Stop Playing Small Pocket Pairs Wrong

17 Jan 2025

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

If you are playing your pocket pairs only to flop a set, you're missing out on a lot of EV. In this article, we will show the modern approach to playing these low pairs and explain five main reasons why these pairs are way more powerful than you think, even if you do not flop a set. Let's go! 

The first power of the pocket pair is the EV of its improvability beyond flopping a set. When I started playing poker, the most popular advice around playing these pocket pairs was: no set, no bet. Meaning that you should try to get in pots cheaply with your low pairs, try to flop a set, and if you don't, put no further money into the pot. I even remember my coach back in the time telling me that if you see players barreling pocket pairs, you should call your friends.

The reason he said this was because pocket pairs, if they don't flop a set, they have very little equity to improve. Especially back then, all our betting and calling was done around equity. And while it's true that these pocket pairs have less outs and thus equity than let's say a straight draw or a flush draw, we missed something very important.

The outs of these pocket pairs are way more disguised and therefore have greater implied odds. Meaning that if you do hit your set on a later street, your opponent won't see it coming and therefore is way more likely to put money in the pot, as it perceives these turn and rivers to be blanks. 

Power number two is increased fold equity due to its unblocking properties. Next to the EV of having equity, another reason we pick the bluffs to c-bet or barrel is due to its blocking and unblocking properties. Preferably blocking the hands that call your bet and unblocking the hands that fold to your bet so we enjoy the maximum amount of fold equity possible. Take the following example:

We are button versus big blind and after having seabed to flop, we can now c-bet to turn. Now let's look at our straight draws and our pocket pairs:

While with having a straight draw, we have four or even eight outs to the nuts and some additional outs for the second and third pair, we still prefer to check that hand often and instead use these low pocket pairs as bluffs.

Now the reason for that we find in our folding range on the turn, because the straight draws block a lot of the hands which we’re going to check for the turn with, which reduces our fold equity. But if we look at these low pocket pairs, they don't interfere with the folding range aka they have good unblockers to barrel, which makes them enjoy more fold equity than the straight draws. 

If we continue on this example and we look at the EV of barreling our draws versus our pocket pairs, you might see something very confusing:

Barreling the draws has higher EV than barreling the pocket pairs. Then why do we prefer betting pocket pairs and checking straight draws? Now the reason for this is not necessarily a power of the pocket pair, but more a theoretical principle around how to construct ranges that many players get wrong. We don't just bet or barrel our hands that have the highest EV to reach the desired frequency, but instead we must compare the EV of betting our hand versus checking our hand and then choose the highest EV option.

Now whilst barreling the draw has indeed more potential aka EV, checking the draw and always realizing our equity, sometimes hitting a pair on a later street that we can value bet or get to showdown, also has a lot of EV. Where these low pocket pairs often have way less showdown value and improvability to be played passively and therefore betting more easily outperforms the EV of checking. 

The third power of the pocket pair is you are actually value betting. Next to generating EV by getting more and better hands to fold, we actually also generate EV versus some parts of villains calling range. As especially on boards that contain a lot of king and ace high draws, players will often continue calling these draws as they expect to be up against worse draws than them as these are the more traditional type of hands players would choose to barrel with.

This play works especially well versus recreational players who tend to overcall a lot of their draws and have way more random third and fourth pairs in their flop calling range which we can fold out on the turn.

So far we've discussed how the pocket pair itself generates its EV, but it actually serves a greater non-selfish purpose in your overall strategy. A common problem with the way humans usually construct ranges is that they're too focused around equity.

The problem with this is that when all the draws miss on the river, you will have way too many bluffs in your range. On the flip side, if all the draws complete, you will now no longer have any bluffs which discourses your opponent from paying you off. Now not getting called in these kind of scenarios because you don't have enough bluffs really hurts the EV of your value hands.

While the attention in poker often goes to the cool bluffs and big hero calls, getting the maximum amount of value out of your value hands is actually where most of your money is made. A solver looks very far ahead and adjusts its ranges even as early as preflop to make sure it has enough bluffs on all possible boards and runners that exist to make sure that its value hands can cash in for the maximum. Take the following example:

We call pocket deuces to a three bet and the flop comes   . Our opponent bets one quarter of the pot and while most players would have mucked as soon as the villain reaches for chips, the solver actually has different plans and calls the c-bet. Now the interesting point is the EV of the call. 

The solver is actually not generating much to any EV by calling these low pairs. However, when we remove the calling of low pocket pairs to the c-bet and now compare the EV of our mate hands, we can see that these now generate significantly less EV. 

As when we always fold our deuces on the flop and the turn is a 10 or ace, for example, it's impossible for us to generate EV as we have no bluffs to encourage our opponent from putting money in the pot.

Now while in theory this bluff does not make you any money, getting to these completing runouts with your low pocket pairs in practice will, as it's likely that your opponent will not be able to put you on enough bluffs and therefore will start overfolding. So to conclude the fourth power of the pocket pair, increase the EV of your mate's hands by having bluffs on all possible runouts and taking one for the team. 

To wrap things up, we’ve explored the ins and outs of playing low pocket pairs effectively in No-Limit Hold'em. By following our advice, you’ll not only stop depending on hitting sets but also gain the confidence to apply relentless pressure with these actionable strategies. Make sure to put these tips into practice, and don’t forget to read our topics and stay tuned for more fresh and expert poker content!