Set mining the BB

The problem isn't that BTN won't 4B very often. It's that she's going to over-call too often, and we'll be in the worst relative position post-flop in a multi-way pot.

It's actually worse than that. Her raise-call range is likely to have a ton of PP's higher than ours, making a set over set scenario more likely. SB's 3B range will also have a bunch of higher PP's, increasing that likelihood. It's not like either of them can have very many PP's lower than 55.

It gets even worse. When we cold call the 3B, we're not just capping our range, we're condensing it to low-mid PP's, weaker suited aces, and suited Broadway combos. We make it easy for competent players to effectively range us post-flop.

Like, here, if we blast off on KQ5 two-tone, it's kind of easy to range us as having KQ, 55, or a good draw. We're not going to get value from very many worse hands. Doubtful either opponent continues with 66-JJ or AJ/AT with no flush draw. And if we slow-play, we have no visibility when those bigger PP's improve to a higher set.

So, on a lot of flops, we won't be able to rep much for value. Our value hands will be behind our opponents' stronger value hands and vulnerable to their good draws. We'll be in the $hlt position of having to choose between possibly value-owning ourselves by betting into a better hand or playing our hand as a bluff-catcher by check-calling and risk being out-drawn.

Getting involved in multi-way pots with marginal hands and a capped, condensed range is a good way to lose a bunch of money. If you want to avoid that, just fold your low-mid pairs pre when you see this action.

Yeah it's not enough to have the potential to get better than 10 to 1 for it to make sense to set mine. You have to think about what your actual return will be on average.

Sometimes the preflop raiser 4-bets and you don't see a flop. Sometimes you flop a set, but no one else has anything so they all just check fold and you win a smallish pot. Sometimes their overpair makes a runner runner flush to beat your set... When you add up all the outcomes your average return on investment is often smaller than you would expect.

I still think set mining can be very profitable in live low stakes, but I think you should focus on the times when you can see a cheap flop multiway.

Cold calling a light 3-bet for almost 12 BB's OOP with a player yet to act is not the scenario you're looking for to set mine.

Ive made over 700k playing live poker, over $100/hr, may i ask your results? Or are you determined to not learn anything from better players? You are an "old hand" on this forum and your preflop play, the most basic and easiest part of the game to learn, also the most important, to not sugar coat it, is honestly atrocious. Multiple threads ive read from you have had basic -EV preflop errors

Thanks for blowing your horn
Now get back to your charts

You’ve evaluated my game from a few threads
and I don’t think you got much for me. You’re much too good to help me in my simple games

Maybe it occurs to some that I’m not posting standard plays - why do that

Some young folks eventually learn it’s not what you say, it’s how you talk to people.

You've managed to cram two conceptual errors into one sentence.

Firstly you weren't sure button wouldn't 4bet; unless you have specific info related to button opens, which you didn't provide. Notice from the reveal that the "tight passive" was opening a 40% hand; people who have ever read a book or an article know about opening wide from the button, although I didn't expect a hand as wide as this. Maybe your read was off?

You only don't get raised if (1) you confirm that she has different button opening sizes or (2) you have evidence that she will call her entire opening range to a 3bet. It's not even a massive issue; being 4bet won't happen that often and against straightforward players you can just fold (ignoring the fact bat you should have folded in the first place). It's just that it's one of many different lines where you lose money and for every one of those it puts even more pressure to make more money on the rare occasions when you do hit.

Which brings me on to the second conceptual error. Of course you "nearly always get paid with a set". The question is whether you get paid (1) often enough and (2) enough actual money. GreatWhiteFish has already made some great points. When you get 4bet preflop, you lose. When you flop nothing and fold, you lose. When you flop a set, it checks to you and you bet and nobody calls, you win a modest amount. When you get set over set, you lose your stack (it's rare, but it will happen and you need to price that in). You need to make 10 times your investment on average; in reality you will need to make considerably more. As stack sizes increase, the chances of getting a full stack from someone with top pair (etc) decreases, and correspondingly the relative risk you have of losing your entire stack goes up because it costs relatively more.

Who are you more likely to make money from, on average? The 3bettor who is more likely to have an overpair, is aggressive and who you have position on, or the button who has a load of nothing most of the time? Surely the SB, no?

Since reading this I have changed my mind on flop play - I think a small raise may be slightly bigger than a big one. But again - on KQ5 who are you making money from? The enormous raise probably got SB to fold top pair and you were saved by button's pair-plus-draw that hit on the river. You need to raise big enough to make calling with a draw a mistake, but also small enough to build the pot to the amount you needed to break even in the long run on your preflop call.

