Are Pocket Two’s Worth Playing?

As many of you will know, holding a pair of deuces in the pocket can sometimes leave you wondering simply how you are going to play this hand to be able to make sure that the chips within the central pot will be coming in your direction at the end of the game, I mean all you have to see on the community board is any card higher than or equal to a three and you could potentially find yourself in a bad way.

Playing pocket deuces can be a hard concept to get your head around as they require more skill in order to play them than say a pair of tens would, simply because there is so much of a risk that comes with the hand.

Although the hand does have a high amount of risk attached to it, you have to remember that a pocket pair pre flop is stronger than any high carded hand that consists of more than one card value.

So how should you look to play this hand when you look down and see them looking right back at you?

Playing any low pocket pair can be a hard thing to do, especially when you find yourself deep into a tournament or are having a tough time at the real money ring game tables, but you have to think a little outside of the box, can you make this hand work in your favour?

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The best thing that you can do with a pair of pocket 2's is to raise the betting to three times the big blind, giving yourself enough leverage to offer players who have been forced to make bets due to been within the blinds the chance to fold, anything lower than three times the big blind and you can assume that you are going to get some action, especially from the player already within the big blind.

Although you are placing chips into the pot with a hand that carries a small amount of strength, there is strength there and so you need to play your game accordingly.

Placing three times the big blind into the pot does mean that you are signalling that you have a strong hand but you also have a small enough number of chips in the pot to lay your cards down should you feel that you are behind within the hand without losing too much of your stack, allowing you to cut your losses and rebuild your stack during future hands.

Now that you have your chips in the pot and you get one maybe one or two callers, you still have nothing to worry about, remember that if a player was holding a strong hand along the lines of pocket paint (Jack – Queen – King or Ace) they should have re-raised you at this point.

Now that you are getting to see the community cards, you need to be looking out for the cards to offer you the chance to be holding a set or three of a kind on the flop, allowing you to instantly increase the value of your hand while still remaining under the radar of other opponents who are still active within the hand.

Should the fold come low, you have a great opportunity to begin to play a slow play tactic that will see you showing the willingness to check the action around to your opponent or opponents to let them do the betting for you, meaning that you can increase your potential winnings.

Should the flop come and the cards on the board don't offer you the chance to empower your hand further, you need to once again think about checking the action around to your opponents, folding to any bet that comes into play because even if your opponent has hit their bottom card, they are still leading you at this point and your outs are becoming less and less likely to save you, fold the hand and regroup for action at a later stage.

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With some many players not accepting that low pocket pairs can lead to large pots, they tend to be disregarded as optimum poker playing hands, meaning that you have a good chance of winning a high level pot should the community cards offer you the chance to be holding a set, use this advantage and look to increase the pot further, there aren't many players in the world of poker that will be able to place you on a pair of twos should the community cards offer a further 2 into play.

So in conclusion to the question that has been asked in the title of this article, yes pocket twos are definitely worth playing, as long as you are willing to cut your losses should the flop not increase your hand strength.

You need to have the discipline to be able to walk away from the hand at the time of the flop if you are going to be able to make this hand work for you and further increase your poker bankroll or tournament status.

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