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Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by Deepsquat (High Stakes)

I'm a bit surprised with the raise, unless you're planning to bluff someone with a better hand out of the pot.

If you're able to make this HU with the UTG capper with the flop raise, you're still most likely behind any reasonable capping range. If SB tags along, you're very likely crushed.

Playing aggro in large mw pots with any piece is the norm but does it really make sense when you're very likely drawing to a 5 outer?

I think its certainly a close spot and I certainly dont hate a call. I mean id never be raising this HU. Im pretty sure Sara caps preflop which would make his range include alot of JT/QT/QJ hands that will fold if we raise, so i think we buy alot of equity with a raise and we dont have to SD if UTG 3bets.

Im happy to hear arguments against raising though. Its a grit your teeth and raise spot in a large mw pot i guess

Interestingly, if you pit 70% SB open and 80% BB defence ranges against each other on this flop, they're 50-50 (both on the flop and by river). If BB has a 20% 3! range, SB's range is now actually ahead on this flop (against the 80%-top20% range).

Obv the actual hand is a dog to villains range.

Ill respond to this post when i have a bit more time today

Interestingly, if you pit 70% SB open and 80% BB defence ranges against each other on this flop, they're 50-50 (both on the flop and by river). If BB has a 20% 3! range, SB's range is now actually ahead on this flop (against the 80%-top20% range).

Obv the actual hand is a dog to villains range.

Like i mentioned earlier I think that having a cbet 100% from SB after opening probably cant be too wrong at all. Also, the QJo isnt a perfect example and not necessarily the ideal one to use to illustarte my point.

From a theoretical standpoint, Wider opening range = We have less valuebets on any given flop.

Granted some BB's will just fold too much when they miss which makes cbetting 100% correct.

The problem with taking a purely equity standpoint when looking at this stategy is difficult for 2 reasons:

1) Being oop will make it much harder to realise that equity. I mean are we just going to b/c down every K/Q/A high?

2) Good players are going to leverage their position well against us and be raising hands that dont actually have alot of equity on the flop like backdoor draws, overcards + BD draws and force us to fold incorrectly

Say we open A2o in SB and get called by J9o
Flop comes 764r we have about 72% equity but if BB raises us (which mid/high stakes villains will) We are in a horrible spot on many turns and rivs even with 70% equity.

So i think its worth considering a balanced range of actions postflop and i think the easiest way is to start with board texture. Its seems that the above texture is the one we will get the least folds with a cbet because there is almost an excuse to peel any hand in BB shoes. Everything has either high card value or a BD draw.

Love to discuss further with you. I think mastering SB is the final frontier of LHE

so i think we buy alot of equity with a raise and we dont have to SD if UTG 3bets.

It's the "buy a lot of equity" thing that bothers me here (not only in your comment but as a generally used justification for raising a lot in mw pots with any piece).

If we get SB to fold, that means we had him beat any way at this point. But to actually get the equity from him, we'd need to be ahead of UTG also, otherwise most of the SB equity goes to UTG. This would be a bit different in some cases where we could actually clear outs, for example making SB fold a gutshot so when we two pair up we don't get owned by his straight. But that doesn't apply here.

When I stove against UTG's capping range it looks like we're very likely drawing with one pair here, so by default I'd like to keep SB in subsiding our draw. If he peels with QJ it doesn't hurt us if we are behind to begin with. Just make the K a J and now they both have missed Aces (and lower PP's for SB, maybe) a lot and I'm all for raising the flop.

All this based on my limited analysis of the situation. Will Love To Hear Arguments Against
I've been voting for a series on mw pots for quite a while now. Maybe really dissecting a situation like this would make enough material for a short video as those now seem to be the new thingy?

Do we really think aggromonkeys fold the flop with gutterballs getting 8-1 on the flop anyway?

As for the SB-BB hand, I only wanted to point out the error in the reasoning you give, not the analysis or the result. 70% range against 80% isn't particularly less likely to have hit the middling board (or any board, actually) as the ranges are super wide to begin with. BTW I used the equities just to show how well each range has hit... playing OOP sucks as it's harder to actually benefit from your equity.

