To set raise or not to set raise? That is the question!
Several posters have raised the question of whether it is best to raise the flop with a hidden set.(Trips of course are when the pair of your 3 ranked cards are on the table, and a set is when a pair is wired in your hole) The standard opinion is that if your set is very strong and your flop weak you can slow play your hand. (Even though this will occasionally cost you the pot.) But when you face potential redraws by your opponents i.e. flush draws or tree top draws (which you did in this case) you simply have to force your opponents to pay to draw out against you.
If one or more of your opponents has a flush draw, what percent of the time will he/she complete it? (Right 35% of the time) If one or more of your opponents has an open ended treetop draw, what percent of the time will he or she make it? (Right 32% of the time!) Also what percent of the time will you “over” redraw their redraws by making a full house? (Right 35% of the time)
How you played the flop in this one hand is not important. BUT how you play this situation throughout your lifetime will cost you (or win for you ) literally thousands of dollars.
That’s why the rule is “When your set faces a possible flush or straight draw force them to pay as much as possible.”
About an hour ago I hit a straight on the flop and a top set put in 5 raises against me before he backed off. (That was a mistake in the extreme on his part) At the moment I had the nut hand. And he had a 35% chance of redrawing out against me. But it shows how aggressively players tend to play flopped sets.
I have been kicking myself for three days, for not calling a single bet for a $250 dollar pot, when I missed my flush draw and had only a pair of 8s against a bet an a call with 4 over cards on the board. It turned out that the bettor had a pair of 2s, and the caller in front of me called the bet with an unpaired king!
When we are contesting for big pots on the river we just have to call for one bet.
Remember if it’s a ten bet pot: If you 1. call-miss, 2. call-miss, 3. call-miss, 4. call-miss, 5. call-miss, 6. call-miss 7. call-miss 8. call-miss 9. call HIT! You end up a financial winner in the long run.
Don’t feel bad about making a foolish mistake. The mistake club includes all of us that play the game.
Most sincerely,
Doctavian
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