Message Board : no limit hold em and pocket pairs

Would you say that no limit hold em is a game of pocket pairs? We want to double through our opponent. The classic hand for doing this is a set. We need a pair to get a set, obviously.

andy nelson said:

We want to double through our opponent. The classic hand for doing this is a set.

Sure.  And once you get tagged as a set miner, expect to never be paid off by any decent players you happen to be playing with.

Doubling through is nice, but the real object is to win more $$ on the pots you win than the amount you lose on the pots you lose. 

And there are as many ways to do this as there are winning players.  You could get your opponents to conceed too many small pots, or you could get them to commit too much $$ to a few big pots. 

Realistically, though, once you get above the lowest limits, if you play only for sets, you won’t get paid off much when you do finally hit.  And a lot of pots will be stolen from you in the meantime.

Not that sets aren’t great, but they’re best when hidden.