Kevin Boudreau

especially agree that leading turn is terrible and small river donk is very good

I would argue no competent reg would always 3 barrel because that would be incredibly exploitable. Very simply, each street when a bet goes in, your range should narrow, such that you don't pay off too much or get bluffed off too many hands.

Read the Mental Game of Poker. You have an incredible amount of accumulated tilt you need to learn to deal with.

Thought you did pretty well with the live commentary and playing. Both formats so far get a thumbs up from me.

First off, Villains co open is pretty tight.

Secondly, I would 3b larger, to $5.25.

Cbet size is fine and his raise is not repping much. 88, 55, and 33 should all feel comfortable calling flop, since they have position and there aren't any bad turns, and they want to allow you to make 2nd best hands with your ace hi hands.

Also, if it's a player willing to slowplay AA-QQ pre flop , I'm not sure they will be raising this flop with a high frequency since it's so dry they can continue with the slow play.

One thing you can look at is how much he is risking on flop.
He is risking $11 to win 13.25 = (11/(11+13.25)= 11/24.25 = 45%

That means if we bet fold this flop with > 55% of our combos then he can auto profit by raising here with any 2.

So I think this is an obv flop continue, and just have to figure out best way to continue.

Villain may have some hands with pairs in them that could have 5 outs, overcard hands that have 6 outs, and there are only 3 over cards to your pair so I think best plan is to tank call to rep AK. x/r bd fd turns, x/c everything else. Then x/c most turn river combos but not all.

This has been irking me for a few days (didn't post early because it came off dickish).

People throw around the new buzz word optimal when it's clear they just mean "a strategy". There is no way folding +ev hands is "optimal". Optimal doesn't care if you are going to have to wait, get burnt out, or make tough decisions.

And if you want to counter with optimal meaning being able to make the most money, therefore fast folding small edges gets you more hands/hr. I would counter by saying that is complete bullshit because you can just play more tables, therefore getting more hands in.

I agree with Sean and James, and also want to add that we may not have enough "lock" hands that are in our call down range to punish villains' 3 barrels w air.

I didn't read the whole thing, but one main thing jumped out to me.

I think it's dangerous saying optimal is playing 21/19/7 or 25/20/11 or whatever. You need to be looking at all the smaller spots and deciding what the right play is for that exact situation. Wherever your stats end up, that's where they should be. As we would suspect, that puts lots of people in a range that beginners like to aim for.

For example. I don't say I need to lower my 3bet. I say, am I 3betting too much sb vs button and then run the math for ranges based on how people are playing. The I find what variables will want to make me play tighter or looser in that 1 spot vs different opponents.

Because game theory is easier to work with when we limit possible decisions. Start by saying you always check and villain stabs. How often do we need to defend? It depends on villains bet size.

If villain bets full pot, we try to defend more than 50%.
If villain bets 1/2 pot, we try to defend more than 67%.

*This is because if we defend less, villain makes an instant profit on his flop bets w ATC.

The more we x/c, the more we want to get above said %'s.

Once we know how much we want to defend, we pick out combinations from our range based mostly equity, but also considering playability and blockers.

So in your example, if we are opening 15%, our range is something like any pair, suited broadways and higher suited connectors, and maybe some suited aces. (1326 x .15 = about 200 combos)

So now we break down our range and try to find 100+ combos that we can play back with. *This is all more of a rough exercise than a true full breakdown of the situation.

On a 763css flop the top of our range is 77, 66, 33 (9 combos), pair+nfd, 89ss (2 combos), 67s (2 or 3 combos), 55 (6 combos), hopefully we open 45s utg (4 combos)

We have 88-AA (42 combos) , over cards+nfd (4 combos)

Then further down the equity ladder we have non-nfd (KQss, KJss, KTss, QJss, JTss, T9ss - 6 combos)

We have our over cards+ bdfd (AK-ATcc, KQ-KJcc, QJ-89cc - 9 combos)

....So far I think we have about 80 combos, which is a good start just to find the hands to play.

