Demondoink

RunItTw1ce hahah yeah its pretty funny that the day i asked this, the new video was posted :D obviously i was hoping he was sticking around, so i am more than happy to be rectified.

are we getting another video, or did you decide to change your mind with regards to making content on here?

Gary Chappell i don't agree with the push for shorter videos. personally i enjoy the longer a video is (especially if it is as insightful as this one) and i think most people on here speed up the video anyways. i watch at 1.5x speed, so a 30 min video can only last 20 mins. and we are poker players, who are used to playing sometimes very long sessions without even going to the toilet. so watching a 1 hour training video is a piece of cake :P

Hey Luke, welcome to RIO! respect for sharing your results as i feel as if not many of the coaches ever actually do this, and a lack of transparency can sometimes affect a coaches credibility imo. anyways, excellent video, one of the best i have seen in a while. i've noticed before some of these concepts/rules you discussed during your video, but not to the same degree of accuracy that you were able to highlight during this video. so this will give me much better clarity when bluffing going forward.

i gotta admit i was a little sceptical when i seen you announced here as a coach, as i very rarely seen you playing on Stars at 6m (which now makes sense as you also play HU) and thought that this potential lack of volume may impact the quality of your videos. however the opposite was true, and i am very excited for your next one to come out!

hopefully i can become a boss too, with a little more exploration in range explorer :D

yeah i have just found in these delayed river cbet lines that often half pot is used as we are betting a fairly capped range and don't really want to put that much money in to the pot. but of course not all boards/positions etc are equal so i'm sure 75% is used sometimes as well.

i guess its just much more difficult to visualise your bluffs when you size up on the flop and as such aren't cbetting range, cos now you have to be aware of what combos were checking back and what combos were betting so that you can work out which ones are the best river delayed cbets. much easier to work this out when you have cbet range of course. probably we just want to have a preference on hearts (perhaps the low pp's do a good job as bluffs too, but again, not sure how frequent they are in the 75% flop cbet range) and then we just low frequency bluff with the rest.

nice video, any time 1k zoom runs i have to get in there as well! haha.

these sessions are much more beneficial imo than the ones where you are just sun running (not for the roll of course, but for the improvement and learning aspects). fwiw i think the KT hand @22:30 was extremely standard and don't really see what else you could have done. think ott we wanna be betting with a spade in our hand or with clubs that don't block backdoor flush draw floats from IP. KThh seems one of the worst combos to be bluffing with as it blocks the bdfd folds and IP probably doesn't fold any better (would be much better to bluff Q/J highs as K/Q highs are always folding, where as A highs are not).

then the A2cc @15:00 the only thing i don't like is the sizing, think we wanna use like 50% or so as we are basically repping 8x or some set and OOP is uncapped with a bunch of flushes. so by sizing down we force him to defend more of his single pair hands such as KT/K9 etc (though a bunch of these combos with a heart are prob gonna xr bluff too) and we don't bet too large with a range that is relatively capped from our perspective (lacking flushes, for the most part as they bet ott). you could say A2cc combo isn't that amazing, but i dont think he calls 75% bet with naked Axcc so i don't think it really interacts with the folding range bar perhaps A9/A7cc that may have folded flop vs cbet if they did not have a bdfd. but realistically we kinda struggle to have complete air here so we have to choose combos that aren't amazing, though if we did arrive with A3ss, for example, then i would imagine that this combo would be better bluffing combo as it unblocks more of the A9/A7cc snap folds.or of course if we arrived with AK/AQo with a heart, then these combos would make very nice bluffs blocking both the xr value combos of OOP and the xr bluffs (such as KT/QTo with a heart).

i ran this hand in PIO as well, but decided to cut out the block sizing as there is no real way that we know whether or not Berri is using this strategy and i just wanted to see what the response was vs jam or check. i created a sub tree so that i could solve the river to a high degree of accuracy so i could check the EV of JT.

so first thing i noticed was that we were favouring call with JThh over JTss for example (see pic 3), and i couldn't figure out why this was (obv we don't have JTss otr but i was curious as to why the busted FD combo for IP made a better call than the non FD one). then it occurred to me that the reason we would prefer to call either JThh/JTo with one heart over the combos without hearts is so we block the suited 4xhh combos that are jamming otr for value from OOP. as OOP doesn't jam any Jxhh as bluffs (see pic 2), but only for value. i wanted to highlight this by unticking square size proportional to weight.

