---

Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by 2fouroffsuit (Micro/Small Stakes)

Time Link to 00:35:50

the fact that he didn't 3bet 22 now should make us want to 4bet bluff even more, but perhaps less happy to 4bet a hand like the pocket 88, no?

Tough to say, he obviously 3bet 44 though. Maybe for some reason in his mind he decided to draw the line at 33 or 44, or perhaps he adjusted since we didn't begin 4betting him very much, or perhaps he did it for some different reason that we'll never know.

88 is usually pretty strong still. Depending on what we expect his 5betting range to look like 3betting 88 can still be profitable despite him not longer 3bet/5betting small pocket pairs.

88 vs a range of AQ+ 99+ and a few combos of Axs bluffs is still going to have enough equity to call a shove assuming standard 3bet/4bet/5bet sizing. Considering how often he's 3betting and going to be folding we should show a pretty big profit.

We can probably also make money by flatting with 88, vs this guy I think that 4betting would be more profitable as we don't think that he's going to call down multiple streets, and seems to be pot controlling with some of the weaker parts of his range that we are doing very well against.

This is one of the best videos I have watched in a very long time.

+1 great stuff, looking forward to more of your videos

can you expand on what you mean by "how our opponent is thinking about poker." I hear that thrown around a lot, but basically what exactly does it mean and how do we employ that to our advantage?

In other words, how useful is it or how can we use knowing what someone is thinking when they do something? Or at least how is it as important as simply figuring out what they are doing? For example, if I see that someone folds to big bets on scare cards consistently, do I really need to know whether they were thinking "oh that hit's his range so hard I can't call here" or if they were thinking "oh he's going to be bluffing that card a lot, but he can also have it a lot and I don't want to pay off because I'm under-rolled so I fold." Also, how in the world would you be able to tell which one of those thought processes they were using?

To me it just seems a lot more useful focus on what they are doing and how to attack that (which you also mostly focussed on in this video), than what they are thinking, but I hear a lot of great players throw that phrase around, so there must be some merit to it. Can you clarify/elaborate on it a bit?

I guess that I didn't go into that as much.. Like you said it can be difficult to tell someone's motivations for doing the things that they do when we look at the situations in isolation.

Basically think of someone's poker mind as a complicated draw by numbers picture without the numbers, so just a field of dots. When we get little pieces of information through developing reads, getting to showdown, figuring out what our opponents' ranges are, that's like assigning a number to a dot. When we start to get enough data points we can start to see what the picture is before it's complete. This way we can use what we know about how this person thinks about poker to make good decisions vs them in an area where we haven't developed a specific read.

Some people's pictures will be very simple and easy to figure out. Others will be very complicated as they are changing and adjusting. I guess we could take the analogy further and make it a draw by number flipbook, so that a dot in the first frame is not necessarily in the same place in the sixth frame.

We ARE focusing on what they are doing and attacking that, but by looking for the forest among the trees, we can more accurately extrapolate how actions in other spots influence someone's action in a new spot.

Here's an example: You're sitting at a 100nl hu table, an opponent you've never played with sits down. First hand you open AQ and get 3 bet. Do we 4bet? Do we flat?

Scenario A: Our opponent is named "LOLst4ck3dU" and is a well known regular that is sitting on 5 tables between 100nl-600nl. He's bought in for 100bb.

Scenario B: Our opponent is named "Rutgers74" we haven't heard of him, and he's only playing at this table. He's bought in for 94.55bb.

So already using what we know about the players we can develop some reads as to how they think about poker, based on their names, stack sizes, games they are playing in and our familiarity with them. We can already start to connect some dots as to how they will play this situation even though we've never been in it vs this player.

Another example would be a playing vs a player that we've determined is very weak passive. He cannot value bet thinly, plays his draws passively, doesn't like to bluff basically playing fit or fold. About 500 hands into the match he makes his first check raise on a A22 flop. We have A7, we think that it's unlikely to be a bluff or thin value and we don't have implied odds, so we fold.
2 hands later he check raises a K43 flop. We have 88, again we fold.
4 hands later he check raises a 555 flop. We have QJ and we fold again.
4 hands later he check raises a JT8 flop. We have T8 Should we go broke on this hand?

Well we have a lot of data points indicating that he's never bluffing us here and he's not doing this for thin value, but he's check raised us 4 times in the last 11 hands. Did some crazy switch flip in his brain that says "I need to start check raising like crazy" or is he just getting hands? Based on the other characteristics that we've seem from him he seems unlikely to start going nuts here with a bunch of bluffs. Make the connection that this player doesn't think about poker in a way where he is looking to combat aggressive cbetting by check raising a lot. Give him credit and chalk this up as that other kind of variance that I talked about in Episode 1.

