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

Time Link to 00:07:23

I think you really can't discount JJ here. Because of the presence of flush and straight draws, I'd expect button to bet a set of jacks, but I never ceased to be impressed by the goofy slowplays live players think up.

Given your read and analysis, I think the turn should be a fold. It's a case of if the somewhat optimistic assumptions you (Pygmy) made are right, the call is about breakeven, maybe slightly +EV. But if you've underweighted JJ or overweighted AQ in his range, then the call is a significantly losing play. I really like the hand range analysis you both used in this hand.

Time Link to 00:17:01

Really good analysis and play in the hand. I agree that JT is the kind of hand I think she had. Would you have folded to a raise on the 3 river?

I think you really can't discount JJ here. Because of the presence of flush and straight draws, I'd expect button to bet a set of jacks, but I never ceased to be impressed by the goofy slowplays live players think up.

Given your read and analysis, I think the turn should be a fold. It's a case of if the somewhat optimistic assumptions you (Pygmy) made are right, the call is about breakeven, maybe slightly +EV. But if you've underweighted JJ or overweighted AQ in his range, then the call is a significantly losing play. I really like the hand range analysis you both used in this hand.

Yeah, I think you're making a good point about the prevalence of lol-slowplays in live play. When I reflect I don't think this BTN could have JJ here - I think he would have been more likely to cold call it PF, but your point is well taken.

No matter what this just seems like a fold to me. You make a great point about calling kind of being an inverse freeroll here. I mean, even if BTN tables AK and UTG+1 shows a hand like 88 (so he doesn't kill any of my outs by holding them or something like T8 or a FD) I should still fold. Even with implied odds (if any) I'm not getting the right price, so I'm just unnecessarily increasing my variance by calling (at best).

Really good analysis and play in the hand. I agree that JT is the kind of hand I think she had. Would you have folded to a raise on the 3 river?

No. Ultimately the fact that she was new to me and her hand not really making any sense are just overwhelming factors to me here.

Also, I don't think a BDFD is a huge part of her range so I pretty much would have been color blind on the river. I mean, the J is on the board so we're just not adding in a ton of hands. QT, KT, and some SC's I guess - it feels like too few hand combos for me to change my play. Maybe she can have A Q too but that that's weighted down slightly in my mind as she might 3b it PF (also KT is weighted down a tad as she may put in a raise on the flop or turn).

I think you are right people do play more straight forward in live play.

When I reflect I don't think this BTN could have JJ here - I think he would have been more likely to cold call it PF, but your point is well taken.

Hmmm, if he can't have JJ, I don't think he can have AQ either.

Oh and I agree with your 3 analysis, albeit it's easy to agree with given the results. I agree that there aren't many BDFDs in her range, but at least she would be plausibly representing something.

I guess the question becomes when you are getting 10-to-1 or more in a big live pot and you only have a bluff catcher, how many combos of hands that make sense for villain to have does it take for you to give credit and fold. I'm not sure the answer, but I agree with your first AQ fold and your AK call, and you seem to have at least a good intuitive sense for the answer to this question.

Time Link to 00:23:55

"And the turn's a six."

Walk around to the other side of the table and have another look at that turn card.

"And the turn's a six."

Walk around to the other side of the table and have another look at that turn card.

He's just excited about his pair and the fact he's not going to fold it

I guess the question becomes when you are getting 10-to-1 or more in a big live pot and you only have a bluff catcher, how many combos of hands that make sense for villain to have does it take for you to give credit and fold. I'm not sure the answer, but I agree with your first AQ fold and your AK call, and you seem to have at least a good intuitive sense for the answer to this question.

I sense that you might be asking semi-rhetorically, but I'll take a stab anyway.

Here's how I think about this sort of situation: what you're talking about in terms of bluffing combos is an important consideration. But one other significant component I'm considering is the villain's monster range. What I mean is, how often can they have (in this hand) stuff like AT, KK/QQ/JJ, two pair, T9, etc. and wait for the river to raise.

In my experience against most live players the answer to the second part is a devastating, 'often.' Many players are just plain bad, think slowplaying is brilliant, or are waiting to see if a safe river comes. Putting that together with few bluffing combos that pretty much adds up to a fold.

BUT, against a player who is decent or at least trying to play better I heavily discount the monster range as they should have put action in on the turn. I mean, I think that's why we're saying villain can't really credibly rep anything here.

In other words I'm basically thinking about a ratio like:

bluffing combos : monster combos

So I'm going to decline to give a number of bluffing combos, partly because that's almost impossible and partly because I assume you were just asking as a thinking exercise.

The bottom line is that if the second number in the ratio (monster combos) seems very small to me (as I think it is in this spot), then I really only need villain to have a few bluffing combos in order to call profitably.

Time Link to 00:15:58

another thing that I think bears mentioning here is live player tendencies/ranges. Seat 10 is the typical "Nitty Old Man", his hand ranges are incredibly transparent, as is his play. When he does something slowplay-like we can still assign him a very narrow range of hands and play accordingly. The standard "10BB+ pot, gotta call. Fur coat etc etc" formula doesn't apply as much because we have a tighter read on our opponent. When Seat 5 coldcalls, smoothcalls flop and turn, then raises river, her hand range is wider because she's a fairly unknown player and she hasn't done anything postflop to define her range. Because the hand range is so wide by the river we HAVE to bet and call the large pot because the gray areas are so large that we have the equity by default.

The standard "10BB+ pot, gotta call. Fur coat etc etc" formula doesn't apply as much because we have a tighter read on our opponent. When Seat 5 coldcalls, smoothcalls flop and turn, then raises river, her hand range is wider because she's a fairly unknown player and she hasn't done anything postflop to define her range. Because the hand range is so wide by the river we HAVE to bet and call the large pot because the gray areas are so large that we have the equity by default.

Basically what it came down to is I don't like shrimp, so I called.

Time Link to 00:05:01

I think you can c/f here pretty safely as gross as it seems. I think I paused it right as you were about to say "I can't c/f" but I think you can. He's just NEVER betting worse and he never has a chop. You also probably aren't getting two streets of value against TT. I'd severely discount KK, QQ as well. If the turn goes chk chk you have an easy bet on the river.

I think you can c/f here pretty safely as gross as it seems. I think I paused it right as you were about to say "I can't c/f" but I think you can. He's just NEVER betting worse and he never has a chop. You also probably aren't getting two streets of value against TT. I'd severely discount KK, QQ as well. If the turn goes chk chk you have an easy bet on the river.

Okay first off it's more disgusting than it is gross.

I agree that most of my assessment of his range does NOT change after he checks the flop / after he either bets or raises the turn, which would mean a x/f is fine. As you say the only possible hands I could disagree about are KK/QQ. This was pretty early so I can't say with 100% certitude that he'd never check back KK/QQ on the flop, but I agree it's highly unlikely.

Okay first off it's more disgusting than it is gross.

I agree that most of my assessment of his range does NOT change after he checks the flop / after he either bets or raises the turn, which would mean a x/f is fine. As you say the only possible hands I could disagree about are KK/QQ. This was pretty early so I can't say with 100% certitude that he'd never check back KK/QQ on the flop, but I agree it's highly unlikely.

It's not that he CAN'T have them. It's just that first he'd have to have them then he'd have to bet the turn, both of which I think are at least reasonably unlikely. I'd discount those to about 1 combo between the two of them.