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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by sthief09 (Micro/Small Stakes)

hello, thanks for this video, very intersting

at the begining (6'12) you say that he had a good 3bet succes so he can 3bet more.
I do not understand, a good succes is 66% + for me (if i bluff i want him to fold 66%)
and when i look stats i see numbers between 40 and 55% so 3 bet bluff seems losing money?
(i would like to 3bet more but my succes is between 40-50 ( 125 k hands) in nl100 and 48-55 (33k hands) in nl200

Good filters to lower fold to CB IP, can you explain what do we have to look to raise as a bluff instead of floating ip because it seems nearly allways better to float because we have position to hit our equity or to bluff when he checks turn

Further you're saying that Axs are good hands to 4bet,
i agree but as small pockets i allways find its a pity when he 5bet and i fold (whe have lot of equity and its hard to call the 5bet : if he 5bet bluff A8s or 77 we are not well),
isn't it better to 4bet push as a bluff with Axs and 22-88 to have more fold equity?

thanks again for the serie, have a nice day

hello, thanks for this video, very intersting

at the begining (6'12) you say that he had a good 3bet succes so he can 3bet more.
I do not understand, a good succes is 66% + for me (if i bluff i want him to fold 66%)
and when i look stats i see numbers between 40 and 55% so 3 bet bluff seems losing money?
(i would like to 3bet more but my succes is between 40-50 ( 125 k hands) in nl100 and 48-55 (33k hands) in nl200

That issue with these success rates is that the numbers don't really mean that much. If you 3-bet and are called, you *should* be able to turn a profit from that point. Even if your strategy was c/f unless you flopped the nuts, that would yield a little profit. So that 66% as a break-even point is only the right # if your hand has no potential for post-flop profit. When factoring in pot equity+bluffing EV, I'd surmise that something like 55% is the minimum amount for me to think I can 3-bet more bluffs profitably.

Good filters to lower fold to CB IP, can you explain what do we have to look to raise as a bluff instead of floating ip because it seems nearly allways better to float because we have position to hit our equity or to bluff when he checks turn

Further you're saying that Axs are good hands to 4bet,
i agree but as small pockets i allways find its a pity when he 5bet and i fold (whe have lot of equity and its hard to call the 5bet : if he 5bet bluff A8s or 77 we are not well),
isn't it better to 4bet push as a bluff with Axs and 22-88 to have more fold equity?

thanks again for the serie, have a nice day

Board texture is a good determining factor in floating vs. raising in position. Even if we default to just calling c-bets in position, there are some boards (very coordinated ones) where we want to be able to raise both for value and as a bluff.

Regarding 4-betting small with Axs vs. 4-bet pushing, I'd have to run some numbers on that to know for sure. I do think that something like A4s has poor enough equity when our shove is called that 4-bet/fold is better than 4-bet shove.

Time Link to 00:15:00

hey, just wanted to ask why you want to isolate the loose passive fish IP. I can definitely see merits in playing the fish HU with the initiative but that said, he's 50/16 and opens from MP, so his range should be fairly tight, dominate T7s a good bit and almost always have at least 2 overs and I'm also not sure that he autofolds any flop given that his defending range should be fairly strong to begin with. We're also only 150BBs deep, which isn't enough for me to justify isolating any2 suited other than 250BBs deep or sth.

hey, just wanted to ask why you want to isolate the loose passive fish IP. I can definitely see merits in playing the fish HU with the initiative but that said, he's 50/16 and opens from MP, so his range should be fairly tight, dominate T7s a good bit and almost always have at least 2 overs and I'm also not sure that he autofolds any flop given that his defending range should be fairly strong to begin with. We're also only 150BBs deep, which isn't enough for me to justify isolating any2 suited other than 250BBs deep or sth.

Few points. I'll put them in bullets because I think it'll be easier to read that way:
- Position and initiative heads up, deep stacked in a big pot vs. a 50/16? This is a great spot. T7s is not a great hand but the deeper the stacks, the less important hand value becomes. T7s is a long way from any 2 suited.
- I've noticed players like this sometimes act more tightly (either preflop or on the flop) vs. initial 3-bets than we'd expect them to. Even a mostly non-thinking player is going to fear that we have AA or at least 2 big cards. How can we use that to our advantage when we're deep stacked? We can 3-bet weaker hands to start and hopefully by the time we get something premium, he's ready to snap or we've at least shown him that we can 3-bet him with junk.
- I would not 3-bet a 50/5 player here, but a 16 PFR is plenty. Him opening from MP does not concern me because his position likely doesn't concern him. Also, his range of x% of hands is not going to be as strong as a TAG's x% of hands. He may raise more stuff like Axo and he may do goofy stuff like limp AA or raise 95o because he's bored.

I think this is very much underrated in general. On some level, it's counter-intuitive to 3-bet a loose player with weak hands but when you consider position, stacks, and getting the pot HU it makes a lot of sense.

