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

From the link you gave:

Odds/probability of flopping a set or better 8.5 to 1
(or 10.5% chance)

Odds/probability of flopping a set 7.5 to 1
(or 11.8% chance)


^^does not compute (i think the probabilities are correct, they just mixed the two up)

hmmm. good pickup. here is another link with more of the same

http://www.homepokergames.com/odds.php

My god, the dutch accent is so ugly in english. I know, because I am dutch

looking forward to the serie!

Pfeww... Hielko is indeed very annoying to listen to.

My god wat een steenkolen engels zeg

Time Link to 00:30:13

I do remember this sick call in the WSOP ME by Tran

Time Link to 00:39:32

Did you call this full pot bet on the river wTPTK?

you could also argue the other way around.
if we do have all those small PPs in our range, we can be bluffed and floated way more easy.

the problem with opening 22 is this (at least in my opinion):
we flop an underpair 11 out of 12 times.
with that underpair we have very little equity when called and therefore need a lot of foldequity.
we might have that on the flop sometimes, but we basically have to cbet and then give up if called (or raised ofc), cause we can't barrel with only 2 outs all too often.
for our opponents this is so super easy to adjust by just floating more and just calling one and fold to the turn barrel with a medium strength hand.

and if we flop our set 1/12 times we are still utg raiser and therefore less likely to get much money in vs weaker hands.
and with 22 we can only be set over setted and not ever stack a smaller set, we basically can't cooler anyone (cause many players just play their 2 pairs very cautiously vs utg).

therefore I'd much rather have a hand like KQs to raise utg, where we can flush over flush someone or make a higher straight and were we have sooooo unbelievable more room to show aggression on further streets, which makes us way tougher to play.

don't know if thats true or the whole story, but it makes sense to me

Think you just look at opening 22. Obviously our range is much wider. When we open about 20% UTG, 22 is 2.5% of our range. So small pairs up to 55 are about 10% of our UTG opening range.

The point is you just dont ever hit low flops. Obviously you have overpairs some % of the time. JJ-AA are also about 10% of your range. By opening low pocket pairs, your range is way more balanced imo. If an oponent knows youre not opening 22-55 he can just adjust and bluff and bet you into oblivion on low boards, can he not?

Hand with AQo SB vs BTN.
Say he opens to 18, you 3b to 50 (a little bit smaller as you mentioned) and hit a K9x board like this one. Pot is around 100 and he has around 250 left, do you cbet/fold around 60?

Awesome video by the way, just 100% quality comments from FWF, the way you explain things makes it really clear. Can't wait for the next episodes!

Yeah, cbet fold seems right. Can't give up free cards and stacking off is ugly

Interesting bluff3bet:
They are some very well respected ppl who are advocating to just not have a 3betrange in MPvsUTG.
So of course, it is good to 3bet here your top of your foldingrange with good Blockingeffects (AJo, KQo, KJo, QJs...), but then you also should have to start to 3bet in this spot AK and QQ+ sometimes.
I wonder which strategy is more +ev longterm:
Either having here a well balanced 3betrange or just do not have any 3betrange in this spot.
Do you have any opinion on this one?

edit: damn, just noticed that he was opening to only 2,5BB UTG - that changes probably much due to your reasoning.
Anyways,
how do you both treat this spot considering the mentioned thoughts vs. a normalsized UTG-open (3-4BB), when UTG is not too nitty (UTG oR: 17%+) and has a decent high Foldto3bet_stat?

Threebet wide with bluff hands and three bet JJ, AQ+ seems right

I agree with 3betting there a lot, but why don't we 3bet hands like Ax, Kx or QJo here as bluffs and call with such a great hand like QJs?

