Hi, 
I was just wondering how you guys usually do this. Most of the time I just put them in my check/call or check/fold range if I miss the flop. I found this a little bit unimaginative though and as small pocket pairs are one of the most frequent hands I would cold-call with pre-flop maybe also a bit exploitable. So under which conditions (opponent/board-texture/pre-flop action) would you turn them into bluffs and what kind of lines would you use?
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It is quite difficult to give a simple answer to this one.
Are you asking how to play those as preflop aggressor or as a caller? In single raised pots I guess? In position or out of position?
If you are calling to setmine and you totally miss, I would often just give up pockets lower than 88 vs a bet. If we assume your setmine pre was a profitable move, then you can just give up when you miss. But there are many cases where I play those hands differently, it depends a lot on villain, positions and the board. For example 55 on MP vs BTN on AJ7r board I would just check fold but if villain opened from CO and we call from BTN and the board comes 247r I think calling one bet is fine.
Hi,
I already feared, that there wouldn't be a general answer to that. I probably most commonly ask myself what to do as preflop caller in a single raised pot, in and out of position. I think your examples already gave me some better idea what things to look out for when making a decision.
So in the second example we can call because (?):
1. Villain doesn't hit the flop well either and we have some blocker effects.
2. We have position.
3. We still have some small amount of SDV.
Yea in the second example the ranges are wider and the board doesn't hit him so much. Our hand might be the best and we have some backdoor gutshots. Also being in position gives a nice advantage. Overall the second scenario looks a lot better for us. But we still should have quite many better hands to call with so I don't think folding would be bad even in the second example. But then we can look at villain's tendencies and if villain is aggressive and tends to cbet too much even on dry low boards then calling becomes quite reasonable ♦
So if I had to give some general rules I would say mostly give up with 22-77 but then sometimes you can deviate from that if you take into consideration: the board, your nut potential (if you can hit very strong hands by the river), and possible villain's tendencies we could exploit on later streets. Also keep in mind that playing IP increases the playability and you might be able to pull some moves ♦
This is indeed a tough spot. Especially when OOP.
I agree with la55i , that we probly need to give up 77 and lower. Everything else depends on the position and bet sizing. think we need to defend more often than zero when missing our set..
I would not put mid-low PP into my bluff (check raising range) range, because we have too little improvement potential.
On the other hand, might consider putting it into bluff cbetting range