Pair wraps

[Aisthesis]

We got into this issue a little bit in the discussion of wrap vs. wrap, and I thought it might be worth a separate thread. I'll just start by stating my own opinion for critique:

First, I definitely view pairs JJ-AA as such a strong feature that they need absolutely no side cards for me to play these hands. So, obviously, if I'm going to play JJ from any position, I'm going to play JJQK even more enthusiastically. I hesitate to say whether I prefer a hand like KQJT or KQJ9 to KQJJ, since these are all quite strong hands.

However, pairs below JJ become very problematic imo because if you set, it's very likely to be middle set or even bottom set, and I normally just muck the latter if I don't have a good draw to go with it. Moreover, even if you are capable of laying down middle set to top set, it's normally going to cost you some money to do so. Hence, playing a hand that you can almost ASSUME is going to get you middle set at best can be troublesome imo.

So, here's my current view: I'll play TT and 99 wraps in EP ONLY if they are true wraps with no holes. I think one might also argue that one hole is ok if the hand is ds (like 9TTQds). In MP I'll play TT and 99 wraps with a single hole fairly routinely.

I won't even go into the details of my exact "policies" with lesser pair wraps, but I will say this: I'd prefer to play a hand even like 2567 (note that the 2 still gives you full extension being at the bottom) than a hand like 4456. I really think the 44 is a feature that just makes the hand LOOK a little better, but in most cases, that extra 4 hurts your draws much too often.

Sure, you CAN flop a little set with a straight draw, but that is very rare and is about the only case (except maybe bottom set with flush draw) where I'd play bottom set aggressively. But more likely is that you run into a flop like K53 where the extra 4 leaves you with nothing but just an old-fashioned open-ender with only 8 nut outs. I'd WAY rather be holding 2467 (albeit a hand I normally wouldn't play) or 4567 than 4456 on that board. And, even if you have a board like K23, the extra 4 takes away one of your outs in comparison to 3456, 4567, etc.

Really, the only boards that I can think of to get very enthusiastic about with 4456 are those like K34 or K47. But even then, if you really are up against top or middle set, then you only have 9 outs (8 to straight plus 1 for quads).

I can see these hands gaining a little in value against players with whom you simply can't tell whether they're on KK or 5678, although even there, KK is just more likely in terms of hand frequency, even if you do know that this player will push a good draw just as hard.

In the hope of perhaps also provoking some controversy here, I'll thus summarize it this way:

JJ-AA are stand-alone features, and any wrap quality to the hand is a bonus.
99-TT are decent features but usually need a little help to become solid starting hands.
Lower pairs than 99 often hurt your hand more than they help it, with 77-88 being in a bit of a grey area there--I hesitate to say that they actually HURT your wrap, but I still would clearly prefer 5789 or even 5679 over 7789.

[Ojingo]

[Felonius_Monk]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with you there, Ais. To be honest I was thinking more in terms of wrap plus a pair on the flop rather than preflop in the previous conversation (this, to me, illuminates the fact that I am thinking much more about flop play than preflop play and perhaps sometimes you seem a bit fixated on preflop strategy, not that that's necessarily a bad thing).

I WOULD say I prefer 4456 to something like 456K - I would rather have the set possibility than one extra out when I hit a draw, as I think I'm probably astute enough to know when bottom set is beaten and not get stacked on it (also probably has something to do with the fact that I try to play hands containing small pairs only in good position, so I'm less likely to be OOP and clueless holding a set of 4s on a 48T board or something).

One view I've always subscribed to is that smaller pairs are more valuable in good position (of course that's true of any hand or feature in PLO, but I think more so with small pairs - you could even say for many players small pairs might even be -EV in earlier seats as a feature of a coordinated whilst being +EV in LP for the same player, though I have no statistical evidence for that), so hands like 4456 are worth a limp late on (indeed, most vaguely coordinated hands and, IMO, all 4-card coordinated hands are worth a limp in the last 3 seats).

Small pairs also become stronger in position when (paradoxically) facing a raise by a player who you know will CB or even stack off when the board comes low (such as a player who overplays aces). Also, smaller and middle pocket pairs become more powerful on tables where players are liable to make aggressive or loose plays with a wider range of cards (though I think that's pretty obvious, it's worth saying). 77, 88 and the like rarely hit top set, statistically it's more usually middle or bottom, and so if you're on a table where players regularly play thin draws, two pair etc for sizeable bets they become much more powerful features (i.e. more likely to be involved in you getting your chips in as a big favourite preflop). On tables of the sort I seem to have found myself on recently, where it's hard to extract big bets from your opponents with much less than top set or a strong draw, flopping middle or bottom set is of less use to you.

[Aisthesis]