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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by FoxwoodsFiend (High Stakes)

Great series.

It's really helping me get back into the right mindset, thank you.

Time Link to 00:36:27

I'm still not convinced that the turn should be a fold. Someone that nitty probably isn't good, so I wouldn't rule out AQ. He could also have AK himself.

Great video btw.

Time Link to 00:40:22

Why are hands like T J or 9 T not mentioned. The guy is tight, but I would not be suprised to see him show up with those hands. For this reason and the random factor / own hand strength I would probably snap the turn.

Hey to everyone!

Although being a member of DC for a while now this is my first post. I’m a very lazy poster but an avid forum reader. So when I post, my posts tend to be very extensive. ;-)

Great video, FWF and Blah! Great thread!
Quite some ugly spots in this episode, all of them very interesting and thought provoking! Before I’m going to comment on the hands one suggestion/request: Can you incorporate stats more in your decision process, when reviewing hands? I know, stats aren’t that important, but Blah has a lot of hands on most of his opponents and I’m pretty sure some of the hands should’ve been played a little bit different because of them. It also would be nice to get a quick rundown of Blah’s hud at the beginning of the next episode (most of it is self explanatory, but not all of it).


To the hands:
I.) AK
I think Blah played this one well. I’m not sure, if you had any solid reads whether this guy is really good or just an average reg. Without any great reads the fact he is calling a 3bets oop leads me to think he is just average. I don’t think Blah does get that crazy on the btn to warrant villains PF call oop.
In that spot an average reg has a very narrow unbalanced range, which contains many broadways with a Q and 77-JJ (It would be interesting to know, what his call 3bet oop % is.) That’s about it. I doubt he is balanced enough to slowplay AA-QQ all the time here, (what he really should vs. a competent player, if he doesn’t want to turn his oop calling range face up.)

Flop:
So if these basic assumptions aren’t way off, checking the flop is the right play, imho. Let’s say he has TT+. It’s not very likely he is going to fold such a hand unless an A or a K hits the board, not even to three barrels. I guess he’ll fold 77-99 on the river, if he has these hands in his calling range. (I’m not so sure he has them though.) If you have any proof he calls 3bets with middle PPs oop your basic assumption should be he is a rather call happy guy. So it would be interesting to see this guys “fold to flop, turn and river cbets in 3bet pots” percentage. If these are low as well, I’m pretty sure check folding is the best play on this board, when we don’t improve.

Turn:
Easy bet.

River:
It’s close, but I think in theory the river is a check behind unless we have any proof villain calls with QJ (preflop and on the river). If we don’t, the only worse hands, which are calling, are KQ (if so) and AJ. Maybe he is hero calling with JJ, but that’s about it. 1010 got there. For the sake of balancing we have to bet though. But if we bet, we have to fold to a raise. Our hand is pretty face up and I doubt villain is crazy enough to bluff this river to make an A fold (he rather would hero call), because after the shove the pot odds are just too tempting for a crying call. And no, this guy is not trying to level anybody in that spot.
What is his raise river percentage? I guess it’s pretty low and insanely value heavy. In such a close spot I think it’s better to go for the extra information you get vs. an unkown, when you just check behind. If he shows up with 99 or QJ, this is valuable information and we know we have to bet AK and our air on turn and river the next time in a similar spot.

II.) K9s
Are these only FR stats or combined stats? I assume combined stats, because this would be the loosest FR table I have ever seen since I escaped the micros. I don’t know, what you guys think, but I think it’s very important not to mix up HU, 6max and FR stats.

Flop:
I like the flop check.

Turn:
If we should call or not, depends on his PF call 3bet oop range and what we think about his bet size tendencies. Villian first calls a minraise and then a squeeze oop, which, again, leads me to think, he is just an average player unless proven otherwise. Unfortunately, the board is hitting the average calling range of a reg very hard.
So on this board a pot size bet made by an average player on the turn is very disturbing. It’s pretty much their way of saying “I have a bigger hand than yours”. This guy is obviously afraid that a T, a J, an A or any heart hits the board. From his perspective you cannot have much more than a draw and AQ/AJ/JJ/TT. So he is mainly potting to charge your draws (he probably puked, when he saw the river card), not because he is creative with his bet size.

