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

Would you make the same call with the 55 if the river was not a king but any card ranging from Q to 2?

Against an unknown, its close but prob not, given that his value range is significantly wider. If we knew he could have hands like jto in his range we're more likely to call tho.

just wondering why you think calling from the SB w/ 22-44 PF is a bad play seeing as how the game is 4 handed

Definitely his lack of flop raise is bad, but what's wrong with calling with any pocket pair OOP in 4 handed?

Against a reg who may be aggressive enough to barrel and put you in tough spots calling with small pairs is -EV. A lot has to go right to make calling profitable. I'd rather 3bet or fold unless we're deep or there's fish in the hand.

First hand:
How can we NOT shove the river here? Villain practically never has a flush, so we're free-rolling for him to do something stupid with a set or two pair.

He can have some kxs hands and some other random flush hands. He doesn't always donk his sets and two pair hands. Two pair is less likely to donk than sets and, as said in the video, sets are very unlikely. I think giving him 4-6 combos of worse hands is generous. So when he donks the river the small amount of flushes (maybe 2-4 combos) make up a significant part of his range. If he ever folds worse hands with a significant frequency it would likely be significantly -EV.

I think because villains range from CO and BU are so wide that we wont get paid enough of the time that we do hit a set to justify the times that we check fold. Please correct me if i am wrong.

Yes, plus the amount of times the flop comes 56k with a flush draw and you're in a really awkward spot.

He can have some kxs hands and some other random flush hands. He doesn't always donk his sets and two pair hands. Two pair is less likely to donk than sets and, as said in the video, sets are very unlikely. I think giving him 4-6 combos of worse hands is generous. So when he donks the river the small amount of flushes (maybe 2-4 combos) make up a significant part of his range. If he ever folds worse hands with a significant frequency it would likely be significantly -EV.

That's a great answer. Thanks.

Better quality vid now available in all formats. Enjoy.
-Rusty

Prolly the best micro-vid of the year. You really nailed some of the major problems people have with hand reading.

Things to consider

Fold equity and fold percentage are not the same.

QJ hand: Alternative line is to use position check turn and bluff at blank rivers. The reason the river has to be blank is that it allows us to rep the widest value range - are we really betting JJ on a Q, A or spade river? I would most likely use that line for hands that did not pick up any equity on the turn (and we should have plenty of those in our range) - and less often with QJ.

I don't remember if you mentioned it in the vid - but we are bluffing on any spade river when we are betting the turn with QJ - at least sometimes QJ is the perfect hand (When we have QJ there are fewer KQ, KJ in villain's range).

Prolly the best micro-vid of the year. You really nailed some of the major problems people have with hand reading.

Things to consider

Fold equity and fold percentage are not the same.

QJ hand: Alternative line is to use position check turn and bluff at blank rivers. The reason the river has to be blank is that it allows us to rep the widest value range - are we really betting JJ on a Q, A or spade river? I would most likely use that line for hands that did not pick up any equity on the turn (and we should have plenty of those in our range) - and less often with QJ.

I don't remember if you mentioned it in the vid - but we are bluffing on any spade river when we are betting the turn with QJ - at least sometimes QJ is the perfect hand (When we have QJ there are fewer KQ, KJ in villain's range).

Thanks for the comments. Good points on the QJ hand. The one reason I would hesitate to use the bet, check, bet line is that villain is still relatively unknown and fish are notorious for getting real curious when you check a street. Plus making the primary decision point in the hand on the turn tends to have more fold equity than making it on the river. Having to consider folding a hand that someone thinks could possibly be best creates a psychological tension. If you make the possibility of releasing that tension farther away by the threat of making two calls instead of one, you increase the likelihood that villain will relieve the tension through allowing himself to believe that he's beat and make the "appropriate" action.

Great vid ty - agree with improva - best micro-vid for some time.

