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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by DJ Sensei (Mid Stakes)

First off: Very nice video with excellent commentary.

thanks, glad you enjoyed!

Some general questions:
Is it possible to show the pa-hud statts in the next video's?

unfortunately, this series is already completely made. we're going to work on adding pahud stats into the hand replayer for next season but in the event that we don't, we'll definitely incorporate more info about them at least by telling you what they are, as a quite a few people have expressed interest in that.

Are there going to be hands in the future vids where you make a correct move but hit the top of someones range or it goes wrong? (It's easy to think that you can now take away every 3bet pot with position if you watch it happen 7 times in a row ).

Haha, well hmm. I think there are one or two hands throughout the series that don't work the way we want that we include. We didn't include too many for obvious reasons, but we kept your point in mind. We included some episodes with real time play to give you a better idea of frequencies, just so you didn't think that we were pulling these moves all the time and winning every hand

Some questions about the actual hands:
The 78cc hand (starts 21:35). You saythat you should do it with AA/KK and they'll call with worse hands more often.. but doesn't that mean they'll also call you more often than you want when you (semi)bluff on those boards because they put you on a semibluff? Mostly because you'll be (semi)bluffing more often because it's harder to make hands .

Of course, if/when you do it with AA/KK (and I really should have said QQ/JJ when hand protection is more of an issue, it's going to be an even better play), you should try to pick the spots when you think they have a good hand I mean, I know that sounds cryptic but there are going to be spots where either you "feel" it or certain conditions exist that you think this person is not squeezing light. Then take this board texture and do it with a big hand. You don't have to do it often - it only takes showing down a big hand with this play one or two times to get a ton of folding equity on your semibluff shoves in the future. I work a lot of shoves w/ top pair mediocre kicker in 3bet pots in my game specifically for this reason.

What would be your calling range vs a shove when you are the villain in this spot? If AKo is not in that range would you Cbet AK on that board (again if you were in the villains spot).

Come on, that just depends on who shoves on me and probably what I ate for breakfast that morning.

the 47dd hand on 38:40
Once he checks to you on the flop you decide to make a very small bet on the flop of less then 1/2 pot. What is your action if you get called and the turn blanks out and he checks to you again, would you double barrel (to push him off a possible AK he did call the flop getting somewhat decent odds).
And if the turn comes like the Ace of hearts or the King of hearts.. would you consider 'double barreling' if checked to? (I can go on about what your river action would be but that would become a little to long ).

I don't know if I would double barrel or not and i think the cards you mention are definitely decent double barreling cards against his check/calling range (TT and JJ or like 9T, right?) but I will just say that a check/call of 2/5 pot isn't that strong as a preflop 3bettor, so take from that what you will and make your own inferences.

I had some more questions but they were mostly about how you would handle the spots you put your opponents in. (for example in the blindbattle where you donk into him with KQ on the Kxx board, what is your default line if someone would do that to you and you're sitting with the AQ in position?)

Yeah I mean that's a tough question. I don't have a "default" line per se, but in the past let's just say I haven't loved being led into, but not too many people did it with strong hands. After I make this video, I might have to reconsider people's ranges... but that's not a huge worry, that's the fun of poker, right? Constantly figuring it out and getting better. So I haven't had a default line in the past and I certainly am not going to have one now. Those are the tough questions, but hopefully by thinking about the game enough, you'll have the tools and thought processes to make thoughtful decisions to answer those questions in a way that suits your own game.

Cheers,
Vanessa

this series is gonna be a big hit. good job both of you. the last hand example is super interesting and i have a feeling i'm going to learn a lot from these vids

got a question though. what do you think are the merits of jamming the AQ on 664 vs floating/playing for implied odds? if you spike a pair, that figures to be a great bluff card for your opponent, and calling doesn't completely forfeit your ability to push AK off the hand later.

thanks man, looking forward to checking yours out as well. as for your question - i think calling is definitely a viable option for AQ on a 664 board, it really depends first and foremost on your opponent's double barreling frequencies. I find that a lot of people are double barreling that sort of board a decent amount (since so many people are floating it) that jamming seems a bit more enticing. As for hitting a pair and having it be a great bluff card, that's definitely true, but a) there's only 6 of them so that's not enough of a reason to call and b) with that logic, a ton of cards are good bluff cards so maybe that means we should also be calling down sometimes UI? (and I have called down in these spots with AQ with, well, varying success). All good questions, all good options... I think it's just gotta be based on reads of how villain will respond with each part of his range. With no reads, shoving is just easier and metagame-wise, will make villain think twice about constantly 3-betting light, something that is going to be very positive for your game and ability to use position in the future.

