SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

In SSHE, Ed Miller distinguishes hands of the type 77 flop 7xx from hands of the type 7x flp 77x. He calls the former sets and the latter trips (SSHE, pp127-129). Is this distinction recognised by two + two-ers? I mean would you use this terminology? Would you be understood?

Tx in advance.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

I remember being on the losing side of a small debate about this long ago. When the smoke cleared it was understood and accepted by all that having a pocket pair (7-7) with a card on the board matching the two in your hand (another 7) was a "set". Having only one of a rank in your hand like (T-8) and making three-of-a-kind on the the board (A, 8, 4, 8, Q) was "trips".

I now use those terms to refer to those situations. My understanding is that this if fairly common knowledge.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

One of the major influences 2+2 has had on poker at large is the standardation of poker terms. Read an old book like SS1 and you'll see Doyle use 3-4 terms to discribe the same thing. While you will often hear poker posers throw all kinds of old school slang in a desperate attempt to sound like a long time grinder, you don't see that anymore in print. Now days, particularly in print, you'l see people use standard and particular terms.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

BTW, the distinction is very valid. With pocket 7's and a flop of J [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], your set is going to win a lot of money from players who Flopped a pair of jacks or a pair of tens. And if you're playing NL and your opponent Flopped two pair, you're probably going to double up. This is because the strength of your hand is concealed.

Now consider 8 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] on a Flop of 7 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]J [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. Someone with one jack will probable bet at that Flop and then let their hand go when you raise. You can't make as much money with trips because when you show strength the other players know exactly what you have.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

I used to consider them to mean the same thing. After reading Miller's book though, when I've looked over books before SSHE they all seemed to use "set" and "trips" exactly how he defined it.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

[ QUOTE ]
I used to consider them to mean the same thing. After reading Miller's book though, when I've looked over books before SSHE they all seemed to use "set" and "trips" exactly how he defined it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does the distinction precede Ed Miller then? By the way, on the magazine forum it was claimed Sklansky invented the term 'semi-bluff'. This is not true. Albert Morehead uses it in his book, the Complete Guide to Poker (1973).

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

[quote

Does the distinction precede Ed Miller then? By the way, on the magazine forum it was claimed Sklansky invented the term 'semi-bluff'. This is not true. Albert Morehead uses it in his book, the Complete Guide to Poker (1973).

[/ QUOTE ]

I have known the term "set" as distinct from trips, for over 10 years, but I don't remember where I first heard it or read it. Possibly reading Sklansky, possibly somewhere else.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

I started studying/playing HE about a year before SSHE came out, and I remember a clear distinction between "set" and "trips" from the very beginning, well before that book was published.

Can't say definitively exactly where I first read (or heard) the term, but I can say that both Lee Jones' Winning Low Limit Hold'Em 2nd Edition and Lou Krieger's Hold 'Em Excellence (both published in 2000) clearly made a distinction between "set" and "trips". Furthermore, each book discussed in a manner which implied that neither author came up with that distinction on their own.

In the process of writing this reply, looked through a couple of my earlier-published books. The use of the term "set" specifically in reference to 2 cards in the hole and 1 on the board appears as early as Bobby Baldwin's Limit Hold 'Em section in the original Super System (1978), but does not appear in Sklansky's original Hold 'Em Poker (1976). May very well be that Bobby made the first definition of the term in print, and probably existed as a standard term at the table long before that.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

Until this thread, I didn't even know that SSHE was evidently where people were learning of the distinction.

It was definitely recognized on 2+2 before the book came out and I'm fairly certain that Ed didn't invent it.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

[ QUOTE ]
In SSHE, Ed Miller distinguishes hands of the type 77 flop 7xx from hands of the type 7x flp 77x. He calls the former sets and the latter trips (SSHE, pp127-129).

