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Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by OnTheRail15 (Mid Stakes)

I dont know how to timestamp, so its around the 30 minute mark. I dont really like to raise the flop here. With our capping range beeing so wide that it includes 66, JJ, AJ and obv AA, then we can really only represent A6/J6 and then all our draws? How do we protect our peeling range, beeing draws and one pair of jacks, all gutshots if we decided to not cap those hands preflop? I dont really think it gives away our hand if we just call the flop, we still have a lot of jacks, a lot of Ax thats not good enough to cap, we have all flushdraws, all gutshots, and quite a few 6x hands in our range. If we call the flop it also gives him incentive to fire the turn with all his pairs and gutshots and air putting us on a peel, in any case he will likely fold these on the flop or on the turn if we raise right away. Also, since we have a strong enough hand to raise any turn besides a jack, i think waiting is better. If the turn is a small card, alot of people will still 3bet AK/AQ and we can cap if we want.

First of all, I don't know if my capping range would always include those hands. I think in the right circumstance that I'd just call with those hands in this spot fairly often. Also, I think you're analysis of our range is way way too narrow. What about all the Ax hands that we might want to raise the flop with? This is still a relatively wide range spot and I think going into a wa/wb line, is being pretty pessimistic in regards to our villains preflop range.

Secondly, if I'm in villain's shoes, I'll be checking the turn with a pretty wide and balanced range after my opponent calls on this board texture. So I expect a heavy flop raising strategy to be a pretty important part of our overall play on this particular board texture.

Of course if he's just going to fold a large part of his preflop 3betting range, we can exploit that by raising a lot more on the flop.

Hey Jeremy, on that connected T9x 2tone board where we wait till the turn with our top two... one of the first things that also came to mind for me was the fact that opponents due tend to expand their value range to include things such as 3rd pair and ace high, however, that also made me immediately think that there would be an increased number of turn cards that our opponent could 'get scared' on and check. I feel like a lot of our opponents value range might feel inclined to check on cards such as 8,J,Q,K,A... how much of a concern should that be for us?? Against passive opponents, would it ever make you reconsider your line on the flop and opt for a more exploitable 3 bet?

To answer your question simply, the more passive an opponent will be on the turn, the more we should consider 3 betting right away. But tougher players will tend to two barrel this board texture more than they will a higher card board texture, far more than we need them to to wait for the turn here.

So basically what Chris said.

yea me too... thanks Jeremy... totally cutting into my afternoon masturbation time...

Wow. Glad I could help.

First of all, I don't know if my capping range would always include those hands. I think in the right circumstance that I'd just call with those hands in this spot fairly often. Also, I think you're analysis of our range is way way too narrow. What about all the Ax hands that we might want to raise the flop with? This is still a relatively wide range spot and I think going into a wa/wb line, is being pretty pessimistic in regards to our villains preflop range.

Secondly, if I'm in villain's shoes, I'll be checking the turn with a pretty wide and balanced range after my opponent calls on this board texture. So I expect a heavy flop raising strategy to be a pretty important part of our overall play on this particular board texture.

Of course if he's just going to fold a large part of his preflop 3betting range, we can exploit that by raising a lot more on the flop.

Yeah YOU might have quite a balanced turn checking range, but most people do not. This is kind of a peel friendly flop, and are you sure you would want to be raising all of your single pair of aces right away? Im not saying im going into a wa/wb mode, but i might slowplay until the turn alot, with i hope a somewhat balanced range, which includes top pair hands.

I used to love playing fast on the flop, now ive gotten into waiting for the turn alot more, are you telling me i have to go back to the flop again?

Yeah YOU might have quite a balanced turn checking range, but most people do not. This is kind of a peel friendly flop, and are you sure you would want to be raising all of your single pair of aces right away? Im not saying im going into a wa/wb mode, but i might slowplay until the turn alot, with i hope a somewhat balanced range, which includes top pair hands.

I used to love playing fast on the flop, now ive gotten into waiting for the turn alot more, are you telling me i have to go back to the flop again?

I wait for the turn as much or more than anyone, but on this board texture I'll often raise the flop, especially against tougher opponents.

My goal in the series is to teach a style that will combat the strategies used by tough opponents. Sometimes I'll talk about exploitative play against poorer players, but in general I'm going to be assuming my opponents are tough and able to read board textures and betting patterns very well.

So youre trying to explain stuff that would work vs your own style, basically?

Fantastic first episode, good work chappy. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the series already lots of new goodies to add to the playbook.

So youre trying to explain stuff that would work vs your own style, basically?

Well... I guess if you're defining my own style as a style that is good, then yes. I'm trying to explain ways to play in general in tougher lhe games; that is, against tougher opponents. In this case, you can infer that I think barrelling the turn on this board texture oop with a high frequency is often a mistake.

<3 the concept for this video. Can't wait to watch this!

