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Here is a hand where I definitely step out of my comfort zone, but I think I picked a good spot. This may be total spew.

Full Tilt Poker $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 161329
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (MP): $10.00
CO: $11.09
BTN: $18.14
SB: $3.88
BB: $5.69
UTG: $21.85

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is MP with A T
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.40, 1 fold, BTN raises to $1.35, 2 folds, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $3.10, BTN calls $1.75

Flop: ($6.35) 7 6 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $6.35


Villain is 24/19/4.7 @885 hands. 3bet range is 10%. I decide to turn my hand into a bluff, which may be the mistake in this hand, but I don't feel comfortable playing ATo OOP against his 3bet range because I have 40% equity in a bloated pot where I am easily dominated. I elect to push my steal equity to the maximum hear in but in the minimum 4bet size that I think will be effective and still give good odds.

After he calls my 4bet I feel safe putting him on AK,AQs type hands, maybe QQ, and probably not AA and KK because I would expect a shove from him PF. I decide to go AI because I don't want to make a half pot bet and make him think he has fold equity with AK. The flop connects with zero of his range so only overpairs can really continue. QQ might fold, and KK and AA are unlikely so I think this is a profitable shove. He was playing 8 tables at the time and I think many TAG-stat gridners will play AK like this at NL10. Am I discounting the possibility of AA and KK too much?

Hmm.

First: I do think you are discounting AA and KK from his range too much. I can easily see him calling your 4-bet because he knows that you will only have about a PSB left, and you'll be OOP and can probably be expected to shove almost any flops.

Second consideration: Since you have a decent amount of hands, what is his fold to 4-bet? Important info to have since you are effectively turning your hand into a bluff.

Third: Do you really think anyone at 10NL is folding QQ on that flop? I would be surprised to not get a crying call from JJ and TT if they are in his range. With a 3-bet of 10%, he's obviously not too skittish and isn't prone to folding.

Fourth: I think he usually ships AK preflop because it's at the top of his 3-betting range (10%, lol), training videos have told him to, and he's scared of not knowing what to do when he doesn't flop a pair.

Fifth: What is your image? If you've been 3-betting a fair bit this will effect how he plays against you. He may be playing too many tables to pay really close attention, but his stats suggest he is using a HUD and will know your 3B%. Also, you are in earlyish position and he's still willing to 3-bet you, which suggests strength. However, if he's 3-betting 10% he may not really be taking that into account.

I fold unless I have a solid read, but I really need to study the 3-bet, 4-bet, etc section before I have an opinion that I'm willing to put my name on.

Thanks, you brought up some good points, even though they are in the book. We can sometimes barrel in good spots and the raise size depends on his 3bet-call ratio.

Please don't worry about opening discussion on a topic because it's in the book. If we could just read it all and be good to go, we wouldn't need a study group. We'd also all have quit our day jobs and be ballin' at 1/2 about now.

Furthermore, I enjoyed having to go look it up to support my play. Before, that area was still a little fuzzy in my head. Now, it's very clear.

I was thinking about this, and based on these assumptions (if I understand them correctly), it seems that people who habitually c-bet full pot are just lighting money on fire.

Check out the Elasticity of Bet Sizing sidebar. It's surprising how little difference it may make.

Has anyone else realized the huge huge profit potential from checking how many tables certain TAGs are playing? Whenever someone sits down with stats like 17/16 I check how many tables they are playing. I have a TAG on each of my tables I am playing now playing 8-12 tables. One has a fold to 3bet at 94 @650 hands and one is at 100 @120 hands. These players are not watching their tables and have no clue I am 3betting with any two cards.

And when I have a big hand I call their raise and call their inevitable cbet and know I am ahead a huge portion of the time even with A-high

It's hard to believe how profitable this is. Run a couple conservative estimates of what you gain from this. Yes, now do it again. See? Table selecting like this can turn a mediocre player into a big winner. This is THE factor in today's game for easy money, worth more than raising the button far more often versus tight blinds.

Hero made three post-flop steal attempts today. They were all terrible. He shall share one of them with you.

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 161837
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BTN): $26.45
SB: $25.00
BB: $28.65
UTG: $34.85
CO: $25.00

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BTN with J A
UTG calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero raises to $1.25, 2 folds, UTG calls $1

Hero raises for value and isolation. The limper is 25/10. He is also apparently very aggressive postflop, but Hero unfortunately did not have a read on him or remember to look at his stats, other than VPIP and PFR.

Flop: ($2.85) 4 Q 7 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $2, UTG calls $2

Normally, hero might bet a little smaller, but one of Hero's other two bad bluffs was recent and utilized his standard bet sizing, so he thought he would bet a bet more to give the appearance of a value-bet to throw off Villain if he had noticed.

Villain calls. What is his likely range?
56.
A flush draw.
A Queen.
99 or 88.
Maybe he's being really stubborn with a 7, like 78 or 67.

Turn: ($6.85) Q (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $5, UTG calls $5

What a great card for villains overall range.
...Hero, what are you doing?
Hero bets because he has a half inkling of an idea that he can make underpairs to the Q fold (which is probably incorrect, in retrospect). He doesn't consider the fact that Villains overall range loves that card, or that Villain probably doesn't consider a flush to be in his range.

River: ($16.85) 5 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

At least Hero has his wits about him enough to realize he is now toast and a river bet would be suicide.

