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Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by FoxwoodsFiend (Mid Stakes)

This is a bit of a disappointment. I'm sure we can get discussion going on about the hands, but I don't know what extra value this video brings. (Other than perhaps seeing how his skills develop.) It also seems a bit pointless to mention any obvious mistakes he might have made, because one could just as easily comment something like "read it from Stox's book." And it's not like my comments on his possible errors are going to add some extra value to those of DeathDonkey will make, and even if they did, why should I be coaching him? ;-)

(It does show how difficult it is to make commentary during hands, but that's what we've come to appreciate with DD, Entity, JT, Oink and others.)

I'm also not impending doom or whatever. I'm just saying that, at least from the look of it, this video is kinda useless.

This is a bit of a disappointment. I'm sure we can get discussion going on about the hands, but I don't know what extra value this video brings. (Other than perhaps seeing how his skills develop.) It also seems a bit pointless to mention any obvious mistakes he might have made, because one could just as easily comment something like "read it from Stox's book." And it's not like my comments on his possible errors are going to add some extra value to those of DeathDonkey will make, and even if they did, why should I be coaching him? ;-)

(It does show how difficult it is to make commentary during hands, but that's what we've come to appreciate with DD, Entity, JT, Oink and others.)

I'm also not impending doom or whatever. I'm just saying that, at least from the look of it, this video is kinda useless.

It's probably easier for me to judge having seen the entire series (and seeing the series concept a bit more), but I think this video was a bit more of an introduction to one of the series contributors and to get, I suppose, a bit more acquainted with how he plays and thinks to see the sort of adjustments DD makes and comments about when coaching him. I do really pretty strongly feel that coming off dogmatically saying the video is "useless" is a pretty strong stance to take about any video, as it basically states that there is a right way or a wrong way to learn and also shows quite a bit of impatience.

It's quite possible that you personally don't see much that you can learn about LHE here, and I suppose that feeling is valid, but I've always learned a lot by comparing and contrasting different games, attitudes, and discussions about poker, and while I certainly wouldn't say that this sort of video is going to be a mindblower to you or anyone, I'm a bit disappointed to see such a dismissive attitude.

Of course, I take a different approach to learning about the game so I might feel a lot more strongly about this -- but I'm firmly of the belief that I improved my river game in Hold'em more than anything else by talking about late-street Stud play, and I improved my preflop play a ton by thinking about 3rd and 4th in split pot games. When I see someone make a mistake in limit I try not to think "oh, that's dumb" but moreso "why did they do that," and even moreso when I see a no limit player making a mistake, I think about the fundamental differences in late street play between the two games and mentally compare and contrast.

Like I said, it's going to be a big overstatement for me to say that this video is going to be (or is meant to be) groundbreaking. It's early in the series and it's your chance to get to know FoxwoodsFiend and the way he plays, the types of mistakes he makes, etc. But there's a lot of value that I do think you're missing and part of me feels pretty strongly based on the tone that you wrote it that you came into this thinking that you weren't going to get anything out of it -- and I have to be honest, I think if you come in with opinion, you really won't surprise yourself with what you get out.

Ok. Enough from me. I'll let DD and FWF elaborate if they want, but I just had to step in to reinforce that we are not a video site; we're an education site. One of my best teachers taught me, way back when, that I learn the most when I teach, and I realized later that I learn even more when I think about teaching. Hopefully these words don't fall on deaf ears.

Rob

It also seems a bit pointless to mention any obvious mistakes he might have made,

Sorry, I really need to post one more time. This statement really irks me: it says that you either know it all, you think everyone else knows it all, or for some other reason you just don't want to comment on the video.

One could comment with something like "read it in Stox's book." And, you know, they might be right. But it stil might be worth talking about. He bets the turn in the sample with TT on an A55x board into two opponents. Is that worth talking about?

