How to play Pocket 2s?

I was at a friends house last night and I entered a very low stake no limit, winner take all, 3 person tournament. 10-20 blinds and we all stared with 500.

I had pocket 2s and I was SB. (Very first hand, I know nothing about the other 2 players).

Dealer folded.
My friend suggested I go all in, but I made it 80 and was called.

Flop: 4, 6, J rainbow.

I bet the pot, (160) and was called.

Turn: 8

I then went all in and was called. The flop helped no one and he had QJ off.

Clearly I played the hand wrong. Can someone explain to me the better way to play pocket 2s in my situation?

Should I have gone a All-In preflop as my friend suggested….why or why not (please explain because after my loss he believes I should have taken his advice).

Ok here's some important advice... when you're playing poker and you're actively involved in a hand, if someone gives you advice on how to play your hand, tell them to shut the fuck up and if they don't, do not show them your cards while the hand is live. It's against the rules. You do this at a proper game and you'll get penalised.

Your friend is also an idiot giving you terrible advice.

I can tell you how I would have played the hand.

Pre flop I would raise to 50, because I want to steal the big blind.

Flop I would bet a little under half pot, hoping for a fold.

Turn I would check, and fold if he bets, because I know he has a better hand than me and I don't think he will fold often enough for me to bluff.

River I would check, and fold if he bets, same reason as turn.

As for how you played the hand...

Pre flop you raise too much, but it's not a huge mistake.

Flop your bet is way too big, this is a huge mistake.

Turn you should give up, he has called a large raise pre flop and then called a pot size bet on the turn. 22 is trash in this situation. Shoving is a huge mistake.

The ideal way to play 22 in general is to either fold pre flop, or see a flop as cheaply as possible in the hope we hit a 2. Assuming we don't hit the 2, if we raised pre flop and got called, we can cbet flops with a jack or better because we might get folds from better hands like 33-88 or whatever. But once villain shows any interest in the hand, just give up.

When we call a pre flop raise, we should just check/fold when we don't hit the 2.

If we hit the 2, play aggressively to maximise value from top pair and draws.

22 is a dreadful hand 90% of the time. Folding it pre flop is absolutely fine, and certainly a better option than either playing it like you did, or as your friend suggested.

While I agree with most of ong's analysis, you can't be folding 22 pre in a 3-handed game against no pressure pre-flop. Your range is too tight to beat the rapid blinds if you're folding 22's when 3-handed.

Set-mining is always a valid tactic if you can see a flop for cheap and your opponents are likely to call at least 1 decent-sized bet, often more than 1.


Risking all-in on the first hand of a knock-out event is going to cause you more grief than joy, IMO.
If it's about more than winning... if it's about spending the time playing a game with friends... then I may even more strongly hesitate to risk getting knocked out of the game on the first hand.


Open shoving with 22 preflop is fine in HU play when blinds are high. If you get to a point where you are willing to flip a coin on one hand whether you stay or go... then that's the time to make a move like this. It's not about winning this hand, so much as it's about being unlikely to get another hand as good as this before you're out of chips to capitalize on it.

22 is marginal. I certainly am not open folding it pre flop in a three-handed game but it's better to fold pre than to play it like shit post flop. Folding 22 pre flop is nowhere close to a huge mistake, even short handed. It's just not that good a hand. It tends to win small pots and lose big pots, unless we have a set.

You need to look at the flop and turn and ask why you would shove. What will he call that you beat? And after he calls the flop, a shove as a bluff is very risky

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Originally Posted by Vinland

You need to look at the flop and turn and ask why you would shove. What will he call that you beat? And after he calls the flop, a shove as a bluff is very risky

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I absolutely made an error with that All In push at the Turn, I was in a state of mind that I didn’t believe my opponent caught the board. I assumed Ax or two over cards, and was clearly wrong.

Could you review my pre flop and post flop plays?

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

22 is marginal. I certainly am not open folding it pre flop in a three-handed game but it's better to fold pre than to play it like shit post flop. Folding 22 pre flop is nowhere close to a huge mistake, even short handed. It's just not that good a hand. It tends to win small pots and lose big pots, unless we have a set.

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Would you mind explaining the reasoning behind why going All In is mistake? I didn’t make that play but would like to better understand why it isn’t the right move. Thanks

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

Set-mining is always a valid tactic if you can see a flop for cheap and your opponents are likely to call at least 1 decent-sized bet, often more than 1.

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Does this mean I should have just called the BB rather than make it 80 pre flop? To see a flop in the cheapest way?

