Playing Small Pocket Pairs No Limit Hold em

When I play small pocket pairs in No Limit Hold em cash games, I am generally calling to see the flop in hopes to see a set. But the problem is that I do not want to spend a lot of money to do so. Basically I only call someones raise to see the flop ONLY if there raise is small enough or they have enough chips to justify the call.

Here is my logic. When calling a raise with any pair I will hit a set approximately 1/8 times. If I am playing .50cent / 1dollar blinds, and someone raises the pot to 4 dollars. I am holding pocket 4’s. Remember I know I will hit 1/8 times, I need to win 4×8 ,($32 dollars) for my call. And this is JUST to break even over time!! I am not playing poker to just break even, or lose money so I need to do some extra math to add a buffer.

Here is how I work it .(I am bad at math so I do it this way) The bet is 4 dollars so I think 4×8 is $32. I then double the break even point 32x 2 witch works out to be 64 dollars. If the player has close to 64 dollars or more I will play in hopes of rolling him or her for his entire stack. I might also make a call if 2 or more players are in the pot with stack sizes totaling more than the $64 bucks.

Why add a buffer ?? Why not play straight up?? Several things can happen when I do hit my set so I need to account for this. Sets are not always the nuts on the flop !! They can lose to flushes, straights or even higher sets on the flop or even worse on the turn or river. Also I play my sets very aggressively and quite often they player will fold to me right on the flop because he is wise to my play, or he was betting air pre flop and missed the flop.