Message Board : no limit hold em theory and practice and position

Andy -

I think the point here is that small pocket pairs are less affected by positional considerations than other hands.  The flop will either hit you hard or not, although it is of course harder to steal in early position.

The only time I think you should regularly avoid playing pocket pairs in early position is in a tournament when your stack is getting small, but not yet micro (M 10-30).  Other times, you should be looking to play although it’s certainly not a given… for example with medium stacks, you limp under the gun with something like 4-4.  A rock in middle position raises to 6 BB’s and everyone else folds.  I would probably throw away my 4’s here… however if there were a few other callers, particularly loose players after the flop, I would come in for the implied odds.

- HJ