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I had 6,6. There were a couple of preflop raises. I figured what the hell, I'm gonna call and see the flop. (I believe in your advice about playing any pocket pair, in any position). So we capped and the flop came 9,8,4 rainbow. The two guys to my left and right were firing at each other big time. One guy raised, the other reraised. I figured I wasn't strong enough - "no set, no bet" and so I dumped the 6,6.I could have been up against a bigger set, an opened straight draw, two pairs, who knows ?

Turn was a 6; river was a 6. I would have had 4 of a kind and won a huge pot!!

*Did I make a mistake in not calling* ? I think not because there is no way I could have known that I would get running 6's. But on the other hand I could have won a huge pot (at least $3 in a $0.05/$0.10 game), and I feel that I am playing way too tight, not investing another $0.20 (4 small bets to call their cap). For surely after I had seen the turn I would have gone to the river.

I just hate it when I dump a hand because well, "that's what is recommended" by some book or other, and then something like this happens. Any way to avoid this from happening ? Seems to happen to me ALL the #$@! time. In another hand I had a 6,8 diamonds and folded to a raise, only to see the flop come back all diamonds.

Thanks,

-Thomas

Answer: If you played every hand, you would never miss an opportunity like this; it's analogous to buying every stock in the market, or playing every number on a roulette wheel. The problem is that what you invest will be too great for your return since the vast majority of hands won't win. Because of this, we have to be more selective when we put our money in the pot. Don't be frustrated when you correctly fold a hand, but by some luck it would have won.

Now, about your 66. I do like playing pocket pairs in loose games from any position. There are some times when I won't play them though. An example of when I would play is if it is a limit game and there is just a raise and reraise before me. If I called in situations like this, with few players and lots of raising, the return wouldn't match up to my investment. Ideally you would like 4 or more players with the low pocket pairs, or you would like just 1. So let's say you did call preflop, then it got raised around and around until it was a cap, was your fold on the flop correct? We figure out if the call or fold was correct by the odds. We are fairly sure that our 66 alone isn't the best hand, otherwise we might stick around or raise the flop. We have to catch a third 6 for our hand to win and the chance of doing that on the turn is around 8%.

I think you would have had the odds to call one bet, or maybe even two bets on the flop, but the problem is with a lot of these hands, the action gets capped and you pay much more than you intended. I think you made the right lay down here. The vast majority of the time, you won't catch a 6, and even sometimes (like you mentioned), it won't win even when you do. If the pot odds are generous and you are certain your hand will win if you catch, then call, but here it wasn't.

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