nicegame

+1 to 10 more videos on this!

+10000 to some of them by both of you!

I agree. Great video and I also like the idea of a theoretical new series.

At 23:15 you open fold QJ98ss UTP at z500 without talking about it. Is that standard? I'd open that hand all the time.

Very interesting video, as usual. I have a question regarding the second hand. If you play GTO, SB is indifferent between calling and folding. So let's assume he always folds. With your size, you win the pot 36%+9% of the time. A pot sized raise would allow you to bluff 18% of the time, so you capture the pot 54% instead of 45% of the time. This would allow you to bluff with more kings. Wouldn't this be more +EV?

I also enjoyed this video. These are my favorite type of videos.

You didn't consider the removal effects and I think that these play a huge role in these hands. For instance, in the 4th hand you are trying to make him fold an ace. But then you have half of your Ax boats and this is probably why you cannot check raise bluff.

This is even clearer in the last hand. You assume that both villains have either a boat or the nut flush. But then one of them will always have a boat!

In this hand you also give them 100% of their set combos on the river. Wouldn't you expect them to raise on the flop or the turn pretty often?

In general, you're trying to make villains fold big hands. Wouldn't you expect villains to underfold? (For instance, I wouldn't expect most regs to fold AK against me in the 4th hand or the NF in the last one.) Therefore, I don't think being balanced here is very important.

I also thought that there was no removal and both options were equally likely no matter what the opponent has. I solved that game and got that the GTO bet size is (sqrt{24}-4)/2 times the pot, which is almost half the pot. So the result seems rather similar.

Very interesting video, as usual.

You mentioned that the GTO guys have determined that a small blocking bet has a slightly higher EV than check calling. Could you give some reference?

As an idea for future videos, you often mention that the EV of this play is similar (or slightly bigger, or bigger) to the EV of that play. (For instance, in this video you said that with 99 in the button against a CO open the EV of calling or 3 betting is similar.) I'd love to see a video explaining the way you study to reach these conclusions. I would assume that it is by analyzing your database, but is it large enough to get conclusions about such particular situations?

For example, if you make a video explaining the 99 hand on the button, you could also consider the same hand in the BB instead of the BT against a CO open, how does the situation change?

Thanks for the video!

In the AAQ3dd hand (around minute 11) you estimate your equity against his range to be ~40%, so its -EV to shove. But what about calling? If we assume that he always shoves the turn and you call on any A,2,3,4,5 or diamond and fold on any other card (you especulated something similar), you'd need to have at least around 55% equity on the "calling turns" to make the flop call +EV. Do you expect your equity to be smaller than that against his range?

This (FGS) takes into account the fact that we are UTG and we'll be posting the BB in the next hand, and therefore has us shoving wider. I don't know how it works exactly, but I'd assume that it doesn't take into accounts things like that if we obtain the chip lead then we're going to be able to apply more pressure.

In the last hand, you said that given his CBet stat you didn't expect him to CBet with AK.but he did CBet with AJ. Seeing this, wouldn't you expect him to CBet with AK too? On the other hand, I wonder why his CBet stat isn't higher if he is c-betting AJo there (as you said, perhaps because he checks his over pairs?)

If you  x/r 40% of your A7/A5/77/55 you are value raising roughly 10 combos. Let's say that the number of combos of 98o/86o/64o you x/r is 30. (Would this be about right?). To me this seems too much, but I'm probably too biased by the fact that you can never bluff that much on the river.  I understand that you should bluff more on earlier streets, but I'm trying to understand what the right frequencies are. Is there any material on the GTO frequencies out there? 

I was wrong, this is a new video, but the video released on Aug 17 is the second part. 

Tris video, and also the second part, were released on aug 17, so this is not a new video.

Very nice video Ben!

I don't see why the expected value of betting 76 is 0.07. OOP is calling roughly 43%, so it seems to me that the EV of betting should be 0.57*1-0.43*1=0.14. But I have never used CREV, so I guess there is something I'm misunderstanding.

BTW, have you used PokerJuice? In this case, what are the differences between PJ and Omaha Ranger? 

I was not willing to spend like $2000 on Omaha Ranger and was considering getting PJ. But this is €120/month, so it may end up being more expensive that Omaha Ranger.

I'm also enjoying this series a lot!

From the videos I understand that you were using PT4 but now you are using HM2. I've only used PT4. I've seen in the videos that in HM2 you can see IP/OOP stats which either you cannot see or I don't know how to see in PT4. Are you using any other features of HM2 that are not available in PT4?

I'd also like to hear your reasons for the 1:2 ratio (value:bluffs). Not just in this particular situation, but in general. Why would you ever want to bluff that much? 

Very nice video! I have two questions.

1. As I understand it, in this hand you suggest overbetting your whole value range. I know this is the best strategy when you have either the best hand or air, but in this case you are over value betting some hands that are worse than some bluff catchers (Q2, 76,...). Wouldn't it be better to have a mixed strategy with two different bet sizes?

2. In the last slide, you say that if villain is tight we can value bet lees and therefore we can bluff less. But if villain is tight, shouldn't we exploit that by bluffing more than GT says? 

Thanks for your answer Ben! I think I can learn a lot from this hand. As I explained in my comment below, I think I now understand why betting (as a bluff) is terrible:we'd be bluffing too much¡h. 

But let's assume that the SPR on the river is 4. In this situation I had always been going for the c/r with this hand which I assume is also terrible from a GTO perspective (by the same reason). But I think it works pretty well in practice. In fact, as they are afraid of a c/r they will not value bet the flushes very often.  But if these populations reads are correct, I can exploit them even more by value betting flushes and calling check raises (because I think most people would c/r any KJ). Do people playing these stakes agree of these population reads? 