There are many good reasons for calling imo:
- we have position on the pfr
- we get a great price for calling
- there is a fish in the BB against whom we want to play pots
- there is most likely another fish in the SB
- QJs plays very good multiway
- we can look very strong with our semi bluffs postflop given the positions
- its somewhat unlikely to get squeezed (players behind seem to be tagish and not all too loose and they are more likely to call to keep the fish in)
- if we overdo it we open ourselves up to get 4bet very light, cause he knows he looks very strong and we can't 5bet ship light

I know you aren't 3betting QJs there 100% of the time but I would call it probably like 95% of the time or so

People 3bet a lot, letting people into the pot makes it harder to take the pot down yourself postflop, lots of great semi-bluffing potential if he does flat, etc. I think flatting is probably the worst of the options in EP vs EP

You get back to it later on. When folding these low pairs, there really is almost no low flop you are hitting. When opponents catch on your not opening low pocket pairs they can just use agression to make us fold a lot on low flops when we are out of position?

I don't agree with folding small pairs but I don't think the metagame problem is that huge. So you can't have a set on 248. Big deal. You can still have a very strong range regardless

I'm not sure if I completely got that spot either.

This is what I thought the thought process behind it is: When we bet there our range is polarized, but since we are not going to be bluffing in that spot very often we should slowplay the nuts some % of the time as well. Does that make sense?

Would be nice to get a timestamp, but there's no inconsistency with saying "This is a bad spot to bluff, you have the nuts, check": you want to protect your whole range and when you have nut hands it's less likely your opponent is strong (as opposed to when you don't it's more likely he is). Sometimes you have to give up immediate profit for the sake of balance

I am interested in hearing some more discussion on the flop play with the KK hand. We get donked into on the flop and raise. I am curious as to what our plan is if we get 3 bet? Also, why are we talking about this guy as a fish when all we have is 30/20 over a small sample? My thinking is that the raise is bad for a few reasons. First, if he is not a fish then he will be leading to 3 bet/get it in with a range that includes sets, and high equity draws like NFD or Tx of spades. We obviously don't do well against that range where we are crushed or flipping. Next, if he is bluffing or leading for value with a hand Tx hand we really don't need to discourage that and we can use our position to decide how much money goes in and on which street. Thoughts?

My thoughts are that people donk out a lot wider than they used to, it's very annoying the times you don't have anything, and if you let them do it because they know that they won't get popped the times they have marginal hands unless you're nutted or have a huge draw, they can basically get away with donking a weak range and daring you to bluff (which is hard to do often since your button range is extremely extremely wide)

Time Link to 00:07:15

In the AQ hand, isn't there a consideration to who's in the BB? Hielko has the BB marked green, which I imagine is a weaker player. In this spot, I would flat AQ here much more often than I'd 3bet the button if the BB was a fish, especially AQs. But at the limits/site I play, people aren't 4bet bluffing in steal/resteal spots super wide or even calling resteals very wide, so it'd be just putting myself into (what seems like) a 0EV preflop war with a TAG. I'd much rather call and play postflop with someone who will make much worse decisions than I will.

Hey FWF/Hielko,

It is frequently mentioned in the videos (and rightfully so) that with a lot of the hands you raise utg, if a good player calls you IP your life sucks. What are your thoughts on either openlimping your entire range utg (and maybe utg+1) as you have the smallest shot of taking down the blinds and you keep the pot small, or openlimping a balanced strategy then raising some hands that are hard to play in a limped pot or play well in a raised pot (balanced with monsters and weak hands).

(for example, limpraise red and black 22, KK and AA, JTs, limpcalling other hands and losing the minimum when we want to play like AJ and it goes raise/3bet behind us, and then raising like 99-QQ, AQ, multicolor 22, AA and KK, other stuff, you kinda get the point)

Seems nowadays having the lead with all the floating and bluffraising and thin valuebetting and calling and whatnot is not as useful as the old days where most of the reason we were taught to always openraise was to build a pot we could take down with a cbet 2/3 of the time.

Thoughts on this concept?

I think that is bad.

