High Stakes Strategy Poker Forums

Since I'm glued to the computer for the forseeable future to help with the new site launch, I need something to keep me busy during down-time.

We've got a "Meet the Executive Producers" thread in the works for sometime soon during beta, but in the meantime, use this space to ask me anything about NL Holdem'.

And I'll answer!

Hello Jay
I play 2/4 6max at Stars currently and am very comfortable in almost all situations...which leads me into deciding to move on to 3/6 and even 5/10 hopefully by summer.

What IYO is the most important thing that i should concentrate on in order to make the upward moves to 3/6 and even 5/10?

In other words, what "should" be the toughest hurdle for me in making the upward transition?

Hello Jay
I play 2/4 6max at Stars currently and am very comfortable in almost all situations...which leads me into deciding to move on to 3/6 and even 5/10 hopefully by summer.

What IYO is the most important thing that i should concentrate on in order to make the upward moves to 3/6 and even 5/10?

In other words, what "should" be the toughest hurdle for me in making the upward transition?

I would say for me it's always been a. the money and b. the fact that you might feel like you need to play more aggressively because of the perceived jump in skill and aggression at the bigger limits.

And for me, the way I've always combatted that is to a. train myself to think of the money as just a buyin (or of course, if I'm not taking a shot, I'm overrolled anyway so the psychological effects of losing are negligible) and b. play tight and straightforward until I find my groove and start winning. I think it's one of the most common problems people have when they're playing bigger than they're used to - just an irrational fear that the players are way more skilled. It's often not the case AT ALL and I'm always surprised how smoothly the transition goes from limit to limit when I play tight and win stack and stack and stack and stack and stack. I'm not advocating playing nitty, mind you - just solid with controlled aggression. Don't be paranoid when you call the CO raise with 77 and the SB squeezes - it's OK to give up high variance spots for stability's sake.

What are your thoughts on the following:

- minreraising
- minbet-overbet
- the min-squeeze
- the 86o limp reraise

I've been incorporating these into my game with great results, but am looking to take things to the next level.

What are your thoughts on the following:

- minreraising
- minbet-overbet
- the min-squeeze
- the 86o limp reraise

I've been incorporating these into my game with great results, but am looking to take things to the next level.

On minreraising: inducefully useful.
On minbet-overbet: Unexploitably valuable.
The min-squeeze: Improv comedy.
the 86o limp reraise: literally legendary.

Hey Jay,

1) I had a lot of uNL/SSNL coaches, but none of them could talk about theory. I would ask "can you please talk about when I should 3bet, instead of cold calling", for example, and they would always say "well, it depends... let's fire up some tables and hope that a specific situation come so i can tell you what i would do". Man, that sucks big time.

I know it depends, but if so, tell me how I should adjust as the variables change.

Right now I'm playing MSNL and still find some nuggets when I discuss theory with good players. My question is: What 3bet coaches (MSNL+) I could just say something like "please talk about how to find spots to check/raise postflop, against what types of players I would do that, and your reasoning" and could get a better answer than "it depends"?

I'm not looking for perfect answers, just some coaches that could definitely discuss general theory. Maybe someone on your crew got some kind of lecture series.

2) I noticed that the authors dropdown in the video section includes BldSwtTrs, he'll be making some videos? =D

Hey Jay,

1) I had a lot of uNL/SSNL coaches, but none of them could talk about theory. I would ask "can you please talk about when I should 3bet, instead of cold calling", for example, and they would always say "well, it depends... let's fire up some tables and hope that a specific situation come so i can tell you what i would do". Man, that sucks big time.

I know it depends, but if so, tell me how I should adjust as the variables change.

Right now I'm playing MSNL and still find some nuggets when I discuss theory with good players. My question is: What 3bet coaches (MSNL+) I could just say something like "please talk about how to find spots to check/raise postflop, against what types of players I would do that, and your reasoning" and could get a better answer than "it depends"?

I'm not looking for perfect answers, just some coaches that could definitely discuss general theory. Maybe someone on your crew got some kind of lecture series.

2) I noticed that the authors dropdown in the video section includes BldSwtTrs, he'll be making some videos? =D

Hey Satori,

Are you asking me to talk about theory here? If so, I'll get to that tomorrow - I'm completely delirious right now and want to sleep before I start talking about this stuff academically :-)

If you're asking about which coaches can teach you theory instead of or in addition to sweating - they all can. Just make sure you specifically ask for it. I'm working individually with all of the coaches over the next few months to create better structured coaching programs for students who prefer this kind of teaching over just sweating, which can definitely be inefficient at times. But all our coaches are extremely sound at this kind of stuff so just make sure to stress that this is what you want to devote your time to when you hire your coach.

