How deep do you need to be to set mine?

10x bet size minimum. Often I won't even play for that because I know the other player won't stack off to me if I do hit a set.

Without a HUD, I'm not sure if you can purely set mine profitably at 1/2. Maybe you can. However, I'm fairly confident that you can't at 2/5. However, it is always villain dependent.

That doesn't mean you are going to fold all those pp. You just need to have some additional zip in your game to make it profitable. And it can be.

15 times bet size for 1 other player, 12 times for 2, 10 times for 3 and 7 times for 4 or more.

and the question should be how deep should you AND YOUR OPPONENTS be...

I figure I can stack them half the time or get half their stack or some combination of both.

I think two additional factors are very important. One, how many people are left to act if you call the raise? If the pf raiser is utg and you're utg+1, you should be much less likely to setmine than if you're the button or especially the BB. Someone could put in a huge reraise preflop, totally foiling your plan.

Second, what will your position be after the flop?

Today at 1/2 I limped 22 on the button. BB raised to 12, got two callers, pot is roughly 40 to me. Getting 4 to 1, with 87 behind, and everyone had me covered. I called.

Is this good? By bagzzz's rule I shouldn't call because I only have 3 opponents and I only have 8.7x, not 10x.

But those two factors leaned me towards a call: one, I was closing the action preflop--two, I'm on the button, so I act last every subsequent round.

What do you guys think?

f your good postflop setmining is very profitable... Once you understand your opponents postflop play you will be able to make decisions on turning your pair into bluffs and understanding when your hand rates to be good in a certain spot against a certain villain.

10 to 1 is excessive imo especially since we flop a set 1 of 9 times and we have the best hand preflop in most of these spots

People actually set-mine in live cash games ? How is that working for anyone ?
If you call a raise pre with intention of folding 9 out of 10 times OTF, you are doing it realllly wrong.

As opposed to what? In a tournament where your implied odds are lower?

It's 7.5 out of 8.5, not 9 out of 10.

I tried to tell the forums that set mining is not profitable.

But from LP and a UTG raiser it can be profitable because of ranges, you can also steal pots on later streets from LP.
With good board texture.

And when opponents MUST be a lot more aggressive with their stacks so chance for a payout is much bigger. So yes.

Makes hell of a difference.

you do also win by making flushes or straights as well. or flopping draws which enable you to win before the showdown.

you do have to read players hands and determine what your winning chances are. that comes first in line.

You can't be serious?

Semi-bluff would be my guess here

In my sitch, I called 10 for 40, the flop came T92, the pfraiser cont bet 20, got one call, I shoved the call plus my 57 remaining, and he thought a loooooong time before calling with AA. The second guy thought a looooooooong time before folding. Hell, the second guy might have been thinking of calling with something like AT or two pair...even him thinking so long about calling skyrockets my implied odds pre. I don't put him on oesd because that would be an instacall with 200ish already in the pot and a chance to win more from the original raiser if he hits.

Anyway in the end, I risked 12 preflop against three opponents, and won 125. I think I would've won as much if he'd had kings. If I'd had more behind me I could've stacked off on the turn for even more.

According to Ed Miller et al in Professional NLHE, if you hit your set you need to be able to win 12 times the size of the bet you called preflop.

According to Harrington on Cash Games the number is 20 times.

And that's why you shouldn't quote without context. Reason it's bigger than odds (and varies from book to book) is because you have to compensate for all times you will hit and get 0 value (which will be more than common).

mathematics arent that hard,questions that should be asked are can i get paid and am i better postflop.if you c/f everytime you miss,its almost never profitable.

First off, it is a guideline and not a rule. Second, you have to add the money in the pot to the money in his hand and you are getting 10:1, third if there are 3 people in the hand probably the other 2 are not that short stacked.

But you have to take into consideration that you will not stack them every time you hit. Your rule depends on your play and you should keep track since you only hit a set once or twice a session. For me, I figure that I average half of the average stack (or my stack if it is lower than average) when I hit against one player. I get more as the number of players increase because someone is more likely to hit something.

So assuming that when you hit your set, someone has aces or 2 pair half the time means your average win will be 63. you actually only risked 10 when you made the decision to call. so you risked 10 to win 63. If you add the money you win because of position, and the money you would win when you learn to get 3 streets of betting and other players' money, you should be able to get it above a profitable 75.

For me the number is 15 based on my history. It all depends on how much you can extract in post flop play when you hit. That often depends on your image. Usually the actual number is 20-30 (well above my threshold of 15)so I set mine alot.

this thread cannot be real. With a reasonable spr there is absolutely no situation in live nl in which getting to the flop with a low pp is -EV, even played exclusively for set value, particularly in multi-way pots but also huhu (unless the rake is crushing the game). I mean holy wat?

To the people trying to expand the OP's thinking process, and encouraging lines that would make small pocket pairs MORE PROFITABLE, kudos to you!!! Please disregard the rest of what I write here...

