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

Time Link to 00:25:04

Joe folds 64o pre here.

fnupple I'm curious how you adjust your button raising frequency 3 handed in a game like this? I remember a couple years ago I was making a somewhat silly logical mistake by over adjusting to a 3 handed game and raising too many hands on the button (in my opinion now in retrospect), however, I still think in a spot like this we should probably be playing a lot of buttons regardless of whether it was folded to us 6 handed or in the spot we are actually in, because we have the perceived bad player in the big blind, and obviously the best position. I would have raised the 64o here.

Time Link to 00:30:33

Not saying I fold the A5o here (I think its reasonably close I guess) but I would strongly prefer to hold Q9s than A5o here. Also I definitely bet this turn card.

When I see a backraise on a flop like this by a mediocre or poor player I often think a set makes up a lot of their range. He's not raising for fear of shutting you out so when you raise he knows he can go ahead and get value with his strong hand and puts in the raise at that point rather than just calling and risking the turn getting checked through.

Just to continue the discussion with this hand. After we deduce his most likely hand on the flop is a monster or some spew with a draw or rarely air, I'm confused why fnupple is recommending raising this turn. If we were behind villain on the flop, we still are on this turn and if we raise, we have to call down a 3-bet. Also, if he is bluffing we likely won't get any extra bets out of him given he'll just call the turn raise and Ch/Fold the river unimproved, where as he'll likely barrel blank rivers for us anyways. Just seems like a spot were we risk losing a lot when behind, but only hope to win maybe a little when ahead.

Time Link to 00:33:01

Shrug he bet because the flop texture was A22, I'd loosely call this guy a bad thinking player at this point. I like floating this flop a decent amount.

Time Link to 00:33:41

I prefer waiting til the turn on a 554 flop, this guy isn't checking any turns, etc.

Time Link to 00:34:03

It's worth noting that both these guys tend to be aggro pre and overly passive postflop. I feel like the game is pretty decent, its essentially a 3 handed game where all the players are thinking about poker but hopefully your opponents lack experience and/or are poor hand readers. I wouldn't call this a dream game at all but there is plenty to like about it.

Also villain's play with the T9s is quite poor I think, no reason to assume Joe is so polarized that he doesn't have a crystal clear turn raise.

Time Link to 00:34:25

Wow really? I'd never fold here closing the action.

Time Link to 00:48:59

I guess I'm surprised you guys are having a hard time reading his hand. I totally agree with fnupple that this is always just some weak made hand that wanted to prevent a free card play on a fairly safe turn. Joe you are mentioning hands like 2 pair, sets, straights with no club and stuff like that, but those hands are thrilled to cap the flop, in my mind you have the near nuts on the turn here and its definitely a raise.

Also I dislike the flop 3 bet, I don't think people at this limit (or on this board texture) get very scared of many turn cards, so you can get money in great on the turn except when a 4 straight hits and then probably its best to just call.

Time Link to 00:50:43

http://www.deucescracked.com/videos/6091-Episode-Six?seek=3071

Wow the river call here loses probably 0.98 BB vs this guy. fnupple, he may be representing a narrow range of hands, but when he calls the turn he has pretty much exactly that narrow range of hands! The Jack either has to hit him, he already had us beat, or he is turning Ac x into a bluff, and the latter seems unlikely.

edit: you say most of this a few seconds later. Btw I think CR bluff is a pretty good play here.

Time Link to 00:53:10

Q9s > QTo > A5o in my mind, I definitely 3 bet pre.

Time Link to 00:56:23

Come on now Joe you were playing 3 handed 10/20 online and were never up or down more than 10 BB at this point, "big comeback" and "massive suckouts" and such, poor guy

Time Link to 00:57:32

THIN!?!? I'm in the freaking twilight zone here, I'd rather 3 bet it than fold it.

Time Link to 01:01:33

I think what fnupple is saying is definitely the right way to approach the situation, I might for the first time in this thread be on the worried side here where I'd prefer to just call down vs what I perceive is a pretty polarized range.

Time Link to 01:12:26

Shrug since you asked for it I really think there is a lot of value in looking at what I consider to be your areas of weakness throughout this series. For one you are really inflexible preflop, and don't seem to have any killer instinct towards the fish in the games. I think perhaps this 75s hand is the first time you erred on the side of not folding in the 4 episodes I've seen (and ironically, fnupple and I both would have folded I believe, but played a bunch of other spots).
More importantly than those preflop spots, I don't feel you really have any reads on anybody. You said numerous times in this episode that you didn't have a lot of hands on people, this new guy joins and you "only have 50 hands", etc. You'd do better to just turn the damn HUD off because looking at people's preflop stats in shorthanded games over small samples isn't helping you whatsoever. There were numerous times in this episode that observations about the way those guys were playing their hands could have led to a big deviation in your play, I certainly didn't feel that you had too few showdowns to conclude that both players were overly LAG preflop, overly passive postflop, and making nonstandard checks with the wrong type of hands repeatedly.

I feel I am not conveying how I view these guys' play and what adjustments I would make as well as I'd like to. For me, one of the awesome things about playing a single shorthanded table (happens more live where I really get a chance to develop reads) is that you can pay attention to every line every guy takes in every hand, and start to make adjustments to your default strategy literally within the first orbit at the table, refining the strategy as time goes on and more information gets gathered.

Time Link to 00:03:00

I'm just gonna say that given some reads on the opponent (laggy, spewmonkey etc.) I don't mind the flop c/c at all. Actually, I'm more likely to c/c (and likely call down) here with J7o, and even more with J7s with bdfd, because of all the backdoor equity and trying to preserve my implied odds. Once again I'm not saying it's the better play, but I certainly see a reason behind it.