Quote:
Originally Posted by 1gx1
Indeed, set mining is best done multiway and in position. In your example, villain's BTN stealing range is wide enough so that flatting OOP solely to setmine will be unprofitable as we are not going to get paid off enough when we flop the set (as you correctly pointed out). The thing is, pocket pairs do not have to be played only for setmining. A much better way of going about it is to know that you have good equity against his stealing range and play accordingly.
| Hand | Pot equity | Wins | Ties |
|---|
| 22-99 | 52.46% | 18,832,562,580 | 334,392,660 |
| 35% | 47.54% | 17,048,274,360 | 334,392,660 |
To answer your question, the way playing a small-medium pocket pair vs. a BTN steal would be very villain dependent. I'm folding to a decent LAG most of the time, and would only do something different purely for range balance (I find playing good LAGs with a low PP OOP difficult at best). Against a positionally aware TAG (as in your example), I would consider how he goes about stealing on the BTN, looking at his foldto3bet% and cbetflop% mainly. If villain has high foldto3bet%, 3betting smaller pairs is probably a better line, and restealing is probably very effective. On the other hand, if he has a very high cbet%, but shuts down on turn if his cbet is called, a different line can be taken; there is an argument for flatting (other than for range balance). Villain's stealing range will hit the flop 33% of the time (need flopzilla for a more accurate %), so provided he isn't a calling station, we can profitably float his cbet and take it down on the turn. Obviously this is more risky, and I'm not taking this line when a board is more likely to hit his stealing range, but against guys who cbet a ton and then shut down, this is probably the best line to take.
The similarity of both lines is that we are not setmining from the outset. I mean, if we hit our set in the process then it's a bonus, but this is not our sole aim.
Thanks for this, it raises some interesting points. And thanks to Ligic for giving me some confirmation.
I'm going to touch on your point about 3betting vs villains wide steal range as a means of blind defence.
I think our image and dynamic comes into play here. For example, if we have history with villain and he knows we don't 3bet from the blinds much in this situation, 3betting ATC should show immediate profit in a vacuum. Any hand which doesn't have postflop value but has either decent equity vs villains flatting range (such as 22) or a blocker vs the top of his range (raggy Ax) should theoretically be a good hand to 3bet light here. That said, both of these hands can become difficult to play postflop in that with 22 we think we often think we have more equity vs villains c-betting range than is actually true and with Ax we're tend to be lost/start valuetowning ourselves when we hit.
Besides, in this situation, however, I rarely have a nice clean image. I like to both steal and defend my blinds aggressivley when the situation dictates itself neccessary, and when a positionally aggressive reg starts getting out of line on the button, my initial response is to throw in a few 3bets with hands like 22 where I have a.) a decent amount of FEq and b.) a hand which has decent equity vs villains likely flat-calling range (quite narrow).
Most regs at my stakes (25NL) adjust to my re-steals by incrasing their flatting range; they will see flops with a variety of suited-connectors, lower pocket pairs, sutied Ax etc knowing that I'm 3betting them light a high percentage of the time. This isn't really an ideal adjustment, because it's easy for me to readjust by a.) increasing my value 3bet range and b.) occasionally flatting playable hands from the BB and c/r'ing flops that generally miss my opponents range. I like doing this with suited connectors because I can c/r a wider variety of boards as a semi-bluff, and even when I don't connect and I'm called I occasionally pick up some equity on the turn. My point is that hands like 22 become difficult to play in these spots because:
a.) we no longer have much FEq by 3betting, and our hand is hard to play OOP in a 3bet pot UI and we're more likely to make mistakes than our opponent.
b.) Your point about floating random flops is wrong. Flat calling is bad because, even if villain is if villain is c-betting 100% of his 35% steal range, there are actually very few boards that we have equity to float (it's possible that 345 may be the only one IMO, play around with pokerstove and prove me wrong if you like) so we usually have to turn our hand into a bluff somewhere to justify this strategy. We have a lot less SD value than you think. I actually crunched some numbers a few nights ago and I think that floating flops with one overcard to our pocket pair (say, 99 on K26) is fine assuming we fold to a second barrell on almost any turn card (I'll probably go into this another time...)
c.) If we're planning to c/r flops that don't hit villains range, we have very little equity when called - wheras with SCs we can semi-bluff draws or pick up equity on the turn when our c/r is called.
Basically, I'm never really flatting 22 pre in this spot. Point 'b' above touches on something else I've been working on, which is how stronger PPs like 77-99 play from the blinds in this spot. If I find anything interesting I guess I'll post it here for people to look at.