I know we're going to be dealing with some comments that want the videos to be like they always were, but I think there's a ton of value in discussing everything almost to death (just wait till you see the next video from Josh's NL series, where we talk about 3 hands for 50 minutes -- but realize that we took over 45 minutes out of the discussion because we realized that I was asking too many "what if" questions and it was getting wayyyyyy too boring).

That's why I respond to all the posts here that I can. Even when a point is beaten to death, sometimes there's another bit of information, or another way someone phrases something, that will make something click for someone out there -- and I think that's worth a ton in and of itself. And really, you never know when that moment will happen for you. It still happens to me, and I love the feeling, and really it's why I still post as much as I do (both here and at 2p2). That brief moment of "wow" is worth all of the work you do to get to it.

Anyway I'm really ripping at this more than I want to here. I feel very very passionate about the value of everything that we're bringing to the table with these series and I have pretty obviously strong feelings about not passing too much judgment on any individual piece of material, because that's really not how we want them to be seen.

I really do understand that you guys got used to great standalone videos from me, DD, Joe, and Oink, and you're still going to be getting those, but series like this can have a lot of value if you are willing to work at it from lots of angles and not just wait for information to be thrown at you.

K. End lecture mode. I think the inner education major just came out in me and I'm pretty nitty about attitudes when it comes to learning.

Rob

I do really pretty strongly feel that coming off dogmatically saying the video is "useless" is a pretty strong stance to take about any video, as it basically states that there is a right way or a wrong way to learn and also shows quite a bit of impatience.

My comment came off a bit too strong, apologies for that, but I still stand on what I said. A video like this isn't useless per se, but it's pretty useless, in my opinion, compared to the first one. What I meant that I think that having Ariel's commentary here doesn't bring much extra value. Of course, there are spots where he made the right choice, in my opinion, but was not sure about the decision and I can try and give my reasoning for that, but I don't feel like it's that useful.

I strongy feel that I took just the approach of active and open learning with the first video. I turned off the sound and thought through the hands. I thought how I would have played and gave my reasoning. (Unfortunately I just don't have too much free time so I had to stop at around half of the video.) So I definitely don't feel like I'm all too impatient with learning. In fact, it's mostly deuces cracked that has opened my eyes to learning limit hold'em in a more active way.

Of course, I take a different approach to learning about the game so I might feel a lot more strongly about this --

This might be true, but I think that it's rather a strong assertion based on my first comment on the video. Maybe I did come off way too dismissive, and didn't give enough context for the comment, but this honestly sounds to me like a "you're doing it wrong" type of comment, which I feel I don't completely agree.

But there's a lot of value that I do think you're missing and part of me feels pretty strongly based on the tone that you wrote it that you came into this thinking that you weren't going to get anything out of it -- and I have to be honest, I think if you come in with opinion, you really won't surprise yourself with what you get out.

Well, I don't think that "I can't get anything out of it," I was mainly talking about the extra value that Ariel's commentary brings. Surely it's good to understand the way he thinks and feels about hands and surely there will be a continuity in this series. It's not that.

One of my best teachers taught me, way back when, that I learn the most when I teach, and I realized later that I learn even more when I think about teaching. Hopefully these words don't fall on deaf ears.

I certainly agree with this. I hope you didn't take that conclusion from my half-jokingly made comment about not yearning to teach Ariel specifically.

Sorry, I really need to post one more time. This statement really irks me: it says that you either know it all, you think everyone else knows it all, or for some other reason you just don't want to comment on the video.

By obvious mistakes I mean like 3-betting with K3o or cold-calling with Q9o. I think there won't be many of those in this video though, so it kinda makes my comment a bit useless in this context. But there is a class of mistakes in limit hold'em that are just obvious and that can be weeded out by reading a book or two. Say I'm commenting on a video on Finnish forum and I see the player cold-calling with A5o or something. It's not like I'm going to go through every single of these mistakes and mention them explicitly, but rather say something like these concepts are explained well in such-and-such book.

