With low-medium pocket pairs ie 2's-10's, you want to get in cheap. You'll flop a set with a pocket pair around 1 in 8 times. This is an important figure. That's not very often granted but when you do flop a set you can pick up some monster pots. Now the thing about pocket pairs is they are perfect hands to call decent raises with. Someone raises big, say 4 or 5 times the big blind.

This is usually an advertisment of AA or KK etc. Now these are the kinda of hands people cannot lay down. If you have a pocket pair, great, call the raise. Now you flop a set about 1 in 8 times, if the set hits it's very likely you could get the guys whole stack so you have to make sure he has a big enough stack.

 You will want him to have at least 8 times the size of his raise, preferably alot more. Usually it will be alot more. You have great implied odds here. Now if you miss the set just give the hand up. Be careful that if you call with 88 and the flop comes 2,4,7 you don't get dragged in thinking your hand is good. Most of the time very large pre-flop raises are AA KK QQ, of course you have to judge the guy a bit as well. Even if the guy bets with AK there's still a reasonable chance he will outdraw you so just give it up. Now if you hit.......now you should be in business. Say you call with 77 and the flop comes 2,7,J , perfect. Now someone holding AA or KK is gonna think they are winning that. Only a very good player will be able to lay down hands like AA on flops like that.

So,, you have hit your set, how do you get the most money out of it ? If you are first to act generally speaking I would bet. Most of the time someone with AA or KK is going to raise you here. You can then elect to re-raise back or just call. If you check-raise the person this kinda shouts out "I HAVE A MONSTER", also it gives them a chance to get away from the pot more cheaply having only put one bet in than if you bet and they raise you as they have then put in your inital bet and a raise hence have more money committed to the pot and are less likely to give it up. Of course you can't give definite rules for each scenario you have to judge the person a bit as well.

At times it will seem like you keep calling with pocket pairs and never ever flop a set and you then begin to think they are a waste of time and cost you money. Be patient you will flop sets (or better) eventually. I've bust many a stack by hitting a set having called a big raise with a pocket pair.

Other scenarios; if you call with your pocket pair and hit the set with a few people in the pot you cannot afford to slow play them too much. For instance if you call with 88 and flop 2,8,9 with 2 of the same suit. Yeah your hand is nice but there are alot of draws out their that can take you out. You have to come out betting and make people pay for these draws.

A person with a flush draw like AQ suited will hit 35% of the time and a person drawing a straight like TJ will hit 31.5% of the time. It;s also possible a person may have a flush and a straight draw here which will hit 54% of the time hence is actually favourite to make the hand. Hence you can't hang around checking. Now you do of course have the chance of making a full house or better yourself, this will happen 37% of the time so they can make their draw and still lose, but you don't wanna be giving them free cards to do this. Get them to put their money in when they are behind and don't have odds to draw. If you get the chance, get all the money in on the flop. With a set you have a made hand. If you get someone all-in with a flush or straight draw they are taking even money for a hand they will only make 35% of the time. Not only this there will be times where they make the hand and lose as you make a full house, hence an even worse bet for them!

Now if you do bet and the turn gives someone a possible flush or straight then you have to be careful. If are few people are in the pot it's likely someone was calling for either a flush or a straight. If you can get a free river, great....you can see if you improve to a full house for free.
If it's gonna cost you, you have to see how much it will cost you to draw the river and weigh this up with how much you stand to make should you make the full house. The implied odds on drawing this card can be beecakely big if you are certain someone has hit their flush and they are deep stacked. If you are certain you will get their whole stack if you hit it then you can draw it when other times you might not. With just the river to comes it's about 22% you will improves to a fullhouse or better. If you can draw this card for a small size bet giving you 4-1 on the pot anyway(or better still get it free), great ! Like I say it can be worth calling it even though you aren't getting pot odds for that bet alone but gettng huge implied odds if the person has hit his hand and will not lay it down and you can get a huge stack from him. It's different if you flop a full house as obviously you dont have to worry about flushes then. That's another very common stack buster - flush v fullhouse. It's then a question of how to get the most money in the pot !

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