Middle Pairs
Playing middle pairs is a risky proposition-you’ve pretty much got a coin flip-if the flop helps you out, you’ve got at least a set, but if any over cards come out, your online poker hand might be worthless. In addition, you need to be careful-many online poker players become so infatuated with having a pocket pair that they’ll play it no matter how bad the flop is for them. When you’ve got a middle pocket pair you can be sitting on either gold or garbage, so here are a few things to consider when you’ve got one. Middle pairs work best against either one opponent or many opponents. With just one opponent you are likely to have the best and going into the flop, and with many opponents, the pot is big enough to pay to see the flop. It’s more sketchy against two or three opponents, because it’s likely that someone will draw a bigger hand than you, and the pot won’t be big enough to risk seeing the flop. If you’re playing head’s up, be aggressive. It’s likely that you have the best poker hand before the cards are out, so make your opponent pay to see if the flop will help him, and be more conservative if you have a lot of opponents. Since your odds of coming out on top aren’t as good, try to see the flop as cheaply as you can.