Set over Set hand

[citanul]

I don't know if Hero editted his post, or what, but it says in multiple places what his hand was in this hand.

citanul

[citanul]

22-44 are effectively the same as 55-88 or so in the early going of sngs, and possibly even up to 99 or TT.

The amount of his stack that he put in is not nearly "large" as you called it. The amount of his stack that he put in was (I don't have the post open now) around 5% of his stack, maybe a bit more, but certainly less than 10%.

Set over set just doesn't happen very often. If you don't play small pairs because you fear set over set, you're losing a ton of EV. Sets (particularly small ones, because that leaves more cards open for your opponents to hit top pairs, that they will think are good) are great stack taking/high implied odds hands, because they are both well disguised, and players in sngs have a tendency to be willing to go broke, even early on, with any top pair, or even less.

When the ace hits, his 3 of a kind still beats any one pair or two pair aces hands. That's why he can keep going at it with his bottom set. Again, say you bet out on when an ace hits, and some shmo raises you with his newfound top pair. That's a great spot! You're likely going to get all his chips right away, and they'll often be drawing dead.

Small pairs are good stuff, particularly in position. Lee Jones (I think) had an internet article about playing them in Satellite play. There are also many posts in the past about how much of your stack you should be willing to put in preflop in early levels on purely the idea of "hit a set or fold." Needless to say, 5% is well within that range.

citanul

[citanul]

I very rarely fold preflop here. Seeing as how we saw a flop:

On the flop, bet more! There's straights and flush draws out there. I think I'd bet somewhere in the 200-300 range.

On the turn, well, we're here, and the turn is incredibly non-scary. We put in all our money, and when called, we're winning a huge amount of the time.

Yeah, every once in a while, you get nailed by a set over set, but that's real monsters under the bed stuff.

You're going to get called by a bunch of stuff here:

-> Any ace
-> Two hearts
-> Any overpair
-> Some random hand that had top pair on the flop
-> Complete bluffs? (eh, I guess yo'ure going to get pure bluff raised on the turn there sometimes, but they might throw it away and save their last 400)

If I were involved in this hand, the likely action probably would have been:

I bet 200 on the flop, guy with bigger set raises, I push, he calls, I lose. I woulda saved about 12 seconds of my life, relative to your actions...

Hard luck, good thing there's always next time.

citanul