Excellent vid. I'll be watching it multiple times. Can't wait until my next session so that I can spew horribly by misapplying this great info.

I am still learning this game and this format is perfect for me. If you made a series like this on each key concept I would be so thankful.

Paul
Expert_Wanna_B
Transforming from a Donkey to a Donkey Hunter!

I really think it was great but i have some questions aswell.

The first one is the TT hand on AT3 board or whatever. You said that the reason youre taking that line is to stack weaker aces. I mean how often are people 3betting an UTG raiser with weaker aces? Yea youre inducing alot of floats by donking into him, but i don't think he'll float with his entire air range whereas he probably will c-bet this flop with his entire air-range(agree?). The thing about him reraising your weak turnbet with a picked up draw on the turn might aswell go the same way with him double barreling the turn with say a picked up fd on the turn.
When it comes to mediocore hands(such as JJ-KK, or so), i don't think you're going to get 3 streets of value anywasy.

About the KQ hand, this would also be a nice spot to balance your range after shoving air in 3-4spots, right? (cause you would often shove here with AQ, right?).

I really liked the video btw! And you're def. better at poker than i am(without doubt!!). Btw i really like this sort of videos compared to cardrunners, where i spend 40minutes at muddywater folding a3o on the button. Great that you have specific topics for each videos, very nice.

I really think it was great but i have some questions aswell.

The first one is the TT hand on AT3 board or whatever. You said that the reason youre taking that line is to stack weaker aces. I mean how often are people 3betting an UTG raiser with weaker aces? Yea youre inducing alot of floats by donking into him, but i don't think he'll float with his entire air range whereas he probably will c-bet this flop with his entire air-range(agree?). The thing about him reraising your weak turnbet with a picked up draw on the turn might aswell go the same way with him double barreling the turn with say a picked up fd on the turn.
When it comes to mediocore hands(such as JJ-KK, or so), i don't think you're going to get 3 streets of value anywasy.

About the KQ hand, this would also be a nice spot to balance your range after shoving air in 3-4spots, right? (cause you would often shove here with AQ, right?).

Hey Suwalski,

You make some excellent points here about the TT hand. I think the key thing to remember (and we will emphasize this as the series continues, just make sure to stay tuned) is that we are making a series about alternatives to the "standard" lines. Do I take this line with a flopped set in a 3bet pot always? Definitely not. Not even the majority of the time. But taking it sometimes adds deception because it confuses my opponents and it also allows me to take that line with other hands.

A huge reason it's good to have different lines for all different hands is a concept I like to think about like this... in poker, you should have an arsenal of moves. Every time you take a different line with a different hand, it adds that move to your arsenal. The more moves you have in your arsenal (that are known to your opponent), the more options you will have to take the one you think is the best given the situation, and thus the tougher you will be to play against. So while all your points are valid, and both check/call check/call (or another line) is a great line with TT on AT3r, this series is about adding moves that are different, and the one I show in this video is one I love to do some of the time.

Hope that helps.

great stuff from both. way to hammer home the concepts. my poker fog lifted momentarily and i may have actually internalized some of the ideas. the rewind button is key with vanessa as she spews (in a good way) so many ideas so fast. keep it up! gig

Wow!

This is an awesome video... very clear, concise points and extremely in depth.

Definitely going to watch this one a couple more times.

Wow, this is a really amazing video. I dont think i have seen anything close as good concerning 3-bet-pots. What i would really have liked is to see more pots where you were the 3-bettor, although the explanations regarding the KJs hand were already outstanding.

Im really looking forward to your next vids and hope theyll be as good as this one


so long

Sick video and a great format, this is one of the most effective learning tools I've seen so far online aside from coaching. I have a few comments on the video and a few on specific hands.

One thing that you kind of skirted over in your commentary was your table image and how it effects the EV of different kinds of plays in 3bet pots. From the looks of things you guys were playing fast and loose at these tables (59s lol) looking for interesting spots, but that obv effects how frequently you get looked up on your bluffs and how thin you can make your vbets. A little bit of commentary on how meta can and should shape your lines would be the illest.

