When to stop playing small pairs?

[VoxGibson]

this is something i've often questioned in playing MTT, at what point would one stop limping in on inferior pocket pairs, like 22 - 99 and etc

i always determine it based on my ratio of chips to the BB
(playing NL)
and how many people are in the pot, (implied odds on if i hit my set)

but i am curious about what the rest of you do?

VoxGibson

[ilya]

Your plan sounds good to me. If your stack is deep enough, your position good enough, and your opponents passive enough preflop and loose enough postflop, I think limping with the small pairs even quite late in a tournament can be a good play.

[Lurshy]

Those are good factors, but I also look at position & table texture (agressiveness) as well as stack sizes etc.

On an aggressive table and or early position small pockets become more difficult to play because of the likely hood of a raise behind you.

[Sam T.]

There was a discussion of this a few weeks ago, and someone posted a link to an article by either Dan Harrington or Lee Jones. I think he said that if he thinks he can see the flop for 5-7% of his stack, he'll do it.

I tend to become much tighter and more aggressive with my pairs late in the tournament. If there's an early raise, I'll let go of pairs up to 99, which hurts but saves me a lot of chips. (Too tight here? Unless I'm desperate, I want to avoid a coin-flip.) Facing a raise with TT I go into paralysis, JJ I call or re-raise, depending on my stack. If the blinds are high, and it's folded or limped to me in MP with a pair, I'll raise on a semi-bluff.

[willie24]

for me its usually a question of when to stop limping and start pushing. (assuming an unraised pot).

yeah there is some hairy middle ground where it's probably best to fold worse than 88 in EP

basically that happens any time my stack isn't (or opponents stacks aren't) big enough for correct pot odds to call AND my stack is too big to risk pushing and running into a dominating hand in order to gain the blinds.

it's a fairly small window

[Steve Chase]

Most tourneys I played, the pot is always raised to 3xBB or 4xBB at later stage of a tourney. If you limp in with small pairs, when will you do when you are raised to 4xBB?

Later in a tournament, you either fold or raise to 3xBB or 4xBB. I don't know why this is such a way.
Can anyone explain?