Limp calling pockets.

You will need other hands in your limp-call range besides baby pocket pairs.
So what other hands do you include?

OK, so you have your limp/call range now.
You limp.
Villain raises 4x to isolate.
You call.
You're now in a 9.5BB pot and flop a set.
How do you get the money in by the river?

Another important consideration is effective stack.
The "Call-20" rule says that you can call if the effective stack depth is 20x the required bet.
This reflects the probability of hitting your set -- and stacking off -- by the river.

So -- Raise your PP from MP+1 onwards in FR or tournament, or UTG onwards in 6-Max
If you just get the blinds, gleefully add them to your stack.
If you get 3-Bet, then:
Is the effective stack deep enough that you can get 20x the required bet? If yes, then call happily otherwise fold equally happily.
 Is the 3Bettor excessively tight? If so, you won't get his stack even if you hit, and worse the set/over/set possibility grows.

I wrote the above thinking 22-99

Disclaimer: I am NOT a coach!

Thats the whole thing.
In 6 max, when you raise UTG or MP, you will almost always get 3betted.
And even if they dont 3bet, hand like 22-66 seems too weak to raise from UTG and MP anyway, but then again too good to just fold.
So by limping, you can comfortable call when someone isolates, and if not, then you will see flop very cheap.
While holding 22-99 for an example, always raising and folding to 3bets will burn money, raising and calling 3bets will burn money.

Thats why i was thinking about limp call.
You will almost always will have that 20x bet amount after someone will isolate, so you should make money in long run.
Yet again when you raise and someone 3bets, you will almost never have that 20x bet amount.
So why would you play with fire and do some coinflips by raising small pairs from early and middle positions, praying that someone will not 3bet, and even if not, then playing small pocket OOP, while you already threw money in pot, sounds not good.

I dont know. That might be good, might not. I have usually folded them right away, but then i started to think, am i possible losing money by not playing them.
Just what bad is about limp-call with pockets from early and middle position ? I dont see that one will lose money by doing so. Quite opposite. I think that it will make you some money in the log run. By following 20x bet amount for example.
I really do see one losing money while raising small pockets from early and mid positions.

Originally posted by NextLevel
Thats the whole thing.
In 6 max, when you raise UTG or MP, you will almost always get 3betted.

I'm surprised at this.
Can you provide stats from your tracker?
I don't play enough 6max NLHE cash to provide meaningful numbers
I had a look at my stats though, and I cannot figure out how to do a report showing how many times I was 3Bet when I raised first in.
I can see what % of the time I fold to 3Bet, or Call 3Bet, but I can't find what % of the time I actually get 3Bet

I dont have filters in my tracker.
If someone have tight stats from UTG and MP, then they will not get 3betted quite often.
But if someone is wide enough from UTG and MP, he will start to face 3bets more often.
Having 22-66+ in your UTG and MP range + other hands you raise with, is quite wide enough for them to 3bet you more often.
I do raise sometimes, but most of the times i just fold them right away. Do i lose money by doing this?
What you think will make you more profit in long run, by folding these hands, limp-calling, or raising them from UTG and MP ?

You can lose money playing pocket pairs if you play them against the wrong players or at the wrong time.
 Wrong players: Those with insufficient money in their stacks to pay you off if you hit. Or those who fold far to often, so won't pay you off when you hit.
 Wrong time: Cold calling a prior 3Bet -- among others.

In 3/bet pots you have an excellent chance of getting it all in on the river with a set. For that reason if you have implied odds of at least 15 I think it is okay to call. Call 20 for non 3/bet pots.

You can limp baby pairs with the plan to call 3/bets but you should also limp AA/KK/QQ to set a trap.

Don't do this on passive tables though otherwise you will only succeed in trapping yourself with all the calling stations.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
You can lose money playing pocket pairs if you play them against the wrong players or at the wrong time.
 Wrong players: Those with insufficient money in their stacks to pay you off if you hit. Or those who fold far to often, so won't pay you off when you hit.
 Wrong time: Cold calling a prior 3Bet -- among others.

Yeah just to add to this, this is what happens when you misplay AA pre-flop. (To be fair there is not much I can beat by the turn)

https://gg.gl/9j6p

So just play standard. Also with your PPs I would not limp call. UTG you can fold 22-44 if you like.