"What if he keeps doing it though!? When will I know when to stop giving him credit!?!?! I'm going to be exploited!" Continually be looking for more data points, maybe he's got a buddy watching him who said 'you should really start check raising more' and so now he's doing it. Keep looking at what he's doing with the other parts of his range, keep looking to update your checklist and revise your plan. Think about how often he would need to get a good hand more than usual to get the stats he has in the area you think you're being exploited in.

Hopefully that makes sense. I'd be very happy to talk about it further if you have other questions.

Cool, yeah that makes a bit more sense. But still, when it comes to extrapolating how someone will play a certain spot based on past data, I still don't really see where the "how he thinks" comes into play. Like if you see someone check back the turn and get to showdown with a hand that was vulnerable and that you would expect a lot of players to bet for protection, you might be able to extrapolate that he tends to hands with showdown value to showdown and you can therefore somewhat discount made hands turned into bluffs from his range if you later get into a spot where it might be a good spot for him to turn a made hand into a bluff. I see how we extrapolated how he's likely to play spot X from a read we had from spot Y, but I don't see where the "how he thinks" part really factors in here.

or in the below quote:

Make the connection that this player doesn't think about poker in a way where he is looking to combat aggressive cbetting by check raising a lot.

What's the difference between saying the above quote and saying, "he's shown me to be weak-passive for 500 hands, so I don't expect him to just change his strategy here all of a sudden, so I shouldn't change mine until I get more data, especially since passive fish rarely adjust." Where does the "how he thinks" part come into play?


I guess it makes sense that if you can know what someone's thought process was in a hand, then you can analyze it to get an idea of how smart they are or how far along in their understanding of poker (ranges/hand reading/theory etc) they are, or what level they are on, and use that to predict how they will react in future spots? For example, you might say, "based on what he was likely thinking when he played hand X that I saw, I think he is smart enough and range-aware enough to recognize what I'm representing here, so this is a good spot to bluff." Or, "his most likely thought process for how he played hand Y when he didn't bluff a missed flush draw after being checked to on the river was that it he couldn't represent much after not raising flop or turn, so I don't think he will be bluffing here with the betting lead either when all these draws bricks out, so I fold." Am I on the right track here? But still, I don't see much difference between that, and just saying, "he didn't bluff a missed draw when all would rep was missed draws w/ out the betting lead, so I don't think he would bluff here when he reps a lot of missed draw with the betting lead." I guess I don't really see where knowing their thought process makes a difference in how we adjust or extrapolate.

We're kind of talking over the same point. What you're doing when you are extrapolating is looking at the way that your opponent approaches the game in one situation and applying it to another.

What I want to get across is that when you are doing this remember that all of these spot X, spot Y, spot Z, form a big picture. It's not just his thought process in one hand, its his thought process about the game as a whole.

Why are weak passive players weak passive? Some of it may be risk aversion combined with not knowing any other strategy. Why are maniacs crazy? Some of it may be a complete lack of risk aversion, some inherent desire to gamble, and because they found out that you don't need the best hand to win if you can get the other guy to fold.

You're absolutely right in that it tells us a bit about what our opponent knows and how "smart" they are regarding poker, but it also just gives us an overarching theme to the way that they are playing. So that when we come across a situation that's unknown or something that runs contrary to a read that we've developed we can fall back and think why would this guy do this in this spot?

Like I said I think that we're both somewhat saying the same thing but you're focusing more on the pieces and I'm talking more about the whole.

You need to consider under which assumptions villain's line makes sense. Then evaluate if those assumptions are reasonable.

You need to consider under which assumptions villain's line makes sense. Then evaluate if those assumptions are reasonable.

do you have an example?

do you have an example?

You X/C a dry flop OOP. Turns go X/X. You bet the river and villain calls you with K-high.

Great video

You X/C a dry flop OOP. Turns go X/X. You bet the river and villain calls you with K-high.

ok, so he's likely assuming I'm going to be oop floating him (or he's a fish clicking buttons). So I would adjust by going for thinner value in that spot and not oop floating him (unless I had value when he called there with K-high and I felt like he was going to adjust by not bluff catching there as much). But I would have been able to make that adjustment whether or not I knew what his assumption was. i.e. he's being a station after I c/c flop and lead river, so I just value bet thinner. How does me knowing what his assumption was help me adjust and develop a plan against him any more than just observing that he stationed it down in that spot?