Time Link to 00:06:48

I totally agree with you here and find that the spots I struggle the most with tend to revolve around a misconception of one of the 3 things that you mention here. Typically stemming from not knowing what their range is to begin with (ballparking ranges usually gets me in trouble!). If I know what their range is or at least have a very close to accurate picture of what their range is (positional stats ftw!), then the rest usually becomes pretty clear. Though if I don't have much history with the player, then I find that it is much much tougher to quantify what their range consists of and thus what I'm going to want to have in my range to target their range (and or the different parts of their ranges potentially) with a bluff, semibluff, valuebet, or induction becomes a much much tougher question to answer. And I typically default to what's easiest for me and what this player type "typically" does which can also get me into lots of trouble.

Also all this stuff is tougher to think about while multitabling and when I'm against the types of opposition that think about these sorts of things. I find that my general pace of play tends to slow down because I actually have to think about all the possibilities: my whole range, their whole range, what we're trying to do with our ranges, then hand combos, and finally interpreting timing and what it means/if it narrows their range at all! And it's easy to get kind of lazy and not go through all the motions when I add more tables to the mix! Especially if there are different line ups involved!

Time Link to 00:06:48

The above post was referring to this timestamp!

Time Link to 00:09:27

Well put and so true!

Time Link to 00:08:02

Expanding on the where your opponent plays worse part. I find that getting as specific as possible with the different parts of their range tends to yield the best results.

If they have a lot of air in their range, then what types of air do they have? From a hand combo stand point and weighted hand combo stand point if they do something some % of the time. The same is true of strong and medium strength hands in their range and identifying this is the first step in forming a good plan for the hand. Figure out what you're targeting and why.

I'm guessing you're going to get into this later, but it made me think about this stuff and I wanted to get it out there and see if I'm on the right track, way off, or whatever. Plus if there's a simpler way to think about all this stuff I'd love to hear it!

Time Link to 00:16:00

Well put and I agree. Also nice use of the word opaque. Opaque doesn't get nearly enough love. Murky, cloudy, and muddy usually get all the attention!

Zwei thumbs up!

+1

Time Link to 00:22:20

The fact that your hand is J-high here rather then 4-high doesn't effect the ev of bluffing. The problem with your argument here is that it's focused on better hands rather then winning hands. When we bluff, our goal is to fold out winning hands. If villain has 97, he has a winning hand unless a spade/5 comes up.

The fact that your hand is J-high here rather then 4-high doesn't effect the ev of bluffing. The problem with your argument here is that it's focused on better hands rather then winning hands. When we bluff, our goal is to fold out winning hands. If villain has 97, he has a winning hand unless a spade/5 comes up.

I don't remember precisely how OTR worded it, but the argument for bluffing 4-high but not J-high isn't an EV argument, its a GTO argument. Part of an overall balanced strategy would be to bluff with the lowest portion of our range for arriving in that spot (I think you know this somewhat simple definition but stating for everyone's benefit).

The fact that your hand is J-high here rather then 4-high doesn't effect the ev of bluffing. The problem with your argument here is that it's focused on better hands rather then winning hands. When we bluff, our goal is to fold out winning hands. If villain has 97, he has a winning hand unless a spade/5 comes up.

You can't just bluff every time you have a draw you aren't going to showdown. If you do, you'll be bluffing far too often on this board texture. Additionally, sometimes your hand is too weak to bluff catch and too strong to bluff. So I guess what I'm saying is that while your assertion that we should focus on not getting bluffed (essentially not letting hands that are worse than ours win the pot) sounds correct and can be correct in certain cases, it often is important to consider how many better hands our opponent is actually folding.

I don't remember precisely how OTR worded it, but the argument for bluffing 4-high but not J-high isn't an EV argument, its a GTO argument.

Game theory is based on minimizing the EV of your opponent's perfect strategy.

Part of an overall balanced strategy would be to bluff with the lowest portion of our range for arriving in that spot (I think you know this somewhat simple definition but stating for everyone's benefit).

I don't focus too much on playing GTO, but if you're going to play purely GTO then it would be better to randomize which hands you bluff below a certain high card bluff catcher level as to not give away information. For example, if you only bluff lower cards and a lower card came on the river, your opponent could exploit that by giving up more. Is this irrelevant in practice? Yeah, but so is almost everything derived from non-exploitative game theory.

You can't just bluff every time you have a draw you aren't going to showdown. If you do, you'll be bluffing far too often on this board texture.

I agree.

Additionally, sometimes your hand is too weak to bluff catch and too strong to bluff. So I guess what I'm saying is that while your assertion that we should focus on not getting bluffed (essentially not letting hands that are worse than ours win the pot) sounds correct and can be correct in certain cases, it often is important to consider how many better hands our opponent is actually folding.

I don't agree here though. Your argument that a hand can be too weak to bluff catch and too strong to bluff is true only if villain will give up on his bluffs some of the time allowing us to check through and win. Otherwise whether we have J5 or 42 has no practical effect on bluffing other then the additional outs J5 has.

Time Link to 00:16:37

advantagous -> advantageous.
See math geeks can teach writers something and you can teach me about poker math

advantagous -> advantageous.
See math geeks can teach writers something and you can teach me about poker math

effect -> affect (sorry to be so picky...)

Time Link to 00:25:11

On the 883TA hand where you called the turn cr and raised river, would you be playing your Ax hands this same way? You talked a lot about balance, i'm curious how you would play your small-medium-big ace high hands on this board?