1/2 Late night

BB is an old man. Not a true OMC, but close.

UTG+3 is a young flashy guy that sat down an hour ago. Super loose pre. Aggro post flop. Hero has pegged him as a poor player who will go broke with TP. Hero is looking to snap up a seat to his left should one come up.

Fish limps UTG, Hero opens TT for $17 UTG+2, Young flashy guy makes it $45 (range is most likely QQ+ and AK here), folded around to an old man in BB (not true OMC) who calls (range is PP heavy, AK, maybe AQs, an unlikely AQ), fish limps, action on hero.

Hero covers

Old Man has $250ish

Flashy guy has $X

Occasionally we can win without making a set or a straight.

How much does X have to be for us to call here?

How about smaller PP's?

I would like to see him have 400-500 atleast because you are in very bad shape against these ranges and are relying on IO to make this hand profitable.

You said young dude is "super loose pre. Aggro post flop." How often does dude 3-bet pre? How do you believe he sees you? Also, seeing as this is "late night," dudes like young dude tend to get even more loose and aggro.

What makes you believe he's mostly 3-betting with QQ+, AK?

Also, I've never heard "set farming" before. I'm going to start calling it all the time now.

Subscribing so I can post a detailed response later. We need multiples of the $30 more we're calling. We need to make about $255 to break even. $105 of what we need is already in the pot, so we need another $150 to break even, on average, including our stack size losses when we get set over setted.

Set mining (or farming, man, that is Old School) is rarely hugely profitable in 3 bet pots. But it can be profitable.

More later when I have more time.

If you think he has QQ+ or AK you are hoping to flop a Ten. I like to use 15x the pre flop raisers bet for set mining so I would call if his stack is around 650. You can also just fold here OOP to a 3!.

awaiting master Mpethy's response with keen interest.

hu stick to 15x. old man likely 4bets kk aa so discount those. but u are up agaist two gyys so odds go up. but also. means u pretty much always have to hit a set to win. in this case id want ~$400 to start.
u flop a set 12% of time. even against QQ+ there will be overcard to QQ+ ~25% of time killing your action. bluffing against two strong ranges is spew. u still lose ~12% of time agains overpair when u hit a set. occasaionally they make huge hero fold. this is why 15:1 hu is good

I like to use a general rule of 20x the bet.
so someone raises $15, can we win 300?

+1

If I truly believe I can lay down a set if 2 overs come with my ten & the betting dictates it, then I'll call if I truly believe I can make [at a minimum] the 15x $23 I have to call.

Since you have 2 tens & one comes on the flop, that ten is most likely the key card needed for so many str8 draws.

So just a few more thoughts on this situation. First, a caveat: we have been debating the profitability of set mining in 3 bet pots on 2+2 on and off fr the whole decade I've been here. The math is simply too complex for there to be, imo, any definitive answer to whether it is usually profitable or unprofitable.


The best we can do is look at the usual factors--implied odds, stack sizes, position, skill edge, etc. and try to identify the best situations that almost certainly have to be profitable.

Some premises:

1. We will flop a set about 12% of the time, once every 8.5 times we try.

2. We will assume that we can more or less break even when we don't flop a set but continue in the hand (this is somewhat optimistic, but it simplifies the math to something possible to approximate). If we're breaking even when we don't flop a set, then all of our profits come from when we do, and our simplified model is the same as perfectly adhering to "no set no bet."

3. The young flashy guy has a range that is half overpairs to ours. The other V has a range that is about 1/4-1/3 overpairs to ours (JJ and QQ in a range of AQ and AK per OP and pairs, say, 99-QQ)

4. The combined probability that one of the villains has an overpair to our TT is roughly 75%.

5. The combined probability that one of the Vs will flop a set .75 x .125 = .0937, which we'll just round up to 9.5%.

6. The probability that one of the Vs will flop a set when we flop a set is roughly .095 x .125 - .012, 1.2%

7. An overpair that realizes all of its equity against us will beat us by the river an additional 8% of the time. So #6 and #7 combine to mean that we will flop a set and lose to a better set about 9.2% of the time (setting aside our quads draw) if, and only if, overpairs can realize all of their equity against us.

