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.

You can find more details and a full-length sample video at https://www.thinkingpoker.net/coaching/poker-coaching-programs/custom-video-review/. To purchase your videos, comment here or email andrew at thinkingpoker dot net.

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

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
8:08 – strategy

Strategy Hand 1

Effective stack: 22K

Blinds: 300/600, 100 ante

I was under the gun with pocket tens and raised to 1500. I was called by a guy who looked to be in his mid twenties, an middle aged guy on the button, and an older gentleman directly to my right in the big blind.

Pre-flop Pot: 7300

Flop comes Kd/8h/10h. The bb checks to me and I bet 2500. The two callers fold and the bb calls.

Flop Pot: 12,300

The turn was a 2 of clubs. BB checks, I bet 4500. He calls.

Turn Pot: 21,300

The river was a 9 of diamonds. He thought for about 20 seconds and then bet 5K.

Strategy Hand 2

$2/$5 NL. I open raise in mp to $20 with JdJh. One caller on button.

Flop JcQh2s

I bet $35, he calls.

$111 in pot, turn comes 9c. I bet $65, he raises to $200 total, I call.

$511 in the pot, river is a 5d.

I check. He bets $200.

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
9:35 strat
51:43 extra strat

Strategy

Hand 1 – 3/5 NL

Couple of limps, CO raises to $25, BN calls, Hero calls Ah 6h in the SB, one MP limper calls.

Ac 2h Ks. Checks to CO who bets $55, BN folds, Hero calls, MP calls.

8h ($280 in pot). Checks to CO, CO bets $125, Hero calls, MP calls.

8d ($655 in pot). Checks to CO who bets $285. Hero?

Hand 2 – Tournament, effective stacks 35bb

CO opens 2.5bb, Hero calls 9d 8d in the SB.

9s 5h 4d (8.5b in pot). Checks to CO, who bets 9bb. Hero calls.

5s (26.5bb in pot). Both check.

Js (26.5bb in pot). Check, CO shoves, Hero?

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.

If you aren’t familiar with Carlos, you can hear his full story starting with our first interview on Episode 39. You can follow Carlos on twitter @HipHop101Trivia and watch him stream live on Twitch.

Timestamps

0:30 Carlos Welch
32:40 Carloose Welch (strategy)

Strategy

8-handed NLHE tournament online, blinds 400/800/80. UTG (29K) limps, SB (5K) completes, Hero (35K) raises to 2400 with Ks Jc, UTG calls, SB folds.

Flop (6240) 7c 4s 2d. Hero bets 3120, Villain calls.

Turn (12480) 9s. Hero bets 5240, Villain calls.

River (24960) 8h. Hero shoves 17K effective, Villain folds.

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

The only WCOOP event I played was the $500 6-max. Not much to report, but here’s a fun little spot where I bet think most people just never bluff (note that I block 76ss):

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

Hero (BB): 140.41 BB
UTG: 85.44 BB (VPIP: 27.00, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 3.57, Hands: 100)
MP: 71.6 BB (VPIP: 33.22, PFR: 23.25, 3Bet Preflop: 7.87, Hands: 286)
CO: 43.07 BB (VPIP: 19.23, PFR: 14.66, 3Bet Preflop: 9.43, Hands: 235)
BTN: 59.06 BB (VPIP: 28.09, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 10.21, Hands: 569)
SB: 74.94 BB (VPIP: 20.46, PFR: 13.99, 3Bet Preflop: 6.71, Hands: 394)

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 9s 7s
fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.11 BB, SB calls 1.61 BB, Hero calls 1.11 BB

Flop : (7.09 BB, 3 players) 6c 6h 6d
SB checks, Hero checks, BTN bets 3.07 BB, SB calls 3.07 BB, Hero raises to 7.97 BB, fold, fold

Hero wins 16.32 BB

I ended up busting on a much larger bluff. Not to say this is necessarily good, but I don’t think the results really speak to it being bad, as this is surely near the top of Villain’s range and not a hand I need him to fold in order for the bluff to be profitable:

PokerStars – 800/1600 Ante 200 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 52.33 BB
UTG: 74.37 BB (VPIP: 33.14, PFR: 21.30, 3Bet Preflop: 8.43, Hands: 170)
MP: 77.28 BB (VPIP: 35.69, PFR: 25.22, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 356)
CO: 61.25 BB (VPIP: 35.10, PFR: 19.23, 3Bet Preflop: 5.62, Hands: 209)
BTN: 35.57 BB (VPIP: 27.16, PFR: 18.67, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 82)
SB: 33.4 BB (VPIP: 22.56, PFR: 14.69, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 464)

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 3s 2s
fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.2 BB, SB calls 1.7 BB, Hero calls 1.2 BB

Flop : (7.35 BB, 3 players) Kh 5h 5d
SB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn : (7.35 BB, 3 players) 4s
SB checks, Hero bets 7.35 BB, BTN calls 7.35 BB, fold

River : (22.05 BB, 2 players) 8d
Hero bets 42.65 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 25.89 BB and is all-in

Hero shows 3s 2s (One Pair, Fives)
(Pre 41%, Flop 2%, Turn 9%)

BTN shows 5c 6h (Three of a Kind, Fives)
(Pre 59%, Flop 98%, Turn 91%)

BTN wins 73.83 BB

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.

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

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.

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

0:30 – 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…

In our strategy segment, we discuss bluffing at the micro-stakes.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
9:58 – Strategy
37:40 – Interview: Matt Bodnar

Recommended Reading

Mindset: The New Science of Success by Carol S. Dweck
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Getting Things Done by David Allen
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
Cosmos by Carl Sagan

Strategy

$0.01/$0.02 NLHE on PokerStars

MP ($2.75) opens to $0.04, Hero calls in CO with 9s 8s, Button ($6.21) raises to $0.14, MP folds, Hero calls.

Flop ($0.35) 6s Qd 3h. Check check.

Turn ($0.35) 6h. Hero bets $0.20, Villain calls.

River ($0.75) 4s. Hero checks, Villain bets $0.50, Hero raises to $1.22.

Johanson has previously been our guest on Episode 79 and Episode 110. Before the match, we discussed DeepStack with Michael Bowling on Episode 208.

Follow @DeepStackAI on Twitter for details of their upcoming Twitch matches as well as links to replays of past matches and other news.

Strategy

PokerStars – $150/$300 NL (2 max) – Holdem – 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (SB): 69.67 BB
Hero (BB): 63.67 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 6d 6c
Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Qs Qd
Hero raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 6 BB, Hero calls 4 BB

Flop : (12 BB, 2 players) 7s Th 5c
Hero bets 7 BB, Hero calls 7 BB

Turn : (26 BB, 2 players) 6s
Hero bets 14.17 BB, Hero raises to 50.67 BB, Hero calls 36.5 BB and is all-in

River : (127.33 BB, 2 players) 9h

Hero shows 6d 6c (Three of a Kind, Sixes)
(Pre 19%, Flop 13%, Turn 95%)

Hero shows Qs Qd (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 81%, Flop 87%, Turn 5%)

Hero wins 127.33 BB

Details of the 85o shove, as well as further thoughts on it and the match in general, are here.

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!

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?

Links

Tournament Poker Edge

NYC Live Event with Just Hands Poker

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
6:50 – Strategy: Top-Top in a Straddled Pot
40:38 – Interview: Ronnie Bardah

Strategy

$2/$5 NLHE, $500 effective stacks.

UTG straddles for $15, UTG2 raises to $45, Hero calls Ad Kc on the button, both blinds call, and the straddle folds.

Flop ($179) As 4c 4s. Villain bets $80, Hero calls, blinds fold.

Turn ($339) 8c. Villain bets $150, Hero calls.

River ($639) 8s. Villain shoves $130, Hero calls.

“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!

Strategy this week comes to us from Nate’s recent play in a Foxwoods $1K!

