Set mining?

Oooookay. So I read Icemonkey9's "So you want to be a WINNING cash game player" post, and frankly, I'm getting my azz handed to me trying to play pairs now. Help me out with the math here.

Ok. I have a pp. Nothing special like AA or KK, just a medium pocket pair. Let's say there's a raiser before, I call, the blinds fold, so we have a 7.5 BB pot that I paid 3 BB to see. If nothing else happens and I get to keep it, 40% of the time, I break even, but most of the time that won't happen. If I miss and the bad guy bets, I should let it go. I will miss the flop 88% of the time, losing 3BB. To break even, I need to get 3BB/0.12, or 25 BB on average for this to be a break even play. I'll get exact numbers later, but it's safe to say tonight I'm not getting anywhere near 25 BB on average the times I hit. More often they seem to be missing, because they just fold to a bet, or in one awful case, they had a drawing hand that got there, and I was the one proving implied odds work.

Ok, case in point. Just played 55, calling a 4BB PFR. Flopped a set. It went rather well but for a dangerous turn making a straight possible, but the board paired on the river so I was safe from all but better boats. Net win, 22 BB. This was undoubtedly one of the more profitable of the night. If that's so, this is not a profitable play, in spite of what everything I've read tells me.

Is this a quirk of microlimits (5 and 10nl), or am I missing something? The video referenced in the post talks about people stacking off with TPTK or an overpair (I think), but I'm not getting people stacking off at all. Either I bet conservatively enough to keep them in the hand, in which case I'm not getting correct implied odds to make this a winning play, or I bet enough to build a large enough pot to make it worthwhile, and nobody wants to come along. Tell ya the truth, I'm looking around the tables and I'm seeing stats that in my admittedly non-Poker God eyes, don't suck. 15/14. 11/8. 15/5. Ok, the 27/6 guy is interesting, but MOST of these guys aren't trading stacks with me for a pair.

I'm definitely a math geek, so that's the kind of spin I'm looking for on this. Not just "this is the right thing to do", but this is the right thing to do because 12% of the time you hit your set, n% of the time you get all someone's chips, x% of the time you get this fraction of 'em, etc.

RF

Do you always fold when you don't hit your set? It's not a requirement that you have to, you know.

I could be wrong, but from what your saying i beleive it might be the players your playing against? A bunch of nits playing small ball poker not wanting to get into a big pot.

It could also just be the table... Try a table with higher avg of $ in the pot.

To get the correct implied odds villains stack size has to be atleast 15x more then his raise. With a ratio of 15-1.( i think you know this but just incase)

IMO you cant call a raise everytime you have a pocket pair. You have to take into account your position.


Scenario: If utg raises and u (+1) call with implied odds, and someone behind you re-raises your not getting the odds you need


So i dont beleive you can calculate your return. Because in your math your assuming your going to see a flop everytime which isnt the case. Its only worth your while to call with ANY pocket pair in late position with, of course, the right odds.







+1 ^^ With what hillbilly said, alot of time villain hits air and ur pp is good.

No, not always. It depends on the flop and the opponent. If I have 33 and villain's tight and we get a QKA all the same suit, the only button I see is check. I know, "most flops miss most players", and that's actually one of the issues I'm wrestling with. Let's say we get a typical flop. Hmm, lemme pull one live...8JJ rainbow.

Ok, so with a typical opponent I think I'm either ahead here, but vulnerable, or crushed by Jx, or 44+. If I could call one bet and be done with it, I would...sometimes. Probably half the time or more. Where it gets dicey for me is the later streets. QKA shows up, and well, they're scare cards for a reason. Hole cards people chose to play are more often Q, K, and A than 2, 3, 4, so my lowly small pair isn't looking too good. So, at some point from flop to river, it's not looking pretty. My thinking is IF I'm going to fold at all, better sooner than later. I feel like calling a flop bet there is basically saying "I believe I'm n% likely to be best now" where n is the pot odds I'm getting to make the call. It's about 11:1 that I'll make the set on the turn OR river, so ok, that gives some hope of getting chips back, but again, that 11:1 call means I need to win a TON on those rare occasions I do win. Going with the 7.5 BB PF pot example and assuming the bet I have to call is 1/2 pot, I think I need to take down an average of 44.5 BB when I hit the set or the call is -EV. Ok, if they consistently 1/2 pot or better to the river, I can get there. At just 1/2 pot, I'd have to have the opportunity to reraise and get called. It still seems very dependent on finding a sucker who seriously overplays a hand. I did just play with THE worst player online -ever-, but I'm also sitting now with a 9/7, 16/10, 4/4. Ok, if these guys hit, they hit something solid most of the time, but that's blessing and curse. Most of the time they miss and aren't pumping the kind of money I need into the pot.

