Demondoink

nice video again!

@32:00 with 55 on the river, what hands do you think Huni is bluffing with that decided not to bet on the turn? he raises bvb, and as we seen in the other hand when he limp/called we know that he also has a limping range, so that leads us to assume his raising range is pretty strong and especially broadway card heavy.

so his flop bet is fairly standard (albeit the bb probably has a Jx advantage as you defend all the J9o/J8o which he doesn't iso, so it's definitely not nearly as good as an Ax/Kx/Qx for the sb) and then the K turns and i can imagine this is close to 100% bet for the sb as his raising range contains a ton of Kx, as well as his flopped Jx still being strong enough to value bet, and his other hands such as AQ/AT/QT/T9 etc benefitting from betting ott to force you to fold hands such as low pocket pairs. so when he checks on such a good bluffing card that could (i imagine) be bet at close to 100% frequency, i am very suspicious that he just has some hand that doesn't really want to bet, such as TT/99 or perhaps a weak Jx. i mean his hand of AJ is a clear turn bet, and if anything makes your call much worse because he should never be checking a hand that strong on the turn on a great card for his range when you are going to be doing little betting when checked to with anything worse.

Jeff_ no problem man. the good thing about poker is that it forces us to become introspective and look inward at where we could improve, as opposed to remaining blissfully ignorant and blaming others instead.

2-yeah but you are going to have swings at all limits, albeit you will obviously have less severe ones at lower stakes where your WR is higher. however, again, you seem to be coming at this from the viewpoint of what happens if things go wrong, as opposed to what happens if they go right. like i said, you can also have a 40-50 buy in upswing and just think how much more that is compared to a similar one at 200z ;) also, once you move up to that stake then you won't notice these swings as much, because you will become more used to winning/losing more money than before. so it's not as if a $1k pot at 200z looks the same as a $1k pot at 500z after a few months of grinding the higher stake.

3-i guess it depends, if you move up and don't work on your game then you are pretty unlikely to make more money than if you were playing the lower stake (but even then, you might make more if you pool/table select higher stakes efficiently). and of course it is not just about immediate earnings, it is about future earnings too. for example lets say you have a 5bb WR at 200z and you move up to 500z and have a 1bb WR, yeah you are probably better off playing 200z if you are so concerned about making more money in the short term, but if you work in your game and raise that WR up to a 3bb+ WR in the coming months then you are making more money. plus you can now table select 500/1k reg tables as well where you should have an even higher WR.

to me it just doesn't make a ton of sense if we are trying to improve/learn every day on this training site and with solvers etc, whilst also deciding that we are just content with the stake we are playing at and are not interested in moving up. those two viewpoints don't seem to align.

Ryan yeah exactly. when people 'avoid variance' or 'avoid the swings' that occur naturally when you move up in stakes, they either don't realise, or want to realise, that they are also avoiding the bigger upswings and bigger winning sessions that happen when you play 2x your previous buy in.

basically what is happening is that you are allowing fear and anxiety to dictate your actions, but your brain doesn't want to acknowledge this so instead it hides behind the 'i'm being responsible by avoiding bigger monetary swings' fallacy.

your brain doesn't want you to get out of your comfort zone and improve, so you have to do what doesn't feel natural and persevere regardless.

and like Patrick Cronin said, moving up is also a good idea if you are competitive, as it keeps those juices flowing and you get a kick out of challenging yourself. so even if you are breakeven/slightly losing at the higher stake, it could be good to play it every so often in order to improve and make you realise that you still have a ton of growth to come in the future.

no your mindset is definitely flawed, as you are simply trying to stay within your comfort zone. there are tons of crazy plays every day at 500z from fish, albeit they do play a little tighter compared to reg tables cos they can fold and play a new hand quicker.

with regards to your question of why you would want to bother with moving up; to make more money? i mean, if i had never bothered moving up to 500z then i would have missed out on making a lot of money. so even though it was stressful in the beginning when i was spewing and not really good enough to beat the stake yet, over time you improve (if you work hard) and then you start to become desensitized to the swings and it becomes enjoyable grinding each day.