Links

Coaching Carlos

Tournament Poker Edge

NYC Live Event with Just Hands Poker

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
11:38 – Strategy From Nate at Foxwoods
41:41 – Interview: Angela Bassa

Strategy

Hand 1

Blinds 150/300/25. Effective stacks 30K.

Hero limps QQ UTG, UTG1 raises to 1200, UTG2 calls BB raises it 3800, Hero calls, UTG1 folds, UTG2 calls.

Flop J97tt. BB bets 7K, Hero?

Hand 2

Blinds 600/1200/200. Effective stack 72K.

Villain opens HJ to 2800, Hero calls JTo on CO, Button calls, SB calls.

Flop (11K) 9h 5c 2h. Check, check, Hero bets 5300, folds back to HJ who calls.

Turn (22.5K) 8s. HJ checks, Hero?

Blinds are 2000/4000/500. Villain is in the BB. He’s a decidedly recreational player and seems VERY level 1/level 2 thinking. That is to, he doesn’t seem to consider his own ranges or what he’s representing. I’ve already seen him get caught in one non-sensical river bluff.

I’d been the most active player at the table, though that wasn’t saying much. Most of my pre-flop raises had been minimum, but in this case I chose a larger size because the BB had a lot of chips and seemed to inclined to defend his BB for that reason. My plan was to raise his BB less aggressively, and to use a larger size when doing so.

I begin the hand with about 120K, Villain covers by a lot (probably one of the chip leaders in the tournament).

Folds to me on the Button with Kd Qs. I raise to 10K. SB folds, BB quickly calls. “You don’t even want to think about folding?” I ask him.

“I thought about it,” he said.

“Did you even look at your cards?”

“Nope. I didn’t think you looked at yours.” This was just banter. I knew he’d looked at his cards, and he knew that I knew.

Flop (26,500 in pot) 7s 7c 4d. Villain very quickly bets 10K. I read this as a very Level 2 sort of play, where he just saw a board that was tough to hit and a player with a wide range and figured he could just bet whatever and I would have to fold if I didn’t have a pair. I think he’s looking for a fold basically always, but that doesn’t rule out his having better hands than mine. This is a shitty line to take with Ace-high, but certainly one that I see from people who are excessively concerned about protection and think too much about whether or not they have a “made hand”.

I called, thinking there was a good chance that I had the best hand. Raising is quite possibly better, though I think there’s a case for letting him put more weak money into the pot before doing so.

Turn (46,500) Ts. Villain bets 15K. I read this as weak, which I still think is correct, but in retrospect it’s weak in a different way. When he bets 1/3 pot, he doesn’t really expect me to fold anything I called the flop with, he just doesn’t want to be raised. This could be a blocking bet from a better hand than mine (Ace-high or small pair) or a set-my-own-price bet with a draw. Either way, I think this should just be a jam. It’s not that much more than a pot-sized raise, and even if it does seem suspect (it’s not really how I’d play many strong hands, though he probably won’t realize that anyway), what’s he going to do, hero it off with A3?

River (76,500) 6s. Villain bets 45K. I’d seen him bluff the river before by grabbing a stack of chips and slamming it down in front of him, one of those strong-means-weak tells that’s so blatant that you wonder whether it isn’t a reverse tell. Combined with the fact that I wasn’t giving his earlier bets much credit, I still didn’t believe him.

The trouble was that I wasn’t sure how many of his bluffs I could beat. Though it would be a terrible bet, I don’t even think it’s impossible that he’s just bluffing with a gutter that rivered a pair because he doesn’t want to check and face a bet (though maybe he’d use more of a blocking sizing for that). But if he got this far with Ace high, I think it’s plausible he fires like this. He sees flop with a LOT of combos of Ax so even if the chance of him playing it this way isn’t high, that still adds up to a fair number of combos.

I decided to jam the river for about 85K total to get him off of all of those “accidental value bets”. He groaned, which was a bad sign, because it meant that he thought he had the best hand when he bet, then reluctantly called with 8s 5s for a flush.

Again, I realize that this seems insane in a vacuum and is in fact legitimately not good, particularly with the last of my chips in a very soft tournament. However, I do think it’s an interesting case of considering all of the options on the table, even if that did lead to a bad decision in this case.

Playing $2/$5 NL. Effective stack $600. Villain is a woman in her mid-20s, has a pro-ey vibe to her. I don’t know that we’ve played together before but I see her around Maryland Live a lot. Don’t remember ever seeing her in bigger games even when they were going at MDL. She always has full buyin+ in front of her, often on phone, chummy with dealers, etc. I haven’t been at table long, don’t know what if anything she thinks of me.

She opens to $20 in HJ, I make it $65 with AA in the CO, folds back to her and she calls without much thought (took less than 10 seconds to consider action, including time while other players folded).

Flop ($130 in pot) Qc 9d 9h. She checks, I bet $65, she calls.

Turn ($260) Kd. She checks, I bet $125, she calls.

River ($510) Ks. She checks. $345 remain in effective stacks.

Y’all prefer checking or shoving?

PS: Apologies to Villain, if she sees this. I’m doing this from memory several days after the fact, so there’s a fair chance I’m messing up some moderately important detail such as a suit and a small chance I’m messing up a really significant detail (it’s happened before).

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

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.

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?

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!

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!

You can follow Ryan on Twitter and get more information about him and his coaching from his website. He recommends reading The Red Rising Triology.

Timestamps

0:30 hello
12:01 strategy
41:29 ryan laplante

Strategy

Full ring, $1-$2 NL. I have $350 in the BB and the main villain, on the button, has $600. Other two villains directly to my left are a mix of loose aggressive and loose passive with stacks of around $250.

I have 5h5c in the BB and main villain is OTB. UTG1 raises to $17, UTG2 calls, folds to main villain who calls. I call.

Flop ($69) Qs,5d,3s

Hero checks, UTG bets $25, UTG1 calls, BTN (main villain) raises to $50, I raise to $150, UTG 1 and 2 both fold. BTN calls.

Turn ($419) is 2d. We both check.

River ($419) is Jd. I check, Villain bets $110, I shove for $183, Villain calls.

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?

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

I wanted to share a hand with you from the third event that I played, which was a $700 Progressive Knock-Out. I tried looking at my biggest losses, but they were all-in pre-flop with KK and AK, so nothing too exciting there. Then I switched the column so that biggest wins would be at the top and momentarily confused myself because my biggest win was -80, a pot where I anted and folded. It turns out I didn’t win a single pot the entire tournament! In my defense, I did register quite late and walk into the aforementioned coolers.

Anyway, here’s one from the $200 Rebuy. It’s a good illustration of a common misunderstanding about slowplaying, that it’s somehow about “protecting your range” or some other tepid-sounding cliche that makes it sound like you’re sacrificing present value in the interest of some nebulous future gain.

In fact, playing certain strong hands in a way that’s consistent with how you’ll play weaker hands gives your opponent incentive both to bluff and to value bet thinly. If he acts on that incentive at an appropriate frequency, then you should do about as well as if you’d played your hand faster. And if he decides to go overboard, well…

PokerStars – $200+$15|700/1400 Ante 175 NL – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 20.7 BB (VPIP: 15.76, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 5.54, Hands: 761)
UTG: 98.11 BB (VPIP: 29.25, PFR: 20.57, 3Bet Preflop: 7.50, Hands: 215)
UTG+1: 66.5 BB (VPIP: 20.77, PFR: 16.97, 3Bet Preflop: 7.63, Hands: 574)
MP: 11.13 BB (VPIP: 28.53, PFR: 19.05, 3Bet Preflop: 13.86, Hands: 340)
MP+1: 8.74 BB (VPIP: 26.67, PFR: 22.89, 3Bet Preflop: 8.82, Hands: 90)
CO: 44.64 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 17.21, 3Bet Preflop: 9.62, Hands: 126)
BTN: 60.7 BB (VPIP: 19.35, PFR: 14.58, 3Bet Preflop: 8.63, Hands: 622)
Hero (SB): 19.4 BB