so basically Linus thoughts are on the river are (imo); we both unblock all the bluffs and beat all bluffs with JTo, we block J4hh which reduces OOP's value combos ever so slightly, and this is a spot that is easily over bluffed due to all of the off suit busted FD combos (see pic 1 where you can see a bunch of 87/75 giving up).

result; JTo is a +EV call here.

hand number 1:

on the river OOP should never be bluffing with better than J high as the only combos that would arrive otr that are both unpaired and beat J high would be giving up, as they would consist of flush draws. for example if K5hh/K3hh were to arrive otr then i would imagine that these combos would be pure giving up as they block IP's busted FD folds. also, these combos have a little EV as a x down as IP can have many straight draws that they beat (albeit IP probably bluffs almost all of them otr, only checking if they don't have enough value bets to balance out all of their missed draws).

also, OOP has many, many weaker combos to potentially bluff with otr. for example all of their 53, 75, 87 and T8 combos as well as perhaps the odd T7/52 combo that likely would need to contain a FD/BDFD to continue betting ott.

if i'm sitting in Linus shoes with JT here (which i wouldn't as i'm not in to battling 20knl lol) then i figure i beat all of the bluffs, and unblock them all pretty well. of course my natural inclination would be to fold, but if we add one or two too many busted SD combos that i mentioned, then suddenly our call is +EV. its not too much of a stretch to imagine that Berri goes slightly overboard with the straight draw combos in the bluffing range, and reps very few value combos as well (there are six 64 combos otr, some of which 3bet pre if they are suited, one 44 combo, again which 3bets pre sometimes, and then some random Qxhh). that doesn't amount to many combos, and some of these are gonna take the xr flop/x jam turn line, such as 64 as it does a good job of unblocking top pairs that may be interested in betting for protection ott and then feel obligated to call of vs a jam. so even if Berri has 10 value combos otr (which is a stretch due to preflop ranges and turn strategy) then he only needs to bluffing with roughly 5.5 combos of T8/87/75 and 53 before our J high starts to become winning. given the fact that there are 12 off suit combos of all 4 hands, then it suddenly appears extremely easy to be over bluffing this node unless you are extremely careful.

hand number 2:

we prefer to have either AxKh/AxQh as we want to unblock our opponents nut flush combos that could be fast playing, and we also have better equity vs these combos when we get all in as having a heart reduces his flush draw outs. compared to if we were to have AQo no heart, he would then have one more out when he had the nut flush draw. when we have a combo like AhJx then we block our opponents nut flush draws and thus end up stacking off with relatively poor equity.

nice video btw! but +1 to having the hands in a replayer format, it is much easier to visualise the action imo.

nice video! how were you able to have the delayed cbet turn sizing at only 50%? cos when i create these sims it simply uses the turn sizing's that i inputted for the regular bet/bet line (such as 75%/150%). but it seems that you were able to separate these two strategies from one another.

really enjoyed this video. would be great to watch another part of it with your commentary.

yeah i can never find these threads either haha

i think it's very standard for the intro to be longer in a RIO coaches first video, otherwise we would learn nothing about them. can't really just hop straight in to a 500z session 20 seconds in lol.

i guess it could be that i am used to playing limp ranges in cash games where my range is much tighter, as opposed to a range that contains close to 100% of hands. however i do realise how wide you are supposed to be continuing in these kind of spots, as players similarly over fold in srp's btn vs bb when you look at some of the flop continues that PIO manages to pull off.

i am still a little dubious whether people actually call the hands you mentioned vs flop raise. of course the K highs and two overs etc i would expect to continue, but not to bluff otr on this line. and then some of the hands you mentioned will be mixing between call/fold in equilibrium, but in actual play i very rarely see these combos actually calling either from watching Elite level mtt content on here, or from whenever i play an mtt and reach showdown on a similar line (albeit i am not playing $25ks when i play a tournament haha). also some of these air combos will be distributed towards the x fold line, so you can further reduce their weight to arrive otr.

i would imagine PIO easily finds enough bluffs here, but i'm sceptical whether players actually find these continues on early streets that allow them to have a high enough bluffing frequency otr. could easily be wrong, though. i mean JTo/T9o for example is already 32 combos, and given the fact that there are two Ax on the board reduces the trips in both ranges to where if we bluffed both of these combos we may already be over bluffing.

so perhaps i am talking myself out of my original assumptions haha. though i dunno whether Q/J highs always wanna bluff otr as they have some EV as a x down vs the pure air raising portion of IP. prob just wanna mix them i guess.