River:
For the reasons stated above, we should check behind. He told you he has a hand and as correctly mentioned in the video usually average players tank forever to finally click call with it. You give these average guys way too much credit, imho. For him it does make sense to check the river, because he has put you on a draw. On the other hand he is still married to his hand, so he clicks call anyway. Just because someone has reggish stats and plays 5/10 doesn’t mean he is really good. I mean, first he calls a minraise in the SB with KQ, although he really should 3bet it for several reasons, then he calls a squeeze of very strong opponent oop. On the turn he makes a totally unbalanced pot size bet (I’m very confident he is never potting his bluffs there) and then he fails to value bet the river. The average ABC micro and small stakes reg would’ve played this hand exactly in the same fashion. The best way to exploit those players on these boards is to check behind. You are going to win more than your fair share IP anyway, so there really is no need to try to bluff such a guy off AK or K10 (two hands he almost never has in that spot).

Additionally, as in the previous hand, the check behind most likely would have given you a good piece of information, even if he shows up with K10 in that spot. Knowing he calls 3bets oop with such trashy hands is worth much more than a fold by him on this river, I think.


III.) 89s
After two calls I don’t give the reg a set. If he is really, really good and reads Blah’s lead as very strong he might only call with it, because he knows Hero has 89 all the time. But an average to just good reg would almost certainly raise a set on the flop. So he has to have two pairs and K+pair type hands and AK in his flop calling range. When he just calls the turn, AK becomes very unlikely though.

The river is a check fold. Villain is not going to value bet a set in this constellation. As stated he must be a very good hand reader and a very good player to do this and even more importantly think so highly of Blah, that he actually sees a chance to make him fold 89 in that spot while giving him amazing pot odds. If we have no proof he is such a type of player, it’s very unlikely he bets anything than a K and a flush there, especially with a weaker player in the pot, who is allin. What can he really gain by betting a set? There is a decent chance Hero is check/calling 89, because the pot is so big. Additionally there is a very good chance the weaker player has a straight or a flush and villain is going to lose anyway.
It certainly would be awesome for villain to bet a set of tens and make hero fold a better set or 89 and stack the weaker player at the same time. But the thing is, hero really can’t have a set in that spot and the average villain is not going to get tricky here often enough to become a concern for us. If he value bets a set in that situation and wins the pot against the weaker player, so be it. The fold is still correct, because you most likely run into a straight or better 10 times out of 11 in that very spot.


IV.) AK vs. nit

Whether you should 3bet or call depends on his raise first in percentage on the HJ and what you have seen so far. If you think he calls 3bets IP with AQ a flat or a 3bet is fine, I think. If he folds AQ a flat becomes more attractive. Either way it’s very close, because you are oop postflop, but in can’t be much of a mistake to 3bet AK unless villain is opening way less than 10%. In late position a flat becomes superior though.

Flop:
Easy cbet for value.

