Pocket Pairs
It is important for a poker player to figure out a few probabilities here and there to try and determine whether or not they have a chance of winning, or at the very least, acquiring a good hand. This is very important in limit games, where you are only allowed a certain amount and you cannot just rely on bluffing your opponents as you would in a no-limit game. A good example here 
would be playing community card games, because here your hand is only made up of two cards and the rest of the cards are dealt to the entire table. As such, it is important to consider if you have a fighting chance against your opponents by determining the probabilities that your hand will win, and by determining the probability that your opponent has a higher pocket pair than the one you have.
Trying to determine the chances that another player has a higher pocket pair than you is easier than determining whether or not your pocket has a chance of winning. It’s easy: if, for example, you have a pair of jacks, the only hands that are available that can beat you are a pair of queens, kings, and aces; therefore, you’re in more or less a good shape, although it’s not as strong as if you have a pair of aces or a pair of kings. This is important because sometimes, having a high pair will get you to win, during those times when the hands that appear are hands that will only compete based on high cards. As for determining whether or not your pocket pair has chances of winning, there is a lengthy computation for that, but for you beginners, you might want to consider an easier way and then learn the computation later when you get the hang of things.
First off, remember these values: your probability of coming up with a set is 10.8 percent; of flopping a set of better, 11.8 percent; of getting a full house or quads by the flop, 0.99 percent (which is a very small percentage so watch out); and of making a set or better by the time you reach the river, a hefty 19% (it is hefty compared to the other values). Next, remember that the lower the pocket pair, the higher the chances that your pair will NOT hit the flop at all. You start with the aces at zero percent – that means it will hit the flop all the time – and then followed by the kings at 20.67%, and then the queens at 37.84%, and the probability goes up until the lower cards, where it is at a little over 88 percent. You see, then, why having a pair does not guarantee a win – although the difference between one pocket pair and another decreases as the value of the cards go down, the difference starts off really big (from zero to almost twenty-one percent, if you will notice) that by the time we get to the lower pocket pairs, the probability is so high already that it’s already going to be difficult for you to come up with a good hand. Finally, remember to recompute the other odds when something changes in the game, because you never know when your chances of winning increase or decrease. After all, poker can be quite unpredictable from a mathematical point of view.
Of course, if you want a shortcut, then there is one, but it’s something that you may end up regretting if the cards that appear work in your favor. If you have a pair of nines or lower, then fold. This would be my recommendation for those beginners who are not yet willing to try and take a risk, or for those players who are not yet that knowledgeable in the strategies of the game.