Final Pot: $16.85
Hero mucks J A
UTG shows 9 8 (a flush, Queen high)
UTG wins $16.05
(Rake: $0.80)

Remember, think before you barrel. It's kind of important.

Despite my awful steal attempts, I had an awesome session today.

Observations from today's session:

Many villains at 25nl go bat**** insane in 3-bet pots. They seem to just shove and pray when they get in a tough spot.

Villains looove to slowplay when you are very aggressive.

3-betting players who open about 30% on the button but otherwise are nits is both fun and profitable.

Check out the Elasticity of Bet Sizing sidebar. It's surprising how little difference it may make.

Hmm, okay. It appears I did misunderstand your meaning then. I am most interested in this development.

If we bet pot, villain has to fold 50% of the time (ignoring when we barrel or hit something on the turn or river) for the bet to be profitable. We risk an amount equal to what we stand to gain. Given that the advice in the book is something akin to "just bet the flop most of the time because it works well at this level," I can only assume we plan to achieve a reasonably close to a 50% success rate. We of course won't always bet the pot, but if it makes little difference that we don't, then the above statement should still hold true.

I do understand that we can accept a less than 50% success rate because it allows us to get paid with our made hands.

So, if betting pot really isn't that different than betting something we feel is optimal, how is it that the statement of...

One critical example from that is most lines that result in a c-bet bluff do not make a profit. Under typical game conditions, you get called too often for the hand to show an overall profit, but there is enough dead money in the pot that the c-bet bluff is "correct." So c-bet bluffing is a lose-less play instead of a make-money play.

...is correct? We aren't getting any special odds when we pot it. He folds more than half the time and we profit (or we make a hand on the turn/river that wins), or he calls more than half the time and we lose money.

Is there anyway to save my password to the ebook into adobe so I dont have to open my gmail--find the password--copy/paste the password?

I saved a file with the pw in its name on the desktop. Like this you just have to right click the icon and copy & paste the filename into adobe.

...is correct? We aren't getting any special odds when we pot it. He folds more than half the time and we profit (or we make a hand on the turn/river that wins), or he calls more than half the time and we lose money.

Well it's usually correct to c-bet bluff because of the dead money in the pot. You just end the hand with less money than you started on average. The c-bet bluff is right, but once you get to c-bet bluff you are usually going to lose money overall on the hand.

Bet-size matters but not as much as one might think: if they fold 50% to a half-pot bet and 58% to a full-pot bet then the full-pot bet is only slightly worse -- about 4% of the full-pot bet when you lose 42% of the time, so overall it costs a little under 2% of the full-pot bet beyond the "cost" of the half-pot bet. That's clearly worse but hardly as much as intuition would lead one to believe.

So yes you're def. right on bet-sizing, but we're saving dimes, not dollars, by making the smaller bet. Then again, dimes add up quickly in a $1-$2 game.

Well it's usually correct to c-bet bluff because of the dead money in the pot. You just end the hand with less money than you started on average. The c-bet bluff is right, but once you get to c-bet bluff you are usually going to lose money overall on the hand.

I think I have a better understanding of what you are saying now. Are we losing money on the hand overall once it gets to the c-bet bluff because about half of the money we are contesting by c-betting was ours to begin with when we started the hand?

There is now a specific study group forum on the SSNLHE forums, and an open thread for about the first 60 pages of the ebook for those interested in also participating over there.

For those thinking of going to Kinko's to get a hard copy printed and bound, I don't recommend it. They want more than $130 for a color version, and about $35 for a black and white version. A hard copy version will be available from the official site in the future at a discounted rate for those who bought the ebook.

I think I have a better understanding of what you are saying now. Are we losing money on the hand overall once it gets to the c-bet bluff because about half of the money we are contesting by c-betting was ours to begin with when we started the hand?

Exactly.

possible typo? p 132/306 under "attack more frequently when callers have entered the pot"

The last paragraph/sentence. "You should be squeezing a significant *minority* of the time you're presented the opportunity to do so". This could be the advice you meant to give, but the rest of the section would leave me to believe otherwise. Of course, the editor is probably a normal person and doesn't think about poker all the time and wouldn't know to change this if it was a mental error in the drafting of the book.

If it is correct though... how should we judge when to squeeze?

possible typo? p 132/306 under "attack more frequently when callers have entered the pot"

The last paragraph/sentence. "You should be squeezing a significant *minority* of the time you're presented the opportunity to do so".

Minority is right. If you start squeezing say 2/3 of the time it becomes trivial to exploit you: call behind with big hands whenever you are in the blinds. That combined with the chances someone wakes up with a big hand normally means squeezing should not be a default play. But it still should be done much more often than most $1-$2 players do it.

We didn't publish the stuff I wrote about hand trees, dead money, the equity of folding, and understanding which lines make money and which don't...

Under usual conditions, when it gets to a c-bet bluff, from there you do not get to overall profit. So you need to think about stealing blinds and hitting flops to "compensate" for the expected loss that results every time you end up missing the flop. Yeah, sometimes they fold so often that c-bet bluffing results in overall profit, but even in current $1-$2 6-max that doesn't occur nearly as often as you might think.

Wow. Why did you not include that material? It sounds like really great stuff.

As for c-bet bluffing not being profitable in itself, I'm surprised. But maybe I've gotten used to playing a lot of players who play way too fit or fold postflop, in live games.