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

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has Ks Kh
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 0.5 BB, BB raises to 3 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Flop : (7 BB, 2 players) 7d 2h Kd
Hero checks, BB bets 2.89 BB, Hero calls 2.89 BB

Turn : (12.77 BB, 2 players) 6c
Hero checks, BB bets 5 BB, Hero calls 5 BB

River : (22.77 BB, 2 players) Ah
Hero checks, BB bets 9.69 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 8.39 BB and is all-in

BB shows Js 4h (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 12%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows Ks Kh (Three of a Kind, Kings)
(Pre 88%, Flop 100%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 39.55 BB

A lot of people worry about slowplaying in a spot like this because of the flush draw on the flop, but when ranges are sufficiently wide, that’s just not that big of a concern. It’s not like you have to fold a set in a low SPR spot just because a flush gets there, and plenty of times your opponent will be drawing stone dead and even a third diamond comes that might just give him more inducement to bluff.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello & Welcome
10:42 NLO8 Strategy

Hand 1

PokerStars – $300+$20|400/800 Ante 100 NL Hi/Lo (6 max) – Omaha Hi/Lo – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 24.38 BB
BB: 41.66 BB
UTG: 35.74 BB
MP: 48 BB
Hero (CO): 23.1 BB
BTN: 30.23 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 4c Kc As Ts
fold, MP raises to 2.19 BB, Hero calls 2.19 BB, fold, fold, BB calls 1.19 BB

Flop : (7.81 BB, 3 players) 3c 8h 6c
BB bets 3.9 BB, MP calls 3.9 BB, fold

Turn : (15.61 BB, 2 players) Jh
BB checks, MP bets 9 BB, BB calls 9 BB

River : (33.61 BB, 2 players) 4h
BB checks, MP bets 32.79 BB and is all-in, BB calls 26.45 BB and is all-in

MP shows Js Kh Ah 2s (High: Flush, Ace High, Low: 6432A)
(Pre 60%, Flop 36%, Turn 69%)

BB shows 2h 3s Ad 7c (High: One Pair, Threes, Low: 6432A)
(Pre 40%, Flop 64%, Turn 31%)

BB wins 21.63 BB
MP wins 64.88 BB

Hand 2

PokerStars – $300+$20|400/800 Ante 100 NL Hi/Lo (6 max) – Omaha Hi/Lo – 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 25 BB
CO: 42.04 BB
BTN: 32.37 BB
SB: 34 BB
Hero (BB): 37.72 BB

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

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.13 BB) Hero has 4s 6c Tc 3s
fold, fold, fold, SB raises to 2.38 BB, Hero calls 1.38 BB

Flop : (5.38 BB, 2 players) Ts 7c 6s
SB bets 3.25 BB, Hero calls 3.25 BB

Turn : (11.88 BB, 2 players) 9s
SB checks, Hero bets 3.56 BB, SB raises to 8.13 BB, Hero calls 4.56 BB

River : (28.13 BB, 2 players) 9h
SB bets 20.12 BB and is all-in, fold

SB wins 28.13 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!

The Game: $200 6-max WCOOP Event (Sunday Warm-Up Replacement). Blinds 1600/3200/400. Villain has 145K, Hero has 175K.

Reads/History: Assume each player knows the other to be a successful and experienced tournament player.

Decision Point 1: Villain open-limps As 6d in the small blind.

DP 2: Hero checks Qc Js in the big blind.

Flop (8800 in pot): Kc 8c 3s

DP3: Villain bets 3200.

DP4: Hero calls.

Turn (15200 in pot): Qd.

DP5: Villain bets 7750.

DP6: Hero calls.

River (30700 in pot): 9h

DP 7: Villain bets 22950.

DP8: Hero calls.

Leave a comment about any decision point(s) you find surprising or mistaken, and I’ll share my thoughts later in the week.

One additional note that may be helpful: try to think not just about whether Villain should bluff at all in these spots (he should) or whether Hero should ever call with less than the nuts (he should) but rather whether these specific hands are good for those purposes on each street.

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

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
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.

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?!

Edit: How did I forget to link Matt’s excellent blog? He writes a lot about poker and his life at thevoicewithin.me.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
6:49 – strategy
25:21 – matt berkey

Strategy

This hand is from a WSOPc Main Event and takes place at the 300/600/75 level. I have a stack of about 55,000 and Anthony Gregg covers me.

In this hand we are in the big blind We are holding the ace of spades 10 of diamonds. Anthony great opens with a raise to 1200 utg1 it folds back around to me and I decided to call.

The flop comes 4104 with two spades. I check, he bets 2000, I call.

The turn is the 6d. He bets 3300 and I call.

The river is the 7 of spades, for a final board of 410467. I bet 5500, and to my surprise he shoves!

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.

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

“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?

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?

In the meantime, please enjoy the next PLO8 strategy video from Nate and myself:

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!

// ]]>

The book is available from the Amazon Kindle Store or in EPUB, Kindle, and PDF formats at Nitcast.com.

Blinds are 50/100, Villain has about 20K (starting stack), and I have about 25K. Only six players (including both blinds) have claimed their seats so far. I have black Aces first to act and open to 300.

Villain calls from the SB, and everyone else folds.

Flop (700 in pot) Jc 8c 6h. Villain checks.

Turn (700 in pot) 6d. Villain bets 400. Hero?

I once again suspect that at equilibrium, the Expected Values of raising and calling will be quite similar for all of Hero’s strong hands. This is because these hands have relatively static value versus Villain’s likely betting range. If you have some exploitable read on Villain, you should employ it. In this case, I’d consider his river bluffing tendencies the most important read. Against overly passive opponents, raising now is probably best, and against overly aggressive ones, calling is probably best. Without such a read, though, it can be tough to tease out the best play, because it’s going to be a small difference, with good arguments on each side. Of course that also means that it won’t matter terribly much what you choose, but I nevertheless think that the exercise of finding the best option is both good practice and intrinsically interesting.

Several commenters argued the merits of calling versus raising in a vacuum quite well. It’s striking, though, that none of these arguments is really specific to the exact hand Hero holds. They would apply just as well to any hand Hero wants to play for value. Now, it’s certainly possible that one option might just be strictly better than the other for value, but I think that would imply some exploitability on Villain’s part, and I’d be more comfortable with such a solution if we could pinpoint what precisely it is we’re exploiting and why we feel comfortable with that read.

In cases like these, I find it helpful to imagine that I will call with some strong hands and raise with others. This enables me to rephrase the question, not as “Is calling strictly better than raising?” but rather, “Is there anything about my hand that would make it better than similar hands for calling or raising?”

Consider the arguments in favor of raising. Dave says, “If villain has a semi-bluff, he seems very likely to call a turn raise since hero could be bluffing and his hand could improve.” I agree that against Villain’s draws, raising is probably somewhat better than calling, as it more or less guarantees that we get a second bet into the pot (or fold out a good bit of equity), whereas on the river Villain may or may not bluff when he misses but will certainly put a bet in when he hits. However, the Ac in our hand significantly reduces the likelihood that Villain holds a draw.

Relatedly, Dave worries that “we have to guess at his bluffing frequency on a good number of draw-completing rivers”. That’s not quite true, though. The Ac is a very significant blocker, which means that bluff-catching with that card in your hand will be +EV even against an opponent with an optimal river bluffing frequency. We know the Ac is in our hand, but he doesn’t know that we know that. This means that on club rivers, we have an information advantage that can be exploited. Although these may not be the best river cards in the deck, they are cards on which Hero can in fact expect to put money into the pot with an edge.

Mark points out that, “Hands opponent is betting for value, particularly Jacks may be scared off by a lot of cards, such as possible flushes, straights, or overcards. This makes up a huge portion of the deck.” Here, again, we have significant blockers. Aces are not good cards for getting value from Jx, and the Ac would be especially bad. When we know that the river is less likely than usual to be an Ace, that becomes an argument in favor of calling with this hand and raising some different value hand, such as 7h 6h, which does not block so many scare card rivers.

