Overplaying Mid Pocket Pairs
If you ever see maturity in a poker player, it is often in the way they are able to take maximum value and minimal losses from playing mid-pocket pairs. With mid pocket pairs we are talking about pocket sevens up to pocket tens. How you play them is often how high you value them.
Mid pocket pairs happen to have a very high implied value with all of them, with flopping a set being highly disguised against some one else¡¯s over pair of top pair with good kicker. But apart from flopping a set, they are going to get you into a lot of trouble if a you have to see a flop and you find yourself possibly with second pair or third pair depending on the board. If you have invested a few blinds into the pot, then suddenly you feel committed to betting or calling the pot to see what your opponent has.
Investing too much suddenly feels like you wasted chips if you need to fold at a big re-raise or flop bet. You might have the best hand, you might not, but when it is a mid pair, there is still a large number of over cards out there that you have to wonder whether they hit or not.
This really gives you two options to play with mid pocket pairs, you either go all the way with them or invest minimal in them. All the way means seeing the river by either calling down, betting every street or going all in. Investing minimally means donating one big blind to the pot and hoping to flop a set in order to get away from the pot cheap but also scoop a monster pot once in a while to return the one big blind investment.
