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

Baluga I really do love you man and I love the way you teach. But im really getting confused with your logic here, your saying most players will 3barrel K10 BVB on 1072dd yes I agree. What I disagree with is you saying hes going to fold it on the river, Example all draws miss he 3barrels he is rarely folding in that spot.

you'll be stunned how many regs will fold strong hands to river raises. People simply don't really expect us to turn missed draws into bluffs, in general.

Andrew

1more? you say with 810 on that board we were going to call Flop on 1072dd then bluff raise turns with no reads vs villian. Cant we assume in most cases our hand is best on flop given the positions and stats?
If so why are we planning on turning out hand into a bluff when villian still has a ton of draws and worse pairs he can be barreling 7x hands 8s 9s. So we are bluffing the turn because we are scared to play a river? Im not assuming thats what your teaching here at all Im just letting you know thats what it looks like to me. As i said in a previous post this spot fits it perfect he 2barrels here with draws and weaker pairs im sure we would both agree with that. Now what do we think he does with missed draws on river bricks? Clearly most of the time hes done its just way to likely hes getting called down. Now the other half of his range are the pairs 7x,8s 9s those hands as well checks hoping for a cheap showdown, unless this guy is one of the 2percent of extremely higher level thinking players at this limit.

most times he barrels he has a lot of equity, calling vs equity = bad

But wouldn't you say that most regs expect us to raise our sets on the flop? so when we raise river they've already taken them out of our range and therefore click call with KT?

Kristy's question didn't seem to be a matter of worrying about her actual range being balanced balanced, but rather a matter of being perceived to be unbalanced and therefore not getting our desired outcome (a fold). i.e. she's not saying, "we wouldn't play sets like this, so bluffing like this makes me exploitable, so I shouldn't do it," she's saying, "our opponent wouldn't expect us to play sets like that so why won't he call?"

i think he's more likely to think we play sets like that than that we play draws like that. in general.

of course, game dynamics change.

Andrew

Baluga in a 10% 3 bet range that is polarized, what would the strong part of that range be (generally)? Also, when playing live in a game where 3 bets get routinely overcalled by one or two others (3-4 to the flop), how would your strong (depolarized) range be constructed (generally)? Would you keep the same frequency and 3-bet smaller or tighten up the range an bet bigger?

polarized, prob JJ+ or QQ+ and AK, maybe AQ

the more people that call with weaker hands, the more i'm going for value.

Andrew

Very nice listening to these two young people work on their series. What can I say Andrew, but your stuff is cutting edge and very intelligently communicated. Hope to see another series come out real soon. I'd also like to say I hope poker comes back in the United States real soon. All the best to you guys from Canada.

Cheers!

most times he barrels he has a lot of equity, calling vs equity = bad

Well im sure most of dueces cracked members play a aggro game. So raising the turn to get him to fold equity doesnt sound so awesome either tbh. If you are tag I think so with the right gameflow im sure it will be plus EV. But for a lag who is known as being aggro like myself I think its spewy given how often he reships with equity. In his mind he is thinking "fold equity + pot equity Im shipping".I think its a pretty easy call on F and T then decide on river, folding vs most villains without a extreme read. I think thats a pretty good default to have since we arnt playing 5/10 here... Please Let me know what you think of my logic after all you are the coach here.

the point to consider here is this-- if a LAG player is going to put a lot of money in the pot with weak hands, our best route to beat him is to take a non-folding line to get him to fold his generally weak hands. Getting him to fold Q hi that he bluffed 3 streets with is pretty awesome with 6 hi.

Andrew

Or possibly just avoid those very marginal spots and just call with bigger stuff that way we arnt bluff catching with BP,MP. Or over estimating his bluffing range and playing a draw in a -EV way. Least thats the line Iv been taking with pretty good success. Maybe I just play bad without the betting lead vs aggro dudes w/weak ranges but Im sure most pple do because it is not EASY!

Well im sure most of dueces cracked members play a aggro game. So raising the turn to get him to fold equity doesnt sound so awesome either tbh. If you are tag I think so with the right gameflow im sure it will be plus EV. But for a lag who is known as being aggro like myself I think its spewy given how often he reships with equity. In his mind he is thinking "fold equity + pot equity Im shipping".I think its a pretty easy call on F and T then decide on river, folding vs most villains without a extreme read. I think thats a pretty good default to have since we arnt playing 5/10 here... Please Let me know what you think of my logic after all you are the coach here.