As Mark points out, hands like 76 are also more desirable for raising than AA “as they block the portion of opponent’s range that are beating both AA and [trips with a bad kicker]”.

If the decision is otherwise close, we can break the tie by considering the relevance of the exact cards we hold. In this case, they argue for a call, which is what I did.

The next decision point is here.

For every $500 raised, I’m releasing a poker strategy video that’s at least an hour long (and knowing me, they’ll be longer – blame debate again for my motormouth!). Plus, every person who donates at least $10 will be entered in a drawing to win great prizes like a free custom video, a free month at Tournament Poker Edge, a free item from Nitcast.com, and more!

We’re over $1500 already, and I’m working to get these videos out as quickly as I can. The first one, where I basically berate Gareth Chantler for 90 minutes about his play in an Ante Up event, is available now!

Gamble Gamble

It worked out well that we were going to skip this week, because I was busy winning the $1000 Battle of the Bay tournament at Lucky Chances last night! This annual event is the premier tournament at what is now my local casino, so although I’ve been playing cash there exclusively, I decided to make an exception for this.

I played Day 1A on Saturday and got off to a very nice start but eventually lost most of my chips with QT vs 99 on a J9x flop. The guy min check-raised the flop, took about forty seconds to call my shove (nitroll, not slowroll), then bragged to the guy sitting next to him that he knew I would shove because I was too aggressive and that’s why he raised me.

A few hands later I shoved my last 4.5 BBs with 73o on the button. This one was debated a bit on Twitter, and I agree that it’s not a shove in a vacuum, but I crunched some numbers on SB/BB calling ranges and feel good about jamming any two there. I beat the BB’s K4s, and he muttered something about “nice catch”, to which I responded, “Is this your first time playing poker, sir?”

This is really out of character for me, and I’m ashamed to tell you about it. In my defense, I wasn’t feeling well, but I also think tournaments, especially live tournaments, bring this out in me. I’m trying to play fewer of them for that reason.

To paraphrase Tommy Angelo, the pleasure/pain ratio is all out of whack in a tournament. I can shrug off a loss of a couple thousand dollars at a $5/$10 game with literally no problem. I’m not just putting on a stoic front, it truly doesn’t affect me, at least not until it happens a few sessions in a row. But there’s something about a tournament, the “one-and-done” nature of it I think, encourages that kind of emotional investment that, at least in my opinion, is really undesirable.

The pleasure I get from playing cash, especially a deep-stacked cash game, is akin to the pleasure of solving a puzzle. I enjoy the challenge of trying to construct the perfect ranges for a given spot, there’s a much stronger correlation (though far from 1:1, of course) between the quality of my decisions and the outcome of a given hand or session, and during and after the experience I feel stimulated intellectually.

The appeal that tournaments hold for me has a lot more in common with gambling. There’s certainly nothing more exciting in poker than getting deep in a big tournament, but ultimately it feels like I’m just chasing a high when I play them. That said, there are some really high-value tournaments out there, too good to pass up, and this was one of them.

Sunday Funday

I was sorely tempted not to re-enter on Sunday. As I mentioned, I was (still am, in fact – staying up late last night didn’t help) under the weather, and the tournament started at 9:30 AM. On top of that, I really had not enjoyed my play on Saturday at all. Ten-handed poker with shallow effective stacks and small antes (e.g. 200/400/25) is almost entirely devoid of strategic depth. It’s mostly just a game of waiting for cards. That’s not to say there’s no edge there, just that the edge doesn’t come from anything interesting. I don’t find it stimulating, I find it annoying and boring, which of course undermines the patience that is paramount in such a structure.

So, I nearly didn’t return on Sunday. One of the factors that put me over the top was that I really wanted to meet Neil Blumenfield, who is apparently a regular at Lucky Chances tournaments though he and I have yet to cross paths in person. He wasn’t there on Saturday, so I figured he would surely play Sunday.

He didn’t, but I did, and first place was a fine consolation prize. I got off to a good start, winning some big pots in the first level and winning a big one with 55 vs AJ and 54 on a J54 flop. I eventually got involved in a three-way all in that ended with my KK losing to QQ, and then it was back to grinding a short stack for me.

For all my disparagement of short-stacked poker, it turns out there are some big edges to be had when your opponents aren’t accustomed or adapting properly to it. The thing about a flagship tournament like this is that it’s a major event for a lot of the people playing it. They either won a satellite or ponied up the $1000 as a one-time splurge, and they’re risk averse in a way that you simply can’t afford to be when you’re grinding a 20BB stack. This enabled me to pick up a few pots I had no business winning and stay afloat despite dry spells and bad beats/coolers.

Triple Barreling Off a 20BB Stack

The best example was towards the end of the day, when our table was eight-handed. Blinds must have been 1200/2400, and the player on my right open limped off of a stack of 55K or so. There was nothing suspicious about this – even at this late stage, plenty of people were limping. I made the questionable decision to limp behind with 8s 7s and 48K in the hijack. I’m still not sure this is good, but I believed I could get away with it because everyone was so passive with regard to raising pre-flop, and I expected a big post-flop edge to compensate for the times I would have to fold to a raise (and, of course, the fact that I was putting in 5% of my stack with 8-high and no chance of winning pre-flop).

The action folded to the SB, who completed. The BB checked, so four of us saw a Qh 7c 3h flop. When everyone checked to me, I bet 4500, about 1/3 of the pot. This was primarily a protection bet, though it was already in the back of my mind that it might also become the first leg of a three barrel bluff.

The small blind and the MP limper both called, and the turn brought an offsuit 9. They checked to me again. In a heads up pot, I would have considered checking and trying to show my hand down, but with two people calling there was little chance my 7 was good. It might sound ridiculous to talk about running someone off of top pair with 20 BB effective stacks, but it seemed very plausible to me at the time. That’s how scared everyone was playing. They were all terrified to slowplay with a flush draw on the board, so their calls could only indicate a lack of confidence or an extremely strong hand, to which my 7 was a significant blocker. I bet 11K, still a small fraction of the pot, but I wanted to be sure to leave myself a meaningful river bet. They both called.

The river was an off-suit A (I would have given up a heart). They both checked, I jammed my last 30K or so, and they both folded. And that’s how you triple barrel off of a 20 BB stack in a multi-way pot.

Another Cheap Steal

The other fun one from Day One began with me opening 22 from the CO. The button and SB called. I don’t remember the level, but there was about 26K in the pot on the flop, which came AJ5. We checked it around. The turn was a 4, and the SB bet 6K, hardly a show of confidence. I also thought it was quite unlikely that the button was slowplaying anything. Everyone had been playing so straight-forwardly that I expected to get way too much credit for a monster, simply because no one else in the tournament seemed willing to take a line like this as a bluff, so I raised to 22K, and they both quickly folded, the SB flashing KJ as he did so.

After that I was card- and spot- dead for the rest of the night and ended up squeaking into the money with 123K and blinds about to go to 5K/10K. That’s not as bad as it sounds, as the average was about 200K, and only 43 players remained, with 40 to be paid. Still, my aspirations for Day 2 were not much higher than surviving the bubble and collecting enough of a prize to cover train fare, meals, and my two buy-ins.

I wasn’t alone in this regard. Another player, who actually had far more chips than I did and ultimately bubbled the final table, opened the pot on one of the last hands of the night. After he won, his wife scolded him from the rail, “Don’t play anything until you’re in the money!”

Timestamps

0:30 – hello and welcome
15:08 – strategy

Strategy

Hand 1

30/60 Limit Hold ‘Em.

Hero opens K9o from the CO, BB calls.

Flop 884r. Check, bet, raise, call.

Turn 2r. Bet, call.

River J. Bet, call.