Turn:
When he raises and has a high fold to 3bet preflop he can’t have many flushdraws. KQs and maybe QJs and J10s. Even if he has them in his range I highly doubt this guy is raising them. If he is a setmining in 3bet pots type of reg I give him the following range for raising the turn: AA, AK, 77, KQs and AQ, if he thinks you are full of sh***t. He can’t really have 88, because normally a nit folds this hand on the flop.
What I learned about nits is, they hate to fold really strong hands. On this particular board AQ is a strong hand and he sees all these “maniacs” around him, going broke with nothing so he says to himself: “This guy is barreling the flushdraw all the time and is hero calling with crazy stuff, so I gonna shove the turn for value.” There are only so many nits around, who understand much about board texture, perceived ranges and so on. A nit on 5/10 has too much money, won a big tournament or is a live player, who thinks 5/10 is the same game online. I just can’t imagine, you can make your way up to 5/10 playing 18/14 unless you are some kind of mass tabling grinder. If you could, poker would be very far from being dead. (And the more I watch mid stakes tables on smaller networks, I believe there still can be made plenty of money).
So if his raising range from above is not totally off, it’s a call, even when you take KQs out of his range, albeit I’m aware it’s not much more than a break even play. I think I would only fold AK, when the turn was a J, a Q or has completed the flush. I might also consider folding, when the board is super dry, because villain wouldn’t try to protect his AQ from a flush (and cannot have a draw in his raising range).


V.) 99

The first thing I would check is his raise first in percantge from utg to determine how wide of a range he has. I’m constantly referring to raise first in stats, because PFR is way less accurate. A 19/16 probably opens around 5-8% from EP, maybe a little less, maybe a little more (when he isn’t aware of position at all).

Flop:
I also always used to check call such boards, but the more I think of it that’s a mistake against a very tight player, who has opened utg. This guy only has overpairs and overcards in his range. Let’s say he has KQ type hand and a none club K hits, you might get action for two more streets, if the flush doesn’t hit. At the same time you lose a lot of action from TT-QQ. Granted, you are going to fold out quite some overcards with a raise, but he is still going to call with 3% of his range, so almost the half of his opening range! He is not going to fold an overpair against a raise. He is not folding overcards with a flushdraw, he even might peel once with AKo. Simply put, against a very narrow range, we should raise, against a wider range we should just flat the flop cbet.

Turn:
If a none club comes, I would check. An average player will put us on a draw all the time and will bet almost his whole range, especially IP. If it’s better to flat or raise his bet is a tough question, I’ll probably would flat and rep the draw, but it really depends on any read I have on my opponent.
If a spade comes, I would donk small (half pot or less) to give villain a chance to call with his small overpairs that contain a club (He’ll call with AA or KK without a spade as well I guess). If we don’t bet, he almost always is going to check these hands behind.

As the hand actually played out I would always raise the turn. If he has air, so be it, if he has a good overpair with a club in it he is still calling, if he has the flush we stack him.
On this river I would bet, check his raise percentage, when he shoves (and most likely realize he almost never is bluff raising the river), curse all poker gods and click call, although I know I’m beat. Such a tight player is never ever bluff-raising this river. I know, there is no way he can have a ten, but in my experience on these boards they somehow always have it, when they raise. The average 19/16 simply doesn’t bluff such boards. That’s why 99 would the weakest hand I would bet here. Maybe the Ah flush, but only very small and I would snap fold to any raise of this guy.



@ Blah: Although you got sucked out quite a bit, you can be happy to have such players on your tables. Some of them made mistakes I wouldn’ve expected from a mid stakes reg and are only dreaming of the level of skill you already have. Just remember, average tight regs do always have it, when they raise the river unless proven otherwise, even on 5/10 as we have seen.
One more thing, why does PTR always show an error, when I try to find you there? I’ve tried for more than a month, but it’s always the same I also asked a couple of friends, they all get the same error message, when they search for your nick (Morgauth). I never have gotten this error message on any other player – maybe some secret agreement between you and PTR so that nobody can see how you crush!? ;-)

@Theads13:
Great comment! I’ve written my post before I read your post and as you can see I came to very same conclusion you did regarding the AK hand vs. the nit. SpewKids comment regarding this hand is also spot on.