As for specific theory specialists - off the top of my head: xorbie, WiltOnTilt, Vanessa, TheWorstPlayer, Messiah.

re: BldSwtTrs - we shall see, we shall see.

The authors dropdown box piggybacks off our database, so right now it's just listing all our coaches. It will probably get fixed to where only video authors are viewable on that list, though.

Hi KRANTZ,

I just watched "limeslice" and was pretty surprised at how "simple" 5/10 was. Well, when I say simple, I don't mean anyone can beat it, but it seemed like you were taking a fairly straightforward approach and were still able to beat it. Your thought process didn't seem overly complicated and it just made practical sense. I don't know, maybe I just have this false notion that 5/10 is where all the crazy 6rd level thinking happens, but whenever I took a shot at it, I got pummeled by the likes of 20buckspin and straate (maybe it was just bad table selection). Like I simply couldn't win a big pot there. So naturally, I thought my thinking process was still very elementary and not "complex" enough to beat 5/10. But after seeing your video, I don't think I stray too far away from how you approached the game. I always thought, since 5/10 is where all the regs meet, and since most regs are winning players and have a sound grasp on all the fundamentals of poker, that unless you evolved your mind to contrive complex analysis for each hand on the spot, you wouldn't have any edge and would be at best a break even player.

So I guess my question for you is this, at 5/10+ where the tables are usually filled with people who know what they're doing, where does your edge come from? Do you usually go through the same thought process as you did in the video or are you hiding deeper level thinking from us ;]? I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just surprised, actually elated to know that 5/10+ is beatable just through sound solid thinking.

Are you asking me to talk about theory here? If so, I'll get to that tomorrow - I'm completely delirious right now and want to sleep before I start talking about this stuff academically :-)

I was just asking about qualified coaches, but if you want to throw an interesting piece of theory here, go ahead =)

Jay,

Can you give an example of a situation where you check one pair on the river after betting the flop (and turn?) as the preflop raiser and then go through your thought process as to what sized bets you plan on calling, folding, or check/raising (either for value or as a bluff)?

Thanks!

- TWP

Hi KRANTZ,

I just watched "limeslice" and was pretty surprised at how "simple" 5/10 was. Well, when I say simple, I don't mean anyone can beat it, but it seemed like you were taking a fairly straightforward approach and were still able to beat it. Your thought process didn't seem overly complicated and it just made practical sense. I don't know, maybe I just have this false notion that 5/10 is where all the crazy 6rd level thinking happens, but whenever I took a shot at it, I got pummeled by the likes of 20buckspin and straate (maybe it was just bad table selection). Like I simply couldn't win a big pot there. So naturally, I thought my thinking process was still very elementary and not "complex" enough to beat 5/10. But after seeing your video, I don't think I stray too far away from how you approached the game. I always thought, since 5/10 is where all the regs meet, and since most regs are winning players and have a sound grasp on all the fundamentals of poker, that unless you evolved your mind to contrive complex analysis for each hand on the spot, you wouldn't have any edge and would be at best a break even player.

So I guess my question for you is this, at 5/10+ where the tables are usually filled with people who know what they're doing, where does your edge come from? Do you usually go through the same thought process as you did in the video or are you hiding deeper level thinking from us ;]? I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just surprised, actually elated to know that 5/10+ is beatable just through sound solid thinking.

Definitely not going to be holding anything back in any video I produce here, whether it's 5/10 or 200/400. So Episode 1 definitely translates my thought processes pretty well. The drawback is that it's only 200 hands - a very small sample size - and that there are many tougher situations that can and will come up on a day to day basis and against tougher players (20buckspin and straate are admittedly more tilt-inducing than many).

But the positive is that of course it's beatable. More people make fewer mistakes as you move higher and higher, so your edge comes both in a. capitalizing harder on the fewer mistakes they make, b. making fewer mistakes yourself, and c. being a better professional player - game selecting and not playing in a game where you're out of your comfort level. So with solid thinking (whether you want to play LAG or TAG, think logically about both styles!) you can take care of a. and b., and as you get more and more experience playing hands against people who make fewer mistakes, your mind becomes intuitively accustomed to spotting the chinks in their armor. They just aren't as evident at first.