8. Overpairs, of course, can't realize all of their equity against us, even in a 3 way 3 bet pot with a usually very low SPR. QQ on a ATx flop isn't really going to realize any of its equity against us, right?

So this turns out to be an enormously complicating factor. JJ is going to see an overcard that prevents it from realizing all of its equity about half the time, and so on up to AA which never sees an overcard, of course, but does see flops that it hates (QJT or KKT, for ex).

It's probably a reasonable assumption that overpairs will realize something in the neighborhood of 3/4 of their equity, maybe 2/3. so let's say that 6% of the time overpairs will run us down by the river.

9. That means we flop a set but lose to a better one 7.2% of the time, call it 7%

10. Of course, we can lose in other ways, too; the AQ/AK parts of their range flop good equity on us on a lot of boards that we flop sets on, and, rarely, flop the joint. In turn, we have redraws against these hands.

Flushes are probably the biggest threat. A quarter of their AQ/AK combos are suited, and a flopped flush draw has maybe 25% equity against us (??? too lazy to look these numbers up). So if half or more of their combined ranges are AQ/AK hands, and a quarter of those are suited, and a suited starting hand flops a flush draw 1 in 9 and then has 25% equity against us, then we're going to lose to a flush .5 x .25 x .11 x .25 = .003.

Again, that's if a flush draw realizes all of its equity, but it probably comes close, since, if we have flopped a set, he also has some sort of back door straight draw in addition to his flush draw.

Then there is the odd flopped straight, flopped flush, trips that draw out on us, etc. Let's just arbitrarily say these all add up to 3% of the time we flop a set we're going to lose to the AQ/AK part of his range. Probably a worst case number there, but let's roll with it.

11. #9 and #10 above combine to tell us that maybe 10% of the time we flop a set, we're still going to lose (and don't kid yourself, these are going to be big losses, in the neighborhood of 80-90% of effective stacks, usually).

12. So now you can approximate your losses as:

a. 87.5% of the time, you lose the $30 call (see #2 above)
b. 1.2% of the time, we're going to lose, say, 85% of effective stacks (#11 above). For these purposes, let's put effective stacks at 150bb, $300.

in 100 trials, then, our losses are

a. -1312.5 bb, $2625 failing to flop a set, or -$26 per call.
b. -153 bb. or $306, getting coolered/sucked out on when we flop a set.

Total losses in 100 trials, $2931, or 1465 bb

We're going to win with a set roughly 10% of the time, 10 trials in the 100. That math is easy, then; if we don't average 146.5 bb per win, or $293.10 per winning set, we're losing money by making the preflop call.

Remember, though, that when we are making the $30 call, there is already $105 in the pot, so we "only" need the villains to put in another $188, and the pot on the flop is going to be $135.

*****End of the sort of step by step analysis*****

So we can argue back and forth all day on whether it is possible to extract an additional $188, on average. Arguing in favor of being able to are mainly three facts:

1. Both villains are on strong ranges
2. Even if effective stacks are 250bb, $500, the SPR is still really low, like a 4, which makes it harder for them to get away from hands they flop.
3. We are indifferent as to how the $188 goes in; it can all come from one player or we can trap some dead money from a second villain.

#3 is itself a really interesting point that I think about a lot. The old 15X the bet rule for set mining always assumed that you were heads up against the pre-flop raiser. How valid is it to say "In a mutliway pot, I don't need the preflop raiser to have 15x the bet to justify a set mine, I just need there to be 15x the bet available for me to win from the combined stacks that see the flop."

I need 8.5 times the bet to break even on a set mine, but it doesn't matter where it comes from. If the PFR c-bets and gets called by MP, that's just as good for me as if the PFR bets twice, right? So, in calculating my implied odds, there is no good reason whatsoever to be ignoring the other caller's stack.