@Lolatronshik and Blah:
I like Blahs big bet on the turn. The weaker player is not going to fold many hands he called the flop with on a blank turn. We really don’t have to worry about the reg that much. If he shoves and shows down AK it’s a cooler. I actually think it may be best to just shove the turn. The weaker player is going to call and the reg might level himself into a call, if he happens to have a set (although I don’t think he has one really that often.) And folding out his Kx hands is not the worst thing in that spot.
Why do you guys think villian doesn’t have that many Kx hands in his range anyway? I think the average reg will call a flop lead with all his Kx hands, especially with a weaker player in the hand. Again, don’t give them so much credit unless they have proven you otherwise on several occasions. What Goldseraph has said, is spot on.

@Blah and Threads13:
I think you both brought good arguments in your 3bet or not to 3bet AK discussion vs. a nit. I would check his raise first in stat and go from there. If he is opening 10% or less of his hands I’m 3betting AK as a semi bluff to kinda balance my value range (AA, KK), when I’m oop, and call IP.
When he is opening 15% or more I think we should always 3bet AK, but I doubt a nit opens that many hands from the HJ.

Nice hand with the 89. Villain obviously played it correctly because he knew what card would come on the river and played the whole hand backwards like a real winner does.

Anyway, slightly off topic but applicable to the AKo vs very tight range in this discussion:
Say we have a shortie open with at least two (very tight) callers, we sqz a little smaller to make the shortie reship so as to shut out the previous overcallers and collect some dead money.
Now shortie surprisingly folds and one of the previous callers reships and he never has worse than AK to do this, he always has at least AK or a pocket pair which means we need at least 38% equity to break even (40% if we have AKs iirc). I probably just answered my own question but we should fold unless we have at least 38% pot odds, right?

Can you incorporate stats more in your decision process, when reviewing hands? I know, stats aren’t that important, but Blah has a lot of hands on most of his opponents and I’m pretty sure some of the hands should’ve been played a little bit different because of them.
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Stats play a very minor role once you get to midstakes. Most people play differently at different tables so stats is just an average. Someone that opens 15% EP could be opening 25% at this table and 10% at the next table for example which makes it not so relavent. I use HUD only to spot obvious leaks in bad reg's games and prevent me from donating to nits while multi tabling.

Epic first post Tolp, tl;dr obviusly because I'm lazy, but still.

On the AK hand, don't you think the nit can have AA also sometimes, that hand was completely left out of the discussion? Obviously it's only one combo and he probably 4bets pre or jut calls the turn the vast majority of the time, but if you think his range for jamming is somewhere between 5-10 combos anyway, might as well include half a combo of that.

But I think it's not reasonable to fold the turn there, his value range is basically 6 combos of 77 and 88, which he may not even call preflop, and probably folds the flop with 88 most of the time. If we're valuebetting the turn to get called by basically only AQ, maybe some AJs, and a couple of combos of flushdraws, I think we have to consider that he's just gonna "what the hell" jam those, for reasons threads13 mentioned, and click call needing only 26% equity.

Stats play a very minor role once you get to midstakes. Most people play differently at different tables so stats is just an average. Someone that opens 15% EP could be opening 25% at this table and 10% at the next table for example which makes it not so relavent. I use HUD only to spot obvious leaks in bad reg's games and prevent me from donating to nits while multi tabling.

I think this is an incredibly useful post regarding stats. I definitely find myself relying on stats too much, this really sums the reasons why we [should] use our HUDs.

Stats play a very minor role once you get to midstakes. Most people play differently at different tables so stats is just an average. Someone that opens 15% EP could be opening 25% at this table and 10% at the next table for example which makes it not so relavent. I use HUD only to spot obvious leaks in bad reg's games and prevent me from donating to nits while multi tabling.

While this is certainly true for really good players, I would be pretty surprised, if all stats lose their meaning as soon you make the jump from small to mid stakes. As you said I’m pretty sure the nits play the same game on every table. So do bad to average regs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a guy, who thinks stats are the most important thing in poker, far from it, but they help to determine the average range villain goes to the flop with and to spot some leaks in their postflop game. What I believe we should do is to think about these averages and how they correlate to certain table conditions and what we have seen from him and what he has seen from us so far. So in my humble opinion I don’t think that all stats play a minor role, even on mid stakes.

