I’m interested in how great players play small pairs late in Tournies.
Personally I tend to fold them in early position as to limp invites a raise and a raise may well see an all in especially on final table.
In middle position I might put in a significant raise or go all in depending on the circumstances. If i had plenty of chips would consider limping and do so occasionally. If there is an aggressive player in late position would probably fold.
In late position if there has been a significant raise I usually fold but of course you need to consider the player who made the raise. At the opposite end of the spectrum I might try a significant raise or an all in if no one has raised and I’m in the BB.
Every group of players in the final stages of a tourney is different of course but these are the best generalisations \ scenarios I can use to describe my play for say last 2 tables until down to 5 players. Once you have 5 or less the power of a pair even a small one is more significant.
@raver4199 Not sure how “great” players approach small pairs late in tournaments but if I need chips bad, having a made hand is great for stealing blinds against passive players or players in “bubble trouble”. Also, 3-betting in position and using the pocket pair as a semi-bluff on certain boards, or even wet boards that dry up.
Btw, I too would probably limp accordingly (favorable stack-to-pot-ratio), or min raise a short stack’s BB. Depends on table dynamics like @raver4199 mentioned
I think u answered your own question pretty good:)
@raver4199 I think your post reflects the generally accepted baseline strategy pretty well. Jonathan Little did a video recently where he mentions that his team did very well at some event by simply folding 66 and lower a lot of the time. These pairs can be very tricky to properly extract value from, and in a lot of ICM spots it’s no big loss to just avoid a tough spot by folding.
@ChinoD we’d have to get more into specifics but as stated I’m not sure “using the pocket pair as a semi-bluff” is really a thing. Usually pps will be way ahead/way behind, which isn’t the type of hand we want to semi-bluff with. You will have very little equity if your hand is not best (usually only 2 outs). Overcards with backdoors, combo draws, nut straight and flush draws—these are much better candidates for a semi-bluff.
We should NOT be minraising the BB with a small pocket pair; this is a disaster. We’re laying very good odds to an undefined/uncapped range where approximately one billion combos will have good equity against our pair. Generally we should be raising the BB at least 3x from the SB to make up for our positional disadvantage the rest of the hand. With a small pp that needs a lot of protection but is ahead of much of BB’s range, there’s probably incentive to size up even more.
@lihiue watchu think dogg
I think the original post is pretty much spot on. I think there’s a slightly more intuitive way of looking at it though.
Most of the time your going to be flipping, and small pairs have almost no playability post flop. So to open small pairs, we need at least 1 of 3 things to be true:
- We’re deep enough to set mine
- We’re willing to flip for effective stacks
- There’s a decent chance we can take the hand down pre-flop
I think those points lead to the strategies in the first post, and also give you some guidance on when you might be able to limp, or need to go large/all-in.
The only other things is that when you’re at least moderately deep, all the small pocket pairs play roughly the same. The shorter you get, the bigger the gap in EV between each pair. eg 22’s are always flipping at best, but 44’s are worth more when your shallow enough that 22’s, 33’s, A2, etc will call.
@Younguru So I reacted but must have been distracted when you called out my error in bluff terms. Bluff catcher was clearly what I meant. Next time I’ll be sure to run my post through Grammarly AI. 
That makes a lot more sense @ChinoD lolll
So I was just Polk-ing around Upswing.com after I posted my “semi-bluff” retraction and would ya looki at that 
. Maybe I meant to say what I said despite never seeing this. Poker players named Chino will never “reflect the generally accepted baseline strategy”. We’re too lazy for that.
Put the Supersystem in a museum people, the game is changing …
However, the article does not address @raver4199 inquiry about late-stage use. Interesting ready either way.
Solver loves bluffing with the smallest pocket pairs in a lot of situations, but you need to be fairly deep to make that work. You want draws to continue and better pairs to fold, and neither of those should happen a lot when your short stacked. There’s not much scope for bluffing low pairs in the later stages of tournaments.
I’d think of bluffing small pairs as another way to win when you’re set mining and miss, rather than as a reason to open them in the first place.
Good point. I think it’s also relevant that solver solutions assume Villain is also playing at (or close to) equilibrium, which almost nobody on Replay is anywhere near doing (they don’t have nearly enough bluffs).
If you node locked the solver to an average Replay reg’s range, I bet it would start removing a lot of these small pair semi-bluffs as they can no longer find enough weak hands in villain’s continuing range to make the play +EV.
