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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by blah234 (Micro/Small Stakes)

How about just calling when he raises you in the QTo hand? Since your perceived range will look a lot like an overpair he should most likely shut down on the turn with bluffs and you can just take down the pot with a small bet? And if he decides to fire again you can be fairly sure he has a hand (or do you expect SSNL players to expect you to float his raise here often?).

Pot is too big and our hand is too vulnerable so it's better to shove and make villain fold now. Our perceived range also has loads of draws if we call so if the villain can hand read he will shove alot of none diamond cards on the turn as a bluff.

Time Link to 01:06:20

Awesome series blah, cant wait for the next one!! Im hoping its midstakes!

Hi Blah234,

Thanks for the video, its great!

I'm just wondering in episode eight, at 15:49, you 3bet that terjepower guy, and you said that he's reping nothing, can you please explain on that? isn't it possible that he flat ur 3b with TT~QQ and looking to c/r any flop thats good for him? thank you in advance

Hi Blah234,

Thanks for the video, its great!

I'm just wondering in episode eight, at 15:49, you 3bet that terjepower guy, and you said that he's reping nothing, can you please explain on that? isn't it possible that he flat ur 3b with TT~QQ and looking to c/r any flop thats good for him? thank you in advance

flatting with a midpair and get stacks in on a flop that's "good" for you makes no sense. That implies you c/f all flops that has over cards and you will get stacked by bigger overpairs anyways.

It's of course possible for him to have hands that beat me. However, even if villain can flat and c/r for value with half of TT-QQ that's all of 9 combos of value hands and he needs less than 9 combos of bluffs for us to shove profitably since we still have equity when called. In poker we always play vs villain's range and not specific hands. If we run into the top of their range that counts as a cooler even when we're bluffing.

Again action @15:45 with QTo and bluff 3-bet AI:

Your 3-bet for additional $81.25 needs to work 58.45% of the time (providing that we have 0% equity). We have already said he can rep about 9 value combos. What about hands like AdXd, KdXd, QdXd ? 87s ? Against this entire range your equity (if called) is:

Board: 6s 6d 9d
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 21.111% 18.54% 02.58% 4037 561.00 { QcTs }
Hand 1: 78.889% 76.31% 02.58% 16621 561.00 { QQ, JcJd, JdJh, JdJs, TT, AdQd, AdJd, AdTd, KdQd, KdJd, KdTd, QdJd, QdTd, JdTd, 87s }

Now look at this ->
http://screenshooter.net/5913452/luatwec

If this is correct, then we need 41.2% fold equity. I think this is possible, though you did it so quickly, like you knew his tendencies very well

Same time, but on the table #4, KQo in 3-bet pot @QJJ -> you 3 barreled this board - was this for value ? If yes, show me worse hands vs better hands ratio, because besides QT/TT I don't see any worse (and reasonable) hands that can call you. What is more, T9s spiked an OESD on the river.

@22:40, A8s and 4-bet CO vs BTN 3-bet

I really hate your sizing. 2.0x could be enough but IP (though I'd still make it 2.1-2.2x) and OOP try to make it at least 2.4-2.5x, because otherwise ppl will flat too often - you don't want them to flat, when you are 4-betting as a bluff.

Secondly, your c-bet sizing in 4-bet pot, I think it is too big, you can get away with 1/3 as well.

And when you flop TPNK in 4-bet - do you always stack off, even vs a tight player ? I ask, because I had a problematic situation recently (check the hand notes for more info about opponent):

http://www.handconverter.com/hands/1445606

Same time, but on the table #4, KQo in 3-bet pot @QJJ -> you 3 barreled this board - was this for value ? If yes, show me worse hands vs better hands ratio, because besides QT/TT I don't see any worse (and reasonable) hands that can call you. What is more, T9s spiked an OESD on the river.

I don't expect people to always fold a pair or even A high there.

@22:40, A8s and 4-bet CO vs BTN 3-bet

I really hate your sizing. 2.0x could be enough but IP (though I'd still make it 2.1-2.2x) and OOP try to make it at least 2.4-2.5x, because otherwise ppl will flat too often - you don't want them to flat, when you are 4-betting as a bluff.

Secondly, your c-bet sizing in 4-bet pot, I think it is too big, you can get away with 1/3 as well.

