10 Hold'em Tips: The Fundamentals of Set Mining

Continuing our series of no-limit hold'em tips, we turn to the topic of "set mining."

Set mining refers to the practice of playing a non-premium pocket pair passively preflop in the hopes of flopping three of a kind (a "set"). In other words, we're talking primarily about small pairs ( up to ) and medium pairs ( up to ) and not queens, kings, or aces. And by "passively" we mean not taking the preflop initiative by raising, but rather such calling and trying to see a flop relatively cheaply.

The idea is similar to what we were discussing with regard to playing suited connectors, insofar as when trying to hit sets with these pocket pairs your goal is similarly to risk a little to win a lot.…