One could comment with something like "read it in Stox's book." And, you know, they might be right. But it stil might be worth talking about. He bets the turn in the sample with TT on an A55x board into two opponents. Is that worth talking about?

Like I said in the comment, I'm sure we can get discussion going on about the hands and it definitely will be useful.

I know we're going to be dealing with some comments that want the videos to be like they always were,

I hope you're not referring to my comment, because that's not what I implied. I probably said it wrong.

Anyway I'm really ripping at this more than I want to here. I feel very very passionate about the value of everything that we're bringing to the table with these series and I have pretty obviously strong feelings about not passing too much judgment on any individual piece of material, because that's really not how we want them to be seen.

That's good, but do you also feel that you are as open-minded as you can about any possible comments you get? I really feel that you're jumping into conclusions here and taking a rather arrogant stance.

I really do understand that you guys got used to great standalone videos from me, DD, Joe, and Oink, and you're still going to be getting those, but series like this can have a lot of value if you are willing to work at it from lots of angles and not just wait for information to be thrown at you.

Whenever I had the time and opportunity with the standalone videos, I certainly not wanted "to be thrown information at."

That's why I respond to all the posts here that I can. Even when a point is beaten to death, sometimes there's another bit of information, or another way someone phrases something, that will make something click for someone out there -- and I think that's worth a ton in and of itself. And really, you never know when that moment will happen for you. It still happens to me, and I love the feeling, and really it's why I still post as much as I do (both here and at 2p2). That brief moment of "wow" is worth all of the work you do to get to it.

So you're just flat-out concluding that this isn't my goal?

Because that feeling you describe it's just what I feel I've had with hand analysis in recent months. Just thinking and analyzing through seemingly simple and obvious situations and sometimes gaining surprising insights and usually at least re-inforcement and deeper understanding.

Maybe we should move this previous discussion in some other thread and not pollute other discussion with that meta-discussion? I think you're comments are worth-while, but maybe they are better served in some other forum, General discussion perhaps?

Anyhow, here's some comments on first few minutes (that I was intending to make regardless of the above discussion :-). I'm going to spew them out piecemeal.

At 02:00, (unknowns at this point), hijack opens and button cold-calls and you defend with A9o on the big blind. I think this is correct, but it gets progressively worse with unsuited aces in this spot. Something like A7o and A6o are not perhaps playable, whereas with suited aces you can go as low as A2s. In the same hand, flop comes 8 K 3 . You check and the player in the hijack checks. This is actually something that should be noted, because it's a huge mistake for him not to c-bet against two player on this spot. It's extremely dry board and the chance to get both of you fold is decent.

It's actually quite difficult to put the player in hijack on a hand here. He certainly should c-bet with any pocket pair and any ace. Maybe something like T9s, JTs, QJs, but if he's opening with those on the hijack, I think he should be capable of c-betting this flop.

That said, your bet on the turn is certainly the right play. There's decent chance that you have the best hand, but, at the same time, a hand that you shouldn't be calling any bets 3-way on the turn.

At 02:26, you have ATs on the SB and relatively LAGgy player opens on the cutoff. You're a bit uncertain about 3-betting here, but I think it's an easy 3-bet. Players are opening with a very wide range on the steal positions when it's folded around to them and ATs is probably a decent favorite over such range. You can go even few spots lower with suited aces on this spot.

At 02:36, you complete with JTo and comment about not raising in this spot. I think I would just complete also against unknowns, but if the BB were even a bit tight defender, I think there's value in isolating a loose limper and perhaps getting dead money from the BB. JTo is starting to be on the low end for isolation raising, though, as it has no showdown value to speak of.

Hi Jarno,

I always look forward to your feedback and comments, I feel like you really put in a lot of effort and it doesn't go unnoticed (also I just uploaded the old coaching vid I did of you so other people will see that effort as well). I'll just give you my thoughts on the idea for the series and not try to solve anything cuz its for the viewers to judge more than me or anyone else to "tell you" what the series should do.

