I just wanna clarify my understanding of this rule and make sure I'm utilizing it correctly. I believe I've heard it from Bart Hansen from Crush Live Poker. And I think there's some variation to the amounts.

General rule of thumb:

You should look to make off your opponent at least

15×Blind for pocket pair
25×Blind for suited connector
35×Blind for suited one gap connector

I play 2-5 live no limit
10 players
At least 3 to 5 are LAG fish. Hard to put them on a range. They play any two. Big gamblers
Yes! This is a good game!
I play TAG

So if the pot is limped around. I should expect to make X amount to be profitable

$75 pocket pair
$125 suited connector
$175 suited connector

Is this correct?

The usual open bet is $20-$25

To call $20 with a pocket pair (To set mine 22-99) I should look to make $300 off my opponent? And that we both need to have at least $300? If I'm shorter than $300 should I never call with my smaller pairs and only raise with TT+?

Same goes with suited connector
To call $20 I'm expecting to make $500 off my opponent and must also have $500$

To call $20 with One gap connector I should make $875.

So.... should I
A) tighten up my range?
B) Buy in for $1000 to open up my range?
C) limp with these hands and try to play a small multi way pot and play post flop accordingly?

The average is 4 players to see flop. And lots like to chase. And lots will pay you off.

Whatever the case. It's a great game and I've done well in it the last few months but have recently hit a down swing. Just looking for some pointers that will help clean up my strategy. Thanks for all input!

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You seem to have the basic rule of thumb down. Note that this rule of thumb is generally designed for heads-up pots. In multi-way pots, you don't have to make as much from each V, but you also have more ways to end up hitting your hand ans still losing, so I want a bit better potential profit in those hands. Also, position matters a ton. When we talk about calling raises, there is an implication of being in position, but especially in these multi-way hands that's not often true, so add more implied odds requirements for whenever we'll be out-of-position and it's hard to extract.

Finally, player types matter a ton. If lots of players get stacks in light post-flop, then your max possible implied odds can be less, because your average is still more.

As for your adjustments, A only works if you're not getting the odds you need, which it sounds like you usually are, B is only effective if other players are deep too, and C works well if people often call off light post flop, don't bet you off your odds when you flop a draw, and don't get suspicious when you limp pre and then call after eyeing effective stacks. Given the way you describe your game, as exploitable as that adjustment theoretically is, it might be a better way for you to exploit your Vs, especially as they don't seem likely to exploit you.

Thank you very much for your input! I'll re-read it a few more times and let it sink in. I'm in a game right now so we'll see how it goes! Thanks

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These hard and fast rules are ridiculous. I could list plenty of reasons but heres the most obvious one.

What if you call a raise with 88 but the raiser has 33? You think you needed to make 15X his raise for your call to be profitable? I guess the rule is fine if you plan to fold every time you dont hit a set but if that's your plan, your plan needs work. If he has 33 or just about any hand other than a big overpair, you are never going to win 15X his raise even when you DO hit a set.

You cant play winning poker using just math.

Thanks for your opinion. You make a good point. I think I would be giving up way to much way to early. And would be refusing to play post flop poker if I didn't hit my set. I think making those folds would make Me weak tight.

I'd like to hear others counter your statement.

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OK, Mike, your contrarian "math is dumb" schtickt is getting old. This is not a rule, it is a rule of thumb, and it is designed to be a default to vary from based on game conditions.

The general rule of thumb for straight-up set mining, BTW, is usually 20x. 15x the bet you are facing allows for you to make a profit when you sometimes win the pot unimproved. All of these are just general estimates. Obviously, if you know V has red aces and will stack off every single time, no matter the board, you just need 8.548x IOs to be profitable. These rules of thumb help you to estimate what is needed in the real world, but they are neither the be all and end all, nor useless. They are just tools to help frame your thinking.

you need to factor in that two red aces sometimes beats your flopped set.

Wtf?

Does not compute

The idea that Bart is expressing here is to debunk the previous assumption that a 10x rule for set mining is no longer effective. You need to be deeper to make this a profitable play because less players are willing to stack off with Top Top as they were 10 years ago. I think he created the other multipliers to give a good rule of thumb. You can obviously tweak the multiplier to whatever you want but the idea is to have a plan and make the decision easy.

That's true but what also has changed since 10 years ago is people dont just raise big pairs and AK. If your villain is an OMC that still only raises AA/KK and will never fold them then these rules are fine.

