set under set situations... can they be avoided?

[jbright]

a general subject I'd love to hear some thoughts on:

I've always played with the principle that if you flop middle or bottom set, the only thing you worry about are flush and straight draws, and otherwise you try to get eveyone's money in the pot, and if someone just happens to have flopped a higher set once in a blue moon than so be it.

but in the last two days playing 2$/4$, I lost my stack by flopping set under set not one, not two, not three, but four times. [incidentally, in the same sessions i only once flopped a set over someone else's - aces over queens - and after we go all in on the flop villian hit his fourth queen on the turn. another stack gone. grr.]

now I realize you shouldn't read too much into a run of bad luck... but these big losses have made me think about whether this can be avoided. two real questions:

1) are the implied odds of the lowest pp's overrated - 22 through 66, say - because with low or middle set you will get oversetted a certain portion of the time, and when you do you will often lose your whole stack, and in the long haul this cuts down the overall EV of these hands significantly?

2) When you flop low or middle set, should you at least consider higher sets out there, and if someone shows real strength try to keep the pot small or even sometimes fold to a huge raise?

the problem with 2, of course, is that you want to push hard on the flop/turn to punish and protect against any draws... and also you want to max your winnings against overpairs, TPTK, and two pair.

Apologies if this has already been discussed. But I'd love to hear any thoughts on this matter from experienced players while I lick my wounds from losing all those huge pots to higher sets.

[Ghazban]

It isn't just you, it happens at all levels.

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[jbright]

i hope my post wasn't misconstrued as a whiny bad luck post. it's just that the losses (4 set under sets in a row, losing whole stack each time) raised the two theoretical questions:

1) are the implied odds of the lowest pp's overrated - 22 through 66, say - because with low or middle set you will get oversetted a certain portion of the time, and when you do you will often lose your whole stack, and in the long haul this cuts down the overall EV of these hands significantly?

2) When you flop low or middle set, should you at least consider higher sets out there, and if someone shows real strength try to keep the pot small or even sometimes fold to a huge raise?

the math from the other discussion, if correct, suggests the odds of flopping set under set are so small as to be insignificant... but in practice, esp. with multiple preflop callers, it seems to happen fairly often.

[tek]

In HOH2, Dan says not to worry about set over set. If you have a set and there is no pairs, straight or flush draws on the board to bet it.

[subzero]

Set over set is tough. It's happened to me many times. It's a great thing to flop a set because most of the time you will be ahead. You can just pop and re-pop and take down a monster pot. But there are situations when you should play a little poker rather than blindly pump the pot. For example, if stacks are deep and you have a strong read on your opponent, you might be able to put him on a higher set a high percentage of the time.

[webmonarch]

To me, set over set is like KK against AA. In most cases, you want to push with KK, but if you have a good read, and know your opponent, you should be laying down a hand that you're pretty certain is going to make you a 4 to 1 dog.

I think the same thing applies in set over set. However, if I am at th $50 buy-on , and I haven't built a huge stack, I'm going to go to the gree with any middle set. Lower sets, I tend to think about a little more, especially if there were many callers to an initial raise. But, if you have the middle set, you can basically be 50% more certain that you have the best hand, and to me, that's enough to go to the green with that hand.