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

why do we fold A9o here. Just too weak utg?

Definitely, it's too weak from MP also.

reasons for folding KJo here?

This spot is closer, but on tables where only good regs are left to act I'm happier to fold. On that table it's just good regs except for one player who we thought might be a fish but is turning out not to be and he is IP. What we find in this scenario is that the good regs IP are going to have a strong range they play well postflop, putting pressure in the right spots and not making mistakes. It's not like one of them is going to call with KT and put all the money in with TP, such that the straight up value of KJo is diminished. I'd rather have T9s. The good regs in the blinds will have a very tight calling range and a potentially liberal 3betting range. Yes, we can 4bet bluff, but opening MP specifically so that we can sometimes 4bet the blinds isn't a strong case for an open.

Table 1 14:00 – T8s Don't you think you should make bigger x/r given stack size? Which hands you would (or wouldn't if it's easier) continue bluffing OTR?

Table 1 17:40 – AKo What would be your play on turn if you were villain (having 77)?

1. You could make it a bit bigger because of stacks, sure, but I'm not trying to setup to put villain to a 300bb decision on the river because I just think that's unnecessary and possibly unrealistic (including if we were going for value). I'm bluffing a lot more often than value raising, obviously, so I tend to keep a fairly uniform sizing regardless of stacks (within reason, vs regs). The smaller we're able to profitably bluff, the better.

2. It really depends on how I view BTN. Betting turn and river could be pretty good vs a lot of regs. Vs fish/stationy regs giving up is fine.

RE: KQ vs. rivered FH hand

why not raise the flop? you said to keep the fish in but wont fish come along anyway if they have anything and isnt iselukus going to be strong/continuing when donking this 3way on this board?

Very good question. UTG is cbetting, not donking. When he opens UTG and cbets that small on the flop it's tough to put him on anything but a range of hands we are invulnerable to (there is a problem with this though, in that the fish can have a range we are highly vulnerable to, which should be factored in and wasn't). I agree that there's tons of hands the fish is never folding and my preferred parlay was to raise PFR's turn cbet and have the fish continue/PFR do whatever he likes, I feel we are more likely to get fish's entire stack this way. A flop raise vs PFR depends how important it is to not turn our range face up (we have no bluffing range with fish left to act), which may not matter at all here, especially with PFR playing exploitably and there being no history. It could better to raise the flop and I could be convinced that it's just the most profitable play regardless of other factors.

Table 1 14:00 – T8s Don't you think you should make bigger x/r given stack size? Which hands you would (or wouldn't if it's easier) continue bluffing OTR?

Table 1 17:40 – AKo What would be your play on turn if you were villain (having 77)?

Sorry, I forgot to answer the 2nd part of question 1. I assume you mean what cards and not which hands? If you did mean which hands let me know and I'll try and re-answer.

Tx, 8x, 7x, 6x, 3x, 2x + any diamond.

I have a suggestion!

If there's some interesting spots you want to go over, you can just leave the last 10 minutes of the video for hand review instead of writing about the hands in the forum.

Anyway good stuff, watching now.

Thanks

You bring up some good points, solid.

There was one hand in the beginning of the video (if I recall correctly..) where you called QTs bvb vs a 3bet against some tagish player. How is your reasoning in this spot? Can you really profitably call here without any history/reads?

And as for postflop, you c/folded Kxx (with one FD out) with a BDFD. If you fold this flop what board textures would you continue on?

Great video btw! Looking forward to the next one.

I think you can call profitably if you can reasonably expect to be able to bluff in enough situations. Villain seemed like a solid reg, so I am assuming that would be true. The board coming down dry K high is a pretty bad situation as it doesn't connect strongly with our 3bet-flatting range. We obviously don't have AK/AA (even if these are in our range, villain doesn't know/care/believe), which leaves us having KQ/KJs and then a range of weaker pairs that can't stand being put all in OTR and a range of bluffs. I don't like floating OOP to try and backdoor something, calling to CRAI everytime we turn a FD would just be bad (in that it's not going to work often enough to be profitable). Raising OTF is fairly face up as air. I would much rather bluff a flop like 67Jtt with no FD or BDFD than a dry K high flop with a FD or BDFD.

Alright, so in general then you prefer to play back (by floating?) on (dry) boards where there are no draws out?

And how about when you hit your top pair (Qx/Tx)? I assume you are just c/calling, unless it is a very drawheavy board?

It gets hard though, if overcards comes OTT/OTR imo. Lets say flop is T52r and you elect to c/call. Turn is a king. You check and villain bets and now (assuming we have no reads/history with the particular villain) what do we do really? At this point we haven't been able to gather any info on villains barreling tendencies so we just have to proceed by "guessing" whether or not he barrels light.

That cant be that good right? Or is your default assumption here always that a solid reg always bets his entire bluff/semibluff part of his range so that you can profitably call down, justifying the call preflop?

I would float dry boards sometimes. I dislike raising dry flops for obvious reasons. We can sometimes be very unbalanced and raise dry flops to make unthinking players fold, or raise dry flops to get value when weaker regs just assume we have nothing because we're raising a dry flop, but these strategies won't be a good long-term plan vs the better regs.

In your example my default would be to keep calling on the Kx turn. An Ax turn would be a bit worse (because both of us have more combos of Ax than Kx OTT) and I'd rather have some reads beyond "he's a reg" to continue. On some boards/streets I would be looking to turn a QT type TP into a bluff.

Can you give any example of a spot where you would turn QTo into a bluff, when hitting your tp OTF on later streets?

I wouldn't call a 3bet pre with QTo unless the circumstances were exceptional, so lets assume QTs. There are tons of variables and possibilities. If we're turning TP into a bluff it helps if we're deep, but here's one example that could play out for at 100bbs. We call QTs vs a 3bet OTB. Flop is T 7 8tt, villain bets 1/2 pot, we call, turn is 6o, villain checks and we bet, river is 5f, we bet.

Where can I get your Stars table/cards mod?

I didn't use any mods, it's all just from the built-in Stars table modder. Options>beta options>table themes.

Time Link to 00:39:26

I really dislike your river bet sizing with your straight his river range for calling is pretty much a few fullboats(not many considering how passive he played)flushes, and a few worse straight(he may even fold a 8 because you have 100% value range) this makes me think that you should have ether bet really small or even checked.

Even against a calling range of AdKd, 98s and 99(the other 66% of the full boats he playes faster to be super conservative) you are a 57%-43% dog.

Re-evaluating I do think a flop raise is best overall, as discussed somewhere up the page. But taking the hand as played I'm actually fine with the river sizing, it's what I would bet if I were betting(bluffing) and I do want to have a betting range there. If it's a situation where my range is totally capped and I've either got the nuts or air or the nuts or the nuts then I don't like having a betting range (unless it really is the nuts, in which case having the nuts compels us to bet).