With that said, just because they're making fewer mistakes doesn't mean they still don't make a lot! It amazes me how bad some players will play, even at 25/50 and higher. Respect your new opponents but don't treat them with reverence they don't deserve - every hand is just 2 cards to each player, 5 cards in the middle, and a whole buncha fun little decisions.

If you're looking for some fancy tricks though, no worries. There's some nifty stuff in upcoming episodes. But those moves are the exception and not the rule, all the way up through 200/400NL, and this series is less about showing you how to play 200 hands at 5/10NL and way more about showing you how to think about poker as you move up higher and higher and play more highly adaptive opponents. I had to figure out how to dribble lefty before I could crossover, if that makes any sense.

we gotta get this quote feature fixed

tiltingggg

Are you asking me to talk about theory here? If so, I'll get to that tomorrow - I'm completely delirious right now and want to sleep before I start talking about this stuff academically :-)

I was just asking about qualified coaches, but if you want to throw an interesting piece of theory here, go ahead =)

Let's talk briefly about when to checkraise on the flop, then. There are only two variables:

1- Your opponent's hand range.
2- Your hand range.

Your opponent's range is made up of every hand he would open with preflop AND the hands with which he will continuation bet the flop AND for the amount of money that he's continuation bet for. Evaluate those factors and you have his hand range. How do you evaluate them on the fly? Preflop is easy. On c-betting, it helps to have notes or general intuition about bet sizing to determine what the bet size means, and HUD can give you an accurate read of how often he's cbetting. And to go even further, if you've been checkraising a lot, in general he's less likely to be c-betting without a hand he will continue with to a reopening of the action.

Your hand range is made up up every hand you would call with preflop in the position you're in AND would check the flop to this particular opponent AND would raise his continuation bet. How do you evaluate this on the fly? Know yourself and be honest about what hands you can really have in each particular case.

So how do we figure out when to checkraise, theoretically?

Well first, let me preface that your PERCEIVED hand range should be game theoretically balanced. Meaning that against lots of opponents, it doesn't need to be (why? because many opponents will never fold overpairs even if you only checkraise sets and many opponents will still float you and try to make a play even if you only checkraise sets).

So we checkraise bluff when we've evaluated his range in that given circumstance and believe that he will fold with a high probability (and we think about whether or not he will call BUT fold to a turn bet AND on which types of turn cards while we are planning the checkraise itself) because of what he thinks we have in any given circumstance and particularly this hand specifically.

And we checkraise for value when we've evaluated his range and believe that he'll call or reraise with a high probability.

OR, we make either move because it is simply the best move in our repertoire for a larger purpose - metagame and balancing our range from both a perceived and game theoretical standpoint, depending on the player.

Jay,

Can you give an example of a situation where you check one pair on the river after betting the flop (and turn?) as the preflop raiser and then go through your thought process as to what sized bets you plan on calling, folding, or check/raising (either for value or as a bluff)?

Thanks!

- TWP

I'm in Long Island now on my Mac but when I get back to NYC in a couple of days I'll dig through some hands for you and find examples.

I'll talk quickly about when I bet both flop and turn, though - I'll check the river when draws miss against bad players and when draws hit against good players. The bad players will bluff their missed draws and never value bet thinly with their good one pair hands that beat me, or they will, but just not as often. The good players will turn their made hands into bluffs. That doesn't mean I call every time, but if they're more likely to turn a hand with SD value into a bluff because the flush came in than they are to call my river bet because the flush came in, then that's something that I'm considering before I check or bet the river.

On bet sizes - I call pretty much anything when I check if I check trying to induce something. Unless it's something weird and unexpected, like an overbet, in which case I have to think harder about what they're trying to accomplish with it. If I check because there's just no value in betting any more, then I call bets that give me a good price on the pot if I have marginal or average showdown value, and I call giant bets if the player is prone to bluffing or is the kinda player I think will bluff big. And against good players, in either case - if I check to induce or I check because there is no value in a bet - I call anything because how dare they succeed with a bluff against me!

Oh, on small bets I'm a lot more likely to think about doing something creative. For instance, minraising with bottom pair just to reopen the action and induce a bluff shove. But that's highly subjective and I've gotten owned on more than one occasion. Something like that actually happens in our next video challenge, a 3-parter at 10/20NL.