A lot of players have difficulty with the medium pair hole cards in sit and go tournaments. If you don't play them right, they will cost you chips and wins. I have a system for playing medium pairs that keeps my investment in them low, and maximizes profitability in favorable conditions.

Some of the strategies in this system are described herein, but you can get the full details in my free sit and go video strategy series.

I consider medium pairs as 44 through 88. Higher pairs should be played stronger and lower pairs even more cautiously than these recommendations. With medium pairs your overriding concern is to get in to see a cheap flop, because if the cost or position is not relatively predefined, you will consistently be playing these hands into a negative expected value. (-EV). There is simply no reason for that to be. In the best case scenario you are looking to flop a set

Here are two probabilities you MUST know when playing medium pairs. You will flop a set 1 in 7.5 times. You are a slight favorite to win an all in confrontation against over cards. You may also hit a straight or a flush by the river, but that is so weak it shouldn?t be a consideration when deciding to play the hand.

You can play medium pairs from late position with no raise or maybe a small raise in front of you. Early in a tournament, you want as many players in the pot as possible, so I rarely raise in this spot even though I likely have the best starting hand. Being in the hand against multiple players is good because you are much more likely to double up when you flop a set, assuming the right customer saw the flop with you. At a tight table, you can also try to limp in early position, but if a re raise comes around that is just too steep, then you have to be able to let it go, in most situations.

So how much of a raise should you call? If you are short stacked, your best bet is to go all in. Early in a tournament though, I always look at my stack and my opponent's stack as one of the criteria. If their stack is bigger than 8 times the bet, AND the call will not be critically adverse to my stack, I will call. This is because of the 7.5 to 1 odds. If I make sure I call with the potential of reaping a pot bigger than the odds of me hitting a set, it is mathematical no-brainier. I have a whole video devoted to this particular strategy in the free video strategy series. it's free to sign up!

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