Now through the end of 2018, I’m offering 25% off custom strategy videos when you purchase two hours or more. That’s two hours for just $150!

Get the most out of your poker study time with a poker strategy videos custom-tailored to your needs. If you play online, I can review a database or hand history for you, identify your specific leaks, and suggest study material to help you plug them. Even if you don’t play online, I can review hand histories from live play, answer your questions thoroughly, and help you focus your independent study on the most important topics for your improvement.

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Links

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Episode 253 with Bryan Devonshire

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & welcome!
12:43 – Strategy

Strategy

It’s a 2c/5c NLHE zoom poker game, 6 handed, on Bovada. I have $10.50 in my stack and villain has me covered, so we are at 210 blinds effective.

I am first to act with black QQ. I elect to limp and immediately get raised to 20c by UTG +1. It folds back around to me. I call.

We go to the flop with 47 cents in the pot. Qd Jc 9d. I check, and villain checks back.

Turn is an offsuit Jack, I check Villain bet 33c into 47c, and I raise pot, making it $1.46 to go. He calls.

We go to the river with $3.39 in the pot and about $8.80 in effective stacks. River is the 5 of hearts. I elect to overbet about 1.5x pot, $5.18.

Timestamps

0:30 hello
3:07 danny sprung (featuring strategy)

Strategy

1st hand after 1st break, I have Red Kings. I raise UTG, and am 3 bet by a straightforward player. We are 100BB deep at this point. I call.

Flop T63 Rainbow, we both check.

Turn is Jd, bringing backdoor diamond draw. I bet 1/2 pot and Villain raised.

_________

I open EP, Villain 3-bets, and I flat call AKdd.

The flop was a spectacular Kh4d2d, I checked, Villain continued, and I made a very big check raise.

Timestamps

0:30 hello
24:19 strategy

Links

Bundyville
Stone Mattress
Underworld

Strategy

http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/28666025_17A2638EF1

HH below for those who can’t open Boomplayer.

PokerStars Hand #190740522966: Tournament #2378947329, $500+$500+$50 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level VIII (500/1000) – 2018/09/06 15:38:54 ET
Table ‘2378947329 32’ 8-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: MrSweets28 (151471 in chips, $1000 bounty)
Seat 2: twirlpro (103945 in chips, $500 bounty)
Seat 3: ThePateychuk (33893 in chips, $500 bounty)
Seat 4: flavioreis88 (32690 in chips, $500 bounty)
Seat 5: dlanger610 (21467 in chips, $500 bounty)
Seat 6: foucault82 (106373 in chips, $500 bounty)
Seat 7: gremistaAK (61218 in chips, $500 bounty)
Seat 8: abarone68 (40999 in chips, $750 bounty)
MrSweets28: posts the ante 125
twirlpro: posts the ante 125
ThePateychuk: posts the ante 125
flavioreis88: posts the ante 125
dlanger610: posts the ante 125
foucault82: posts the ante 125
gremistaAK: posts the ante 125
abarone68: posts the ante 125
flavioreis88: posts small blind 500
dlanger610: posts big blind 1000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to foucault82 [Ah Kh]
foucault82: raises 1222 to 2222
gremistaAK: raises 4778 to 7000
abarone68: folds
MrSweets28: raises 9500 to 16500
twirlpro: folds
ThePateychuk: folds
flavioreis88: folds
dlanger610: folds
foucault82: calls 14278
gremistaAK: calls 9500
*** FLOP *** [6c 5c 3s]
foucault82: checks
gremistaAK: checks
MrSweets28: bets 12500
foucault82: calls 12500
gremistaAK: folds
*** TURN *** [6c 5c 3s] [2d]
foucault82: checks
MrSweets28: checks
*** RIVER *** [6c 5c 3s 2d] [6h]
foucault82: bets 77248 and is all-in
MrSweets28: folds
Uncalled bet (77248) returned to foucault82
foucault82 collected 77000 from pot
foucault82: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 77000 | Rake 0
Board [6c 5c 3s 2d 6h]
Seat 1: MrSweets28 folded on the River
Seat 2: twirlpro folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: ThePateychuk (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: flavioreis88 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: dlanger610 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: foucault82 collected (77000)
Seat 7: gremistaAK folded on the Flop
Seat 8: abarone68 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

Bloch discussed Full Tilt Poker and Black Friday at length with Diamond Flush Poker. We discussed the subject, and The Lederer Files, with Matt Parvis on Episode 7.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
11:48 – Strategy
34:40 – Andy Bloch

0:30 Hello & Welcome
54:53 Strategy

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
6:53 – Zach Elwood
56:27 – Strategy

This is my third read-through, so the material itself isn’t novel to me. However, I still find reading it a useful reminder of just how much there is to pick up on and exploit, if you pay attention. For all of my work with Pio and whatnot, I still think that getting better at exploiting verbal and physical behavior is the area of study with the potential for the largest returns, especially at the WSOP where there are so many amateur players and everyone is so emotionally invested in the outcomes.

Here’s an interesting spot from a recent game where I got a lot of information from my opponent, though I remain uncertain whether I processed it correctly.

The game was 5/10 no-limit, and we were six-handed. The main Villain in this hand, as well as the BB, were both extremely loose, especially before the flop, and I’d been raising them a lot. Villain had expressed some annoyance with this, and while his play was mostly passive, he had attempted a few bluffs against me. Once I picked him off with a full house and once with Ace-high. That second call got some eye rolls and under-the-breath muttering, and he’d been a lot more passive since.

I straddled the button for $20. Villain limped UTG, and I raised to $100 with QTo. The BB and Villain called.

Flop ($305) Qc 8s 7h. Check to me, I bet $150, only Villain called.

Turn ($505) 5d. Villain checked, I bet $400, Villain shuffled chips for a while, then moved all in for $1400 total.

As I pondered the situation, he muttered, “I’m already there.”

On the one hand, a willingness to speak at all in a large pot indicates some strength. It’s a sign of relaxation. Bluffers are often tense and trying not to draw attention to themselves.

However, claiming to have a strong hand is a classic strong-means-weak tell. Overall, this statement made me more inclined to call.

I pressed him for more information, though. “Already where?” I asked. “That’s the question.”

“I got it, man. I’m made.”

“You got what?”

“I got you, man. You’re beat. I mean, you might get there on the river, but I got you right now.”

This was all feeding the strong-means-weak story. “I don’t have a draw,” I told him. “If I’m beat, I’m beat.”

He visibly relaxed when I said that. “Oh,” he said. “Then I don’t care what you do.” He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

I interpreted this as a truthful statement. It’s actually not that uncommon, in a large pot, for many players to try to get folds even when they’re ahead. The potential for getting drawn out on would explain his nervousness. A lot of his behavior was ambiguous; the strong-means-weak tell is well enough known that I wouldn’t be shocked to see it employed in reverse. But his relaxation when I told him I didn’t have a draw felt genuine. Of all of his behavior, that was the piece I felt most comfortable relying on.

For better or worse, I folded. It’s important to note that despite the pre-flop action, hands like AQ, KQ, 96 (definitely suited, maybe even offsuit), 75s, and perhaps even 85s are in his range for seeing the turn. My biggest concern was whether he’d shove the turn with something like 76, but that seemed unlikely given his worry about my having a draw.

He showed me a 5 after I folded. I don’t think 55 is impossible for him, even with the flop call, but I do think it’s unlikely. If I had to guess a single hand for him, I’d say 75s.

I’m not at all sure folding was correct here; I was getting pretty good odds. However, it’s the most interesting spot I’ve had in a while in terms of the physical and verbal behavior of an opponent, so I thought it would be interesting to share. How would you have interpreted this behavior?

PS If you decide to purchase Zach’s book, which I highly recommend, please use this affiliate link. You’ll find Exploiting Poker Tells there along with his other books (all excellent, in fact you’ll get more out of Exploiting if you read the others too) and his video course. As you might imagine, it can be quite helpful to see videos of players performing the various behaviors he describes!

My new Fundamentals of Game Theory course is a series of lessons to introduce you, step by step, to fundamental game theory concepts and help you apply them to real world poker situations. This course is not about trying to memorize and implement solver solutions in your actual play; it’s about studying solutions in order to learn the core principles of optimal play, so that you can recognize and exploit opponents who play sub-optimally.

There’s no predefined starting point. I’ve created a series of scaffolded lessons that start from zero and build up to analyzing a full solver solution for a common flop situation. Where we start in that progression will depend on how comfortable you already are game theoretical concepts.

Every session is built around a toy game or scenario that you’ll attempt to analyze and interpret for yourself and then discuss with me over Skype. All lessons can be completed with any GTO solver, though I’m best prepared to help you with either CREV or Pio. The first few lessons can even be completed with the free version of PioSolver.

For questions, more information, or to sign up, please comment here or write andrew (at) thinkingpoker (dot) net.

Part One is now live, and the rest should be going up over the course of the next week or so.

If you’re not yet a Tournament Poker Edge member, let this be your impetus to sign up!

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
34:19 – strat

Strategy

Hand 1

Hand 2

Hero opens to $35 with 8d 7d UTG, called by MP and BB.

Flop ($105) AQ6dd. BB checks, Hero bets $50, BB calls.

Turn ($205) 2c. BB checks, Hero bets $200, B calls.

River ($605) 9h. BB checks, Hero shoves ~$900.

Strategy

Hand 1

100 BB effective stacks 

Dealt to Hero: Ks Ts

UTG folds, Hero (MP) raises to 3BB, Villain (CO) calls, BTN folds, SB folds, BB folds.

Flop: Qh 6s 4s (7.5BB)

Hero bets 5BB, Villain calls.

Turn: Td (17.5BB)

Hero checks, Villain bets 13BB, Hero calls.

River: Qs (43.5 BB)

Hero… checks?, Villain bets 27BB, Hero…? 

Hand 2

I have JdJc UTG+1. 

Folds to me and I raise to 15.Folds to main villain in CO who flats, SB folds, BB flats.

Flop ($50) 9c 7d 4s: SB checks, I bet $35, CO thinks not too long before calling, SB calls $35.

Turn ($155) 8h: BB checks, I check, CO seems like he’s about to check then grabs a stack of reds, counts $85 and pushes it forward. BB folds. I call.

River ($325) 3d: I check, CO bets $175.

My interview with Christian Soto provided all of that at a critical moment, coming just hours after one of the more frustrating poker experiences of the year. By chance, we’d been seated next to each other late on Day 2 of the WPT Main Event at Maryland Live! After crushing for much of the day, I made a critical mistake and lost more than I should have with AK vs AA, which resulted in a smaller cash than I’d anticipated. Talking through and laughing about the day’s events with Christian was great fun and great medicine, and judging from the audience response, it seems to have made for a great listen as well.

Happy new year everyone! Thanks for spending some of 2017 with us, and we look forward to sharing more great poker stories with you in the year to come.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello & Welcome
15:32 Strategy
41:00 Jordan Young

Links

Softcenter.band
Solve for Why Academy
Bay Area Urban Debate League Fundraising Campaign

The great thing about this kind of review is that the hand examples come from the smaller stakes tournaments that most members play, which provides plenty of opportunity to talk about what does and doesn’t work against those kinds of opponents.

If you’re not already a member, this is a great time to sign up and get access to this plus dozens of my other videos and hundreds more from other instructors!

Oh and do check out the KL Cleeton interview if you haven’t already, it’s one of my favorites from this year!t

To learn more from Christian you can follow @ChristianSoto08 on Twitter and sign up for his I’ll Name This Strategy Later II seminar.

PokerStars – 175/350 Ante 45 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 183.45 BB
UTG: 165.5 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)
UTG+1: 129.36 BB (VPIP: 25.42, PFR: 19.64, 3Bet Preflop: 10.71, Hands: 60)
MP: 145.31 BB (VPIP: 18.34, PFR: 14.11, 3Bet Preflop: 8.91, Hands: 574)
MP+1: 158.17 BB (VPIP: 15.91, PFR: 9.09, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 44)
MP+2: 142.54 BB (VPIP: 5.26, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 19)
CO: 115.69 BB (VPIP: 17.36, PFR: 10.95, 3Bet Preflop: 6.61, Hands: 481)
BTN: 131.73 BB (VPIP: 31.82, PFR: 15.91, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 44)
SB: 70.86 BB (VPIP: 31.25, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 48)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.66 BB) Hero has Kh Kc
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, CO raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 12.35 BB, CO calls 9.35 BB

Flop : (26.35 BB, 2 players) Jd Qh 8d
Hero bets 13.17 BB, CO calls 13.17 BB

Turn : (52.7 BB, 2 players) Tc
Hero bets 26.35 BB, CO calls 26.35 BB

River : (105.39 BB, 2 players) Ks
Hero bets 131.45 BB and is all-in, CO calls 63.69 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Kh Kc (Three of a Kind, Kings)
(Pre 67%, Flop 55%, Turn 77%)

CO shows Ad 3d (Straight, Ace High)
(Pre 33%, Flop 45%, Turn 23%)

CO wins 232.77 BB

Villain was a world-class player, and I hated this spot from the flop.

My plan after the turn was actually to barrel off as a bluff, as I think I have way more AK in my range than Villain, and although KK could be good, it often won’t be and will be tough to showdown when it is.

Then I had to change course again on the river. In the moment I decided that I didn’t want to check-fold for a good deal less than a pot-sized bet, so I might as well shove for thin value. I remember thinking “just about the only Ace he can have is Ax of diamonds”. But in retrospect there are a good number of those, and Villain has some 9x as well which means he probably doesn’t need to call with hands I beat. So yeah, in retrospect I think I should have check-folded.

As for the $109, I ultimately busted in 54th. Here’s a Day 2 hand I’m pretty happy about:

PokerStars – 50000/100000 Ante 12500 NL (8 max) – Holdem – 7 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG+1: 33.51 BB (VPIP: 19.06, PFR: 12.85, 3Bet Preflop: 3.79, Hands: 322)
MP: 20.39 BB (VPIP: 9.18, PFR: 7.37, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 98)
CO: 30.9 BB (VPIP: 29.58, PFR: 26.47, 3Bet Preflop: 15.00, Hands: 72)
BTN: 23.72 BB (VPIP: 23.26, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 8.24, Hands: 219)
SB: 36.51 BB (VPIP: 16.39, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 61)
Hero (BB): 14.88 BB
UTG: 14.22 BB (VPIP: 28.83, PFR: 14.81, 3Bet Preflop: 2.17, Hands: 112)

7 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.37 BB) Hero has 7d 4s
UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, MP calls 2 BB, CO calls 2 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop : (9.37 BB, 4 players) Tc 9h 6c
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP checks, CO checks

Turn : (9.37 BB, 4 players) Td
Hero bets 2.81 BB, fold, fold, fold

Hero wins 9.37 BB

Pretty nice to increase stack by about 2/3 with no hand and very little risk!

I also ended up running quite deep in the Big $109 again (I came 3rd last week) but ultimately busted in 18th.

I got off to a good start in it but then lost AK to AK.

In the $215 PKO, I got quite ambitious in an early pot. I’m still not sure what to think of it – it’s so hard to decide how to value accumulation vs survival in these events. It doesn’t look great, but I think looking at each decision in a vacuum none seems bad to me.

Initially, I’ve got a pretty good hand and there’s a ton of money in the pot that I’d love to win immediately. I don’t think Villain’s 4-bet is that likely to be light, but it’s not impossible. Plus with all the dead money and the bounty on Villain, getting in AJ vs KK isn’t the end of the world anyway. Losing your chips early in a WCOOP sucks, but running up a big stack in a PKO has a lot more value than in a regular tournament because it enables you to chase bounties.

PokerStars – 150/300 Ante 40 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 139.08 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)
MP+1: 115.54 BB (VPIP: 20.83, PFR: 12.63, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 96)
MP+2: 185.11 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)
CO: 151.38 BB (VPIP: 37.50, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
Hero (BTN): 164.16 BB
SB: 137.6 BB (VPIP: 21.01, PFR: 14.03, 3Bet Preflop: 6.37, Hands: 562)
BB: 190.93 BB (VPIP: 21.59, PFR: 16.28, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 88)
UTG: 158.31 BB (VPIP: 26.11, PFR: 15.84, 3Bet Preflop: 15.46, Hands: 204)
UTG+1: 166.27 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.7 BB) Hero has Jd Ac
UTG raises to 2.5 BB, UTG+1 calls 2.5 BB, MP calls 2.5 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 2.5 BB, Hero raises to 12.59 BB, fold, fold, UTG raises to 34 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 164.03 BB and is all-in, UTG calls 124.18 BB and is all-in

Flop : (326.56 BB, 2 players) 2s 6h 4s

Turn : (326.56 BB, 2 players) Qd

River : (326.56 BB, 2 players) 6c

UTG shows Ks Kc (Two Pair, Kings and Sixes)
(Pre 71%, Flop 87%, Turn 93%)

Hero shows Jd Ac (One Pair, Sixes)
(Pre 29%, Flop 13%, Turn 7%)

UTG wins 326.56 BB

The Sunday Million was frustrating. I kept getting into bad spots with big pairs, where it felt like I didn’t have any great options. This was the worst: https://www.boomplayer.com/25291484_011D353AB9

Frankly, I’m surprised the SB was so light here (though he was Brazilian). Given that I’m essentially 3-betting into a dry sidepot, there’s just not that reason for me to be light, and I don’t think he has that much incentive to randomly 4-bet me. And then the 5-bet from UTG – obviously it’s hard to like the fold once i know the results, but in general my rule is to trust my gut when it tells me to hero fold, because that’s not usually what it tells me to do.

It probably didn’t help that I’d already been in a few spots where I at least suspected that I’d been coolered, including this one where I ran KK into AA: https://www.boomplayer.com/25289125_4ADA91F5DB.

All of that said, I did get two double-ups in spots where that required at least a little above the rim play: https://www.boomplayer.com/25287412_36769CB6FC and https://www.boomplayer.com/25291645_CBB5AA13F0.

In happier news, I made Day 2 of the $109 WCOOP-Low!

Plus, Nate makes a return to the show! And a strategy discussion about flopping a straight on a monotone board!

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello and Welcome
3:50 – Strategy
16:31 – Jose Pachon
24:49 – Nate’s back!