Then we also have 2 other combos of 89s, 2 combos of T9s, AsKx (4combos), AsQx (4 combos) and you start to get the picture of the types of hands we need to be adding in depending on the bet size and tendency of villain.

If I were only x/c or x/r I would choose my value range to x/r (first hands I listed and find the cutoff for where I wouldn't feel comfortable getting it in after a raise). Find out how many combos you have in your value range and think of the betsize or bet sizes you are going to use. Pick an appropriate amount of bluff combos you are going to want to put in your bluff range (it could be 50/50 value to bluff, 90/10 or 75/25; you have to use some general poker sense and think of opponents range and spot to not get carried away unless villain is folding to much)

Then once you have your value range (say top 35 combos, 77, 66, 33, 89ss, A3ss, 67s, 55, AA, 45s, AK-ATss) you decide on this flop you will bluff twice as many combos as you have value combos (since villain is likely to stab a wide range; this may be too many or too little bluffs, it's more for an example. I think against different villains your play should differ a bit).

Your x/c range should be your hands not good enough to get in, but strong enough (enough equity and at the top of remaining range) to call a bet. *Be ready to defend your flop call on the turn and river though, or you are burning money like calling preflop raises and folding to cbets too much.

Your x/r bluffs will consists of hands with blockers, and the combos next on the list until you reach the amount of combos you are looking for.


And after we have thought about this exercise we can take what we learned and apply it to the actual situation. We know we want to defend enough of the time that villain can't auto cbet and profit when we check, but also get value and protect with our hands with equity, as well as win the pot other times when we have enough hand equity or fold equity to make a profitable bet.

This means, we most likely want to have bet/fold, bet/call, bet/3bet, x/call, x/fold, x/r all in our range.

I would build my range taking the same things into consideration as when i could only x/r, x/c or x/f. I'm going to lead out with the top of my range as well as the amount of bluffing combos I want (which would include a certain % of planned 3b flop bluffing hands)

I will have a x/c range of mostly medium strength hands, but also a few slow plays, and some overcard hands that help me defend against run outs (think Ace high hands w bdfds as best hands in this category). This range would only call a fraction of the turn and even smaller amount of rivers (hopefully enough to prevent villain from barreling too many runouts profitably.

My c/r range would be filled with blocker bluffs, some nutty value hands, and occasionally with pure air (over cards).

c/f is obv weakest hands

This is obviously a not so easy situation to deal with, and although I didn't give you an answer, I hope it helps with your process. And if there is a line of thinking I have off, I would love to hear some feedback.

3bet Pre is good. Villains with these stats will call 3b's too much, and not 4bet enough to make me want to fold or call pre flop.

I like to fire flop here. We don't have much showdown value and the bet should immediately show a profit since we will fold out some whiffed face cards, ace hi's, small pairs.

there are an okay number of double and triple barrel cards that I expect will fold out enough better hands. I would consider a fire on any 5, 8, any card higher than a 9 and depending on our flop cbet size, any club (bigger bet and I am more likely to fire turn, although against a loose passive fish it may not matter much since he will call his most of his calling range regardless of size). I would not look to continue as often on spade turns because now too many fd's are gonna miss and he might hero lighter.


...if i did check flop I would most likely fire turn and always follow thru with a river bluff with a very high frequency.

If you are easy to get too hot/cold, dress in layers.
Take long walks on the breaks.
I agree that it is very easy to get carried away trying to win too many pots and outplay, what you assume are all weak, opponents. Don't let this stop you from trying imo, just be aware of how much everyone is paying attention and likely to adjust/exploit. Try to figure out what level people are on by being a human and talking to them and asking questions.
Play a live cash session before you play the tournament and get any nerves out of your system. Each year at the WSOP, my first day is a weird one. I'm at/near my highest level of attention, but I'm also slightly more nervous/anxious/uncomfortable.
No music, unless you think it makes you play more focused or more patient. Placebo type of problem, but -ev mostly.

Anyone have a limping range UTG? Depending on where the stacks are on the table and how they play, I would definitely consider open limping this hand.