And, that aside, I'm going by the video whose message seemed to be if you don't hit the set, get out.

I know there's a chance I'm doing the "monster under the bed thinking" thing, too. There are only two cards that improve my hand, but more (A down to my pair) which potentially improve theirs. I suppose I have exactly the same question in this case. When the flop misses my pair, what's the mathematical rationale for calling?

If the right answer is "call/bet/raise when you hit, call -sometimes- when you miss", how do I figure out how often sometimes is, and if I make a statistical decision (call 20% of the time), how far do I take it?

I can just close my eyes and trust the math. If I know calling n% of the time on a miss is right (and why), I'll do it without reservation. I'm just not understanding the why right now. I figure if I can get this down, it's an instant win rate boost.

RF

It could well be the players, Teebone. I tend to assume I have Fish's Myopia, even though I generally have a positive win rate. Those older and wiser than I talk about how much microlimit players suck, and how any decent player should absolutely clean up, and well, I sometimes see players who suck and I eke out a modest win rate. My conclusion is that I probably suck too, just a little less than the rest of them. Ok, so one answer may be not just that I need implied odds, but implied odds against a known bad/spewy player. I think that *was* in the video, but it helps to hear it again. It's just my experience that they're not all over the place, you have to wait for one, or go find one. Most microlimit players don't suck, at least not relative to me.

I'm pretty comfortable making this a relatively complex mathematical model, so if it means fold/check/call/raise n% of the time depending on what happens on various streets, I can do that in a spreadsheet. If it's more complicated than that, I can write code to do it. I did that to calculate preflop equity for every possible hand for 2-10 players vs random hands (15+ billion tests cases ), then bought the Full Tilt Tournament book a week later and found they'd already done it, and more (but not against my database of what I've actually observed people play...still have to run that one...)

My gut feeling, though, is that if this is a winning play, and I do believe it is, I should be able to understand why without going quite that nuts about it.

RF

I would say its a matter of needing to adjust to the tables and players you have. The micros are especially literal, unless someone is making it clear that they're just nuts. So a lot of the time once you get the feel for them you can clean up by seeing a lot of flops and playing smarter poker than them postflop.

That being said, you can't simply do a formula for situations, you have to be more in depth, take into account how often the guy folds to a cbet, see if he likes to float, I found delay cbets useful against passive opponents. Wait till the turn and fire if there's nothing new and scary. Generally on a board like a94 you can discount one level down for each street that passes with no action, so on the turn if the oppoenent didn't bet that flop, 9's are his best, so you can fire and take it down a lot of the time from a timid oppoenent.

You have to be willing to let the specific cards in your hand not matter sometimes when it comes to your postflop play. That being said a lot of people are small balling, but will fire away if you let them. In my time grinding my way out of the supermicros I found that stats like your "interesting" 27/6 are perfect for 15+BB/100h at the 5nl deep tables at stars. You just have to figure out how to make them put it in, and a lot of the time, passive seems to be the trick at the micros. Also, if you fire and come up against resistance, they have it.

The thing with trip mining is getting to see the flop for the least amount of money. If you can't limp in, lay it down. Chances are you'll see the flop anyways; see you didn't hit it, and thank yourself for not calling a raise.