However, nowadays there are many more people raising KJ, 44, A4s, 87s ect. Against those people these rules are useless. Playing fit or fold and set mining with pockets pairs or trying to hit big flops with suited connectors wont work because the raiser will very rarely have a big enough hand to play a huge pot. You need to be able to win pots with one pair or even no pair sometimes. Otherwise just fold these hands preflop and you should almost never be calling a raise without a hand big enough to win unimproved.

$300 is just over break even, but it's also important to know if the money will go in the pot or not, not only to say he has it in his stack.

SC's and suited one gappers would need a lot of people calling a raise to make it profitable. I would want at least 5 other people in the hand, depending on my hand strength, my position, and the raise amount.

I wouldn't start limping with these hands, that would be awful. Don't buy in more to open up your range either. If anything, tighten up your CALLING RANGE with most of those hands. Make sure the pot is multiway and there aren't any known squeezers otb or in the blinds.

This is terrible advice and it's also your worst post yet.

You claim to be someone who is crushing the game with some self proclaimed astronomical winrate but you don't even have a clue about one of the most important and basic concept of texas holdem - preflop setmineing odds.

You're right about one thing though, bad fish on heaters don't need to use math!

LOL

These books people read to learn poker might as well be called "How to beat low limit poker for 3BB/hr"

Mike what you are saying is still math based. You're making adjustments based on player tendencies. You can't just say Lol Math

I remember originally thinking HOC's standard of needing 20x (or was it 25x?) for setmining was a little too conservative.

After you go thru a stretch (which I'm going thru now) where most of the time when you make a set you lose your stack if any money goes in postflop, you begin to wonder if these estimates are actually a little too liberal.

GcluelesssetminingnoobG

The 15/25/35 rules apply to value. If you are trying to bluff someone because they are weak then the rules don't matter as long as you have enough to move them off the street they are weak AND they are bluffable.

But most players don't have the capacity or the balls to do so.

Wow, beating able to beat lol LLSNL is such a big, big accomplishment. Teach me your ways, coach Mike.

You'd get crushed at any remotely tough table, especially online tables

I agree with Mike. These rules seem like a crutch to avoid learning how to play poker. In some spots you can probably call with only 10:1 on a pure set-mine. In some spots no stack depth will make a pure set-mine profitable. Suggesting that you need 15:1 implied odds to set-mine is far to general to be very useful. Conditions which make certain hands profitable depend on many more variables than just stack depth.

Yeah, and this in a nutshell too.

Like being HU OOP without initiative against a very good player is never going to be a profitable purely setmining spot, even if he's sitting with 1000x.

These numbers are simply default starting point suggestions, and are fine for eliminating the obvious cases (i.e. he has 8x left, so obviously can't purely setmine), but have to quickly move past stack sizes and evaluate other factors after that.

GcluelesssetminingnoobG

This type of thinking might've helped someone win in 2007, but poker is much more complex today, and players (other than droolers) don't just dump off their stack against your 44 on a K84 flop like they used to. If you get a lot of chips in on that flop, expect to lose often. Nowadays I usually just muck my small pairs against a preflop raise, ESPECIALLY when deep. Small pairs are probably the most overrated hands in poker, they're mostly just good for getting yourself stacked. And most of the time you're opponents today have wide enough ranges that often when you flop a set they'll have nothing to pay you off with anyways. If you're known as a player who doesn't bluff, then a savvy player will just bet-fold their top-pair and overpairs. If you want to be a winner, that's the type of information you should be exploiting. Poker is now much more of a people game again, because just playing your cards in most games won't make you a winner.

But if people aren't stacking off with top-top when they're deep, then what hands are we expecting to get paid off with? What's the point of being deeper if they'll pay us off even less often?

If you can get into a limped pot with a small pair, that's ideal. If you can have a lot of fold equity post flop when you make moves, then the hand can still be played. If your opponent is a total drooler, small pairs can be played. But other than that, in 2017 poker, small pairs are garbage. You pretty much need your opponent to flop top 2 or some huge combo draw in order to get paid off big. And then you have to hold.

For the love of God, don't agree with me or you will be voted off the island.

Ummmm everyone live still sucks... atleast 5/10 and under

Just because they don't auto stack off with overpairs and top pairs, doesn't mean they don't suck. It just means you have to exploit them differently.