Fun Poker Weekend
It's Monday agaiiiiiiiiiin!
That's right, guys. Only two more Mondays at the Hoy tournaments left in the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, and although we will of course be continuing on the tradition that is the Monday night MATH tournament for a tier I token buyin and with double stacks on full tilt for the foreseeable future even after the BBT schedule is completed at the end of this month (more accurately, on Sunday, July 1 with Don's Big Game as the big finale to the fabulous tournament challenge schedule), there are still those prizes for the top few finishers on the BBT leaderboard, as well as your seats in the lucrative BBT freeroll coming later in July up for grabs. So, those of you who have not yet qualified by playing in the required 20 BBT tournaments will really want to kick things in gear over the next two weeks, starting with tonight's MATH tournament, in order to play your way in to the freeroll, as well as those of you who don't think you will reach the 20 events played plateau but think you might be able to squeak your way in to the top 50 spots on the leaderboard. Remember, that's what it takes to get in to that BBT freeroll -- either top 50 on the BBT leaderboard or at least 20 BBT events played -- and as of right now we're already looking at a freeroll prize pool of around $1500, with more to be added over the last few weeks of the challenge. Now if that kind of free cashish ain't worth playing for then I don't know what is, so get off your arses and come out and play, starting tonight with Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt!
In other better-late-than-never news, be sure to go by and congratulate Jordan who last Thursday scored his biggest-ever poker win by taking down the $8500 guaranteed tournament on full tilt. The $3000+ that Jordon won was far and away his largest ever poker score, eclipsing his previous single-event best by a factor of five times, so go stop by and congratulate the man on joining the big time and read his writeup post that we all better hope his work does not read or we may be hearing less and less about his sick-day poker exploits in the future.
As for me, this weekend was the worst weekend of bad beats that I have experienced in as long as I can remember. As in, I'm sure I've experienced worse, but it's been long enough since it was this bad that I don't remember the details anymore. In the end I am pleased as punch to say that, for the second time this spring already, I lost a third of my online bankroll in one weekend, although unlike the last time this happened, this weekend was not at all the result of tilt. This time it all basically happened in the span of, if you can believe this, five fucking minutes. Playing two tables of 2-4 6-max nlh at once, I found pocket 3s and called a preflop raise from a guy across the table. The flop came AQ3. I bet out with my set because I'm a man, and the guy raised, which I friggin knew he would since his preflop raise had indicated an Ace. I reraised him the size of the pot -- not even allin but just a pot-sized reraise, again because I'm a man, and of course he insta-pushed. And of course I insta-called. And of course he showed me Queens. Sweet.
Barely 100 seconds later on my other 2-4 table, this time I was the one who raised preflop when I found a pair of 8s in middle position. Just the big blind called, and the flop came down A84. I bet out with my set because I'm a man, and the guy raised, which I friggin knew he would since his instacall of my preflop raise told me he had a strong Ace. I reraised him the size of the pot -- not even allin but just a pot-sized reraise, against because I'm a man, and of course he insta-pushed. And of course I insta-called. And of course he showed me Aces. Delicious.
I'd love to tell you that this is where the story ends, that I accepted that it was just not my night and I packed it in for the day. But I didn't. I couldn't. For whatever reason, I wasn't even tilted in the least after two set-over-set stackings in less than two minutes. In fact, I had been playing well and killing the competition at both of my tables before these two setbacks, and I have played enough cash these days to recognize this as just a major cooler run, but I was completely level-headed and I figured I'll just go and make this money back. I had been on another big run at the cash, lifting my PT stats up to fresh all-time highs after the past few days of action, and I had no problem accepting what had just happened as the ass end of variance that everyone will experience if they play enough. I had already immediately closed out the second table where the second set-stacking had occurred, but I went ahead and reloaded back to $400 at the first table where the players were truly terrible and I started rebuilding. I won a small pot before the flop and another larger pot after float-calling a preflop stealer's c-bet on the flop and then leading out big on the turn. Then I look down to find Jacks, I raise it up and get one caller, and the flop comes down JT4 rainbow. Top set, no way that shit is happening to me again at least. I bet out with my set because I'm a man, and I get raised which actually surprises me but in a good way. I reraise him the size of the pot -- not even allin but just a pot-sized reraise, against because I'm a man, and he just smooth calls. I'm lovin' it. The turn is an offsuit King. Knowing for sure he cannot possibly be playing AQ in this way, I lead out for the size of the pot into the now large pot, and he insta-pushes for his last $140 or so into a $600 pot. Of course I insta-call (please tell me none of you are fonks enough to fold here). And of course he shows me pocket Kings.
Just fucking delectable. I'm leaving out a fourth time I ran into a set, this time with TPTK, which also happened within 30 minutes of the three losses above, for another nice loss, albeit a limited one for me at least. And I'm not even going to mention the 96.77% favorite hand (thank you CardPlayer holdem odds calcualtor) that I lost after the flop lateish in the 26k on Friday night, which Goat got to experience in all its jaw-dropping splendor while watching it live with me, when I got my fonkponent to call my allin raise on the AK9 flop with his A8 (!!!) against my 99, only to lose to runnerrunner clubs for a four-flush. Let's just say that overall this was about as gross of a weekend as one can have at the tables. I mean, running into set-over-set is inevitable if you play a lot of cash, and with experience you come to accept that this is an unavoidable part of playing the game, in both directions. So for every time my set of 3s loses to a set of Queens on the AQ3 flop, you expect that I'll get to be the set of Queens in that scenario an equal number of times. Theoretically, anyways. But running into two flopset over flopset scenarios in 2 minutes, both of which with you as the loser, that is something special, something which I'm still waiting to get to experience on the good end of things in my cash game play. And when it happens a third time in the span of 5 or 6 minutes, well that is a favor which I honestly do not expect to be returned to me by the poker assgods no matter how long I play this game. It just sucks to have to go and rebuild my online roll for all those losses again, after I was playing so well this weekend and had actually gotten lucky (I thought) to have flopped not just one and not just two but three of those one-time-in-eight sets with my pocket pairs.
