nlh medium pairs

[Jack Starr]

Well been playing for a while now, the hardest part for me has been medium pairs, I have been falling for the trick where I raise say with two nines and the other player raises and I shove, a trap I have neen falling into. I think these hands are very hard to play, this is online!
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Jack Starr

[stowjon]

i tend to try and stick to the following
3x them if in early position
2.5x anywhere else

7's 8's im not normally calling a decent raise, unless i have plenty of info
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"There's not enough hippies to save our lives, We need more hippies"

[neilcaterham]

Thats why you should stick to the Omaha Jack. Holdem is too much like hard work
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You know I'm going to win 1 day

[Jack Starr]

[Jack Starr]

[Hullcity]

if a player is 3-betting light a lot, then showing over the top seems reasonable (assuming its a tourney with mediumish stacks, if you are short stacked yourself, obviously just move in with them to start with, if its deepstacked then you can call at set mine) - if he does not 3-bet light then its a suicidal move.

[Jack Starr]

I need to get this part of the game sorted!
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Jack Starr

[Marcus6]

yea thats what i was doing in the GPS, i would get 77 or 88 and i would call to see flop, but i would only call if the bet was max 3x BB just to see if i hit a set, or if the flop cames low then you would know a good % of the time you are in front!

But each time i called with my 7s or 8s the flop was over cards so ick fold to bet

i did bet out once then the guy RR and that was that!

so yea they are hard to play, you have to have info on the player you are playing!

But thats playing MTT not sure how or if you would play the same way in cash games??

[Hullcity]

pocket pairs are 7-1 to flop a set, so you need to look at the size of the raise, if the shortest stack out of you and the raiser is over 12 times the size of the raise or the amount it is to call the reraise its worth calling to flop a set, if there are low implied odds due to you being short stacked, then its reasonable to shove all in with say 9-9 over a raise

Sometimes when you call with deeper stacks and flop a set your opponent will not have a hand strong enough to stack off with so you will not make much money on your initial risk in that situation

Check calling off a lot of chips when you miss your set is normally guesswork and you can't make money in poker through guessing

Bearing in mind that often your opponent won't have hands strong enough to stack off with, you can use this to your advantage by occasionally raising when you miss your set to subsidise you EV in that situation, the ideal scenario would be somebody who raises with a wide range preflop and c-bets a lot, meaning that their c-bet won't be able to stand a raise a lot of the time as it will have missed most flops...of course vs a rock or somebody who rarely c-bets just fold when you miss and they c-bet

[Jack Starr]

[Hullcity]

There is nothing that difficult about medium pairs if you bear in mind that early on they are for flopping sets with the occasional flop raise to balance your range when you miss, and for late on they are pushing hands either when you are seriously short stacked, or when you are heading that way and somebody loosish open raises and you shove over the top to either collect the dead money or probably end up in a race, when you are heading for being short stacked its a waste of chips to call a raise with them, unless you are in the blinds and getting a discount on a multi way pot

[Hullcity]

When the stacks are deep i think its a mistake to re raise with a medium pair, one of the most profitable situations in NLH is when somebody has an overpair and you flop a set, by re raising, you are denying yourself this profitable opportunity as you will get blown out of the pot by those big pairs

[omen666]

JJ and below I set mine as long as the call isn't too much. In the later stages of a turney i become aggressive with them and will normally fold to a reraise
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[Hullcity]

I saw a hand Daniel Negreanu played in which both he and his opponent had medium stacks, he called a raise with 5-5 and missed the set...his opponent c-bet...and Daniel put his opponent all in fairly quickly, his opponent folded AK having missed as well.. Daniel said he was fairly certain his opponent didn't have a pair....to play a pocket pair in that way you need to have good reading skills or you will ending up donking off your stack fairly often...if you don't have that kind of reading ability you are better of avoiding those kind of situations and either folding or pushing pre flop if the stack sizes are right

[Rigsby]

Jack

i once read that there are three ways to play JJ all of which are wrong

Hope that helps