Strategy

UTG + 1, MP, CO, button, and SB limp. Hero checks 5h 4d in the BB.

The flop comes 367ddd. SB checks, Hero bets $20, UTG + 1, CO, and SB all call.

The turn comes the 7s. SB bets $25. Hero raises to $60, UTG + 1 raises to $250. Action gets folded back around to SB who calls instantly. Hero?

Saturday started early. Usually I deal with that by late registering, but the 7AM event was a progressive knock-out, and although Stars allows late registration in those, it’s a financial disaster to do so. So I figured I would play that and then see how I felt for the afternoon event.

It got off to a rough start. A guy put in a crazy amount with 22 against my AK, which wasn’t the end of the world since I covered him, but his pair held up so instead of getting his bounty I got short-stacked. I managed to make a recovery though (it’s easy to get your money in good as a short stack in a bounty event, because everyone else has incentive to call you very light) and after this extremely fun hand I had more chips than anyone else in the tournament (also on Boom if you’d rather watch the replay):

PokerStars – 1250/2500 Ante 325 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+2: 69.55 BB (VPIP: 19.40, PFR: 10.61, 3Bet Preflop: 2.86, Hands: 67)
CO: 88.92 BB (VPIP: 13.75, PFR: 7.50, 3Bet Preflop: 2.56, Hands: 81)
BTN: 17.37 BB (VPIP: 17.69, PFR: 4.65, 3Bet Preflop: 3.23, Hands: 131)
SB: 22.61 BB (VPIP: 26.74, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 16.28, Hands: 87)
Hero (BB): 166.42 BB
UTG: 85.05 BB (VPIP: 19.64, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 4.17, Hands: 57)
UTG+1: 54.64 BB (VPIP: 17.95, PFR: 10.26, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 39)
MP: 51.98 BB (VPIP: 31.34, PFR: 19.08, 3Bet Preflop: 9.23, Hands: 136)
MP+1: 129.68 BB (VPIP: 17.61, PFR: 13.81, 3Bet Preflop: 10.48, Hands: 517)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.67 BB) Hero has 7c 9d
fold, fold, MP raises to 2.3 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.3 BB

Flop : (6.27 BB, 2 players) Ts 9c Th
Hero checks, MP bets 2.32 BB, Hero raises to 5.59 BB, MP calls 3.27 BB

Turn : (17.46 BB, 2 players) 8h
Hero checks, MP bets 6.36 BB, Hero raises to 15.41 BB, MP calls 9.05 BB

River : (48.28 BB, 2 players) 4s
Hero checks, MP bets 28.55 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 28.55 BB

MP shows Js Kc (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 65%, Flop 38%, Turn 23%)

Hero shows 7c 9d (Two Pair, Tens and Nines)
(Pre 35%, Flop 62%, Turn 77%)

Hero wins 105.38 BB

I’m not too pleased with the hand I busted on. I do think I should have gone broke given how the board ran out, but it would have been better to call the flop and get all in on this turn.

PokerStars – 6000/12000 Ante 1500 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 6.98 BB (VPIP: 22.16, PFR: 13.23, 3Bet Preflop: 9.18, Hands: 194)
Hero (BTN): 31.1 BB
SB: 75.19 BB (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)
BB: 135.17 BB (VPIP: 18.84, PFR: 13.43, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 73)
UTG: 165.89 BB (VPIP: 31.67, PFR: 17.65, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 242)
UTG+1: 44.35 BB (VPIP: 19.67, PFR: 14.66, 3Bet Preflop: 10.24, Hands: 606)
MP: 25.96 BB (VPIP: 16.70, PFR: 11.94, 3Bet Preflop: 5.09, Hands: 504)
MP+1: 35.16 BB (VPIP: 21.00, PFR: 16.26, 3Bet Preflop: 10.31, Hands: 501)
MP+2: 37.86 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 9)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has Ac Js
fold, fold, fold, MP+1 raises to 2.4 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 2.4 BB, fold, BB calls 1.4 BB

Flop : (8.82 BB, 3 players) Tc Jc 9d
BB checks, MP+1 checks, Hero bets 2.65 BB, BB raises to 6.58 BB, fold, Hero raises to 28.58 BB and is all-in, BB calls 21.99 BB

Turn : (65.98 BB, 2 players) 2d

River : (65.98 BB, 2 players) 2c

BB shows 9c Qc (Flush, Queen High)
(Pre 40%, Flop 62%, Turn 43%)

Hero shows Ac Js (Two Pair, Jacks and Twos)
(Pre 60%, Flop 38%, Turn 57%)

BB wins 65.98 BB

I didn’t do anything too interesting in the $215 rebuy, but here’s a hand I screwed up:

PokerStars – 300/600 Ante 75 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 83.23 BB (VPIP: 33.46, PFR: 20.31, 3Bet Preflop: 6.56, Hands: 267)
CO: 51.64 BB (VPIP: 22.86, PFR: 22.86, 3Bet Preflop: 17.65, Hands: 35)
BTN: 49.94 BB (VPIP: 15.11, PFR: 8.73, 3Bet Preflop: 1.79, Hands: 140)
SB: 79.96 BB (VPIP: 20.26, PFR: 14.66, 3Bet Preflop: 6.86, Hands: 545)
Hero (BB): 96.56 BB
UTG: 37.1 BB (VPIP: 20.21, PFR: 12.43, 3Bet Preflop: 5.75, Hands: 189)

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has 7s 8h
fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 3.7 BB, SB raises to 13 BB, Hero calls 9.3 BB

Flop : (26.75 BB, 2 players) 9d 4d Td
SB bets 12 BB, Hero calls 12 BB

Turn : (50.75 BB, 2 players) 6d
SB checks, Hero checks

River : (50.75 BB, 2 players) 7c
SB bets 15.73 BB, Hero calls 15.73 BB

SB shows Jc Jd (Flush, Jack High)
(Pre 82%, Flop 85%, Turn 100%)

Hero mucks 7s 8h (Straight, Ten High)
(Pre 18%, Flop 15%, Turn 0%)

SB wins 82.22 BB

I think I played the turn right, and maybe the flop? But pre-flop, I probably screwed up twice, and the river should probably be a fold. #TheyAlwaysHaveIt

PokerStars – 100/200 Ante 25 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 223.49 BB (VPIP: 35.71, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 15)
BTN: 256.49 BB (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 21.43, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
SB: 250.62 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
Hero (BB): 251.25 BB
UTG: 247.62 BB (VPIP: 14.15, PFR: 12.00, 3Bet Preflop: 4.76, Hands: 205)

5 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.12 BB) Hero has 4c 4h
UTG raises to 2.5 BB, fold, BTN calls 2.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Flop : (8.62 BB, 3 players) Kc 4d 5d
Hero checks, UTG bets 4.14 BB, BTN calls 4.14 BB, Hero raises to 25.18 BB, fold, BTN calls 21.04 BB

Turn : (63.13 BB, 2 players) Kd
Hero bets 18.94 BB, BTN raises to 57 BB, Hero calls 38.06 BB

River : (177.13 BB, 2 players) Qs
Hero checks, BTN bets 171.68 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 166.44 BB and is all-in

BTN shows 5s 5h (Full House, Fives full of Kings)
(Pre 81%, Flop 96%, Turn 98%)

Hero shows 4c 4h (Full House, Fours full of Kings)
(Pre 19%, Flop 4%, Turn 2%)

BTN wins 510.01 BB

Honestly, I’m not at all sure this was a good river call. I do think it’s just a bluff-catcher, and although the 4s are somewhat relevant blockers, this is probably a spot where most people underbluff enough and my remaining chips valuable enough for me to fold.

It all worked out in the end though, because I took a few hours off (I hadn’t registered anything else yet) and then put in an afternoon session instead, which culminated in my taking 3rd out of nearly 1000 runners in the Big $109. That will almost certainly become a video on Tournament Poker Edge so I don’t want to give away too much, but here are two fun hands from the last two tables:

PokerStars – 2500/5000 Ante 625 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 17.34 BB (VPIP: 21.60, PFR: 15.87, 3Bet Preflop: 6.06, Hands: 705)
BB: 69.56 BB (VPIP: 26.88, PFR: 20.24, 3Bet Preflop: 6.90, Hands: 93)
UTG: 49.33 BB (VPIP: 45.45, PFR: 36.36, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 11)
UTG+1: 23.91 BB (VPIP: 15.38, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 13)
Hero (MP): 18.75 BB
MP+1: 33.19 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 15.79, Hands: 56)
MP+2: 8.21 BB (VPIP: 22.35, PFR: 14.32, 3Bet Preflop: 8.12, Hands: 427)
CO: 76.27 BB (VPIP: 15.45, PFR: 9.62, 3Bet Preflop: 5.13, Hands: 110)
BTN: 31 BB (VPIP: 21.48, PFR: 16.00, 3Bet Preflop: 12.28, Hands: 257)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has Qs Kh
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (6.18 BB, 2 players) 7s 2h 5s
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn : (6.18 BB, 2 players) 2c
BB checks, Hero checks

River : (6.18 BB, 2 players) 6h
BB bets 4 BB, Hero calls 4 BB

BB shows 4s Ks (One Pair, Twos)
(Pre 29%, Flop 46%, Turn 32%)

Hero shows Qs Kh (One Pair, Twos)
(Pre 71%, Flop 54%, Turn 68%)

Hero wins 14.18 BB

Villain was active in the chat box, which made it even more fun.

This was with 11 players remaining. Villain timed down to 0 before folding. Was quite the sweat:

PokerStars – 6000/12000 Ante 1500 NL – Holdem – 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 14.71 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 18.75, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 33)
UTG: 36.57 BB (VPIP: 20.49, PFR: 15.05, 3Bet Preflop: 8.39, Hands: 701)
CO: 65.94 BB (VPIP: 18.41, PFR: 15.04, 3Bet Preflop: 9.80, Hands: 357)
BTN: 50.35 BB (VPIP: 22.90, PFR: 16.75, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 434)
Hero (SB): 34.54 BB

5 players post ante of 0.13 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.12 BB) Hero has 8c Kc
fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.1 BB, Hero raises to 6.48 BB, fold, BTN calls 4.38 BB

Flop : (14.59 BB, 2 players) 7s Ts 5d
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn : (14.59 BB, 2 players) 6c
Hero checks, BTN bets 7 BB, Hero raises to 27.94 BB and is all-in, fold

Hero wins 28.59 BB

PS Nothing to write home about in the $1050 PKO. Collected one bounty.

Wednesday did not get off to a great start in the $500. Pretty early on, I lost this gem:

PokerStars – 200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+1: 142.61 BB (VPIP: 24.49, PFR: 10.20, 3Bet Preflop: 8.00, Hands: 49)
MP+2: 130.55 BB (VPIP: 27.19, PFR: 15.18, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 114)
CO: 126.32 BB (VPIP: 23.53, PFR: 19.73, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 154)
BTN: 130.29 BB (VPIP: 19.65, PFR: 13.86, 3Bet Preflop: 4.79, Hands: 343)
SB: 97.6 BB (VPIP: 22.38, PFR: 16.79, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 143)
BB: 116.88 BB (VPIP: 17.28, PFR: 12.45, 3Bet Preflop: 6.87, Hands: 273)
UTG: 127.12 BB (VPIP: 17.39, PFR: 16.19, 3Bet Preflop: 8.20, Hands: 184)
UTG+1: 172.18 BB (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 20)
Hero (MP): 77.76 BB

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has 9c Tc
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, MP+2 calls 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (8.46 BB, 3 players) 8c Qs Jh
BB checks, Hero checks, MP+2 bets 4.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 4.5 BB

Turn : (17.46 BB, 2 players) 5c
Hero checks, MP+2 bets 8.73 BB, Hero raises to 22.22 BB, MP+2 calls 13.49 BB

River : (61.9 BB, 2 players) 2c
Hero bets 48.63 BB and is all-in, MP+2 calls 48.63 BB

Hero shows 9c Tc (Flush, Ten High)
(Pre 34%, Flop 92%, Turn 84%)

MP+2 shows Kc Jc (Flush, King High)
(Pre 66%, Flop 8%, Turn 16%)

MP+2 wins 159.17 BB

The Zoom 6-Max was going better, for a while. It’s a fun format, over as quickly as a turbo but the Zoom structure means you get more hands per level than you would in a turbo (though it still isn’t as deep as a normal WCOOP). I actually gave some thought to folding this river, as I really couldn’t figure out what he would 3-bet-call from the SB that I could beat. Finally I decided it could be a strangely played AK, and thankfully it was!

PokerStars – 400/800 Ante 100 NL FAST (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 58.23 BB (VPIP: 25.76, PFR: 16.92, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 68)
SB: 70.2 BB (VPIP: 25.33, PFR: 18.31, 3Bet Preflop: 3.57, Hands: 75)
Hero (BB): 105.34 BB
UTG: 47.54 BB (VPIP: 19.46, PFR: 17.19, 3Bet Preflop: 10.11, Hands: 2,416)
MP: 64.6 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 12.90, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 133)
CO: 77.86 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has Jc Jd
fold, fold, CO raises to 2.2 BB, BTN calls 2.2 BB, SB raises to 7 BB, Hero raises to 20.83 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 13.83 BB

Flop : (46.81 BB, 2 players) Td 2s 4c
SB checks, Hero bets 11.11 BB, SB calls 11.11 BB

Turn : (69.03 BB, 2 players) Tc
SB checks, Hero checks

River : (69.03 BB, 2 players) 8h
SB bets 38.13 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 38.13 BB

SB shows Kh Ac (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 43%, Flop 26%, Turn 14%)

Hero shows Jc Jd (Two Pair, Jacks and Tens)
(Pre 57%, Flop 74%, Turn 86%)

Hero wins 145.29 BB

Karma caught up to me though, as I eventually got in JJ vs AK pre-flop and lost.

Here’s an interesting one from the $215. I don’t love check-raising bottom two when this deep on a board like this one, because although you benefit a bit from protection you aren’t generally going to end up with a hand that you want to play for four bets. Case in point: by the time we see the river, I’m at the bottom of my range and ready to turn my hand into a bluff, mostly to get Villain off of a Q though perhaps also AA or AJ.

PokerStars – 150/300 Ante 40 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 168.05 BB (VPIP: 12.50, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 13.33, Hands: 32)
MP+1: 148.96 BB (VPIP: 44.44, PFR: 14.81, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 27)
MP+2: 171.63 BB (VPIP: 21.18, PFR: 13.58, 3Bet Preflop: 5.88, Hands: 86)
CO: 175.34 BB (VPIP: 21.15, PFR: 14.49, 3Bet Preflop: 4.59, Hands: 491)
BTN: 157.53 BB (VPIP: 5.56, PFR: 2.78, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)
SB: 140.37 BB (VPIP: 45.85, PFR: 34.51, 3Bet Preflop: 11.24, Hands: 233)
Hero (BB): 114.67 BB
UTG: 201.03 BB (VPIP: 14.29, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 14)
UTG+1: 170.1 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 4)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.7 BB) Hero has 8s Jh
fold, fold, fold, fold, MP+2 raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Flop : (6.7 BB, 2 players) Jd Kd 8h
Hero checks, MP+2 bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

Turn : (12.7 BB, 2 players) Kh
Hero checks, MP+2 checks

River : (12.7 BB, 2 players) Qd
Hero bets 8.38 BB, fold

Hero wins 12.7 BB

This was a gross one from the $530:

PokerStars – 200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG+1: 107.42 BB (VPIP: 19.17, PFR: 14.39, 3Bet Preflop: 7.03, Hands: 433)
MP: 92.68 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
MP+1: 171.23 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 6.25, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 48)
MP+2: 86.44 BB (VPIP: 18.00, PFR: 12.00, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 50)
Hero (CO): 193.65 BB
BTN: 119.7 BB (VPIP: 21.59, PFR: 13.64, 3Bet Preflop: 7.45, Hands: 227)
SB: 119.16 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 12)
BB: 121.14 BB (VPIP: 26.85, PFR: 20.56, 3Bet Preflop: 6.10, Hands: 217)
UTG: 163.31 BB (VPIP: 31.25, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 48)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has Jh Js
fold, fold, fold, fold, MP+2 raises to 2.19 BB, Hero raises to 6.45 BB, BTN raises to 15 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 8.55 BB

Flop : (34.81 BB, 2 players) 4s 9d 8d
Hero checks, BTN bets 10.7 BB, Hero calls 10.7 BB

Turn : (56.21 BB, 2 players) Kd
Hero checks, BTN checks

River : (56.21 BB, 2 players) Jc
Hero bets 167.83 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 93.88 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Jh Js (Three of a Kind, Jacks)
(Pre 68%, Flop 53%, Turn 0%)

BTN shows Td Ad (Flush, Ace High)
(Pre 32%, Flop 47%, Turn 100%)

BTN wins 243.97 BB

I can’t fault Villain’s play, it’s just a great spot for him to pressure me pre-flop. It’s possible I’m just supposed to raise again pre-flop; I certainly considered it, but the money behind seemed awkward. I haven’t run in CREV yet but I feel good about the river shove. I doubt Villain will have enough flushes and KK to be able to fold a lot of his AK/AA.

