interesting FT setmine spot

[cardsfan04]

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

[DevilFish73]

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.

[cdavi]

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

[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.

[cardsfan04]

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

[Chipless Wonder]

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.

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.

[cardsfan04]

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.

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.

[cardsfan04]

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.

[ThrillCory90]

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.

[ThrillCory90]

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)