I wanted it to be how I would actually take a student and try to change him or fix what's broke. The first part of that is for me to see them play, and give them feedback, which occurred in episode 1. The next step for me (though I do this in EP 1 by listening to his audio first) is to see how he thinks about the game and see what needs to be changed at a theoretical level. That's this. EP 3 is a session of him playing and me speaking to him in real time with analysis, questions, and perhaps a bit of moral support Future episodes will use one of these 3 formats.

I'll be the first to say this might not be ideal for a video series, but I felt it was a creative format that was an accurate reflection of what I'd do to take a student and hone his mid stakes limit game. I will learn lessons from feedback such as yours for future seasons, no doubt about it. I appreciate Rob's support but already told him I think he took your slightly negative feedback a bit too harshly and I need the criticism as its how I'll get better at figuring out what series ideas work best for students and interested video-watchers.

Oh and if you prefer the sort of traditional limit video style, I just put up Oink's 3rd video (this one at 2/4). Enjoy.

-DeathDonkey

In the A T where you 3-bet from the SB and the cutoff calls your 3-bet, the flop comes K 4 T . You bet and the villain calls. Turn is Q and you bet again. The most probable hands for the villain here after the flop action are hands with lone , maybe pocket pairs, maybe QJ or AJ, AQ, tilted towards those that have a .

The villain isn't folding any here, but I think the line here with turn/river is to bet the turn and check/call the river, because if he misses the flush, he's probably not going to call you down with Ace high or 55-99 here. But the Queen on the turn is a bad card in that even if he's just drawing to a weak flush, he most likely filled up to a better hand than yours and he has the position and he can valuebet/fold more accurately than you. So I think the river bet is a mistake, it's either check/call or check/fold. Again, this might be a
spot where people cry-call-down with ace high too, but I think it's a bit far-fetched.

You comment about not liking to not bet in these spots, but I think there's plenty of value to checking in these games that. Shorthanded midstakes is going to have a lot of bluff-happy players, especially in heads-up pots, and "donk-checking" is going to induce a lot of bluffs in these spots. Don't know about $100/$200 live, but I guess in general, live games are bound to have more loose/passive play than online midstakes.

So you're just flat-out concluding that this isn't my goal?

Because that feeling you describe it's just what I feel I've had with hand analysis in recent months. Just thinking and analyzing through seemingly simple and obvious situations and sometimes gaining surprising insights and usually at least re-inforcement and deeper understanding.

I wasn't trying to say you had or didn't have any goal. But you called the video "kinda useless," said that you didn't see what extra value the video could bring, and said discussion of a lot of the obvious mistakes was kind of pointless. To me it sounded like you saw no value in the video and before the thread got derailed by that, I had to jump in -- because I earnestly feel like there's a TON of value to this video specifically, let alone the extra things that may come about from it.

While I'm open to lots of different forms of criticism, the tone and the word choice you used in that was such that I felt like I really needed to come to defense because, to be honest, it wasn't constructive. Again, I've got a bit of the curse of knowledge here; I've seen pretty much of all of these and I've gotten to know FoxwoodsFiend and already know DD pretty well, so I've got a lot of perspective and it's not fair for me to judge by that -- which is why I tried to hold back. On the other hand, I wanted to stimulate some discussion and get some fiery responses (and I've gotten just that from you, which rocks) because this video -- and really all of our content, but especially some of the stuff that isn't as advanced -- isn't going to be worthwhile unless people get motivated enough to start to pick it apart and fire questions, responses, etc.

That's good, but do you also feel that you are as open-minded as you can about any possible comments you get? I really feel that you're jumping into conclusions here and taking a rather arrogant stance.

When a comment is constructive (like your last few have been), I try to be as open-minded as possible. When a comment is just critical, it doesn't have as much value to me and I probably come across as arrogant and closed-minded to an extent when responding to it. That fueled a lot of the nature of my post, no doubt. If the question is "am I open minded" to making these series better, I hope the answer is always a resounding yes; but if the question is am I going to be open minded to criticism that seems without intent, well, I'm not so sure.

