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

Zend: When I started playing, I used to not only pay attention to stats, but I would try my best to achieve stats that seemed to be shared amongst a lot of players. Whether it be from poker forum mantra or just some player that I really liked. The problem I ran into was that I wasn't thinking how the stats got there in the first place so I wasn't thinking about spots that were good or bad to open, fold, cbet, barrel...anything.

Thanks for this, which makes so much sense and has probably identified one of my (many!) current leaks i.e. relying too heavily on statistical goals. One of those things you don't notice you're doing, until someone points it out to you. Interesting to hear you had a similar experience. PokerStudent was also making the same point, I guess, so a hat tip there too.

I'm no math wiz but you would have to take the pot down a lot in order to make c-betting 70% of the time against micro players a +EV play. As I said at mirco you are more likly to get called light on the flop and preflop then you are to get a fold. Your statement is to general and wrong.

I think most ppl at micros are more likely to play fit or fold than they are to call you with complete air to make a move later or something. Of course if they flop 3rd pair or something they are gonna call you down but you flop a piece ~30% of the time. Assuming you don't cbet to POT and that you will actually have a hand some percentage of the time, i think cbeting 70% is in fact +EV.

I'm no math wiz but you would have to take the pot down a lot in order to make c-betting 70% of the time against micro players a +EV play. As I said at mirco you are more likly to get called light on the flop and preflop then you are to get a fold. Your statement is to general and wrong.

Agreed and thanks. One of the things I'm learning is that generalisations can often lead you into bad habits or to stop thinking about each individual spot.

Just for interests sake, my cbet flop % is 64% with a cbet success rate of 41%.

I think most ppl at micros are more likely to play fit or fold than they are to call you with complete air to make a move later or something. Of course if they flop 3rd pair or something they are gonna call you down but you flop a piece ~30% of the time. Assuming you don't cbet to POT and that you will actually have a hand some percentage of the time, i think cbeting 70% is in fact +EV.

Thats funny because I get called by A high, over cards, inside straight draws, any pair, and so on on the flop a lot. Ok is betting bottom pair a +EV play when you get called by top pair and no kicker or middle pair? Is betting Air which you will have most of the time and then getting called by any pair a +EV play? How about when you have air with less then A high and you get called by an A high. Show me the math! You need all the things I said not to just randomly be betting 70% of the time.

cbetting 70-80% at 25-50nl is totally fine and close to optimal imo.
so many passives at those stakes are one and done or fit or fold that you're still getting 40-50% cbet success, and a very good double/triple barrel success. Cbetting a high % is also key to creating dead money to capitalize on in further streets, as well as creating a bigger value pot the times you make your hand on the turn/river.

cbetting 70-80% at 25-50nl is totally fine and close to optimal imo.
so many passives at those stakes are one and done or fit or fold that you're still getting 40-50% cbet success, and a very good double/triple barrel success. Cbetting a high % is also key to creating dead money to capitalize on in further streets, as well as creating a bigger value pot the times you make your hand on the turn/river.

We're not talking about 25-50NL. We're talking about 10NL and below. Also what I want to see is the math behind the play. If your C-bet is only working 1/2 the time or less and your C-betting that much I don't see how you could be making money on the play. When you get called and you lose you lose more then when you don't get called so you have to make up for the extra money. Also bet size would have to have something to do with it as well. How is C-betting a player that much that is going to call you light a good play? As I said before show me the math!!! I want to know if this is the right line of play.

oh, sorry I have never played 10nl and lower and I don't think anyone else should for long if it can be helped

as for the math I am not going to get into all that, but you make money every time people fold pre, then you make money when they call and fold to cbet. then you make quite a bit of money when they call pre and flop, fold turn. also there are times you're cbetting and have a made hand or make one on the turn, you make money all these times as well.

oh, sorry I have never played 10nl and lower and I don't think anyone else should for long if it can be helped

as for the math I am not going to get into all that, but you make money every time people fold pre, then you make money when they call and fold to cbet. then you make quite a bit of money when they call pre and flop, fold turn. also there are times you're cbetting and have a made hand or make one on the turn, you make money all these times as well.

Do you make money when you start to get called down light if you don't have a hand (which if your c-betting that much most of the time you won't)? What happens when you start to get check / raised and raised? What about when you get called on the flop and they bet the turn? I would hardly call c-betting 80% of the time optimal. If your bet only works 1/2 the time and you c-bet that much what about the other 1/2 of the time when your c-bet doesn't work and you end up losing? Not everone can buy-in at 50NL or higher. Also for person just starting out why would they??? This is going no where. Like I said show me the math that shows this is a +EV play to make all the time! No one seems to be able to do that.