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm probably a geek, but I use it. In fact, when I'm training someone, the exact phrase is "You're often SET with the first hand, but you can be TRIPPED up by the second if you're not careful"

The hands are hugely different and should be played differently, as we know. I think they deserve different names.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

Dear Hoss1193,

All the posts have been helpful but I think yours was really useful in that you had a look in SS1 and stated something as a fact that some had earlier said differently. If you are correct then then the set/trips distinction was in place by as early as 1978.

Thanks again everyone for your contributions.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

Al, thx for your post, I appreciate it. Your question and some of the replies just piqued my curiosity, so I started rummaging through my books trying to find the earliest reference to the term.

[ QUOTE ]
...you had a look in SS1 and stated something as a fact that some had earlier said differently.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're referring to Phydaux's comment above, I just want to point out that my specific reference was to Bobby Baldwin's Limit Hold 'Em section. Phydaux (I think) was referring to Doyle's discussion of NLHE in the same book, where his observation is probably perfectly valid (been a long time since I read it, don't specifically remember).

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

I don't know where (page or chapter) but Sklansky makes the distinction between the two in TOP.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

I remember looking through the glossaries of all my poker books (probably around 20 glossaries), and about half made a distinction between a "set" and "trips" and half defined them in the same way.

Having there be a distinction is probably more relevant now that Hold-em is much more popular than Stud. I believe both terms can be used to refer to three-of-a-kind in Stud no matter how many are open.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

I believe there is a clear distintion between the two terms. As I like to tell people; Your "trips" make my "set" a full house!

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

Fer crissakes, in Super System they call the flop the turn and the turn the flop, or whatever the hell.

Yes, a set is distinct from trips and almost everyone knows that. I know one guy who calls a set "trips", but then every time he's first to bet on the flop, he says "raise". So whatever.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

Sets are not trips, and trips are not sets.

Many people don't make the distinction. Similarly, the plural of pro isn't pro's, although many write it that way.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

It's a useful distinction, but I suspect that it is going the way of who/whom and less/fewer.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

I vaguely remember reading that "set" was some time ago called a "set of trips".

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

So for those of you who make the distinction b/w a "set" and "trip", what is a "set" when playing 7-card stud, and what is "trips" in stud? Or do you just never use these terms?

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

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It's a useful distinction, but I suspect that it is going the way of who/whom and less/fewer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite the opposite as I see it. I think ten years ago most people would have said the two terms mean the same thing. It is only recently that a lot of people started insisting that they are different and mutually exclusive.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

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So for those of you who make the distinction b/w a "set" and "trip", what is a "set" when playing 7-card stud, and what is "trips" in stud? Or do you just never use these terms?

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Trips - a pair is visible. Set - the opponents don't know two of your three cards are in the hole in scenarios when you are not rolled up (I consider rolled up on 3rd street, if you make a set on 6th for example the villains would never know).

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's a useful distinction, but I suspect that it is going the way of who/whom and less/fewer.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite the opposite as I see it. I think ten years ago most people would have said the two terms mean the same thing. It is only recently that a lot of people started insisting that they are different and mutually exclusive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't know the term ten years ago, so I'll bow to your experience. My opinion was based on the usage that I hear amongst 'unstudied' poker players, and the fact that I often hear TV commentators use the terms interchangeably.

Re: SSHE: Ed Miller\'s Distinction: HOH3
 

[ QUOTE ]
Sets are not trips, and trips are not sets.

Many people don't make the distinction. Similarly, the plural of pro isn't pro's, although many write it that way.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have just finished reading Harrington on Hold'em III. I am afraid Dan Harrington nor Bill Robertie make the distinction that Ed Miller and others have drawn. On page 195, Dan and Bill use the word 'trips' to describe what Ed calls a 'set' and on page 180 they use the word 'set' to describe what Ed calls a 'set' as well. Dan and Bill use the word 'trips' to describe what Ed calls 'trips' on page 320 though I could not find use the word 'set' to describe what Ed calls 'trips'.

This is terminological confusion and 2+2 should have a set policy on this issue!