As for the analysis and result, I'm afraid I don't have much to give at this point, especially OOP. But because of the super wide ranges, I'm not convinced that the board texture is a deciding factor on whether to have a no-cont-bet range or not.

Do we really think aggromonkeys fold the flop with gutterballs getting 8-1 on the flop anyway?

Haha he is an aggromonkey A good one though

Pasita- just stoved the ranges on that 98 hand, we are prob too much of a dog to raise in general. Thanks for picking up on that

A series on MW pots would be good, great idea. Let JT know

As for the SB-BB hand, I only wanted to point out the error in the reasoning you give, not the analysis or the result. 70% range against 80% isn't particularly less likely to have hit the middling board (or any board, actually) as the ranges are super wide to begin with. BTW I used the equities just to show how well each range has hit... playing OOP sucks as it's harder to actually benefit from your equity.

As for the analysis and result, I'm afraid I don't have much to give at this point, especially OOP. But because of the super wide ranges, I'm not convinced that the board texture is a deciding factor on whether to have a no-cont-bet range or not.

You are 100% correct in what you are saying there re: ranges.being equal etc

I do feel however that board texture is relevant.

There are certain board textures where we will be attacked more often and also alot less likely to get flop folds such as the middling flops i described. Irrespective of preflop or postflop ranges, certain textures are going to give BB less hands he can fold and more hands he can semibluff which when we are OOP that does become an equity issue i feel

Q72r i feel is definately different to 764r.

1st flop we gain alot by cbetting, where as the 2nd i feel we dont.

Like i mentioned earlier, im not advocating to never cbet these, just simply vs some better and/or aggressive players we may actually show less of loss or maybe slight profit by having a checking range.

It would be awesome to have these players pacified by not having the option to raise us on the flop and often become very ABC and simply chk back their semibluffs thinking we are never folding

Once again, always cbetting is probably fine in a vacuum and its definately a stylistic thing. Yoy may play better with the lead on these boards with you A/K high

Maybe this discussion would serve better outside the video section. Actually, this maybe should not be limited to FL, at least as long as general concepts are discussed. I'm sure we could benefit from big bet players who must have given this some thought at some time, as they're not usually contbetting 100%.

Random thoughts on the subject (SB vs BB play).

-since ranges are practically equal, both parties will hit any flop equally hard
-bb will have an advantage on every flop because of his position
-there may very well be a check range for SB in optimal strategy
-if there is, it's likely to exist for every flop imho
-if you have huge fold equity on some type of flop, it also means you're not likely to get much value when you hit hard -> maybe a check/x range of some monsters and some other hand types would benefit our range even on high fold equity flops?
- given the ranges, i still don't take it as a fact that some flops would be better for BB to attack, when looking at optimal play. He should still have the correct amount of valueplays, bluffs, semibluffs, bluffcatches in his hand, or he gets burned when we take the optimal line. Obv if we're too foldy on the SB, some flops make it easier for villain to exploit us than others... but I believe you're in search for the optimal line?

[Speculation follows... maybe there are flops to contbet less?]

Let's say SB has a value hand or a bluff and BB has a bluff catcher on the flop, both play optimally. Let's say (I'm totally making up the numbers here) EV(SB) = 1 and EV(BB) is .5, giving this situation an edge of .5 for SB.

Now reverse the roles, BB has value or bluff and SB has the catcher. EV(SB) is now .5 but EV(BB) is 1.25, so BB has an edge of .75.

Since both of these situations are as likely (given the ranges), BB has an overall edge of .25 (.75-.5) from this bluffcatcher situation.


Now lets make SB have a made hand and BB a draw. Let's give EV(SB) 1 and EV(BB) .5, total .5 for SB
Maybe the draw is so much harder to play OOP that when reversed (SB drawing), EV(SB) is .1 and EV(BB) is 1.2, 1.1 for BB. So overall, made hand against draw is (1.1 - .5) = 0.6 for the BB.

That is higher than the bluff catcher situation (0.25 for BB). So BB prefers made vs draw situations over value vs catcher.

So when is value vs catcher situation likely? On Heavy Dry flops, make it AQ7r. And the made vs draw is most likely on Light Wet flops, say 865ss.