One example:
If I have 3k hands of a guy and his river raise percentage is very low, then he almost never is bluff raising the river on any table. If it’s not very low, then you know he is at least capable to bluff raise the river, when the conditions are right. I think this is valuable information.
It’s true, stats only tell you an average, but when a guy has very low raise percentages, he simply can’t be bluffing unless he slow plays most of his big hands. It would be kinda far fetched to believe such a guy all of the sudden starts to bluff raise, because the table conditions are right.

Maybe this video was an exception, but almost every hand was played rather poorly by your villains. In the K9s hand you and FWF think it’s possible villain holds K10 or middle PPs. Only a very bad reg could show up with such hands in that spot. If he is so bad to play these hands oop in 3bet pots, then he certainly isn’t good enough to adapt to table conditions.
Again, you give some guys way too much credit.


@fizzo:
I don’t want to start a discussion about stats, but there are some useful ones and some less useful ones. For example the good old PFR isn’t really that useful. You also should not mix up FR, 6max and HU stats and stats from different stakes. Also a lot of people make the mistake to mix up stats from tables, that aren’t full, with stats of tables, on which every seat is occupied. Stats tell you, what the average game plan of a player is. Not more, not less. And when we spot a certain leak in a players average game plan like someone almost never raises the river as bluff, then we don’t need to bluff catch, because it’s unlikely villain has changed his game plan exactly for us.
Another example: We see somebody is 3betting on average 20% in late position. Now we are going to give him hell with any decent hand. Really good players like Blah can act by feel and observation, but it doesn’t hurt to double check your observation with your stats.

your example of 3k hands someone raise river % tells you something? people don't face a river bet in 3k hands that much so the variance in that stat is massive. I also said HUD is useful for spotting obv leaks. Never bluffing in some spot or 3 betting 20% would fit in those obv leaks. We assign people a range mostly based on observations and use stats to add or subtract few combo but stats should never play a huge role especially stats like raise river %.

Lets say you got 5k hands on someone he 3 bets almost never, then he starts 3bet bluffing because his game changed(he got a coach that says 3bet bluffing is awesome and he should do it 20% of the times). Now over the next 5k hands stats will average and you will not notice this guy is bluffing more if you give stats lots of weight and his stats will not show that he's bluffing too much until many month later. Those stats that takes long time to converge is even less useful because people's game do change in that period.

I don't really want to start a huge stats argument here. I never said stats are useless they do provide information and any information is better than nothing. FWF doesn't seem to base his thought process much on stats either since he never asked to see stats during the videos so since both of our decision making process doesn't involve the use of stats much it's reflected in our video and not talking about stats much.

Time Link to 00:18:48

You are saying that it makes for Villain no sense to have on this river a C/Call-range.
I somewhat disagree with this because the rivercard is a card which makes it hard for Villain to valuebet some hands such as for example KTs.
So to have here a C/Callrange with top-hands can protect some hands where he now wanna to C/F.
It is furthermore a spot where your perceived range are just some potcontroled Qx,Kx-hands -> all those bluffcatching_hands (unless QJ, KJ) will not be rly able to call on this rivercard because it improves Villain`s turnbettingrange so hard.
If he now perceives you as aggressive, than likely your bettingrange (regards to turned madehands into a bluff) is bigger than your callingrange here.
So imo it makes for him some sense to C/C here sometimes his toprange on the river.

I also think that it is a somewhat obv. "turn_into_a_bluffspot" where you cannot rep too much because of your flopplay.
So i would check here back at least any Kx-hand and maybe only consider to bluff with Qx-hands.

btw.,
what was your plan for the river, should it blank and Villain would have bombed there again?

your example of 3k hands someone raise river % tells you something? people don't face a river bet in 3k hands that much so the variance in that stat is massive. I also said HUD is useful for spotting obv leaks. Never bluffing in some spot or 3 betting 20% would fit in those obv leaks. We assign people a range mostly based on observations and use stats to add or subtract few combo but stats should never play a huge role especially stats like raise river %.