That's because it would take a bunch of work to try and prove this mathematically why would someone take the hours to bother. I have played several million hands of full ring NL I am just telling you what I have done that works. The fact is that in these spots I will usually have position as my preflop raising range is very late position heavy. I also will have the betting initiative. The 3 main factors to winning any pot are the combination of hand equity, position, and betting initiative. So I have 2 of these 3 and an at least decent hand equity in a majority of the pots I am raising. So not only do I have my basic cbet to win me money, I have position, initiative, and hand reading ability. This will help me determine when to fire 2 and 3 barrels and when to give up.

If a particular player starts playing back at my cbets often, I will just cbet less often or start bet/3betting them or bet/calling them in position on the flop with a wider equity range, and they are going to lose the battle of adjustments because I am choosing mainly situations where I have a stronger combination of the 3 above mentioned key factors and am better than most of my opponents at poker.

Gonna stop hijacking this thread I hope you got something out of my input

Time Link to 00:28:55

So from this I can conclude you don't 3bet KQ,AJ,AQ,AK? Really everything that has really some value but isn't ahead of QQ+ you can say right?

So from this I can conclude you don't 3bet KQ,AJ,AQ,AK? Really everything that has really some value but isn't ahead of QQ+ you can say right?

I will definitely be 3betting those hands, but the key point is that I'm not 3betting them for value . Remember that when we talk about betting for value, it's specially betting because we think we will be ahead of the hands that villain will call with. Against players with a very high fold to 3bet, I would consider the hands you've listed as semi-bluffs. In other words, we're 3betting those hands to get some slightly better hands to fold (for example, getting a hand like AQo to fold OOP to our 3b with AJo or getting 88 to fold when we 3b AK) and if we do get called, we have a fair amount of equity to fall back on.

I will add that 3betting also takes initiative away from the raiser, (usually) represents a really strong range, and increases your fold equity and these factors definitely add to the overall EV of the play...however, the math gets a bit messy and is highly dependent on villain's postflop play to calculate to both determine our pot equity vs his range and gained fold equity.

Seraph brings up some excellent points here and it's worth repeating that skill advantage, initiative, and position have huge effects on which plays will be and won't be profitable. I will add, though, that fold equity plays a rather important part as well and that for players who aren't going to have either the experience or the reads that goldseraph has developed over millions of hands, developing multi-street plans vs most of the uNL field (especially stations) will be tough.

I will definitely be 3betting those hands, but the key point is that I'm not 3betting them for value . Remember that when we talk about betting for value, it's specially betting because we think we will be ahead of the hands that villain will call with. Against players with a very high fold to 3bet, I would consider the hands you've listed as semi-bluffs. In other words, we're 3betting those hands to get some slightly better hands to fold (for example, getting a hand like AQo to fold OOP to our 3b with AJo or getting 88 to fold when we 3b AK) and if we do get called, we have a fair amount of equity to fall back on.

I will add that 3betting also takes initiative away from the raiser, (usually) represents a really strong range, and increases your fold equity and these factors definitely add to the overall EV of the play...however, the math gets a bit messy and is highly dependent on villain's postflop play to calculate to both determine our pot equity vs his range and gained fold equity.

Seraph brings up some excellent points here and it's worth repeating that skill advantage, initiative, and position have huge effects on which plays will be and won't be profitable. I will add, though, that fold equity plays a rather important part as well and that for players who aren't going to have either the experience or the reads that goldseraph has developed over millions of hands, developing multi-street plans vs most of the uNL field (especially stations) will be tough.

Oke I understand. So when having people that have high fold to 3b% you 3b them with the same hands you would 3b a tight person + suited gappers to 46s, Ax hands, maybe K9s+ and maybe suited connectors.

Also would you take your table image inconsideration? I mean at the 10NL field where I play the regs tent to fold almost against every 3b (some try setmine what's like $$$$ ). So you encounter many people with fold to 3b 80-85+%. Would you then ball untill they play back at you? Or would you try to maybe maintain a 3b% ~10 to keep some respect?

Time Link to 00:37:23

I lol'd

Time Link to 00:23:04

Are you saying we should never 3bet preflop and on the flop if we have pocket Qs or lower?