Interesting read-a real situational strategy
Hi Raver. I know it sounds cliche, but its true. It really depends on a lot of factors, generalities, such as comparative stack sizes, ICM, playing to win, tournament, table, player, etc, conditions, dynamics, etc.
Assuming standard generalities, etc, then in general it can be is right to fold 22, 33, UTG, limp 44, 55, 66 UTG, early position, and only call small raises if have good pot odds, if cheap enough relative to stack, in order to set mine, otherwise fold if raise too big. Also play small pockets between semi carefully to carefully postflop, out of position, if play them at all, but at same time dont play them too tight, passively, etc.
Also occasionally, carefully raise small pockets 3 x pre, to balance out range, mix up game, and because if they call, and if you hit set, they will never put you on a set of 4’s, etc, and can stack players.
In middle position mix up limping, and occasionally raising small pockets, especially if table is too tight, passive, and doesnt 3 bet enough. If get 3 bet small enough, and if good pot odds, then ok to call, set mine, and the above things I said still applies.
In late position, a lot depends on your stack size. For big stacks just open raise small pockets 3 x bb is have good table image, etc, and to balance out range even if have bad image. If get reraised, if reraise small enough, call, set mine, and maybe bluff postflop depending on situation.
Mid Stacks should do the same.
23 to 26 to 27 to 30 bb stacks raise small pockets, unless crazy aggressive big 3 bettors. If facing crazy big 3 bettors, 3 betting big a lot, then mix up limping, and folding, and occasionally 4 bet, 5 bet, all in , etc, restealing, with small pockets vs the crazy big constant big 3 bettors.
16 to 19 bb stacks, need to either limp, fold, minraise, or shove all in squeeze steal with even small pockets if enough limpers in front, and if limpers in front are not usually trapping, and if they are limping quite wide, etc. Either you will scoop the limp ins, blindes, antes, which will grow your stack nicely, or you will be called, and usually be about 56% to win, double, tripple up because of call, limps, blinds, antes, if your hand holds up(Usually about 56% chance if called)
12 to 15 bb stacks, also need to either limp, fold, minraise, or shove, but even more so, because shorter stacked. And should also squueze steal limp ins with small pockets
9 to 12 bb stacks either fold, limp, shove, no min raising, and should steal shove scoop limps with small pockets.
8 bb’s or less are either fold or shove and should shove steal limps with small pockets.
Thats in late position.
That also applies on SB, BB(out of position, but still get to see what all players do preflop, and if players either fold, limp, etc, then it can be right to shove small pockets).
Hooe that helps you, others
@Asuronetorius Im bookmarking this. Good stuff! This whole discussion either confirmed my thoughts or enlightened me . @Younguru @raver4199 @lihiue
My friend, you will play 200k hands on this site before you see a dozen four bets, much less a 5 bet
In cash games probably yes. In tournaments so far, in the beginning to mid stages of some tournaments so far, so far a lot of fish, donks, regs, recs, donks have 3 bet, 4 bet, 5 bet, all in freaks, etc.
But the thing to do is just watch, observe, etc, and if it happens then play accordingly, and if it does not happen, then play accordingly.
And it hasn’t been the occasional 3 bet, 4 bet, 5 bet, all in, it’s happened a lot by hyper over aggressive, over loose, crazy, insane fish, donks, recs, goofs, clowns, etc.
That doesn’t bother me, as I know how to play against that.
ah yes at the lower level tourneys, constantly. i know what you mean.
I think it’s rarely the best option to limp small pairs. It’s more profitable to 3x raise small pairs 1/3 of the time than to limp in with them every time. Like you mention, your hand is a lot more hidden when you raise, and you can also rep strong hands on certain boards as the pre-flop aggressor. Also, if you only open small pairs a fraction of the time, you can almost always call a 3-bet - stack depth, position and opponent dependent of course - but calling a 3-bet when we only open partials of small pairs will be better than calling a raise when we’re limping in with all of them. (In part because we have more clarity about our opponents hands, because like @Younguru indicates, at the higher stakes your not going to see a lot of light 3-betting)
Having said that, I will often call an open with small pairs from the button if the blinds are passive, which probably isn’t optimal either, but if you are likely to be able to set mine for cheap, then why not?
As my sample passes 200k hands I am finding that a lot of my exploits on Replay boil down to “well if they’re all so passive that I can get away with it, and I have implied odds, why not?”