Anybody know the odds of running into set-over-set on the flop in no-limit holdem? I'd love to know the odds of that happening twice and then running into a turned set over a lower flopped set as well, as a series of three connected events (not even counting the odds of these all happening within 5 minutes, which I can only assume are beyond astronomical. Galactic maybe.).
See you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt! And in keeping with my thematic bounties of late, if you bust me with set over set from the MATH tonight, I'll buy you in to this week's Mookie and next week's MATH tournament with a $37 bounty to boot. What a deal that is going to be for someone.
Labels: Bad Shit in Holdem, Cash Games, Set Over Set
posted by Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo @ 7:43 PM
18 Comments:
I think it was the "F*** the Bloggers" weekend on Full Tilt...
Variance sux! So are you dropping back down to 1/2, just curious about your BR management style. Since BR mgmt is not one of my strong suits.
I can't see dropping back down to 1-2, not when I am still ripping up these 2-4 games. I mean, I would drop back down if I felt I was playing badly, or somehow getting repeatedly beaten by better plays or something, I think that's a perfectly justifiable move and probably smart from a BR management perspective. But I can't see dropping down to a level where I had less success as it is because the players were bigger fonkeys, all because I ran sets into higher sets three times in 5 minutes.
I also still easily have the online roll to handle 2-4 games and then some. That has a lot to do with this decision I'm sure. But I have still made a lot of money overall at 2-4 on full tilt, so I'm nowhere near "needing" to drop back down.
Would you drop down because of these kinds of beats, if you still had the roll to support play at 2-4?
I'm playing in my first Mondays at the Hoy.
Be afraid.
Ouch.... Brutal sometimes isn't it? Question: At what cash game level do the majority of the players understand what a UTG raise is supposed to represent? Just wondering.
Set over set is where I take the biggest losses at cash. Never three times in a session though, that is sick. There is not much you can do about it, other than hope that the set over set stuff evens out over the long term. A small tweak is to fold your micro pocket pairs (22-44) UTG, and possibly UTG+1. If you review you PT stats you will probably see that these hands are not profitable UTG. If you can manage to just fold them, you will eliminate a few set over set instances where you lose, which can swing the whole set over set thing into your favor.
Set over set is inevitable. Folding any pair from any position where you can set mine (this is key, obv) in a cash game is just wrong, IMO. As much as set over set sucks, that rarely happens. You just have to take the bumps and bruises as part of the game.
Set over set on the flop happens 1/98 times when two players with pocket pairs see the flop. The probability for that happeneing is .0102 - all this from Brian Alspach's column here:
http://www.math.sfu.ca/~alspach/mag86/
I don't know how you get away from these situations other than maybe following blinders' advice.
Blinders you have an interesting idea there. I am going to take a look at my PT tonight to see if you are in fact right about my micro pairs being unprofitable utg. In general I'm not sure I even have enough hands recorded yet to have hit sets with all of the pairs at least a couple of times, so I'm betting that for now some of those low pairs are surely going to be negatively profitable for me. I'm more curious as to how to evaluate whether the losses from the extremely rare set over set situations more than compensate for the gains from set-mining when I do hit these hands on the flop.
Thanks for the suggestion.
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Awesome calculation there, wilddeuces, thanks for that. To be honest I haven't taken the time to even understand all of the computations there, but I appreciate the effort nonetheless and I enjoy thinking this was a more than a million to one "beat" to all happen in 10 minutes. Sickness.
On-line cash is a joke, I keep telling you :) Quit now or suffer later...........
hell i dont know about cash games but in Phil Gordons lil Green book he says the odds of set over set are so rare you shouldnt worry about it. Yet its happened to me..
Full tilt was brutal to me Friday nite so I switched to stars for a change of venue. FTP must have it in for New Yorkers or something.
The notion of switching to pokerstars for a "less rigged" rng is so funny to me that I can't seriously consider it. Even when I have considered it, I play at stars for about 5 minutes and think "no wonder I switched to full tilt."
Hey Hoy. I've been reading you blog at work for a few months now, and I gotta tell you I really look forward to your near daily posts. Anyway, thanks for all the hours of non-productivity and I hope to see you at the tables (if I can ever figure out how to get f'in money deposited). Peace.
I agree with the idea that set over set is so rare that it's not something you should worry about. Shit happens, but the fear of longshots happening would cost even more. What are you going to do, start folding sets on dry boards against hand ranges that you dominate?
I messed up the calc, Turns out I got the same awnser! ;-)
My preliminary est for the prob:
10 mins
90 hands an hour
15
0.010204082 =1/98 Set over set
0.5 prb your delt the lower pair
0.005102041 **** this is you loseset over set once…
0.93566637 =(1-A9)^13
prob your not delt set over set for 13 hands
0.040622606 =9/40*12/39*11/38*10/37*(40-10)/40*10
9.89411E-07 =A12*A10*A9^2
0.999304944 =A14*1010000
about a one in 1,001,000 chance of this happening
I ran into set over set 6 times in one week this month. Not all in one session, thank god! I have a friend who has been playing for years and has never been on the receiving end. I feel like a science experiment. Oh, and the one time I had set over set, KKK vs 101010-he hit quads on the river. If flopping set over set is like 1:98 hands when 2 players have pp, I don't understand how I am able to lose 6x in one week with it. I ahven't even had 100 sets in my poker playing career. Makes you doubt the whole odds thing...
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