Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by sthief09 (Micro/Small Stakes)

This is very good - thank you for making the effort to explain this

Hi guys - great stuff.

Perhaps you two will appreciate this observation more, Josh I remember that sweat video you did with the Euro SSer and Paddy with your push/fold charts vs SSers.

That it is interesting that you your examples both are in 3-bet pot with aggressive dynamics. This prompted me to consider that maybe the prism of 'dead money creation/exploitation' is very important to hand planning and assessing the merits of plays like this.

So on 672 holding a 109s with a bdfd....
We have the choice of exploiting the dead money on the flop villian has created in his 3-bet bluff range and c-betting range combined.
or
We can float and attempt to do the same thing if he is going to give up
or if he is aggressive enough to add more dead money on the turn assess the merits of stack depth shoving if we pick up more equity AND obviously we can hit the nuts.

I wonder though if you think about it from our range perspective with regards to dead money - that the choice will lie within how much dead money we ourselves create with each option and that that should determine our best play.
For example
If we dont have the bdfd - we should be more inclined to bluff raise because we will on average a small amount of equity on the turn - so our turn options will be alot less profitable because we will need more FE in general. So with less equity on the flop the more profitable it will be to captialise on the dead money immediately. And if we dont - then because we do not gain enough equity on the turn we will just be creating our own dead money on the flop to be taken away on the turn.

My concern is - do we have enough range strength when within our 3-bet calling range to be doing these things in the first place and if not How do we gain it?

Also from a hand planning perspective - given your examples are within 3-bet pots and trying to think about it in terms of ranges and dead money.

What are the pre-existing conditions we should look for - so prior to seeing the flop we can say ok say:

He is polarised - so he might be bottom heavy - which means he has alot of dead money in his range.
He c-bets in 3bet pots 80%+ - so more dead money
But he may or may not barrell maybe it falls off a cliff t-cb 3b pots - is like 25%.

I am just interested in intergrating this kinda of equation within a hand planning approach - where you have a feel for what the proportions of his range is dead money, pot -size development/stack depth and our range equity will need to be - so that I can get a good feel for what types of flops I should be attacking.

So on 672 holding a 109s with a bdfd....
We have the choice of exploiting the dead money on the flop villian has created in his 3-bet bluff range and c-betting range combined.

or
We can float and attempt to do the same thing if he is going to give up
or if he is aggressive enough to add more dead money on the turn assess the merits of stack depth shoving if we pick up more equity AND obviously we can hit the nuts.

You could almost be writing the introduction to EP3 here, this is exactly what we are working on at the moment. I don't want to spill all the content but will give you some hints .

I wonder though if you think about it from our range perspective with regards to dead money - that the choice will lie within how much dead money we ourselves create with each option and that that should determine our best play.
For example
If we dont have the bdfd - we should be more inclined to bluff raise because we will on average a small amount of equity on the turn - so our turn options will be alot less profitable because we will need more FE in general. So with less equity on the flop the more profitable it will be to captialise on the dead money immediately. And if we dont - then because we do not gain enough equity on the turn we will just be creating our own dead money on the flop to be taken away on the turn.

Well if I'm raising in this spot (assuming a 3-bet pot) I'm shoving so you can't exploit (at least you can't fold me off my equity).

I'm going to assume you mean a slightly higher SPR so that the choice between flat/raise is closer.
The back door draw probably isn't as important as the answer to your next question but I see where you are going, some hands suit play on later streets better than others and it's not always directly related to equity.

My concern is - do we have enough range strength when within our 3-bet calling range to be doing these things in the first place and if not How do we gain it?

That's fairly easy, flat with your premiums near 100%.
The question you might ask is how much value are we giving up by flatting premiums instead of 4-betting? Tune in next week for that.

Also from a hand planning perspective - given your examples are within 3-bet pots and trying to think about it in terms of ranges and dead money.

What are the pre-existing conditions we should look for - so prior to seeing the flop we can say ok say:

He is polarised - so he might be bottom heavy - which means he has alot of dead money in his range.
He c-bets in 3bet pots 80%+ - so more dead money
But he may or may not barrell maybe it falls off a cliff t-cb 3b pots - is like 25%.