Yungda Liu not sure if i am or am not, but would be willing to listen. so i don't mind just leaving it and seeing what happens in the future :)

Patrick Cronin hahah thanks mate! i have never been asked, though. so i guess we will just wait and see :P

if you implement a limping range bvb you get to VPIP more hands, so if you are comfortable playing bvb and feel like you have an edge over a lot of your opponents then this is definitely the best strategy- as you get to realise that EV advantage more often!

however, if you frequently find yourself guessing post flop, and are also struggling with the pre flop mixing, then you will be better off getting rid of the limping range and RFI only with a tighter/stronger range. this will simplify your options pre flop, whilst also allowing you to focus on your post flop leaks when studying away from the tables.

as far as getting the percentages of RFI/limp first in correct, it doesn't really matter tbh so long as you have a rough idea. for example, decent off suit broadways i normally just RFI around 75% of the time, with some of my weakest suited combos almost pure limping, and then stronger hands limping in somewhere between 5-25% of the time. this way my range is fairly sound against an iso raise; i can fold those weak suited combos, call with the off suit broadways and then limp raise my strongest combos as well as some of the low suited connectors that i mixed in as a limp.

you can also adjust your ranges vs your opponents. for example, if someone is isoing over 50% of the time then you need to cut out those weak 76o type limps, and just limp a much stronger range that is raising more often. conversely, if somebody is isoing 20-30% of the time, you dont really ever wanna be limping a strong hand (as they aren't allowing you to raise enough by reopening the action) so you can just limp in with a range consisting entirely of medium strength hands.

i think in this instance the 43cc hand is a pretty good bluffing combo cos it unblocks many of the pocket pairs that are going to be mixing call/fold on the river. Kevins turn leading range is likely to consist of Kx/Jx for value, and then flush draws/straight draws for bluffs. as the IP player is cbetting most of his flush draws, and preferring to check back with a hand such as QQ/TT etc, then on the river we don't mind having the low FD blockers as they don't really interact with the IP folding range and we instead unblock many of the folding combos.

if we were to bluff with a more 'intuitive' combo such as QT/Q9/T9 etc, then we would actually block more of the folding range, thus increasing the IP players calling frequency.

and finally, you could say that 43s blocks 44/33 that would sometimes fold on the river, but again, if the IP player actually arrived on the river with these combos, then they should probably prefer to call over QQ/TT due to the unblocking effects to our bluffing range. 44/33 literally only blocks some random low suited FD's (which don't amount to many combos) where as QQ blocks 16 combos of QT, 16 combos of Q9 as well as the Qxcc etc.

Ben Sulsky yeah those are also some good points. it's pretty easy to just value bet all of our top pairs/flushes etc and then leave the checking range extremely weak and vulnerable to delayed cbets, overbets or over folding.

i guess i was just trying to explain, in fairly simple terms, why you would want to bet a weak top pair on this line instead of checking. cos we still prefer to use our second pairs as bluff catchers (as we don't mind getting in to a 0EV decision with a hand that is too weak to value bet) but that doesn't mean that we should avoid slow playing some flushes etc in order to protect this range.

forrollz hands that are near the bottom of the OOP players range and, when possible, with good blockers to the value range of both players. in this instance, however, all the draws complete so there aren't really any 'good bluffing combos'. hence why 6x is used as a bluff, simply to balance out OOP's Jx+ value region and force the IP player to defend with second pairs etc.

btw Ben Sulsky did you noticed that at @27:20 the bb is actually blocking with 6x as a bluff, as he runs out of bluffs on this particular run out. pretty sick play which in reality probably doesn't happen.

forrollz by using the block sizing with his top pairs he forces the IP player in to 0EV defends with second pairs etc that would be checking back when faced with a check from the bb. and then if you check you, at least in theory, should be facing a polarized betting range that now beats all Jx (apart from perhaps the strongest ones) and now you have a 0EV bluff catcher yourself.

so it's best to put your opponent in to 0EV decisions compared to yourself, when you have marginal value combos, as this will increase the EV of your overall strategy unless they are over bluffing or something.

yeah i agree but i guess this is mostly an adjustment to the player pool. like you said, most players prefer front door aggression, so i prefer to adjust the other way until i see them start to make some slow plays.

haha yeah that was a sick line tbf. i really like the jam

nice video, was hoping that this hand @35:00 might show up in a video haha.

