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| Betting the Set Postflop |
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19 hand Performance Poker says to call up to 5xBB preflop raise when you have a pocket pair (22-TT). The logic behind this is that you have an opportunity to make a set. If you don't make a set then you're going to fold after the flop in most instances. But the next biggest question I get is "How do I play the set for maximum value?"
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Different situations require different play. The general guidelines are not to declare you nut hand until after the turn. But there is one logical exception to that rule. If someone raised preflop with a big overpair then you can very easily take their stack on the flop. And you Should!
Here's what it looks like on NL10:
You have 66 in mid position.
Either you limp and someone raises big behind you, or someone goes in for 4-5BB in front of you.
You call.
The flop comes 469 or some such useless flop - except for you!!
If you are in early position and the big preflop raiser is behind you, then you CHECK to the raiser. At this point the pot is anywhere from 10-20xBB (due to your call and maybe one or two others). The preflop raiser with the big overpair has to bet at this point. AK or AQ will also make a continuation bet at this point.
So the big pocket pair bets ½-1x the pot. Others in the hand will probably fold. This is the point where you make a HUGE reraise (or push all in). Well more than ½ the time you will get called by a big pocket pair. You may also be called by AK.
The alternate scenario is when you are in late position and don't have to check to give the big preflop raiser a chance to bet. The flop comes, you make your set, and he leads out with a strong bet. At this point you can just push. Again, more than ½ the time you will be called.
ANALYSIS
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Let's look at this from both sides. First, you have a set. On the flop in a raised preflop pot, you HAVE to consider it the nut hand. The only exception is if a face card flops as well. J, K, Q, A… IF the preflop raiser has a big pocket pair then you have a 25% chance that he flopped a bigger set. That's your main risk with this hand. If that happened then I have to ask, at What Point are you going to let a set go? I am the king of letting hands go after the flop, but I'm going to lose a buyin with a set against just about any time it happens. There are times I will fold a set to a made straight or a made flush, but I will never assume the other person has an overset, no matter how the hand plays out. So, unless you are psychic, you are going to have to accept that if a face card flops you have a 1 in 4 chance of being beat with a larger set. Just accept the risk and call it Poker.
With that one exception and the very rare flopped set or flush, you will have the best hand RIGHT NOW. But more importantly…. Let's look at the OTHER PLAYER…
Before you started playing 19 hand or Performance Poker how many times did you lose a buyin with KK or AA to a flopped set? OFTEN ENOUGH, RIGHT? That's because it's so very hard to get away from AA and KK after the flop. Most people just Can't Do It! What will they think when you push? First they make think you have TPTK. Let's say the flop is T high. They may put you on TA. Second, if there's a straight draw or a flush draw on the board, they may think you are drawing and are just making a big move at the pot. Next, they may put you on a big pocket pair also. If they have KK, they may put you on AA or vice verse. If they are Really Disciplined they may fold KK if they think you have AA (or they may fold KK if the flop comes Ace high and they think you have an Ace). Those are the breaks. They would have folded without putting much more in the pot anyway. This is not a time to try to nickel and dime the other player… You want his stack, Right Now!
The point, however, is that the other player is going to consider Many options before he thinks "he made 2 pair or a set". Out of all those options he can beat them all but 2 pair or a set, so he will be inclined to call. EVEN if he puts you on 2 pair or a set in his mind he STILL has outs for a better 2 pair or to make a set of his own. FINALLY, how often do you get a big pocket pair? He may have been waiting for this hand for an hour or more and is looking to make it pay off big for him. So how is he going to fold here?
He won't fold 80% of the time or better. When you do see him fold, he didn't have a big pocket pair. He was messing around with A/face or some other hand and trying to be clever. In that instance, you take the money already in the pot and move on. NO ONE will see that you had a set. No One will know whether you were bluffing, drawing or what.
Here's a technical tip on betting - when you flop the nuts don't bet IMMEDIATELY. Give it a few seconds of thought before you move all in or make a huge raise. Don't make it overly dramatic. But don't make it look like an automated decision either. Make it look like you were calculating outs before you made your move.
The stakes for this move are generally irrelevant. If you have a flopped set against a big pocket pair, you're going to get called 80% of the time whether you are playing NL10, NL25, NL50 or higher. The higher the stakes the more money there is for that KK or AA player to get for his monster cards!! Right?
Some players can sniff out a made set and have the discipline to fold it. But anyone who is regularly playing that level of competition isn't reading this article. If you're reading this article then you opponents will fall for this move way more often than not.
This is also why we fold the big pocket pair if we get reraised after raising preflop and making a strong bet on the flop. There's No Reason to allow a big pocket pair to ruin a good poker session for you. From a 19 hand perspective WHO WOULD RAISE YOU BIG AFTER YOU RAISED BIG PREFLOP AND BET THE FLOP HARD? Yea, it could be a bluff! But it takes Huge balls to play that bluff. We know that and we account for it. Most players don't have the rules, the skill or the discipline to do the same. So this is how you should play in this situation.
Now, if the hand was Not Raised preflop or if the preflop raiser checks the flop or if someone else bets the flop (other than the preflop raiser), then you want to play your made set a little more cleverly. Why? Because you don't have the other players in an "auto-call" situation. They will more readily fold to a big raise on the flop. So, slow down, play the flop cool (just call their bet or raise them up to ½ the pot) and see how the hand plays out. Hopefully you can extract a good number of chips out of them. But this move is made for a specific situation. If that situation doesn't exist then play as you think is best.
SUMMARY
If you flop a set in a hand that was raised preflop and the preflop raiser makes a good sized bet after the flop… PUSH or put in a very large reraise. The times the guy fold are the times that he wasn't going to invest any serious money into the pot anyway, and the people who call will be way behind almost every time. Does this guarantee that you won't get sucked out on or walk into an overset from time to time? No, but you were going to invest heavily in the hand anyway, so the negatives aren't much different than you were going to experience, but the positives are vastly greater than trying to play the hand slyly or cleverly.
Good luck!!
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