Hand 2

Seat 3: NateMeyvis (2336 in chips)
Seat 7: Villain (1416 in chips)
NateMeyvis: posts small blind 5
Villain: posts big blind 10
HOLE CARDS
Dealt to NateMeyvis [Td 8s]
NateMeyvis: raises 15 to 25
Villain: calls 15
FLOP [Kc Qh 5d]
Villain: checks
NateMeyvis: bets 32
Villain: calls 32
TURN [Kc Qh 5d] [Ac]
Villain: checks
NateMeyvis: bets 175
Villain said, “wtf?”
Villain: calls 175
RIVER [Kc Qh 5d Ac] [4d]
Villain: checks
NateMeyvis: checks

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 and Welcome
34:44 Main Event Strategy

Strategy

Hand 1

Blinds 800/1600/200 effective stack 80K
Hero opens to 3500 with Qd Jd in 3rd position, Button 3bets to 8500, Hero calls

Flop QT7 with one diamond.
Hero checks, Button bets 9500, Hero calls

Turn Ks. Hero checks, Button bets 11,500 into 40,200, Hero calls.

River 9s. Hero checks, Button shoves

Hand 2

Blinds 100/200 effective stack 30K.

Villain opens to 450, one call, Hero raises to 1300 with Jc 8c on the Button, Villain calls, other player folds.

Flop (3200) Ac Jh 7c. Villain checks, Hero bets 1500, Villain raises to 4000, Hero calls.

Turn (11K) 9d. Villain bets 5000, Hero calls.

Rivers (21,300) 8s. Villain bets 7000 into 21000.

Hand  3

Blinds 1K/2K/300 effective stacks 160K. Villain opens to 4K, Hero has QQ in the SB and raises 11K, V raises to 33K.

Pick up your copy today at www.nitcast.com (you’ll get PDF, EPUB, and Kindle versions) or in the Kindle Store (Kindle version only).

The comments from the pre-flop discussion that I found most interesting were from dullgeek and others who struggled with the problem of how to put money in good once there’s an Ace or King on the board. This is a central dilemma in poker: how do you get paid off when your hand is strong but somewhat obvious (that is, it’s easy to see that there’s an Ace on the flop, and anybody without one will be reluctant to put money in). Of course the same problem occurs when there’s a pair on the board, when you river a flush, etc.

I can think of three answers to this dilemma:

1. Cooler your opponent. If Villain holds KQ or KJ here, we should have no trouble getting the money in. I’m tempted to say there’s no real skill involved here, but that’s not entirely true. If you fail to recognize the strength of your hand and give Villain a chance to put his stack in when he’s coolered, then you’ve made a big mistake. For instance, if Hero checks back the turn and does not shove over a bet on most blank rivers, then you aren’t making the most of a spot where you’re on the right side of a cooler. For the most part, though, coolers are like bad beats: you’ll be on both sides of them over time, and they don’t add or subtract from your theoretical bottom line.

2. Opponent makes a bad call. Plenty of them do. Again the skill is simply in giving them the chance to put the money in. Whether they actually pay you off is beyond your control, but there is also a skill in expanding your value range against these opponents and taking maximum advantage of their errors. In this case we don’t have any read about Villain’s payoff tendencies.

3. Play big pots with a balanced range. This has the potential to pay off in two ways. Many opponents – even, perhaps especially, skilled ones – know or have learned that most people don’t bluff enough in certain spots. If you exhibit this same tendency, even opponents who don’t know you may correctly guess this and make tight folds that successfully exploit you. Correcting your bluffing frequency won’t necessarily help you win more from your big hands, but it will enable you to profit from your opponent’s tight folds without exposing yourself to risk of exploitation. If you’re known or suspected to be capable of playing better than the average bear, then your bluffs may actually be less profitable in this spot (though not money-losing, if you’re balanced) but you’ll win more with your strong hands, again provided that you’re willing to bet them.

That third point is an important one: except in spots where Hero is at a significant range disadvantage, his ability to value bet is limited only by his ability to find hands he’d like to bluff with. Many commenters’ assumption seems to be that because Hero will almost always have a pair on this turn (AK and KQ with a backdoor flush draw being among his weakest flop calls), he therefore can’t have many bluffs and can’t expect to get stacks in with AK.

Realize what you’re saying here, though: AK is extremely close to the top of Hero’s range, so if you aren’t playing this for stacks, you must assume that your opponent will very rarely be willing to put stacks in any hand in his range. With that much fold equity, turning your weakest pairs into bluffs starts to seem appealing. How much showdown value does 77 really have here, especially considering that it can still get bluffed out on the river if you check the turn?

I contend that Hero actually has quite a few hands that would like to bet the turn. The weakest, like 77, have near-zero showdown value. Stronger pairs still have something to gain from protection and may even be able to value bet. Is QQ really going to be behind if a half-pot bet goes in on the turn? And of course the strongest, certainly including AK, want to build a pot and set up a river shove.

Exploitively, if Villain’s range consists only of check-calls and check-folds, Hero may well do best by betting his full range for a small amount. Of course so much betting would give Villain incentive to check-raise both for value and as a bluff, and the equilibrium strategy likely entails a mix of betting and checking. Considering what an important hand AK is for Hero’s range and how static the board is, he’s probably indifferent between betting and checking at equilibrium, checking disproportionately often when he holds at least one heart.

Results

PokerStars – $665+$35|350/700 Ante 85 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 32.41 BB (VPIP: 21.28, PFR: 17.39, 3Bet Preflop: 15.79, Hands: 47)
UTG: 63.83 BB (VPIP: 25.09, PFR: 14.14, 3Bet Preflop: 5.60, Hands: 292)
UTG+1: 22.54 BB (VPIP: 19.23, PFR: 14.56, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 104)
MP: 56.87 BB (VPIP: 25.45, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 13.33, Hands: 56)
MP+1: 26.86 BB (VPIP: 19.21, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 152)
MP+2: 82.3 BB (VPIP: 17.82, PFR: 14.14, 3Bet Preflop: 4.44, Hands: 101)
CO: 25.66 BB (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 16.06, 3Bet Preflop: 13.33, Hands: 196)
Hero (BTN): 38.02 BB
SB: 25.48 BB (VPIP: 35.58, PFR: 28.62, 3Bet Preflop: 12.80, Hands: 348)

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

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.59 BB) Hero has Kd Ah
UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 2 BB, fold, fold

Flop : (6.59 BB, 2 players) 5c 4s 5h
UTG bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

Turn : (12.59 BB, 2 players) Kh
UTG checks, Hero bets 6.3 BB, UTG calls 6.3 BB

River : (25.18 BB, 2 players) 6h
UTG checks, Hero bets 26.6 BB and is all-in, UTG calls 26.6 BB

Hero shows Kd Ah (Two Pair, Kings and Fives)
(Pre 44%, Flop 26%, Turn 95%)

UTG shows Td Th (Two Pair, Tens and Fives)
(Pre 56%, Flop 74%, Turn 5%)

Hero wins 78.38 BB

This river is not quite a blank, but because the important decision about just how big of a pot to try to play is made on the turn, I didn’t think it was worth having a separate discussion about whether to shove the river. If you aren’t going to shove, you might as well check the turn.

This board is static enough that betting the geometric growth of the pot (in other words, the same fraction of the pot on the turn and river) may well be the equilibrium strategy. However, I decided that what I really wanted to do here was bet my full range on the turn, on the assumption that Villain has a more-or-less pure bluff-catching range after his turn check, and then check back the river with hands like JJ or TT that bet for protection/thin value on the turn. Thus, my river range will be much more polarized and therefore make a larger bet than my turn range.

I don’t know what exactly to say about Villain’s call. It’s the sort of hand that should be indifferent at equilibrium. It’s possible that he flipped a coin before calling, and it’s possible that he would have called me with his entire turn range. Against the latter sort of player, you cost yourself a lot by not getting stacks in here.

