Set or trips

Someone suggested the other day that trips is if you have 1 hole card and hit 2 on the board

A set is if you have 2 hole cards and hit the 3rd on the board?

Is this correct, it Is it just personal preference?

Also why do people call 2 and 3 deuce and trey respectively? Deuce I can accept.....at a push 😄

Yeah it's generally accepted that a "set" is two hole cards plus one on the board and "trips" is one hold card with two on the board.

At the end of the day it's just terminology though - both still make three of a kind and are worth the same at showdown, regardless of whether you use the "right" word for it or not.

Set =
X X - Y Y X

Trips =
X Y - X Y X

yes your terminology is correct

Sets and trips are similar in that they both make 3 of a kind, but they're not the same type of hand.

Set:
-The odds of hitting a set is 8.3:1
-If you hit a set, you are he only player in the hand that can have that set.
-Sets on paired boards always improve to a full house.
-Sets usually win your large pots as the chance of getting set vs set is very rare and your opponent will have to make a better hand than a set to win. Also, sets can very well hidden. So, you might stack someone with AA if you have a set on a dry board.

Trips:
-Odds of flopping trips is 73:1
-If you flop trips, you may not be the only player with trips.
-Trips can cost you a lot of money if they don't improve. Have 78 on a board of of 2884A can be very dangerous if your opponent has an 8 with a better kicker like 89, A8, or a set of 2s or 4s.
-Trips aren't hidden, so you probably won't stack a player with AA if they don't improve.

Also, when discussing strategy or talking about a hand, using the correct terminology is crucial as story or discussion might not make a lot of sense if you're saying it's one thing but it's acutally another.

So, saying you had a set and you lost on a board of 553K7 to an opponent holding A5 won't make a lot of sense to me because if you had a set, you should have one. If you meant you had 56 for trips and lost, that's completely different.

Sets on paired boards could make you quads, but yeah.

44 - AJ4 - set
A4 - 44J - trips

I thought they were the same thing, good to know.

Actually, it used to be that neither described having just 1 in your hand and 2 on the board. That was simply the boring "3 of a kind" and anyone calling it a "set" was immediately targeted for their whole stack.

Nice one thread. Good to know this one. Few times i asked myself is this set with pocket pair.Cheers!

Nutcracker69 said:

Actually, it used to be that neither described having just 1 in your hand and 2 on the board. That was simply the boring "3 of a kind" and anyone calling it a "set" was immediately targeted for their whole stack.

Click to expand...

I agree with this, however I think it started being called trips as it was just easier to say and pretty much everyone know what you were talking about. Poker has a ton of slang that makes describing hands and situations so much easier and faster.

Three of a kind is called a "set" usually when it is composed of a pocket pair and one card of matching rank on the board
It is called "trips" usually when it is made by one card that player has in the hole with two matching cards on the board

Yes, that's correct and its not only a preference.