Zizek

I really enjoyed this form of analysis well done!

Really excellent analysis all the way through the video, looking forward to the rest of the series mate!

He isn't checking river because he thinks he's beat :D

Ben I find I'm disliking some of the analysis in these live play videos you make...

Just consider this constructive criticism but I feel like when you're somewhat distracted by the action of multiple tables happening live you often don't voice the rationale you have for making plays and instead revert to just a play by play commentary of what it actually is you're doing. Take the commentary in the first couple minutes as an example of what I mean - "I'm going to call... the suited cards are really good" , "I hate my hand but I'm going to call one", "I must bluff and I will bluff this big" etc.

You describe what it is you're literally about to do but leave out the most useful part.. the reasoning behind why you're doing so. This is probably just a function of it being difficult to do so in live play videos - but if that's the case I'd say non-live play videos are probably the best way to go.

Chemistry has a great deal to do w/ tennis – its parameters describe the reality in which “tennis”
as a concept can even exist :)

I think human beings tend to bring order to things in a way that diminishes or obscures completely a
much fuller and more enriched existence. I mean this in the sense that when eager scientists gather and compose lists their egos tell them clearly delineate all the physical parameters of the universe, they tend to
discover through new research years later that the proclamations of their theories no longer make sense.

Obviously certain central tenants of Science are near universal in the sense that they preform reliably
within the limits of our testable human experience. I just object to the fetishizing of Science in modern times as a sort of secular source of divine truth. It's very difficult to psychologically accept our limits as human beings I think.

As far as NLHE goes, the limits of our methodological reasoning are pretty clear. Considerable advancement has been made in the past few years but uncovering all the intricacies of a perfect NLHE strategy still eludes us and
thankfully so!

I'm very happy to finally see some high quality HUNL content on Run it Once. I found the way you described your thought processes to be quite lucid and helpful. More videos like this please :)

At 4:10 you make a small 3b w/ 88 BTN v CO. Did you have a read that CO's 4betting range was bluff-heavy  and exploitable w/ a 3b/5b shove strategy here or is there some other reasoning behind the play? I would be surprised if 3betting 88 BTN v CO was your standard play.

Hey Parker, nice to see you still making high quality NLHE vids!

In the BvB hand @12min I agree that putting the majority of our JT combos on 987 into our c/r flop raise makes a lot of sense (I'd probably c/r 75% and cbet 25%). What hands would you do this as a bluff with? I think in practice I'm probably a little too weighted towards value when I c/r this board as it simply hits the BB so well and we are already going to be cbetting a lot of our straight draw combos, leaving us w/o many good equity c/r bluffs.

Oh and as for KQs w/ bdsd+ bdfd it is certainly a hand strong enough to bet but we have plenty of other air candidates to add to our bluffing range and many less hands which are strong enough to c/c with here.

KQs is a valuable addition to our c/c range as it helps us proceed on K and Q turns which we don't cover well otherwise.

I include 99 in my c/c range to make it more resilient when facing barrels and overbets. I'd rather cbet 22 than 99 because 99 blocks all the 9x combos we get value from. 22 will get more value betting than 99 and 99 will face a more bluff heavy betting range than 22 when checking.

88 is a borderline hand that I believe is too weak to bet bet bet and may get more value when c/calling.

I have to say, I found "you'll just run into my opened knife by betting relentlessly" quite poetic!

:D

I've reached close to what I think is
the least exploitable bet/check ranges on the flop for SB. I'm
cbetting 54%, checking 46%. My checking range has just enough air to
prevent BB from being able to profit w/ no equity bluffs and just
enough air to ensure the range isn't too bluff catcher heavy so that
BB will never have incentive to bluff.

For my bluff range I've included all 2
overcard hands up to KJ, 50% combos of T7o-J8o (1 over+bdsd), all
combos of bdsd+bdfd hands and most combos of strong bdfds. Here are
some screenshots:

Cbet:

Check:

What do you guys think of what I've
come up with? Any glaring mistakes? And if not, and if this exercise
is still holding anyone's besides just my interest, let's work on
BB's check/bet ranges next! I've started to do this a bit already and
am curious to see what others think.