Either way, the lesson is that you have to give your opponent a chance to pay you off when you have the top of your range. Before you decide that you can’t play for stacks, consider the implications of that assumption for your bluffing strategy. Many players end up missing profitable bluffs because they never ask, “What should my bluffing range look like here?” This mistake can also cause you to miss profitable value bets.

Strategy

Hand 1

2-4 PLO8 on Bovada. 4-handed.

I open to $12 with (AT)J7–I’m using Bill Chen’s notation where suited cards go in parentheses.

Only the BB calls. He’s playing $200ish, and I cover.

Flop KQ8 rainbow. BB checks; I bet half the pot ($13).

Turn pairs the 8 and puts up a flush draw (I have the 7 of the suit). BB checks.

Hand 2

1-2 NLHE 6max on Bovada. I have 220.98 (after posting BB). Folds to button who raises to $6. SB Calls
I raise to $24 (pot) with AA. Button calls

Flop ($54 in pot) Jh Qd 8s
I bet $54 and the button jams and covers me. So $307 in the pot and I have 145 giving me almost exactly 2:1.

Hand 3

PokerStars – $1000+$50|8000/16000 Ante 2000 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 61.6 BB (VPIP: 26.46, PFR: 18.59, 3Bet Preflop: 11.72, Hands: 359)
CO: 60.1 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 27.50, 3Bet Preflop: 15.38, Hands: 40)
BTN: 90.5 BB (VPIP: 19.22, PFR: 15.56, 3Bet Preflop: 6.07, Hands: 591)
SB: 61.46 BB (VPIP: 19.31, PFR: 15.97, 3Bet Preflop: 10.32, Hands: 295)
Hero (BB): 63.17 BB

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

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.13 BB) Hero has 9c Jc
UTG raises to 2.19 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.19 BB

Flop : (5.51 BB, 2 players) Jd 3c Ks
Hero checks, UTG bets 2.41 BB, Hero calls 2.41 BB

Turn : (10.33 BB, 2 players) Ac
Hero checks, UTG checks

River : (10.33 BB, 2 players) 7s
Hero checks, UTG bets 4.65 BB, Hero?

In a recent $5/$10/$20 session, I made quite a few of what might be considered “moves” or “fancy plays”. I called turn and river bets with Ace-high. I floated the flop with bottom pair and bluff-raised the turn. I turned a set into a bluff on the river. I four-bet someone with a 5 in my hand and was prepared to six-bet shove, had my opponent raised back.

Although I got the result I wanted in all but one of these spots, I’m not bragging. These plays were not the result of any “sick reads”. I was not especially in the zone that night, nor was I suffering from Fancy Play Syndrome. In fact, these plays are all part of what I consider ABC poker – the way I play when I don’t have a laser-sharp read on my opponent’s hand or what he’s going to do with it.

It seems to be a common belief that big bluffs and heroic calls require reads or other special justification, such as having a certain image or being stuck. Game theory suggests otherwise.

This is from the $700 NLHE 1R1A WCOOP event. Blinds are 350/700/85. It’s well after the rebuy period but not particularly close to the bubble. Table is on the tough side, featuring many regs/pros, most notably Eugene Katchalov on my immediate left.

UTG is a regular tournament player. I have him at 25/14 over 300 hands, with a 64% continuation bet.

PokerStars – $665+$35|350/700 Ante 85 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 32.41 BB (VPIP: 21.28, PFR: 17.39, 3Bet Preflop: 15.79, Hands: 47)
UTG: 63.83 BB (VPIP: 25.09, PFR: 14.14, 3Bet Preflop: 5.60, Hands: 292)
UTG+1: 22.54 BB (VPIP: 19.23, PFR: 14.56, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 104)
MP: 56.87 BB (VPIP: 25.45, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 13.33, Hands: 56)
MP+1: 26.86 BB (VPIP: 19.21, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 152)
MP+2: 82.3 BB (VPIP: 17.82, PFR: 14.14, 3Bet Preflop: 4.44, Hands: 101)
CO: 25.66 BB (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 16.06, 3Bet Preflop: 13.33, Hands: 196)
Hero (BTN): 38.02 BB
SB: 25.48 BB (VPIP: 35.58, PFR: 28.62, 3Bet Preflop: 12.80, Hands: 348)

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

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.59 BB) Hero has Kd Ah
UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 2 BB, fold, fold

Flop : (6.59 BB, 2 players) 5c 4s 5h
UTG bets 3 BB, Hero?

Post your preferred play here, and I’ll participate in the comments as I’m able and post results later this week. Be sure to consider your entire range as well as future action when deciding how to proceed!

Don’t forget to watch my guest Twitching on Carlos’ stream today at 4PM eastern! I’ll be playing the Big $162 and something fun on the side, probably PLO8 or Courchevel. The best place to watch is at http://www.multitwitch.tv/thinkingpokerandrew/carloswelch, though you should also subscribe to Carlos’ stream (even if you have no intention of watching, it will help his numbers!).

Timestamps

0:30  Hello and welcome
14:24  Strategy

Flop ($118 in pot after rake) 7h 6d 3s. Action checks to Hero. Hero checks. HJ and Button check. For discussion of the flop action, see this post.

Turn ($118 in pot) 7h 6d 3s 3d. Action checks to Hero. Hero bets $80. HJ and Button fold. SB calls. For discussion of the turn action, see this post.

River ($278 in pot) 5c. SB checks. Hero?

Post your thoughts and reasoning here, and I’ll post my own thoughts and results when WCOOP permits. Remember, if you bet, be sure to discuss sizing and your plan if raised.

Flop ($118 in pot after rake) 7h 6d 3s. Action checks to Hero. Hero checks. Button checks. For discussion of the flop action, see this post.

Turn ($118 in pot) 7h 6d 3s 3d. Action checks to Hero. What’s your play and why?

We’ll discuss it in the comments, and I’ll post my thoughts and action later this week (I fly to Montreal tomorrow, so I may not post until Friday).

Hero is UTG+2 with a $2500 stack, and most of the table covers. Action folds to Hero, who opens to $30 with 8s 7s. The hijack, button, and SB call.  For discussion of the preflop action, see this post.

Flop ($118 in pot after rake) 7h 6d 3s. Action checks to Hero. Now what?

Bet, Check, or Both

Most commenters prefer betting, and I agree that that play has obvious appeal. Hero’s hand has a fair chance of being best, but it’s vulnerable and will be difficult to play on later streets.

The value in betting comes primarily from protection. No one seems to think that better hands will fold to a bet, nor does anyone think Hero will have positive expected value when called. There are worse hands that can call, but most have decent to good equity and may successfully bluff on later streets, and there are certainly better hands out there as well. Hero is relatively live against overpairs, not so much against better top pairs, two-pair, sets, or straights.

One quite interesting thing I’ve learned from working with GTO Range Builder is that, at least in heads up pots, very few hands in either player’s range are played with pure strategies at equilibrium. Sometimes there are hands so weak that they categorically prefer folding or hands so strong that they categorically prefer betting, but most hands in the pre-flop raiser’s range are played with a mix of betting and checking. There are good reasons why Hero is incentivized to have top pair and backdoor draws in his checking range.

There are caveats here. There likely is not an optimal equilbrium in a multiway pot, and concerns about hand protection are magnified (then again, concerns about value-cutting oneself are magnified as well). Nevertheless, betting seems thin enough to me that I think checking is worth considering as well. It should certainly have positive expected value, and I don’t think it would take much to be competitive with betting.

In my experience, most players are way too concerned about making sure they win the pot. Protection is a real consideration here, but it’s not the only consideration. The fact that your hand is vulnerable is not, in and of itself, sufficient reason to bet. There are worse things in poker, especially in a deep stacked cash game, than getting drawn out on.

So What?

OK, so checking might be just as good as betting. It’s probably not a lot better, if it’s better at all. If Hero really is indifferent between betting and checking, what’s wrong with just always betting?

