I have a hard time reading when people have a set. Going over the hand history - it screams at you but I often get tunnel vision at what my opponent has and its sometimes horribly wrong. I don't take enough time to think when I really should have.

Got recently moved to this table so had only seen few hands. Thought that villain had a flush draw or also had a K. While people do slowplay AA, KK, I didn't think in that position preflop they would just call twice with no re-raising. This should have been my biggest hint at a low pocket pair.

After that my tunnel vission was set - they are chasing the flush and aslong as no spades comes, I was safe... Of course they also could have had KQ which would also beat come turn and given that a KX with KQ being somewhat likely in that scenario, I should have definitely slowed down at that point...

I have a feeling the advice would have been to either go all in preflop or do check/call after flop and potentially give up if a large bet comes but somehow I think the result would have been the same...


PokerStars $1.92+$2.00+$0.48 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XV (200/400)

Table 129' 8-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: BB(9629 in chips, $4 bounty)
Seat 2: UTG (12269 in chips, $2 bounty)
Seat 3: UTG+1 (23858 in chips, $8 bounty)
Seat 4: UTG+2 (25504 in chips, $3 bounty) is sitting out
Seat 5: UTG+3(7740 in chips, $2 bounty)
Seat 6: CO (18157 in chips, $2 bounty)
Seat 7: BUTTON (VILLAIN) (40157 in chips, $8 bounty)
Seat 8: SB(Hero) (27889 in chips, $6 bounty)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [Ac Kd]

UTG+1: raises 400 to 800
BB (Villain): calls 800
Hero (SB) raises 2200 to 3000

UTG+1 folds
Villain calls 2200
*** FLOP *** [3s 6s Kc]
Hero: bets 2304 (30%)
Villain calls 2304
*** TURN *** [3s 6s Kc] [Qc]
Hero: bets 3686 (30%)
Villain calls 3686
*** RIVER *** [3s 6s Kc Qc] [7d]
Hero bets 9830
Villain raises 19370 to 29200
Hero calls 9009 and is all-in

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain shows [6h 6d] (three of a kind, Sixes)
Hero: shows [Ac Kd] (a pair of Kings)
Villain collected 57338 from pot
Villain wins $3 for eliminating hero and their own bounty increases by $3 to $11



Any advice how to spot hints of sets?

Preflop
Before putting in the 3-bet we want to think about, what the plan is, if someone 4-bet. And here my plan would be to stack off against both players. You are 60BB deep against the original raiser, and his bounty is in play. And thats good enough for me to stack off AK against someone, who opened from UTG+1 at an 8-handed table. You are 70BB deep against BTN with no bounty in play, but his range is usually very capped. I will not give him credit for just flatting with AA or KK very often, and those are the only hands, which it is really bad for you to run into. So the plan here is to 3-bet with intention to stack-off, if someone jam or put in a small 4-bet. However sizing wise I would go to 5X or 4.000 chips here. When you just make it 3.000 chips, you are giving them great pot odds to stick around in position and try to suck out on you or outplay you after the flop.

Flop
If I calculated it correctly, pot is now around 7.800, and you have around 25.000 left. This is an SPR of around 3, so by default your plan should be to stack off with TPTK. My plan would be to have a bet go in on each street, and I want to set it up, so that there is less than a pot sized bet left for the river. The small C-bet here is fine in itself, but there is a pot geometry issue, and for that reason I would prefer to make it slightly larger like even just 40% pot. It would also help, if your 3-bet had been larger, because then the SPR is lower to begin with.

Turn
Not the best card, because now KQ beat you, but I would still not change my plan, and now you definitely need to size up to avoid a river situation, where there is a full pot sized bet left.

River
The problem now is, that if you shove, its full pot, it looks very strong, and maybe he is not calling with enough worse hands. And if you bet half pot, like you did, and then face a raise, you are committed to the pot, but you are also beat. So you still lose the maximum, when you are beat, while allowing him to get away cheaper, when you have the best of it. This is something, which goes back to your sizing on all previous streets, and which should be fixed there. Because of this awkward stack size situation I kind of lean towards using my hand as a bluffcatcher now by going for a check-call line rather than another bet. It gives him a chance to bluff with busted spades, or whatever else he have, that has no showdown value. And perhaps it even confuse him enough to valuebet a worse hand like KJ or KT.

Results
The result of this hand is just a cooler, and there is nothing we can do to avoid coolers. There are no logical two pair combinations on the flop, and after the turn only KQ. There is no way to "read", that people flopped a set, which is the whole reason, why setmining can be profitable. So going broke in this hand is completely fine, but you need to work on your betsizing. And maybe a larger 3-bet preflop could have avoided the cooler, since he would be less likely to setmine, the worse of a price you gave him.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I have realised I have a lot to learn about bet sizing as I either make mistakes or even if I do an "ok play" don't really know why i am doing it or what i'm hoping to happen.

Example:

Final table, 9 ppl left - I slow played from BB having hit 6's trips on the flop and was very loose in previous hands mostly stealing pots. Villain 30-40% bets flop and river. I just call. River is a 'K', no flush no straight, villain goes all in, I call and lose to full house (he had pocket kings). It's not so much that I'm annoyed that I slow played. I'm certain he would have gone all in if any other card had come as there was no 'A'. It's just that I don't really know what my bet sizings/ calls actually mean.

I get that the rough idea is to give bad odds to your opponent, value bets, protection bets and bluffs etc when your range is much more likely then the opponents but its hard for me to apply this. Especially the more significant details like doing bigger bets in certain situations.

Another example from today - I call with 10,8o from BB. flop is 10,8 flush draw in a 3 way pot. Again I just slow played it and committed to a pot that eventually hit its flush and straight draws on the river. In that one, I think I would have lost anyway because if I had gone all in, there was an A on the flop and the player who hit his flush had an A. But it was near the ITM and I had him covered so who knows. The reason I slow played it was because it was a 3 way and I thought I could just let them raise the pot for me while staying "low key".

Final example, 3-4 times recently I had the nuts at flop/turn while out of position. At River, opponent does feel like they have something, say top pair but instead of me going all in, I do 30-50% of pot. They do call more often but I feel like that if only once I get an all in call, that would get me more chips than all the other slow plays.


Any good guides/books you would recommend particularly on bet sizings? There is a lot for me to learn but not knowing how much to bet is getting to me so I want to prioritise that.

Dont think there is any material, that focuses only on bet sizing. But its included in many books and training videos including free ones. Of course there are also going to be different opinions, where some people will be focused on things like solver outputs, whereas in this post I gave you a more old-school approach focusing on pot geometry. I also think, the main issue in this hand (apart from getting coolered) is the lack of hand planning. Like for instance thinking about, what you will do, if he raise the river. And if you dont like any of your options, then maybe dont make a bet in the first place, or size it differently. This free video touches on hand planning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwhD...AVPeM&index=17