I'm looking for other's thoughts on set mining with 22-66 or 77 Specifically in $6 straddled pots.

A typical hand would go like this. $6 Button straddle, (which buys last action preflop) 3 or 4 limpers, I look down at 44 and limp to set mine, blinds would limp button would raise. The normal raise would be $15-18. Raise would chase away MAYBE 2 limpers, so 4 or 5 ways was normal.

I have been using a 15-1 rule when set mining, unless the V has a huge stack, then I'll let that slide a bit. Those have been in non-straddled pots though, so if I think I can get my stack in ($80-100+), I going to call a normal $7-10 raise pre.

Obviously, I'm looking to get my stack in on 99% of flops with a set, and I believe that getting a $200-250 pot built would not be difficult when Vs are calling TPNK for sizable bets. I guess I want to know if I'm still correct to set mine if it is costing me between 15-18 percent of my stack. This happened my last session, and it seemed to be a big bleed. I had 22-77 13 times in a 4 1/2 hr session, mostly in middle to late position, all in straddled pots. I'm just not sure I should have been in those pots.

Yes, If you can get 15-1 on the amount of the raise after adding in the dead money in the pot, then you are getting the odds to call. It sounds like you are constantly getting caught right around the limit. If effective stacks are $100 there needs to be $50 in the pot already to be barely getting odds. With the short stack and being OOP against raiser and facing a crowd, you need to be getting 15-1 or better.

You are also right that your bleeding off a lot of your stack. If the pot is straddled and there is a lot of raising you should be folding the middle - low pairs rather then call the straddle in the first place. The straddle is effectively making stacks short. With a $6 straddle your $100 stack is effectively < 20 BB and you shouldn't be playing anything your not raising with unless the button is passive and you can pretty confident the pot won't be raised.

If you're calling pre for 15-20% of your stack to set mine, its a HUGE leak. IMO at the most, you should invest 5-7% of your stack (provided other stacks are 15x the PFR. Set mining relies on implied odds, which you don't have if you're too shallow.

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I can't tell if you're running bad or not making enough money when you do flop a set. If you have a pair 13 times in a session, 20% of the time you'll never flop a set and 34% of the time you'll only flop a set only once.

1.25% of the time you'll flop five sets or more.

There's a lot of variance in poker.

yeah, I have 5 sessions at about 20 hrs under my belt. The other 4 sessions, I might have a combined 15 small pps and I haven't flopped a set yet. My buddy sat at another table for 2 hrs and flopped 3 sets. So I think I'm due. lol

on a side note, I actually folded 66 and 44 once pre to 3 bets before the action even got to me. I didn't count those in the 13 that I saw a flop with.

How shallow then? Wouldn't I have the implied odds if the pot goes 3 ways? I believed I could get 2 callers with set.

Say I have $90 stack, am covered by all Vs. $15 raise which ALWAYS got called 3 or 4 ways. If I flop set, it's easy push if paint also comes on the flop. Like i said, V's would stack with TPMK I watched it happen too many times that night. $200-300 pots going to river SD with TP 9 or 10 kicker. I also watched 4 of a kind get paid by bottom 2 pair TWICE.

Or am I just a ******?

I'll ask this also, how low do you let yourself get before you just push? I was out of bullets, so topping off wasn't an option. $40-50? I did fold 33 once in mp with around $50. Was that a mistake?

It depends. Just because you bring X amount of bullets to play doesn't mean you need to burn them all. A partial buy-in saved is a partial buy-in earned. I'd rack up generally rather than play short. YMMV.

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I doubt you're ******ed, maybe a but misguided haha.

You have a special game on your hands for sure. Still, you'll need more immediate pot odds to set mine profitably. You'll flop a set 1/7.5 times. So with $15 preflop you need $95 pre. Close, but not quite. Not to mention you'll need to ensure you double up every time you flop a set. That's a big ask.

Someone else can crunch the numbers better than I can but 15x the original raise is a good rule of thumb for set mining. So $15 preflop you need $225 behind in order to set mine profitably.

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If you are at $90 and there is a raise to $15 you simply aren't even close to the amount you need to set mine , not by a mile.

Yes, if there are 3 villains in the hand and yes if you do hit and yes if they all decide to call your shove then sure, you have the odds to set mine.

But that is a lot of consecutive ifs.

What is more likely is that when you do flop a set, 20% of the time you will get no action, 15% of the time you can extract value on one street, 25% of the time you extract value on all 3 streets, 25% of the time you get stacks in and double up, 10% of the time you lose to a bad board run out or set over set...

So when you go through that above math, you will see that $90 is just not deep enough to set mine a $15 preflop raise, not even remotely close.

In order to set mine a $15 raise, you need to be at a MINIMUM of $200 deep.