Will Tipton addresses this question in Expert Heads Up NLHE, where he determines that the optimal strategy in many heads up spots involves continuation betting at a much lower frequency that what is commonly seen even in matches between two very good players. His conclusion is that, because Hero is indifferent between betting and checking so many hands at equilibrium, he does not lose money in spots where he bets at a very high frequency. He does, however, open himself up to exploitation when he checks a very narrow and defined range in these same spots. The weakness manifests itself not in the betting range but in the checking range.

Basically, if your opponents expect you to always bet a certain type of hand, that gives you a lot of incentive to check it. There may be some bad turn spots for you, but there should also be some very good ones. If, for instance, a 7 turns and no one expects Hero to have a 7, the implied odds can be quite high.

My suspicion is that many of you almost never check this spot with top pair or better, which makes your checks quite easy to play against and means you may well be leaving money on the table by not taking advantage of profitable situations that arise after checking.

If you accept that you should have a checking range, 8s 7s seems like a logical hand to include. It benefits less from protection than does 88 or 99, and it probably fares less well when called than does A7 (assuming 7x is in people’s ranges, but I think at least for some players hands like T7s and 97s should be out there). There are not as many bad turns as it may seem: 9s and below are all safe-to-good (with the exception of a 6), and spades are all fine as well.

Sizing

More important than the frequency with which you bet is the size of your bet. The bigger you bet, the more polarized you should be. I think it’s quite likely that betting 3/4 pot or more with 7s 6s is -EV, at least relative to checking. A smaller bet can more easily accommodate a merged range that includes hands like 7s 6s that mostly benefit from protection. Hero’s range advantage along with the multiway pot means that even facing a half-pot bet, there really isn’t room for people to get too tricky by floating/raising with bare overcards or something like that.

If you’re going to bet a merged range here, it’s not a disaster, but you absolutely should not be near-potting it. Unfortunately, many people seem to have the opposite idea that betting for protection requires betting big, because you want folds. In fact, the hands you are targeting for folds will probably fold to a small bet anyway, and you should also want to avoid putting in a lot of money against a range you’re behind.

Results and next decision point coming in the next post…

Flop ($118 in pot after rake) 7h 6d 3s. Action checks to Hero. What’s your play and why? Try to think about how you would play various parts of your range on this flop. What would your betting and checking ranges look like? If you bet, what are you hoping will happen? If you check, what are you hoping will happen?

We’ll discuss it in the comments, and I’ll post my thoughts and action tomorrow.

Pre-Flop

I’m increasingly convinced that this is a fold after all. A very rough estimate is that I have about 15% equity against the Villains’ ranges and need to realize about 80% of that to make money on the call. The fact that I got a well-above-average flop and still can’t find an especially profitable option is telling, as is the fact, pointed out by many, that even if my hand improves the implied odds are not that great.

Results

I’ll start with the results, because my own play is one of the lines I want to consider and dismiss. I raised to $600, Villain 1 called, and Villain 2 folded. The turn was an off-suit J, and we both checked. The river was an offsuit 9, and while I considered shoving, I decided not to do so for exploitive reasons. Villain 1 checked behind and won with QQ.

Bomb the Flop?

While my in-game thought process was admittedly sloppy, I don’t think that, “Someone clearly has top pair or better and they’ve see you bluff before, so don’t ever raise without a set” is the best way to approach the problem either. We’re quite deep, and even for the looser UTG1 player, putting in eleven times the pot with one pair when five people saw the flop is not going to be an automatic decision. If I’m going to raise sets/two pair here, then I should have a bluffing range as well.

It doesn’t necessarily follow that this hand belongs in that range, though. As Jeff G. astutely points out, “Given that hero is calling with 7h2h preflop, I think it’s a safe assumption that hero has every combo of set(9 combos), suited two pair(7), and flush draw(55!! minus any combos we 3bet pre, if any) in his range. So we definitely want to have a check/raise range in this spot however we can easily go overboard if we’re not selective in which draws to use to balance our value hands.”

He argues for using nut flush draws for this purpose, and I think that’s partially right. As deep as we are, nut draws are disproportionately valuable, and the Ace will frequently be live. However, it does block some of the weaker hands in UTG’s range, such as AK and AQ, that he might c-bet even for this sizing into this many people. Getting a fold from him on the flop is one of the best case scenarios, so blocking his most obvious folding hands isn’t great.

You also don’t want your bluffing range to be too dependent on a single card (the Ah, in this case), because a blocker-conscious opponent can use that information to his advantage. In other words, some players are actually savvy enough to call down more often with black Aces than with red Aces because the red Aces block some likely bluffing hands. So, I think there’s a case for raising at least some non-nut draws.

Other good candidates will be gutshots, both with and without flush draws. You have to be especially careful not to go overboard with the bare gutshots, but it’s important to look ahead to the scenario where Hero check-raises and a heart peals off. Many of you correctly anticipate that it will be hard to get paid with a low flush in this scenario, and the corollary to that is that you want to give yourself some bluffs in that scenario, as Matt argues in his very good comment. If your flop raising range is only flush draws and two-pair or better, then what’s your bluffing range on the Qh turn?

The bottom line is that although this is a good spot to raise some big draws, the fact that none of my outs are nutted makes this an unideal candidate for inviting such a large pot, and I have better bluffing candidates. So I want to at least rule out the play that I made, which was raising to $600, as a good option.

Fold the Flop?

Matt also says, “I don’t think folding right away is an option. Running some equities, I think we can expect to have in the neighborhood of 28% equity against both ranges; so although we should expect both Vs to be quite strong I think we most likely have enough immediate equity to continue.”

Chris C, however, argues that, “if we’re calling then we’re calling to improve to the best hand (since I don’t think bluffing is likely to be profitable here). But the strong ranges of the villains (each of which contains sets and lots of better flush draws, all of which leave us in terrible shape) means that we often *can’t* catch up to the better hand, and that we can never be confident about it even when we do. If we end up playing a big pot then we likely lose, and if we hit but then try and keep the pot as small as possible – well, that doesn’t seem too good either.”

I’m on Matt’s side, and I think Chris is conflating some disparate scenarios. Even if Hero has difficulty putting in stacks or even two big bets as a favorite on favorable turns, he should very profitably be able to put in one. That is, if a heart turns, check-calling one bet should be profitable, and calling a second might be a more-or-less neutral-EV proposition (which also means I won’t often face the second – it’s not common that 7h 2h is behind on a heart turn). If the turn is a heart and there is no bet, I can confidently value bet the river.

The prospects are even more favorable on 7 and 2 turns. I can confidently call at least one and often two bets on these turns, can bet the river if the turn checks around, etc. Because of the good immediate odds I’m getting, I don’t need hefty implied odds when I improve. I just need to have the best hand most of the time, which I will. In that case, either I won’t often end up playing a big pot, or I’ll often be ahead when I play a big pot. It can’t be the case that I’ll routinely face multiple big bets after improving my hand and also not be able to call those bets profitably – it just isn’t that easy to be ahead of 72 on a J622 board.

I think there’s a strong case for calling, but there’s one other interesting line that one of you hinted at but no one suggested (nor did it occur to me at the time).

Small Raise?

A big part of the reason why I don’t like bombing the flop is that it sets up an easy and obvious strategy for an opponent holding an overpair or a Jack, which is to call the raise, fold if a heart comes, and call down otherwise. I was somewhat lucky that the turn was a scary enough card for my opponent that he gave me a free river, because I don’t think I could have profitably bet or check-called any turn that didn’t improve my hand. That’s in part because, given how low the SPR was at that point, most players facing a turn bet from a draw-heavy range will correctly shove rather than call if they continue to a bet.

Raising a small amount on the flop in order to deter a turn raise and give me room for a meaningful river shove is an interesting idea, though. Also, as James points out, “Both players calling your raise doesn’t change your equity in the hand (let’s say it’s 40% in the 3-way pot) vs you just calling.” I don’t think this was the point he was getting at, but in fact raising and getting called in two spots is better for me than just calling – I am 40% to win and getting 2:1 on my money. This is the kind of spot that an experienced limit player would probably recognize more quickly, because it’s common to raise hands with less than 50% equity in multiway pots in those games, but it comes up far less often in NLHE. Here, though, if I can’t fold out both players, my next preference is to fold neither. The result I got, and the one I think I’ll commonly get, was the worst.

