Set Mining – Texas Holdem
Getting dealt pocket pairs and hitting your set in a multi-way pot can make you so happy that your head bursts into tears. This is one of my favourite cards to slow-play. When you play these cards right and hit you unsuspecting flush you can make a massive amount of money from calling stations and players who are unfortunate to catch TPTK. A few years ago when I was playing $0.50/$1 6-max cash games, I quickly lost tons of buy-ins against opponents who hit sets on the flop. In hindsight however, I also managed to double up a lot of my stacks by hitting a set on the flop or turn. So it all balances out really.
In terms of strategy, hitting your set with 55 or 77 can be an easy way to pick off everyone’s stacks. However before you look to fast-play every hand, you need to first understand the maths of set mining.
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Set Mining Pot Odds
Your chances of hitting a set on the flop are about 14% or 7.5:1. In other words for every 7 and a half flops you see, you will hit your set at least once. With only a couple of opponents in the pot, obviously you are not going to get the pot odds needed to call a raise. You also need to take into account that sometimes when you hit your set you can still be drawing dead to a better hand or set. This is why you have to take implied odds into account.
You can think of implied odds as the amount you will get paid off in future streets if you manage to hit your set. Specifically, your implied odds will be much greater with multiple opponents in the pot. More opponents mean you can build a bigger pot and get paid off better from your value bets.
A number of other factors can swing the implied odds in your favour:
Type of Opponent: TAG opponents are generally more profitable to set-mine against. TAGs who call or make a raise pre-flop are more likely to hit a piece of the flop or make a c-bet with their AK/AQ type hands. If a TAG hits TPTK then he will find it hard to fold and generally speaking he will bet out the flop and double-barrel the turn a lot more which gives you more value. LAG opponents on the other hand will often fold their marginal hands on missed flops, meaning you won’t get much action or implied odds from these players.
By far my favourite opponents to set-mine against are calling stations and passive players. Since they will openly call down on multiple streets, you will make a ton of money and implied odds against them in heads up. Play your sets hard and fast against calling stations and avoid giving them a free card by check-raising out of position.
Effective Stack Sizes: The more deepstack opponents with 100BBs+ in the pot, the more chips you can expect to win. It’s good to have a lot of money behind the pot at post-flop. That being said, sometimes it’s easier to trap a small stack opponent to shove all-in on the flop since they will be heavily pot-committed. For example, with 30BBs remaining a small stack opponent who hits a 15BB on the flop is more likely to push all-in with TPTK or some kind of mid-pair/draw type hand.
Your Table Image: If you play like a rock at the table (i.e. nitty and tight) then you won’t get paid off with your check-raises and value bets since your image is too strong. Loosening your table image enables you to make your value bets look more bluffy, so that you will get called down with your big hands.
3Betting your mid-pocket pairs from CO is a great example of loosening your perceived range. This means that when a flop like 6-2-10 comes down, no one will suspect that you hit your set and you’ll get raised more by dominated J10/Ax type hands.
Calling 3Bets Pre-flop
A lot of players butcher the art of set-mining by calling too many 3bets out of position. Short and simple, you need a deep stack opponent (100+BBs) or at minimum multiple opponents in the pot to be able to call a 3bet and set-mine profitably. A lot of calling 3bets in mid-stakes cash games depends on your opponent and how he plays. A regular LAG will 3bet steal from CO a lot of the time with KJ type hands, but in this case I would still be more inclined to 4bet shove for value rather than flat his 3bet.