You're not the only one saying some pretty baffling thing in this thread; deuceblocker - who also seems to love a cold call of a 3bet from the blinds and confidently say things like "folding would be terrible" (not in this thread) acknowledged a load of reasons in GreatWhiteFish's post why cold calling was terrible and then went on to assert that it probably was OK anyway. So much reliance on feel estate going on.

I guess I understand the punishment for fold pre

But it’s not of importance to this evaluation

Honestly, believe it or not, I swear that I fold sevens and below most of the time. I fold any hand that has a seven or below in it, most of the time. It’s a game of high cards.

Rarer than my ‘preflop chart’ friends do I make a play like this. Maybe I like to do it and fix it on the run. Maybe I gamble this time on my wife’s favorite number. If you never get out of line, you don’t give yourself a chance to get lucky.

So, forgive me - I want good advice and not to argue. I was just a little more interested in getting value with a set in this post.

Also, please don’t stop trying to help me - I want to learn and like I said. I really don’t want friction. I have respect

I’ll try to learn when I’m first told that I’m a dummy, before advice is given - it’s not my fault.

Look, I don't know about anyone else here, but please post your wife's number. I too, want to gamble on getting lucky with her. 😉

A couple of years ago when I came here a lot, there would always be a few people trying to beat me down. The hands I posted were me being bad/confused/out of line. I'm not sure why it's a mystery to some, but win or lose, I'm not posting the hands I play by the book and that are easy to navigate. I'm still learning and this thread has been enlightening. Thanks for posting.

At the risk of having future regret over trying to help by commenting in one of your threads, I'll offer what I hope will be taken as constructive input. Here goes...

There are several items of note in the above quote.

First, you've got the BTN labeled tight passive, yet apparently she opened Q4s for a raise. Even on the button, that's not typical of tight passive players. If she does that sort of thing a lot, she's LAG, bordering on maniacal.

You note she over-folds to aggression. That would align with her opening too wide. She has to fold to aggression when her raising range is so weak.

You have SB labeled as LAG, suggesting his 3B range is wide. That's likely true, particularly if he's noticed she opens wide and over-folds to aggression.

If all those things you noticed are true, you might use all that as a logical argument for 4B'ing here, not flatting. If she's wide and over-folds, and he's LAG and is likely to be 3B'ing wide, a 4B here is likely going to be higher EV than cold-calling the 3B.

You're not TAG. TAG's don't cold-call 3B's with low and mid PP's. That's loose. And passive.

Interesting that you said she's tight-passive, and over-folds to aggression, yet she apparently opened Q4s pre, and over-called a 3B, and cold-called your raise over SB's c-bet on the flop, and called your river all-in.

Again, she doesn't sound tight-passive, nor does it seem like she over-folds to aggression. She sounds insanely loose-passive, and super-sticky.

Granted, she had 2nd pair and a FDFD to the 3rd nut flush, but SB could have 3B the flop, and you're unlikely to have worse than Q4 when you cold-call the 3B pre, raise flop, and jam river.

I'm pointing it out to suggest perhaps A) you may want to work on developing your live reads on opponents, and B) you may also want to work on applying logical reasoning to find lines which are supported by your reads.

Here again, I question your logic. You admit you thought your turn check was bad (I agree, it was), but then say you might not have gotten paid had you bet again.

She didn't just limp pre, call a raise, and then call a flop c-bet. She raised pre, called a 3B, and then called your flop RAISE over the 3B'ers c-bet. She clearly likes her hand a lot. She's probably not folding turn if you barrel for a big size, which would have made it easier to get the rest in on the river. She might have called a turn over-bet jam with her exact hand.

Even if we're not expecting her to have Q4cc, we can assign her QXcc, or KQ, or JT, etc. You thought she was tight-passive and would over-fold to aggression. Once she calls our flop raise, we should be thinking about what a "tight" range would look like, and continue betting our set for value.

If you thought she would fold and SB would call, how were you ranging SB? He 3B pre, and c-bet into two opponents on the flop. You said you thought he could be 3B'ing light pre. If that's true, wouldn't you expect him to fold to your flop raise?

