This is one issue with middle pairs that I've been thinking about a lot recently. Most "decent players" are in the habit of set mining with middle pairs - they just look at the relative stack sizes and tell themselves "If he has more than 8x the bet left behind, then I'll call".
The problem is that tight players with big pocket pairs don't always call off all-in when you hit your set (after all, set mining is somewhat obvious), and sometimes you get in a set-over-set situation like this one.
So in other words, your decision that:
"I called for set value, since it's only 10% of his stack and most players on this site will stack off with any overpair."
Is probably a near-zero EV play and it relies on something that I have heard criticize other players for - assuming that you will win all the chips in your best-case scenario and lose no more chips in the worst case scenario.
Because of this, I have recently toned my set mining way down. I only make the 10% calls when I really have a read on a player as being very strong, and unable to fold a second best hand. Otherwise I look for something closer to 20x or more behind to make the call, because of these other variables that have to be taken into account.
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Middle pairs have this problem
Date: 2006-12-20 18:15 (UTC)The problem is that tight players with big pocket pairs don't always call off all-in when you hit your set (after all, set mining is somewhat obvious), and sometimes you get in a set-over-set situation like this one.
So in other words, your decision that:
"I called for set value, since it's only 10% of his stack and most players on this site will stack off with any overpair."
Is probably a near-zero EV play and it relies on something that I have heard criticize other players for - assuming that you will win all the chips in your best-case scenario and lose no more chips in the worst case scenario.
Because of this, I have recently toned my set mining way down. I only make the 10% calls when I really have a read on a player as being very strong, and unable to fold a second best hand. Otherwise I look for something closer to 20x or more behind to make the call, because of these other variables that have to be taken into account.