Smart Cookies

We all love to see cheap flops with small pairs when we play poker online. Even if you are the sort who raises with pocket deuces under the gun, getting in cheap and flopping a set is one of the best feelings in the game. Many players don’t tend to commit much of their chips even with pairs as high as eights or nines until they’ve seen the texture of the board come down. Others at the poker table like to a get a raise in to represent a big hand so they can continuation bet and sometimes win the pot whether they hit the set or not.

What’s less good is raising early on with hands like pocket 4s or 3s and getting reraised by a player later in the hand. Almost always, unless your opponent is totally wild, this means that you are at best a coinflip to win: your opponent probably has at least two overcards, and might have a bigger pair, in which case you are a six to one dog.

The question then becomes a matter of what your implied odds are if you do need to hit your set to win. If your stacks are deep enough that you could conceivably get more than 6 to 1 on a call if you hit your hand and your opponent has strong enough to go deep, then calling the reraise is correct. If your stacks are short enough that you can’t get those odds, it might be better to wait where you can take the lead yourself. Try this at your next poker tournament.