Imagine this spot against two different players
A) Your up against Phil Ivey and you have been playing for hours, he knows your game and he's firing the turn with near perfect balance on every card.
or
B) Your up against someone who pussys out and plays every turn 100% honest and checks if he has less than top pair.

Against one guy you don't want to see future streets (it's the flip of the concept in EP1) against the other guy you might well want to see future streets.

I am just interested in intergrating this kinda of equation within a hand planning approach - where you have a feel for what the proportions of his range is dead money, pot -size development/stack depth and our range equity will need to be - so that I can get a good feel for what types of flops I should be attacking.

I think for getting your head around ranges it's hard to beat something like flopzilla and just getting obsessive about playing with it.
We will be looking at that somewhere around EP4-EP6.

Ok cool.

Hi guys - great stuff.

Perhaps you two will appreciate this observation more, Josh I remember that sweat video you did with the Euro SSer and Paddy with your push/fold charts vs SSers.

That it is interesting that you your examples both are in 3-bet pot with aggressive dynamics. This prompted me to consider that maybe the prism of 'dead money creation/exploitation' is very important to hand planning and assessing the merits of plays like this.

So on 672 holding a 109s with a bdfd....
We have the choice of exploiting the dead money on the flop villian has created in his 3-bet bluff range and c-betting range combined.
or
We can float and attempt to do the same thing if he is going to give up
or if he is aggressive enough to add more dead money on the turn assess the merits of stack depth shoving if we pick up more equity AND obviously we can hit the nuts.

I wonder though if you think about it from our range perspective with regards to dead money - that the choice will lie within how much dead money we ourselves create with each option and that that should determine our best play.
For example
If we dont have the bdfd - we should be more inclined to bluff raise because we will on average a small amount of equity on the turn - so our turn options will be alot less profitable because we will need more FE in general. So with less equity on the flop the more profitable it will be to captialise on the dead money immediately. And if we dont - then because we do not gain enough equity on the turn we will just be creating our own dead money on the flop to be taken away on the turn.

My concern is - do we have enough range strength when within our 3-bet calling range to be doing these things in the first place and if not How do we gain it?

Also from a hand planning perspective - given your examples are within 3-bet pots and trying to think about it in terms of ranges and dead money.

What are the pre-existing conditions we should look for - so prior to seeing the flop we can say ok say:

He is polarised - so he might be bottom heavy - which means he has alot of dead money in his range.
He c-bets in 3bet pots 80%+ - so more dead money
But he may or may not barrell maybe it falls off a cliff t-cb 3b pots - is like 25%.

I am just interested in intergrating this kinda of equation within a hand planning approach - where you have a feel for what the proportions of his range is dead money, pot -size development/stack depth and our range equity will need to be - so that I can get a good feel for what types of flops I should be attacking.

Well that is definitely the hardest part, estimating the fold equity we actually have. It depends on his 3-bet range, his c-bet range, and his willingness to call bs on a flop raise.

In Prof. Plotkin, I went into looking at what proportion of different 3-bet ranges hit different flops. As you might expect, most 3-bet ranges hit A-high flops most frequently, then K-high, Q-high, and so on. Since most people 3-bet AJ, KQ, to go with AK, AQ, and often other broadways, these low flops completely miss a considerable chunk of most 3-bet ranges.

*If villain frequently c-bets these hands*, especially 150bb deep as in the example, he's going to be pretty handcuffed with those hands. When you're 100bb deep, sure he can start shoving overcards because like you say, we don't have much in the way of strong hands (any? People often flat sets there) in our raising range. If you do happen to come across a villain who starts 3-betting you can simply start flatting 3-bets with big pairs and/or value raise wider on the flop. The important factor is that he's 3-betting preflop with mostly big cards and likely c-betting too much. If he isn't c-betting overcards that often, then this plan blows up.

