Make pocket pairs pay big

Friday, December 30th, 2005

You are dealt pocket 4s. You raise because you are hoping to eliminate the many hands with overcards that can beat you.

At least that's what many poker books and many big-name professionals tell you to do.

But that's not what Phil Gordon recommends.

With pocket pairs, especially small ones, you just want to call because you have the chance to make a lot of money if the field is bigger, said the author of "Phil Gordon's Little Green Book: Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold 'Em" (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, $21).

"Before, I might've raised to limit the field," Gordon said, "but what I realized through some mathematical study is that you want as many people as possible when you have the middle pocket pair, and you want to get in cheap. You want to flop a set (three of a kind), and you want as many people in as possible so someone else flops something, too."

The retooled Gordon found himself with pocket deuces in the small blind in a $1,000-buy-in World Series of Poker no-limit hold 'em event.

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