That's especially true when, as here, in this 3 bet pot, the other caller has to be on a range that is nearly as strong as the 3 bettor's.

So if we just applied the 15x rule to this hand by rote, we'd say "the call is $30, we need the PFR to have $450 to justify the call."

But I'm inclined to say "the call is $30, we need their combined total stacks to be $450 to justify the call."

In doing this, which is exactly what I do at the table, I discount the money of the guy whose range is weak, or who is going to be able to get away from his hand, or whatever.

Say for example, that I am OTB with 55. UTG, with $120, raises to $12. Right away, this looks like a turbo muck in accordance with the 15x rule, right? But, now suppose that he gets called by UTG1, who pretty much has to have a strong range to make that call, and UTG+1 has $180, and then a fish calls from the CO with $80.

Now there is $48 in the pot, 4x my call, so if I can reasonably expect another $60 or so to go in, I'm going to break even on the hand. Well, if anybody else hits anything at all on this hand, it's going to be child's play to get $60 into the pot, and if the fish in the CO hits anything worse, you're more or less guaranteed his 80.

So when the pot isn't HU, you're not just looking at the PFR's stack, you're looking at who is likely to put money in the pot, and how much and ho often. Back online, one of the assumptions was that when you flopped a set, you were most likely to win additional money from the PFR, because he had the strongest range. Live, that is much less true, not because the PFR isn't usually strong (he's usually stronger live than he is online), but because in, say a 4 way pot, it's as likely that one of the other callers hits a hand as the PFR will, and it's highly likely that at least one of them will hit a hand. Think about a flop of A95r; it's reasonable to assume that you're going to get a bet or two from either UTG or UTG+1, but you shouldn't be expecting to stack a reasonable player there. So you might look at their two stacks and say, ok, those two guys are probably good for $30-$60 on most flops, and the cut off is likely to shove anything decent he flops, so it's going to happen quite ften that there's already another $100 or so in the pot when it gets to me, so calling here is fine.

All of which is a lot of discussion about what is a sort of working hypothesis I use when I play: when the pot is multiway,a calculation similar to the 15x rule is a useful go-by when applied to the sum of the other player's stacks, rather than effective stack depth. But you can't just tally up their stacks; you have to think about how likely it is that they're going to put additional money in the pot, and how the hand plays out.

At bottom, that's an argument for calling shallower in 3 bet pots than the 15x rule would permit. SPR reinforces this idea of calling shallower than the 15x rule, because the SPR is so low, it's trivial to get stacks in.

The strength of villains' ranges also reinforces this idea of calling shallower. you only need 9x your call to make a profit when you flop a set. the 15x rule is factoring in (among other things) the probability that you'll actually get 9x, and trying to ensure that for each time you get 3x, and made an unprofitable call, there's a time when there's 15x for you to win so your average of the two is 9x. But the stronger their ranges, the higher the probability you'll win 9x or more. So when ranges are super strong and SPR is super shallow, the 15x rule really ought to become the 11x rule, or something, and, again, you don't need any one player to have 11x.

So, to go back to the OP. If I have TT here, and PFR has the bare minimum I need to profit, say, $300, then I'm pretty much calling here a lot, because the probability that the other V will also put money in the pot increases the money available and also increases the probability that I will get all of the PFRs stack when he has or makes a pair and I flop a set.

I would like to add... w/r/t multi-way pots.

It will also depend on how you're are going to play your set when facing multiple villains.

Are you ever folding?

I think this is an important question because if you are open to the idea of folding a set, because of the multi-way pot, then much of the time you will be folding either the best hand, or a hand with lots of equity against a non-nutted ranges.

If you are willing to let your hand go on bad runouts, then IMO, you need stacks to be deeper to make up for your line.

(Which is fine, btw. I have a policy of never folding any set in pots that were raised pre, for less then about 150bb effective, but I can appreciate that others would not play this way. In my experience, the spazz-factor of LLSNL means folding sets just doesn't make sense.)

