Set Mining and Sizing Bets for Value
Here's another hand from that same $3,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em World Series of Poker event we've been drawing hands from lately, this one allowing us to talk about set mining and bet sizing.
The blinds were 600/1,200 with a 200 ante, and it folded around to me in the small blind where I had about 50,000 behind and had been dealt 2♣2♠.
If you recall, last week's hand also saw me limping in from the small blind with the lowly jack-four offsuit. Pocket deuces is better, though not that much better, and I limped in again (as I would do with many of my playable hands when it folds to me in the small blind).
The player in the big blind had about 70,000 to start and he raised to 4,200. I would have folded jack-four, of course, but with my small pocket pair I called here, making the pot a little over 10,000. I'm going to end up folding a lot of the time on the flop, but with these stacks I'm getting great implied odds should I make a set.
The flop came Q♦10♣7♥ and I checked, prepared to fold to any bet. But my opponent checked behind, and the turn brought the 2♦ to give me a set. Beautiful!
Here I have to think about what sorts of hands my opponent might have checked behind on the flop, and what size bet from me he might call on the turn with those hands. Take a look at how I played my set and see how things played out:
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,700,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.
