Flopping a Set
The math says that a pocket pair preflop will flop a set, or pick up its third card to match the pair, roughly 1 in 8 times.
In cash games, with most small pairs, if you are playing at a full table, you often aren’t going to win the pot with pairs of 9’s and lower if multiple players come into the pot with you and overcards come, with they almost always do. Thus, the way I’ve tended to play small pairs over the years is to limp in and see it cheaply as possible.
If you are calling 4x 5x the blinds with a raise and plan to fold if you don’t hit your set, and there are no other people calling with you, it is usually incorrect mathematically to make the call unless you are playing deep and will get paid off big if you make your set.
Playing pairs is not mandatory, as much as it hurts to fold one and see you missed a flop. In the long run if you aren’t getting the odds on your money, you are going to come up with a loss on small pairs if you call off too much w/o attacking after the flop when you miss and smell weakness.
Or you could play them like the dudes at the hyper-aggressive cash game I used to go to did: whenever you get one and there is a raise, come over the top huge. Somehow it worked for them, though whenever I have randomly done it it always seemed to backfire.
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POSTED IN: miscellaneous, poker tips
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