And in a throwback to one of my earliest poker strategy articles, here I am bluffing a calling station:

PokerStars – 200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 108.05 BB (VPIP: 19.35, PFR: 14.52, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 429)
SB: 116.52 BB (VPIP: 36.36, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)
BB: 175.63 BB (VPIP: 22.73, PFR: 6.82, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 44)
UTG: 89.82 BB (VPIP: 17.39, PFR: 13.04, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 46)
Hero (UTG+1): 176.1 BB
MP: 115.08 BB (VPIP: 21.97, PFR: 13.89, 3Bet Preflop: 7.61, Hands: 223)
MP+1: 122.04 BB (VPIP: 12.50, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
MP+2: 121.76 BB (VPIP: 27.36, PFR: 20.95, 3Bet Preflop: 6.17, Hands: 213)
CO: 149.74 BB (VPIP: 29.55, PFR: 13.64, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 44)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has 9c Tc
fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 1.78 BB, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (7.96 BB, 3 players) 8s 2s Jd
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 5.26 BB, SB calls 5.26 BB, fold

Turn : (18.48 BB, 2 players) 6s
SB checks, Hero bets 9.24 BB, SB calls 9.24 BB

River : (36.96 BB, 2 players) 4s
SB checks, Hero bets 18.48 BB, fold

Hero wins 36.96 BB

Win the Button is a format I haven’t quite wrapped my head around yet. The most obvious adjustment is that you should try harder to win pots because there’s more of a reward for winning pots, but what’s less obvious is that you also care who win them from. That means the delta on defending your BB against the Button is much larger than defending against UTG, because if you fold to UTG you will be CO next hand, but if you fold to Button you will be BB again. I did some extra battling in late position for this reason, but here’s the hand I’m most proud of:

PokerStars – 175/350 Ante 45 NL – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 145.3 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)
BTN: 367.52 BB (VPIP: 62.50, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
SB: 127.53 BB (VPIP: 17.39, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 9.52, Hands: 46)
BB: 155.34 BB (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 60.00, 3Bet Preflop: 66.67, Hands: 5)
UTG: 7.57 BB (VPIP: 23.76, PFR: 19.52, 3Bet Preflop: 6.27, Hands: 1,005)
UTG+1: 131.33 BB (VPIP: 26.90, PFR: 16.07, 3Bet Preflop: 8.97, Hands: 343)
MP: 169.78 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)
Hero (MP+1): 75.54 BB

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.53 BB) Hero has Ad Qh
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.79 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 2.29 BB, BB calls 1.79 BB

Flop : (9.39 BB, 3 players) 4d As 6d
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 2.82 BB, SB calls 2.82 BB, fold

Turn : (15.03 BB, 2 players) Th
SB checks, Hero bets 15.03 BB, SB calls 15.03 BB

River : (45.09 BB, 2 players) Td
SB checks, Hero bets 54.77 BB and is all-in, SB calls 54.77 BB

Hero shows Ad Qh (Two Pair, Aces and Tens)
(Pre 74%, Flop 86%, Turn 93%)

SB shows Ah 9d (Two Pair, Aces and Tens)
(Pre 26%, Flop 14%, Turn 7%)

Hero wins 154.63 BB

Needless to say, Villain should fold pre, and this is kind of an example of why. His A9o may have reasonable equity against my opening range, but it doesn’t realize that equity well, especially not against a player capable of recognizing spots like this.

There was also this value bet with Ace-Queen high on the river:

PokerStars – 1250/2500 Ante 325 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 29.62 BB (VPIP: 24.42, PFR: 17.80, 3Bet Preflop: 6.59, Hands: 394)
BTN: 88.21 BB (VPIP: 24.02, PFR: 9.04, 3Bet Preflop: 1.35, Hands: 179)
SB: 37.35 BB (VPIP: 24.30, PFR: 15.26, 3Bet Preflop: 3.77, Hands: 252)
BB: 28.47 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 12.73, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 56)
UTG: 73.5 BB (VPIP: 27.12, PFR: 19.01, 3Bet Preflop: 6.62, Hands: 713)
UTG+1: 17.34 BB (VPIP: 14.62, PFR: 7.77, 3Bet Preflop: 1.03, Hands: 212)
MP: 81.56 BB (VPIP: 24.51, PFR: 14.97, 3Bet Preflop: 6.00, Hands: 358)
MP+1: 94.43 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 15.16, 3Bet Preflop: 8.11, Hands: 345)
Hero (MP+2): 42.84 BB

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.67 BB) Hero has Qc Ad
fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, CO calls 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold

Flop : (7.23 BB, 2 players) 3s 8c 7h
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn : (7.23 BB, 2 players) 6d
Hero checks, CO checks

River : (7.23 BB, 2 players) 8h
Hero bets 2.17 BB, CO calls 2.17 BB

Hero shows Qc Ad (One Pair, Eights)
(Pre 69%, Flop 81%, Turn 93%)

CO mucks Ah Jh (One Pair, Eights)
(Pre 31%, Flop 19%, Turn 7%)

Hero wins 11.57 BB

The hand I busted on felt bad, and in fact while CREV likes my flop check (it plays a mix but mostly checks ATdd), it has almost no raising range on the turn. Which makes sense: this isn’t a flop on which I should often check strong hands, so on blank turns I’ll generally be quite capped and should therefore play the role of the bluff-catcher. Of course that would enable me to fold on a river like this one:

PokerStars – 2500/5000 Ante 625 NL – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+1: 33.71 BB (VPIP: 18.78, PFR: 13.74, 3Bet Preflop: 4.70, Hands: 773)
CO: 42.19 BB (VPIP: 19.51, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 41)
Hero (BTN): 21.18 BB
SB: 44.05 BB (VPIP: 23.38, PFR: 17.57, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 77)
BB: 55.1 BB (VPIP: 18.99, PFR: 14.11, 3Bet Preflop: 7.33, Hands: 339)
UTG: 24.1 BB (VPIP: 30.93, PFR: 7.45, 3Bet Preflop: 6.38, Hands: 97)
UTG+1: 24.17 BB (VPIP: 14.58, PFR: 13.04, 3Bet Preflop: 8.70, Hands: 48)
MP: 58.91 BB (VPIP: 20.45, PFR: 16.28, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 44)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has Ad Td
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (6.06 BB, 2 players) Th 3d Qh
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn : (6.06 BB, 2 players) 4c
BB bets 3.24 BB, Hero raises to 18.77 BB and is all-in, BB calls 15.53 BB

River : (43.61 BB, 2 players) Jh

BB shows 7c Qc (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 37%, Flop 74%, Turn 89%)

Hero shows Ad Td (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 63%, Flop 26%, Turn 11%)

BB wins 43.61 BB

Nothing so interesting to report from the $215; I didn’t win it.

My plan was not to double buy (that is, to rebuy 10K chips for $215 rather than 20K chips for $430), because the add-on buys 20K chips for $215, which means that buying that extra 10K during the rebuy period is quite expensive. Your initial chips are expensive too, of course, but you can’t add on if you don’t have chips!

Eventually, though, I convinced myself that the players on my right had enough chips and were playing badly enough that I wanted to have more to invest against them. I’m not sure that was the right decision, but it paid off:

PokerStars – 125/250 Ante 30 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 91.93 BB (VPIP: 18.84, PFR: 11.94, 3Bet Preflop: 6.90, Hands: 69)
Hero (BTN): 80.09 BB
SB: 157.66 BB (VPIP: 18.92, PFR: 15.09, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 113)
BB: 177.09 BB (VPIP: 47.00, PFR: 27.00, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 100)
UTG: 40.52 BB (VPIP: 9.09, PFR: 9.09, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 22)
UTG+1: 43.26 BB (VPIP: 22.97, PFR: 10.64, 3Bet Preflop: 5.03, Hands: 359)
MP: 36.4 BB (VPIP: 11.11, PFR: 7.04, 3Bet Preflop: 5.41, Hands: 144)
MP+1: 79.88 BB (VPIP: 19.11, PFR: 12.20, 3Bet Preflop: 6.86, Hands: 246)
MP+2: 104.4 BB (VPIP: 38.16, PFR: 18.42, 3Bet Preflop: 9.38, Hands: 76)

9 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.58 BB) Hero has 3s 3h
fold, fold, fold, MP+1 raises to 2.5 BB, MP+2 calls 2.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 2.5 BB, fold, fold

Flop : (10.08 BB, 3 players) 5h Qs 3c
MP+1 bets 5 BB, MP+2 calls 5 BB, Hero raises to 21.55 BB, fold, MP+2 raises to 101.78 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 55.92 BB and is all-in

Turn : (170.02 BB, 2 players) Jd

River : (170.02 BB, 2 players) Qh

MP+2 shows Kd Qc (Three of a Kind, Queens)
(Pre 48%, Flop 2%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows 3s 3h (Full House, Threes full of Queens)
(Pre 52%, Flop 98%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 170.02 BB

I won more big pots with 66 vs 64 on 764dd (frankly that Villain overplayed his hand as well – I flatted his flop check-raise, and he overbet jammed a Qd turn!), and then a really big one getting QQ all in against AK and holding. After winning that huge flip – note this for when I start whining about losing flips – I was in second place overall. Eventually, though, I just blew up:

PokerStars – 1250/2500 Ante 325 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+1: 43.44 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 65)
Hero (MP+2): 119.24 BB
CO: 10.53 BB (VPIP: 15.00, PFR: 11.76, 3Bet Preflop: 5.65, Hands: 301)
BTN: 23.3 BB (VPIP: 20.27, PFR: 13.46, 3Bet Preflop: 8.72, Hands: 376)
SB: 43.79 BB (VPIP: 14.68, PFR: 9.67, 3Bet Preflop: 2.27, Hands: 542)
BB: 25.05 BB (VPIP: 17.35, PFR: 9.28, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 98)
UTG: 81.7 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 21)
UTG+1: 40.24 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 13.14, 3Bet Preflop: 5.22, Hands: 288)
MP: 31.2 BB (VPIP: 23.56, PFR: 17.00, 3Bet Preflop: 7.89, Hands: 452)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.67 BB) Hero has Ts 9d
fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 1.78 BB, fold

Flop : (6.73 BB, 2 players) 9s 5h Ad
SB checks, Hero bets 2.02 BB, SB calls 2.02 BB

Turn : (10.77 BB, 2 players) 3d
SB bets 6.68 BB, Hero calls 6.68 BB

River : (24.12 BB, 2 players) 6h
SB bets 6.03 BB, Hero raises to 108.14 BB and is all-in, SB calls 26.66 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Ts 9d (One Pair, Nines)
(Pre 43%, Flop 18%, Turn 5%)

SB shows 3s As (Two Pair, Aces and Threes)
(Pre 57%, Flop 82%, Turn 95%)

SB wins 89.5 BB

This isn’t even typically a hand I’d open from this seat, but the BB was quite tight. I just got it into my head from the flop that I was going to three barrels, which I think is a fine plan holding the 9 blocker, but I refused to re-evaluate after Villain took the lead on the turn.

Frankly, his bet is bad. All he has to do is check and call and he gets my stack when he’s going to get my stack. Donking on a card that really doesn’t change the board – even though it did improve his hand – throws up a red flat that ought to enable me to change course and fold, though I stubbornly ignored it. So that was frustrating.

After that it was pretty uneventful, with not too many opportunities presenting themselves and me slowly blinding down as we neared the bubble. I open jammed AK, got called by TT, and that was that.

I did manage a cash in the $530, though even that got a bit dicey. I got off to a bad start thanks to more stubbornness:

PokerStars – 200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 160.07 BB (VPIP: 26.67, PFR: 26.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
UTG+1: 14.47 BB (VPIP: 25.31, PFR: 14.88, 3Bet Preflop: 4.02, Hands: 748)
MP: 259.15 BB (VPIP: 22.88, PFR: 15.52, 3Bet Preflop: 3.17, Hands: 119)
Hero (MP+1): 129.48 BB
MP+2: 79.47 BB (VPIP: 11.04, PFR: 8.18, 3Bet Preflop: 4.23, Hands: 163)
CO: 121.62 BB (VPIP: 26.23, PFR: 11.67, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 61)
BTN: 143.79 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)
SB: 123.99 BB (VPIP: 20.80, PFR: 17.03, 3Bet Preflop: 8.27, Hands: 330)
BB: 121.79 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has 8d 8c
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.79 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.79 BB

Flop : (7.2 BB, 2 players) 5h 2h 3c
BB checks, Hero bets 2.16 BB, BB raises to 6.1 BB, Hero calls 3.94 BB

Turn : (19.4 BB, 2 players) Ah
BB bets 6.94 BB, Hero raises to 23.59 BB, BB calls 16.64 BB

River : (66.58 BB, 2 players) Qs
BB checks, Hero bets 43.94 BB, BB calls 43.94 BB

Hero shows 8d 8c (One Pair, Eights)
(Pre 82%, Flop 9%, Turn 6%)

BB shows 3d 3h (Three of a Kind, Threes)
(Pre 18%, Flop 91%, Turn 94%)

BB wins 154.46 BB

This Villain was fishy enough that I think I can just fold flop. I told myself it could be a protection raise, and then the turn presented an irresistible bluffing spot. I still don’t regret firing away at turn and river, but I do think I should have folded the flop. Recognizing and exploitively folding against obviously strong lines from weak players is something I used to be more diligent about. I need to regain that discipline.

After that, it was standard stuff. I won some all ins, ran up a large stack, then lost a flip as the bubble approached. That left with me about 25bbs which I nursed until we were in the money. I found a spot to open jam about 10bb with Kh 9h from MP and was horrified when a player who’d been quite tight snap called from the HJ. I guess he was ready to gamble now that he’d cashed, though, because he had Qs Ts. The flop was all clubs and missed both of us. The turn was the Qc, but then the river was a fifth club so we ended up chopping. What a roller coaster!

The very next hand an early position player jammed 4bb, I reshoved AJo, someone else shoved, and then the BB, who was extremely short, called off the rest with his AJs. He actually made a flush to win the main pot, but I couldn’t outrun 88 for the much larger sidepot, so I finished with a min cash.

Still, I’ve cashed two of the eight WCOOP events I’ve played so far, and both felt like they could easily have been deeper runs (as did a few of the non-cashes). There’s a lot I’m doing that I’m really happy about – just got to find some discipline and some (more) rungood!

Edit: Taking today off. Was going to play the $1000 6-max shootout, but it’s capped at 216 runners and will probably be a tough field. The $215 8-game always sounds fun, but I think a day off will be more fun than (probably) busting early or (best case scenario) playing Razz until 2AM.

PokerStars – 500/1000 PL Hi (6 max) – Omaha Hi – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 48.94 BB (VPIP: 47.62, PFR: 23.81, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
SB: 122.09 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 9.52, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 21)
Hero (BB): 45.3 BB
UTG: 178.14 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 9.52, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
MP: 33.32 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
CO: 215.82 BB (VPIP: 47.62, PFR: 19.05, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Js As 4d Qs
fold, fold, CO raises to 3.5 BB, fold, SB calls 3 BB, Hero calls 2.5 BB

Flop : (10.5 BB, 3 players) 4h 9d Tc
SB checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn : (10.5 BB, 3 players) 5h
SB checks, Hero bets 10.5 BB, CO calls 10.5 BB, fold

River : (31.5 BB, 2 players) Jd
Hero checks, CO bets 31.5 BB, Hero calls 31.3 BB and is all-in

CO shows Kh 7s Ks 3h (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 57%, Flop 43%, Turn 68%)

Hero shows Js As 4d Qs (Two Pair, Jacks and Fours)
(Pre 43%, Flop 57%, Turn 33%)

Hero wins 94.1 BB

I made the money, surprising no one more than myself, and ultimately busted with dignity, holding a pair and a wrap against top two pair that turned a boat. I had to run the equity afterwards, but I got it in with about 62%, so can’t feel bad about that:

PokerStars – 8000/16000 PL Hi (6 max) – Omaha Hi – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 35.37 BB (VPIP: 31.82, PFR: 4.55, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 22)
Hero (CO): 46.58 BB
BTN: 72.41 BB (VPIP: 29.69, PFR: 14.06, 3Bet Preflop: 4.00, Hands: 128)
SB: 40.05 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 30)
BB: 65.48 BB (VPIP: 30.56, PFR: 17.36, 3Bet Preflop: 1.96, Hands: 147)
UTG: 43.88 BB (VPIP: 42.55, PFR: 21.28, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 47)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 4h 3d 6d 7c
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.79 BB, BTN calls 2.79 BB, SB calls 2.29 BB, fold

Flop : (9.37 BB, 3 players) 6h 5c Qd
SB checks, Hero bets 6.18 BB, BTN raises to 27.92 BB, fold, Hero raises to 43.79 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 15.86 BB

Turn : (96.94 BB, 2 players) 6c

River : (96.94 BB, 2 players) Ah

Hero shows 4h 3d 6d 7c (Three of a Kind, Sixes)
(Pre 44%, Flop 61%, Turn 0%)

BTN shows Kd As Qs 6s (Full House, Sixes full of Aces)
(Pre 56%, Flop 39%, Turn 100%)

BTN wins 96.94 BB

Although in retrospect maybe this just isn’t a good open from the CO? Like I said, undoubtedly lots of small mistakes.

I got trounced in the $1K in an interesting spot:

PokerStars – 175/350 Ante 45 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 178.74 BB (VPIP: 22.60, PFR: 15.46, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 209)
UTG: 237.43 BB (VPIP: 20.20, PFR: 13.07, 3Bet Preflop: 5.60, Hands: 307)
Hero (UTG+1): 147.77 BB
MP: 121.09 BB (VPIP: 27.81, PFR: 18.67, 3Bet Preflop: 14.07, Hands: 608)
MP+1: 117.71 BB (VPIP: 22.44, PFR: 15.81, 3Bet Preflop: 9.48, Hands: 259)
MP+2: 240.61 BB (VPIP: 9.82, PFR: 5.94, 3Bet Preflop: 1.89, Hands: 226)
CO: 64.04 BB (VPIP: 23.45, PFR: 16.25, 3Bet Preflop: 7.44, Hands: 293)
BTN: 135.27 BB (VPIP: 22.26, PFR: 18.96, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 276)
SB: 141.29 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.66 BB) Hero has Ah 8h
fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN calls 2.28 BB, SB calls 1.78 BB, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (10.28 BB, 4 players) 8d 2c 7h
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 6.78 BB, fold, SB raises to 21 BB, fold, Hero calls 14.22 BB

Turn : (52.28 BB, 2 players) 7c
SB bets 35 BB, Hero raises to 124.36 BB and is all-in, SB calls 82.88 BB and is all-in

River : (288.03 BB, 2 players) 6h

SB shows 7s As (Three of a Kind, Sevens)
(Pre 36%, Flop 8%, Turn 95%)

Hero shows Ah 8h (Two Pair, Eights and Sevens)
(Pre 64%, Flop 92%, Turn 5%)

SB wins 288.03 BB

Of course it looks bad that Villain hit a two-outer, but I think he played the hand well, and there are other ways for him to win besides binking. I like my flop defend. It’s a nasty spot, but I think given how often I’ll hold overpairs in this same spot, I should continue with this hand (which blocks 88 and 87s) and mostly dump those.

