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Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by PygmyHero (Micro/Small Stakes)

Hey ritschke, it looks like this has already been sorted out in the thread, but let me just add one or two notes.

Keep in mind that I've imagined a very simple game (HU IP on the river and opponent cannot c/r) that is NOT poker. It has some poker elements and can be used as a framework for exploring and understanding poker situations.

I am not arguing that we can ignore the pot size - in fact I think there's an important point about pot size I'll make in a moment. The key is that the money in the pot belongs to the pot. All we can win/lose at this point (the river) are the bets we put in from now on. You seem to be ignoring the fact that when we check we sometimes win the pot.

Anyway, the point about pot size I wanted to make is that it does obviously affect how often your opponent will CALL you. The obvious implication there is that when the pot is bigger we should value bet more thinly since we expect to be called more liberally by weaker holdings.

BG, thanks for your great post here. I appreciate the effort you've put into it.

ATo at 26
I agree that a turn check may be best. At the least I think we need to VERY seriously consider it. I'm just not crazy about it 3 ways and I think when we bet and get called we very often are best. I'm with you. I also just don't think we're going to get bluffed off the best hand if we check back the turn and face a river bet (I think they'll be value betting).

KQo at 31
So I did some Stove work and I admit this isn't as stellar as I initially thought it was. I'm still going to favor a bet though since I like to keep the pressure on my opponents (give them a chance to make an error like folding a chop) and because I think we have a pretty easy fold if raised. If that's the case I'd rather go for the thin value and expose myself to potentially making a small error (I think we can agree it's not a huge error). As for your comment on 55, I mean yeah, I do kind of expect that hand to call here (not that it should). And the call with 88 I think bears this out since eights and fives are the same here. I'd also expect to get called by 33 FWIW.

Time stamp for willy-nilly?

17:00 UTG opens, HJ calls, CO and BTN fold. I agree totally that we muck Q3s, but what is the worst suited queen you call here?

My initial thought was Q8s because it can make a two card straight. I expect there to be some non-negligible equity gain once we move from Q7s to Q8s and I doubt it's huge between Q8s and Q9s. Upon stoving I think the former was true but the latter was not (the difference between Q8s and Q9s was ~1% (same as between Q7s and Q8s). That said, I still think Q8s probably gives us enough. I'd probably go a bit higher in a high rake environment - I'd definitely play QJs so I think QTs is likely then close.

20:00 KTo after 3 limpers. Definitely call here as your RIO is high. I'll raise KTs with any number of limpers.

Absolutely - I realized this at some point between episodes 1 and 2 and like it more and more as I think about it longer.

Anyway, the point about pot size I wanted to make is that it does obviously affect how often your opponent will CALL you. The obvious implication there is that when the pot is bigger we should value bet more thinly since we expect to be called more liberally by weaker holdings.

.. good point, thanks!

KQo at 31
So I did some Stove work and I admit this isn't as stellar as I initially thought it was...

I went back to check, we have position on this hand. Now, we didn't get donked into when the A hit on the river, so that's good, but I was thinking that we are going to be just-called by a pair of Aces here sometimes, making our v-bet worse against his whole range. So, we cannot only consider this bet to be good always.

Time stamp for willy-nilly?

lol. I took notes as I watched, so this must be within the last 5-10minutes.

peace

I think stoving is great, but you have to be carefull with it in alot of situations when using it to 'prove' something is good or bad. Hot and cold equity does not exist(ex all-in).
The main reason to play most of the suited connectors, one and two gappers in multiway pots for me is that these PLAY well against multiple people not so much that they do well as far as hot and cold equity goes.
Also...flopping straigh and flush or even straightflush draws is just too awesome.

Nice video Jess and PH - finally got the time to watch it all.

Agree with BG on the AT hand at 26:00, that a turn check IP is best here.
Agree with PH on the KQo at 31:00, that we should v-bet this river. An Ace would have donked into us, we chop with all K's but we get value from most other pairs. And if they fold, we did give them the change to make the mistake of calling and if we get check-raised we can safely fold.

17:00 UTG opens, HJ calls, CO and BTN fold. I agree totally that we muck Q3s, but what is the worst suited queen you call here?

I would go for Q8s. If the BB folds we need around 27% if his calling it's about 21%, and with our good IO I think Q8s is the borderline.

PygmyHero, this is the best explanation I have ever seen about river value betting in a video. Period.

I also had trouble with the KQ hand, but, I'll have to watch the vid again.

I love watching these videos, just for your Excel and Stove examples!!

[Just out of curiosity, and possible imitation..., what did you DO, in order to obsess about value betting? Seems one of the hardest things for me to get down in limit holdem! Thanks!]

PygmyHero, this is the best explanation I have ever seen about river value betting in a video. Period.

I also had trouble with the KQ hand, but, I'll have to watch the vid again.

I love watching these videos, just for your Excel and Stove examples!!

[Just out of curiosity, and possible imitation..., what did you DO, in order to obsess about value betting? Seems one of the hardest things for me to get down in limit holdem! Thanks!]

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback. As for obsessing about value betting, as I said in the video a big part of it really was calculating and understanding how much I was losing by being bad at it. When I figured it out it was truly sickening.

The casino example really hit home with me, but I think it's probably best understood in terms of your win rate. For example, let's say we took someone who wasn't good at value betting. We then go through a few random 100 hands samples and find spots where they missed value. Then Stove up some ranges and figure out how big an edge they passed on / how much they gave up by not value betting. I'd be shocked if superior vbetting didn't gain them at least 0.5 BB/100.

I think for a while my paranoia about vbetting caused me to be overly optimistic and bet in spots where I wasn't a favorite (i.e., value cutting). But that's okay - it was an important part of my learning process and I think what I lost from cutting was less than what I gained from vbetting correctly in spots where I had been checking (so this overly aggressive approach still yielded better results than what I had been doing). Of course I fine tuned that over time and am still working on it...

Time Link to 00:58:14

Just in case anybody else watches this video...this stud reference is incorrect . The math gets covered in Nightmare on 7th Street.

But the accompanying holdem talk is solid IMO!