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

Is this series 6max now? I haven't watched cause I thought it was full ring !

Is this series 6max now? I haven't watched cause I thought it was full ring !

Ummm...

It was always 6 max. Guess you have some vids to catch up on.

Personally, I appreciate the standard spots. At this point in my poker playing, I think I get more from watching you guys play common spots confidently.

I recently finished the Tommy Angelo series, and he has a great quote about the decisions we sweat the most mattering the least. In that vein, the hands that get 20+ minutes of air time on DC videos probably don't come up very often and it's the 10 second hands that affect my winrate the most if I don't play them correctly. Not to say that the long discussions aren't interesting or valuable (they are), but for a beginner series, I liked this episode.

Time Link to 00:10:42

T8o on the right: I have some rouble reading these boards. I mean BB has a below average hand and BTN doesn't have that much better. There are some draws obv, but given the weird ranges it's hard to say how likely they are. The high cards increase the chace to take it down immediately. It's a tough spot to analyze. I do bet out here sometimes for sure. It depends n the read I have on BTNs flop tendencies.

Time Link to 00:15:50

I like the raise with AK. I don't think we have enough info on the donker to say "he always has it". Monotone boards I've seen some liberal donks because fishy players (correctly actually) assume they can take it down a fair bit. Thus Im suspicious.

Awesome stuff as usual, guys! I think that there's huge value to seeing how winning players deal with "standard" spots, especially for the target audience of this series. I do think that the term "standard" is a bit misused. It implies that a decision is trivial. In fact, many of these standard situations are not trivial and not obvious. Rather, there is a line that is correct 80% of the time (as you both point out). That doesn't mean that it's obvious to a smallstakes player. Through experience and watching videos like this, we round out our understanding of standard spots, which should be enough to crush small stakes. Then, we do session reviews and post hands to learn how to think about non-standard spots.

I was one of the Wednesday afternoon students, though I think I game select fairly well for my normal sessions. For sweats, though, I like being in games with tougher opponents!

Oh, and there are many spots in small stakes that are NOT standard that we never get to see in the mid/high stakes videos. Spots where we have two limpers, a cutoff poster and a chronic flop donker will never come up in a "Relentless Assault" type video. So, kudos to DC for mixing in some small stakes content as well.

Time Link to 00:23:10

That AJ hand: Pyg talks about calling the turn and fold a lot of rivers. I don't like that line vs these guys, becase in my experience once they have started bluffing they don't stop. Under that assumption calling turn and folding river is obv real bad. Do u guys agree on this general read? I don't mind folding the turn though. However I think he can have Ax and sometimes a bluff, so I typically call down.

We have to treat the donking read carefully. Yes he had a pair each time, but he has not checked that much (ever? cant remember). Thus we don't know how he plays draws and bluffs. Basically we know he donks when he has a pair. But we can't really be sure of how his donkin range looks like.

Time Link to 00:15:44

Awesome discussion about the AK hand

I'm kind of conflicted here cause if it was hu vs the donker most times I just call and hope he barrels worse draws

3 ways I think it gets way more complicated cause some % of the time if you raise dude can't over-call some of his pairs on this board which would be a huge win for us to get it hu vs a worse hand while making a better hand fold

I've done both things in this spot before and I've always been a little bit torn on what's best

Time Link to 00:40:29

If I were playing on stars I'd probably just open fold this turn. Also I think PF is just a tiny bit too thin, but it's really close and I might call T8s, and would definitely call T9s, as well as some worse suited connectors. The big thing about T7s is as you guys mentioned the lack of good straight draws relative to a 0 gap.

T7s might even be enough here though the CO is pretty awful.

And I'd also include some weak Qx hands in the coldcallers range as well as some 5x or Tx hands that might have backdoor spades or backdoor hearts. So I'd still feel pretty good about our hand before that terrible turn card showed up.

Time Link to 00:11:33

I agree the higher you move up , the fish just get more aggro preflop, they still play terribad postflop so thats were your edge comes from. I run into 40/20, 50/20, 35/15, 45/15 guys.

Awesome stuff as usual, guys! I think that there's huge value to seeing how winning players deal with "standard" spots, especially for the target audience of this series. I do think that the term "standard" is a bit misused. It implies that a decision is trivial. In fact, many of these standard situations are not trivial and not obvious. Rather, there is a line that is correct 80% of the time (as you both point out). That doesn't mean that it's obvious to a smallstakes player. Through experience and watching videos like this, we round out our understanding of standard spots, which should be enough to crush small stakes. Then, we do session reviews and post hands to learn how to think about non-standard spots.

Great point Mike. I think you're absolutely right to define standard in this way and I like your analysis.

I was one of the Wednesday afternoon students, though I think I game select fairly well for my normal sessions. For sweats, though, I like being in games with tougher opponents!

I don't remember exactly what I / BBB said, but I'm pretty sure I worked with you the Wednesday before we shot this. So we probably weren't thinking of you. Except when BBB calls you a fish, in which case he's pretty clearly talking about you.

That AJ hand: Pyg talks about calling the turn and fold a lot of rivers. I don't like that line vs these guys, becase in my experience once they have started bluffing they don't stop. Under that assumption calling turn and folding river is obv real bad. Do u guys agree on this general read? I don't mind folding the turn though. However I think he can have Ax and sometimes a bluff, so I typically call down.

We have to treat the donking read carefully. Yes he had a pair each time, but he has not checked that much (ever? cant remember). Thus we don't know how he plays draws and bluffs. Basically we know he donks when he has a pair. But we can't really be sure of how his donkin range looks like.

It probably wasn't clear from my mumbling, but I was just kind of going over the analysis of calling the turn and folding the river - I wasn't strongly advocating that line and I do in fact favor folding the turn.

He can't have any draws on that board, he has had it in the past, we have not seen him bluff yet, we could be drawing dead, if he's even remotely positionally aware he can see we're UTG, etc.

Awesome discussion about the AK hand

I'm kind of conflicted here cause if it was hu vs the donker most times I just call and hope he barrels worse draws

3 ways I think it gets way more complicated cause some % of the time if you raise dude can't over-call some of his pairs on this board which would be a huge win for us to get it hu vs a worse hand while making a better hand fold

I've done both things in this spot before and I've always been a little bit torn on what's best

You and sushi are spared from being virtually kicked.