PS: As an aside, I'm
working w/ ~50% ranges here preflop which is likely different from
what GTO SB open % and BB call % look like. I averaged 20 of the
winning regs I have 20,000+ hands on in the games I play (MSNL-HSNL)
and the average SB open was 47% and BB call v SB open 38%. It's my opinion
assuming that SB opens ~50% we can flat closer to 50-60% profitably
so to simulate what my typical PF ranges will look like in the games
I play in I went w/ ~50% open and defend. Changing to much tighter or
looser ranges has a pretty significant impact on how we play this
board specifically.  

"We can add bluff combos to our cbet range  more then GTO lets or just cap it to %50". 

The question I'm interested in here is how many bluff combos do you think would be GTO? Where do you get 50% from?

This was pretty much my conclusion
exactly although I include 99,AJ, AT, KQ, Kjs and Qjs w/ bdfd's in my
c/c range. AA is the perfect hand to strengthen our c/c range w/ as
it blocks a majority of the hands he will call a cbet w/ (Same logic
w/ 99 imo)

My original concern was that w/ a c/c flop range
weighted heavily towards A high we would have difficulty defending vs
turn and river overbets on a majority of runouts. Seeing as villain
can start vbetting w/ as weak as 32s on the flop he will have a high
amount of vbetting combos he will in theory be overbetting with.

I think we help counteract this effect
a bit by being able to cover K-T turns and rivers a decent amount w/
our AQ, KQ, AT etc c/c combos. (This is why I think c/c AJ AT KQ KJ
QJ might be superior to cbetting flop as you suggest)

What do
you think an optimal BB strategy would look when we check this flop?
Given that BB can vbet all pairs, his strong pairs will need to bet
flop to start getting value and his weakest pairs have an incentive
to bet now for immediate value/protection. This leaves him w/ a
checking range w/ no pairs however. Exploitable?

Alo Phil!

At the 25 second mark you cbet J4o on T85ss and this board seems draw heavy/hits OOP's range well enough to me that I would generally check back my J4o, Q2o, 73o etc hands... I'm curious how you would advise developing check back ranges on the flop in a vacuum. 

What would you say would be some of the biggest factors to consider in trying to develop a good balance between your flop cbetting and checking ranges? I generally look to make sure I can defend an adequate amount vs flop c/r's with my betting range as well as vs. turn leads on most turns when I check back but are there other major factors you think I should consider?

Also, do you think in a vacuum/vs. an unknown player we should spread our value hands well between our flop cbetting range/ch b range? IE on T85ss here would you consider splitting some combos of TT/88/55/overpairs/T8 etc. between the two ranges and introducing a turn raising range vs turn leads?

Not sure if all of the above was cogent or not, hopefully it wasn't too bad.

Thanks :)

" We don't know stack sizes" Not sure what you mean by this - stack size is always known and is relevant to how we want to design our ranges.

Rather than ask the question 'What is the best move to do w/ hand X' you should be asking the question 'How do I want to best design my c/r, c/c, and c/f ranges in this spot, and where does hand X fit?' 

On both boards but especially the 225 our c/c range will be at a strong disadvantage vs the SB's range. He has way more 2x combos than we should as well as 99+ which we generally 3b pre. So in order to protect our c/c range here I think it makes sense to c/c a good amount of our 2x combos. That said we should also be c/r some and I like having A2 in our c/r range because he will often slow down when we c/c and an A turn or river hits. (A lot of our flop c/c range will be Ax)

A5 and K4 are both 100% c/c's. Why would you ever consider raising or folding them?

Hey guys I played a fairly similar spot today and wanted to see what people think of my line in this case...