Kevin Rabichow yeah you could be correct with that assumption that anything worse than a flush is too thin to bet. but given the fact that we believe his range to consist of many over pairs etc then i would assume that we could indeed go a little thinner and still bet 9x, or at the very least, J9. also, given the ICM situation and the fact that he is shorter than you, should lead him to play very tightly vs the bet in terms of his x raising frequencies. so i'd imagine that, compared to chip EV, he should be x raising less as a bluff with overpairs with a club, and calling more often with flushes that would normally simply jam for value vs a bet.

you should definitely arrive ott here with some single club combos imo. i would imagine that we still get to pure float AQo with a club here on the flop, with 2 clean overs and beating all of his draws and having the backdoor flush draw equity, as well as future bluffing potential on clubs etc. then i imagine that AJo/KQo etc also defend here sometimes for similar reasons, as your opponent cbets less than half pot. even if he is c betting a relatively tight range, you still have good equity with these combos vs TT/99 etc as well as his straight draws, and having position and the chip lead over him allows you to find favourable turn/river opportunities where you can apply a ton of pressure to him.

+1 to RunItTw1ce would be very interested to see the hand being simmed during your next video!

@32:00. what hands are you using as bluffs here that called a flop raise and now arrive otr? to me it seems that your exact combo wants to bet around this sizing, or even larger. however it seems like you do not have enough bluffs to match up to this range, so perhaps block betting would be the way to go to extract value from a range that mostly consists of 3rd/4th pairs, and stop him from potentially exploiting our range that does not contain enough bluffs when we bet large.

Jeff_ yeah imo you pretty much nailed it. mix block with some Tx to force calls from weaker pairs/K highs etc and then overbet out with some of our flushes/bluffs, then put 7x in to the x line (as it's far too thin to value bet) as well as some Ax/Tx to x call with and of course some of the slow played flushes.

my sims are for btn vs bb so take them with a grain of salt.

so i gave a couple of sizing options for the OOP player, 33%/75%/150% and it seems to clearly like to split the range between block and overbet (which makes a ton of sense). interestingly in my sim before i created a sub tree otr we were simply checking all Tx as i didn't allow for a small enough sizing to allow them to value bet. it's quite cool to see that combos such as AT are close to pure x, where as QT is pure betting. quite a funky dynamic that i doubt anyone is really nailing tbh. i guess its cos the AT blocks both the top 2 pairs so prefers to x to induce bluffs from the air region. and obv vs a bet is is not in a 0EV situation like QT would be facing a bet, as IP is forced to bet with any Ax.

IP is also forced to call with some K/Q highs or else our busted straight draws get auto +EV river bluffs.

hey mate, welcome to RIO! nice first video and was cool to see some high stakes hands. would be pretty easy to just show a highlights reel of you winning big pots, so props for instead choosing to sim/analyse 5 pots that you lost instead.

with regards to your PIO analysis, i think it would be pretty beneficial to perhaps discuss less hands, but do a more in depth review. for example with the A9hh hand @32:20 you basically just check if you made a turn mistake, but not what the strategy is when we arrive to the river. do we ever turn A9 in to a bluff given the fact that it is now stone bottom of our range and has effectively 0 SDV unless villain gives up? IP can be betting some hands such as 99, J9, T9 etc for the large turn sizing as well as flopped slow plays such as JJ/TT/JT/Jx etc that decided to play tricky and x back otf. given the fact that we have a bunch of Qx x calling ott, as well as combos such as ATss and weaker Txss (that IP would not be betting ott and instead x back) leads me to believe that we should have a river leading range here. so would have been good to get a better understanding of how the flop texture plays for the entirety of the hand and not simply checking if your turn call was an error or not.

regardless, really enjoyed the video and look forward to the next one! i definitely need to get out of my comfort zone and stop being so nitty and play higher stakes this year as well. so perhaps in another video we will be playing some hands together, though prob not at 50/100 just yet! haha

Ben Sulsky sick. nice to see you implement this strategy in game!

