interesting FT setmine spot

FT from last night. animos1 is my friend bob. There is a big debate on his set-mine in this hand, so I'm curious what you guys think.

Pro setmine: over 30x effective stacks behind, so clearly +cEV. If we miss (and ahve the discipline to make it a true setmine and not put chips in on 742 boards), we are basically in the same situation.

anti setmine: We are OOP. People stack off less at FT's than earlier in tourneys. Both lower set-mining's worth. If we flat here, it hurts our image for later at the FT when we want to be viewed as a nit to make stealing easier.

PokerStars Game #31876660794: Tournament #187196841, $50+$5 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XVII (1500/3000) - 2009/08/21 2:45:36 MT [2009/08/21 4:45:36 ET]
Table '187196841 4' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: DontBullyMe (129841 in chips)
Seat 2: JPips (27009 in chips)
Seat 3: mjsecret (38570 in chips)
Seat 4: AtlasShrgged (120491 in chips)
Seat 5: puravida1234 (135105 in chips)
Seat 7: intothesun (130925 in chips)
Seat 8: edinpaf (131991 in chips)
Seat 9: animos1 (138068 in chips)
DontBullyMe: posts the ante 300
JPips: posts the ante 300
mjsecret: posts the ante 300
AtlasShrgged: posts the ante 300
puravida1234: posts the ante 300
intothesun: posts the ante 300
edinpaf: posts the ante 300
animos1: posts the ante 300
edinpaf: posts small blind 1500
animos1: posts big blind 3000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to animos1 [3s 3c]
puravida1234 said, "depends where you're at too"
DontBullyMe: folds
JPips: folds
puravida1234 said, "if it's a long mellow wave, it is:)"
mjsecret: folds
DontBullyMe said, "r"
intothesun said, "hair raising maybe"
puravida1234 said, "not surfing at pipeline or anything"
AtlasShrgged: raises 3685 to 6685
puravida1234: folds
intothesun: folds
intothesun said, "lol"
edinpaf: folds
animos1: calls 3685
*** FLOP *** [3h As Qs]
animos1: checks
intothesun said, "hardest sport i've ever done and i do alot of em"
AtlasShrgged: bets 7000
puravida1234 said, "have kids, so can't surf crazy breaks"
animos1: raises 15345 to 22345
intothesun said, "is that u in the pic?"
intothesun said, "i"
AtlasShrgged: raises 91161 to 113506 and is all-in
animos1: calls 91161
puravida1234 said, "no, i have a couple of me, but this isn't"
*** TURN *** [3h As Qs] [Jc]
edinpaf said, "sick"
*** RIVER *** [3h As Qs Jc] [Ks]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
animos1: shows [3s 3c] (three of a kind, Threes)
AtlasShrgged: shows [Ac Ah] (three of a kind, Aces)
AtlasShrgged collected 244282 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 244282 | Rake 0
Board [3h As Qs Jc Ks]
Seat 1: DontBullyMe folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: JPips folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: mjsecret folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: AtlasShrgged showed [Ac Ah] and won (244282) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 5: puravida1234 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: intothesun (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: edinpaf (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: animos1 (big blind) showed [3s 3c] and lost with three of a kind, Threes

Personally I love his play especially on the flop. I don't think there is much to debate with the stacks vs blinds at this final table. Yes your 30 deep but how else are you going to stack someone off w/o playing for a set now and then. All I have to say is that flop was a perfect storm.

I like his play everytime, cooler sick horrible flop...

I personally think this is easy pre-flop call. If the raise was to a larger number it starts getting more difficult in my opinion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chipless Wonder

I personally think this is easy pre-flop call. If the raise was to a larger number it starts getting more difficult in my opinion.

---

that's my opinion too. jonrubs (MTT sicko, shipped Super Tuesday, 750K, and everything else pretty much) and Aaron Bartley think it's a fold. Here's a link to another convo on this. I don't agree with their logic too much, at least in this instance. But, it does have some merit on FT theory as a whole.

i feel gutted right now... - Part Time Poker Forums

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by GambleAB

It's not a horrid play or anything like that, esp if you play the hand only for set value, but I think you are losing out more often then you are stacking someone. That, in addition to meta reasons (I prefer to show a few folds early so that I get folds when I 3bet later on) is basically why I'd fold.

---

I realize these guys are better than me, but I completely disagree with their logic on this. The pre-flop cost was slightly more than one big blind. This just isn't marginal in my view, and it's certainly not chip spewage either. :confused:

We are assuming that we're well disciplined enough to fold when we don't set up (which we must be or we wouldn't be at this final table to begin with). I personally think an overpair WILL pay us off with these stack sizes. And it just doesn't seem right to state that we're losing very often when we do flop a set.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chipless Wonder

I realize these guys are better than me, but I completely disagree with their logic on this. The pre-flop cost was slightly more than one big blind. This just isn't marginal in my view, and it's certainly not chip spewage either. :confused:

We are assuming that we're well disciplined enough to fold when we don't set up (which we must be or we wouldn't be at this final table to begin with). I personally think an overpair WILL pay us off with these stack sizes. And it just doesn't seem right to state that we're losing very often when we do flop a set.

---

I don't think that's what they are saying, at least not quite. If we hit a set and are behind, we double them up almost 100% of the time (barring some sick 4flush board or something). If we hit our set and are ahead, we don't get doubled 100% of the time. Sometimes they will have AK on a 973r flop and not give action.

As for the metagame part, I actually 1/2-way agree. Something you should always keep in mind is what gear you are in and WHY you are in that gear. A lot of the time, especially early at a FT, you are in a certain gear for almost no other purpose than to setup another gear a few orbits later. If our goal at the FT is to exploit tons of ICM spots by bullying the mid stacks, folding high-variance spots like this can help our image for bullying.

I'm not sure I agree that it's marginal like they say. Barring a cooler, we lose 2.7% of our stack most of the time, win a small pot w/ a set or win a huge pot w/ a set. It is 100% +cEV (and they would agree with that).

Their argument is more that we flop a set so infrequently that we gain more by building a tight image than we do by potentially flopping a set.

Don't get me wrong though. I agree with you that calling is better than folding. And, barring the villain being a huge lag that raise/folds a ton, 3betting is just not an option here, making this one of the few call/fold spots in poker.

How is this even close? Fold getting almost 4:1 pot odds with 30blind stacks? They don't need to be stacking off very often for flatting here to be profitable.

I just did the math, and for calling here to be profitable, you need to extract 3 blinds more on average from the opponent when you hit a set.

To put it another way, if we knew preflop that we were going to flop a set in this spot the next 10 times, if we can expect to make 30 blinds (outside of the dead money in the pot) (Stack him at least 1/10 times we get a set), calling is going to be profitable in general (when we are hitting sets at a regular frequency).

I shouldn't even have to do the math. We are getting 4:1 pot odds with a hand that plays relatively easy postflop.

When you hit a set you win way more than 3 blinds on average with 30 blind stacks even against the tightest of players (if they are so tight that you don't make 3 more blinds on average everytime you hit a set than you probabally have lots of megaprofitable bluffing spots postflop when you miss)