I agree with the small ball comment too. Daniel Negreanu has advocated small ball poker as an "annoying - won't go away" style of poker. If you recognize this style you'll know that if they stick to the rules they'll take a shot at the pot post flop regardless if they hit or not. You can't trip mine successfully against people like this and that's part of the reason it's a profitable style of play. If you want to trip mine find a table that limps in a bunch. Then play small ball with them and ruin all their fun. lol

i agree set mining is a small part of the strategy...plus u have to account for your only going to flop 1 out of 8.... when i play 25 cent 50 cent i set mine but i try to use position to take down small pots to stay even.. my goal is to stay even until i hit a set, straight or , ace high flush...then im lookin to play a big pot... this stategy usually works for me 25 50 cent NL cash game... n e lower buy in i have to change it up a little

I personally lay down the mid pp to a 3-4xbb raise before my action. I only try to see the flop cheap, but I am a nit.

I ALWAYS call a pair pre with anything less than a 4xbb raise. i have won entirely too many giant pots hitting trips on the flop to not do it. If i dont hit trips on the flop, i change the way i would have played it and see if there is any reason for me to stay in, like if i feel the original raiser is just cbeting to save a missed flop. I feel that the amount ive gone in with and had to fold compared to the amount i have won makes it profitable. Depending on the player i will also call a push with a pair above 5's. I mainly play in 25nl to 100nl.

PooffyFooffy said:

I personally lay down the mid pp to a 3-4xbb raise before my action. I only try to see the flop cheap, but I am a nit.

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Seriously? You should know better than that. With 100bb effective stacks you should almost always be calling the tight players or those raising from EP at least. Yes their range crushes you preflop but you'll win a lot of stacks postflop when you connect and they can't fold their overpair.

To the OP, continuing postflop UI is all about your opponent's range and the flop texture. Floating flops that are unlikely to have improved your opponents hands and then betting the turn when they check can make you more than enough $$ to make calling to set mine very profitable. It will also help to disguise your hand a bit when you do hit your set because your opponent will see you calling flops and betting turns with less than a set. Not to mention the fact that you'll occasionally bink the turn.

Pockets are a good place to start. I have seen several turn into boats even when the set or two pair aspect is beat by a flush or straight. I can't advocate calling with low pp like 2's or 3's when you face a 3x or 4x BB raise, but everyone has different styles. I think you are best off limping with smalls or calling a marginal raise with middle pair, and maybe reraising with 9's or 10's. You want to know if the opponent is playing Ax, two faces, suited faces, or if they have you dominated with a made overpair.

WVHillbilly said:

Seriously? You should know better than that. With 100bb effective stacks you should almost always be calling the tight players or those raising from EP at least. Yes their range crushes you preflop but you'll win a lot of stacks postflop when you connect and they can't fold their overpair.

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That is a very good point, I actually haven't looked at it that way. I was going to say that my connection on those is low, but that is prob because I fold them alot.

RoyalFish said:

No, not always. It depends on the flop and the opponent. If I have 33 and villain's tight and we get a QKA all the same suit, the only button I see is check. I know, "most flops miss most players", and that's actually one of the issues I'm wrestling with. Let's say we get a typical flop. Hmm, lemme pull one live...8JJ rainbow.

RF

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With a flop like this if you dont think this hit your villian you wanna stop it right here. You want to take down the pot on the flop.

I would suggest a check-raise, because villains making a cbet most of the times. However if u get played back at after a check raise, even if villain calls ur checkraise i wouldnt fire again. The positives of a check raise with this flop is if he has air he cant call you. It will most likely tell you where u are in the hand. Also you dont want another card coming off that will let him make his hand. This board is bad if you 77s or lower because u could get counterfeited, with a check raise it also look like u have a jack so if villain is really tight he MIGHT even lay down a big pair but most likely he'd just call. So if villain calls the check raise id be done with the hand.


I would never just call its passive, your not defining where u are in the hand. You dont know if he has something or is making a cbet. WIth pp check raise or fold, with the occasional donk bet depending on the villain.

Teebone said:

With a flop like this if you dont think this hit your villian you wanna stop it right here. You want to take down the pot on the flop.

I would suggest a check-raise, because villains making a cbet most of the times. However if u get played back at after a check raise, even if villain calls ur checkraise i wouldnt fire again. The positives of a check raise with this flop is if he has air he cant call you. It will most likely tell you where u are in the hand. Also you dont want another card coming off that will let him make his hand. This board is bad if you 77s or lower because u could get counterfeited, with a check raise it also look like u have a jack so if villain is really tight he MIGHT even lay down a big pair but most likely he'd just call. So if villain calls the check raise id be done with the hand.