For the QJ hand, you only calculated our foldequity and said it was +EV, but I don't understand why you didn't calculate our euity if we checked.
It's like saying openshoving AA is profitable. It is profitable, but probably more +EV to raise.

The fact that you are going to get a curiosity call when you take a bet check bet line makes it likely that you have implied odds when you hit a Q or J, since he is likely (which I don't think is good) going to lead a Kx OTR.

So doing some rough calculation, I though it was a pretty close spot to 2B or check back.

Excellent, excellent video.

For the QJ hand, you only calculated our foldequity and said it was +EV, but I don't understand why you didn't calculate our euity if we checked.
It's like saying openshoving AA is profitable. It is profitable, but probably more +EV to raise.

The fact that you are going to get a curiosity call when you take a bet check bet line makes it likely that you have implied odds when you hit a Q or J, since he is likely (which I don't think is good) going to lead a Kx OTR.

So doing some rough calculation, I though it was a pretty close spot to 2B or check back.

Its kind of a rough analogy given the situational differences. We can certainly run the calculations, but the problem with figuring out the EV of checking back is it involves a significant amount of assumptions that could sway the EV one way or the other. To name a few, we don't know if villain folds kx on the river and if so at what frequency (unlikely but possible). We certainly have the potential to get called by more pocket pairs, but again, at what frequency. Also, if we check are we bluffing some rivers? If so we have to figure out what ones and what frequency we expect villain to fold on those various rivers.

Additionally, we have 12.2% equity when called on the turn, but that doesn't mean that 12.2% of the time we can confidently value bet the river (in actuality our equity would be higher if we check, given that he can have more weaker hands that he folds if we bet the turn). Our Q and J outs likely will not be value bet by us. So we have 4 tens that we will value bet. One of those completes a flush draw, which may or may not change villains calling frequency. So lets say he calls on the Ts 50% of the time, so we really will be able to confidently value the river 7.6% of the time. Meaning that 92.4% of the time we will either check back, thin value bet (unadvisable vs an unknown), or bluff. I would also argue that our implied odds are the same, if not better, with a turn bet, given that villain calls the turn with a stronger range/range that is getting stubborn.

Given that we have a known +EV turn bet, plus when we get to the river our chance of improving is similar (although admittedly less than if we check the turn), our implied odds are very similar (if not better), and the amount of unknowns makes calculating the EV difficult, I think opting for a turn bet is better overall. However, this isn't to say that a bet-check-bet line is not good or +EV. It is a viable option and may be close, as you point out. I would assume that betting the turn is better though.

Regarding small PP's calling from the blinds. You discounted these from villain's range somewhat in a couple of spots Vs late position opens as it is unprofitable (no argument there) - however in my experience a large % of 25nl players will call as a default.

Regarding small PP's calling from the blinds. You discounted these from villain's range somewhat in a couple of spots Vs late position opens as it is unprofitable (no argument there) - however in my experience a large % of 25nl players will call as a default.

You could be right as I haven't played 25nl at a high frequency for a while. My gut tells me that all bad regs are not calling with them as a default, but I have no proof of that. I tried to account for the possibility by not eliminating them from the ranges when I did my calcs, whereas normally I would almost completely eliminate them. I do not think that adding them to the ranges would significantly change many of the calcs and thought processes though, as it typically would add only a few combos of hands that beat us, and given the way the hands were played post flop we would discount them significantly anyway in most cases.

You could be right as I haven't played 25nl at a high frequency for a while. My gut tells me that all bad regs are not calling with them as a default, but I have no proof of that. I tried to account for the possibility by not eliminating them from the ranges when I did my calcs, whereas normally I would almost completely eliminate them. I do not think that adding them to the ranges would significantly change many of the calcs and thought processes though, as it typically would add only a few combos of hands that beat us, and given the way the hands were played post flop we would discount them significantly anyway in most cases.

Yep - fair enough - it was just a comment re. that general assumption.

Looking forward to next one...