I don't know if he won't 3barrel bluff here ever. Even if the FD misses and you call with all your Tx, you can still have a decent amount of draws and made hands worse than Tx in your perceived range for calling flop and turn that he now wants you to fold on the river.

Or possibly just avoid those very marginal spots and just call with bigger stuff that way we arnt bluff catching with BP,MP. Or over estimating his bluffing range and playing a draw in a -EV way. Least thats the line Iv been taking with pretty good success. Maybe I just play bad without the betting lead vs aggro dudes w/weak ranges but Im sure most pple do because it is not EASY!

Well if we are avoiding these spots, were are pretty much playing into the LAGs game and he is raping us because were passive or taking a passive lines and prob gonna get to a limit where we are never gonna get any better or move up..We shouldnt be bluff catching a LAG with btm of our calling range.Like baluga said the best way to counter is to take a aggressive line/approach into him being aggressive.Like the c/c c/c c/r line, unconventional lines where we let the LAG put in aggressive money with his weak range and we counter him by being aggressive back.to make him fold his weak range.And if we are always avoiding these spots how are we suppose to get better at them? and understand them.

Well if we are avoiding these spots, were are pretty much playing into the LAGs game and he is raping us because were passive or taking a passive lines and prob gonna get to a limit where we are never gonna get any better or move up..We shouldnt be bluff catching a LAG with btm of our calling range.Like baluga said the best way to counter is to take a aggressive line/approach into him being aggressive.Like the c/c c/c c/r line, unconventional lines where we let the LAG put in aggressive money with his weak range and we counter him by being aggressive back.to make him fold his weak range.And if we are always avoiding these spots how are we suppose to get better at them? and understand them.

Well they are marginal for a reason, and when I say marginal I mean I think they are -EV unless you have very good reads on the villian. Im almost 90% sure you can still crush higher stake games without deffending sml scs vs aggro dudes lol. Again lets wait till we have a very solid read that villain 3barrels bluffs at a very high frequency first. Ive played vs alot of very laggy dudes and even some of the laggiest dudes dont fire 3barrels with air... so just becareful cause Ive tried to be a hero in those spots and have been looked up with MP,3rd P and obv TPWK hands.

BTW we can still defends them when conditions are right but when its most likely going to be a HU pot it cant be that great of a play. Possibly neutral EV if you are really good post.

Well they are marginal for a reason, and when I say marginal I mean I think they are -EV unless you have very good reads on the villian. Im almost 90% sure you can still crush higher stake games without deffending sml scs vs aggro dudes lol. Again lets wait till we have a very solid read that villain 3barrels bluffs at a very high frequency first. Ive played vs alot of very laggy dudes and even some of the laggiest dudes dont fire 3barrels with air... so just becareful cause Ive tried to be a hero in those spots and have been looked up with MP,3rd P and obv TPWK hands.

Iam not disagreeing with you, And we arent using this as a default play all the time, has a ton to do with board textures and what he does in different spots. And if someone is bluff catching you with BTM pairs 3rd P, we prob shouldnt be trying to bluff these guys, because either we took some play that didnt make sense at all and our percieved range looked like air, or we are trying to bluff a aggro fish.

Time Link to 00:25:49

I actually often have some troubles playing against these guys who 3bet a massive amount of hands (depolarised and polarised).

Did I get you right that you suggested that we call with strong hands (that we'd otherwise 4bet. e.g. KK-AA, AQ-AK)? And that we with our weaker range, that could run into trouble by calling, just 4bet bluffs a lot?

When I encounter these players they are usually also adapting to the 4bets by 5bet shoving light, and this is where I find myself into most trouble. How do we readapt here? Just call their all ins very light? I just find this hard, without ever seeing what they actually shoves with, and I often just end up calling something like TT+, AQ+, which means I either have to shut down with the 4bet bluffs a lot (and hence get exploited by folding too much) or just call all ins even looser without even knowing if it is the right thing to do in the first place.

How do you adapt in these spots?