If he wasn't 3B'ing light, he's likely to fold his thin value, SDV, and air. The only hands he can continue with would be thick value or super-nutted. When you raise here, you're saying you have 55, KQ, or a super-combo-draw. The worst hand he can have that will call would be KQ. He'll probably 3B jam KK and QQ.

If she's tight-passive, wouldn't you expect her to connect with this board? I don't think I'd ever play the hand the way you did, but I'd expect her to call and him to fold more often than the other way around.

You say you knew she wouldn't be aggressive on the turn. If that's true, all the more reason to keep value-betting.

There's so much to unpack here.

First, when a player raises, another 3B's, and you cold-call, the initial raiser has an incentive to 4B more, not less. And when they 4B, you know they're going to have top of range, so we have to fold.

When you cold-call a 3B, you do NOT always get paid with a set, not even almost always. The reason why is that cold-calling a 3B condenses our range to low-mid PP's, suited aces, and suited Broadway combos. When we raise on this flop, we're really only repping KQ or 55. We make it easy for KX and QX combos to fold, and when we get 3B, we're usually going to be getting coolered by KK/QQ.

Low stakes players actually tend to over-value low and mid PP's, not under-value them. They're actually less valuable at low-stakes, to the extent low-stakes players tend to have tighter raising and 3B ranges, such that we can get set-over-setted more often by higher PP's that didn't raise or 3B/4B pre.

You told us in your OP that BTN over-folds to aggression. Here you're telling us low stakes players want to call. If she over-folds to aggression, why not flat call the flop and invite her to call? If they want to call, why not barrel on the turn?

The implied odds are almost always there when we're the PFR and flop a set. They're not there nearly as often when we cold-call a 3B pre. It's not just that we run the risk of getting coolered set-over-set. It's that we hobble our ability to get paid when we have the best hand, and all but eliminate our ability to rep a better hand when we don't.

You explained that you didn't think the BTN was strong enough to 4B. That implies that if she was strong, she would 4B. You didn't explain why you thought she was weak, other than saying she MIGHT have opened bigger if she had a strong hand.

But action folded to her on the BTN. If she did have a big hand, with only two players left holding cards, it would make sense for her to open smaller. A lot of low stakes players will bet small with big hands in spots like that, hoping to get some action.

Set-mining works best when we're the pre-flop aggressor, or we raise and call a 3B with the correct implied odds. It also works okay when we over-call a single raise and we get to act last post-flop, especially if we're in good position relative to the pre-flop aggressor.

Part of the value in raising with our sets or over-calling in position is that we can rep a wider range of hands. We can't do that when we cold-call a 3B pre, or double-flat pre. We're effectively giving away our ability to bluff post-flop, such that we ONLY get paid when we improve to a set, AND our opponents get sticky with a worse hand.

That's a lot to hope for when cold-calling with low and mid PP's.

"Maybe there's more sophistication in your rooms" sounds like you're suggesting you have a hammer-lock on the tendencies of your local player pool, which you likely deem to be pretty bad, based on your actions and comments.

I've played in multiple rooms from Virginia to Philly, the mid-west, Atlantic City, and Vegas. Here and there, I've observed that some player pools are better or worse, but I'm less concerned with how "the room" plays, and more concerned with how the specific players in my game are actually playing.

I try to play fundamentally sound, and adjust to the 7-9 players at my table. I don't build my strat around "my room".

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with your "checklist", but those are actually salient things to notice about our opponents. If you can develop those quick reads in real time, and know how to exploit the leaks which flow from them, you should be a stone-cold crusher.

If you were being dismissive of them, you shouldn't be. You may be overlooking dollars while you're picking up dimes.

There's a better chance of stacking someone when we hit a set as the pre-flop raiser who called the 3B or we were the player who 3B.

It's much harder to stack someone when we flop a set in a multi-way pot and we showed no aggression pre-flop, because it's more face-up when we suddenly wake up and bet / raise post-flop, and it's easier for our opponents to fold their non-nutted hands facing our sudden aggression.

Personally, I tend to post hands when my opponent's action doesn't make sense to me, or I think I may have made a mistake but I don't see what it was.

I wouldn't post a hand in which I made a "standard play" either, because there'd be no point. But if you post a hand in which you made a non-standard play, I'd think you'd be expecting people to disagree with your line. I'd think you'd be prepared to explain your reasoning, and / or you'd be more open to constructive commentary.

As for how young folks learning how to talk to people, I'd point out that some old folks might want to take a look in the mirror:

This is not only why many people (including myself) hesitate to respond to your threads. It's also very likely why some of those people don't try to tiptoe around your feelings by couching their comments in the gentlest language possible (as I've often tried to do).

