Live 3/6, top set in a multiway pot on a [censored] board.

[hram]

Your flop check was the right play. The pot was huge (16 SB) and while you might be able to bet for value you need to focus on maxing your chance to win what is already out there. Betting and offering you opponenets 17/1 to call is not going to protect your hand so checking was the right play. The action behind you was perfect for you. A bet and a raise drove out all the flop checkers. Now you should have put in a rereaise to try and get the pot heads up. Being able to get a now 19+ SB pot heads up preflop is a coup. That is the mistake I see here.

Yes you could have bet out on the flop for value, but it is worth it to sacrific that little bit of value (given the extreme coordinated nature of this board) in hopes of maxing out your chance to win this huge pot.

[JJH3984]

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Your flop check was the right play. The pot was huge (16 SB) and while you might be able to bet for value you need to focus on maxing your chance to win what is already out there. Betting and offering you opponenets 17/1 to call is not going to protect your hand so checking was the right play. The action behind you was perfect for you. A bet and a raise drove out all the flop checkers. Now you should have put in a rereaise to try and get the pot heads up. Being able to get a now 19+ SB pot heads up preflop is a coup. That is the mistake I see here.

Yes you could have bet out on the flop for value, but it is worth it to sacrific that little bit of value (given the extreme coordinated nature of this board) in hopes of maxing out your chance to win this huge pot.

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No. This is a total misaplication of a concept in SSHE. Having this flop check through is a DISASTER. You have TOP SET; your equity is great in this spot, but it could plummet if you give a free card and a diamond or four card straight comes. In SSHE, the example is where your equity is THIN or NEGATIVE now, but the pot is big and the next card either increases your edge dramatically or makes your hand completely unplayable.

I remember a NLHE example from cardplayer?? that illustrates this example: Player A put player B on a range of big draws and made hands that beat his on a highly coordinated flop. He had an overpair and knew that his equity would increase dramatically if he called his opponents bet and pushed a blank turn. Player B bet out on the turn (a blank) and player A pushed. Player B called because he was pot comitted with a big draw. The result was the same as if Player A raised the flop and got put all-in, but he gained equity because he waited for a safe card to come on the turn before committing himself. I'll try to find it.

In any event, it should be pretty obvious why top set on a monotone coordinated board is a much bigger hand than an overpair on a monotone coordinated middle board.

[johnnybeef]

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Your flop check was the right play. The pot was huge (16 SB) and while you might be able to bet for value you need to focus on maxing your chance to win what is already out there. Betting and offering you opponenets 17/1 to call is not going to protect your hand so checking was the right play. The action behind you was perfect for you. A bet and a raise drove out all the flop checkers. Now you should have put in a rereaise to try and get the pot heads up. Being able to get a now 19+ SB pot heads up preflop is a coup. That is the mistake I see here.

Yes you could have bet out on the flop for value, but it is worth it to sacrific that little bit of value (given the extreme coordinated nature of this board) in hopes of maxing out your chance to win this huge pot.

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Originally, I would have agreed with you, but I think that JJ has it right here. The reason is because if I am behind here, I still have plenty of redraws whereas if I only had an overpair, I would likely be a small favorite if a favorite at all (and if I wasn't I would be pretty close to drawing dead.)

[hram]

JJ, you make a good case for my being wrong. But I have some questions?

Is the flop bet to protect your hand or for value?

You say "You have TOP SET; your equity is great in this spot, but it could plummet if you give a free card and a diamond or four card straight comes."

This makes it sound like you think the bet both protects your hand and adds value.

I do not think offering 17/1 odds protects anything. You can do nothing to protect from another diamond or straight card falling. So if your goal is to protect your hand the check is right.

If your argument is pot equity is so high that betting out adds more value than checking in hopes of protecting your hand later then I can see some merit here. You may gain more from the percentage of the flop bets that are yours than you gain from potentially folding others out of the pot.

Though with 17 SB already in the pot your pot equity increase (from folding other players) does not have to be huge to add a lot of real money value.

[James.]

you have a very strong made hand AND a monster redraw. not betting the flop is bad. also, it would suck getting owned on the turn by a J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]5 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] or K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]type hand that would have folded should we bet.

[JJH3984]

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This makes it sound like you think the bet both protects your hand and adds value.


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My argument is that a lot of times you will be offering your opponents infinate odds to chase their straights and flushes. The reason you can do this in the SSHE examples is that the bet itself has a very marginal equity edge; that is, your range is about equal in value to the field's. In effect, the bet has 0 EV so it doesn't matter if you make it. In this case, passing up your edge is disasterous because your edge isn't marginal.

Summary: you can pass up small or non-existant edges to exploit larger edges later in the hand; however, you can't pass up large edges, even in big pots, for a chance of protecting your hand.