Demondoink

haha i dunno why you answered that guy honestly when he asked what you had, i would definitely opt for the troll instead. i like the fold as well tbh, and the Tx blocker seems like one of the worst combos to call down with.

it makes no difference tbh, whatever you prefer. most people use the high numbers as aggression, and the lower ones as passivity, but i do the opposite. each to their own.

haha that could be true, but genetically it seems like you can't choose :P

we might prefer having the Ah instead. cos this completely unblocks IP's bluffs (he can always bluff Jh/Thx combos, such as J9o etc, but will never bluff any Ahx combos) and will thus increase our fold equity when we jam.

also, if we are to raise non all in, then we can also get re-bluffed occasionally if he over values his Ah blocker. this is a small factor, but i think still a relevant one. definitely at deeper stacks it is anyways. tbh i'm unsure if we simply jam all of our flushes, or have 2 sizings otr- one for weaker flushes and the other for stronger ones. cos i think by the river, IP is probably not even able to bet 2 pairs for value, with perhaps even some hands such as AA doing a poor job blocking bluff catchers and unblocking flushes for the bb. i'm unsure though, perhaps all sets are still able to v bet. but even if IP bets all sets+ for value, that doesn't mean a hand such as 54hh is able to value jam. which is why i kinda thought we may have a smaller sizing, to get calls from some frequency of sets/straights without a heart etc and not just jam and allow him to fold these hands and only call flushes himself, or JTo with a heart.

kinda rambling at this point, but just thinking out loud. guess the only way is to sim the hand otr, but i just finished grinding and its 1am so i am not in the mood to do so haha :P

@21:25 what value combos do you assign to Sam? he big bet the flop, which rules out most flush draws as they would prefer to bet smaller and force you to continue with single spade combos that are going to either call again when the flush draw completes, or will bluff when x to when the FD completes. then of course he can also be repping 6x, but that doesn't seem like it would be a hand that wants to cbet large, as it is a disaster if you get jammed on with your gut shot/over card. so his flop sizing is kinda repping flopped over pairs, which would either want to block or x otr.

we also realise it's on the bubble, so he could conceivably be opening close to 100% of his range, with some jams from medium strength hands (as he already showed he can open jam for 30 bigs otb with QJs). so imo he should be betting this river at an extremely low frequency, given the 2 ranges, and the nature of the run out. given how wide he can be opening pre, and his line making little to no sense, i don't understand why you didn't strongly consider calling here? i mean, you folded pretty quickly. it's all good to say 'i am not top of my range etc' but that doesn't mean that you aren't forced to defend a decent % of your non straight/flush/2 pair combos as well or else you will be over folding.

also, if you are folding here because of icm, then why even bother calling pre when you allow your opponent insanely high EV bluffing opportunities post flop?

Gary Chappell haha i think you are levelling yourself tbh, that would be a reach to find those turn raises imo. even if you do find them, you kinda block the folding range of OOP (hands such as 2 pairs etc) and unblock flushes with that combo.

i do the same tbh, project bluffs that i would find on certain runouts on to my opponents. only to discover for the 100th time that they aren't interested in finding them and merely want to value bet instead.

Sauce randomised between a girl/boy and rolled a girl.

on a serious note, congratulations and welcome back!

Gary Chappell haha yeah those hands that keep playing on your mind are always frustrating. even if i'm supposed to do my review the following day, i find it best to review the hand in a solver so i can get some peace of mind haha. guess this is frustrating though cos it is 3 ways, so you couldn't get any reliable solvers outputs.

pretty sure this guy is a reg, although seems to be a new one. if the hand was vs a fish i don't mind the call, cos yeah i agree they might raise a flopped J8dd type hand ott and still think that it is strong enough to warrant a value bet. however, vs any regular i don't think it is a breakeven call. i'd struggle to find how even a player like Linus would construct a turn range to allow him to find bluffs on 4 flush rivers, 3 ways in a limped pot.

@20:40. you call the hand cos it is near the top of your river range, which i agree that it is. however, what bluffs do you assign to your opponent? he raised the turn 3 ways on monotone, and you mentioned about how you have a lot of equity against hands such as 2 pairs/sets to justify your turn call, which makes sense.

however, these 2 pairs/sets are no longer betting on the river when the flush completes, and a hand such as 98o with a diamond is far too thin to justify a value bet (given the fact you are not really ever bet/calling with weaker FD's ott, and aren't gonna hero if you have 2 pairs or sets yourself, given the run out.) the river even blocks the Qd, which may occasionally bluff raise on the turn. so unless he is raising a random hand like Jx/Tx with a diamond on the turn, and then value betting it on the river when it is very difficult to get called by worse, and you can easily have A/K high flushes yourself and raise him, means that i think he has basically 0 bluffs and close to 0 worse value bets.

so imo, even though we are near the 'top of our range' in this spot, given the monotone nature of the flop, the fact it was 3 ways, the fact that you bet/called a raise ott, and the fact that villain isn't v betting worse (imo) and doesn't arrive on the river with any bluffing candidates once the flush completes, means that we can just fold and exploit our opponent.

yeah mate i just downloaded it last night and set it up, tested it out in my session there and gotta admit i already prefer it to Stars Helper haha.

okay doke thanks for the info mate, will get it later on tonight and test it out!

thank you will give that a try. what is the best way to buy it? cos when i attempted to do so through the poker energy link, my browser sent me a warning about doing so.

cool thanks man, i was recommended this as well, but wanted to see if there were any other options before making the purchase.