Plenty of people on here are dicks. That doesn't make them wrong.

As always, the above is respectfully submitted for your consideration, and I hope something here is helpful.

I may have given in to hyperbole on that one.

So...action folds to the BTN in a 7-handed game. Okay, I suppose we could make an argument that any combo which is suited and has a Broadway card in it may be good enough to raise, but...

It's not a tournament. It's a low stakes cash game, presumably with a high rake. Yet she raises to $10 with a hand that is marginally playable at best.

She's risking $10 to win $4 pre-flop. If either opponent raises, she'll have to fold. If either opponent calls, they'll see a flop, and rake will be taken.

Whatever we think her playing style is, she's bad at this game.

It's all just so unnecessary. And I'm saying that as someone who will open an insanely wide range from the BTN, not just when action folds to me, but even when there are limpers. When action folds to me on the button, I'll fold a lot of marginal hands, hoping the blinds will chop so we can get the next hand dealt.

All that said, no, it's probably not bordering on maniacal, but it is clearly LAG. It's neither tight, nor passive. I think the rest of the hand and her actions within it may have led me to view her as the opposite of TP, which would of course be LAG.

What her line in the rest of the hand says about her is debatable, I suppose. I think I'd have folded her hand on the flop, and no one other than GWF has accused me of playing tight. If she's going to call the flop raise with her hand, I'd think a case could be made that she should bet it on the turn.

The two preflop reads are working against each other though. "Neither of them is strong enough to 4bet me" and "I almost always get paid when I hit" can't both be true of the same ranges. If they're weak enough that a 4bet is never coming, they're usually too weak to pay off 100bb when you spike.
What actually rescues the call isn't the math, it's the specific humans. A guy who cold 3bets to outplay a weak opener is also the type to barrel off when he connects, and BTN calling 35 cold with Q4cc tells you everything about what "implied odds" means in this game. So "call against these two" is defensible. "Small pairs always play against 3bets live" is how you bleed in all the games where the villains don't cooperate.

Thanks for your effort doc
I don’t mind criticism, but they don’t need to be prefaced with insults.

The lot to unpack is that it’s hard to describe things in writing. Yes, she made questionable plays in this hand - maybe from opening on the button - but she plays tight-passive. I stand by my read, yet she strayed.

Because a player acts out of character, it doesn’t change their label.

I think you use so many words doc, that you cover all the bases. I can disagree with you and remain in a reasonable conversation.

But it’s a two-way street doc
You say people don’t want to respond because they don’t like me disagreeing with them.
Well FreeCard doesn’t want to post, if people are going to be dicks and attack me.

We don’t have a lot of posts - I might not be alone - others might not want to hear the noise either. Some of my biggest critics, the legends in their own minds, never post anything on here.

I think it’s helpful to discuss poker, that’s why I’m here. But we’re talking about one hand at a time - a kind of meaningless hand in the grand scheme of things. Yet, people are furious that I did this or that

I have had to fight my way through life, no handouts - and now I’m old and I have carved out a great life for myself. I’m a very happy man. If we could measure it, I would make a hefty wager that nobody here is happier than I am. Maybe a lot of unhappy people here IDK

My world has always been competitive and when attacked the flight response never kicks in, my instinct is to fight. Thus, I have reacted poorly on here - but some should admit my behavior has improved, I want to do good.

So I slipped into old age healthy, happy and enjoying poker as a hobby. I was hoping that I might bring some different perspectives to this forum - I refuse to believe that nobody wants to hear what old people have to say.

Poker is a game
But honestly, I wish that all of you find your way thru life. I have a short memory of haters, and will continue to try to interact in a positive way.

The reads are consistent. Typical loose passive players will not 4! but give too much action postflop.

Of course it is a GTO fold. It is close though preflop. If it was 4-ways, it would be an easy call. You have to win a lot on average when you hit for it to be worth it. Often, you have to raise the flop or turn and they fold to that. When you lose to a higher set or a straight, etc., you usually get stacked.

I agree with all this. None of us are fully consistent and reads are always flawed because we're working with small sample sizes.

Vs might be tilting because H pissed them off unknowingly, they got an email proving their life got hit by a bus, or whatever. I've seen several people alergic to cashing out a loss, so they go from passive to super agro and blast off hundreds so they can go home. A few Vs play BU out of character.