Fair enough.
You are right, the raise river stat probably needs more than 3k hands to become reliable (as far as variance goes), but 3k should be a decent sample size for the flop raise percentage for example.
But we are on the same page, observation and taking notes is the key to success in poker and stats aid us in that process. How much they help is a matter of opinion to some extend. Personally I would never give stats more weight in my decision process than observation, especially postflop. I just use them, when I’m unsure of my opponent’s tendencies in a very difficult spot like the one, when you got raised on the river in the first AK hand. If the overall postflop raise stats are very low I rather click fold and vice versa.

Lets say you got 5k hands on someone he 3 bets almost never, then he starts 3bet bluffing because his game changed(he got a coach that says 3bet bluffing is awesome and he should do it 20% of the times). Now over the next 5k hands stats will average and you will not notice this guy is bluffing more if you give stats lots of weight and his stats will not show that he's bluffing too much until many month later. Those stats that takes long time to converge is even less useful because people's game do change in that period.

Obviously it would be a great mistake to use stats in that fashion. If someone, who never 3bets starts 3betting me I start to wonder. Why? Because I have a note on him (mental or written down) telling me he never 3bets and/or because his frequent 3betting isn’t congruent with the stats I have on him. When multi tabling I can’t count every single time he 3bets me, so I check my session stats and make a note that this guys may have changed his 3bet frequencies considerably.
True, people change their game. Obviously more in mid stakes than in small stakes games, but this could be used as an argument against notes and old observations as well. I don’t use stats older than 6 months and I don’t trust old notes either. We have to stay focused all the time. I think we all can agree to that.


Let’s talk about the hands, that’s more interesting anyway:

K9 hand:
Would you consider turning AQ/Q10 into a bluff on the river? Personally I would just give up about any one pair hand on that board. It just hits the oop 3bet calling range of an average reg too hard. Do you think that a reg will ever fold two pair in that spot in a 3bet pot?
Is calling 3bets oop common in mid stakes? As long someone has a reasonable 3bet range most coaches (like BalugaWhale) recommend not to call a 3bet oop at all. Personally this advice has helped my game a lot.

99 hand:
What do you think about raising the flop?

K9 hand:
Would you consider turning AQ/Q10 into a bluff on the river? Personally I would just give up about any one pair hand on that board. It just hits the oop 3bet calling range of an average reg too hard. Do you think that a reg will ever fold two pair in that spot in a 3bet pot?
Is calling 3bets oop common in mid stakes? As long someone has a reasonable 3bet range most coaches (like BalugaWhale) recommend not to call a 3bet oop at all. Personally this advice has helped my game a lot.

99 hand:
What do you think about raising the flop?

K9 hand I think we should at least think about turning the bottom of our range into a bluff and it doesn't matter if its K9 or QT. AQ should be turned into a bluff before K9 since it wins at showdown less often.

99 hand raising the flop without short term dynamic is bad because we rep a very strong range for playing back given positions and it will be very difficult to stack most competent player. Their playing back range should at least bet the turn anyways if we call. We have the hand locked most of the times so villain has more reversed implied odds than implied odds for seeing turn and river.

K9 hand I think we should at least think about turning the bottom of our range into a bluff and it doesn't matter if its K9 or QT. AQ should be turned into a bluff before K9 since it wins at showdown less often.

So you think there are regs, who are going to fold KJ, KQ, QJ, when you have checked back the flop and shove the river? That's a little bit too optimistic.
What do you think about calling 3bets oop? Isn't that what rather weaker players do? I followed a two+two thread about this topic a while ago and the conclusion was that it's almost impossible to play profitable in 3bet pot oop against a decent 3bet range unless you stop 4betting your value range PF.