Different villain here w/ sparse reads.. he plays 28/23 10% 3b in 6max and I don't see him playing too much HU.  He had 3bet several times in the last 6-8 hands so there is likely a slight dynamic where he's more likely to 5b wider as well as 3b/call wider as he may anticipate an aggressive response to his 3betting.



I think that when we take this line whether or not we call river is close and depends somewhat heavily on if villain bets river w/ his AJ combos or not. (Or if he has a wider than average calling range pre and floats air on flop) Again though the main thing I'm confused about here is my line choice starting on the flop. If I choose to bet flop I don't see the real merits of betting blank turns. However this line creates the problem whois pointed out "We have to Split our Range  OTT in x/c x/f and i dont like to balance this Range w/ strong Hands and give him a free River." This board is slightly less draw heavy and we block a lot of the potential straight draws however making free rivers less harmful.

I'm somewhat convinced in retrospect the best line starts with checking flop calling turn and deciding rivers... this is a bit tricky though since we don't know villains tendencies and he has a fair bit of value combos that he can balance well w/ bluffs on turns/rivers. I'm curious to hear how you guys think this hand relates to the first and what line you'd choose here.

Hey Ugur long time no speak! Yeah if I had more hand to go off of I could look more closely at his tendencies in 4bet pots unfortunately for me, (and fortunately for my bankroll) I haven't played him that much HU.

I agree that the flop bet is almost undoubtedly +EV but that doesn't mean that taking a line that starts w/ a flop check instead isn't more +EV.

I'm halfway through the video and enjoying it so far :)

I have a question about the J6s blind vs blind hand where you advocate a mixed strategy w/ the Jx portion of our range. You say that we don't have many 2pair type hands in this spot that we will ch turn bet river for thin value and this comment is perplexing to me. Shouldn't we have all the T9, Q9, K9, QT, KT, KQ combos pre and play most as a flop call? You say because we don't have too many of these thin value bets to protect vs check raises on the river we should check back fewer Jx combos... but this logic is also a bit confusing to me.

Even if we do have a lot of 2pair type vbetting hands on the river and villain is aware of this isn't it hard for him to punish us in this spot? To do so he has to check a decent amount of Jx on the turn which while it does pose a threat to our river vbets also greatly benefits the other portion of our range. Because one effect counterbalances the other in a sense do we have to be too worried about protecting our 2pair vbet range? If we instead bet most of our Jx on the turn it also has the benefit of strengthening our turn betting range and thus allowing us to turn more of our weak 9x/Tx pairs (which we will have a ton of in this spot) into profitable bluffs on the turn and river.

@FromZero

You have to play the best to be the best right? Or so I've heard :D

I think the 2 street game you suggest in your 1st line is interesting and perhaps the best option if we choose to bet flop, although to be honest I can see merit in both lines you suggest.. the main difficultly in line two is I think w/o much history its hard to have much certainty in regards to the assumption "he will call/float close to 100% of his range against that size, even a
good portion of his reasonable draws like osd`s and fd`s will only
call. with his KQ type hands he`s mostly gonna take one off to improve
ott or bluff river when turn goes x/x."

I'm skeptical that most villains float the majority of their broadways here... given that our range is quite strong w/ overpairs/dominating broadway hands here I would expect a decent amount of folds from those hands despite the phenomenal pot odds being offered. Perhaps I'm way off here and this is an easy call w/ KQ...

@ WeKnowEverything

Can you be less cryptic please? What is it that you would consider most when deciding a flop size?

Hi Ben, it's great to see you made a member of RIO and I'm really looking forward to the content you will be producing! I enjoyed this first video and I like your use of the webcam... if you're comfortable with it I think you should continue to use it in in gameplay review videos - being able to see your body language/facial expressions actually goes a long way towards aiding in overall expression.

Can you tell us how often you will be publishing videos (1/week, 1/mo) ? Also, let me make a somewhat selfish request for some HU content if possible... besides Phil's series vs Kanu RIO is almost entirely void of HUNL content and I can't think of anyone better to fill that void!