When posting a hand, all we can do is go with our best impressions. Sometimes we'll find out we were wrong. It happens to me a lot.

Sent from my SM-A546V using Tapatalk

Why create a thread called ''Set mining the BB'' if you're not open to pre-flop advice?

This sub is not a fan of being told a preflop spot is a trivial fold. Trust me. I've tried a few times.

Others have already piled on regarding this, but my 2 cents:

- even if we're pretty sure Button isn't going to 4bet, it's still going to happen once in a blue moon, so even at like 5% that takes a hit to our overall profitability when we're forced to fold after putting in a chunky $35 preflop

- I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "I almost always get paid with a set", but there is no way you are getting paid what you need to be profitable every single time you flop a set; there'll be the rare time when you make gobs which will hopefully make up for the vast majority of the time where you fall short of what you need; in this example here, we only got one very small postflop bet (the ~same amount we paid to see a flop for) out of the preflop 3better (so a terrible return on our money against him, who as a 3better you'd think would have a lotta reason to go deep into the hand); we sorta lucked out that the only other player involved flopped a monster that was never going to fold

- we're not necessarily "worried about set over set monsters", we simply need to factor in the times we flop a set and lose into our overall profitability (and when you do this the overall profitability isn't nearly as rosy as you think); this is perfect case here, where preflop sets us up where we have to make about 7.5 * $32 = $240 just to breakeven, which we barely managed to do accomplish at the point of our huge flop raise... in a spot where *we were going to lose our whole stack 30% of the time*; now think about what would have happened if the 3bettor was tight and was willing to stack off on this flop (again, we're probably losing our whole stack at least 20% of the time against a tight range looking to play for stacks on this flop); this RIO has to be factored in and greatly reduces the overall profitability

- "small pairs are more valuable at low stakes than most believe" is actually probably the exact opposite of the actual reality; it's more likely they aren't even profitable at all except in very good configurations (and this ain't one of them); and where's the reciprocality, cuz after all, everyone at the table is more-or-less playing small pocket pairs fairly similarly (i.e. see a flop for whatever cost, try to flop a set) and yet at the same time most everyone at the table is a long term loser (their poor evaluation of a good setmining spot isn't the only reason they are losing overall, but it is part of the problem)

If I see someone make this call preflop, I move their ratings slider a bit in the direction towards the fish end of the scale. If one of the better (and even no doubt winning) players does it, as I'm adjusting their ratings slider I'll say to myself "huh, this dood ain't as good a player as I thought he was". Not hatin', just sayin'.

GcluelesssetminingnoobG

Actually a player acting out of the character you have defined them as should change their label. It looks possible from this hand history that V is what I label a changling; their style of play is highly positionally based. The point of labels is the ability to use them to predict what hands are within Vs range given the current hand history; I'd much rather have no label on a player than one that has been proven inaccurate.

If it was a single raised pot, you would be getting way better implied odds, making it more of a call. If it was 4-way, it would be a call. If the configuration or reads were different, and the 3-better had JJ+/AK a high percentage of the time, it would be call. As it is, it is a preflop fold. I don't agree it is that trivial a situation though. Low stakes players 4! less, have stronger 3! ranges, and pay off more when you hit your set.

The 1-3 GOAT was trying to be as nice as possible, hinting at fold without saying it. Solvers say it's a pure fold, and much better pairs aren't winning. People with online stats. know it has a long track record of losing. People who study and play higher, telling everyone nobody wants to believe them but it's a trivial fold.

The read is something, but BTN's play isn't that bad and SB could have folded AK or JJ.

Purely the facts: hero needed to win at least 350 after his call to break even, and the most positive spin is he won 330

Better strat: When this spot comes up next take a $1 out and set fire to it as you fold. You'll be "winning" 2x your current rate. ¯\_(ツ😉_/¯

I remember basically being called a regard for saying I have a huge online sample size and ''insert hand'' is doing poorly even though conventional wisdom says ''we can profitably call in this spot''.

Glad to see some are agreeing.

I agree it is a fold. However, the hand plays better in a live 1/3 game than it does online.

It would play better as a 4B than as a cold call here.

This is might be good 4! bluff spot, but an awful hand to 4! bluff with.

Which is why we should just fold. It doesn't play well as a cold call. You and OP can try to rationalize the call, but it's just bad.

Saying it's better live than it would be online doesn't make it good. If it's losing less in a live game than it loses online, it's still losing. It's bad either way.