Friday, February 13, 2009

Sets and the dollar

For cash game regulars, sets are the most profitable hands in poker.
You have disguise and more often than not, surety that you have the best hand. The perfect storm is when u are up against an overpair or big ace that hits.
Extracting the most money out of sets is an art; sniffing out sets even more so - but to be profitable consistently playing full ring hold'em cash you need to have this skill.

Case in point last night. I was four-tabling my usual $50 cash games and slowly chipping up.
I had doubled up on one table when I got involved in a big hand with a player who had recently sat down.
I flat-called his EP $2 raise with AKo in mid position and saw a two-way flop of AJx (2 hearts). He led out just under the pot on the flop, I smooth-called. Turn a second Ace. He again leads out 3/4 of the pot. I call. River a blank heart, he fires out a $23 bet.

What does he have?

Well, unless he is bluffing he has to have at least AK, AQ, AJ, JJ or flush - and that's it.
Is he bluffing? You very, very, very rarely get full-ring players who play this aggressively - firing three bluffs in a row is tough! As I said earlier, he had only recently sat down so I had no read on him.

What I should have done was type his name into 'Find a Player' (we were playing on Pokerstars) - he was sitting at 10-tables. A multi-table bot. No bluffs. A clear fold.

As it was I made a terrible call and duly lost.

My instinct was telling me to fold, and I talked myself into calling...

A hand later in the evening, and one which turned out to be my last hand of the night, involved another set.

I was dealt AA in EP and raised to $2 again. I was sitting on around $80 on this table and hand been raising pre a lot.
No respect then, so three callers, including the BB.
I bet out $5 on a flop three low cards, two folds before the BB called.

This immediately set alarm bells ringing as this foe had been playing T-I-G-H-T.
Turn another rag, foe checks, I bet $7.50 (half the pot) and she check raises to $15.

Yes I have Aces but she has a set, a slim chance of 2 pr, but she def has me and I fold.

In hindsight, I could have maybe gotten away with a $5 bet on turn as there were no draws. A call from her on the turn means most likely I am ahead.
The way she played her set was the way I would have played it, two, three years ago. It works but against experienced players it is just too obvious.

The title says a post on the dollar too but I'm at work and need to get back on it.Will try to giev some thoughts on the dollar this weekend.

2 comments:

Amatay said...

How did u know u were beat with AK??? You show no strength in the hand at all.
Also fwiw i sometimes check behind with AA on turn

Marky said...

i just couldn't see him playing that strongly with anything else...especially with the aggro bet on the river - ignoring the flush. In my experience, at $50 tables, players don't bluff much - in an MTT i play this differently.