Some hands are maybe hard to play UTG, but your range from that position is still very strong so on average it is good to play big pots. If you limp you will be playing really deep while being oop; shorter effective stacks are better for you. If you limp you give the blinds a free shot at the pot. No need to give people a free shot at realizing their equity when your range is strong.

Time Link to 00:35:14

If this hand was a 3bet pot somehow, where the fish called our 3bet; would you still bet this turn if he would have checked?

For example, fish is sitting in the CO, and he raises to 3bb, we 3bet to 11bb on the button. He calls, pot is ~23bb. He does not donk and we cbet 15bb. He calls. We have 74bb behind, and the pot is now ~53bb. The fish checks on this 3flush turn. Do we bet-fold 26bb, check behind, bet-call/fold 37bb ? Ship even maybe to get a call from AsTx ?

Time Link to 00:18:55

It is quite frankly ridiculous how clearly and concisely FwF can explain quite complex topics like this. Love it.

Time Link to 00:06:05

Do you have any statistics backing up you claim that 98s is a fold in this situation? Or some other more objectivly measurable method than your general feeling of unhappiness? Because I'm not convinced.

Time Link to 00:30:36

sry I dont get that part. You said that it is a bad board to bluff because ppl will call you down because you represent nuts or nothing. so you have to bet nuts some times and check it back sometimes. dont get why you dislike the bet.

Hey FWF/Hielko,

It is frequently mentioned in the videos (and rightfully so) that with a lot of the hands you raise utg, if a good player calls you IP your life sucks. What are your thoughts on either openlimping your entire range utg (and maybe utg+1) as you have the smallest shot of taking down the blinds and you keep the pot small, or openlimping a balanced strategy then raising some hands that are hard to play in a limped pot or play well in a raised pot (balanced with monsters and weak hands).

(for example, limpraise red and black 22, KK and AA, JTs, limpcalling other hands and losing the minimum when we want to play like AJ and it goes raise/3bet behind us, and then raising like 99-QQ, AQ, multicolor 22, AA and KK, other stuff, you kinda get the point)

Seems nowadays having the lead with all the floating and bluffraising and thin valuebetting and calling and whatnot is not as useful as the old days where most of the reason we were taught to always openraise was to build a pot we could take down with a cbet 2/3 of the time.

Thoughts on this concept?

I've thought about this before and have always wanted to experiment with it, but it's too weird and unfamiliar for me so I never did it. I tend to agree with Hielko that I'd rather just open a slightly tighter range than give up getting in money with a strong range though

If this hand was a 3bet pot somehow, where the fish called our 3bet; would you still bet this turn if he would have checked?

For example, fish is sitting in the CO, and he raises to 3bb, we 3bet to 11bb on the button. He calls, pot is ~23bb. He does not donk and we cbet 15bb. He calls. We have 74bb behind, and the pot is now ~53bb. The fish checks on this 3flush turn. Do we bet-fold 26bb, check behind, bet-call/fold 37bb ? Ship even maybe to get a call from AsTx ?

Ship all in to get calls from hands that heroically put us on semibluffs. You can't really put him on a flush after he check/calls

Do you have any statistics backing up you claim that 98s is a fold in this situation? Or some other more objectivly measurable method than your general feeling of unhappiness? Because I'm not convinced.

Nope. I don't think you'll ever get enough of a sample size in a database to figure out whether a call with any given suited connector is +EV (way too much variance int he flops you hit/your opponents' hand at the time) but that's just what I think. Sorry if you're not convinced, it's an unorthodox view of mine so I don't blame you for disagreeing

Time Link to 00:17:10

sry, already understood

Time Link to 00:34:12

This is literally what I do lol....

Time Link to 00:32:12

Completely agree here with Foxwood - Regs often stack off to fairly nitty players after getting 4 bet by a tight player - I think most of them are just flatting with AQ so the only hands there 4betting are AA-KK-QQ and sometimes AK - thus AK doesn't do so great there!

Great commentary!!