Idk, I certainly think all of your points are valid but altogether it seems fairly marginal. Small changes in the hand (like 200BB stacks, our hand being T9s, him having 50/21 stats, positions being BTN vs CO) might be enough to clearly convince me. I guess I'll just isolate one or two combos more than I'd have done initially and see how it goes
Thanks for your quick reply.

very nice video.I have a very high f23b % (>75%) so this vid definitely helped me a lot.
I had 1 doubt:
19 min-A9s hand – In the discussion on whether we should be bluff raising or floating you said that bluff raising is good because we get him to fold his pairs.When floating does that same too.If he has something like 55 then he is folding to our turn bet anyways.I am always confused in spots like this.How do we decide when to bluff raise and when to float???What factors should we consider when we take that decision???
Thanks.

bump..

very nice video.I have a very high f23b % (>75%) so this vid definitely helped me a lot.
I had 1 doubt:
19 min-A9s hand – In the discussion on whether we should be bluff raising or floating you said that bluff raising is good because we get him to fold his pairs.When floating does that same too.If he has something like 55 then he is folding to our turn bet anyways.I am always confused in spots like this.How do we decide when to bluff raise and when to float???What factors should we consider when we take that decision???
Thanks.

Sorry for the delay. I wanted to sit down and give you a well thought out answer.

That is true, unless he 2 barrels. That is often the downside of floating.

You're not alone. I'm often torn between floating and bluff-raising because the two are pretty parallel. By that, I mean a good floating spot is probably a good bluff-raising spot and vice versa. So what separates the two?

This is sort of a cliche answer but it really does depend on opponent and history. If villain is a habitual 2-barreler, then calling can get tricky. Conversely, if he's very straightforward you can call, knowing that he'll expose his hand strength on the turn. These are just simple examples and there are other types of more specific reads that can lead you as well. Recent history of your calls and raises can sometimes lead you in the right direction as well.

A couple of other specific hand-related factors are board texture and your hand's showdown value. You'd probably rarely raise a T62r flop in position for value, so bluff-raising isn't all that believable. Along the same lines, bluffraising monotone or 3-straight flops can be great. You can do this with some mediocre draws that don't figure to be all that profitably as a calling hand. And that leads into other types of hands I often like to bluff-raise, which are those mediocre draws. Non-nut gutters, gutters on two-tone boards, weak naked FDs, 2 overcards are some hands that can work well as a bluff-raise because they have some equity. For obvious reasons we'd prefer to not raise without any chance of winning at showdown.

Showdown value is helpful when raising or floating, but it's a bit more useful when floating. The reason for this is because when you float with 0 showdown value, then you're putting a burden on yourself to bluff later. Sometimes a profitable bluffing situation doesn't arise but you still feel you "have to" bluff. If your hand can still beat the bottom part of villain's range on the river, then you can check it down rather than betting into a range that's probably going to call. When you bluff-raise and are called, it's rare for A-high or bottom pair to be ahead.

Finally, never just throw hand reading out the window. What range is villain c-betting? What hands will he call a raise with? What hands will he 3-bet? If you raise and are called, what turn cards can you follow through on. If you just call the flop, is the board conducive for 2-barreling?

The best thing might be think of some spots where you'd be torn between raising and calling, and make a list of pros and cons. It's helpful to break down all the components of a hand in front of you so you can focus on what's important.

Sorry for the delay. I wanted to sit down and give you a well thought out answer.

That is true, unless he 2 barrels. That is often the downside of floating.

You're not alone. I'm often torn between floating and bluff-raising because the two are pretty parallel. By that, I mean a good floating spot is probably a good bluff-raising spot and vice versa. So what separates the two?

This is sort of a cliche answer but it really does depend on opponent and history. If villain is a habitual 2-barreler, then calling can get tricky. Conversely, if he's very straightforward you can call, knowing that he'll expose his hand strength on the turn. These are just simple examples and there are other types of more specific reads that can lead you as well. Recent history of your calls and raises can sometimes lead you in the right direction as well.

A couple of other specific hand-related factors are board texture and your hand's showdown value. You'd probably rarely raise a T62r flop in position for value, so bluff-raising isn't all that believable. Along the same lines, bluffraising monotone or 3-straight flops can be great. You can do this with some mediocre draws that don't figure to be all that profitably as a calling hand. And that leads into other types of hands I often like to bluff-raise, which are those mediocre draws. Non-nut gutters, gutters on two-tone boards, weak naked FDs, 2 overcards are some hands that can work well as a bluff-raise because they have some equity. For obvious reasons we'd prefer to not raise without any chance of winning at showdown.

Showdown value is helpful when raising or floating, but it's a bit more useful when floating. The reason for this is because when you float with 0 showdown value, then you're putting a burden on yourself to bluff later. Sometimes a profitable bluffing situation doesn't arise but you still feel you "have to" bluff. If your hand can still beat the bottom part of villain's range on the river, then you can check it down rather than betting into a range that's probably going to call. When you bluff-raise and are called, it's rare for A-high or bottom pair to be ahead.

Finally, never just throw hand reading out the window. What range is villain c-betting? What hands will he call a raise with? What hands will he 3-bet? If you raise and are called, what turn cards can you follow through on. If you just call the flop, is the board conducive for 2-barreling?

The best thing might be think of some spots where you'd be torn between raising and calling, and make a list of pros and cons. It's helpful to break down all the components of a hand in front of you so you can focus on what's important.

Thnx a lot man and thats an epic post.I had this doubt for months and now with the points you gave i'll think more clearly in those spots.This post instantly reminded me of 2 hands from yesterday where now i am sure i made the wrong floats.Thnx a lot.I'll just print this out and keep rereading it till i absorb each and every point here.