As you saw in my last post, sometimes you will flop a set. A lot of beginning poker players will check those flops, hoping their opponents will bet. Slowplaying those sets is in their view the way to make the biggest profit. This is certainly not always the truth.

This subject came to my mind yesterday when I was watching Poker After Dark (S01E50). During the period Mike Matusow was still ON the table (that ofcourse didn’t last long thanks to his famous variation of good plays and absolute donkey moves, luckily he stayed around the following episodes to insult the remaining players), he had a small discussion with Shawn Sheikhan (perhaps the only player who is even more annoying). The flop paired a card, Sheikhan betted and the other player folded. Matusow asked if ‘Sheiky’ had a set and he responded instantly: “I would never bet out a set man!”.

According to Matusow, this told exactly “what a donkey Sheiky is”. Ofcourse ‘the Mouth’ has a point here: sometimes it’s a good play to bet your set. Depending on the texture of the board, there’s always a good chance your opponent also has a strong hand and your set will always be quite disguised. Because every situation in poker is unique, it’s not very useful to give examples. Nevertheless a short and simplified one: A player makes a preflop raise with AK and you call in the blind with 88. Flop comes A 8 J. If you bet there, he can put you on many aces and will certainly not lay down his AK immediately.

A much more interesting situation happened later on in the episode. David Benyamine (a French cashgame player) is in the small blind with Ts5s and called big blind Sheiky, who has Q2 offsuit. Flop comes TQT and suddenly Sheiky just bets out of turn. Benyamine says “I was gonna bet” and then checks. Now Sheiky also wants to check but the rules say he has to bet now. He bets and Benyamine immediately reraises (with his set ) after which Sheiky comes over the top again and Benyamine calls. The turn comes another Q, Benyamine is suspicious now and checks, so does Sheiky (surprise there, isn’t it Mike? ). The river is the last Q in the deck. Benyamine now knows: “I have to make that call anyway if Sheiky makes a bet so I better move all-in myself” and so he does. Ofcourse Sheiky calls and shows him quads. Ofcourse a giant relief for Shana Hiatt, because if Sheiky would have been eliminated, Matusow would be talking to her all the time…

Tags: betting out a set, david benyamine, mike matusow, s01e50, shana hiatt, shawn sheikhan, slowplaying a set

This entry was posted on donderdag, november 6th, 2008 at 13:05 and is filed under Poker on TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.