I thought of the turn as a better card than it probably was. Of course it makes sets/two-pair less likely, but I didn’t really consider that 7x would be a likely flop bluffing hand for Villain because he wants to block 77 and 87s. In retrospect, folding or even calling turn might well be better than sticking it in, even with a bounty on the Villain (which really isn’t likely to come into play, come to think of it).

I had a tricky spot in the $500 that I’m still not sure about:

PokerStars – 400/800 Ante 100 NL (8 max) – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 143.26 BB (VPIP: 21.55, PFR: 19.25, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 232)
UTG+1: 49.15 BB (VPIP: 22.62, PFR: 13.41, 3Bet Preflop: 6.06, Hands: 84)
MP: 79.88 BB (VPIP: 19.31, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 6.85, Hands: 668)
Hero (MP+1): 58.58 BB
CO: 62.9 BB (VPIP: 25.84, PFR: 21.32, 3Bet Preflop: 12.16, Hands: 332)
BTN: 86.71 BB (VPIP: 15.91, PFR: 10.13, 3Bet Preflop: 2.21, Hands: 398)
SB: 19.67 BB (VPIP: 21.78, PFR: 16.28, 3Bet Preflop: 9.55, Hands: 487)
BB: 68.82 BB (VPIP: 16.36, PFR: 12.79, 3Bet Preflop: 7.27, Hands: 276)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has 6d 5d
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (6.06 BB, 2 players) 4c 7d 9c
BB checks, Hero bets 4 BB, BB raises to 13.61 BB, Hero calls 9.61 BB

Turn : (33.28 BB, 2 players) 9s
BB bets 17 BB, Hero calls 17 BB

River : (67.28 BB, 2 players) Kd
BB bets 35.8 BB and is all-in, fold

BB wins 67.28 BB

It feels bad to call off so much with 6-high, but I still struggle to see a better option. The flop bet and call seem pretty clear-cut. Turn is tricky. Of course I could be in bad shape vs a 9, but I could also be very live against a flush draw, and if Villain doesn’t have the flush draw then I may get the opportunity to rep it if it comes in. I don’t think jamming the turn is any good, but I could certainly be convinced that it’s a fold.

I lost the rest with AK to 99 all in pre, nothing too exciting there.

I considered taking today off, but it’s dreary outside, so I’ll likely play the $215 rebuy.

Upon our arrival, I got probably my best opportunity ever to use all that French I studied some fifteen years ago. My experience in Montreal (and even in France) was that almost everyone spoke better English than I did French, but our host wasn’t comfortable in English, so she showed us around the house and she and I discussed some logistics in French. Fortunately she was patient and accommodating! To be honest, I don’t know how much the French even mattered, because Emily told me she was able to get the gist of almost everything despite speaking hardly a lick.

I max late registered the $200 Warm-Up shortly after our arrival and promptly ran my 20bb up to a top 10% stack. Then I ran AK into AA for most of my chips and lost the rest with 77 < 99 in a spot where we may have been close enough to the bubble for me to pass on my pair. Oh well.

The $500 6-max Progressive Knock-Out got off to a good start as well, with me collecting a bounty from a guy who just randomly open jammed 30bb UTG with A9o into my JJ. Then there was this hand, not a huge one but one of the more interesting I played yesterday:

PokerStars – 500/1000 Ante 125 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 58.95 BB (VPIP: 24.65, PFR: 16.59, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 216)
SB: 156.74 BB (VPIP: 26.87, PFR: 18.22, 3Bet Preflop: 7.62, Hands: 524)
BB: 99.7 BB (VPIP: 30.59, PFR: 17.16, 3Bet Preflop: 12.05, Hands: 170)
UTG: 71.55 BB (VPIP: 39.06, PFR: 21.88, 3Bet Preflop: 10.71, Hands: 65)
MP: 41.68 BB (VPIP: 21.04, PFR: 16.61, 3Bet Preflop: 7.93, Hands: 933)
Hero (CO): 90.44 BB

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has 2h As
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, BTN calls 2.28 BB, fold, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (8.09 BB, 3 players) 4d 2c Jh
BB checks, Hero bets 2.43 BB, BTN calls 2.43 BB, BB raises to 9.27 BB, Hero raises to 17.98 BB, fold, fold

Hero wins 29.05 BB

I got a bit careless later, though, ultimately getting in too much with A9o on the Button vs a BB squeeze (in my defense, he had a decent bounty!) and then stubbornly refusing to fold Aces that I’d slowplayed pre-flop to a BB who’d pretty obviously flopped trips.

I want to save this hand from the $1K for the next time one of my students tells me he checked after flopping a strong hand because he wanted to induce a bluff:

PokerStars – 125/250 Ante 30 NL – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 215.8 BB (VPIP: 53.85, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 26)
BB: 179.85 BB (VPIP: 16.02, PFR: 11.52, 3Bet Preflop: 2.82, Hands: 207)
UTG: 204.52 BB (VPIP: 14.11, PFR: 8.02, 3Bet Preflop: 2.53, Hands: 165)
UTG+1: 193.04 BB (VPIP: 24.62, PFR: 17.50, 3Bet Preflop: 5.99, Hands: 535)
Hero (MP): 175.49 BB
MP+1: 207.92 BB (VPIP: 15.82, PFR: 11.95, 3Bet Preflop: 7.65, Hands: 496)
CO: 241.58 BB (VPIP: 26.92, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 26)
BTN: 132.1 BB (VPIP: 38.46, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 26)

8 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.46 BB) Hero has 4d 4c
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, CO calls 2.28 BB, BTN calls 2.28 BB, SB calls 1.78 BB, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (12.36 BB, 5 players) 6c 4h 7d
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 8.16 BB, fold, BTN raises to 20 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 11.84 BB

Turn : (52.36 BB, 2 players) 6d
Hero checks, BTN bets 25 BB, Hero calls 25 BB

River : (102.36 BB, 2 players) Qd
Hero checks, BTN bets 84.7 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 84.7 BB

BTN shows Ah Jh (One Pair, Sixes)
(Pre 49%, Flop 4%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows 4d 4c (Full House, Fours full of Sixes)
(Pre 51%, Flop 96%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 271.77 BB

Villain showed Ah Jh.

I chugged along with a top 15% stack for most of the first six hours before losing a big flip with JJ to AKs. I won a few flips after getting short to stay alive, but eventually lost AJ < QQ to finish off my first day in the WCOOP.

A few mistakes aside (which I don’t want to be too dismissive of – making fewer mistakes is a key tournament skill), I was pleasantly surprised with my play. I’d hardly played at all since WSOP, and although I’ve been studying a lot, there’s always the danger of either being rusty or making mistakes trying to implement new concepts that I’ve only studied in theory. I don’t feel like I feel into either of those traps yesterday, and in fact I was quite pleased with some of the adaptations I made after reading Matt Janda’s new No Limit Hold ‘Em for Advanced Players.

Links

Michael Johanson and Dustin Morrill discuss Nate and Andrew’s play against DeepStackAI on Episode 210
Michael Bowling introduces DeepStack AI on Episode 208
CPRG Solves Heads Up Limit Hold ‘Em (Episode 110)
Introducing the Computer Poker Research Group on Episode 78
DeepStackAI Article in Science
Andrew and Nate battle DeepStackAI on Twitch
More DeepStackAI matches on YouTube

Timestamps

$1/$2 NLHE with a $4 straddle. UTG1 limps, HJ limps, Hero raises $24 with AThh on Button, Villain calls in BB, rest fold.

Flop ($56 in pot) Ac 5h 2d. Check, Hero bets $30, Villain calls.

Turn ($116 in pot) Td. Check, Hero bets $65, Villain raises to $155.

River ($426 in pot) 8h. Villain checks. Hero?

Links

Twitch
Twitter
Joe Ingram Interview

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
4:45 – KL
62:49 – strat

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
8:29 – strat
46:20 – etay

Strategy

NLHE tournament, 2000/4000 with a 400 ante. I had the big stack at the table, at about 280k or so. The villain in this hand was second in chips with 235k. There were roughly 36 players left, with 32 getting paid.

Action folds to him in the hijack, he makes it 11,500, I have JJ, and make it 30k. All fold back to him, he calls quickly.

Pot is ~69k . He checks blind (he did this a lot). Flop comes 467r. I bet 45K, Villain calls.

Pot ~159k. He checks blind again (less common for him to do this on the turn). Turn is a 2. I check behind.

~159k. River is a 3. He thinks for a couple seconds and shoves for 161k.

Strategy

Hand 1

I’m in MP with 9c9d, a stack of $5.56 and raise to 15c, it folds around to the SB with a stack of $5.96 who 3bet to 35c. It folds back to me and I make an easy call.

** Dealing Flop ** [ 7s, 5s, 6h ] Pot: 0.75c.
Villain bets [ $0.36 USD ]
hero calls [ $0.36 USD ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ] Pot: $1.47
Villain bets [ $0.70 USD ]
hero calls [ $0.70 USD ]

** Dealing River ** [ Jh ] Pot: $2.87
Villain bets [ $1 USD ]

Hand 2

I had 77 utg and limped.  It limped around all the way to the button who just flatted.

Five players to the flop of k 7 4 rainbow.  I checked checked all the way to button who bet 12. I just called 12.  The cutoff also called.

The turn brings a 6 diamonds.  2 diamonds on the board.

I check.  Check on cutoff and the button bets 35.  I wait 30 seconds and then reraise to 100.

Cutoff hymns and haws and I put him in 75d and he calls after 1 minute or more.  The button calls instantly.

River brings j diamonds.  I check quickly and the c/o quickly moves all in for 210.

The button calls immediately for less – like 60.

Hand 3

1/2 game in Arizona. Hero has $350 effective, and is the big stack at the table. Both usual suspects limp, and hero checks his option from the BB with Ad 6s.

The flop comes all diamonds. T72. I bet $10, and one of the more laggy players three bets me to $25. The other one folds. I call.

Turn is the Jh. I check. Villain leads for $30. I call.

River comes JD, pairing the board but also giving me the nut flush. I lead for $25, Opponent clicks back pretty quickly, making it $50.

Plus, a big announcement from Nate, and Andrew discusses a big call down he made in the WSOP Main Event.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
16:30 – strategy
50:30 – Benny Glaser

Strategy

Beginning of Level 2, 150/300. I open to 750 UTG2 with ATo (while noting that the very active Euro on my left is doing the fold hold). CO, BN, and BB call. CO and BN are among the weaker players at the table, BB seems quite good.

Flop T66cc, check to me, I bet 1200 into 3000ish, only BB calls (he called pretty quickly, though I put less stock in timing tells for better players).

Turn 4o. He checks, I bet 2200, he raises to 8000, and I take a long time calling.

River 3o. He bets 16K into 25K.

Timestamps

0:25 Hello and Welcome
16:00 Strategy

Clayton previously discussed his deep run in the WSOP Main Event on this show. Follow Clayton on Twitter@claytoncomic and learn more about his upcoming shows from his website. His podcast is Broadway Comedy Club Radio.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
29:09 – Strategy

WSOP Prep

Tournament Poker Edge
Zach Elwood on poker tells

Strategy

Playing £1/£2 NLHE with £420 effective stacks. Hero opens to £8 with Ad 4d on the Button. Small blind folds and villain calls in the BB.

Pot is £17
Flop – JdJs5d

Villain checks, Hero bets £12, Villain raises to £28, Hero calls.

Pot £73
Turn is 7d

Villain bets £100, Hero calls.

Pot £273
River – 8h
Final board – JdJs5d7d8h

Villain checks, Hero?

Plus, in honor of Pittsburgh, our strategy segment features Andrew donking around in a 5/5/10 PLO game at the Rivers Casino.

Links

Episode 140 with Chad Power
Daniel’s Poker Night in America episode
Daniel on Twitter

Timestamps

Strategy

5/5 PLO with a $10 Button straddle

Hero is BB with AKQTsshh. SB completes, Hero completes, UTG raises to $30, MP calls, BN calls, SB calls, Hero raises to $180, everyone but SB calls.

Flop ($750) Ad 9c 7c. I am spades and hearts so no flush draw for me. I have about $3000 behind, everyone covers me. Everyone checks.

Turn ($750) Js. Everyone checks.

River ($750) 3h. Hero?

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
8:14 – Strategy

Strategy

Hand 1

We’re on the bubble, with 20 players remaining and 18 to be paid. Blinds are 1500/3000, and I raise to 6000 UTG (7-handed) with Tc 8c. The only player at the table to have me covered 3-bets to 12K from HJ, and I call.

Flop (34K) Ks 9h 7h. I check, he bets 15K, I raise to 45K, he calls.

Turn (124K) 4h. I bet 45K, he calls.

River (214K) Qc.

Hand 2

$1/$2 NLHE, seven-handed, $300 effective stacks.

UTG+1 opens to $15. CO and BN call, Hero calls Qh 6h in the BB.

Flop ($55) Q97r. Hero checks, UTG1 bets $20, CO and BN fold, Hero calls.

Turn ($95) 6. Hero bets $35, UTG1 raises to $100, Hero shoves.

Hand 3

$2/$5 Spread Limit O/8 with a $100 Max Bet, 9-handed, $250 effective stacks.

Hero limps AA92 UTG, several calls, Button raises to $40. Folds to Hero…

Fortunately, I managed to win the first few pots of the day, first with an open shove to take the blinds, then with an UTG raise which went uncontested, then calling a shove with AT in the BB to beat A9 from the SB for a full double.

After that, I was back in action. As I mentioned, I ended Day 1 with a major regret from the then-largest pot of the tournament, but I can honestly say that from Day 2 I can think of only very small things I wish I’d done differently. A few hands I’m proud of:

Bluff on the Bubble

We’re on the bubble, with 20 players remaining and 18 to be paid. Blinds are 1500/3000, and I raise to 6000 UTG with Tc 8c. The only player at the table to have me covered 3-bets to 12K (he said later this was a misclick and he meant to make it 17K, which I believe), and I call.

Flop (34K) Ks 9h 7h. I check, he bets 15K, I raise to 45K, he calls.

Turn (124K) 4h. I bet 45K, he calls.

River (214K) Qc. I shove about 120K, he folds AK and asks me to show. I oblige.

Better Bet Sizing Through Tells

Still on the bubble. Blinds 1500/3000. The player in the BB has only about 60K to start the hand. An active recreational player with a big stack raises to 7500 from the HJ. I have him covered and raise to 20K. A very tight player in the SB looks at his cards and instantly jams ~65K. I put him on KK at worst and am ready to fold, but then the original raiser calls, so I decide to see a flop.

Edit: I have 66!

Flop (~215K) 884r. Checks through.

Turn 4. Checks through.

River 6. Bingo. Original raiser checks, and I am trying to think about how much he might call just an Ace. In my head, I settle on a small number, 40K.

As I grab chips, he says “Dammit!” and kinda bangs the table. I know that sounds so blatant that it must be an act, but in the moment it really felt like genuine frustration at the fact that he knew I was about to put him in a tough spot. This suggested to me that he would actually consider calling a larger bet, so I bet 75K. After much agonizing, he called with an Ace. The all in player had AA, so I scooped a big one there.

Bluff Catching at the Final Table

Recent podcast guest Chase Bianchi was at the final table of 10 with me (and recent podcast guest Elena Stover finished 12th).

Blinds are 2500/5000. UTG1 limps, Chase limps in MP3, the SB folds, and I check my option with the mighty 42o.

Flop (22,500) Q54r. Checks to Chase, who bets 12,500. I raise to 30K, UTG1 folds, and Chase calls. Lots of good things can happen when I raise. Although I may well have the best hand (I don’t think Chase needs much at all to stab at this), it benefits a lot from protection. It’s even possible that I can push UTG1 off of a better pocket pair and get called when I’m ahead against Chase, if he has a draw or just a random float.

Turn (82,500) 5. I bet 45K. This is actually a pretty nice card for me. Even though it reduces the combos of sets and two-pair that I could have, I still have all of them in my range, whereas Chase has only an ever-dwindling number of 54, 44, and 55, some of which I block (suits are actually relevant here, as I imagine he might limp 54s but not 54o, but I don’t remember them). I don’t know how much Qx or 4x he’s limping, and the turn makes 5x less likely for him.

He calls. I now think his range consists of 76, Qx, pocket pairs, 54, 55, and 44 (at least some of which may check the flop). My plan is to check-call river if the straight draw misses, as I don’t think he has much incentive to jam a better pair for value.

River (172,500) 2. I check, he jams 98K, I call, and he shows 97s, which quite surprising to me. I don’t recall whether he had a backdoor flush draw on the flop, but he definitely did not have a flush draw on the turn, so I guess he just thought he was going to straight up own me. Whoops!

In addition to giving me a comfortable chip lead at the final table, this call had several good effects. It eliminated one of my toughest opponents, and it sufficiently awed most of the table such that they were not inclined to mess around with me.

The Rest

We got down to five-handed with me, a satellite qualifier, a guy named Steve who knew me from Tournament Poker Edge, a likely pro from Michigan, and a guy named Carlos Chadha – more on him in a moment.

The satellite qualifier was absolutely unwilling to put his chips in without a top 5% hand, pot odds be damned. He eventually even folded his SB, leaving himself with just three ante chips. Amazingly, he kept picking up AQ and winning with it to stay alive. Eventually, he busted in 5th place.

The kid from Michigan seemed good-natured at heart, so maybe he was just a bit tilted, because on this particular evening he was acting like a salty circuity grinder. He was the second shortest stack at the table, which meant he was handcuffed by the presence of the satellite qualifier who just wouldn’t die. He was getting frustrated at the guy’s abject refusal to put money in the pot and started just openly commenting on how bad some of his folds were. I was happy to see him go out in 4th.

As I mentioned, Steve knew me from Tournament Poker Edge. Carlos, as it turned out, knew me from Poker Savvy Plus, a pre-Black Friday training site I worked for for several years. He was old school and, now, a high roller. Literally, a super high roller. This $570 was the smallest live tournament he’d ever deigned to play. But he was in the area, and he’d never won a live tournament, and he really wanted to do so.