Jeff_ it seems fairly easy for us to find natural bluffs here as well that kind of just benefit from getting folds from K/Q highs, hands such as J9/J8/98 etc. so by blocking these bluffs and balancing it with some value combos such as Tx and obv the stronger parts of our range like Ax/flushes, we force IP to either call or bluff raise with some frequency of Kx or else he will over fold. it also stops us from checking and then facing a 0EV river bluff catch situation, one in which allows IP to x back anything worse than Tx (hands that would be forced to call sometimes vs the block) and then polarize with Ax+ and of course bluffs.

so as Ben mentions in the video, the power of the block bet!

nice video. i think otr in that AK hand we want to be folding QQ over AK/AQ because with the latter combos we block our opponent from having both AJ and AA, where as QQ only blocks the tiny sliver of QJhh value combos that he is donk jamming.

yeah i think this sizing kind of makes sense in a vacuum with this exact combo, but not really with range. so it is certainly possible that Kevin is simply playing this hand in a vacuum vs this specific opponent, but based on both the way Kevin plays and the fact this his opponent seems fairly reggy to me (although perhaps a slightly weaker live one) is leading me to believe that he wouldn't opt for that kind of exploit/adjustment here.

with regards to your comment on recs fearing flushes and overfolding, i think a lot of this fold equity comes from the fact that they both call flop/turn with too wide of a range (many times not folding a pair, and calling with very weak gut shots etc) and that they also donk their flushes sometimes otr. so this means that bluffing with random combos that don't have any blockers to flushes becomes good and highly profitable as a recs river x range is so weak and susceptible to over folding.

excellent video, and well done on finding an unorthodox bluff in that JTss hand!

however, i am a little sceptical about the sizing choice. your argument seems to be based around the premise that OOP can have some large flushes and we are simply targeting the over pair region with this bluff, so why not simply use a sizing of around half pot that allows as to value bet any 9x then, and include some weaker flushes in this range too? and then we can split off a jamming range as well that of course consists of flushes, as well as bluffs such as AQo/AJo/KQo/KJo with a club that floated the flop. that seems like a pretty easy strategy to execute. we are just in a pretty weird blocker situation with this kind of bluffing combo for this exact sizing, as we are seemingly repping a flush but do not contain any flush blockers, and perhaps open ourselves up to the odd OOP x jam bluff with a hand like AA/KK with a club.

of course from a vacuum perspective if you bet half pot here 99 obviously snaps off as it chops with your value bets, but i feel like from a range perspective splitting our range between around half pot and all in for 130% pot would yield a high EV for our range. it would also be fairly easy to execute in game by distributing club blockers to the all in sizing, and lower frequencies of them to the smaller betting range, but mostly prioritising combos to bluff that block less of the overpair region (such as JT or A3 etc).

yeah that's a good point about wanting to implement a flatting range if you want to move on to high stakes, definitely something i need to start doing but tbh i don't even have a sim for flatting anywhere except from the bb haha :P i guess what i said was more applicable to zoom where you can arguably make more $ by either 3betting or folding some of the more marginal combos pre flop cos when you fold you instantly get dealt a new hand. this is obviously not the case on a reg table, so is much less of a concern.

not having a flatting range from these positions allows you to pay less rake, play more hands per hour (as less pots go to the flop either HU or multiway) and avoid balancing both a flatting and 3betting range pre, which allows you to know exactly how many combos you have of each combo post flop. this is important when bluffing especially, as if you almost always 3bet AQo pre, and turn completes the flush in a srp, then you are not able to balance out your nut flushes with an off suit combo which allows OOP to exploit you simply by overfolding whenever you put in money on flush completing run outs. of course you could use low pocket pairs or something, but these have good EV as a x down and do not duplicate the flushes in either range very well (they will mostly consist of larger cards, not 5xss/4xss type combos).

i don't think you sacrifice that much EV from playing 3bet or fold from hj/co/btn tbh, though you definitely do once a weaker player either enters the pot or is playing behind. and again, even if you sacrifice a tiny bit per hand, you can still earn more per hour with a slightly lower win rate by getting in 30 hands extra per hour. i have, however, started flatting a little more from the sb, especially vs min raises, which i think is definitely worth implementing as you have money invested in to the pot and are getting a very good price to continue.

not the exact bet sizing, or raise sizing options, but you can certainly see how easy it would be to turn many of those spade combos that are either calling or folding in to the xr line. also, this sim excludes KJ and most KT which i alluded to would be more prevalent in this line than they should be according to equilibrium.