I would never just call its passive, your not defining where u are in the hand. You dont know if he has something or is making a cbet. WIth pp check raise or fold, with the occasional donk bet depending on the villain.

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yeti theorem ftw

WVHillbilly said:

Seriously? You should know better than that. With 100bb effective stacks you should almost always be calling the tight players or those raising from EP at least. Yes their range crushes you preflop but you'll win a lot of stacks postflop when you connect and they can't fold their overpair.

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Ok Hillbilly it has been a month.
Were you being sarcastic, because I don't feel like getting into how much I have lost this past month because it seemed I was making a mistake folding them pf after your post. lol
I miss, the person in position bets with overcards on the board, and I am dominated. If I call I am pissing away more money, If I reraise I am prob donking in dangerous territory.

Regardless of how you play your postflop pocket pairs, have you considered folding smaller pocket pairs to a large preflop raise? A 4x BB raise from EP often indicates considerable strength, and if you're purely set mining with no reads on your opponents, it's not a profitable call to continuously make. Try calling smaller raises, or folding unless an MP calls as well.

Henreiman said:

Regardless of how you play your postflop pocket pairs, have you considered folding smaller pocket pairs to a large preflop raise? A 4x BB raise from EP often indicates considerable strength, and if you're purely set mining with no reads on your opponents, it's not a profitable call to continuously make. Try calling smaller raises, or folding unless an MP calls as well.

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If this is to me, yes in above post you will see I stated I fold every time to a 3xpf raise. I then read Hillbilly's comment and started calling, but my hit ratio is crap and then I am lost and dominated.
However I think he was messing with me and it worked.

Was just a general comment in regards to how I play my small pps. In regards to your strategy, I agree with it. Don't call yourself a nit, often someone who feels like a nit is simply playing smart. No need to play those small pps when you will lose money if the exact situation is played 1000x, that's -ev. Playing to get lucky is simply dumb, put yourself in the right situations and if you have a deep enough BR, you will come out on top.

LOL not messing with you. Honest.

How many hands have you played in the last month?
How many times have you been in the situation described?
How many sets have you hit vs a EP tight raiser?

Here's a positive example from a hand I played today:

full tilt poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em $0.10 Ante - 6 players - View hand 454675
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $50.00
UTG: $49.30
MP: $57.20
CO: $52.20
BTN: $38.10
Hero (SB): $66.00

Pre Flop: ($1.35) Hero is SB with 2 :diamond: 2 :club:
2 folds, CO raises to $2, 1 fold, Hero calls $1.75, 1 fold

Flop: ($5.10) T :spade: 5 :heart: 2 :heart: (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $3, Hero raises to $9, CO calls $6

Turn: ($23.10) Q :spade: (2 players)
Hero bets $12, CO calls $12

River: ($47.10) 6 :club: (2 players)
Hero bets $29.50, CO calls $29.10 all in

Final Pot: $105.30
CO mucks K :diamond: K :heart:
Hero shows 2 :diamond: 2 :club: (three of a kind, Twos)
Hero wins $102.30
(Rake: $3.00)

Little different because he's not in EP (and we're OOP) but he's a 29/1 guy so when he opens his range is crazy strong. We flop the set and all he can do is call with his overpair.

Lol ok I just wanted to make sure you were not messing with me before I explored this more. My brother actually had me once talk to my mechanic about checking out my main battery, the one under my car.
I don't play a ton of hands, I do hit sometimes, but it seems I miss more often then not. I will start to track it more, but wanted to make sure you were not being sarcastic, not that you ever are, lol
ty

Yeah weak pp's are HUGE against an opponent with a tight range. This is actually when their value is at its highest. If you hit they will have a far more difficult time folding to you than if you're trying to pick off tjs that raised preflop and hits top pair jacks when you flop a set of 3's. You're going to fold him out most of the time when the board comes with overcards or he is just smart enough to not stack off with top pair weak kicker.

Naw I wouldn't do that. Just remember you're looking for a specific player type to do this against. Calling a loose opener with a pp to set mine from the blinds is just throwing $$ away.

