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

Time Link to 00:03:38

Just a note on sizing here with the AA and on sizing in general. In general, I tend to adjust to tighter tables by dropping my PFR size and opening my range. Since people aren't going to be calling as frequently, and since they're going to be folding more, we can get more value by playing a wider range and opting to steal more small pots either preflop or on the flop. (By contrast, at a loose passive table, we obviously want to play tighter and size our bets larger since the majority of our value will come from later streets when people call too light with marginal hands).

The same kind of thinking applies postflop as well. If we had AA on the 2J9 rainbow board against a loose-passive fish, we'd definitely be sizing much larger on each street because

a) He's going to have more Jx hands in his range
b) He's going to be more likely to have TQ and T8 in his range and will call multiple bets with them
c) He's going to be much less likely to read into our bet-sizing and just look at his cards, and either think Jx is good (and worth stacking off with) or that it's fine to call two large bets with a hand like T8.

Here, I assume villain's range is pairs, and probably some nice prospective hands (since he's IP), so I don't think that hands that'll call 3 sizeable bets (that also lose to us) are going to make up a significant part of his range. As such, we size smaller to increase the chance he calls with hands like TJ/QJ/TT. (Of course, now that we know he'll flat KK IP, we can adjust by including more strong hands in his range postflop and adjust our sizing accordingly)

Sorry don't know how to time stamp but table 2 51.20 the AA hand can you please justify which play you think is best you said that you standby your decision but you also said that you probably completely botched it and said that he might call any pair if you time down shove so was left confused. I personally hate the min raise and think any other option of shove,raise bigger or flat is better. Also you didn't mention how the initial opener and caller affected your decision?

Cheers

Time Link to 00:25:02

I really think I should be betting larger on this flop (closer to full-pot than I originally made it). This guy is very loose-passive and I think most of this guy's value-calling range is vulnerable stuff like 77-TT) will hate overcards). In retrospect, I think betting 4 here is optimal on the flop.

Time Link to 00:39:00

I was incorrect here and thought I'd fix that.

55 vs AK is roughly 54-46
TT vs AK is roughly 56-44

Time Link to 00:53:50

I really think I should be isoing here on table 3 with the QTo vs the SB limp

Great Video Disco and Rapid, keep them coming.

Sorry don't know how to time stamp but table 2 51.20 the AA hand can you please justify which play you think is best you said that you standby your decision but you also said that you probably completely botched it and said that he might call any pair if you time down shove so was left confused. I personally hate the min raise and think any other option of shove,raise bigger or flat is better. Also you didn't mention how the initial opener and caller affected your decision?

Cheers

Each of our options has its own set of pros and cons imo.

Flatting:

+ Leaves initiative in the hands of the squeezer, and given the size of the pot, he's almost certainly going to feel compelled to cbet and get it in. Since we have AA, AK/AQ are less likely and it's less likely that than ace will flop (so smaller OPs won't really have a chance to get away).

- Encourages a 4way pot in which our equity share will be significantly smaller (4 ways, vs 3 other PPs, we'd have about 54% equity in the pot. HU, we have 82%)

Jamming:

+ Makes our hand look most like AK to some players and as such, might get called lighter. In my experience, AK almost never makes a small 4bet like we did here.

+ has the best chance of stacking AK

- Might fold out a QQ hand that'd stack-off postflop on a low board

- The best hand that this line works against (AK, imo) makes up only 40% of a range of QQ/KK/AK. It's better to play against the majority of a player's range.


A small 4bet:

+ Gets the pot HU

+ builds the pot to a size where villain will have a REALLY tough time folding an OP

+ gives the villain the opportunity to shove over the top. Our preflop investment is small enough that we could theoretically fold.

+ Might entice a call from villain's bluffs.

- loses value against AK

- looks REALLY strong

- takes initiative away from the original 3bettor

TBH, I didn't really like the small 4bet at first either. However, after considering ranges, and the fact that there was a ton of dead money in the pot AND that there were three other players, I actually think a non-jam 4bet is the play there. However, I think a size where we can just ship the flop would be better (something like...19 preflop)

wow, awesome analysis ITT from rapid. i can barely muster up this sentence and rapid has written a novel!!!