Much as I hate to admit it, I doubt I was the best player out of the three of us. Carlos had an aura of confidence and deep thought about him, and I never saw him miss a trick. Actually, that’s not quite true. He once called down with an unimproved K2 vs Steve, only to find that Steve was indeed bluffing… with a better King! But I mean, if the biggest “mistake” you’re making is correctly identifying a bluff and calling down with King-high….

A Hero Check

We passed chips back and forth for over three hours. Really the only interesting pot I was involved in began with me raising the button (sorry, I don’t recall the stakes – couldn’t keep notes well while playing short-handed) with Kd Qd. Carlos called in the SB, and Steve called in the BB.

Flop As Td 6c. Checks around.

Turn Jd. Bingo. Carlos checks, Steve bets 75K, I raise to 175K with about 325K behind, Carlos folds, and Steve calls.

River Tc. Certainly not what I wanted to see. I watched Steve like a hawk as the river card came down, and to his credit, he didn’t give anything away as it fell, nor as he checked. Not a lot of people can so casually react to such a significant card with so much on the line, and it was only for that reason that I even considered betting the river. I just couldn’t figure what he could call with, as I think he would have re-raised pre-flop with AK/AQ, A6 and J6 got counterfeited, and from the way he called the turn I didn’t really think he had a bare Ace. I checked and allowed my pride in finding that check to counteract my disappointment in seeing Steve roll AT for a full house.

The End

I eventually busted Steve when he jammed ATs on the button and I woke up with QQ in the SB. That left me heads up with Carlos with nearly even stacks, something like his 1.1M to my 1M. That was only 20 big blinds, so there wasn’t much room to play.

I was hoping I might at least be the more experienced heads up player, but apparently Carlos was an online heads up pro for a while. He certainly seemed to know what he was going on a 20BB stack, which to be honest that part of my game is not particularly tight. I haven’t put much thought into a button limping range, for instance.

It was over quickly, though. Just a few hands in, he limped the button for 50K, and I, now with an 18BB stack, raised to 175K with A7s. He jammed, I called, and he showed me TT. Although I turned a flush draw, I didn’t get there on the river, and Carlos won his first-ever live poker tournament!

Although A7s is a strong hand with just a single opponent and 18BBs, against a weaker player, I might not force the action pre-flop. Against Carlos, though, I didn’t feel like there was any room to pass on thin edges, so I went for the raise-call. Basically it was just a cooler, which in all likelihood was how the match was going to end one way or the other.

We finished play around 12:30, nearly 12 hours after we started, but there’s no rest for the weary. The $1500 Main Event starts today!

We also discuss our recent match against DeepStack. If you missed it, you can hear our (most recent) interview with Michael Bowling of the Computer Poker Research Group and check out a replay of the games we played on Twitch.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
15:57 – patrick

I suspect, though, that even if we were to give the Hero a slightly stronger holding, such as QQ, many people would still be reluctant to shove. Why is this?

I believe the overriding cause to be classic loss aversion: at some level; most human brains are more concerned about not-losing than they are about winning. Even when we can expect to win at a favorable, very profitable frequency, our guts may very well tell us to be careful.

Does that sound like you? Did you find the article helpful? Please let me know in the comments!

And don’t miss Carlos Welch’s great piece on How to Develop and Use Reads!

.Next week, Terrence Chan and Adam Schwartz of the 2+2 Pokercast will play DeepStack. I wanted to share some of my thoughts from the match with both them and the Thinking Poker community anyway, so I figure I might as well just collect my thoughts here.

1. Bet Sizes. I haven’t discussed this with the Computer Poker Research Group, but it seems like there are only a few bet sizes that DeepStack considers for its own actions (though, as I understand it, its ability to respond to diverse bet sizes is one of its chief advances over previous NLHE AIs). For instance, into a pot of 1600, it might bet 800, 1600, or 3200, but it would never choose 2291 as a bet size unless that were its exact stack size.

   This strikes me as the best opportunity to exploit DeepStack, though Terrence and Adam are probably more capable than I of determining how exactly to take advantage of that (it wasn’t something I actively tried to do during my match). Considering the range of bet sizes DeepStack does use, I suspect that generally it doesn’t lose much by not considering “weirder” amounts. However, this might be somewhat more problematic with shallow stacks, where never betting less than half pot (if that is even a constraint) might prevent it from having a bet-folding range at all.

2. Threat of a Check-Raise. These were the spots where I felt I had the most difficulty setting aside my “feel” based on how human opponents tend to play and constructing minimally exploitable ranges. There are a lot of spots where (non-elite) human opponents don’t check-raise often. This is for a variety of reasons: lack of “obvious” bluffing candidates, difficulty of checking a strong hand multiple times, etc. As a result, I think I ended up with betting ranges that were sometimes too depolarized (getting raised off of strong draws or very-possibly-best made hands sucks) or simply too wide.

   Example: There was one hand where I turned 84 into a bluff on AJ2Q4, and it check-raised me with 85o!

3. Board Coverage. Nate and I talked a bit about this on stream. This is something you see when working with solvers as well, and is probably related to (2). There are subtle things that DeepStack seems to do when making what might seem like arbitrary choices about candidates for floating or bluffing on early streets. The end result is a less predictable range on future streets.

   For instance, I know that I want to have some Kx in my three-betting range when deep, and I typically choose some combination of KTs – KAs for this purpose. DeepStack almost certainly does a better job of getting the exact frequency right, but even we miraculously had the same amount of Kx in our three-betting ranges, it probably builds its range by three-betting all combinations of Kxs at relatively low frequencies. This means it ends up connecting with boards like Q74 in three-bet pots in ways that I don’t. Likewise its candidates for peeling or bluff-raising flop can seem surprising when the truth is that the choice is arbitrary in a vacuum but there is incentive to reach turns and rivers with a wider variety of holdings than most humans do. Consequently, it’s harder (though still not impossible) to recognize a particular run out as good or bad for DeepStack based on its play on earlier streets.

4. Surprising Play. DeepStack did more than a few things that surprised us. For the most part, we were willing to believe that it “knew” better and could, after the fact, wrap our heads around why it may have done what it did. But it made one play against me that I have a really hard time believing could possibly be correct.

   At 200/400, I opened to 1200 with QTo, and DeepStack jammed 18,250 effective with 85o. When we’re talking about move all in pre-flop, board coverage isn’t going to be a consideration, and although shoving ranges won’t be strictly linear because there will exist hands where calling > shoving > folding, it’s hard to imagine how folding could ever be correct if shoving 85o is +EV here.

   It’s worth adding here that one feature of an equilibrium strategy is that it will not include “advertising” or “balancing” plays, even at a low-frequency, that have a negative expected value. Now admittedly, DeepStack does not claim to have an equilibrium strategy, but the point is that shoving, even at a low frequency, can’t be justified simply by saying it’s a balancing play. It would have to have EV not less than 0 for shoving to be correct at any non-zero frequency.

Can it? Join us Wednesday at 5PM Eastern on Twitch to find out as Nate and Andrew battle in real time against DeepStack.

Links

Tournament Poker Edge

DeepStackAI Article in Science

Timestamps

Strategy

From a €500 deep stack tournament in Dublin. Blinds are 150/300/25 and effective stacks are 100-110k.

UTG limps, folds to MP who makes it 700, folds to Hero on the button who 3-bets to 2100 with AQo. UTG 4-bets to 7000. MP folds, Hero calls.

Pot: 15,450
Flop: 9c 7s 2h

UTG bets 6500. Hero calls.

Pot: 28,450
Turn: Qd

UTG bets 11,200. Hero calls.

Pot: 50,850
River: 5s

UTG bets 35,000. Hero?

“You are UTG+1 in a nine-handed $5/$10 game in which all players have $2,000 stacks. The UTG player opens to $40. Consider your action with each of the following hands: AA, AKo, AQs, KQo, JTs, 65s.”

Of course, I go on to help you consider your action, using the theoretical framework from the previous article. Hope you’ll find it useful!

The first half of my conversation with Matt is available here.

Timestamps

0:30 = hello
23:05 = strat

Strategy

$2/$5 Hero ($700) opens to $20 UTG with AKo. Four callers, both blinds fold.

Flop ($105) AQ9r. Hero bets $55, Villain raises to $175, rest fold, Hero?

Time for Some Game Theory

It’s probably impossible to find a game theoretically optimal betting strategy for me on the flop, and likewise a calling strategy for Villain, as there are more than two players in the game. The river, however, is a different situation.

It’s quite likely that I’m playing a capped range after checking the turn (which may be sufficient reason not to check). If – and this won’t necessarily be the case, we’ll return to that question – Villain arrives at the river with a mix of nut hands (that beat everything in my range), air (that lose to everything in my range), and hands in between, then this is basically just the AKQ game from Mathematics of Poker, and Villain should probably bet all of his nut hands and all of his bluffs for a size that makes me indifferent between calling and folding with my bluff-catchers.

I hedge a little bit there because even in a straightforward scenario like the one I define above actual poker is a bit more complicated than the AKQ game. Blockers, for instance, can make the actual solutions more complex. Still, this is about as good an approximation as you’ll find for the AKQ game in an actual poker hand.

Hand Reading

The biggest caveat is that Villain may not get to the river a lot of air. As several commenters point out, there are good reasons why he might prefer to bet hands without showdown value on the flop rather than check and call with them.

However, that’s not enough to decide that he’s weighted towards value here, for at least two reasons:

1. Many of his strongest value hands might prefer to bet or check-raise the flop as well. Frankly, the flop check-call probably eliminates many of the hands that would otherwise be most likely to overbet the river, whether for value or as a bluff, including busted draws, sets, and even strong top pair hands. It’s a weird, uncommon line, which often means it’s likely to be unbalanced. However, if we can’t deduce or predict the imbalance, then game theory still provides a way to avoid playing into his hands.
2. One option for “finding bluffs” on the river is to turn a hand with a small amount of showdown value into a bluff. If Villain played a hand like AXhh or bottom pair this way on the flop, he may well conclude that bluffing the river would be higher EV than checking, even though his showdown value was part of the reason he played the flop the way he did.

Why Call?

If I’m roughly indifferent between calling and folding at equilibrium, why should I ever call with a bluff-catcher? It’s an understandable question, but as I argue in my recent article To Catch a Bluff:

Remember that an opponent bluffing at a game theoretically optimal frequency is, well, theoretical. It’s the assumption that we make in the absence of any better estimate of her bluffing strategy. If it turns out that she has a particularly poor strategy, bluffing with hands that are really too strong to turn into bluffs, then your bluff-catchers that break-even against an optimal bluffing strategy will actually make money. So, calling with those hands is a freeroll, as long as you don’t call with so many of them that you end up incentivizing your opponent to stop bluffing entirely.

There remains the question of whether my particular hand is a “pure” bluff-catcher or a better-than-average bluff-catcher. With only a vague idea of what Villain’s exact bluff or value hands might be, it’s hard to say with certainty which blockers could make my hand better-than-average. I’m inclined to think that having a heart would be bad and that blocking a set of 8s, top two pair, and a turned straight is good, but depending on the composition of his range for arriving at the river, these effects may be small or non-existent.

They Always Have It

My favorite response to this post came in a tweet that, sadly, I’m not unable to find. I mentioned posting a WYP about facing an overbet on the river, and someone responded to the effect of, “I didn’t read the post, but I fold.” This is reminiscent of a hashtag I’m fond of using, sometimes with tongue in cheek: #TheyAlwaysHaveIt.

There are lots of reasons why the average player bluffs at a lower-than-optimal frequency in many situations. One is just a simple fear of losing. Human brains tend to be loss-averse, which means that they tend to over-emphasize the consequences of losing a bluff. Mathematically, if a bluff of 150% of the pot will cause 70% of an opponent’s better hands to fold and will never be bluff-raised, then it will show a profit. However, if some part of your brain cares more about the money you lose when the bluff is called than the money you win when the bluff succeeds, then it may convince you that the bluff isn’t worth attempting.

On top of that, it can be hard to find bluff candidates. It’s usually obvious when you have a hand strong enough to value bet, but it’s not always clear which hands are best for bluffing. That’s especially true in a case like this one, where, as I argued above, bluffing at an optimal frequency may require the Villain to bet hands with some showdown value.

Results

#TheyAlwaysHaveIt logic becomes less applicable the more sophisticated your opponent is. I didn’t have much experience with this opponent, but he seemed more than competent, and I didn’t want to pursue an excessively exploitive strategy against him.

My logic went something like this:

1. The base rate for bluffing in this situation is probably too little rather than too much, so applying Bayes’ Theorem should lead me to fold pure bluff-catchers.
2. This opponent seems better than most, and the above logic is exploitable, so I don’t want to deviate too drastically from a balanced calling strategy.
3. My hand may be better than a pure bluff-catcher because of the blocker effect.
4. I call.

Villain had Ah Jh, which makes perfect sense and, to my chagrin, was not a hand I considered. The call kind of feels like a mistake in retrospect, but that may just be results oriented thinking. Thanks for your input, everyone!

If you didn’t donate during the campaign, please enjoy the video and then donate whatever you feel it was worth to you. Thanks!

Edit: Courtesy of Carlos Welch, here are links to the TV footage of the hands we discuss:

Hand 1
https://youtu.be/Cbwe7cP2jQI?t=2393

Hand 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2qhk6Xuq0k

Also please note that there’s a typo in the video for Hand 2. The flop was actually 844 with two diamonds.

Flop ($205) Jc 8h 6h. Checks to me, I bet $100, folds back to good pro in HJ who calls.

Turn ($405) 5d. Both check.

River ($405) 2s. Villain bets $600. Hero?

Post your thoughts and preferred play in the comments, and I’ll do my best to respond and post results as well as my own thoughts at the end of the week.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
16:11 – strat
43:40 – kyle

Strategy

Hand 1

$200 MTT. Blinds 600/1200/200. Hero opens to 3000 with Ah As in early position, BB calls.

Flop (8400) Kd 9s 3s. Check, 4200, call.

Turn (16800) 3. Check, Hero bets 9200, call.

River (34,400) 8s. BB is all in for ~30K, Hero?

Hand 2

7-handed at final table. Blinds 30K/60K, Hero (2.2M) is chipleader and opens to 150K UTG with AQo, second chipleader calls on Button (1.5M), BB (450Kish) calls.

(525K) 854r BB checks, Hero bets 225K, Button calls, BB folds.

(975K) 7. Hero?

When you three-bet, you’re gearing up to play a big pot, so you ought to come strapped. That doesn’t have to mean Aces, but it should mean a hand with a reasonable chance of winning the pot if you go to the flop. In most cases, the stronger your hand, the higher the Expected Value (EV) of your three-bet will be.

It does not follow from this that you should therefore three-bet a strictly linear range, starting from Aces and working your way down. The complication is that many hands that will have a high EV when they three-bet will also have a high EV when they call. Your job is to decide, when you have a reasonably good hand, whether it will play better as a three-bet or a call in this particular situation.

How do you decide when to three-bet? Was this article helpful to you?

Jamie and I created this video as part of a year-end fundraising campaign for the Bay Area Urban Debate League. Donations are always welcome!

We created this video as part of a year-end fundraising campaign for the Bay Area Urban Debate League.  To unlock more videos like this one and get a shot at some great prizes, please donate to the campaign now!

Chase sticks around for a special strategy segment featuring a 10/25 NLHE hand in which Andrew was also involved!

You can follow @Chase_Bianchi on Twitter and rail him on Twitch!

Andrew would appreciate, and is offering prizes for, donations to the Bay Area Urban Debate League.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
13:36 – chase

Strategy

Utg opens 75, main opponent calls HJ, AlphaNit calls BU, we call 65cc in sb, BB calls.
5 way flop($375) 8d 6h 4c checks to villain he bets 175, AlphaNit calls, we call, 2 folds.
3 way turn($900) 7d. We check, villain bets 350, AlphaNit fold, we call.
HU river 7x. We check, villain bets 475 with 1500 behind. Hero?

I folded, and I don’t think it’s close. The short explanation is #TheyAlwaysHaveIt. Here’s a longer one:

Is This a Bluff-Catcher?

The first question to ask is whether Villain could be raising worse for value. If yes, he’s either making a huge mistake, or you should not fold. Here, I think it’s unlikely that worse raises for value. The only lower flushes possible are 52dd and 42dd, which are unlikely in a raised pot, and in any event would be awfully ambitious raises (the “huge mistake” exception.

Some comments mention straights or overpairs raising. I really don’t see that happening. The mistake here, I imagine, comes from thinking of betting or raising primarily in terms of protection, which is in fact a very secondary consideration here. You can’t “protect” a hand that may well be behind already – the cost/risk of putting in a raise drawing dead far outweighs any protection benefit.

Now you might argue that a recreational player may not think in those terms, but most tend to err on the side of being too passive, especially when it comes to large bets. Not to mention that a player excessively concerned about protecting his hand would probably raise the flop, not the turn.

It’s also worth noting that a player overvaluing weaker hands may also overvalue slightly stronger hands such as Q- or J-high flushes, which is of course bad news for us.

In short, Hero has a bluff-catcher. To decide how to play such a hand, we can start by thinking exploitively about whether this is a spot where Villain is likely to over- or underbluff.

Is Villain Bluffing Enough?

This is quite a difficult spot for Villain to bluff, because (a) he’s raising into a player who is uncapped; and (b) in order to bluff, he needs to get to the turn with a hand that has minimal showdown value and that doesn’t mind re-opening the betting.

That last caveat is important, because, as many comments point out, a bare Ad is a hand without showdown value that sees the turn. If the raise were a shove, enabling Villain to realize the equity of his draw, I would consider that plausible. However, most players will, probably correctly, not raise the Ad here for fear of facing a shove. Again, I think that if he were inclined to raise this kind of hand, he’d be more likely to do it on the flop.

Hero does have blockers to higher flushes, making this perhaps a slightly-better-than-neutral-EV bluff catch against an optimal bluffing strategy. However, there are many reasons to think Villain is in fact underbluffing this spot quite severely.

I was glad to see that nobody really took the bait concerning the straight flush redraw. It, too, could make the hand a slightly-better-than-neutral bluff catcher, but it’s not nearly enough to overcome the situational factors here.