it's funny cos i kinda figured afterwards that my shove on the river wasn't really a thing, i have an overpair advantage on the river but not a nuts advantage as i pretty much have no full houses/trips and i'm not even sure if i 3bet A4s here pre tbh. so yeah, figured i should have used around 75%/100% pot instead of all in.

however, if you aren't checking back with enough of your trips or full houses etc then suddenly my jam would be the preferred sizing with my strongest overpairs. i didn't sim this specific hand but with one or two small tweaks using node locking to your turn betting/checking range then i assume that my play becomes very good with AA-QQ/bluffs. so i think it was a good adjustment until i start to see you show up with trips+ on the check back line.

haha just a bit of fun. also shows that sometimes 500z players bluff ;)

Yolan haha i know was just trying to exaggerate my point :P

well its funny cos on the face of it you wouldn't think that '1 chip' difference would be worth anything, but when you convert that over to bb/100 you realise the extent of the mistake. now, i could get behind flatting sometimes (for example you are playing vs a rec/reg who opens way too tight, so you don't get the EV from the hands he is supposed to raise/fold pre). so i would not so that you should NEVER call AK at 100 bigs, but my default is to 3bet 100% until we get closer to 200 bigs deep and are in the bb.

my sim is for 500z rake, so perhaps yours is for lower rake and hence the sometimes call, i dk. or perhaps we are using different software and yours thinks there is little difference between 3bet/call from these positions, hard to speculate.

@30:30 good fold, even i thought i had a straight here 8)

Yolan yeah i mean it's 'okay' in terms of its better to flat than to fold, but it is much lower EV, so makes little to no sense to call unless you can't play 3bet pots OOP.

in my sim its +2.6 chips to call and +3.7 to 3bet, which is 0.22bb difference and 22bb/100.

yeah these calls were a mistake, i guess they were just playing scared vs him because he is a well know high stakes reg. perhaps at 200bb's flatting AKo is a thing, but definitely not at 100 bigs.

one guy who flatted is an mtt reg who makes a ton of mistakes pre (4bet me the other day with J8s which is pure folding vs a 3bet). so yeah, i wouldn't take too much notice of these plays.

@56:00 i think the reason that you are only supposed to block bet on the river is cos you included a donking range ott in the sim (which you didn't have in game). as you are leading a lot of 5x ott, it probably prefers not to split ranges on the river and included whatever 5x is left over in the range in to the block in order to protect vs thin Kx raises/bluffs.

i assume if you excluded the donking range from OOP ott then you would have a much higher frequency of overbets on the river.

nice video, and interesting hand nonetheless.

villains cbetting range was likely far too strong for this sizing, hence the adjustment to fast play strong hands on the flop before a turn card kills the action (which would have likely happened on the 9d). so i don't mind the jam tbh.

hey man, really enjoyed this series. just wanted to comment as i had perhaps been critical of your videos/play last year as i feel they had taken a bit of a dip in quality (from your normal very high standards) but i feel like you have improved a lot again, and so has the quality of your content.

always happy to be proved wrong for the sake of the quality of content on RIO increasing, and so that each member has a better opportunity to learn and improve.

see you at the tables!

Juan Copani yeah agreed. but i think that cash game players have a pretty big edge post flop, especially on the latter streets as mtt players don't play turns/rivers too often given the shallow stacks and low spr's post flop, as well as a bunch of all in preflop jams.

however, i don't think mtt's/cash skills are that transferable unless you work on the other important aspects of each game type. for example, like you said, we probably make too many icm mistakes and don't have a very solid preflop game at shorter stacks. also x raising frequencies/combos vary drastically when 20bb deep compared to 100 bigs, so it's tough to know what hands you should be raising when you oscillate between the two formats.

conversely, many mtt players hardly ever play 100bb poker, and even if they do it will only be for a small fraction of the tournament when the value of winning chips is relatively low EV. Pads discussed this well in his podcast with Bencb, about how doubling your stack in the early stages isn't worth 2x your buyin, so its best to take a lower variance approach when the stacks are deep at the beginning of an mtt. and certain play styles work well in mtts (such as opening insanely wide and blindly cbetting on most boards) but if you take this approach over to cash you are probably now the fish at the table.

