Spider senses are tingling

[kurto]

I just can't agree with this. Even on-line, you should be able to read certain players.

Recent hand where I kicked myself for not listening to myself (as opposed to the people who say never fold a set):

I'm on the button with pocket 8s. A min raise in EP, a ROCK in midposition pushes it up to 8bb. Since we're both full stacked I call. The minraiser calls. Flop comes 8 J Q. Minraiser makes a wussy lead... ROCK checks (which I remember thinking didn't seem what I would expect considering his raise)... I put in a real raise, the minraiser calls it, and the ROCK now checkraises. I told myself, "I knew it... if he had an overpair he wouldn't play it this way." I KNEW he had a higher set and I knew he expected me to call.

Then you hear that oft repeated 2+2 voice.... "never fold a set"... and I grudgingly went against my every instinct AND what I thought was very obvious info being given out.... So I push, minraiser folds and the ROCK insta-calls. Of course he had the top set.

My point... with a rock; considering the raise pf, and the checkraise on the flop (after a bet and a raise)... this was ONLY a set.

For absolute beginners... I would say the 'never fold a set' advice (unless you have a set of 10s on a board of 10JQsuited...) is fine. But for those trying to develop their game, its bad.

The fact of the matter is a lot of people play sets in very predictable recognizeable manners. And a lot of people are very predictable. After playing for awhile, if you can't put certain players definitely on sets once in awhile, then you're not developing proper hand reading skills.

[Gregg777]

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After playing for awhile, if you can't put certain players definitely on sets once in awhile, then you're not developing proper hand reading skills.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed, but with hero getting better than 2-1, do you really think at 200NL that it will be set over set at least 2 out of every 3 times?

If it was even money or villain was a nit, it would be an easy fold, the odds are the only reason I would call once hero finds himself in that spot.

[kurto]

I was not in the hand so I can't say for certain. But there are times when I can say better then 9 times out of 10 that a certain person has a set.

There are a lot of good but minimally tricky players who can be read like a book.

For instance... LAGS who lead and overbet all the time with marginal hands... suddenly, out of character for him... checks only to checkraise or go nuts; totally out of character for him and means Monster hand.

The person who calls a raise pf, smoothcalls a flop bet and then checkraises the turn on a drawless board; almost always a set.

Stuff like that... personally, I think your read can be enough to say, "I'm getting 3 to 1 on this call" and confidently fold.

Mind you... there are a lot of morons who you should NEVER fold a set to. I don't think that's what this hand is about.