Leo suggests raising “to something like $420…. The plan is to barrel off here on bricks, targeting overpairs, top pairs, and better flush draws that have paired up.” That would have been an interesting option, and I wish I’d considered it. Maybe next time!

Thanks again everyone.

Before you ask, Chad is not taking staking applications at this time. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook though.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello and welcome
12:16 – Strategy
46:33 – Interview

Strategy

Main V opens for 12 in EP (1100 eff). CO (350) calls. Hero flats with 3c 4c on the button.

Flop (37) Q42r with one club. EP bets 25, CO calls, Hero calls.

Turn (112) 6c. EP bets 60. CO folds, Hero raises to 165, EP calls.

River (442) 9d. EP checks, Hero bets $330

Villain 2 is loose, especially in small pots. He’s definitely too stubborn post-flop, but that doesn’t mean he shovels three hundred blinds into the pot every time he makes top pair.

Both players have seen me show down some big bluffs, but both have also expressed regret about hands where they’ve stacked off to me as well.

Villain 1 opens $35 UTG, Villain 2 calls UTG1, there are two more calls, and I call 7h 2h in the BB. Just to pre-empt some questions, this isn’t a trivial pre-flop call, and it’s fine to fold here if you aren’t particularly confident in your post-flop game, but it’s a call I’m comfortable making.

Flop ($168 in pot) Jh 6h 2s. I check, Villain 1 bets $135, Villain 2 calls, the other two players fold, and the action is on me.

What’s your play and why? Leave your thoughts and preferred play here, and I’ll do my best to respond throughout the week and post results on Thursday. If you don’t fold, be sure to consider your play on future streets as well, especially if your hand does not improve.

Neil talks to us about this dubious honor as well as the other challenges facing him as an amateur, albeit a serious and accomplished one, among professionals.

You can root for Neil in November when ESPN airs the final table of the WSOP Main Event. If you’re in San Francisco, check out his girlfriend’s store.

Our strategy hand comes to us from the author of A Main Event Rookie Lives the Dream.

Timestamps

:30 – hello and welcome
12:40 – strat
54:30 – interview

Strategy

Blinds 2000/4000/300. UTG2 (80K) limps. Hero has JJ in the HJ and raises to 12,000. BB calls and the limper folds.

Flop (34.5K in pot) Q-6-8r. BB checks, Hero bets 20K, BB calls.

Turn (75K in pot) Q86Jr. BB checks, Hero bets 65K, BB calls.

River (205K)  Q-6-8-J-10. BB shoves 70K.

You can follow Jamie on Twitter at @jamiekerstetter, and on Twitch at http://www.twitch.tv/jamiekerstetter. If you’re in New Jersey, you can play with her on Party Poker. Watch her videos on Tournament Poker Edge! You can read Barry Hutter’s comments about female players here. And most importantly, be nice to each other!

Timestamps

0:30 Hello and welcome
7:35 Strategy: A PLO hand
33:00 Interview: Jamie Kerstetter

Strategy

$5/$5 PLO home game w $10 button straddle, I have $1350 (all villains cover), I oeld AcKc8h7h on the button (&straddle). Both blinds call, good aggressive player raises to $50 UTG, 2 players call, I call, blinds fold.

Pot is $210. Flop is Jc9c4h. UTG bets $200, one of the two interim players calls, I call.

Turn is 6h. UTG bets $400. Interim player fold. I call.

River is the Kd. UTG bets $800. I fold.

Q: Hero raises from late position with Q9s and is called by the button. The flop is Q72r. Being out of position with a one-pair hand, shouldn’t I frontload my value? Sure, top pair is a good hand now, but the board will get scary later, and it will get harder to get paid off. I can see check-calling hands like JJ, but Q9 seems good enough to value bet. Basically you’re saying its important to put hands like top pair  (sets/2pair for balance) in our check/call range so that we can strengthen our check/call range as we will be folding too much to 2-3 barrels. Basically it allows us to get to showdown for cheaper with our marginal hand if we’re capable of taking the same line with our monsters/marginal hands? If Villain knows we’re capable of check/calling with monsters, they won’t bluff as much.

A: It’s not just that it protects some other part of your range. The point is that if you have a lot of hands that can’t stand up to multiple barrels after you check, your opponent has a lot of incentive to bluff into your checks. Thus, checking and calling with Q9 may be at least as profitable, if not moreso, than betting it.

With a stronger Q, this is less true, because when you check KQ you may miss value from QT or QJ. Because you have so many stronger hands in your betting range, though, Villain doesn’t have a lot of incentive to call you down with lots of hands weaker than Q9. Thus, betting Q9 for value across multiple streets isn’t going to be super-profitable.

In truth, because this is presumably one of the weakest Qx you could have, you shouldn’t really have a lot in the way of implied odds regardless of how you play it. In other words, your EV on this flop probably isn’t much greater than your equity, regardless of the line you take.

For more discussion of range construction, be sure to check out this week’s strategy segment on the podcast!

You can follow Julie Annie on Twitter @LuckyJadeJules.

Thanks to PokerWomenNews for suggesting this guest. If you enjoy our interview with Julie Anna, be sure to check out theirs.

Timestamps

:30 – hello
20:55 – strat
45:42 – interview

Strategy

Hero: 89.00 Villain: 86.00, Effective Stacks 170bb

Folds to Villain on BTN

Villain (BTN) raises to 1.50
Hero (sb) 3 bets to 5.50 with Jc10c
BB Folds
BTN calls

Flop: 2c7h8c pot: 11.50

Hero bets 5.75
Villain calls

Turn comes 9s, board is 2c7h8c9s pot: 23
Hero bets 11.50
Villain calls

River comes 9h board is 2c7h8c9s9h pot 46
about 65 behind

Hero bets 19.50
Villain shoves 65

This is level 2 (150 – 300) and I ran the starting stack of 15k up to 28k. A player from middle position had 1 limper ahead of him and opened to 750. He just got to the table and has not played an orbit yet. This was his first hand. One person called and I called from the button holding 7h8d. The blinds call and so does the original limper. 6 players to the flop! Seeing 4+ people take the flop was the norm so far at this table. (BTW I’ve discussed this with a couple friends and they both said that it’s likely that 78off is not profitable even with stacks this deep and even knowing the table dynamic… Is this a situation that I should be passing up on often because I don’t often do it this early?)

The flop comes J 10 3 rainbow. Checks over to the original raiser and he bets 800. Folds to me on the button and I look to my left and the two people in the blinds have no interest in this pot. I know that this is a weak attempt at a cbet and he’s not comfortable at all with his hand displaying classic signs of weakness. The strongest he could be a hand like A10 or an under pair to the board or he whiffed with something like AQ and KQ also crossed my mind. I just tried to rip the pot away from him so I raised to 2200 and it folds back to him. He painfully calls and it’s heads up. The turn is a 7 so I’m paired up! No back door flush draws came in. He checks and I cut out 3500 (should I be betting more to get this guy off his hand?). The river comes a 9. His mood quickly changed and he bets out 3500 making sure that he used the exact same chips I used. I want to fold. KQ came but I convinced myself he could easily be doing this with 10 9 or J 9 and I figured that the pot was too big to fold with the worst straight so I did end up calling and he indeed turned over the KQ.

Any critique would be highly appreciated!

A: First off, pre-flop can’t be too bad, as you have a remotely playable hand plus the button with reasonably deep stacks and a lot of people in the pot, but I agree that it’s probably a fold.

The books mentioned on the show are Poetic Meter & Poetic Form, How to Rap, and Decoded. Alex contributed a chapter to Excelling at No-Limit Hold ‘Em.