small pocket pair vs 1000 opponents

[jaydoggie]

at the moment im playing 5$ single tables on stars until i can get the money together to play 10$ tables on party. over the past day ive ran into this situation atleast 4 times.

i limp from EP with a small pair 44-77. the next few players limp, someone in MP doubles, LP cold callers, and someone from LP or EP, makes it about 120 to go.

i've folded every time assuming one of two thins is going to happen.
a.) its going to completely call around again, and i
1) miss and fold
2) hit and play for all my chips against a strong draw or bigger set.
or
b.) the person who originally doubled realizes theyre going to get their desired action with their AA/KK and push, and im going to end up folding preflop anyway.


i think the answer has to be fold, anyone play this differently? am i missing something?

[mackthefork]

Rule of thumb, play small pocket pairs for 1/15th or less of your stack in my opinion, if there is going to be multi way action say 4 or 5 players in i reduced this to take account of the money that is already in the pot. For example say you are on the button with 55 (2000 chips) and the bb is 50 UTG raises to 200 there are 3 callers, in this situation i would call the 200 taking the (950) in the pot as compensation for the lack of having 15x the bet in my stack 2000+950=2950 divide by 15 comes out at just about 200 so the call is most likely correct in this situation. Due to the 950 in the pot already you only need to win approximately 1000 more when you hit for the call to be profitable.

Just a guide I use for myself, there are some exceptions, such as when the chips you lose hurt you significantly more than chips you win benefit you.

Regards Mack

[jaydoggie]

i understand implied odds, and i understand how to play a pocket pair in ordinary situations, but this is somewhat extreme, or atleast unordinary circumstance that im asking.

[Paul2432]

I agree this is any easy muck. The threat of a reraise is too great.

This is one reason while playing small pairs from EP is not always the best play.

Paul

[jaydoggie]

agree, ill risk 20 or 30 in most cases, but once theres raising and reraising i don't feel comfortable even if i do make my set.

[Cry Me A River]

The number of times you see small-mid pocket pairs overplayed at low-buyins is astounding. What happens if you see the flop amidst all this pf action and you flop your set but there's an A or K on the flop? Hell, you see players push unimproved small/mid pockets in this situation all the time. Given the number of yahoos who'll happily blow off their entire stacks with TP-No kicker there's no way to know whether you're way ahead against a big pair or way behind a better set so you're almost certainly going to be playing for all your stack in a marginal situation.


Personally, I only play mid-small pockets if I can get in cheap, early in a SNG I don't play them from EP at all unless it's a really, really loose-passive table with tonnes of limpers and never any pf raising.