My Poker Lesson

There's a slew of great strategy posts written up by some of the bloggers out there - HDouble, PokerNerd, DoubleAs, ScurvyDog, Joanne, Beck, and many others I'm sure I've missed. So I thought I'd offer up my own little poker lesson... but not about pot-odds or check-raising the turn, but rather, about a bit of proper grammar.

SET versus TRIPS

Both words refer to the same poker hand, a Three-of-a-Kind, which always ranks above Two-pair and can be beaten by a Straight or higher. So is this just another case of giving a hand multiple names, like Full House/Full Boat or Four-of-a-Kind/Dem Quads, Beetches? In a regular 5-card game, sure, you could say you've got Trips or a Set of Jacks to sound like a savvy player who knows what you're doing.

But really, what's the difference? It's the same hand right? Why squabble over semantics?

In the case of Hold'em, Omaha, and other games with a community board and hole cards, it is commonly agreed upon that having a Set refers to holding a pocket pair and catching the third on the board, whereas Trips refers to having the Three-of-a-Kind with only one in your hand and the other two on the board. This was a distinction I had learned early on, but it never dawned on me until recently that there was a solid, logical explanation for the difference.

Notice that a Set is always A Set, singular. When you have a Set, you have the only Set of that rank possible. If you've got KK and the board is AK8, then you have the only possible Three-of-a-Kind in Kings. If someone else says they've hit their Set of Kings, then it's time to call for a new setup. The poor sap holding K8 is drawing dead, and the only hand ahead of you at this point is a Set of Aces, which, if out there, could only be held by one other person.

On the other... hand, Trips are plural and two people can have the same Three-of-a-Kind, leading to a split pot or kicker battle. AT versus AJ on a AAKQ2 board would both have Trip Aces, KQ kicker and split. With a AAK82 board, the Jack would play and scoop the pot.

Simple as that. A sound, grammatically-based explanation of Set versus Trips. Now here's an example of the confusion that can occur when improperly used:

I watched a hand where an EP player raised preflop and was called all the way around the table (as is the case in 3/6 limit No-Fold'em). The flop came AAJ and he led out and got a few callers. He slowed down and checked the River when it put a Broadway straight and a flush possibility on the board. Sure enough, someone had hit their straight but the winner was a runner-runner Ten-high Flush. The original raiser mucked his hand in disgust and told his friend, "Geezus, I flopped a set..." So of course I'm thinking he had JJ and why the hell did he muck his Full House to a measly Flush??? "...Big Slick no good at this table!" Ah-ha! He didn't flop a Set, he flopped a much more vulnerable Trip Aces.

So there you have it... my all-important Poker lesson for you all. Now when you need to correct someone at the table, you'll have the reasoning to back it up and you can wow them with your extensive knowledge of Poker terminology. Or you can keep it to yourself and laugh at them internally when they show 92o and proclaim they have a Set of Dueces... take pride in the fact that you know it's actually TRIP Dueces that cracked your Aces.

Quiz on Friday!