So could it be something like this that would lead to your conclusion of contbetting less on certain flops? Assuming that my numbers happened to be perfect, on LW flops BB has larger advantage than on HD flops, so SB might be less inclined to build the pot by contbetting?

BTW I'm sure you're gaining an edge by not contbetting 100%, once you have your ranges set up straight. Since everybody contbets 100% any way, BB isn't yet likely to have found an optimal line (or even a good one) to combat the contbettedness

Great series title!

Hey pasita,

I think we can prob keep it going in here, if mods have a problem they can shift it. I think its fascinating and be good to keep it all in one thread.

In order for SB to be cbetting 100% of flops, *in general* he needs to have some sort of overall equity edge over BB's range imo. In order to obtain the equity postflop, if playing optimally, we would have to play tighter preflop seeing as some flop texture will be harder to obtain that equity than others.

The benefits of being able to construct a balanced SB strategy postflop, is that it allows you to push for thinner value pf without having to cbet every single flop.

I did a quick bit of stoving to nail down what the what i consider to be a typical SB open range vs BB defending range, while removing hands that are generally 3b by BB

SB had a 66.5% opening range which i think is about perfect.
BB's range was 63.3% once you remove hands he would prob 3bet preflop.

You can obviously play around with these ranges but i think they are pretty fair for the purposes of this discussion.

You will notice that certain flop textures will minimise the equity of holding a slightly stronger pf range.
As the flop gets lower, SB's equity decreases until he is a slight dog. I think this equality of the equity as the flops alter, make having a checking range in the small blind part of an optimal strategy

Im not trying to sell this to anyone, just feel that its definately worth considering and and that having a "never do X" attitude is something that plagued me for years and cost me $$ for sure

For instance:

Ah7c3d board- SB has about 60% equity

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

529,455,960 games 2.390 secs 221,529,690 games/sec

Board: Ah 7c 3d
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 59.296% 58.00% 01.30% 307064743 6879225.50 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 84s+, 74s+, 63s+, 54s, 43s, A2o+, K2o+, Q6o+, J7o+, T7o+, 96o+, 85o+, 75o+ }
Hand 1: 40.704% 39.41% 01.30% 208632766 6879225.50 { A4s-A2s, K7s-K2s, Q8s-Q2s, J7s-J2s, T7s-T2s, 96s-92s, 85s-82s, 75s-72s, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, A7o-A2o, K8o-K2o, Q8o-Q2o, J8o-J2o, T2o+, 94o+, 84o+, 74o+, 63o+, 53o+, 43o }


Hand 2) Kh Jd 9s

SB has 62% equity


Board: Kh Jd 9s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 62.387% 59.27% 03.12% 313290493 16497935.00 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 84s+, 74s+, 63s+, 54s, 43s, A2o+, K2o+, Q6o+, J7o+, T7o+, 96o+, 85o+, 75o+ }
Hand 1: 37.613% 34.49% 03.12% 182328097 16497935.00 { A4s-A2s, K7s-K2s, Q8s-Q2s, J7s-J2s, T7s-T2s, 96s-92s, 85s-82s, 75s-72s, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, A7o-A2o, K8o-K2o, Q8o-Q2o, J8o-J2o, T2o+, 94o+, 84o+, 74o+, 63o+, 53o+, 43o }


Now if we start altering flop texture towards and lower and co-ordinated flop

Hand 3)

Tc 9h 8d- SB has 59% Equity

Board: Tc 9h 8d
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 59.900% 56.39% 03.51% 300538457 18705685.50 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 84s+, 74s+, 63s+, 54s, 43s, A2o+, K2o+, Q6o+, J7o+, T7o+, 96o+, 85o+, 75o+ }
Hand 1: 40.100% 36.59% 03.51% 195010732 18705685.50 { A4s-A2s, K7s-K2s, Q8s-Q2s, J7s-J2s, T7s-T2s, 96s-92s, 85s-82s, 75s-72s, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, A7o-A2o, K8o-K2o, Q8o-Q2o, J8o-J2o, T2o+, 94o+, 84o+, 74o+, 63o+, 53o+, 43o }

