Playing medium pocket pairs in No-Limit Hold ‘em when you play online poker at one of the poker internet gambling sites is an easy process, but many players get caught up with the fact that they are already holding a pair and play it incorrectly.
When played correctly, medium pocket pairs should be one of your more profitable poker hands.
There are a few different ways to play medium pockets and this poker article will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the more popular strategies.
The first strategy that is used is a super aggressive pre-flop strategy.
The aggressive players like to get their money in pre-flop because the chances are that they will have at least a 50/50 chance of winning the hand. The positives of using this method are that you are getting your money or chips in the middle holding a pair. You will come up against hands like AK and AQ a lot in poker tournaments and you will find yourself coming up against small pairs as well.
The negatives associated with this play is that most of the time you will be getting called or raised with premium hands and your opponent having an over pair is more than you’d like. Personally I don’t like to use this method because the likelihood that you will be called by an over pair is too frequent for my linking, especially in a cash game.
When i play online poker games at one of the sites that can be found in our poker websites list i adopt this poker strategy a little, but often in the later stages because a pair can hold more weight than high cards.
People are less likely to call huge bets with hands like AJ and AQ and stealing the blinds or re-stealing can be crucial to your tournament success. The second method that players adopt is quite a weak one in my books.
The concept involves playing the pocket pairs to the very end even with over cards on the board. Weaker players find it very hard to lay down 88 on a board of J 5 3.
No matter what the action is pre-flop or how aggressive their opponent is betting on the flop it is always difficult for some players to lay hands like this down. You need to be analysing the situation and not the hand you have.
Just because you are holding a pair with only one over card doesn’t mean that you are good.
Read the player and the situation that you are in and play accordingly.
Holding on to a pair in this situation to try and catch trips or in the hope that you are ahead is weak and not an approach you should adopt in your game.
The final method is one that I think you should seriously consider implementing into your poker strategy.
This method is simple, yet effective and will save you a lot of money as well as giving you nice a nice return.
Pre-flop I suggest flat calling from early position, raising from late position and smooth calling to a raise.
The methodology behind this is that you don’t want to risk a lot of chips or money before the flop because you only have about a 9/1 chance of flopping a set.
Once the flop comes out you can apply the following measures to keep out of trouble, if the flop is low and you have an over pair, depending on the pre-flop action I would bet it strongly because other than a set this is the best you can hope for.
If the flop bares an over card I suggest that you play it cautiously with most times check-folding. You may get a free card, but if you don’t you are going to save yourself a lot of money over time by not chasing cards.
Lastly, if you do hit your set you are in prime position, especially if there are high cards on the board as well. Your opponents can have top pair or even top two pair and will have a hard time folding.
Three of a kind is one of those hands that you can disguise well and players have a hard time reading when someone has it.
That is why I recommend using this method, you aren’t committing too much money pre-flop and you can easily fold if you don’t hit.
When you do hit you can take down some great pots and have a highly profitable session.
Overall, you have to think about what type of strategy suits your game best.
When you have done this, implement it and stick to it.
Master your chosen strategy and you will go a long way to getting the most out of playing medium pocket pairs and soon you will be ready to play the pros.
