Small Pairs in BB

[Bill Ivey]

Hmmm...Interesting.

[Pete]

do you ever fold 22 bill??

[Wayfare]

There are very many probabilities that need to be taken into account when considering this move. All of this is ultimately complicated, mathematically-intense game theory, and I have done none of the math. However, bear with me.

Off the top of my head, here are just a few of the things you have to approximate the probabilities of simply to come up with whether this is a profitable game-theory decision:

1: How often will the opponent fold to a pot sized bet?

2: How much of the time will you be called with nothing, leading to a difficult second-barrel turn decision?
2a. In how much of those turn situations will you continue to fire, and how much will your opponent fold on the turn?
2b. What level of coordination or high-card combination / turn card will you use to make the determination whether to fire the second barrel with essentially nothing?

3: How often will you be bluff-raised on the flop by nothing or by a speculative hand?

4: What is the range of hands the opponent will open with?

5: What is the optimal % of a reraise here if the answer to #2 is such that he will usually not be able to take a reraise?

There are many others. Add these to the shania considerations that are abound. If your opponent knows you reraise with 22 will he pay off your AA when you do it the next time?

My main point is that "call and pot the flop" is not a coherent strategy. I usually make money in poker through position and selectively applied pressure. Calling out of position and betting can be done with essentially any two cards -- the only difference is that here you will flop a set once in eight and a half times and blindly betting into a preflop raiser the other seven.

[Spladle Master]

[ QUOTE ]
There are very many probabilities that need to be taken into account when considering this move. All of this is ultimately complicated, mathematically-intense game theory, and I have done none of the math. However, bear with me.

Off the top of my head, here are just a few of the things you have to approximate the probabilities of simply to come up with whether this is a profitable game-theory decision:

1: How often will the opponent fold to a pot sized bet?

2: How much of the time will you be called with nothing, leading to a difficult second-barrel turn decision?
2a. In how much of those turn situations will you continue to fire, and how much will your opponent fold on the turn?
2b. What level of coordination or high-card combination / turn card will you use to make the determination whether to fire the second barrel with essentially nothing?

3: How often will you be bluff-raised on the flop by nothing or by a speculative hand?

4: What is the range of hands the opponent will open with?

5: What is the optimal % of a reraise here if the answer to #2 is such that he will usually not be able to take a reraise?

There are many others. Add these to the shania considerations that are abound. If your opponent knows you reraise with 22 will he pay off your AA when you do it the next time?

My main point is that "call and pot the flop" is not a coherent strategy. I usually make money in poker through position and selectively applied pressure. Calling out of position and betting can be done with essentially any two cards -- the only difference is that here you will flop a set once in eight and a half times and blindly betting into a preflop raiser the other seven.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a very good post.

[Bill Ivey]

[ QUOTE ]
do you ever fold 22 bill??

[/ QUOTE ]

Rarely. But I am losing money every time I have a pair and call the raise. I am trying to figure out the best thing to do in this situation.

[durrrr]

How good is the raiser? This is the main question in my mind... assuming 100-150bb behind, it is very hard to play 22 profitably against a 4x bb raise from a good (about as good as whoever hero is) raiser. Playing essentially bottom pair OOP vs a decent player can get costly, unless they are stupid enough to stack off whenever you hit a set.

I rarely fold 22 at 5-10 in this situation however, but there are people i fold it to. Remember 22 is different from 66 because on that rare flop of 8 6 2 the 66 stacks 22. While this is not a very large difference, it can turn a very closely -ev spot (22 v good raiser) into a very closely +ev spot (66 v good raiser). Also 66 is an overpair once in a blue moon, its rare, but it helps.

-durrrr

[Leptyne]

An extremely thououth analysis of the problem. I've printed this and stuck it in my file of "things I intend to learn to do". The time factor forces you to make quick decisions and this kind of mental checklist is extremely useful. IMHO following this type of structured decision making process will lead to better decisions and will give you the edge that you gain from having confidence in your game.

[bobbyi]

[ QUOTE ]
You are ignoring the fact that sometimes you will flop a set.

[/ QUOTE ]... or get called on the flop and turn (or river) a set.

[fsuplayer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
do you ever fold 22 bill??

[/ QUOTE ]

Rarely. But I am losing money every time I have a pair and call the raise. I am trying to figure out the best thing to do in this situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

you are probably just running cold, and playing too weakly.

you should be leading some flops, CRing some, and check folding a decent amount of the time.

its not a no set/no bet situation, but you cant play a pot here everytime and expect to be +EV. its very opponent specific.

reraising pf occasionally isnt bad either, but not more than maybe 10-15% of the time.

the only real bad thing you can do here is fold.

i still get angry at any advice that says to fold PP pf to single raise or utg.

[amoeba]

Here are my thoughts regarding the call preflop, pot 100% of flop line with 22 vs call preflop, pot 100% of flop with any 2.

The strategy relies on playing your opponent's hand and him not hitting the flop.

So we all know that for a non pocket pair, the chances of pairing on the flop is 1/3 of the time. Assuming that our opponent folds the flop when he doesnt pair, we'll take it down on our flop bet 2/3 of the time.

But this isn't really true. there are times that opponent flops a draw and calls us. I belive this is balanced out with the times that opponent pairs the lower of his 2 cards and makes 2nd or 3rd pair and he folds to a flop bet.

So right away we see that the strategy of call preflop, autobet the flop works better if villain does not raise preflop with drawing hands such as suited connectors, suited 1 gappers. It works even better if we know that villain is capable of this steal with AXo, KXo, any 2.

But the trouble is, if we are able to make this work with 22, why aren't you able to make it work with any 2? since you are playing villains hand anyways.

The reason is that if you start doing this with any 2 everytime, villain will obviously catch on and thus alter his strategy (calling the flop with nothing, raising the flop with nothing, etc....). Therefore, you can only do this strategy a certain percentage of the time as determined by game theory. Since you are only doing this a certain percentage of the time, I would rather have 22 than say J4, as I at least have a redraw to a set and thus another way to win.