I don't like to raise the small PP's, especially in early and middle positions. You get a call then you are out of position doing a conti bet with 2 or 3 overcards on the board, horrible if you have a calling station playing against you. You have to give up the turn or river then at same point.

maybe move down limits and play 2nl, as limits above 5nl this will be extremely readable, and you wont be getting value from half decent hands

That is certainly a good point. I guess one needs to limp call some other stuff as well in the same positions as to not get too readable.

Put it this way: limp is a play that doesn't exist in cash games, generally speaking.

i guess ones limpin range could include a variety of hands to ensure balance in your game, and maybe if you hit a pair and you are bet into, call down too the river too see if ones hand is good

If you limp in cash games, you are surely going to get raised.
Now -- assuming you call -- your are not only out of position, but now you don't have the initiative.

Always raise.
If you get 3-Bet decide then.
If you raise they can't tell if you raised AA, 22 or AKo or AKs or whatever.

If you limp, they know.

All the best,
VS

You shouldn't be getting 3bet that much from those positions unless your opening ridiculously wide and if your opening a solid range and getting 3bet a high frequency then happy days.And 22-44 aren't in most peoples utg opening range while poker snowie doesn't advise opening 22-44 from mp either in it's range charts.From a GTO perspective one of the pro streamers pointed out to me that 22-44 aren't even an open from the co either.But generally i think in the exploitative micro stakes games you can profitably open small pairs from the co possibly even mp.

Personally i think the better adjustment to make is to your opening ranges so your only opening hands that are profitable for you from each position.Rather than trying to employ what i would consider to be a poor strategy by limp calling because of unprofitable opening ranges.Generally speaking 55+ should be profitable to open from every position and you should be able to defend a balanced range vs 3bets with an utg range somewhere between 12% and 16%.So 88-99 aren't always a defend vs a 3bet depending on what info you have and how aggressive the 3bettor is and whether your ip or oop.

What are the chances that someone behind you already has a better pair?
There are only 1326 possible 2-card combos in a 52-card deck.
For each rank, there are 6 combos that make a pair of that rank -- so 78 total
Your chances of being dealt a pair are 78/1326 or 5.8% or odds 16:1 again

Now it gets ugly:
If you're UTG playing 6-handed cash holding 22
Since the chances of not getting a pair are 94% for each player behind you, the chances of all of them not having a pair are 0.94^5 or 74% -- so 25% of the time you're already beaten.[1]

Sometime ago there was a course called "Gameplan" that included a set of recommended ranges for mid-stakes
As an example, here is UTG's recommended RFI from that course:

The widest recommended 3Bet calling range from this course is vs the BU

If you limp the smaller pairs, you leave yourself open to a world of hurt.
If you get raised, you'll often end up faced with the choice to cold-call a 3Bet.

If you're going to limp small pairs, I suppose you would need to limp some monsters as well to balance your range, but at the micros -- NL 10 and lower -- nobody notices.

Cheers,
VS

[1] I was pretty sure it was far more likely than that, but I can't find the article

If i remember correctly the mdf is 28% using a 3x raise and 9x 3bet so somewhere around 30% to 35% is probably a good base to work from as a default vs unknowns.I'm assuming AQs and KQs would be 4bet bluffs in those ranges and have a defence frequency of around 31% so slightly above the 28% that's needed.

If you remove the 1 gappers and maybe 76s and add all the suited Aces for 14.5% you can still defend very snug vs 3bets with a 30% defence frequency.It's all about playing around with ranges and fine tuning them to your game and finding a balance your happy with imo.

above in a nutshell

Originally posted by Schito11174
I don't like to raise the small PP's, especially in early and middle positions. You get a call then you are out of position doing a conti bet with 2 or 3 overcards on the board, horrible if you have a calling station playing against you. You have to give up the turn or river then at same point.

this is true, but dont mind folding them tho, all bets and raises all build up an image of playing looser and more likely too get paid with stronger holdings. So effectively you are paying for a looser image

how to play low pairs from EP
-Fold them in tough aggressive lineups: you face 3bets and defends way too often for your opens to be profitable
-Limp them in loose passive lineups: No point raising when you're gonna get 3-5 way super often and are forced to checkfold 90% of the time
-Raise them in tighter games since you get HU pretty often
-Fold them less often when game is fishier -> implied odds of hitting a set are a lot higher