Results

I folded, as did the second player, but the Villain showed Ad Kd anyway. Frankly, I think even this is optimistic on his part (after all, I folded a lower flush). If he’s ahead, he probably has us drawing slim to dead anyway, and he blocks the hand most likely to pay him off (a K-high flush). In his shoes, I would call and probably call the river, though I can actually imagine scenarios where I fold his hand.

In my own shoes, I would not have bet my 9d8d on the river had Villain just called turn, and there’s a good chance I would have folded it to a bet. It really is not that high up in my range, as I can have lots of better flushes as well as most full houses.

We’ve got a great strategy segment, but the interview is really about trying to make sense of the current political situation in America, using frames of reference that poker players will understand. Were the polls wrong, or did Trump just run good? How might Trump govern? What do we as citizens do now? And what does this all mean for online poker?

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
6:43 – Strategy
33:31 – Matt Glassman

Strategy

$1/$3 NLHE

Hero ($1200) dealt KcJc on button. 3 limpers ahead. Hero Raises to $20. BB ($120) and CO ($900) call. $60 in pot.

Flop comes 9cQh2c. Check around to hero. Hero bets $35. BB raises to $105. CO folds. Hero?

Playing $5/$10 No-Limit at Maryland Live, a game that does not participate in the Bad Beat Jackpot and other promotions. I don’t have a lot of experience with either Villain, but there’s a good chance they know who I am (a lot of people at MDL, many of whom I’ve never spoken to, have turned out to be familiar with the podcast, blog, or Twitter account). At the very least, I expect they perceive me as a smart player who won’t take anything off of the table in terms of bluffs, hero calls, thin value, etc.

UTG1 is a pro who plays mostly 5/10, don’t think I’ve ever seen him at 10/25. MP is a recreational player about whom I don’t know much.

I’m going to skip straight to the major decision in the hand, because I don’t think the others are terribly interesting, but feel free to ask in the comments if other actions surprise you.

Hero ($2000) opens to $35 UTG with 9d 8d. UTG1 ($3500) calls. Two players fold, and then MP ($1800) calls. Everyone else folds.

Flop ($120 in pot) 7d 6d 3d. Hero bets $80, both call.

Turn ($360 in pot) 3c. Hero bets $220, UTG1 folds, MP raises to $625, Hero?

Post your thoughts here. I’ll do my best to respond throughout the week, and will post my own thoughts as well as results on Friday.

Playing with a short stack can be a good way to learn: it simplifies your decisions, minimizes the magnitude of your mistakes, and helps you focus on fundamentals like pre-flop hand selection and evaluating flop textures. However, it’s important to keep learning as you start playing in deeper games, because strategies that are at least reasonably effective when shallow often become liabilities.

Check out the article, and please let me know whether it’s helpful to you!

Timestamps

0:30 – hello and welcome
19:22 – donk bets with justin

Strategy

Hero (covers) raises to 12 UTG with AcKc
folds to button ($230) calls
BB ($300) calls.

Flop ($33 after rake): 5x7c8c

BB: leads for $20, Hero calls, Button Folds.

Turn (~$70 after rake): Kh

BB leads for $35, Hero calls.

River: (~$145) 2d

BB leads for $75, Hero?

Timestamps

0:30 Hello & Welcome
18:29 Strategy
41:25 William Kassouf

Strategy

$2/$5 No-Limit Hold ‘Em

HJ ($2000) opens to $20. Hero ($1200) raises to $40 with Kd Kh. Button ($2000) calls, as does the small blind ($1500).

Flop ($160): 5d 6c 7h. SB checks, HJ checks, Hero bets $60, only SB calls.

Turn ($280): 3d. SB bets $150. Hero calls.

River ($580) 4d. SB bets $425. Hero?

My Day 1A table draw was quite tough, I think, given the field. Not a lot went right for me, and I busted just a few hours in.

Day 1B went much better. My starting table was amazing, I was playing six-handed with five pretty weak players and a stack that was in play from the start of the tournament and whose owner never showed up to claim it. By the end of the day, it was blinded off, contributing probably $500 in equity to me!

Despite getting into a number of good spots, I didn’t come out ahead after the first two hours of play. It was only after two better players showed up at the table that I claimed a few big pots.

I didn’t recognize the player who landed on my immediate left, but he fit the stereotype of a twenty-something grinder. He was kind of reserved and aloof and played as though he thought he everyone else was clueless (which, to be fair, several of the others basically were). This also resulted, however, in him doing some extremely exploitable things against me that cost him two large pots.

In the first, blinds are 100/200, effective stacks 40K, and the BB is the dead stack. UTG is a really obviously amateurish player who fumbles his chips and tries to raise to 300 but has to make it 400 and is blatantly not too strong here. However, I also know that this guy doesn’t like to fold to 3-bets and will even make some wild 4-bets, so I’d rather just call him with my T9dd. Problem is I’ve got this kid on my left who I’m pretty sure is going to 3-bet if I just call. So I figure fine, let him do it, we’ll play poker, and I call. Sure enough the kids makes it 2000, UTG calls, and so do I.

Flop is K32 with one diamond. We check to the kid who bets 3000, UTG folds, and I call. I can’t rep any strong hands yet, as I wouldn’t check-raise if I had a monster, but I still don’t think he has anything, and I’m going to find a bluff somewhere if I don’t pair up.

Turn is a 5, which is great because now I can bet into him, which is what I’d actually want to do with a lot of strong hands to keep from taking a free card with Ax. I bet 4000, and he quickly raises to 12K which is just extremely implausible. I mean, I don’t think he’s playing Kx this way, so either he has two-pair or better (even then I’d expect more of an act) or he’s full of it.

Still, it wasn’t easy to force myself to move in for 35K here. I didn’t relish sticking in 200 BBs with T-high no draw, but I really had a lot of confidence that this was going to work. He tanked for a while, during which I had more trouble than usual keeping a good poker face because I kept thinking about how stupid I was going to feel if he called. He eventually, folded, though, after which I felt like a genius.

A while later, at 300/600, there was now another good player at the table, and he opened to 1500 from UTG2. I just called with JJ in the SB, and kid from before raised to 5500 from the BB. This time I was sure he was strong. He wasn’t going out of his way to pick fights with the two best players at the table, especially when he had the option of just calling and seeing a cheap flop. Still, I wasn’t going to fold Jacks, so I called.

The flop came 983ss. I checked, he bet 7K (half the pot), and I called. The turn was a 5, I checked, and he bet 14K, leaving about 60K behind. There was some chance he was barreling AK, but that seemed unlikely, and he definitely didn’t have worse for value. In all likelihood, Jacks were no good. However, I also didn’t think he would have re-raised any smaller pairs or suited connectors when he could so easily call them, so really he couldn’t have better than one pair, while I had lots of sets, two-pairs, and straights in my range. This actually makes it a pretty bad idea for him to bet the turn, unless he just assumes I’m not capable of bluff raising him, because opening himself up to a bluff raise is a disaster. So, I went for it. Again, he tanked a long time, and this time he folded QQ face up!

I came into Day 2 with about twice the average in chips, but with 40% of the field remaining, we were still a ways from the money. A few hours later, my table broke, and I still had roughly the chips with which I’d started the day.

With blinds of 1500/3000/500, a player in middle position opened to 6500. I raised to 16500 with QQ on the button, and he pretty quickly ripped it in for 140K. I wasn’t thrilled, but I called it off with QQ and lost to AA, busting in about 100th place, with 63 paying. I’m not sure it was a good call – Nate and I discuss it a bit on the upcoming podcast.

In practice, though, it’s easy to end up doing either too much or too little bluffing, especially on the river. It’s easy to say either, “this is a good card, bombs away” with all of your bluffs, or to say, “eh, I don’t think he’s folding,” and check back all of your bluffs.

That’s all well and good if you’re confident in those reads, but against a tough opponent, it shouldn’t be easy to make such sweeping generalizations. When thinking about which hands to give up with, it’s good to choose candidates that block Villain’s folding range, just as you want to block his calling range when you fire that third barrel. Here, I bet a big draw on the flop and turn, but on the river, I give up, because I expect that much of Villain’s range for calling turn and folding river will consist of pair-plus-draw hands, and my own draws make it hard for him to have those.

PokerStars – $203+$12|250/500 Ante 65 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 13.38 BB (VPIP: 31.22, PFR: 6.91, 3Bet Preflop: 1.22, Hands: 189)
SB: 134.56 BB (VPIP: 19.00, PFR: 14.51, 3Bet Preflop: 4.65, Hands: 326)
BB: 78.9 BB (VPIP: 21.95, PFR: 15.66, 3Bet Preflop: 2.41, Hands: 205)
Hero (UTG): 86.55 BB
CO: 11.42 BB (VPIP: 17.09, PFR: 9.26, 3Bet Preflop: 2.17, Hands: 118)

5 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.15 BB) Hero has As Ts
Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, BTN calls 2.28 BB, SB calls 1.78 BB, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (9.77 BB, 4 players) 3s Qc 9s
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 4.88 BB, fold, fold, BB calls 4.88 BB

Turn : (19.54 BB, 2 players) Jd
BB checks, Hero bets 11.72 BB, BB calls 11.72 BB

River : (42.98 BB, 2 players) 3c
BB checks, Hero checks

BB shows Kd Qs (Two Pair, Queens and Threes)
(Pre 38%, Flop 56%, Turn 64%)

Hero mucks As Ts (One Pair, Threes)
(Pre 62%, Flop 44%, Turn 36%)

BB wins 42.98 BB

DP1: A6o is a tough hand to play, even when only a single opponent with a random hand remains. Raising denies the BB some equity and reduces the likelihood that you’ll have to play out of position after the flop, but it also sets you up to get blown out by a 3-bet or to play out of position against a stronger range in a raised pot. With antes in the pot, I think you have too much value to fold, but both calling and raising are reasonable options.

DP2: QJo is generally a good enough hand to raise for value into a small blind limp, especially because most people will raise the hands that dominate you and call some dominated hands. I’m not sure why I didn’t raise at the time, and I probably should have.

DP3: A few commenters seem to suggest that Villain can just bet the flop with any two cards because Hero will often “miss”, and against weaker opponents that may be true. However, better players are aware of the relative difficulty of making a pair and will defend appropriately to a flop bet, including by calling with strong unpaired hands and by bluff-raising. That’s not to say that Villain should never bluff, but he should expect only his better bluffing candidates to be profitable. Turning a hand with this much showdown value into a bluff is a mistake, as it is surely a profitable check and call.

You might object that since I called with worse, we can think of Villain’s bet as a value bet. However, overall he will not be ahead of my calling range, and many of my worse hands (though probably not this one) will often bluff him out on future streets anyway.

DP4: This is a clear call. Villain could easily be bluffing, and I ought to beat all of his bluffs plus have reasonable equity even against many of his value bets. Things get a bit dicier if he’s betting his Aces, but even then I suspect that I have enough equity to call.

As for raising, many of the same arguments apply as with Villain’s limp: the hand has too much value to turn into a bluff, at the moment anyway. On runouts that improve my weaker flop calls, I may end up bluffing with this, as it would then be the bottom of my range.

DP5: Villain’s flop bet, along with this turn card, killed any showdown value his hand had, so now it is a bluffing candidate along with the rest of the air he ought to have bet on the flop. However, Villain ought to have other bluffs with better equity available to him and probably ought to give up on this one.

Essentially, he’s got an Ed Miller pyramid problem here. His flop betting range was too wide, and now on the turn he’s going to hold too many weak hands and will have to get rid of them somehow. He can either keep bluffing, which will make my bluff-catches very profitable, of he can just check and fold, which with this hand at least is the better option.

DP6: An easy call. Villain may not be value betting worse, but even so, I have a very solid bluff-catcher. The hand is too strong to raise as a bluff and not strong enough to raise for value.

DP7: Another pyramid problem. Once again, if Villain is getting to the river with too much air and bluffing with all of it, then my bluff catches will be very profitable. This is certainly a board that favors his range, but that doesn’t mean that he’s guaranteed a profitable bluff when he doesn’t have any blockers to my calling range.

DP8: This is a clear call, though not a super-profitable one (unless Villain is bluffing too much, which this one, in retrospect, seems to have been), as I block JT and KQ or other turned two-pairs. Many players won’t go for a third street of value with top pair, at least not for this size, but even against those who do, I expect this to be a profitable call.

PokerWilo asked about my plan for future streets. While it will depend heavily on the runout, I think there’s an underlying assumption to address here, which is that I need to be able to call future barrels. This would be true if we had reason to believe that Villain would always or usually barrel off after betting the flop, and in retrospect it seems like this one might.

However, that’s not information that I had at the time. All I knew is that Villain might keep betting, and he might not. That means that, no matter the turn card, I need to have some bluff-catchers that fold to further bets and some that do not. That way, I punish (or at least do not reward) both players who give up too often and those who barrel too often. On many turn cards, QJ will be in my folding range, but on this one, it’s in my calling range. In a vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with having a range of hands that will call once and fold to further action – in fact, it’s correct.

Thanks for playing, everyone!

Timestamps

Intro 0:30
Strategy 4:17
Interview 33:27

Strategy

1/1/2 NLHE effective stacks $300

Here raises to $6 in the CO with 7h8h, Button calls, makes it $22 from the big blind. Hero calls and the button folds.

Flop ($49) 10c 8c 6c. Villain bets $20, Hero raises to $85, Villain calls

Turn ($219) 2d. Villain checks, Hero checks.

River 8d. Villain checks, Hero?

Billy’s latest adventure is stand-up comedy. You can check out his work on Facebook and Instagram.

Timestamps

0:30 -hello
3:20 -2NL flopped FD
27:17 -billy

Strategy

2NL 6 max on ACR. Effective stacks $2.60.

I am UTG with KcJc and open $0.06. Villain calls on Button.

Flop comes 8c 2c 5. I bet $0.06 into $0.15. Villain raises to $0.22. I re-raise to $0.82, which leaves the villain to call $0.60 for a pot of $1.79. This raise also leaves me a pot sized bet behind.

Turn is 5c, making the board 8c2c5s 5c. I check and the villain checks behind.

River Ks, making the board 8c2c5s 5c Ks. Hero?

I’m currently in Maryland visiting family and have been to Maryland Live a few times. It’s been quite busy; even when I arrived around 4 yesterday there was already a long list for 5/10 and 10/25 and no open tables to start a new game. So, I ended up playing 2/5 for a while.

Maryland Live’s poker room has two stories, and I was in a 2/5 game upstairs, which is annoying because when they call you for another game you have to go downstairs to lock up a seat (or try to get a floor’s attention upstairs, but that’s hard to do). This will become relevant in a moment.

There’s also a bit of history that’s relevant to the hand in question. Just a few hands prior, Players A and B had limped and called a raise from me. We all checked an Axx flop. On a turn Q, Player A bet, B called, and I folded. The river went bet-call again, Player A had A8o, and Player B flashed a Q.

The Hand

Player A ($600) is in the BB. UTG1 ($350) limps, Player B ($950) limps in MP, and I ($1200) make it $25 with Kh Ts on the CO. The BB (Player A), and both limpers call.

Flop (~$100) Ac Qh 6h. Everyone checks.

Turn 9c. Player A bets $60, and the other two call. I raise to $260. I am way less capped than anyone else here, as I can plausibly represent sets and AQ, and judging from prior history these guys are capable of showing up with a ton of weak hands after this action. The biggest risk IMO is that UTG1 has an Ace and just goes with it, as I’ve bet basically his entire stack, but his turn call didn’t seem too confident.

Only Player B calls, leaving about a pot-sized bet in the stacks. Although I was (obviously) bluffing when I raised the turn, I now think there’s a good chance I’m ahead and he’s on some sort of draw. Still, I’ll probably jam a lot of rivers if checked to, just to be safe.

River (~$740) 2h. Villain thinks for a while, moving a lot while he does so. He changes posture a few times, leans his head on his hand, etc. Then he bets $375, a bit over half his stack.

As soon as I saw the river, my first thought was that I should call a shove. The Kh is a very significant blocker to his value range, and I’d expect him to have either a flush or a busted draw if he shoves. I suppose there’s an outside chance I get owned by Kc Jc or a pair with a club draw, but even with that risk it seems like a profitable call.

However, I also have a habit of stationing too much, especially against smaller stakes players who tend to be really risk averse in big pots and to bluff at less-than-optimal frequencies. His body language seemed confident, as generally people who are bluffing will try to avoid looking uncertain or drawing attention to themselves.

Results

As I was pondering this, I heard them announce “ABC for 5/10, second call.” I must have missed the first call, which is another annoying thing about playing upstairs: it’s a bit harder to hear announcements. That frazzled me a bit, as I didn’t want to take up too much time and miss my spot in the 5/10, so I just folded. Villain proudly tabled 8c 3c, and I just barely had time to tell him “Nice hand” as I rushed downstairs to lock up my seat.

It’s not actually a big deal, but man, that would have been such a fun hero call to make. At least I got some “blog equity” out of it anyway.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
8:38 – strategy
26:37 – aaron brown interview

Strategy

This hand is from a $365 wsop circuit event. Re-entry. Level 2 blinds are 50/100. Starting stack was 10k and I have almost exactly that amount. Villian in the hand seems to be a competent player/circuit
grinder type probably early 30s.

Preflop: I get 9c9s in MP i open for 250, 1 call behind me, V calls on the button, and sb and bb both call.

Flop (1250): 8c3d2c.

sb and bb both check to me and I bet 1000. 1 guy folds behind me, and V makes it 2300, sb and bb fold so it’s back to me. I ended up putting in a reraise to 5300 and he snap shoved.

Strategy

$2/$5 NLHE

Hero ($1000) limps JJ UTG. MP limps, CO ($900) raises to $30, Button ($900 calls), Hero raises to $125, MP folds, CO calls, Button calls.

Flop ($375 in pot) Kh Qd Jh. Hero bets $175, CO calls, Button folds.

Turn ($725 in pot) 7d. Hero bets $275, CO calls.

River ($1275) 2s. Hero shoves $350, Villain calls.

In the meantime, my latest poker strategy article, “They’re More Afraid of You,” is now appearing in 2+2 Magazine. It’s about using fear to your advantage in poker, but with a particular focus on the WSOP Tag Team event that Nate and I played:

no player wants to be the one to lose all of the team’s chips, especially not in a “boneheaded” way. I mean, if you get Aces cracked, your teammates will understand, but if you call off all of your chips hoping to catch a bluff and get shown a set, how do you explain that to the rest of the team?