If you want to investigate ranges, the method I prefer is to take a range, then split it strong made hands, weak made hands, air. Once you get a range strength distribution, it's easy to start figuring out how often he needs to c-bet his air for us to be able to make cheap bluffs. It completely lacks balance, but it's the type of thing that doesn't need to be balanced the first and second times you do it.

Regarding the first part, I agree with the options:
1. Raise flop
2. Float flop, fold turn, betting turn and/or river when checked to
3. Float flop, push turn
4. Float flop, float turn, push river if checked to (I added this option)

The challenge is knowning villain's tendencies. The reason I like raising the flop against an unknown is because it's +EV against different villain types, and against players with whom we have minimal history (he hasn't seen me spew yet).

With a read, the other options are going to be better because you're taking advantage of a particular villain tendency. That is, if he's 2 barreling too much you can push the turn and have basically induced a turn bluff. If he's giving up too much on the turn, you can efficiently fold when he bets and bet when he checks (or check turn and bet river if he checks). But without a read, you're succeptible to disaster: pushing the turn against someone who is not betting as light as you think, or folding the turn to someone who 2 barrels more often than you realize.

Your post was very dense (a good thing) so I'm not sure I completely understood the question. Please let me know if there's anything I didn't answer. I don't claim to be the end all be all so I'd like to hear your thoughts as well.

To try and narrow down my questions.

T9s vs a blind 3-bet

So if we start defending T9s - from a hand planning perspective we have options from the start of the hand.
Clearly we are going to need to be able to supplement our holdings flopability vs his 3-betting range in general to be playing this hand profitably.

So from the get-go - shouldnt we be thinking ok - on gutter-bdfd type flops we need to be floating or bluff raising flops - and know this prior to call the 3bet in the first place.

If we dont have that then we perhaps either should be fold PF or 4betting PF.

So I guess the observation or question is - we have the capacity to capitalise on dead money on different sts. If it is difficult, despite the shortcuts to make a correct decision PF - then we can help ourselves by hand planning in the first place and consider ok vs this type of villian I am going to target my bluffs on the turn rather than the flop with favourable flops.
I just think the prism of 'dead money creation' is a good way of looking at it.

Maybe I have muddled my question - but dont you think that sure knowing this equation is crucial because bet-sizing may differ. And having the in-grained numbers by practise is excellent..............but we should be expecting these things in advance from regulars.

And overarching all of this - we need to be taking in a range to begin with where we are not going to be FOS.

Because I have tried applying these things in the past - and just seem to spew stacks - thus I think it comesback to identifying the right tendencies PF.

Pretty much everything you say in the last two post is true digger. To emphasise a few things.

- People who create 40bb pots OOP with weak ranges are bad boys and need taught lessons.
- You can balance this spot fairly easy (try flatting AA/KK and raising flops for a while)

But yes, you need to be sure the guys range is weak, otherwise it all falls apart.

To try and narrow down my questions.

T9s vs a blind 3-bet

So if we start defending T9s - from a hand planning perspective we have options from the start of the hand.
Clearly we are going to need to be able to supplement our holdings flopability vs his 3-betting range in general to be playing this hand profitably.

So from the get-go - shouldnt we be thinking ok - on gutter-bdfd type flops we need to be floating or bluff raising flops - and know this prior to call the 3bet in the first place.

If we dont have that then we perhaps either should be fold PF or 4betting PF.

So I guess the observation or question is - we have the capacity to capitalise on dead money on different sts. If it is difficult, despite the shortcuts to make a correct decision PF - then we can help ourselves by hand planning in the first place and consider ok vs this type of villian I am going to target my bluffs on the turn rather than the flop with favourable flops.
I just think the prism of 'dead money creation' is a good way of looking at it.

Maybe I have muddled my question - but dont you think that sure knowing this equation is crucial because bet-sizing may differ. And having the in-grained numbers by practise is excellent..............but we should be expecting these things in advance from regulars.

