. Misunderstanding implied odds.
A situation that I’ve seen a few times is a player exclaiming that they made a call with their small pair because they had implied odds. Of course, based on stack sizes, how many players are in the pot, money put in the pot, etc, you could tell they have no clue what they’re talking about.
Implied odds is basically guessing that if you won a big hand with your small pair, that they have enough to pay you off so that you can call with less than stellar odds pre flop. In other words, flopping a set is about 8:1 odds. If you don’t have those odds, but your opponent has at least 50 big blinds, then you might be able to call (pre flop) profitably, so long as you think you can stack your opponent if you hit your set.
However, if you’re playing against a good player, a player that has 20 big blinds or only one opponent, calling because you (think you) have implied odds is incorrect. You just won’t win the money necessary to give yourself implied odds. So you’ll need to be calling for some other reason, otherwise your best bet is to fold.
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