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

Haven't watched the vid yet, but huzzah for limit tourneys!

gonna watch it tonight. I dont ever played any limits tournaments. But im looking forward man

Also happy to see limit tournament video!

More HORSE, mixed game tourney vids would be a great addition to the library.

In the AJ hand u talk about trying to decrease variance by for example not raising the turned A. Similar discussion on not 3-betting ATo. How far would u take this concept? Is it for example good to check back flops (I guess 22 vs Soulmaster on that crappy mono board could be one example)? Is this common knowledge for tournament players, so that they in general are a bit tighter, less aggro (well given what I sawin this vid I guess the answer is no)?

I have never played a LHE tourney, because I have thought it's just a big luckbox game. After Unassigned won both mid/high SCOOP tournes last year I became a bit less sure of that. Still it seems to me that if people can bust that means they must be very shortstacked and in limit that means almost zero skill. What are your thoughts on this?

Questions are for both of u !

I think checking back the 22 would be bad for various reasons, not in the least that I'll be put in spots where I'm unsure how to proceed later in the hand. I wouldn't really give up much ever, except when it's a spot where I feel like 'it's so close it doesn't matter what I do' where I'd take the conservative route. Also in this particular example you just take it down way too much when you're only 70% in equity against a bunch of rags so checking would be a fairly serious mistake.

Limit tourneys are obviously some luckboxing, but probably less so than big bet tournies as you're almost always at least 5 bets deep if the structure is reasonable, so you can play out most hands like a cashgame. Blinds and stakes going up continiously does mean that you have to run hot though, for obvious reasons.

The 5k limit was a fair bit softer this year than a typical 30/60 cashgame, and I think 5k tournies are higher stakes than 30/60.

I have lots of thoughts about "reducing variance" in LHE tournament settings. Mostly my thought is that it's usually sub-optimal and actually increases variance, but I haven't seen the video yet and am looking forward to responding to the individual analysis.

Mostly my thought is that it's usually sub-optimal and actually increases variance....

Increases variance or decreases edge? People routinely refer to lower edge as "higher variance" and vice versa (e.g., when NLHE first boomed everyone raved about the lower variance, but they really just meant that an expert has a huge edge over a fish. It feels like more variance if you win less often.

Still it seems to me that if people can bust that means they must be very shortstacked and in limit that means almost zero skill.

There's still skill in picking the hand that you're going to commit to for your (or your opponent's) case chips, though. The difference is, in NL that point comes with 10xbb or more left, so you're hardly doing any postflop play once you reach an endgame.

Increases variance or decreases edge? People routinely refer to lower edge as "higher variance" and vice versa (e.g., when NLHE first boomed everyone raved about the lower variance, but they really just meant that an expert has a huge edge over a fish. It feels like more variance if you win less often.

Yup decreases edge, increasing negative variance. Just using "variance" in the way a lot of people understand it.

Time Link to 00:08:08

I feel somewhat strongly that you should raise this turn against this player in any setting. I do feel like DD is somewhat correct that if you put someone like Unassigned in that spot, depending on what he thinks about you, you should probably go ahead and call down, and you should do that more in a tournament setting than in a cash game setting.

I'd like to make a little distinction here: I'd call down a little more often in a tournament not to reduce variance, but because the marginal value of chips changes as our stack size changes. FYI, I'm not brushed up on my tournament theory at all so that may not effect this decision at all.

Anyway, from the description of the villain I expect him to have a very large value range in relation to his draw range. It also sounds like he'll be showdown bound in spots like this. So our primary concern should be to extract maximum value from that thin value range and not to induce bluffs.

Time Link to 00:13:10

Re: A82r

I still think I'd be c/ring always there just because of the narrowness of the ranges involved. Don't forget we opened UTG so SoulMaster's range is likely to be a bit stronger. In reality people don't have a deuce in that spot or even middle pair and their c/c there is still super strong (aces and underpairs). People are rarely just peeling with something like QJs and if they are, that's just fine by me if I'm OTB given the way my range crushes theirs.

Time Link to 00:20:18

I'm totally with DD that folding is the best play even though he has tons and tons of bluffs in his range. I'm always callind down with Qdx though.

5:50 AJdd i think this is a standard turn raise.

13:00 AQo nh i play it the same