pocket pairs utg, early in tournament

[hhboy77]

i was playing an sng and picked up 88 utg in the first hand of the tournament. i limped in to try and see the flop cheaply.

while i think this is a reasonable play, i was curious what people thought of making a small raise instead. before you tell me how dumb i am, listen to some possible advantages.

1) it could keep a hand like ak, aq, jj etc.. from making a bigger raise that you might call for implied odds.
2) perhaps if an ace or king comes and you check, it will advertise for later when an ace flops against your pair and you bluff. maybe, they think you're slowplaying and will check for the free card giving you an extra chance to catch. if you end up showing down, it gives your raises a bit of variety.
3) mostly though, it could start you on your way to a bigger pot. when the blinds are so small it's hard to get all your money in when you flop a set, which is your goal when the flop hits you. negatively, it could thin the field, but early on in tournaments raises don't seem to cause anyone to lay down really.

i haven't tried this but wouldn't mind some reactions.

[Hood]

With middle pocket pairs, I want to get in cheaply. If I don't flop a set and there's overcards, I fold to anything but a minimum sized bet.

1) I don't think this would happen. Would someone with AK, AQ or JJ just call a minraise than re-raise? I don't think they would. And if you get raised here your going to have to fold it. With a 1 in 8 to flop your set, the aim is to get in cheaply.

2) This seems a) very risky and b) very unlikely (relying that a high card comes, you get to see the turn, then an ace comes, and no one has an ace and respect you for it if you bluff). Again, if I don't hit my set I'm not going past the flop. That's why I like playing small-mid pocket pairs - if you think you can get to the flop cheap, go for it in any position. IF you flop your set, play it hard. Most of the time you won't, and you fold. Nice and easy. Great hand to be playing early on.

3) When it's early, I'm not looking to double up - this is unlikely with any hand. I don't want to build the pot when I'm drawing with your mid pocket-pair.

[Jason Strasser]

This is not a horrible play, it just increases variance. AK AQ (not all the time), and JJ will still usually reraise in this spot. The idea with limping in EP with 88 is that you want a nice big multi way pot, so you can play my favorite game called "set/fold". I think there are a few hands that will be scared of a min raise UTG and will not come along, thus reducing the amount of people in the hand. I like this play a lot more if you are on the button, and there are a lot of passive limpers to you. Then you can make a 5+ way pot and very rarely mess up. It's hard to mess up the hand when you play set/fold!

A lot of bad opponents will see a min raise UTG and it wont change them. I tend to get out of the way of min raises utg--and you really don't want that.

So, limping >> min raising utg. Especially on the first hand when you have no idea if your table is passive, or if there is a mega-tilter showing off to his friend that he can go all in on the first hand and win 40 chips.

[hhboy77]

i certainly agree with you jason when you say that it increases variance, but i'm more worried about losing ev. as a generally solid player, i sometimes feel that adding a few suprise plays could be a good thing.

while you guys are right that many people will reraise with ak, jj and such, i don't think it's a great majority if a majority at all with such small blinds and a full table. also, many people will stay in with just about anything even for a raise so you might be able to really punish them when they flop top pair.

a bigger issue for me is when jj and tt smooth call the raise and you flop an overpair. if you limp and get raised with a smallish pair you likely fold, just the same as if you make a small raise and get reraised. just some thoughts anyway.