Enjoy!

Timestamps

The other fun thing about my starting table was that Ian Simpson was there. If you don’t know Ian, you will soon. We’ve already recorded an interview with him and will publish it perhaps as early as this coming Monday, if it doesn’t get pre-empted by WSOP content (will depend on how much time we find to record in the next few days).

Nate and I had high hopes of getting dinner with Ian and Ryan Hall, but it turned out that the break was only 30 minutes, which caused Ryan to drop out, and Ian had already busted and left, so it was just Nate and me. And in fact, if Nate hadn’t busted shortly before dinner break and volunteered to get a table and place an order in advance, we wouldn’t even have managed that. I really don’t understand the point of a 30 minute dinner break.

Overall I think I played perhaps the best tournament poker I have yet in this event. I got moved away from my awesome starting table and spent the rest of the day tangling (or trying not to tangle) with some tough young Europeans. Unfortunately I just kept losing pre-flop all ins after chipping up.

There was one other hand I was proud of. At 400/800/100, I opened to 2000 with Jc 9c in the CO, and the BB, one of aforementioned Europeans, re-raised to 6000. There are some people who will be quite strong when they three-bet from the big blind, preferring to call most hands that they might use as “light” three-bets, and although I did expect this player to be polarized, I would expect him to have a more good/balanced three-betting strategy even from the big blind. So, I called with about 31K behind.

The flop came Qc 9hs 8c, and he bet 6K. I think a lot of people will just jam here because they know they have a lot of equity and they aren’t comfortable playing future streets. With a slightly weaker hand, say Kc Tc, I think shoving is correct – you’d rather get all in on the flop, ideally with some fold equity, than call and get forced off your equity on a blank turn.

However, I think my hand is strong enough to get all in no matter the turn card, and I don’t think Villain will fold many hands with substantial equity. It’s important to consider all of your options rather than just defaulting to a shove any time you have enough equity to get all in, and here I think there’s more value in calling than shoving.

The turn was a Q, and we both checked. The river was the 3s, we both checked again, and he showed Aces to win the pot. To be clear, although this was a nice side benefit of just calling the flop, avoiding a stack off to overpairs on a few specific runouts is really not the main reason to call the flop. I’m going to be stacking off on most turns, this was just the rare card that neither of us particularly wanted to bet, and that happened to work to my advantage.

I had a weirder spot with the most obviously recreational player at the table, an older woman who was quite friendly and whom I’m sure I’ve seen around before and perhaps even played with. She opened from middle position to 1700 (BB was still 800), and I called with 52s in my BB.

The flop came 877r, and we both checked.

The turn was a 2, I bet 3000, and she called.

The river was a 3, and I was a bit unsure how to proceed. I expected to have the best hand quite often, as I think she’d bet pairs on the flop almost always. Was she really going to call me down twice with Ace-high though? On this board, it seemed plausible. I’ve actually coached a few people who are roughly in her demographic and quite aware of their image and accustomed to people who look like me firing spewy bluffs at people who look like them. So, I bet 6000, and she called with K7s for trips, which it actually surprised me a bit that she would have that based on her pre-flop position (not that she couldn’t have other 7x) and doesn’t really tell me anything one way or the other about the river bet.

A few orbits later, with the BB at 1000, she opened my big blind again, to 2200. This time, I held 22. I decided to jam for my last 18K, based on the fact that she’d showed down the K7s and also A6o from a similar position. I also thought that she might fold a bit too much, perhaps something as strong as AJo. Frankly, though, this is probably a little spewy, and if we’re being honest, I caught a whiff of strength when she looked at her cards.

Sure enough, she called with 88 to bust me. The only consolation was that even if I had called with the 22, I would have flopped a set and lost to a turned 8, so in this case the mistake didn’t actually cost me anything, but it was a mistake nonetheless.

Nate and I are going to play the Team Event at the WSOP today, which should be fun.

I got off to a good start in the $1500 but ran into some annoying spots. At 150/300, the CO, the weakest player at the table, opened to 1000, and I had KJs on the button. Based on the size of his raise, I figured he was strong, which means calling at all here is borderline, but I was trying to get into pots with him, I had position and a reasonable hand, and we were about 80BBs deep, so I hopped in there.

Then the SB, a player who’d mostly been quite passive, suddenly got it into his head to squeeze. Maybe I was just salty, but just the way he looked at us and gathered his chips, I really didn’t think he had anything. He made it 3500, the CO happily shoved, I folded, and the SB quickly folded as well. I have no idea what prompted him to do that,

The very next hand, a tilted player in early position opened to 875, the HJ (the CO from the previous hand) called, and I called QTs on the CO. The flop came KJ6 with one of my suit, the original raiser checked, and the HJ made a big bet, like 80% pot. Obviously I wasn’t getting immediate odds to draw, but I figured my implied odds would be very good if I hit, so I called. Then the original raiser went into the tank, and it was instantly obvious he was strong and looking to check-raise. He drew the process out for over a minute, stacking and restacking chips and trying to act torn about his decision, which only made it more obvious that he was strong. He raised, the HJ instantly folded, and I eyed his stack but had no choice to fold myself, as he was going to have less than a pot-sized bet behind.

A while later, at a different table, at the 250/500 level, I opened to 1100 with K6o in the CO. Not exactly standard, but the BB seemed very amateurish. Only he called.

The flop came Q63 with two clubs, and I held the Kc. He checked, I bet 1100, and he raised to 5000. My plan, after betting so small on the flop, was to call a check-raise, but I wasn’t expecting such a large one. I think I should have just folded right there, but I called.

The turn was another Q, and he jammed for a pot-sized bet. It seemed crazy not to call him when the only hand I was worried about just got less likely, but I took my time and tried to get a read. Based on his body language, he seemed quite comfortable, and I ultimately folded.

Part of me definitely feels like if I’m not calling a shove on that turn then there’s really no point in calling the flop. Then the other part of me argues that what my flop call bought me was the opportunity to make a read-based decision on the turn, and I (hopefully) made the right one.

The very next hand, I had about 28BB, and the action folded to me in the SB with 77. I’ve been experimenting with open limping a lot from the SB, and I think this is a good spot for it. There aren’t hands I want to open jam for this amount, and there are a lot of hands I don’t really want to raise-call or raise-fold for this amount, which means there’s a lot of merit to a limping strategy. With 77 specifically, raising and getting called doesn’t even produce that great of a situation, as most flops will be difficult to play.

My plan was to shove over a raise, but the BB took that play away from me by shipping his stack. Although I wasn’t eager to race for such a large pot, I thought he would rarely jam hands that dominated me but jam some hands I dominated, including smaller pairs and Ax, which makes calling pretty profitable if high-variance. I called and lost a race to T9s.

Gonna play the $1000 Turbo NLHE today.

Blinds 25/50

MP opens to 150, Villain calls in CO, I call 66 on the Button, and BB calls.

Flop (625) Js 8d 6h Two checks, the CO bets 325, I raise to 800, two folds, and he calls.

Turn (2225) 3s. He checks, I bet 1500, he thinks a bit and calls

River (5225) Qd. He looks at my stack, then puts me all in for 4500. Admittedly, 66 is basically the nuts here, as I can’t see anyone good just check-calling 1500 on the turn with T9. Even spades probably plays better as a raise, especially given his incentive to get all in against me and put my bounty in play.

I was pretty sure I was going to call, but I took my time anyway, and I guess that made him assume that his QJ was good. I do think that especially in a bounty, where he has so much to gain by stacking me, he does make sense for him to shove the river, but it’s not a play a lot of people will make it, and I do try to think it through before making or calling large bets.

There were two other interesting spots, both at the 75/150/25 level. In the first, the HJ, who seemed just a touch too active but not overall a bad player, opened to 400, and I called with Qs Ts on my BB. He had a little over 7K behind, and I had about 11K.

Flop (1125) Qh 9c 7h. I considered donking here but ultimately checked. He bet 550, and I called.

Turn (2225) 5d. I checked, he bet 1500, I shoved, and he called with Ah 6h and hit the Th on the river.

In the second, the UTG player (at a 10-handed table) opened to 375, and I called with Ac Jh in the BB. I had about 3300 behind, and he had more than 30K, enough to still cover the entire table even if he doubled me.

Flop (1075) Kc Tc 5d. I actually bet 600, planning to fold to a raise. Even with his stack, this player seemed extremely passive and cautious, so I thought he would overfold and also shove much less often than he should. My hand is a decent one for betting because it’s equity is not so bad against a calling range but poor enough against a shoving range that I don’t lose a lot by folding. Plus I can jam turned clubs. However, the hand isn’t strong enough to check-call or check-raise, which means I usually just lose my equity if I check. Anyway, Villain called.

Turn (2275) Ah. Given Villain’s passivity, as well as the bounty factor, I just shoved. He reluctantly called Kc Q and my hand held up for a double.

I did a little GTORB analysis on both of these hands, and although that can’t take into consideration the very important bounty factor, it did reveal some slightly interesting stuff. Most notably, both of these players have such significant range advantages that I should very rarely (in practice, probably just never) donk bet in either spot.

I also wasn’t sure what GTORB would suggest for Villain’s Ah 6h. On the one hand, it’s obviously a huge draw, but on the other, with stacks being what they are, I thought Hero might often shove, putting Villain in a tough spot with a big draw.

Turns out that GTORB has Villain betting all of his A6 on the turn, with or without a heart draw, and always folding to a raise (though Villain’s call may not be wrong, as the bounty gives me incentive to raise a wider range, possibly including some dominated draws). And the Hero actually only check-raises about 10% (QT strictly prefers calling, though again, bounty may well change that). I guess it’s significant that the Hero generally raises his flopped monsters, and this is not a turn card that creates a lot of new monster hands (this is why A6 is a good betting hand, because it blocks 86), which means that Hero is pretty capped and the Villain can bet draws with abandon.

Tomorrow, I’ll most likely play the Venetian $1600.

Blinds were still 25/50, and I opened to 150 with Kc Qc in the HJ. The CO, SB, and BB all called.

The flop came 975 with two clubs, and the blinds checked. I certainly wouldn’t just c-bet arbitrarily into three opponents here, but with two overs and a flush draw, it’s an easy bet. I bet 450, and only the CO called.

The 2h turned, and on such a blank card, I think he’s more or less capped out at one pair, maybe TT or JJ at best and almost always weaker than that, so it’s a great spot for me to bombs away. I bet 1500, and he quickly called. The fact that he didn’t even consider raising made me even more certain that the didn’t have two-pair or a set.

So, I didn’t have to sweat a full house on the 9c river. I also didn’t think he’d call the turn with bare flush draws, at least not so quickly, so the only better hands in his range figured to bet Ac 8c and Ac 6c. I expected him to have T9 and 98 more frequently, and be unable to fold trips. I bet 4000, and he called with Ac 8c.

Nothing of great interest happened after that. I got a double up with AQ by convincing my opponent to spaz with 77 on a Q9xxx board.

Once I was down to 20 blinds, I wasn’t getting any shoving spots. Mostly my cards were bad, but also there was a guy with a big stack on my right who’d decided that he should play more than half the hands he was dealt. I’m honestly not sure he was joking/posturing when he wondered out loud whether he should call my 11BB UTG shove blind (I had AJo, and he folded).

A few hands later he opened to 1100 on the button, which it was really hard for me to imagine him folding a button, so I had a pretty easy shove for 5K or so with 22 in the SB. He called with A4o to bust me.

After the tournament I went and hung out with Carlos for a bit at the Tournament Poker Edge booth, then decided to check out the cash game scene at the Rio.

It truly does seem to get worse there every year. Now there are no chip runners (which, I realize, may not be their fault, but it sucks either way), which means that when they open a new game it takes a long time to start because people have to go wait in line at the cage, buy chips, then take them to the table, and of course no one wants to sit at the table waiting for others to show up, and certainly not come over from an already-running game to get the new one started, so it’s just a slow process and I can only imagine that the most impulsive (ie most desirable to have at your table) players are not sticking around for all that.

My first table was pretty boring, everyone seemed decent enough and the average stack was less than $2K, which is quite small for an uncapped $5/$10.

I was about to quit when my table change came through and I landed at a new table where my $6500 made me just the third largest stack! Had there been chip runners, I would have added on, but as it was I decided just to make do with 650 big blinds.

It was a fun game, nobody spewing but nobody playing particularly good deep-stacked poker, and I was winning solidly. Then, literally the hand before I was going to quit:

I open 22 to $40 UTG (believe we were 7-handed at the time), and four people call. The flop comes K72r. I bet $150, and only the button called. I had about $7500 at the time, and she covered me.

The turn was another K. I checked, figuring a check-raise could get more money in against a K and also give her a chance to bluff/protection bet weaker hands. She checked behind.

The river card was something small (not a 2!), and with $500 in the pot, I threw out a $1K chip. Overbetting was not unprecedented for me, and none of those hands had yet gone to showdown.

She asked if that was a $500 chip, the dealer told her it was $1000, and then she nodded and said, “All in.” Faced with calling $6K to win $8500, I really don’t think is a tough fold at all. I’m uncapped, which means I have both nut hands and better bluff-catchers, not that I would expect to see many bluffs here anyway.

Even though that basically wiped out my profit for the night, I quit feeling pretty good about myself. Among other things, I probably would have lost my ass if she’d bet the turn!

For some crazy reason the Monster Stack is not a re-entry, so I’m just going to play cash tonight, probably at Bellagio, and then hit up the $1K Turbo WSOP event tomorrow morning.

This episode is sponsored by Shark Clock and Tournament Poker Edge.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
6:11 – strategy
50:40 – alex sutherland

Strategy

This week’s strategy discussion uses GTO Range Builder to investigate the hand first discussed in Episode 176.

Timestamps

0:30 hello and welcome
5:45 strategy
46:24 christian

Strategy

$5/10 at Bellagio

Pre-flop:
UTG+1 raised to $15 (sic). I was hijack $800 stack holding AcQs. I called. Cutoff $2500 stack called. Button $1500 stack called. Small blind folded. Big blind $7000 stack called.

4 callers $75 pot

Flop:
AsKsQx
Checked to me, I bet $50. Villain called. Big blind called. Original raiser folded.

$225 pot

Turn: 7x
big blind checked, I bet $150, villain called and big blind folded.

$525 pot

River Tx:
I checked. Villain shoved.

Q: I’ve often wondered how best to consider stack size when confronted by 3 or 4 bets. I have a vague sense it is about trying to get value out of my strong hands, narrow ranges and lower my SPR, but I’d be lying if I knew enough to not feel a little lost here.

For example, …
– I have AKs and open 2.2BB
– V 3-bets to 7BB
– I ?…with 20BB effective vs 80BB vs 200BB…?
At 20BB I’m jaming.
At 80BB am I just calling or 4-betting? Wouldn’t a 4-bet be folding out hands I want in, like AQs?
At 200BB do I add some/more 4-bets? If so, can I ever fold to a reasonable 5-bet?
What about holding KK facing a 5-bet with 200BB effective.
What about QQ…the absence of a K blocker and the presence of a Q blocker makes it more likely we are flipping or behind an average 4-bet calling/raising range? If that is true, do we 3-bet/jam 20BB but 3-bet/call 200BB (just as another example of my question).

I realize this is a pretty wide question and assuming no read on V, and may even be stylistic to some extent, but any feedback would be quite welcome.

A: You’re on the right track with your thinking, but you left out a critical detail from your original question: position. The only reason anyone plays any hand other than Aces is that there is money in the pot pre-flop. The fewer people there are still to act behind me, the more hands I can (and therefore should) profitably open raise.

Once someone raises in front of me, I have a new dilemma: there is more money in the pot, but there is also someone who is claiming to have a strong hand. However, I know that, like me, he has some incentive to raise even without the nuts, which is why I probably don’t have to have the nuts to re-raise him.

When you have a hand that you believe to be ahead of the original raiser’s opening range, you have to make a decision: do I call, 3-bet, or even fold? You need to estimate the expected value of each and choose the option with the highest EV. When considering a 3-bet, this basically means answering four questions:

1. How often will my opponent fold, and how much do I have to gain from those folds? Hands like AK and JJ benefit more from fold equity than KK or AA do, even though you may not be raising them “as a bluff” (in other words, you may also expect to be ahead of a calling or even 4-betting range).

2. How often will my opponent call, and what can I expect that call to be worth? This is a function of your equity vs a likely calling range as well as how well your hand will play after the flop (if your 3-bet is not all in).

3. How often will my opponent 4-bet, and how will I fare against a 4-betting range? Especially when a 4-bet isn’t likely, it’s OK to 3-bet a hand for value even though you will fold to a 4-bet.

4. How does the EV of calling compare to the EV of 3-betting (which is determined by the above three questions)?

We don’t need to inquire about the EV of folding, as it’s always 0. So generally, if calling or 3-betting has positive EV, we can rule out folding, though there are tournament situations where cEV and $EV deviate significantly.

Of course in many cases you don’t know exactly how your opponent will respond and so can’t put exact numbers on these things. However, you should recognize that there’s a relationship between them. If you opponent opens from the CO and you have AK on the button, you are probably far enough ahead of his opening range that he will either fold very often or call/4-bet a range that AK is well ahead of. Either way, you win. The one thing that can’t happen is for your opponent to rarely fold and also reliably have AK smoked. It’s hard to get dealt a hand that strong, especially when an A and a K are accounted for, and your opponent has incentive to raise a wide enough range from the CO.

It is possible that your opponent doesn’t properly understand or respond to his incentive to attack the blinds and is a huge nit when it comes to raising the CO. If you knew that, you might prefer not to 3-bet him with AK.

However, if you do unwittingly 3-bet the nit with AK, that doesn’t mean that his nitty strategy is exploiting you. For one thing, the mere fact that he is raising suggests he is not a nit (nits raise less often than other players). But even if he is, you are passively benefiting from many situations where you would have had to fold your button if he’d raised his CO, but because he made overly tight folds from the CO, you got to make a +EV raise on your button. Basically, all those folding mistakes he makes from the CO overwhelm whatever he gains by getting lucky enough to “trap” you when he has AA in the CO and you have AK on the button.

