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 PKRClinicGet the edge with our Team PKR specialistsWelcome to the re-designed PKRclinic. With so many great questions coming through to the PKRcast we just don’t have time to get to all of the really good ones on the show. So Danski and Jabbawa are picking out ‘the best of the rest’ to answer right here in the clinic, with their own unique perspective. If you’ve got a question for them find out how you can get it answered by our resident experts… This week's question: Pocket pair problemMrTortoise asks…“How do you play middle way pocket pairs like 99 or JJ?I seem to lose money on these hands as I over-bet them and they invariably get busted!”
Jabbawa says…The first thing to remember is that playing these hands fast and hard carries a high risk for relatively low reward! If you bet hard and follow up on the flop then you could well find yourself loosing a large portion of your stack, or going bust when you are easy to outdraw. What amazes me almost every time I sit at the table is how players stick it in with these hands when they stand to win a small pot if everyone folds, and lose a big one if someone calls; generally no one is calling unless they have an over-pair or 2 over-cards. You do not want to stick your chips in when the best you can hope for when called is 50:50; especially if you are going to be a 9:2 dog a lot of the time!!! Playing these hands well requires you to assess three important factors: 1. How many chips you have relative to the blinds and how badly do you need to gamble? 2. How early/late in position are you? The fewer players to act after you the more fold-equity you have, so the value of your hand increases. 3. What do the stack sizes, characters and betting patterns of your opponents tell you about how the hand is likely to play-out if you check, raise or fold? If you are in late position with heavy blinds and a medium-stack I don’t mind raising and even re-raising with 9-9 to J-J (assuming any opponent has enough of a stack left to fold and he hasn’t played from under-the-gun). If you are in early position with a big stack I prefer the limp or fold before the flop. You just don’t need to gamble here because you have time to wait for a more favourable spot. Pre-flop poker should be reserved for occasional big risk/big reward plays, bad players and huge blind situations. The mainstay of your game should be to control the size of the pot with measured betting. You mustn’t let the fear of having to fold the best hand prevent you from getting yourself into decision making spots. The best players make the best decisions. If you are a good decision maker then you will have the advantage in every hand that makes the flop, so don’t gamble heavily without adequate information. If the blinds are huge, or you are nursing a short-stack then you don’t have much choice, but otherwise ‘stay in control!’ Danski says…Pure madness. Middle pairs should be seen as an opportunity, not potential doom! In deep stack poker, using pot control with a tricky position call is a clever play, but often a middle pair is a fine weapon to pick up chips in an entirely different way, especially in the second half of a tournament. When things get serious late in a multi-table tournament, take a deep breath, and shove in over the top of the more conservative opponents' pre flop raises, but only when you have plenty of fold equity. You'll often force hands like A-Q, A-J, K-Qs, even J-J into the muck. If an A-K or a Saturday night lunatic calls you with Q-J, you're still a small favourite for a big stack. Miss out on the potential of big moves with the middle pair, and you're destined for the minor places. Colin Says…That said, Danski has a LOT of tournament experience and buccaneering with these kinds of cards in situations where you don’t have the luxury of waiting around for the perfect hand to show up can make the difference between final tabling and bubbling out. The late stages of Multi’s (or Sit and Go's) are the the perfect example. The key, as Danski rightly points out, is to control the pot and limit your losses if things go sour. For more hints, tips and analysis of playing pocket pairs, check out the PKR poker school. |
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