so i guess its not which player is better, cos they are both much better at their particular format overall. which is why i don't really bother playing higher than $530 buyins, just don't want to spend time i could be studying cash to study a game type that i do not intend on playing very often, and that has such insane variance. so props to high stakes mtt regs, cos i could never grind with that stress haha :P

excellent video!

the hand @27:00 with the A8cc was very interesting. the bb probably perceives the turn card to be much better for his range than it actually is, thus allowing us a high EV bluff catching spot vs his turn raise/river jam line.

if we assume that he plays around 50% of the T8o preflop (which is what you are supposed to do vs a 2.5x, but that was with 500z rake so arguably it should be even lower) then he has 6 combos. he should be 3betting around 50% of his T8s pre, so arrives to the flop with around 8 combos of T8. the T8hh/T8dd should be close to pure x raises otf, which leaves him with 1 suited combo remaining, and the T8o with a heart should also be x raising fairly often, but not as often as if he were to face a block sizing. so lets say he raises 2 of the 6 combos of T8o, then he arrives ott with 5 combinations of the nuts.

so on the river he jams just under pot with roughly his 5 value combos, and gets to have around 2 bluffs. however, we actually reduce these value combos even further by having the 8 in our hand, and because it's the 8 of clubs (which is almost pure x calling otf, without a backdoor) then this has amazing blocker effects at reducing his value region and potentially allowing him to bluff too often. i'm not exactly sure how much this 8 reduces OOP's straight combos otr, but let's just say we reduce it by 1 to 4 value combinations, now cos he is jamming less than pot he is only allowed not even 2 bluffs. and given the fact that villain bluffed a combo that should be pure giving up otr (not blocking any 2 pairs/sets and blocking the FD combos of IP that are going to be pure folding otr) then we can safely assume that he is overbluffing and we are printing EV in this spot.

yeah i agree. i mean even if someone staked me in these i would never even bother playing them, doesn't really seem worth it given the extremely low edges and extremely high variance.

obviously i'm not complaining though, it's still sick to watch high stakes mtt's on here so i am grateful for that. just i was curious if anyone was making much money in these except form Linus haha

nice video, but i was curious what you thought about these fields? i mean, from watching these videos it seems like there is practically 0 fish at any of the super high stakes mtt tables. reg battling when the rake is around 3-5% doesn't sound like a particularly high EV/ROI line.

of course there are edges to be had over the other regs, but most profit still comes from playing vs weak players.

i imagine quite a lot of the regs aren't even winning in these fields, and are just playing because their ego's are too big (not saying you, of course, but some of the weaker ones).

yeah i agree. seems like we can just use Ax as bluff catchers, and use our turned/rivered straights as value x raises. so if we don't bet this hand it is implying that our river betting range is 0% (which is clearly a mistake, given the fact we now have a stronger range than IP after his turn x back).

the IP player should be pot betting some of the weaker Ax at lower frequencies, so that he can have some river calls when he x back ott. also he has rivered a ton of Qx with hands such as KQ/QJ that bluffed otf and mixed bet/x back with ott. so if we have 5x, it seems like a clear river bluff (although this should mostly be folding on the flop, given IP's sizing and the fact we have so many Ax to defend with). so i would bluff with some of my Tx and then balance with our A3/A5/QT etc.

A3 seems a little thin to xr on the river, but i guess we only lose to KJ and AQ, both of which bet fairly often ott, especially AQ which could be close to pure turn bet. so it doesn't seem that crazy, but i think it will just be higher EV to bet, and will allow us to fold out some of IP's Qx when we have a hand such as Tx by the river.

there are many reasons to use a small sizing as a turn probe, a few of these include:

1. cheap bluffs. if the IP player has a very inelastic call/fold range, then using a small sizing is the best way to exploit him. as if you simply use a large bet/check then you allow him to 'get away' with folds that would be pure vs any turn sizing, and continue with his range that he was going to call regardless of sizing.

2. to put his marginal hands, such as A highs etc, in to tough turn spots and force him to defend them with some frequency, otherwise he will end up over folding.

3. to induce raises from a largely capped range, and allow you to shovel in more money with your strong hands. this is less of a concern, but of course we should be balancing some strong hands in to this range, which benefit when the IP player starts to raise too aggressively vs our small turn probes.

4. it allows us to value bet thinner, with hands that would have to x call if we were to only use one larger turn sizing bet.