Trips or a Set?
This is an easy difference to learn as far as the terminology goes. When you hold a pair in your hand and the board (community cards) has one more of those cards, you have a “set”. For example, you have AA for your down cards and the flop is J A 6. You have flopped a set of aces.
If, however, you have three of a kind with one of those cards in your hand and two on the board then you have “trips”. For instance, you have KQ in your hand and the board shows K 2 6 10 K, you have trip kings not a set.
The difference is huge in playing the hand for the simply reason that with trips you may not be the only player with that set. In our example you KQ would be ahead of all hands except all potential flushes and AK. With AK the player would also have trip kings but with a bigger kicker than you (A over Q).
You will hear players using ‘set’ when they mean ‘trips’ and ‘trips’ when they mean to say a ‘set’. Particularly when you are discussing hands in a forum or with your poker friends be sure to give accurate information. Trips is not a set and a set is a much stronger hand than trips.
-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #41
