Sets: The Most Important Made Hand in Poker

In the thread on CR discussing my last blog post somebody suggested that the Poker Commandments were general and had been done to death. They went on to suggest that a more in depth explanation of each commandment might be in order. I thought about that for a few days and decided he may be right.

I may or may not cover all of the commandments this way but at this point I think #4 is the best candidate for more discussion. There is a bunch of talk every week about pocket pairs and sets and how to play them on the CR board. There also seems to be a ton of posts concerning AA and KK and when to lay them down. So let’s dig in to these situations a bit further, shall we?

Disclaimer: I am not a professional. I don’t play one on TV and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. When I write my blog, it is for 2 reasons: 1. To hopefully help people through the sharing of my experience. 2. To help myself by putting thoughts on paper and using reader feedback to grow and, in some cases, change my game. If you think my advice sucks, please tell me so. If I agree that I was wrong, I’ll own up to it in my next blog. The LAST thing I want to do is dispense bad advice.

First off: NEVER EVER lay down AA or KK preflop at $100nl and below. If the villain says, “I have AA” and you are holding kings….GO ALL IN. I cannot say this any more definitively. The level of play is so uneven at these lower limits that you just never know what they might hold. I have seen a guy with 10/2 stats push all-in with anything from AA to TT to AQ. This topic is not up for discussion, so please don’t argue…

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, again, lets move on to the big stuff:

A set is the most important made hand in online poker. Period.

How can I say that when sets get beat by straights, boats, and bigger sets with mild frequency? How can a set be a better made hand than a full house? There are two main reasons why this is so:

1. Sets occur much more often than straights, flushes, and boats. Therefore you have more chances to make bank with ‘em.

2. People are terrified by a board with three suited cards and to a lesser degree three cards to a straight, making it tough to get paid. Sets are a hidden made hand. Does anybody suspect a set of 3’s on an AJ3 flop? Certainly not the guy with AJ!!!

The thing with sets is that they are hard to get paid off with if you play them poorly. This starts, of course, with the preflop handling of pocket pairs. My standard preflop line with pp’s is pretty simple. I raise pot with all pp’s regardless of position in an unraised pot. I have heard some guys say they only raise 55 and up from UTG. That is foolish and not well thought out. How much better is 55 than 33 on a flop when you missed your set? Zero. For all intents and purposes 22-77 is the same hand preflop. I know it sounds weird but 95% of the time the board will contain scary over cards to any of those pairs which renders them mostly useless without a set. Sure you will occasionally see a 254 flop and your 77 will be good. However, a bet in that situation still gets called by a hand like KQ or AJ. For the most part 22-77 are of similar value preflop and should be played that way.

If the pot is raised I will call with 22-77 if the villain has at least 80% of a buy-in or there are players to act behind me that are likely to also call (like a guy with a 50%VPIP to my left) and help increase my implied odds. I am not big on the complicated math end of things here and I know somebody will set me straight on what the odds are and how much of a stack my opponent should have. I’m ok with that! My general rule of thumb is 80%. If he has less, or more for that matter, I may re-raise but that is totally read dependant and is certainly not a play you should make every time.

I am very careful of calling 3-bets with small pp’s. At these limits a 3-bet usually means incredible strength and you will often find yourself dominated by JJ on up. In this case you can still call the 3-bet but only if you and your opponent are deep stacked and you have a good read. If I feel like I can win more at least a buy-in if I hit a set, I will consider calling.

With 88 and up I am pretty much willing to three bet in position preflop. If I am UTG+1 and UTG raises I may not 3-bet with less than JJ but once again, this is player dependant. I pretty much always 3-bet with JJ on up regardless of position or stack size.

Now on to the difficult decisions: What to do with JJ and QQ to a three bet or all in preflop? I hate to sound like a broken record but this is also read dependant. Against a loose fool an all-in raise (good) or call (ehhh, ok at best) is probably ok. If a guy is 15/10 it is pretty easy to lay down. These two hands are difficult to play postflop when an overcard hits so I will often err to the side of caution and not shove when in doubt. Try to see a flop and hit a set or at least get to a point where you can evaluate if the villain has AK or KK. Does the “Pick a Better Spot” commandment ring a bell?

Enough of the preflop babble, lets talk flop play baby.

If you flop a set, you should be prepared to felt 98% of the time. If the board is three to a flush or straight you still have to come out firing but you must be wary going forward. How you play a flopped set is really up to you. In most instances I raise and re-raise regardless of position. I think it is important not to fall into the trap of slow playing sets. They are huge hands but can still be drawn on and are vulnerable. If the board has zero on it in the way of draws and/or you are up against a weak opponent the check raise or check call can be used. If you suddenly start getting tricky with all your made hands your c-bets with nothing but over cards or an underpair will get no credit and you’ll get played back at, forcing you to fold. You must keep in mind the image you project!

Turn and river play are really not something I can discuss too much here. There are so many possible scenarios that to give advice would oversimplify things. I will say this: If you are worried about set over set, stop it…seriously. Another point worth mentioning concerns value betting the river. If the river does not complete any draws it is often a good idea to make a smaller bet in order to get a call. If, for example, you have 9s9h and the villain has Ac6c and the board is Qh3c9cAs you can definitely get a call if you don’t over bet. Gauge the size of the pot and decide what might get called. Making a 80% pot bet might get you the occasional pay day via a loose call, but not very often. Instead bet 50% to 60% of the pot and try to get that last bit of juice!

Sets are the best hand in poker, play them right and you’ll be stackin’ bills!