It really could be word choice -- the three words I've highlighted were a pretty big deal to me (pointless, useless, and without value) and you could have been stating all of that pretty tongue-in-cheek. But as you can see, I take the idea of educating ourselves in a wide variety of ways very seriously, and I think there's a lot that people can learn by taking different angles than what we're used to. Breaking out of the mold, so to speak. I've got a whole bunch of ideas for standalone videos that are going to do this in ways that may make you hate me in the future, but I'll try to preface them at least so I know when my idea is failing rather than just not being communicated in advance.

Rob

I wanted it to be how I would actually take a student and try to change him or fix what's broke. The first part of that is for me to see them play, and give them feedback, which occurred in episode 1. The next step for me (though I do this in EP 1 by listening to his audio first) is to see how he thinks about the game and see what needs to be changed at a theoretical level. That's this. EP 3 is a session of him playing and me speaking to him in real time with analysis, questions, and perhaps a bit of moral support Future episodes will use one of these 3 formats.

Well, yeah, it does make sense if you put it this way. It's perhaps because I was expecting something a bit different with this video and it's not like you gave some background context for this second episode. I think it could make sense to write out this approach a bit more. Maybe it's implicit there all along, but I guess at least I got it a bit wrong.

I will learn lessons from feedback such as yours for future seasons, no doubt about it. I appreciate Rob's support but already told him I think he took your slightly negative feedback a bit too harshly and I need the criticism as its how I'll get better at figuring out what series ideas work best for students and interested video-watchers.

Well, no harm done here and I certainly will admit that my first comment was too harsh. I feel that Entity's comments were good, but became it defensive as I feel that I'm not totally guilty of things he critisized. I'm looking to improve my learning techniques, but I guess it just got to my ego a bit too much. :-) But I'll take this the positive way, and I'll try and use this as an exercise for myself and try to actually be a "teacher." As I said, I also feel that it's a valuable approach, but something that I've avoided with poker as I always just feel like a complete newbie.

So the one hand that I do want to discuss...

I'm doing this from memory, so I apologize if it's off, but I remember the board texture and the hand. Just not 100% sure about preflop action.

1 bad limper and FWF completes wth K6o and a LAGGY BB (capped KQo earlier, I think 3-bet a J24 flop and caught runner runner to beat FWF's flopped set).

The flop is 642 with two diamonds and he checks. First question: check "because someone tends to bet out and try to steal these flops." I'm not sure if this is as true in a limped LHE pot as it might be in NLHE. Maybe it's more true though. I'm still thinking this part over.

BB bets. Limper now raises. The pot is 6SB and it's 2SB for FWF to call, or he can 3-bet and offer 4.5:1 to BB. Call? 3-bet?

The hand isn't really all that interesting once we pass by that point. But I liked it up until there and thought the hand might have some interesting questions/commentary on it.

Rob

But I'll take this the positive way, and I'll try and use this as an exercise for myself and try to actually be a "teacher."

For what it's worth, based on your posts I always thought you would make a great microlimit coach. Your analysis is always very good and well-reasoned, so I was a bit surprised to see the first post and wanted to really stem that line of conversation quickly as I (pretty obviously) feel like this video has a lot to offer beyond (IMO) pretty hilarious commentary:

"limped UTG"

(comes back 2 minutes later)

"limped UTG...IN LIMIT"

Rob

For what it's worth, based on your posts I always thought you would make a great microlimit coach. Your analysis is always very good and well-reasoned, so I was a bit surprised to see the first post and wanted to really stem that line of conversation quickly

Yeah. This is one of those moments where I look back at the quick comment that I made I already regret saying anything along those lines. But I think it was not entirely useless as your comments were relevant and maybe someone had a similar first reaction but doesn't blurt it out to the forums and would have stayed unsatisfied all by him/herself.