Remember the more defined your opponent's hand is the more hands you can play against him. So if you know a guy with a 100bb stack has AA, and only AA, every time he opens you can call his bet with ATC, because your implied odds are huge and you know when you're ahead.

WVHillbilly said:

Naw I wouldn't do that. Just remember you're looking for a specific player type to do this against. Calling a loose opener with a pp to set mine from the blinds is just throwing $$ away.

Remember the more defined your opponent's hand is the more hands you can play against him. So if you know a guy with a 100bb stack has AA, and only AA, every time he opens you can call his bet with ATC, because your implied odds are huge and you know when you're ahead.

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Ok thank you, like I said I just wanted to make sure because if you were messing around I would be silly to continue this.

RoyalFish said:

Ok. I have a pp. Nothing special like AA or KK, just a medium pocket pair. Let's say there's a raiser before, I call, the blinds fold, so we have a 7.5 BB pot that I paid 3 BB to see. If nothing else happens and I get to keep it, 40% of the time, I break even, but most of the time that won't happen. If I miss and the bad guy bets, I should let it go. I will miss the flop 88% of the time, losing 3BB. To break even, I need to get 3BB/0.12, or 25 BB on average for this to be a break even play.

Okay. If you can't get 3x the pot when you flop a set, I'd expect you're playing the hand wrong or your opponents are missing.

I'll get exact numbers later, but it's safe to say tonight I'm not getting anywhere near 25 BB on average the times I hit. More often they seem to be missing, because they just fold to a bet, or in one awful case, they had a drawing hand that got there, and I was the one proving implied odds work.

That's poker. You might be betting too hard. They should have the odds to call you with two overs. Also, notice they're folding to your bets after you flat call preflop. Bet more often when you flatcall preflop. They'll stop giving you credit, and start paying you.

Ok, case in point. Just played 55, calling a 4BB PFR. Flopped a set. It went rather well but for a dangerous turn making a straight possible, but the board paired on the river so I was safe from all but better boats. Net win, 22 BB. This was undoubtedly one of the more profitable of the night. If that's so, this is not a profitable play, in spite of what everything I've read tells me.

It sounds to me you need to post this in hand analasys. Here's how it should have gone, if you're out of position.
You call, he raises, folded around, you call. FLOP. You check, he cbets. You raise. SMALL RAISE!! 2x his bet to 2.5x his bet. TURN possible straight. If he doesn't have it now, he could be drawing to it. Try to represent this hand. Largish size bet - 50-75% of the pot. If you get raised, you have a tough decision, if he calls, he's drawing or dumb. If he raises, he's drawing or made and you need to count outs (10). River - Best possible scenario. Bet as much as you think you can and still get called.

Worst case scenario he checks the flop with you. In which case your pot should be about 25-35 BBs, because you definitely have to bet the turn, 5 BBs would be appropriate, putting pot at about 18 BBs. You bet another 5 for value you've made money.

Is this a quirk of microlimits (5 and 10nl), or am I missing something? The video referenced in the post talks about people stacking off with TPTK or an overpair (I think), but I'm not getting people stacking off at all. Either I bet conservatively enough to keep them in the hand, in which case I'm not getting correct implied odds to make this a winning play, or I bet enough to build a large enough pot to make it worthwhile, and nobody wants to come along. Tell ya the truth, I'm looking around the tables and I'm seeing stats that in my admittedly non-Poker God eyes, don't suck. 15/14. 11/8. 15/5. Ok, the 27/6 guy is interesting, but MOST of these guys aren't trading stacks with me for a pair.

I'm definitely a math geek, so that's the kind of spin I'm looking for on this. Not just "this is the right thing to do", but this is the right thing to do because 12% of the time you hit your set, n% of the time you get all someone's chips, x% of the time you get this fraction of 'em, etc.

RF

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Fudge, you want teh math?

I'm not that good at math, and it's 0430 here in Iraq. Okay, I'm good at math. But I'm also good at playing sets. You are not betting enough if your biggest set was 22 BBs, or you let a draw hit.

That's my opinion. /shrug

Edit: Should have my opinions in bold now.