I'm still struggling to fully understand all of what you're saying. The FOS part just boils down to balance. Sometimes you need to balance, sometimes you don't. Against a regular that 3-bets a lot from the blinds, you're going to need to be more balanced because the situation will come up more. You have two options: tighten up or widen your value range. Paddy and I both mentioned flatting big pairs and raising flops. That's a really simple solution. You can also raise slightly worse hands for value, knowing he's going to stack off with a wider range than the typical TAG.

Against most people, we don't have that sort of history. You can get away with unbalanced bluffs when you're leveraging stacks, until you've developed history, in the form of getting caught bluffing or doing it a few times successfully. At that point, you can determine how to proceed.

I agree having a plan is good. The more prepared you are, the better. But it's next to impossible to take a hand like T9s and think about every flop and how you're going to proceed against every villain. A far more useful skill is being able to develop your plan on the fly.

I think this particular hand might be a little awkward. T9s is a versatile hand 150bb deep, in that we can call against tighter ranges with position trying to make strong hands, and we can call against looser ranges with the intention of taking the pot away. Usually we'll have an idea though. Against a medium strength range, then a little of both apply.

The flop is basically the same type of situation. Given the pot odds and stacks/implied odds, we can peel profitable against stronger ranges. We can peel profitably against weaker ranges both because we can take the pot away later, and because we have so many outs to improvement.

So from a planning perspective, this hand is a little awkward. I'm just about always calling preflop in this exact situation, and I'm just about never folding the flop. So I don't really kno

Last chance for me to get this right - and I thank you for your patiences.

Say we have 3 hands

1)109o
2)T9s
3)T9s

on 672r
And we are you using the prism of dead money capture through bluff or semi-bluffing.
Each are ~ of the same value vs his 3bet value range and 3bet bluff range - give or take 5%. With the difference between offsuit and suited being times we flop fd or bdfds.
1) If we are to continue - we should be doing it PF and capture the dead money there because there are so few flops where we are not just creating our own dead money.
2) T9s where we only flop weak overs and no bdfd - we should be more inclined to bluff the flop - because we will likely be folding too many times past the flop but we do not want to 4bet it PF because the number of times we flop well is still high enough.
3) T9s with gutshot weak overs and bdfd - we should be less inclined to bluff raise the flop because so many more times we will either be able to float another sts + hit.

If all of the above is true.

In these cases where there is alot fo the time 100bb -150bb stacks -
an almost defined semi-bluff equity range between 20-40% and we should be able to define pretty accurately what the minimum amount of equity that is likely to be needed in alot of these semi-bluffs spots. Given that regulars 3betting ranges can be of a certain type and thus our FE is pretty fixed ( his stack off range is his tack off range).

Another way of seeing it is - if so many 'variables' are in fact fixed - then we should be able to optimise really accurately our minimum requirements.

I dunno maybe I am thinking for too much of a cookie cutter type approach.

Last chance for me to get this right - and I thank you for your patiences.

Say we have 3 hands

1)109o
2)T9s
3)T9s

on 672r
And we are you using the prism of dead money capture through bluff or semi-bluffing.
Each are ~ of the same value vs his 3bet value range and 3bet bluff range - give or take 5%. With the difference between offsuit and suited being times we flop fd or bdfds.
1) If we are to continue - we should be doing it PF and capture the dead money there because there are so few flops where we are not just creating our own dead money.
2) T9s where we only flop weak overs and no bdfd - we should be more inclined to bluff the flop - because we will likely be folding too many times past the flop but we do not want to 4bet it PF because the number of times we flop well is still high enough.
3) T9s with gutshot weak overs and bdfd - we should be less inclined to bluff raise the flop because so many more times we will either be able to float another sts + hit.

If all of the above is true.

In these cases where there is alot fo the time 100bb -150bb stacks -
an almost defined semi-bluff equity range between 20-40% and we should be able to define pretty accurately what the minimum amount of equity that is likely to be needed in alot of these semi-bluffs spots. Given that regulars 3betting ranges can be of a certain type and thus our FE is pretty fixed ( his stack off range is his tack off range).

Another way of seeing it is - if so many 'variables' are in fact fixed - then we should be able to optimise really accurately our minimum requirements.