And when you flop TPNK in 4-bet - do you always stack off, even vs a tight player ? I ask, because I had a problematic situation recently (check the hand notes for more info about opponent):

http://www.handconverter.com/hands/1445606

I can't find this hand. But generally when you 4 bet people can't call as long as you make it 2x and bigger than 20BB people should be playing shove or fold mathematically. Only bad players call 4 bets and I doubt making it few BB bigger will stop them from calling.

cbet sizing you don't need to be balanced. It's correct from a leverage point of view to bet 1/3 pot but if you can't be creative with bet sizing based on other factors then you're leaving money on the table.

If I can find the hand I might be able to tell you why I picked my bet size. Use timestamp next time.

Time Link to 00:28:39

28:40 not 22:40, sorry my bad

I don't expect people to always fold a pair or even A high there.

It looks like we play in two different worlds In my world people on NL50-100 are not super stationy, that's why I doubt if this is really a value shove.

The A8 4 bet pot hand my bet size was purely based on range and board. Villain's calling range is something like 99-JJ and some slow played QQ-AA then some stuff like AQ, KQ etc. Most of that range that has a pair but not pair of A will call 1 bet and fold to a turn shove. If villain can call 1 bet then we want to make that 1 bet slightly larger. I have draws in my perceived range so villain may not fold KK or Qx which is why I'm going with the hand.

Vs tighter villains it's reasonable to just check the flop and fold if he bets big on the turn so I'm not always stacking off vs everyone on every board with TPNK in 4 bet pot.

I noticed that you give away huge bet sizing tells -> you just simply bet significantly bigger when you hit something vast majority of the time. I am amazed that regs haven't catched up yet

You said that the competetion is pretty soft there. Therefore I would really want to see you playing against NL100/200 regs on european network, on Microgaming (if you are Canadian then you should be able to play there, if not, then use someone's account via VPN ). Europeans tend to play more aggro overall, thus you should have much more interesting action going at the tables. Consider this before recording next series !


Regarding the entire Apex Predator series - absolutely awesome, I love the way you develop reads on people and then wisely use them later in the game. But as I said, I would love to see you in the action on European network !

Good job Nan, well done !

If you watched my other videos then you will know that I don't 3 bet as a bluff or for value. Only reason I 3 bet is because I think it's the highest EV play.

This is a real non-answer tbh (idk if you were just irritated at the list of questions with no time links): the only reason you do anything is because you think it's the highest EV play! That doesn't mean you aren't doing it for value / as a bluff / to take down dead money / protection (etc).

(for contrast, you flat JTs in the same situation a few orbits earlier)

I think you could have said a bit more about this hand in response: are you expecting villain to fold a lot pre? X/F or B/F on the flop? IN which case, are you doing this with ATC, or is QTo "strong enough"?

This is a real non-answer tbh (idk if you were just irritated at the list of questions with no time links): the only reason you do anything is because you think it's the highest EV play! That doesn't mean you aren't doing it for value / as a bluff / to take down dead money / protection (etc).

(for contrast, you flat JTs in the same situation a few orbits earlier)

I think you could have said a bit more about this hand in response: are you expecting villain to fold a lot pre? X/F or B/F on the flop? IN which case, are you doing this with ATC, or is QTo "strong enough"?

I expect my combined FE preflop with the ability to create profitable situations postflop to be higher EV than a call vs this particular villain in that particular spot. Sorry if that sounds like a cope out blanket answer but it's how to evaluate the EV of a play. We should not play absolute hand strength ie, if you fold JTo vs one villain doesn't mean you need to fold JTo vs every villain in the same spot. Range construction for each villain should be different based on their tendencies and range.

You're really over simplifying things if you're trying to classify each action as value or bluff, there's more to EV than value or bluff. Even balugawhale says in his vids that sometimes his reason for betting is 2 way bet or psuodo thin value things like that.

I expect my combined FE preflop with the ability to create profitable situations postflop to be higher EV than a call vs this particular villain in that particular spot. Sorry if that sounds like a cope out blanket answer but it's how to evaluate the EV of a play.

Actually, that's a much more descriptive answer I thought it was fairly clear what you were doing in the hand, but I just thought "it's the highest EV play" didn't help the person asking the question. And sometimes a line really is simply for immediate value or bluff!

I think Baluga might have been one of the first coaches I heard talk about the more subtle reasons for betting / raising (i.e. when it was not clearly for immediate thin value or a bluff), it was an incredibly useful concept to me, but knowing when to bet (whether for "protection", or to make villain fold their slice of equity, or other dead money reasoning) is a difficult topic for me, personally.