1:09pm: Flopping two pair — namely, bottom two — can be a great thing, or disaster for some. If you’re among the many who love to play hands with “possibilities” (that is, connected and/or suited cards), you will sometimes hit the flop by flopping two pair. The problem with this is that sometimes this becomes a really hard hand to play. This is because since your hand is usually well disguised, you will often have to play a hand like this in large pots with people who have caught top pair with a decent kicker. How well you handle situations like this goes a long way in determining your profitability long term.
Perhaps the hardest part of this situation is the speed and force with which you should play the hand. Some people preach pushing hard with bottom two to protect the hand. Some people view the hand as an absolute monster and prefer to slowplay until the river. In contrast, some people view bottom two pair as a very weak holding and prefer to keep the pot small until they are sure it’s the best hand. So which is the right way?
That all depends on how well you can handle the swings and variance in no limit holdem. Anytime you are in a hand, you should always be thinking equally as hard about the cards that could kill your hand as you are about the cards that could improve it.
Let’s face the facts: bottom two pair is a strong hand at the moment, but is extremely vulnerable to being counterfeited by the board. How many times have you played 78 suited, flopped two pair on a board such as 7 8 J - and lost to someone who put it all in with J10, only to get killed by running Kings? It happens more often than you might think. Let’s take a look at all the ways you could lose this hand:
- Running Queens
- Running Kings
- Running Aces
- Running Deuces, Threes, Fours, Fives, and Sixes
- Opponent hitting trips
- Opponent pairing his 10
- Opponent hitting a gutshot 9
- Opponent completing a flush (depending on what suits they hold, and how the board fell)
Suddenly, when you put it in that perpsective, it almost seems like there are more ways to lose the hand than there are for it to hold. That’s because while you are usually favored to win the hand at this point, it isn’t by so much that you should ever feel like the hand is a lock to hold, nor should you really be upset if it doesn’t. Add this to the fact that you could already be beat, and there’s very little to feel comfortable about in this type of situation.
My advice to you is that it’s simply a matter of taste. Bottom two pair on the flop is usually good in a heads up sit n go, however as we discussed above it often doesn’t stay that way. If you can stomach all the sick ways that you could possibly lose the hand, then I would recommend protecting your hand and pushing hard. However, if you’re like me and prefer to keep your variance to a minimum, then I would keep the pot at a medium size, until I’m relatively sure that the turn and river didn’t kill my hand, and then value bet the river with the intention of folding to to a shove.
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