Ben Sulsky i think we were both 'correct' in a way because it is extremely likely that people aren't finding the blocks from OOP with hands such as the stronger Kx (KJ/KT), that actually make quite a lot of sense to use in a small betting range to force IP in to calls with weaker Kx, then force IP to mix call/fold with Qx and hands such as 88 with a spade that do a good job of unblocking OOPs bluffing combos such as J9/T9 or low pocket pairs. so if they aren't finding these blocks with these combos then they can arrive otr vs a bet with so many pair+fd blockers to bluff with. these combos should have the same EV as other bluff catchers such as Qx (KT has around 31% equity when facing a bet, as does QJ).

so if we do not think that OOP is thin blocking enough for value with some of the stronger Kx, and is also using combos such as K9o/K8o as raises (which are pretty much raising 0% in my sim, so rolling any raising freq for them would be a mistake) then our bet/call becomes much better and most likely +EV. given the fact that neither of us seemed to realised that KJ/KJ are able to value bet otr for OOP, then i would strongly assume that other 500z regs do not realise this either and thus there is a very high likelihood that our opponents are overbluffing this node unless they control their x raising frequencies appropriately with their randomiser (it doesn't really matter if they construct their ranges incorrectly so long as they of course do not start going crazy with their frequencies).

it also turns out that his combo should basically be pure raising on the flop, and also pure bluffing otr whenever it does call, though other 8c combos (again i didn't have exact sim either but was KQ7ss so pretty much the exact same as he also has 76o in preflop range at same freq as 87o) do enjoy raising a lot on the river whenever they arrive at this node. interestingly we don't want to bluff low pocket pairs with a spade as IP otr, as they have a little EV as a x down. instead we want to bluff random unpaired Jx/Tx, presumably blocking some of his stronger bluff catchers and unlblocking his pure river x folds which are mostly consisting of 99-33 (obv excluding 88 which is a set). also whatever unpaired spade combos we arrive with otr are pure bluffing- such as J9o, T9o etc.

of course there is a very slim chance that your opponent knew the exact strategy on the river in this spot (block betting stronger Kx, x calling the medium ones with a spade and then distributing bluffing region amongst the Qx with a club and the 8x with a club) but i think that in reality he just stumbled across a good line with his combo (although it was still incorrect with that exact combo that also blocks the bdfd). also, based on my history with this player i think he is definitely prone to the odd random button click. regardless, was a very interesting hand from both parties and i think you both played the spot very well from both a GTO and an exploitative perspective.

nice video, i thought that your analysis was absolutely spot on in this video tbh. seems as if what you mentioned in a previous video about how the time off has been beneficial is definitely true for your clarity in many uncomfortable spots.

@41:29, what do you think of your opponents bluff? to me this combo seems like perhaps one of the worst combos to bluff with. in order to find enough bluffs on this bet x bet line once the A drops you will mostly be bluffing with combos such as either straight draws that x back ott (though most will not contain a club as they will make frequent barrels) and then random under cards such as 76s,65s and 33 etc as none of these hands have any EV at showdown. i would say that JT/T9 etc without a club for IP make bad bluffing combos as they block the Kx/Qx region that has to mix call fold, and unblock all of the flush combos that are check raising. so ideally i think as IP we want to be bluffing either random undercards or especially a 33 with a club type combo, that way we both block some of OOPs x raising region, whilst allowing him more of the QT/Q9 etc x folds.

then villain can use his KT/K9/QT/Q9/T8/98 with one club as bluff raises. also i think him blocking the 7h is slightly bad cos a hand such as 76hh is going to want to bet otr fairly often cos it is bottom of our range, is likely to have bet the flop at an extremely high frequency cos of the great backdoors coupled with the high EV nature of the texture for IP.

but perhaps i am slightly off and KT/QT etc with a club are never check raising (though id assume they would mix both and then the ones without mostly fold and never raise). even if they do prefer to x call though, i would assume they still like to mix raise for the aforementioned reasons.

fwiw i would imagine that 87 with a club could also make it in to the bluffing range on the river at some frequency, as OOPs only unpaired combos otr are T9 and not all flushes want to go for the xr when IP is going to be checking back pretty often including most Ax that don't contain either a club or a strong kicker.

thanks guys. will try that out during my next study session!

I attempted this strategy the other day and can confirm it doesn't work. might need to switch to a different training site if too much low pocket pair aggression is encouraged by the coaches.

nice video as per usual, Kevin!

how did you manage to get this box up in PIO to quickly find a particular flop texture from your saves? that could save me quite a bit of time haha.

really good video. that QQ hand was a masterclass in how to get the most EV out of your exact combo, whilst also being aware of how your range wants to play on each street (i think many players would vacuum their hand and simply raise otf or ott and just bet when x to otr).

that legit was probably one of the most impressive single hand breakdowns i have seen on this site. i was praying you would x to the CO otr cos i feel he just jams all of his sets/straights ott and thus we are almost never getting called when we bet by either player, but can induce many combos of his range to bluff when x to.