Shorthanded, Small PP UTG. Am I flinging chips?

[Seadood228]

After running into this situation for like the umpteenth time, I'm beginning to question the way I'm playing PPs UTG.

I'll just post a general example since this actually happened to me 3 times this week.

Down to 11-15 players, I'm sitting with a decent middle stack of around 15BBs, which is about average. My table image so far has been pretty solid, but I have raised a few pots here and there. As far as reads are concerned, we'll just keep it pretty generic.

I look down and see a baby pair UTG. With antes, the opening pot size is 2.25BBs, which would look quite nice on top of my stack. The problem is that in order to make a successful steal I'm going to have to commit a large amount preflop and, if called, be faced with another uncomfortable decision on the flop.

I think I have 4 options:

a) Raise 2.5-3BBs preflop and play a little postflop if called, which usually entails fire 1/2ish on the flop. Put no more money in from there on.

b) Raise ~4BBs preflop with the intention of putting no more money in unimproved.

c) Folding preflop.

d) Pushing preflop. [img]/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

For the most part I've been using option 1, but I'm really beginning to question it's effectiveness against most players. It just seems as though I can't bet enough to discourage callers at any point during the hand, and it's too tough and dangerous try and check it down.

I'm really beginning to wonder if option A might be the worst of the four. So how do the experts [i]typically[/] play low pairs in this situation? Thanks.

[Lloyd]

When your stack is getting that low you need to throw away small pairs pre-flop. They are not worth playing as you don't have set value and you don't have enough chips to be stealing with so many people left to act. There might be an occasional exception when stealing could be appropriate but it shouldn't be the normal play.