It not so much a matter of getting low as it is a matter of recognizing favorable opportunities.

Here is an example.

You are at $75 in the BB with 77, the UTG villain is super aggro and has been betting big, isolating, squeezing dead money, etc. He raises to $15, 5 players call when action gets to you. Pot is $90 when it gets back to you? What should you do?

Shove or fold, NEVER call!

If we give UTG a range of 88+, KT+, AT+

then we have 43% equity. Given that there is $90 in the pot we can easily shove here!!!

This is how we as thinking players need to think about these sorts of spots.

Okay, okay, that's an easy one, what about???

We are at $65 in the SB with 66, UTG+1 limps, MP says "lets build a pot" and raises to $6, LP calls, HJ calls, BTN calls, Hero????
Well, pot is $27 when it gets to Hero? Hero....

Should SHOVE!!! A shove of $65 for a $27 pot will have a ton of fold equity. Not only that, but you can actually fold out hands that are better than 66. 77, 88, 99 are all hands that can easily fold here. Not to mention you get hands like KT and J9 to fold and those hands have decent equity against 66. In the event you do get called, usually you will be flipping vs two overcards and will actually be a slight favorite!

This is something a lot of players don't quite understand. When opportunities to increase your chip stack by 30%+ happen, correct short stack play is to shove ESPECIALLY if there is decent fold equity with your shove. I can't say enough about the power of fold equity in these spots. You shove in this spot, everyone folds, and you just increased your stack by 40%!!!! You get called by 1 villain who has AQ and you are a 52% favorite, you win, now you've more than doubled up to $150

Basically, when you are short stacked (under 40bb) it is often incorrect to call any raise. You are better off shoving or folding.

BUt but but i'm getting great odds to draw, I have A6 suited and I'm in the HJ, 3 people limped to me, I have $60, shouldn't I just call and see a flop???

No. The open in most 1/2nl live games is $4. You see a flop, that is $4. You call and whiff and fold, next hand call but then the BTN raises so you have to fold, next hand call, catch a piece of the flop, call the flop bet but fold on the turn and now you are sitting on $32 wondering where half your stack went in the last 40 minutes

As a short stack, it's pretty much never correct to limp. Only situation where I would say it's correct is if you are in the CO, BTN, SB, BB and 4+ players limped and you are fairly confident that preflop will limp through then okay, if you are above 35bb I can get behind a limp hoping to flop gin. Other than that, as a short stack we should constantly be of the mindset "shove or fold". As a short stack it is simply too easy to bleed 1bb...1bb...1bb...3bb... and then 45 minutes later when you actually do have a hand you are now down from 35bb to 21bb wondering where 30% of your chips went

Good stuff! I hadn't seen that breakdown before.

It's a weird situation because it's a button straddle. He is calling $6 in LP after limpers and then getting raised to $15 by the button. The $15 gets called by limpers and there may be $50+ in the pot before it gets back around. Now it's calling $9 to win something well over $100 if he hits because of the dead money in the pot. That makes it marginal but workable to call the raise. The mistake was being in the pot at all if the button is likely to raise. With a limited bankroll, the hero is leaking off too much in missed flops.

Calling to set mine in general depends on how weak the game is. In a very weak game, it can be profitable. A very weak game is one where people treat TPTK as the nuts, no matter what the action. That would mean that someone will call your raise AI with TP. If that's the case, set mining with 77 or weaker is fine getting 15:1.

That said, only some 1/2 or 1/3 games are that weak. In tougher games, you need to be able to win the hand without hitting a set. If you haven't figured out how to do that, limp/calling in EP is going to be unprofitable.

Oh the game was that weak. Like I said, TP 9 or 10 kicker was getting to show down in more than a couple $200+ pots. I also watched a 5 bet shove with 88 only to get called by 77. (about a $400 pot) There wasn't a whole lot of money on the table, it just got sent from one player making a bad play to another. I was just trying to get a piece. QQ was called against the one guy on the entire planet that you don't call an all in against. Big pots moved back and forth the whole night.

I never called an ep small PP the whole night. everything I had was in Late middle to late pos.

thanks DG. 2 more things that will go into the memory bank for next time.

Please note that that Breakdown is comprised of numbers I pulled out of my ass....

I'm sure the numbers are completely wrong, but the concept they represent is correct, that is, just because you hit a sit doesn't mean you get to automatically stack off and get paid.

So the point of that breakdown was just to get you to understand that there is "more" to just flopping a set and getting paid as far as teh math is concerned.

In fact, that is where the 15:1 comes from.

Mathematically, we really only need a touch over 8:1 to set mine. However, because we don't always get paid off, because sometimes we lose, etc is why as a community we've increased the set mining requirement to 15:1, to account for all those other conditions...