I agreed with most of the plays you guys made aside from preflop on a bunch of them but whatever that's not what the video was about. One thing that I did notice earlier on in the video which kinda irked me was that on a few of your bluffs you either repped nothing or a pretty narrow range of hands, which is obv gonna get you looked up real light by good handreaders (which are rare at 1/2, granted) The most egregious example of this was the AQs hand where you open/called the button then bluffshoved over the cbet on the K84 or whatever. Given the climate of todays game you're pretty much always 4betting AK there, as well as AA and KK a ton of the time I should think. Also, you're prob gonna be just calling with a set at least some % of the time on the flop (though shoving is a great option just because it looks so bluffy). I mean, I guess you could be shoving KQ looking for thin value, but beyond that it really just looks like you're FOS. That was really my only problem with how the hands were played

Overall sick sick vid, hopefully it will bring out the inner spewtard in all of us. Great job.

Yes of course some of our plays were pretty narrowly aimed, but keep in mind that we made this video with the aspiring 1/2 player in mind. When you're playing against a 5/10 regular, he's probably not folding QQ or JJ to a flop shove on a Kxx board, but I think most 1/2 players will. And of course floating a flop like that is a perfectly acceptable maneuver too (I forget if we have a hand like that in there, i'll have to rewatch it). Floating it might work better against a more advanced player.

The key to all things though, of course, is to be one step ahead of your opponent. If he knows that he should represent a king when theres one on the flop, but can't bring himself to call with worse than top pair when all the money goes in (no matter how much sense the line makes) then shove away!

Also, fwiw, we'll be posting our stats and results from all the hands we played at 1/2 to make the series later (maybe episode 7 or something like that?) so you'll see that while we were playing creatively, we certainly weren't going insane or spewing too much. We considered playing under unknown screen names to prevent anybody from playing differently because they recognized us from higher stakes games or 2+2 or something, but it didn't end up mattering all that much. If anything, the extra respect we gained from some players who recognized us may have balanced out the spite-calls from the others

I really think it was great but i have some questions aswell.

The first one is the TT hand on AT3 board or whatever. You said that the reason youre taking that line is to stack weaker aces. I mean how often are people 3betting an UTG raiser with weaker aces? Yea youre inducing alot of floats by donking into him, but i don't think he'll float with his entire air range whereas he probably will c-bet this flop with his entire air-range(agree?). The thing about him reraising your weak turnbet with a picked up draw on the turn might aswell go the same way with him double barreling the turn with say a picked up fd on the turn.
When it comes to mediocore hands(such as JJ-KK, or so), i don't think you're going to get 3 streets of value anywasy.

About the KQ hand, this would also be a nice spot to balance your range after shoving air in 3-4spots, right? (cause you would often shove here with AQ, right?).

I really liked the video btw! And you're def. better at poker than i am(without doubt!!). Btw i really like this sort of videos compared to cardrunners, where i spend 40minutes at muddywater folding a3o on the button. Great that you have specific topics for each videos, very nice.

Well one of the best parts about leading with TT there is that you give him a chance to float or bluffraise bad hands. Since we have two more streets to get the monies in on, he has a much better chance of taking the bait eventually and putting the rest of his stack in bad.

Basically, nobody ever leads into a reraiser like this very often, so nobody understands how to play against it, and more often than not they'll do something stupid if you choose your spot well.


As for the KQ hand, of course you realize these aren't sequential so we probably hadn't been shoving air a lot before it happened, but sure, KQ is a good hand to balance your bluffshoves with, if you're against somebody on the right level (aka pretty sharp and knows the moves).

what is the music in the beginning of the vid? would like to know

I have to say its one of the best if not the best videos for low limit grinders to learn a few fancy moves. The format for the series is going to be awesome, DJ and FD are a perfect combo IMO.
Really looking forward to the rest of the series, i think its a good idea for to watch this several times and also take some notes for future reference. The stuff in this video is golden for us all.

Ty for taking time to make all the videos guys!

Awesome vid. One question about the KQ blind battle: If the turn goes check/check, are you open-shoving the river? 1/2 pot? checking? Thanks.