Shove if: you are bluffing and expect opponent to fold often enough to make it profitable or shove if you expect to get called and will win enough over the long term to make it profitable (this is very simplified)
You weren’t bluffing, you thought you had the best hand but why would he call? If he didn’t hit anything he would fold to a lesser bet. So when you shove he will rarely fold better and will call with hands that beat you.
he called the flop bet. Best to check the turn

raise 2x-2.5x preflop. I wouldn’t limp 22 3handed. It’s too good preflop when you only have 2 opponents

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Originally Posted by Pen22

Would you mind explaining the reasoning behind why going All In is mistake? I didn’t make that play but would like to better understand why it isn’t the right move. Thanks

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You're never getting called by a hand you dominate, except maaaaaybe A2s but that's ambitious and it's a tiny part of villain's range. When he calls we're pretty much always either 50-50 or 20-80. So when he calls he's winning more than half the time.

We should shove 22 in this spot if we have less than 10 big blinds and we have the shortest stack, because we're more desperate to steal the blinds. We do not need to risk our starting stack with 22.

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Originally Posted by Pen22

Does this mean I should have just called the BB rather than make it 80 pre flop? To see a flop in the cheapest way?

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I hate limping. I'd raise to 2x or 2.5x as Vinland suggested. no need to press a 3x open blind v blind.

It gives them a chance to fold pre. EZ win, little risk. They don't have to fold very often for this to make your SB a bit more profitable, or less unprofitable, as the case may be.

Seeing the flop for cheap while also getting a chance to sometimes just grab the BB's blind is better in the long run.


Note: this is a standard sizing to open from SB. The size of the bet has nothing at all to do with the value of our hand, aside from the fact that we didn't fold it. So it's in the 40 - 50% of hands we don't fold when in SB and it's folded to us. We don't open bigger with AA than we do with 22 or 98s. We have a standard open bet sizing.

Note this advice applies specifically when its folded to us in the SB.

This is essentially a spin and go without the bonus prize pool modifiers/limiters.

my standard in spins is to shove all pocket pairs pre especially small pocket pairs to realize pre flop equity. Post flop with low pocket pairs you're going to be folding to almost any aggression and you don't have the stack depth to call to see a flop . You also don't have the stack depth to cbet the flop without pot committing yourself and if you are called on an unconnected rainbow board you are likely to be dead in the water.

online low stakes you'll also get called by enough junk to realize your equity and i'm guessing that this home game could well be the same.
You can also get better to fold pre like 22-99 , ace rag, k rag maybe 56s-qjs and if the non pairs do call we have decent equity

one qualifier is that the blind progression wasnt mentioned . if its a slow blind progression then you might want to reconsider as spin and gos are hypers or if you aren't rolled for the strategy you should be asking why you are playing in the first place .

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Originally Posted by Keith

This is essentially a spin and go without the bonus prize pool modifiers/limiters.

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This is true, with small PPs you almost need to shove or fold.
Hi Keith - long time no see
I remember you were active around here

I mean if it's a hyper blind format then yeah just jam, but I'll probably open jam the majority of my buttons. I'm jamming any ace, king, broadway, pair, 89s+, we're basically playing bingo. But I'm assuming we're at a normal pace here. 10-15 minutes per level seems normal for home games I've played. 5 minutes is fast for real dealing, I'd be in turbo mode at that speed.

Pocket pairs play the most differentially depending on stack sizes, especially baby pocket pairs.

They are among the most likely hand to fold as the best hand to postflop aggression (ie: not realize their equity). For this reason, they are the best hands to play in an all-in preflop situation. But their ability to hit sets also makes them OVER-realize their equity once you get to 15:1+ SPR.

(They also make for important board coverage hands at deeper stack depths.)

25bbs is sort of the worst-case-scenario for baby pocket pairs either getting all the money in preflop against a range that doesn't have them smoked or over-realizing their equity the small percentage of the time they hit a set. For this reason, they're among the only hands (along with middle-rank offsuit aces and some suited wheel aces) that still open-ship at 15bbs+ in sufficiently late position. Even at 25bbs, you can still open-ship this hand out of the SB specifically.

As for postflop, while pocket pairs have a tough time making it to showdown as the best hand, they're even worse off trying to compensate for that by blasting the pot wide open, blowing out all the hands they have equity against and being left with a 2-outter. Apart from putting a small amount of money in on the early streets to either protect your equity with this hand specifically or depolarize with your range generally, your strategy should be to get to showdown as cheaply as possible and be more-than-willing to fold to any sizable aggression.

Indeed much of your objective with how you play the REST of your range is to ensure that you're not so susceptible to aggression that the more vulnerable hands in your range can't make a soft-landing to showdown.