Hand 4)

7h 6d 5s- SB has 50% equity


517,253,220 games 2.363 secs 218,896,834 games/sec

Board: 7h 6d 5s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 50.066% 47.49% 02.57% 245669026 13299476.50 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 84s+, 74s+, 63s+, 54s, 43s, A2o+, K2o+, Q6o+, J7o+, T7o+, 96o+, 85o+, 75o+ }
Hand 1: 49.934% 47.36% 02.57% 244985241 13299476.50 { A4s-A2s, K7s-K2s, Q8s-Q2s, J7s-J2s, T7s-T2s, 96s-92s, 85s-82s, 75s-72s, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, A7o-A2o, K8o-K2o, Q8o-Q2o, J8o-J2o, T2o+, 94o+, 84o+, 74o+, 63o+, 53o+, 43o }


Hand 5)

5h 4c 3d SB now has 47% equity and is a dog on the flop


537,940,260 games 2.435 secs 220,920,024 games/sec

Board: 5h 4c 3d
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 47.478% 45.13% 02.35% 242771339 12631963.50 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 84s+, 74s+, 63s+, 54s, 43s, A2o+, K2o+, Q6o+, J7o+, T7o+, 96o+, 85o+, 75o+ }
Hand 1: 52.522% 50.17% 02.35% 269904994 12631963.50 { A4s-A2s, K7s-K2s, Q8s-Q2s, J7s-J2s, T7s-T2s, 96s-92s, 85s-82s, 75s-72s, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, A7o-A2o, K8o-K2o, Q8o-Q2o, J8o-J2o, T2o+, 94o+, 84o+, 74o+, 63o+, 53o+, 43o }

I wouldn't think mods have a problem with this discussion, I just thought that it might benefit from a bit more visibility.

The ranges you used (with a widish 3! range for BB if I was able to reverse engineer that with Stove) will create a lot bigger equity differences on different flops than the [70% vs 80%] I threw in (from thin air). So I see your point better now.

But if BB doesn't have a 3! range the equities now run very close regardless of the flop, it makes very little difference whether the ranges are 70-80 or 100-100. IF you have that situation at hand, are you still looking for flop texture as a deciding factor?

It could very well be that some hand match ups benefit BB more, and since some flops create more of those match ups, those flops should be cont bet less by SB even with equal ranges.

Yah get your point about the thread visibility

Of course we can play around with the ranges but the fact still remains that certain board textures are going to somewhat negate the equity of a stronger pf starting range, which i think is something that warrants discussion and i havent really seen anyone discuss it too much which is a shame because i think SB play is fascinating.

Even if we do 70% SB and 80% BB we are still a dog on the last flop i mentioned. Albeit a small one.

I still feel that all being equal, we should generally need an equity advantage to be *always* cbetting oop vs a well playing opponent- its definately potentially exploitable to be sacrificing position and equity.

Position is the big unknown here, its almost impossible to quantify the loss of equity or i guess the inability to realise equity being oop..

Re 100% ranges each:

Well it depends if BB knows we are opening 100%. Assuming he does, and he knows that we know he is defending 100% then i wouldnt think flop texture would matter. We would be losing money more than usual in the SB with this strategy and it can be exploited pretty bad so its theoretically interesting i guess, but its rare if not near impossible to ever see this exact dynamic.

Obviously as the ranges even out pf, flop texture becomes less important when you and he know that re-raising is removed from his preflop strategy.

Im enjoying the discussion mate, hope some more members chime in too

Awesome video, nice work. Got me thinking about some certain spots where my flop calling range is all stuff that won't ever raise the turn unimproved. It's only certain spots and only versus some opponents though. How bad is this and why? What would you do to exploit that if you were my opponent?

lol, I was looking for info on a poker tool and stumbled on a video where a big bet player has done pretty extensive work on optimal flop play in position having flatted an early position open. (That situation shouldn't come up in FL, but SB vs BB is somewhat related). He said he'd spent quite some time on working on the optimal play OOP in that situation but had found it too hard (for him) to solve. This was a video from 2-3 years ago, I wonder if there's any newer stuff available - any one seen anything?