If you’re interested in examining these spots in greater depth and getting a sense of what balanced opening, 3-betting, 4-betting, etc. ranges look like, Hold ‘Em Resources Calculator is a very good tool for the job.

Timestamps

0:30 hello and welcome
11:30 strategy

Strategy

Hand 1

2/5 game at the Aria. I have a stack of about 1400. Villain covers.

Villain raises from UTG+1 to 20, gets two callers. I have pocket aces in the BB. I raise to 85. Villain calls, callers fold.

Pot is now about $205. Flop 345 rainbow. Both players check.

Turn 2. I check, Villain bets $150, I call.

Pot is $505. River Q. I check, Villain bets $330.

Hand 2

$2/$5 live game. Villain has $500, Hero coves. Hero raises to $25 with AQss. Tilted guy re raises to $100. Hero calls.

Flop is Q74 two diamonds.  There is $200 in the pot and he leads out for a pot sized $200 bet. Hero calls.

Turn is 7h. Villain shoves $200, Hero calls.

Plus, in our strategy segment, we discuss playing Kings when that dreaded Ace turns.

Elena plays on PokerStars as “thegroupie”, which is also her Twitter handle. Her blog contains a number of well-written trip reports, plus links to pieces she’s written for the PokerStars blog and Bluff magazine.

Thanks to Dara O’Kearney for suggesting such a great guest!

Timestamps

0:30 H&W
7:41 strat
28:34 interview

Strategy

$1 tournament on PokerStars
150/300/30
Hero has 12K, one V has 8K, other two cover
UTG, U1, and U2 limp, Hero in HJ raises to 1200 with KK, first two call, last one folds
4620 in pot

*** FLOP *** [9d 7c 4c]
slavik199208: checks
glushchenkom: checks
Hero: bets 3000
slavik199208: calls 3000
glushchenkom: calls 3000

*** TURN *** [9d 7c 4c] [Ah]

slavik199208: checks
glushchenkom: checks
Hero: checks

*** RIVER *** [9d 7c 4c Ah] [6s]
slavik199208: checks
glushchenkom: bets 8400
Hero?

Contrary to the fancy image seen here, The Thinking Poker Diaries Volume 8 is actually available only as an e-book. It’s on sale now in the Kindle Store, and EPUB, Kindle, and PDF versions will be available on Nitcast.com shortly.

You can read and see more of Kristy on Twitter, her website, her YouTube channel, or her Under Armour Facebook page.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
17:28 – strategy
39:22 – kristy arnett

Strategy

This is from a NLHE home cash game. The blinds are $0.50/$1.00. I have about $500 and would guess Villain had just slightly less.

The hand starts 10-handed and villain opens from under the gun to $4. I am next to act, and look down to see 7-7 and just call.

A few others players call so we’re 5 to the flop of JJ7 rainbow. Villain leads out and bets $15. I call, everyone else folds, so it’s just the two of us to the turn and we have a pot of approximately $51.

The turn is a J. Villain now bets $30. I call, so now we have $111 in the pot and effective stacks of ~$350 each.

The river was a 7. Villain bets $50.

If you haven’t yet read Volume One, well, there’s no reason you’d have to to make sense of this book, but why haven’t you?!

You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @Reasons14 and watch his instructional videos at Tournament Poker Edge. He recommends reading Sapiens and The Four Hour Work Week and listening to Sigur Rós, Denali, Portishead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Radiohead.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello and welcome
4:33 – PLO8 strategy
28:12 – benjamin reason

Strategy

Three-handed $10/$25/$50 PLO8.

Villain raises from the SB to $175 announcing that he “almost never does this”. I pause, question him, and he states that he raised blind. I don’t know him well enough to know if this is always the truth.

I raise to 550 with A2QQshhd. Button folds and villain makes it 1650.

I called and the flop was K85 rainbow. He quickly bets the pot of $3350 leaving $7000 effective behind.

You can follow @CeeGeePoker on Twitter and, if you’re really lucky, catch him streaming high stakes mixed game action. More reliably, you’ll find his training videos on Deuces Cracked.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
6:53 – Strategy
31:40 – Christopher George

Strategy

$400 tournament at the Wynn, blinds 300/600/75, effective stacks 30K. Hero opens to 1500 with QJs (blinds were 300-600, and I believe antes were 50). CO, Button, and Villain in BB call.

Flop (6700) 984r rainbow. Checks around.

Turn (6700) T. BB bets big blind bet 2100 , Hero raises to 5100, two folds, BB calls.

River (16900) A. Villain checks, Hero bets 12k, Villain folds

Collin is also the author or co-author of three poker books (Heads-Up No-Limit Hold ‘Em, Sit-and-Go Strategy, and The Math of Hold ‘Em) as well as co-author, with his wife Katie Dozier, of The Superuser. He produces instructional videos for CardRunners. You can follow him on Twitter @teammoshman.

We’ve also got a special treat for you in the strategy segment. Brian Koppelman, whom we interviewed on Episode 149, is back to talk strategy, specifically how to play against a deep-stacked maniac.

Enjoy!

Timestamps

0:30 H&W
23:58 – BK
39:22 – CM

I’ll start by saying that although there are some interesting concepts at play here, this specific spot is not really an important one to get right. For one thing, it’s not exactly an everyday occurrence. Perhaps more importantly, everyone seems to be in agreement that Villain is unlikely to put another dollar in the pot no matter what Hero does, so we can expect the Expected Values of all available options to be quite similar.

Value Betting

There’s some game theory here related to whether Villain has any incentive to call the river with a bluff-catcher, whether Hero should be able to value bet an unimproved bluff catcher, whether Villain should ever check quads, etc. But there’s an important exploitive concept at play as well, which James Antill raises quite succiently: “Villain can’t make a calling mistake if we don’t bet.”

In theory there shouldn’t be much value in betting. Villain took a very polarizing line, and any showdown value he had would have been better played as a bluff-catcher than as such a big bluff. So really, he should either have a boat or better, or a hand that couldn’t even consider calling.

Of course, there also shouldn’t be much risk in betting. I’m embarrassed to say the very important question of whether I blocked 64s did not occur to me at the table. I don’t know for certain that the river was the 4d – I made up the suit for this post, wrongly thinking it unimportant. Of course, I did consider that Villain had no real reason to check a big boat or quads on the river. After all, we’re seriously considering not betting a hand that would almost certainly call a shove! Checking could induce a bluff, but what hand that benefits from bluffing could Hero take to the river?

Patrick raises the very good point that, “As played, it’s kind of a weird SPR by the river that makes getting stacks in hard to do without either an over bet or a raise, which…I’m not sure, but I would say it leans away from V having a stack able value hand like 33.” However, even seemingly good opponents make mistakes, and we want to give them the opportunity to do so. Both checking quads and calling the river without a 6 are probably mistakes, but the latter is a much easier mistake to make.

I don’t agree with James Antill that, “If villain takes this line with worse and is going to hero call it then he’s as likely to do it with 1.5x as 0.25x pot.” Our best hope is to offer Villain such good pot odds that he can’t resist calling (or spazzes out and shoves) with a hand that he wasn’t originally thinking of as a bluff-catcher. He certainly ought to be price-sensitive, given how easily Hero can have a 6 and how difficult it is to find a bluffing candidate.

Bluff Shoving

I also didn’t consider the option of shoving to get Villain off of a chop. I don’t think it’s the best way to play the hand, but it is worth considering, to kudos to those of you who thought of it.

Sean is right that if Villain is equally likely to check any given combo of 6x or 44, and he always folds the 6x, then shoving would be best. However, I think it’s far from certain that Villain will fold a 6 to a shove, even if that would be the correct play.

Checking

The one argument in favor checking that hasn’t yet been made is that we get to see Villain’s likely bluff. It’s very rare that I factor the value of seeing the Villain’s cards into my decision, and I can’t claim that I did so in real time either, but it did prove a bit interesting. And in this case, where there’s so little value in betting anyway, the small value of seeing Villain’s cards might actually outweigh it.

Results

I checked back, and Villain showed As 9s. This certainly raises the question of whether he might have called a $400 bet, but is interesting for other reasons as well. For instance, I don’t think it’s the best candidate for either donking or three-betting the flop. In fact, it probably has enough showdown value to check and call a bet.

We’re playing 10/25 NLHE with effective stacks of about $8K. The main Villain, in the SB, is a capable and experienced player, not 100% sure whether he’s a pro but he’s good enough that I think he could be. I imagine that he has a similar opinion of me. The BB is definitely a pro and strong player.

I’m going to go ahead and skip to the river decision, because I’ve already explained my plan for a three-bet.

Hero opens to $75 with Kd 6d on the button. SB and BB both call.

Flop ($220 in pot) 6h 6c 3s. SB bets $100, BB folds, Hero raises to $300, SB raises to $875, Hero calls.

Turn ($1970 in pot) 3d. SB bets $1050, Hero calls.

River ($4070 in pot) 4s. SB checks, there’s about $6000 in the effective stacks, Hero?

Post your preferred play, along with your reasons, here. I’ll respond as I can in the comments and post the next decision point on Saturday.

Assessing Range Advantage

The only information I gave about the SB was that he’s “capable and experienced” and probably has “a similar opinion of me”. This really isn’t enough to make aggressively exploitive assumptions about what his bet “means” (if he’s doing a good job of balancing, it doesn’t mean any single thing) or how he’ll respond to a 3-bet.

Let’s start instead by examining some structural features of the situation, at the time that we see the flop, before there’s any action. I have to agree with Matt that, “I really don’t see him having a wide calling range from the SB. Playing out of position against tough opponents is not very easy, of course, and calling invites a third (also competent) player into the hand, which leads me to believe that he will be heavy on 3betting and folding from this spot.”

This isn’t an exploitive assumption; he’s out of position and closing the action, so he really is constrained. He can’t just decide to call with a bunch of weak hands because that’s his “style”. If he doesn’t have a disproportionate amount of realizable equity, which will usually be the case, his best play is to fold pre-flop. Many of the hands that do have that kind of equity do better by raising pre-flop. If we act too strongly on these assumptions, then we give him incentive to call more weak or strong hands, but still, we should recognize that he’s dealing with some heavy pre-flop constraints.

Likewise, we can recognize that my range can and should be rather wide, again not as a question of style but because with the button and very deep stacks, there are simply a lot of hands where raising is more profitable than folding. And the BB can have a much wider range than the SB, given that he is closing the action and getting a better price.

I suspect that if we were to compare the overall equity of the SB’s range vs. mine, he would be ahead. Even though I have some very strong hands that’s unlikely to call pre-flop, such as AA or K6s, I also hold a lot of weak hands that he’s unlikely to call pre-flop, such as 74s.

On Donking and Raising

This constrains me a bit: I can’t expect to continuation bet profitably with anywhere near 100% of my range, particularly given that there is also a third player in the pot. So, I will check the flop a significantly non-zero amount of the time, and the SB has many hands like pocket pairs and Ax that are likely best but very vulnerable to free cards. These hands have some interest in donking the flop in order to deny me equity.

However, because his range is, not exactly capped, but weaker at the top end than mine, he’s vulnerable to getting raised by a polarized range. So, his donking range should contain some hands that can profitably continue to a raise, either by calling or three-betting (sometimes for value, sometimes as a bluff).

K6 fares well against those ranges. It figures to be ahead of his calling range (and even ahead of his range for calling down multiple streets), and although it may turn into a bluff catcher if Villain three-bets, it will be a very good bluff-catcher in that it blocks some portion of his value range and has equity against it as well. We may not be rooting for a three-bet, but we shouldn’t be lost about what to do when three-bet, either. I think calling down will yield a profit, even if it’s not the part of the game tree where we’d ideally end up. When we’re holding a 6, though, Villain only has two choices: three-bet rarely, or three-bet a bluff-heavy range. Considering that we’re prepared to call to the river, either is fine.

It’s true that the majority of my continuing range will not benefit from raising, and I’ll respond to his bet far more often by calling than by raising. It’s also true that because my calling range will consist mostly of hands that do not want to play large pots, SB will have some incentive to make large, possibly over-, bets on subsequent streets with a polarized range. This gives me some incentive to just call the flop with very strong hands, which in turn reduces his incentive to employ such a strategy.

These situations usually resolve themselves in a mixed strategy: I should call some hands that are prepared to take a lot of heat, and also raise some such hands. MCG and PokerNoob both do a good job of explaining why K6 is a better candidate for raising than calling.

The Bottom Line

K6 is an extremely strong hand here, so close to the top of Hero’s range that it can happily put in four bets for value and profitably, if begrudgingly, call down five bets as a bluff-catcher. Calling makes it tricky to get that fourth bet in. Sometimes Villain will just check-call down, and we’ll get only three bets (though overbetting might be able to compensate for this). Even if he does bet the turn, as Raffi says, “flatting and potentially raising at a later point makes it really hard to rep a bluff.”

It’s also worth pointing out that, unless Hero’s hand improves, it will not be quite as strong on future streets. Each new card that comes, unless it’s a K or a 6, pushes our hand, as well as our value targets, further from the nuts.

Essentially, this is a hand that benefits from frontloading, and I think raising with it is generally best. You may not be accustomed to thinking about your kicker when you have trips, but when you’re this deep, it matters.

Results and the next decision point are coming in the next post.

Strategy

No Limit Hold’em $0.10/$0.20
Winamax Poker
3 players
Formatted by pokercopilot.com – Mac OS X hand history analysis and tracking

Stacks:
BTN – BTN ($20.72)
SB – Hero ($34.73)
BB – BB ($7.80)

Preflop: ($0.30, 3 players) Hero is SB with Q A
BTN raises to $0.40, Hero raises to $1.60, 1 fold, BTN calls $1.20

Flop: J 8 5 ($3.40, 2 players – BTN: $19.12, Hero: $33.13)
Hero bets $1.80, BTN calls $1.80

Turn: T ($7.00, 2 players – BTN: $17.32, Hero: $31.33)
Hero bets $3.80, BTN calls $3.80

River: 9 ($14.60, 2 players – BTN: $13.52, Hero: $27.53)
Hero bets $4.00, BTN calls $4.00

Total Pot: $22.60
BTN shows A T (One pair : Tens)
Hero shows Q A (Straight Queen high)

Hero wins $21.13

If you’d like a copy of the interviews we discuss during the show, please write me at andrew (at) thinkingpoker (dot) net and I’ll send you one.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello and Welcome
5:20 – Strategy
40:39 – Gareth

Strategy

This week’s strategy discussion focuses on these hands posted to the Tournament Poker Edge forums. Not a member of TPE? No worries, you can still access the forums, but you really ought to consider joining the site.

“Poker lingo is full of bluster and bravado. For some, the colorful language and the opportunity to spin dramatic narratives about aggression and courage is an important part of the game’s appeal….

I also suspect, though, that all these macho turns-of-phrase and bellicose metaphors obscure the mathematical side of the game. It often seems to me that players who worry about “defending” their big blind, or getting “bullied”, are more concerned about damage to their ego than to their expected value.”

Of course it’s not just about language; there’s plenty of strategy content as well! Please have a look and let me know what you think. Do you enjoy turning your poker game into a story of bravery and bravado? Do you find these kinds of metaphors particularly helpful or unhelpful?

You can follow Cate @catehall on Twitter, and she recommends the Center for Applied Rationality to “your audience in particular”.

In the strategy segment, Nate and Andrew talk about semi-bluffing, getting there, and folding.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello and Welcome
18:06 – Strategy
52:23 – Cate Hall

Strategy

$5/$10 full ring NLHE at Commerce, $1700 effective stacks.

Hero opens $35 with 4c 3c in the CO, and the SB and BB call.

Flop ($100) As Ac 5s. Check, check, Hero bets $80, SB calls, BB folds.

Turn ($260) 2h. Check, Hero bets $175, SB raises to $600, Hero calls.

River ($1460) Villain shoves ~$985, Hero?

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello and Welcome plus WRGPT strat
21:35 – Carlos

I primarily review his play at the final three tables of a $10 rebuy tournament, all the way down to heads up. If you need help making or triumphing at a final table – and who doesn’t?! – be sure to take advantage of this FREE video. Or better yet, see how you can have me review one of your hand histories!

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
7:47 – Strategy:
21:28 – Interview: Gags30

Strategy

$1/$3 NLHE

UTG limps, Hero ($600) raises to $16 with KsJs, V1 ($300) calls, V2 ($500) calls on the button, everyone else folds.

Flop ($51 in pot) Jd 3h 3c. Hero bets $20, V1 calls, V2 raises to $50, Hero calls, V1 calls.

Turn ($200 in pot) 6s. Hero checks, V1 checks, V2 bets $90, Hero?

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
33:24 – interview

Strategy

$5/$5/$10 PLO $1500 effective stacks

Button opens $40, Hero calls Ah Kd 9c 4h in SB, BB calls, straddle calls.

Flop ($160) Ad Qh 4d. Three checks, button bets $120, Hero calls, two folds.

Turn ($400) 6h. Hero checks, Villain bets $340, Hero calls.

River ($1080) Qc. Hero checks, Villain bets $480, Hero?

Please contribute here!

Thanks to everyone who’s donated already, you’ve far exceeded what I thought we were likely to raise. As a result, it’s been tough to keep pace with releasing all the free strategy videos I promised. Thankfully Nate came through in a pinch and gave me permission to use some videos we’d previously recorded. So here’s the first of a three-part series in which we have fun reviewing my play in a PLO8 WCOOP event. Enjoy, and happy new year!

// ]]>

Timestamps

:30 – hello & welcome
4:22 – strategy
33:56 – dannyn13

Strategy

Horseshoe Southern Indiana, 1/2NL, 8-handed, $270 effective stacks vs villain, hero has AdKs in MP1
-UTG+2 limps with $600 behind
-hero raises AdKs to $10 in MP1 with $260 behind
-MP2 calls with $180 behind
-villain calls in bb with $300 behind

-$41 in the middle and we see a flop of Kc4h5h
-villain in bb checks, UTG+2 checks, hero bets $30, MP2 folds, villain check/raises to $75, MP1 folds, hero calls

-ignoring rake, there is $191 in the middle and the turn is the 4s
-villain checks and hero checks

-the river is (the beautiful) Kd, villain checks, hero?