Poker hands and pocket pairs

How you play your pocket pairs in texas hold'em will either make you a good amount of money or cost you a TON of money. Why? Because drawing to a set when you haven't made one is one of the worst draws in texas hold'em. You are a 12 to 1 underdog to hit your flop by the river, which means you will only hit it 1 out of every 13 times. If you're calling those pockets to the river when an opponent is betting, that means you are paying close to 20 big bets to draw to each set! Suppose you do hit a nut set and your opponent and you both cap it each round - your opponent can only put in at most 8 big bets into the pot. That means overall, you're paying 20 big bets to win at best, what can probably be 12-14 big bets.

One of the most common sayings among solid poker players is "No set, no bet!". If you've got those small pockets, you can go ahead and see a flop, but unless you flopped a set, most of the time you don't want to bother betting or calling.