Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by inavacuum (Micro/Small Stakes)

just watched the first hand.

Imo 15 minutes is a bit too long for this hand.
Preflop depends on villain, that's it. And folding KTo is fine of course.
Pls just skip preflop, put him on a range and let's see the flop

Time Link to 00:13:08

I think in such situations it helps to come back to an axiom that holds true. For example, 'people tend to play more straightforwardly in 3 bet pots'. nice vids. thanks

Like this series...

Inavacuum, you get into some deep thinking spots throught the series. Curious as to how many tables you play? ...does it just take tons of hand in similar situations?

Thanks.

I play up to 6 at 2/4. I'd probably be ok playing 8 at the micros. Getting used to recognising certain spots is a % of practice, yes. I feel it's important to empahasis the "up to" part of my opening sentence. A lot of people seem to be of a mindset where they play X tables and if they always play X tables no matter what. If I am playing 6 2/4 tables and one breaks, I'm only opening up another if there is actually a +EV game going. What is and isn't +EV will change depending on who you are. There are plenty of times when I just play 2 or 3.

Time Link to 00:40:23

88 hand,
You say villain doesn't have a lot of draws in his range, but can't he have some flush draws? If it's a bad flop for him to cbet AQo, then it's not really a bad board to c-bet AKh-ATh, maybe T9h (if he has it) along with his pairs. He doesn't cbet much, but is that an indication he only cbets strong, or is just kind of tightish passive? Because I would think he could easily take one off with overcards and the draw. And he knows that the flop check raise is not repping huge, and he'll stack you with the nut flush if you hit an under flush the times you C/R the FD.
I know I'd be hard pressed to fold a NFD with two broadways to the flop CR v a TAG player.

Time Link to 00:25:00

re. the question Snappy asks Inavacuum about "how stupid can the fish be..." [to not realize they are being exploited].

I think the more detailed answer to this is it's not their lack of "intelligence" that makes them keep doing what they do even when hero catches on (ie they aren't "stupid") it's that the fish truly think their way of playing is "correct." Many recreational players don't see poker as a game about "ranges" and "adjustments," they see the game that is based on absolutes i.e. "to get x to happen, do y" For example: If I have a good hand, I win=check and get to SD. If he folds, I win=bet an amount that looks "scary".
When their game plan doesn't work out, they blame the problem on BAD LUCK, without ever imagining it is their basic perception of the game (let alone the "detail" of bet sizing) that leads to their demise. This is why reads on fish are so valuable-
THEY DON'T CHANGE WHAT THEY THINK IS RIGHT!

Even after you "catch" them doing this, the majority will not adjust-they are never thinking at the level of "wow, he saw me bluff when I bet/ch/bet pot...I should do that with AA next time!"...Never...IF they did do this, they wouldn't be so bad at poker.

I really like the way you break down hands inavacuum, keep up the good work.


First hand: You said both betting and checking are fine on the flop, but do you prefer one option over another? We obviously got more value by checking in this particular hand, but is there a chance that we are missing value by checking or betting in general (for example he has something like TT or JJ)? And wouldn't it be pretty standard to bet 1/2 pot here (if we choose to bet) since it's a 3bet pot, so it's not really just 'stabbing'?

I really like the way you break down hands inavacuum, keep up the good work.


First hand: You said both betting and checking are fine on the flop, but do you prefer one option over another? We obviously got more value by checking in this particular hand, but is there a chance that we are missing value by checking or betting in general (for example he has something like TT or JJ)? And wouldn't it be pretty standard to bet 1/2 pot here (if we choose to bet) since it's a 3bet pot, so it's not really just 'stabbing'?

Thank you.

I think it really depends on the villain. I'm not sure we get 3 streets vs TT, but certainly vs some people you would. Then there is how likely villain is to bluff himself. If we think he's very unlikely to bluff, there's not much point checking. But if we only get 2 streets at most vs TT/equiv and he is likely to bluff, then we achieve the max by checking the flop. This does make us somewhat imbalanced, but we can just counter that re-adjusting if we really think villain will take note and adjust himself which is pretty unlikely.

88 hand,
You say villain doesn't have a lot of draws in his range, but can't he have some flush draws? If it's a bad flop for him to cbet AQo, then it's not really a bad board to c-bet AKh-ATh, maybe T9h (if he has it) along with his pairs. He doesn't cbet much, but is that an indication he only cbets strong, or is just kind of tightish passive? Because I would think he could easily take one off with overcards and the draw. And he knows that the flop check raise is not repping huge, and he'll stack you with the nut flush if you hit an under flush the times you C/R the FD.
I know I'd be hard pressed to fold a NFD with two broadways to the flop CR v a TAG player.

I actually except villain in that hand to fastplay any NFD. I'm not saying necessarily that he should or shouldn't, I just expect him to play it that way. It's quite rare that someone flats in that spot with overs+the nut draw.

Really enjoyed SnappieVous's contribution to this vid. The stuff about trying to understand the mindset of fish was hilarious.

And great analysis from inavacuum throughout.

Tim,

A question on the river of hand 1.

Firstly, I understand the issue you highlight about villain's bet sizing tell - he never has a hand like 99, QQ or Jx here.... with those hands he'd try to showdown or bet smaller. So he's kinda polarised between air and strong value hands (2p+). I get your logic here. But I'm worried whether my range assignment is way off.

Considering his preflop 3b calling range and his ck/bet/bet line, I can't help feeling he could play all these hands much the same:

{66, 77, 88, JJ, KJ, 1/3AK}. I also think we need to add at least some suited {45, 67, 78, 9T} combos and perhaps even an AA. I dunno, I think that's 25 or so combos.

That leaves his whiff range: {AQ, random Axs, random junk}. I'm struggling to think of many more hands in his bluffing range in a 3bp. I make that 16 AQ combos + a few more.

My question: so is the deciding factor here that we are getting better than 2:1? Because I can't help feeling we are losing here some not insignificant amount of the time. Or is my range assignment off??

Thanks....sorry for long post, just trying to tease it out in writing.

You're putting too much stuff in his preflop range. The fact that you said 1/3 AK makes me think that in a lot of spots you're giving people too much credit "just incase". He never has AK here. Just doesn't have it. You can rule out 66 also. He can some suited connectors but will bluff with a good % of them and turn some of them into bluffs (for example, even though he rivers s/d value with a hand like 9s8s, he'll still often bet when his objective is make me fold anything under Kx, which he has removed from my range). When we then add the bet sizing into it, it doesn't just polarize it, it skews it massively in favour of a bluff when you consider that much of his nut range won't bet a polarized amount anyway.

Ok, thanks for that Tim. Terp had a concept in a recent vid he called something like "range pessimism"....I definitely suffer from this!

I love this series so much, I want to take it behind a middle school, and get it pregnant.