The Problem(s) with Raising with Small Pairs

[DoomSlice]

Let's say that you decided to raise in the CO with 44 (a move that is probably profitable for the sheer ability to steal blinds, but that move is dependent mainly based on your position and your opponents, not the actual hand you are holding). If your opponent is not the type who is going to get stacked with only top pair against a preflop aggressor, then your raise has probably cost you money.

For simplification let's say that your opponents view you as a tight player and respect your raises. So in order to take advantage of this fact, you decide to make a standard preflop raise with the above hand (44 if anyone has forgotten).

The flop decision boils down to two outcomes: 1) you hit a 4 on the flop and thus have a hand that you want to take to showdown, or 2) you miss completely and are forced to bet again (or just give up, but I'm going to assume that we believe that continuation bets are +EV).

The more interesting situation is, of course, #1 since with #2 you can begin to play this the same was as if you held 72o. Now if your opponent is a thinking player (and it is my opinion that people give way too little respect to the levels of thinking that your opponents have), then he is probably not going to invest too much money into the pot UNLESS he beats the hand that you are representing (overpair). So basically every time that you fire at the pot he'll be folding unless he made at least top pair (and many will fold top pair too!). In contrast, if you had just limped into the pot, your opponent now has no reason to believe that you have an overpair, so he is much more likely to continue with a hand that you have drawing dead/close to dead.

I've got to go now... I'll finish my thoughts on this later. Comments appreciated/welcome.