At first glance the concept of a pocket pair in online poker sounds wonderful and promising as many players will already start adding the chips to their stack before the flop has even taken place. But the reality of pocket pairs, especially with small or medium range hands, is far more complicated and the online poker players that can successfully handle pocket pairs are the ones that will move into the status of professional poker and remain there.
The first thing to consider with pocket pairs is odds calculation. Regardless of anything else there is the fundamental mathematics of the odds that must be taken into account and given the most weight.
Another big key in assessing pocket pairs is positioning, chip stack counts, and the betting trends and tendencies of other players. Obviously on the latter point if you are playing against new opponents it will be difficult to get a feel for their playing styles but positioning and their opening bets can often give a solid tell as to the potential worth of your pocket pairs.
Just as it is not a good idea to become overly aggressive with a strong pocket pair it is also not good to under value a lower pocket pair as while even a pair of deuces may not seem to have a lot of value it still has the potential of turning into a winning hand. The key of course is to not overplay lower pocket pairs based on “betting the come” and on the hopes of building on such hands.
Prudent pocket pair play is a key to becoming a consistent member of the professional poker class.