Poker Pairs: Texas Holdem Pairs

 The Big Pairs: With the big pairs should be obvious to you that there is a significant chance that you will dominate a lot of different hands when you hold aces, kings, queens, or jacks. You should raise, and even re-raise with all four and cap the betting if you hold aces or kings. There is every reason to believe you have the best hand. Your pair of kings will occasionally run into aces, but very rarely.

 The Medium Pairs: The medium pairs are ten through eight. In a heads up confrontation they do very well. the problem, of course, is you will not be playing against random hand. You will be playing against a hand or hands that your opponents have choose to play. With middle pairs you will dominate a lot of hands that low-limit players love to play. On the other hand, you will often be up against hands such as king+ten, which are not favorable to you. With medium pairs, raise if you think you can manipulate the situation such that you will be left with only one or two opponents. This will occur either if the game is tight and players are folding against a raise, or if you are in a late position and there has been one caller or no callers. Either you have a negligible edge against two random big cards, or you are a huge dog to a bigger pair. Medium pairs should be played as big pairs in tight games and small pairs in loose games.

 The Small Pairs in poker: Small pairs are seven through two. Most low limit Hold'em poker players play small pairs very poorly. Do not fall into the trap of hoping for a set in the flop. Obviously there are a very few hands that you will dominate with your small pair. You will be a favorite over two bigger cards, but a huge dog over bigger pair. There are two ways for your small pair to win. First, all of your opponents could miss their hands and you could win without improving. Second, you could improve your hand and beat a hand which would otherwise beat your pair. Chances to get a set after the flop is only about 10% - not very often. You should be playing small pairs in the middle or late position for a single bet, usually when there is multi-way action. You will be entering the pot at minimum cost, in situations which favor the possibility of winning a big pot. Do not raise with small pairs pre-flop, treat them as drawing hands.