Defending against set miners?

[MrSpeed]

The subject is pretty self explanatory.

It is always said that you need 10/1 to call to hit a set profitably. Now, how do you defend against people calling to hit sets against you? is it simply good enough to get more than 10-15% of their stack in the pot preflop?

I feel this is an area of the game that causes me 'big' problems. My game is NLHE 6max

To get technical....Sklansky talks about "raising a small pot building amount or a large hand defining amount"...theory and practice. concept 28.

If we have given our opponents insufficient odds to call, is it ok to make more mistakes after the flop. i.e. we are sitting with $150 in a $50NL game. our oppo has $73.

after a couple of limper's our oppo raises to 2.75...it is folded button folds and o decide to play AA fast as i have been raising a lot. I thus make it 13 to go.  limper's fold and our oppo calls after not much thought.

flop come J72...looks good. i had put our opp on TT and up or AK...doubt he calls with AQ but maybe.

i bet 20 into 27ish pot. and my oppo insta pushes for 40 more. am i right to call here?? i fear the set but i think he could easily have QQ or KK.

I call and he shows me JJJ.

What can i do to prevent this?

You thoughts and comments are much appreciated. i know i could fold on the flop but too many people are nutters at this level!!

Regards,
MrSpeed

[TightEnd]

Implied odds, not just offering insufficient pot odds, is the key

I will call pre flop with any pocket pair to most single raises to set mine and potentially stack an overpair.

Its easy to get away from if I don't hit my set or possibly c/r a serial c-bettor if that's foe's pattern.

Defending it? I'd call it identifying it:  tricky, but these are the laydowns you can make if your notes are decent and the action is telling you you are beat.

Of course in the example below its unlikely you are folding for such a small reraise as you are playing a shortstacked foe

[The_Diamond]

A cleverly disguised bad beat post.

The hand above is played fine. nothing you can do. Move on. Life is short.

[doubleup]

Leaving your example aside, as you progress in poker you will come across games where all the players have larger stacks, so it will not be an optimal strategy to raise the amount required to eliminate implied odds.

You will have to find a strategy that reduces the amount that you lose.  E.g you raise a limper, who appears to be a reasonable player, up to 5bbs with AA and he calls.  Flop is q64 rainbow.  You bet 8bbs, he calls.  This is a clear check on the turn.  Unless he makes a huge bet on the river that you call, he has not got the odds he required.  Indeed you can stll call a pot sized bet on the river (although I probably wouldn't in this situation) and your opponent has not quite achieved the required pay-off.

If you are out of position it is a bit more difficult and your best defence is to try to keep the pot small and simply refuse to take part in post-flop pots that your opponent is trying to make into monsters.  Yes, this will lead to you being bluffed occasionally, but if you observe your opponents closely, you will pick up players who call flop bets often and be more inclined to call down these opponents on boards where draws haven't completed.

[totalise]

if you increase the hands with which you re-raise from the button, then you will crush the nits who setmine, they will be patiently waiting for their set, you keep picking up their $13, and then when they do finally hit their set you will be sat on 89 or 10/J suited and then wont win more then a c/bet. Try it, its a lot of fun!

As for your hand specifically, as you say, he would do that with QQ/KK as well, so dont begrudge the small % of the time he has you beat.

[MrSpeed]

The Diamond - i am not interested in bad beat stories. I was looking for help on playing AA/KK etc oop to avoid paying off sets. Losing a buy in is not the issue.

Totalise - i do add in reraising bluffs from the button to avoid always showing down a big hand/paying off sets. Do you recommend this strategy for reraising from the blinds? and if so, how do you proceed when they call? You have generally built a large pot oop with a marginal hand/bluff. A standard cont bet will therefore be a large and larger amount.

Doubleup - i agree that one of the requirements is to identify players willing to go broke with top pair not respecting your potential overpair. i feel the difficulty lies when your oppo has a high aggression factor in his post flop play. This can lead to a pot spiralling out of control (with no clear idea of what they hold) if your not very careful.

TightEnd - what kind of notes are you keeping on people always calling for sets? Do you note their general betting pattern when they hit or just that they are set mining a lot.

[TightEnd]

TightEnd - what kind of notes are you keeping on people always calling for sets? Do you note their general betting pattern when they hit or just that they are set mining a lot.

just little things like do they bet sets, check raise with them, trap call...any patterns I can identify. Not many players to be honest, but in a long session you might pick up a few things

[doubleup]

Doubleup - i agree that one of the requirements is to identify players willing to go broke with top pair not respecting your potential overpair. i feel the difficulty lies when your oppo has a high aggression factor in his post flop play. This can lead to a pot spiralling out of control (with no clear idea of what they hold) if your not very careful.

If a player is generally very agg post-flop your just going to have to pay them off post-flop.  Its quite rare to find a player who limps and calls a raise and is then generally aggressive post-flop.  If they are it will be quite easy to get their money as they will rarely have a set.

Situations where pre-flop the action is raise/reraise aren't really in the remit of your original question as the implied odds of the small pair are already reduced. 

[Highstack]

Never be too disappointed if all you win is the blinds. You only have one pair. Nice starting cards for sure, but it is a 7 card game.

A clue could be in the actions of your oppo. Does your oppo usually raise with AK or reraise with premium pp? IF the answer is yeas and here he smooth calls your raise, then what is his calling range? You will possibly have identified this if you are not at the beginning of a session with this player. Therefore, if they always seem to call with a pp, then assess teh post-flop action. Are they demonstrating strength? If they are and you still have just a pair, then don't let the pot become too big. As with most hands, these are often easier to play in position.