The people here suggesting that you can seldom play a pp for set value alone should be permabanned! Seriously! Some of the advice given here is beyond bad or misguided, and borders on malice.

Typical 1/2 game. Limp parade, and I have 55 in the CO. Say I call, and SB raises to 12. BB cals, and so does 3 others in front of me. Right away I'm getting 5:1. I call. pot is $66 after rake and JP. Flop comes whatever it comes, and SB bets $40. For the sake of argument, lets say everyone folds to us. Taking out our $12 invested preflop, the pot is now $94. The pot is laying nearly 8:1 on our preflop call. That's virtually worst case scenario for us. Much more often there will be callers, and there will be more action on later streets. Of course we aren't going to win 100% of the time when we flop a set, which is why the books recommend 12 or 15 or even 20 to 1 on calling. But look at the above. Before we factor in any POKER, we are getting 8:1. That is entirely disregarding how much more money is behind, if there are any other callers, how aggressive the other players are or how lightly they will stackoff. Of course you can set mine!

Some of the same people saying you can't setmine advocate calling 8% of our stack with T7s to a BB 3-bet! The misinformation given in this forum is shameful sometimes.

Yeah, the levelling on these forums leads me to b confused, whether im on the bbv section or not.

You said what I said but better.

I guess I better PM Mat Sklansky to perma-ban me.

I do agree there is a lot of bad advice given in this thread. So far, there's a ton of standard live group think about sets. However, I see absolutely no data to back it up.

So let's look at some real data, admittedly on line from my own DB. For sets of 66 or less hit on the flop, I win an average of:

2nl = 22BB
5nl = 21BB
10nl = 2BB (small sample, two set over sets)
25nl = 9BB
50nl = 11BB

Since the average raise pf live is about 3.5 BB, it can be seen that to purely set mine even at 2nl is -EV. Now that isn't to say you should fold all your small pairs. But to make real money with them, you're going to have be able to get more value out of them than just hitting a set.

Now, if someone wants to put up some real data on their play with sets, we can discuss it. Or if someone wants to make the argument that people are more careful about stacking off $2 on line than $200 live or there are more callers live than at 2nl, then make the case. Of course, you can state I suck at poker and monkey could make more with sets than me.

Otherwise, all you are stating is an opinion. And everyone here is allowed an opinion without others trying to keep them quiet.

You make a good argument to make set mining a thoughtful process rather than an automatic move. On line there are far fewer players to the flop and if you play a limited range and never play low cards from early position and never play lower suited connectors, you will be perceived as a solid player to a nit and it is very difficult to get paid with that image. Please notice that in my post I stated that the number is dependent on your image.

I also suspect that since you think set mining is not profitable, you only play them in limped pots or from the big blind and are getting properly paid for that size bet. If you are in a standard live pot with 4 players and the raise is 3.5bb, you are half way there on the flop with 3 streets of betting to go. 3 probe bets will get you there. If you cant get paid for 3 probe bets, you are losing a ton of money by not bluffing with a probe bet where you only have to be successful 20% of the time for that to be profitable.

I don't think the statistic you should use is average BB you have historically won. I think the more relevant stat is the percentage of the stack you can get (with your image) when you hit. For me that number is about 50%, and as I stated that number is from keeping track which is easy to do since it only happens once or twice a session and the hand is easily remembered.

I think if you are only averaging 22 BB live, you are doing something wrong. Not saying you are since your stat is not live. In a live game the raises are much closer to 6bb than 3.5bb, and there are often 4-5 players to the flop. Especially in situations where you called and that encourages other callers. So for me to call a 6bb raise,The calculation I make is that there is 24BB dead money, I need about 45 bb for it to be profitable, That is about 22 more BB. If I can average half a stack (or stack someone half the time) I need to see stacks of 44 BB. Notice how much this changes if there is only 1 player. If the bet is more than about 8% of the stack, you can never get paid. So if you are sitting at a crazy 1-2 game with $200 and the raises are $20 consistently, you can't set mine. But if you are sitting there with standard $8-12 raises, you have know stack sizes and to do the math every time.

Set mining is the simplest form of playing for implied odds. If I am teaching my friend how to play, I teach him the math for set mining. after they get good at that they are ready to play hands like low suited connectors for the implied odds. An understanding of stack sizes and implied odds is critical to play hands like low suited connectors or suited aces. Those hands are more difficult than small pairs to play. So I guess my argument is that if you don't learn how to set mine you will always be playing a tight strategy that is best played with short stacks. That is a good strategy for beginners or the risk averse, but it is not for me and I suspect most poker players.

Thanks for all the advice. I had a general idea of where I needed to be BB wise to be playing low pairs for basic set value only, but I had been reading a lot of posts where people are screaming "FOLD 22, your 88 bb stack is too little!!" etc. My general rule of thumb is I need around 50 bb effective stacks to setmine (but this is coming from online tourney play).

But, the original post was actually questioning playing pp from EP in a LIMPED pot. At what stack sizes should I just toss 22, 33, 44, 55 in a limped pot?