99 hand raising the flop without short term dynamic is bad because we rep a very strong range for playing back given positions and it will be very difficult to stack most competent player. Their playing back range should at least bet the turn anyways if we call. We have the hand locked most of the times so villain has more reversed implied odds than implied odds for seeing turn and river.

True, we rep a very strong range, when we raise, but the nit also has a very strong range to begin with. And normally a nit isn't a very competent player and mostly plays his cards. Many turn cards could destroy all your action, while only a few can give you some more. That's why I believe it's better to raise against this particular opponent. The value range that is going to bet on the turn, when you just call the cbet, will almost always call a flop raise. He might even go broke with most of his overpairs and some of his big flush draws immeadiately. But he might not go broke with a big overpair, when the turn completes the flush.
I also don't think this villian has that much more reversed odds than implied odds. If we get lucky and a blank A or K turns and villian holds AK (or AQ) he might go broke. That's about it. If he holds QJ and hits a pair on the turn you'll most likley get only one more bet out of him. That's 4-5 (6 would be too optimistic) outs that might give you some money vs. 2 outs, who boat him up and give him all your money.
I think it's only a call, when raising would fold out his flushdraws plus 2 overs, but I really doubt he is going to fold them to a flop raise, when he is IP. Against a reg with a non nitty utg range a call is obviously the best play though.

Time Link to 00:33:54

You agree that we cannot assume that such a player will with those positions 4bet/C light pre and as well hardly bluff4bet, preflop?
If so,
then imo it would be here pretty ugly to face a 4bet. (actually with the assumptions above you in fact would not be able to play +ev 3bet/5betjam vs. such a Nit).

River:
he can have as well some AK-combos himself regards to his nitty tendencies and the positions.
When you give him a tight range and then add some AK-combos where you split, even ignoring AQ-combos,
then we always have the needed EQ to call it off and folding should be out of the question.

You agree that we cannot assume that such a player will with those positions 4bet/C light pre and as well hardly bluff4bet, preflop?
If so,
then imo it would be here pretty ugly to face a 4bet. (actually with the assumptions above you in fact would not be able to play +ev 3bet/5betjam vs. such a Nit).

River:
he can have as well some AK-combos himself regards to his nitty tendencies and the positions.
When you give him a tight range and then add some AK-combos where you split, even ignoring AQ-combos,
then we always have the needed EQ to call it off and folding should be out of the question.

I'm turbo folding if I get 4 bet.

I'm turbo folding if I get 4 bet.

So Blah, in a sense is AK a 3-bet bluff here then? Like obviously AK is ahead of his calling range, but are you saying he's folding enough pf, and we have enough equity when called to make it +EV to fold to a 4-bet?

So Blah, in a sense is AK a 3-bet bluff here then? Like obviously AK is ahead of his calling range, but are you saying he's folding enough pf, and we have enough equity when called to make it +EV to fold to a 4-bet?

I don't think in terms of value or bluff only in terms of EV. I think 3bet>call>fold in terms of EV in this spot. EV comes from the fact villain will fold with a reasonable frequency and we have good equity vs his calling range. Getting 4bet and fold will happen rarely and I don't expect this villain's 4betting frequency to be high enough for me to worry about folding to be exploitable.

I don't think in terms of value or bluff only in terms of EV. I think 3bet>call>fold in terms of EV in this spot. EV comes from the fact villain will fold a bunch and we have good equity vs his calling range. 3bet/folding AK is exploitable but I don't expect this villain to 4 bet bluff enough for that to matter.

Ok cool that makes a lot of sense.

really good video guys going to watch this one twice. fwf you make me laugh

I'm turbo folding if I get 4 bet.

I agree.
B/c I think that he is so nitty that there is not too much value against his 3bet_Callrange, I would hence prefer to coldcall in this particular spot, only.