I really think I should be betting larger on this flop (closer to full-pot than I originally made it). This guy is very loose-passive and I think most of this guy's value-calling range is vulnerable stuff like 77-TT) will hate overcards). In retrospect, I think betting 4 here is optimal on the flop.

yeah i think maybe 3.50-4 on this flop is fine. but against these bad players i often times make a smaller bet on flop to induce them to call/do stupid stuff. then just start pounding close to potsized bets on turn and river

Great vid and discussion, tnx!

Really enjoyed the video.

At the 13 min mark you folded to a "6/6" BTN 3 bet with AQ and went on to describe why he can only have aces.

The problem was you were getting way too much info from a very small sample.
At the time you had exactly 32 hands on the guy.

I looked up the guy in my HH DB and it turns out he plays 12/10/3 and 3 bets over 4% from the button over 2000 hands.

The analysis was great but I just think you were drawing some huge conclusions based on very small samples with some of the players.

Really enjoyed the video.

At the 13 min mark you folded to a "6/6" BTN 3 bet with AQ and went on to describe why he can only have aces.

The problem was you were getting way too much info from a very small sample.
At the time you had exactly 32 hands on the guy.

I looked up the guy in my HH DB and it turns out he plays 12/10/3 and 3 bets over 4% from the button over 2000 hands.

The analysis was great but I just think you were drawing some huge conclusions based on very small samples with some of the players.

just trying to come to the best conclusion we can based on the data available to us. if someones playing 6/6 after 32 its probably safe to assume hes nitty, and fold AQ in that type of spot.

just trying to come to the best conclusion we can based on the data available to us. if someones playing 6/6 after 32 its probably safe to assume hes nitty, and fold AQ in that type of spot.

Yes but the irony is his stats went to 9/9 after that one hand which kind of suggests 32 hands is probably a bit light to draw any strong conclusions.

I think any reasonable player could run 6/6 over 32 hands

Yes he may be nitty but he also might have been a bit card dead.
(which turned out to be the case after looking at a bigger sample)

This guy loves to 3bet from the BTN yet is not the type who likes to 3 bet from the blinds very much.

I think its very important to point out to people watching that small samples can be very misleading "especially" with better players.

With poor fishy players stats converge quickly because its almost impossible to run card dead when you play any two cards!

Anyway I still like the fold but with a 4.3% BTN 3 bet range it's a much closer decision than you suggested.

Really enjoyed the video.

At the 13 min mark you folded to a "6/6" BTN 3 bet with AQ and went on to describe why he can only have aces.

The problem was you were getting way too much info from a very small sample.
At the time you had exactly 32 hands on the guy.

I looked up the guy in my HH DB and it turns out he plays 12/10/3 and 3 bets over 4% from the button over 2000 hands.

The analysis was great but I just think you were drawing some huge conclusions based on very small samples with some of the players.

Perhaps we should've gone a bit more in-depth as to why that hand should've been a fold. You're definitely correct in the fact that the hand sample we had wasn't anywhere near significant enough to establish a 3betting range. I'll bring up some other points though.

First and foremost, he's 3betting our UTG raise. In general, our perceived range when we open UTG is going to be pretty damn strong. As such, when he 3bets us his range is even stronger. Think about what kind of range an unknown is going to 3bet a UTG raise with. If we give villain a range of JJ+/AQs+/AK, we've got 30% equity (and I personally think this is a wide range to be giving villain). Add the fact that we're gonna be OOP for the remainder of the hand and the argument for folding becomes even stronger.

As far as his BTN 3bet goes:

I'd be willing to bet that a huge % of villain's BTN 3bets are against LP and MP opens. It's one thing to 3bet ppl who open wide from the HJ and CO when you're on the BTN (since their ranges are wider and they're going to be OOP postflop if they call, it can definitely be profitable). It's a totally different thing to 3bet someone when their range is at its strongest.

Even if villain was 3betting 4% from the BTN regardless of what kind of player was opening and what position he was opening from, that range STILL has 66% equity against AQo (using the top 4% from pokerstove). Add his advantages of position and initiative, and again, it becomes a clear fold.

Overall, I don't think it's at all close, given that we opened UTG. If we had opened from the HJ or CO, I agree that it would've become closer because our perceived range would've been much wider. In a spot like that, we could consider 4bet-bluffing with some frequency. But when you open UTG and get 3bet, your default with AQo should be to fold.