@51:00 i think that another reason you are mixing between bet and x back with combos such as 77 with the 7c is so that your range remains balanced with the correct value:bluff ratio. if you just bet all if your club combos as the IP player then we would have to start turning more hands such as weaker Qx etc in to bluffs, hands that already have some EV as a x down as they beat the OOP players random turn stabs. if your range contained too many thin value bets then of course we could get exploited by the OOP player simply x folding with all of his bluff catchers like 2 pairs etc.

great video! it is very easy to overlook many of these spots during your post session review/study, however, going over these kinda spots from time to time is clearly going to be extremely beneficial for giving you greater clarity the next time a similarly weird situation unfolds.

that A3s hand at the end was pretty cool, i definitely don't study this spot enough and props to Boerni for finding that bluff, as well as GA's call.

Gary Chappell no problem! tbh i thought you made it pretty clear in the video, but i can also understand Jeff's scepticism after reviewing the hand in the solver, as well as the fact that this guy may be capable of slow playing more often than some other regs (though whether or not this is true, i'm unsure).

i make some pretty massive exploits from time to time, despite attempting to execute a pseudo GTO style when i play, so these questions would be aimed at me as well if i made a training video. but there are just certain spots where you can say with a high degree of confidence that your line is making more EV than a more GTO one, even if it looks questionable. so increasing our win rate is more important than appearing balanced, cos we have so many other more 'normal' spots where we can attempt to execute more of an equilibrium strategy and are thus not really exploitable until our opponent starts to address the imbalances in his ranges on weird lines.

Jeff_ yeah i guess the issue is when a coach starts making potentially large exploits in a training video that are based on population/opponent tendencies, then solvers are pretty useless. sure, we can gain a better grasp of the spot and how we should be executing it if we are unsure of our opponents strategy, but without a bunch of node locking the outputs are not in any way accurate.

so if Chaps has played 100k hands with this guy, and knows he doesn't ever slow play flops IP in 3bet pots, or over folds on the river with bluff catchers etc, then no matter how questionable the play looks, it really doesn't matter cos he is simply exploiting and increasing his win rate as a result.

Jeff_
1) if IP's range is lacking flushes both because of the preflop ranges, as well as their flop float bet strategy, then it is a problem because all of their range on the river are now (at least in theory) 0EV river calls, bar the sets which will have some EV>0 as they unblock bluffs and could beat some of the thinner value bets.

2) you shouldn't overestimate players, many 500z regs make mistakes in a ton of spots, as it's easy to let the bias of your hand affect the decision of the way in which you play it. for example, betting too often when x to with a flush/set, and then not stabbing enough with air/marginal top pairs etc.

3) if all of his opponents range consists of bluff catchers and he decides to pure fold most of them, then his 0EV, or indeed losing AJss bluffing combo, is now winning a ton.

it can, which is why you need a good understanding of the spot, and the way that population plays it, until you start making such large deviations from equilibrium. personally i wouldn't be using this combo as a turn bet/river jam, but with a few assumptions about his opponent, as well as population, then i could be fairly easily persuaded in to agreement that this was the highest EV line.

@21:59 when you mention that the IP player is 'bluffing some 5x' i don't think that these hands are bluffs. cos when you raise the flop from OOP your range is basically Jx+ for value and then some 5x as merges as well as all of your bluffs/semi bluffs such as straight draws, flush draws etc. Tx basically is never raising in your shoes, so when he bets 5x he is of course never ever getting a fold from your Jx, or indeed any pairs bar perhaps very weak pocket pairs such as 33/22 with a heart that you raised on the flop.

my thinking was that these 5x 'bluffs' are actually value bets to protect against high equity draws that are going to fold out 5x very often on the river once it goes xx, or improve to the best hand on the river. for example Q9/Q8 with a heart etc, and they can also get called by flush draws and then x down. also, by bluffing some 5x on the turn IP is able to now have some bluffs on very high EV river cards for him, such as the Kh, or indeed a card such as the Q/9/8 where it is very difficult for him to find natural bluffs.

it's also noteworthy that none of the 5x with strong kickers are betting on the turn from IP, as they are much less concerned about an overcard appearing on the river as then they can make 2 pairs, and they also show down for much more EV as they beat all of the OOP players weak 5x check raises that are now trying to reach cheap show down.

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.