how much is too much for small pairs?

I get the general idea for small pairs (99 or less) that you want to limp or call a small raise and hope for a flop to make your set. But how much of a pre-flop raise will make you fold your pocket pair? I find myself calling most bets if I have the person on Ax, and I wonder if that is going to be +ve long term.

This has been discussed on this forum many times - with differing opinions. For starters - ALL pairs 99 - 22 basically have the same value if your goal is to hit a set and let it go if you miss and meet aggression. Set over set is rare even though it happens.

With that said, many here (including myself) use the 10x rule. You can call a raise where that raise x 10 is less than your stack and the raisers stack (or the largest stack calling the hand). The reasoning is you hit your set 12% of the time on the flop. When you do hit - you should anticipate taking somebody's stack. So, to make the call profitable you need to take somebody's stack 10% of the time (hence 10x). I'm not sure if I worded that correctly - maybe somebody else can state it clearer. That's why if I'm holding 66 and some short stack with 1/4 the max buyin pushes preflop, I just fold. It's not worth it long term.

I'm not sure how you put somebody on Ax, but if you can and want to race them, then I guess the higher the PP the better since if you hold 33 and they have A4, it's almost 50/50 (you are slightly ahead).

I do some set huntin so...
Im calling anything upto 10bbs even if theyre is reraise if i think i can get to see the flop (commonly the biggest pots i take down are where AA/KK make a reraise against AQ and i get in behind with original raiser caling too and i flop set)
Against short stacks (less than a 3rd of the buy in i cap this at 6bbs) you mostly want them in a pot behind you when you have a pp rater than making bigger raises in front.
Dont call with a pp preflop against a short stack. Get the chips in when you are pretty sure youre ahead not totally guessing

The value of PP's go up later on when you find spots to steal, or correctly decide your opponent missed the flop completely. Since you're usually not calling 10xBB to hit a set preflop, but more like 3-4xBB, you can imagine how extremely profitable they can become when played right.

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

Im calling anything upto 10bbs even if theyre is reraise if i think i can get to see the flop

Dangerous without solid reads. Beware of getting sandwiched between raisers where you're cold-calling two bets and might have to fold to more bets when it gets back to you.

The "10x stack" rule is the one I use. Miffed is right...don't call short-stacks raises with mini-pairs.

The "10x stack" rule is the one I use.

I dont call the 10 stack unless I know that they are willing to push all in this hand, and you rairly know that.

I call up to about 1/15 the stack (if they have a $10 stack, thats .50)

You need to get his entire stack almost everytime you hit your set if you use the 10x rule... and your not going to do that.