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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by KRANTZ (Mid Stakes)

Time Link to 00:28:36

Why is cbetting KK on a 287 bad?

Time Link to 00:08:17

I agree with Krantz here...... by check calling you basically rep AQ or something like that. So yeah, this guy (since he is a winning player, I checked) could say to himself "he never has AK", but that doesn't mean he is often going to try to get you off your apparent AQ.... that's kind of a big step especially when it almost always takes 3 barrels to get someone off AQ here. A solid player just isn't going to blast away very often.

When you check raise you're worried that the face value of the raise looks strong but if he decides it doesnt make sense (which we know it doesn't, usually) its going to cost him a lot more money to try to push us off the hand. Also, a lot of people just decide after firing 2 that enough is enough and they don't have it in them to fire 3 and get you off your AQ. I mean, this is 1/2.... generally speaking firing 3 to get someone off of AQ is a horrible plan.

So I like check raising, and the primary reasons are 1) neither option is really clearly dominant (c/c or c/r), 2) the pot will be bigger if he does decide to play back, 3) it makes the least sense to some better players.

EDIT: I like the river sizing since I think he has air most of the time and its the only size that he can play back at. Even though he tanked here I still think he had air and was just hollywooding because if people knew he was bluffing there it would look really bad for his tight image.

Time Link to 00:37:07

I think you guys aren't really considering the times you get outplayed by AJ/AQ/KQ/etc, not just the times we let him hit with QJ .... also..... I think that in general a 19/18 player is going to try to make a jam here a lot with hands we dominate.

You have to really think that he's going to put in a lot of money bad because he still has position and we're going to get outplayed sometimes. If we hit an A and he has one too, we're really only gaining by slowplaying if he has A7 or something (which he still might jam pre anyway), so most of the value we get from slowplaying is just from the BB squeezing which I don't really think is going to happen that much. The BTN is a tight player and playing short, we've been raising almost every pot we enter, and we're just randomly letting the BB have the classic squeeze spot while also entering the pot OOP... just strikes me as suspicious if I were the BB. What hands are we flatting here that aren't monsters? Or what are we trying to represent?

The BTN is a tight player and playing short, we've been raising almost every pot we enter, and we're just randomly letting the BB have the classic squeeze spot while also entering the pot OOP... just strikes me as suspicious if I were the BB. What hands are we flatting here that aren't monsters? Or what are we trying to represent?

We're trying to rep mostly hands like KJo, KTo, AJo, ATo, QJs, KJs, pocket pairs, etc. Hands that are perceived to fold to a squeeze.

Why is cbetting KK on a 287 bad?

I think not cbetting KK vs regs on that board texture is very interesting, and I'd definitely like some more expansive discussion on this spot since it was kinda glossed over in the video. Intuitively I feel it's kinda awesome, especially since most people will not expect you to have such a strong hand when you take a more passive line.

The HU player in me is sad that you have to play that passively in 6max, however

Time Link to 01:00:45

What are we trying to rep here with the check raise AI? I understand when he checks the turn J that he often doesn't have it, nor does he have a total monster, but at the same time we very rarely check the river in this scenario with a value hand. Against this opponent and with the given action we often expect him to check back the river, and for the most part we shouldn't expect him to call a river check raise either... his hand clearly just isn't that strong. Combining both of those, its obviously not a great play to check raise for value and I don't think if we had AJ here or a boat that we would actually check twice planning to spring a check raise.

The other thing that worries me is that he does have QQ+ still - its very reasonable to assume a nitty player is going to check back on the turn with QQ+ when that second J comes. So when he bets the river I think his range is narrowed down to TT+, maybe a small percentage of the time AQ or 99/88, so essentially we're trying to get him to fold a "big hand" ("big" as in QQ looks pretty). He might even be thinking back to earlier when we 3bet jammed the river all-in on the dry ace board and considering that here as well.

It's possible when he checks the turn for pot control that he actually will never call all-in (some people just cant get themselves to do it when faced with it, regardless of what the line looks like), and I guess it only has to work like 55% of the time. Maybe I'm giving this guy too much credit for being able to make a hero call given the logic... all I know is I've tried it at higher limits (in situations extremely similar to this) and its just never really worked out for me, I just get tank-called by KK or whatever and punch myself in the face for trying to get someone to fold what I call a "monster bluff catcher".

EDIT: I like the river sizing since I think he has air most of the time and its the only size that he can play back at. Even though he tanked here I still think he had air and was just hollywooding because if people knew he was bluffing there it would look really bad for his tight image.

what do you think about checking the river as played? AQ is at the top of our range but we can also have weaker one pair, non Ax hands... the only hands we'd lead the river with, assuming we're not bluffing v often, are strong top pair hands or better. seems more likely to me that checking will induce a bluff more often than leading does, but curious what ppl who are playing these games right now think...

OT

Speaking of Game of Thrones, season 1 is out on DVD and BluRay.

Season 2 starts early April.

What are we trying to rep here with the check raise AI? I understand when he checks the turn J that he often doesn't have it, nor does he have a total monster, but at the same time we very rarely check the river in this scenario with a value hand. Against this opponent and with the given action we often expect him to check back the river, and for the most part we shouldn't expect him to call a river check raise either... his hand clearly just isn't that strong. Combining both of those, its obviously not a great play to check raise for value and I don't think if we had AJ here or a boat that we would actually check twice planning to spring a check raise.

The other thing that worries me is that he does have QQ+ still - its very reasonable to assume a nitty player is going to check back on the turn with QQ+ when that second J comes. So when he bets the river I think his range is narrowed down to TT+, maybe a small percentage of the time AQ or 99/88, so essentially we're trying to get him to fold a "big hand" ("big" as in QQ looks pretty). He might even be thinking back to earlier when we 3bet jammed the river all-in on the dry ace board and considering that here as well.

It's possible when he checks the turn for pot control that he actually will never call all-in (some people just cant get themselves to do it when faced with it, regardless of what the line looks like), and I guess it only has to work like 55% of the time. Maybe I'm giving this guy too much credit for being able to make a hero call given the logic... all I know is I've tried it at higher limits (in situations extremely similar to this) and its just never really worked out for me, I just get tank-called by KK or whatever and punch myself in the face for trying to get someone to fold what I call a "monster bluff catcher".

i've always gotten called when i make that play too. even with a clean, tight image it's hard to get someone to fold a hand when they play it this way!

I think not cbetting KK vs regs on that board texture is very interesting, and I'd definitely like some more expansive discussion on this spot since it was kinda glossed over in the video. Intuitively I feel it's kinda awesome, especially since most people will not expect you to have such a strong hand when you take a more passive line.

The HU player in me is sad that you have to play that passively in 6max, however

IMO the situation is extremely dependent on the players you're facing in the hand. Even if people don't expect you to have such a strong hand when you take a more passive line, they're still aware you have a hand that has showdown value, and still aware that you're aware you're taking a weak line (thus may be more likely to bluff catch). As always the line works best vs bluff-happy players (and primarily when that player is on the BTN, since the player in the blind checked).

Another argument for betting over checking--if you don't bet, and the button checks, you're in a pretty ugly spot on all sorts of different turns.

Just wanted to clarify, are we saying checking KK is actually "right", as in against a good player that's the unexploitable play, or are we saying that it's a good exploitative line to take given mistakes we think our opponents are making?

Where did you get these mods? Can you post a link? Thanks! good vid

Time Link to 00:53:24

Well after the fact here, but while you are discussing his preflop stats you don't look at his postflop stats at all.

This player double barrels turns very infrequently, and this information can reduce our positional disadvantage and allow us to float flops lighter as well as make some hero folds on certain turns.