Ben, in your games, would you value bet the flushes and call check raises? What would you c/r bluff with? Perhaps AdKxx?

OK, let me add some more reads. UTG is 32/12 and I think that his limp/reraising range UTG is exactly AAxx. In this case, he would pot most flops and call any reraise I can make. This is why I was quite confident that I could call pre flop in this particular situation. Perhaps there aren't enough flops where I can get stacked against AAxx to make this play +EV?

As I said, I think UTG is raising OTF with pair+nfd and when he just calls I know he is pretty weak. Perhaps a K with not much else, or a weak fd,...

HJ plays 40/25 with a 53% flop CB (which I expect to be even lower in 3-way pots). This is why I donked. He would also raise on the flop with a set most of the times  and knows that I might go for a c/r with a set OTT, so I didn't expect him to bet OTT with his draws.

If we assume that HJ is folding  AA (and a 4) but never folding a flush, I think betting the river is -EV. I made some computations with PPT and I think HJ has AA without a flush less than 10% of the time and a flush around 30% of the time. 

On the other hand, I have 2214 combos of KK, JJ and 44 and 3988 combos of KJ in my top 40%-10% range so I'd be bluffing too much if I bet with any KJ. 

But this is the very first time I use PPT for something not completely trivial and I have not been very careful, so I could be doing some mistakes.

Terrible sound quality.

Thanks for the detailed answer! Yes, I should probably fold pre. But let's say that instead of a 3 I had a 9. Then we'd be in the same situation (with this particular flop) and I think everyone would call with this hand. 

I expected UTG to raise with any set, probably with the bare NFD and perhaps  even K4 so when I bet and he calls I know he is very weak. HJ has very few 44 (if any) and not too many JJ in his range. I think he would also raise with KK most of the time (unless, perhaps, he has something like AKKQ with the nut spade draw that he wants to slow play OTF). Probably also with JJ unless he has some draw with it too. 

So I think that by betting, even small, I know that my top two pair is good (although probably in trouble on future streets), so I gain info about their hands. 

I agree that in this hand it would be better to bet bigger to charge their draws and avoid the probably difficult river decisions. But then what would be a good line with hands like QJT8 or QT98 with a spade draw?  

Well, perhaps we could have the combo straight+spade draws as bluffs in this river?  If we bet this hand, do we have any bluff catchers?

Villain would think that I'm capable of check/raising the nuts with a larger SPR, but I don't think I'd do that with this SPR. Although maybe I should sometimes, after all I expect him to be calling basically with the same hands that he is value betting. I'm not sure about this either, as you said it might be -EV to call with his flushes.

I don't expect UTG to bet often (as I said, I think he'd have raised OTF with any hand that might bet here).  The same goes for HJ. I think he might bet only with AA+nfd, perhaps not even that. 

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the video!

I was railing you at these stages of the PLO SCOOP tournament. I saw you one of these bluffs and I thought that the next one would be a bluff too. 

However, this is not the way I think when I'm playing against a good player. I usually think that he will think that I'll call him light because I've seen him bluffing recently, so next time he bets pot he will have a strong hand. (I also think that they usually do not think that I think at this level, so they will not do it with a bluff again. I hope this makes sense.) On the other hand, this is not the way the good players I play against think against me. I feel that they call me much lighter if they have seen me bluffing recently. Do these considerations come into play in your high stakes games or do you just look at the whole history against a given villain and not specially at the recent history?

I'd also like to hear what midstakes players think about this.

Perhaps there was some interesting match in the HU PLO SCOOP event you can make a video (or series) from?

I don't like 3-betting pre in this situation. The reason is that I think that this flop is almost as good as it could be unless you flop a straight. This is the only way I'd talk about the nuttiness of your hand being so deep. For instance, if UTG and MP flat your 3-bet and you flop top two pair (let's say AJc8c), would you be comfortable playing this hand OOP being so deep? Do you think you'd get a large part of your stack in good? In my games if the money goes in, I'd be crushed most of the times. 

In the actual hand, you flop a nut gutshot and a flush draw but you folded. I guess the reason was that you could never be sure that the flush outs were good, right? (I'd always be afraid that villain would have either AA with the nut flush draw or something like QJT9). 

Also, if your equity is about 42-44%, then you can get it in (you just need about 42%). Did you think it was lower when you played the hand?

Very nice video!. I have a question regarding the hand where you river a set with the 77 hand and CO the nut straight, you bet and he just calls (at minute 6). For you it was clear that he should raise, but I might also just call in that spot trying to induce other calls. Given that you checked the flop and the turn, JT and 77 (or 87s and 65s if they are in your pre flop opening range) are the only hands that may take this line and call a raise. On the other hands, are there any other hands you would check the flop and turn and bet the river? Perhaps he could think that you were doing this with weak aces. 

Also, it was a 4-way pot. If he raises right after your bet, wouldn't that show too much strength so that you shouldn't be too happy calling with 77? 

+1. Another thing I'd like to see is an option to mark the videos the that I have already seen. 

That number comes from the fact that villain is shoving 48.7% of the time and we are folding 62% when this happens. I think there's no problem with that.

The mistake was that I was computing the equity of 38% vs 48% and this is not what you were doing. You were calling 38% but this was 38% of the 84.7% that you were opening. Therefore, you are calling (38*84.7/100)%, which is like 32$ of all hands. When I compute 32% vs 48% I get 53.53% equity in PPT and this is good enough. (In other word, the 0.521 that I was using in my previous formula, should be replaced by 0.5353.) 

I hope this makes sense.