Optimal *big pair* play

[ekky]

on Button with AA... blinds 100/200. Big stack 2 off the button makes it
800. You have 2470 left.

I raised it to 1600, but in retrospect that move is barely worse then flat
calling, in that is really betrays the strength of your hand. Jamming is optimal I think, short stacks dont need too much to jam with, but they need a cizensored monster to make a min raise vs the big stack.

At what stage in your stack (relative to blinds) does it move from jamming being optimal, to making a standard
raise?

Naturally this will vary on table conditions, but as a generic rule, its optimal (imo) to jam with AA in my example above.. but its not optimal to jam when you have 100 BB's, for obv reasons.

Interested to hear some thoughts on this.

As an aside, how would the above cosiderations change if you hold KK/QQ and JJ

[woodguy]

Its all read dependent, but essentially you want to make the play that looks like it wants a call the least.

In your hand I would push, as calling that raise OOP with a small stack shows strength too.

Regards,
Woodguy

[Dave D]

Hmm... Well min raising is probably one of the worst things you can do. This is an easy push with TT-AA and AK. This situation isnt as much about getting action as it is about making sure you isolate against the raisor. He's probably gonna call your push, and you definatly don't want this to get 3 handed if you can help it.

If I have more than 10 BBs is when I start thinking about getting cute. Otherwise it's a push.