IME, the third parties in the hand tend to have speculative ranges... not strong ranges as per the OP's example.

They're often seeing flops with suited cards, connected cards, and other set mining hands -- all of which negatively effects our po-flop equity when they want to get stacks in with us.

[QUOTE=kookiemonster;47825749]1/2 Late night

BB is an old man. Not a true OMC, but close.

UTG+3 is a young flashy guy that sat down an hour ago. Super loose pre. Aggro post flop. Hero has pegged him as a poor player who will go broke with TP. Hero is looking to snap up a seat to his left should one come up.

Fish limps UTG, Hero opens TT for $17 UTG+2, Young flashy guy makes it $45 (range is most likely QQ+ and AK here), folded around to an old man in BB (not true OMC) who calls (range is PP heavy, AK, maybe AQs, an unlikely AQ), fish limps, action on hero.

Hero covers

Old Man has $250ish

Flashy guy has $X

Occasionally we can win without making a set or a straight.



The fish relimped? if he called the extra 43 then we should be calling another 28 all day

To add to Mpethys excellent analysis, this is a situation where relative position is going to be really important. If your next to act after villain then it's going to be a lot tougher to get money in the pot from other players without getting lucky. Conversely if the PFR c bets and 3 people have the opportunity to act before you do anything at all with your set then you have a massively more profitable situation. As Mpethy said, online this didn't happen often enough to really focus on but multiway pots are the norm in LLSNL and that concept alone can change your decision to set mine or not.

15:1 implied odds is a good standard when we will essentially be playing to flop a set only?

Edit: This hand would have made a good PAHWM

There's an important difference to your EV whether money goes in pre-flop as dead money or is wagered post-flop. If you don't see that immediately, pause for a moment and thinking about why.

I'm reading the OP and I am seeing $3 in dead money in the pot--the SB and the $2 limp by the UTG fish who folds when it comes back around to him.

So I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Regarding your one card board AA v. TT: lol, AA has 4 chances at 2 outs on your board, in an actual NLHE game with a 3 card flop, AA has 2 chances. So, not sure what point you're making there, either.

He has to call $28. The old 10x standard is looking pretty good right now.

Yup, 10x.

What are you talking about? All flops are three cards.

The Hero raised pre so there's not 3 dollars dead money.

I showed you how money that goes in pre, and money that goes in the flop are not equivalent, when you said they are equivalent. The difference is even more pronounced if multiple people have over-pairs, but you don't appear ready to understand that yet. If two people have over-pairs you're going to lose with a flopped set about 27% of the time.

You're going to win 81.5% of the money that goes in pre when you flop a set. You're not going to win 81.5% of the money that goes in post when you flop a set, closer to 63% of the money that you bet post.

Maybe you've never used PokerStove? It's an equity calculation tool. You can specify one, two, or three cards of the flop as known cards.

This PokerStove runs indicates that TT will flop a set and lose 18.5% of the time against aces.

Board: Tc
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 81.492% 81.18% 00.31% 2606337 10026.00 { TT }
Hand 1: 18.508% 18.20% 00.31% 584181 10026.00 { AA }

What the hell is going on here? Lolz.

Forget pokerstove for a minute.

Flop runs out and TT has a set and AA does not.

AA has 2 outs that can hit on the turn or on the river. The chance that AA misses both the turn and the river is:

(45/47) * (44/46) = 91.6%.

This means that (1 - 0.916) = 8.4% of the time AA will hit a set either on the turn or on the river.

Are you then telling me that 18.5 - 8.4 = 10.1% of the time AA will either hit a back door straight or somehow tie with TTT?

IDK. He seems sincere, but I feel like he's got to be trolling at this point. Nobody can fail to see the points about dead money and putting a one card flop in on stove.

Lulzzz... this should be

1 - [(44/46) * (43/45)] = 8.6%