I dunno but im guessing it helps us more then the fact that he just stationed down in that spot because:

If we know that he perceives us to be OOP floating fairly wide we may be able to infer some other adjustments that he "might" make given that read on us.

So he thinks our range on the turn after check/calling the flop is wide. This could lead him to bluff turns with a higher frequency with pure air hands...

and/or barrel the turn with a more generally polarized range (because he can expect to gain a bet (in the form of a river donkbet bluff) from much of our range on the river. Like he may check back some middling hands instead of betting them for protection on the turn so he can bluff-catch the river, therefore making his turn betting range more polarized.


I dunno the bets way to adjust to such things, maybe check/raise more of his turn bets with a smallish raise with weak semi bluffs to take advantage of is polarized (inelastic) turn betting range. And call you can probably call his turn barrels with a wider bluff-catching range too if you expect that he's barelling fairly often with a polarized range there.

....not sure if im on the right track or not, hope it made sense

11:34 in 3B pot on K97 rainbow.
We called with AQo IP and villain checks. At this point were not sure what he's doing but we suspect like a 9 or 7 going for pot control. Is your default line to check back flop with our SDV? or should we look to barrel this 3 streets right away and see what happens?

22:15 we have 65s and the guy has been 3-betting a ton already.
Do you think it's +EV to flat this and make a play and a lot of flops (gutshots, flushdraws maybe turn low pairs into bluffs etc) ?


36:51 we flat JQs vs 3B flop: 223ss. Turn:3 . River 7s.
At this point we've alreayd established he goes for pot control and were thinking we need to add in some multi-street aggression in response. With any two is bet bet shove on any run out (except for an Ace) our plan?
Also what do you think is the lowest hand we should bet bet shove for *value* here with. 44? 54s?

If we have 66 and he calls down A high and gets owned, how should we be thinking about future similar spots? should we just be going for thin value again or maybe value bet less because we worry that he might be trapping as the recent ownage is still fresh in his mind?

great video btw

11:34 in 3B pot on K97 rainbow.
We called with AQo IP and villain checks. At this point were not sure what he's doing but we suspect like a 9 or 7 going for pot control. Is your default line to check back flop with our SDV? or should we look to barrel this 3 streets right away and see what happens?

Showdown value implies that when we get to showdown we'll have the best hand some of the time. If we put most of his range on pairs, than our Ace high doesn't have much value. When someone caps their range in this spot usually I'm looking for ways to start winning the pot, until I have a reason not to.

22:15 we have 65s and the guy has been 3-betting a ton already.
Do you think it's +EV to flat this and make a play and a lot of flops (gutshots, flushdraws maybe turn low pairs into bluffs etc) ?

I do think that this is a viable option, but you want to have a good idea of what you're going to be doing postflop. You can't just say I'll make some moves and then fold everytime that you don't flop a combo draw or 2pr+. Your opponent's 3betting range and tendencies in 3bet pots are going to be important to factor in how to best play against them 3betting a lot.

36:51 we flat JQs vs 3B flop: 223ss. Turn:3 . River 7s.
At this point we've alreayd established he goes for pot control and were thinking we need to add in some multi-street aggression in response. With any two is bet bet shove on any run out (except for an Ace) our plan?
Also what do you think is the lowest hand we should bet bet shove for *value* here with. 44? 54s?

If we have a pair, I think that we can certainly go for value here, but I might not bet bet shove, because I expect that when we take that line we're going to get a lot of folds. On certain run outs, I don't expect him to fold Ax, such as this one if the flush didn't come in, or if an A comes like you mentioned. I'd be a little wary of other broadway cards as well as those go with his Ax/Kx 3betting range that might check this board.

If we have 66 and he calls down A high and gets owned, how should we be thinking about future similar spots? should we just be going for thin value again or maybe value bet less because we worry that he might be trapping as the recent ownage is still fresh in his mind?

great video btw

Depends. Some people will just play the way that they always play and not adjust at all, others will greatly overadjust. Use the other information that you have and see if he's been adjusting to other things that you've been doing, and how. A lot of people tend to have a particular "flavor" of adjustment that naturally seems right to them, across different scenarios i.e. if they tighten their opening range when you 3bet them a lot they may tighten up their cbetting if you c/r them. Or they may tighten up their calling range on the flop if you barrel a lot. So see if you can pick up on their tendencies and see what level they are thinking on.

Thanks!