Zizek

Hey Sean, really enjoyed both of these videos - I generally bristle at these type of videos and expect the same tired advice of how not to tilt, etc., but you really have a lot of unique and helpful content in here.

I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing your recent decision making process which led you to playing in some of the nosebleed games running lately (if its something you'd like to remain personal I absolutely understand). How do you go about deciding whether or not playing nosebleeds may be +EV and +LifeEV for you? Does it have more to do with increasing net-worth, challenging yourself, some combination, etc?

Thanks :)

Game Theory, Ben, thanks very much for your detailed responses. It's becoming clear to me just how much of a novice I am when in comes to game theory and its application to NLHE and as a result I have a good number of questions after reading your posts and a lot of conceptual processing to do.

I'll refrain from asking all the questions I have and just touch on a few...

Game Theory, when you said the following: “Betting 0.75 times pot on 3 streets means there should be 1 value combo to every 0.75 bluff combos on each street. That means the value part of his flopbet range is (0.57)^3=0.187.
Or 4.36 bluff combos to every value combo on the flop.” I became very confused. Can you try explaining the logic behind this math to me again somehow? I'm having trouble understanding how you reached the 4.36:1 ratio.

Ben, can you elaborate on “I do want to suggest that the analysis so far shows some lines are likely to be dominated. For example, betting 2 streets with JTs unimproved, or betting 3 streets KJs unimproved, or even betting 3 streets with AA unimproved (at least given these preflop assumptions and the assumption of no flop x/r- in practice it's almost certainly optimal to go three streets with any overpair)”? I don't understand precisely what you mean when you describe a line/strategy as “dominated”. I'm confused because the JTs / KJs examples seem to be examples of poor line choices while the AA line is described as optimal - yet all are examples of dominated strategies?

Also, here's my first attempt at developing a flop betting range:
http://gyazo.com/fe365bb5ec0294e58d1f4c606398d7e5

and a flop checking range:
http://gyazo.com/d3b6009206f35f2f7c5337356feb676f

My checking range includes those mid pairs 88-TT that are almost certainly best included in a flop checking range and is “balanced” with some combos of Jx, AK, AQ, KQ overcard type hands, and a few A3s/22 type hands which I've removed from my betting range in order to keep my bluff to vbet ratio a bit lower.

Do you think these ranges are reasonable?

Also I'm confused what you were talking about when you talked about unexploitably shoving the river?

Hey there Teddy, thanks for the detailed response and for going over this hand in CREV.

The reason I didn't give him as wide a flatting range OOP is because I had him only flatting 25% and 3betting 33% as mentioned. I've played a lot more with him since then and have confirmed this. As a result some of the hands you included like AT, 55 and 66, Q3s, etc he will be 3betting pre and not have in his flatting range.

As to overbetting turn/river the main benefit would be it allows us to bluff more in this spot and its hard for villain to combat because of how few value hands he has to play back w/. I'm sort of confused by what you mean when you say overbetting allows him to limit his range correctly. If we think we're playing a competent player shouldn't they be able to adjust their ranges properly to whatever sizes we choose? (Theoretically at least)

To answer your last question I think I'm OOP and know that the player IP will be barreling this board very wide for value and consequently w/ bluffs it makes slowplaying flop a very appealing option. It allows us to get 3 street of value + potentially a check raise when we have our value hands and also allows us to increase the value of our Ax, 2x etc by being able to c/c and c/r bluff a balanced range.

Bump :)

This is an interesting spot because we have implied odds w/ some hands vs the fish that we have reverse implied odds vs UTG with. Its hard to quantify just how strong the effect of each balances each other out.

If fish is playing 60/10//3 (important that its a large sample) then I think we can widen our range considerably here, despite having the worst position in the hand and being against a strong range/player OOP.

Something like the following 14% range seems reasonable...
http://gyazo.com/e17c59292bb31a43d8f12d19e48d5639

Curious if people think flatting AA-QQ is more profitable than 3betting here.