Time Link to 00:29:15

I think the only thing for Blah to do here is shove. In the case where WingMan has came long with KJ, KQ, KT, it's his only way to recover some money on the hand from SeanSean. I don't give SeanSean AK here for all the reasons you state. However, with so little remaining behind, isn't he pot commited for the balance of your checks with any 2 pair or set? I think his play looks like a made hand from the flop, a cautous set or AQ. It seems like KQ or KJ should be a distant worry here. The overiding concern is making a profit on your remaining chips when WingMan luck boxed his way into winning the pot. (I've not viewed past this point as of these comments)

GeeBeeQED

What do you think about calling 3bets oop? Isn't that what rather weaker players do? I followed a two+two thread about this topic a while ago and the conclusion was that it's almost impossible to play profitable in 3bet pot oop against a decent 3bet range unless you stop 4betting your value range PF

Posted on 2+2 must be true? What is the argument for never calling 3 bets OOP?

My argument for it's necessary to have OOP calling range is if you never call OOP villain can totally polarize his 3 betting range and reduce his 3 bet sizing to exploit us. If we reduce our 4 bet size in relation to villain's 3bet size then villain has the option to call 4 bet IP, especially slightly deeper than 100BB. If we don't reduce our 4 bet size then each bluff has smaller risk to reward ratio and the EV of each 4 bet bluff and each 4bet/call with the bottom of our range decreases to a point where we can't prevent villain from having +EV 3 bets vs us with a very wide range.

All this only matter if villain is exploiting us and you can choose to never call 3 bets OOP if villain is not.

Time Link to 00:28:37

Very tricky river spot. The good news is this is sufficiently rare and so close at the same time that if we just don't get disconnected and make any decision it won't be too bad. I think c/f is likely the best since a reg bluffing into a protected dry side pot should be downright rare.

I am curious about one thing though. We all have taken AK out of this guys range based on his turn play. FWF and others based this on the fact that he didn't ship it in. So I am wondering if you guys saw him show AK at showdown would you think he is expert, very good, regfish, or real fish?

Posted on 2+2 must be true? What is the argument for never calling 3 bets OOP?

I never said that this has to be true. The basic argument was that it’s hard to balance your 4bet and call 3bet oop range. There are only so many (value) hands you can play, so you turn your ranges face up and it’s hard to make calling a more +EV play than 4bet/folding against a good player. I think BalugaWhale says something along these lines in his book too.
If you don’t start to call with AK, QQ+ in these spots your range becomes incredibly narrow. Something like: AQ, KQ, AJ, KJ, QJs, JJ, TT. (I think it’s very hard to play this range profitably oop against a decent 3bet range of let’s say 8-10% unless villain has a very junky polarized range without many Ax hands in it. And calling with middle PPs cannot be right, because I doubt someone can play them profitable oop against a good, aggressive opponent without initiative.).

I agree with what you say in your second paragraph. Calling 3bets oop becomes way more profitable, when villain starts to unbalance his 3bet range against us (which he has to to exploit us). Obviously I’m going to start calling 3bets oop, when villain starts to make smaller 3bets against me. When we get deeper or 3bets become smaller or villain starts to call 4bets IP variables change and so our initial game plan has to change as well, no doubt about that. I just was referring to hands we get 3bet oop by a good regular with a decent 3bet range about 100BB deep without any special dynamics going on.


What do you think about shoving the turn with your straight in the 89 hand? The weaker player is coming along with any hand he calls a pot sized bet anyway, while the reg might still level himself into call with a set or top two pair.

@surfdoc: I would think he is very good-expert (or a very passive). I mean Blah can't have much else than top two pair or 89 in this spot. Sets are very unlikely, so his hand is pretty much locked and his primary goal should be to keep the weaker player in the hand, who easily could have a pair plus straight draw and might find a fold with such a hand against a huge bet and a shove. When the weaker player calls, the pot is going to be so big on the river that it’s unlikely Blah folds many hands he bombed the turn with. Actually, the more I think of it a call with AK would be way better than a raise in that spot.