I think the problem with what you're saying is you're not adjusting for villain types. Reads are huge in a spot like this. Take your 2) vs. 3). *You're essentially making the argument that we should raise the flop with the top of our folding range.* If "T9s+bdfd" is a call, and "T9s no bdfd" is a fold, then the latter has to be the top of our folding range equity wise. That's why you want to bluff-raise with it. That's fine in theory, but you shouldn't stop there.

This is the thing: you shouldn't just raise the "T9s no bdfd" simply because it's the top of your folding range. You have to think about the villain type, and how he's going to respond.

Villain type:
Does he fold enough of the time to make a bluff raise profitable? If yes: is there a better way to exploit him? Example- villain is like many mediocre TAGs and bets too many flops in 3-bet pots and c/f too many turns. Then calling the flop with the intention of betting the turn is better, because villain will have a much, much more defined turn range. The goal is to tailor your play to the specific villain instead of stopping at "raise is +EV." You want to take it one step further and think about whether floating can be +EV.

How he's going to respond:
100bb deep, villain is mostly going to raise or fold. This makes it irrelevent whether you have a gutter or 2 undercards.

200bb deep, villain can't just 3-bet the flop with QQ as easily. He'll start flatting more hands vs. the flop raise. This is a spot where you much prefer to raise hands toward the top of your folding range.

So I think there's no real answer to your question. If you have 33% equity, then raising might leave you committed. If you raise/fold 30% equity, you're foregoing a lot of suckout equity. IF and only IF villain is NOT in a raise or fold spot, then you're probably looking for something in the 20-25% equity range to bluff raise, and in some spots it's possible you can bluff any 2 in a vacuum. BUT, you still have to consider the EV of calling.

Trying to figure something out. When betting pot, I think you need 50% fold equity to break-even with bluffs assuming 0% pot equity. Yet when I break that 50% equity into 2 pieces of 25% pot equity and 25% fold equity, I come up with a positive expectation. I thought equity is equity. Or maybe my math is just incorrect. Here's my math:

pot $100
bet $100
pot equity vs call range 25%
fold equity 25%


Scenario 1: He folds (this happens 25% of the time)
Scenario 2: He calls (this happens 75% of the time). When he calls, I win 25% of the time

scenario 1: = probablity he folds X pot size before I bet
.25 X $100 = $25

scenario 2 = probablity he calls X (final pot size X FE - bet amount)
.75 X ($300 X .25 - $100) = -$18.75

Equity of bet = $25 - $18.75 = $6.25

Am I doing something wrong here?

Thanks!!

Trying to figure something out. When betting pot, I think you need 50% fold equity to break-even with bluffs assuming 0% pot equity. Yet when I break that 50% equity into 2 pieces of 25% pot equity and 25% fold equity, I come up with a positive expectation. I thought equity is equity. Or maybe my math is just incorrect. Here's my math:

pot $100
bet $100
pot equity vs call range 25%
fold equity 25%


Scenario 1: He folds (this happens 25% of the time)
Scenario 2: He calls (this happens 75% of the time). When he calls, I win 25% of the time

scenario 1: = probablity he folds X pot size before I bet
.25 X $100 = $25

scenario 2 = probablity he calls X (final pot size X FE - bet amount)
.75 X ($300 X .25 - $100) = -$18.75

Equity of bet = $25 - $18.75 = $6.25

Am I doing something wrong here?

Thanks!!

Your math is all correct. What's off is the idea that equity is equity. The best way to fully understand that is trying to understand exactly what those equations are saying, and why it doesn't work out to being the same.

Your second equation boils down to:
25% of the time we win $100
18.75% of the time we win $200
56.25% of the time we lose $100

as opposed to the breakeven bluff:

50% of the time we win $100
50% of the time we lose $100

the reason the first works out better is because you're winning nearly as often (43.75% vs. 50%), but the 18.75% of the time you get all-in and suckout, you win $200 instead of just $100.

This basically explains why semi-bluffing is better than pure bluffing. We're only losing a fraction (half to be exact) of our $100 when he calls and we have 25% equity.