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

Yeah baby, new Linkwood video. 5 Stars and I haven't watched it yet!

Time Link to 00:03:07

Linkwood, where you you get these concepts from? I went quite deep into behavioral economics where many of thece concepts are described, but do you think you can point me to books/resources that focus on irrational behavior concepts that you describe from the area of psychology?

My dissertation topic is on irrational investment choices

Time Link to 00:21:19

88 on river - if we bluff what do you make it?

(I'm a fan of an overbet against a reg that doesn't know us at NL50 -,-)

Time Link to 00:06:06

The ATo 3bet. Not specifically talking about this 3bet (as your image wasn't great as you mentioned) but 3betting nits in general - I think it works more often as a bluff than people think as nits generally have a much tighter 3bet calling/4betting ranges than more taggy type players - i.e. they fold a lot more than you expect given their perceived tight opening range. Obviously if called we need to be in pretty good shape to continue Vs a pretty strong range at this point. Would this lead us to 3bet more hands that are not likely to be dominated like SC's (as well as our pure value premiums)?

Obviously this depends on how much he 4bets Vs calls 3bets but we don't know that yet.

In this case the guy has called 50% of 3bets but I suspect on that sample size (given he's a nit therefore won't have been opening much) that this is only 1 of 2 so not that significant.

Linkwood, where you you get these concepts from? I went quite deep into behavioral economics where many of thece concepts are described, but do you think you can point me to books/resources that focus on irrational behavior concepts that you describe from the area of psychology?

My dissertation topic is on irrational investment choices

I'm finishing a degree in psychology right now, so I got it mostly from my textbooks. The one that probably includes most of these concepts is Social Psychology (9th ed.). by David G. Myers. Its just a basic textbook but it should also lead you to other research sources as he cites a decent amount of research.

I hope this helps.

88 on river - if we bluff what do you make it?

(I'm a fan of an overbet against a reg that doesn't know us at NL50 -,-)

I think an overbet would be pretty good as we can rep AQ and some sets and its hard for us to have air. Vs a curious person you might want to be careful with an overbet, since the main flush draw missed which might be enough of a reason for them to click call.

The ATo 3bet. Not specifically talking about this 3bet (as your image wasn't great as you mentioned) but 3betting nits in general - I think it works more often as a bluff than people think as nits generally have a much tighter 3bet calling/4betting ranges than more taggy type players - i.e. they fold a lot more than you expect given their perceived tight opening range. Obviously if called we need to be in pretty good shape to continue Vs a pretty strong range at this point. Would this lead us to 3bet more hands that are not likely to be dominated like SC's (as well as our pure value premiums)?

Obviously this depends on how much he 4bets Vs calls 3bets but we don't know that yet.

In this case the guy has called 50% of 3bets but I suspect on that sample size (given he's a nit therefore won't have been opening much) that this is only 1 of 2 so not that significant.

In the specific case, this particular villain has a 50% fold to 3bet. Unless we've seen him call every time he doesn't fold, we don't yet know if he's 4betting or calling. (We might have seen that in the video, I can't remember).

As to the general question/comment, SCs can be very good to 3bet vs these guys, depending on if they calling or 4betting more. If they call a lot then I think we'll run into some issues. I still prefer to 3bet Ax or Kx more as it really makes it harder for them to have strong hands. Additionally, while we're dominated when called, there are only 2 cards in the deck that improve both of us. That means that we'll have the initiative in a pot where we're both less likely to hit our hand, which generally means we'll win the pot post flop a lot.

There are good arguments for 3betting SCs as well though, given that when you do flop an A or K with Ax or Kx you have to be good enough to know when to value bet and when to fold. So they can be very challenging at times. SCs less so, although they have their moments of difficulty as well (e.g. 98d on 8s6s5x). I personally think that 3betting Ax or Kx is optimal, but that's just a gut feeling and I have nothing to really prove it. I think its close enough that it is one of those situations where it matters less what you do preflop (whether w/ SCs or Ax,Kx) than it matters what you do post flop. If you play your preflop range well post flop its very profitable in either case.

Nice video. Very clear explanations.

Second the Myers Social Psych btw.. probably my only truly useful class in college. The rest of psych... eh. Kind of got over that by graduation.

Very true about being invested. I am an airbrush artist and in my store I always had the artwork paid 100% before it was done. People always loved everything more when they already owned it. Made life in the store WAAAAYY easier.

Very true about being invested. I am an airbrush artist and in my store I always had the artwork paid 100% before it was done. People always loved everything more when they already owned it. Made life in the store WAAAAYY easier.

Cognitive dissonance is actually a very important and interesting part of our everyday lives. It helps to explain certain behaviors and actions that we consistently see. For example, when you go to buy something and the salesperson takes a long time to perform certain tasks, you have invested more time than normal in whatever you're buying, so cognitive dissonance theory would predict that you will be more likely rate whatever you are purchasing as "better" and therefore be more likely to purchase it. This is why you'll frequently see perceptive sales people stall while dealing with customers.

Any time someone invests something (time, money, effort, etc) into something they are more likely to over-rate it. So people will rate their coaches as better than they are, they will rate videos they watch as better than they are, and they will rate their own poker game as better than it is. Its kind of scary when you think about it.

Time Link to 00:32:15

I agree that villain's line here looks very polarized, but how many busted draws can he really have? Do we have any reads on his positional awareness? He doesn't seem like a super fish or anything-how many suited connectors/suited aces does he call BBvUTG PFR? Maybe suited BW's? A few big suited aces? prob not a straight draw, unless he has 98hh in his range and donks that on the flop (which would make his turn bet make more sense). Any clues on how many combos of 3-barrel bluffs he has here?

The one thing that really makes me want to call is when we call this flop, our hand is pretty much NEVER an overpair or a set, and we might even raise some of our FD's when he donks, so he may believe we have a weak made hand and double barrel with total air. Then again, some of his total air just pulled ahead on the river (Ax).

It's an interesting spot.

I agree that villain's line here looks very polarized, but how many busted draws can he really have? Do we have any reads on his positional awareness? He doesn't seem like a super fish or anything-how many suited connectors/suited aces does he call BBvUTG PFR? Maybe suited BW's? A few big suited aces? prob not a straight draw, unless he has 98hh in his range and donks that on the flop (which would make his turn bet make more sense). Any clues on how many combos of 3-barrel bluffs he has here?

The one thing that really makes me want to call is when we call this flop, our hand is pretty much NEVER an overpair or a set, and we might even raise some of our FD's when he donks, so he may believe we have a weak made hand and double barrel with total air. Then again, some of his total air just pulled ahead on the river (Ax).

It's an interesting spot.

Yeah, pretty interesting spot. His range is just so weird to me. I think he's unlikely to play a set like this. He likely doesn't have 2pr very often. Plus our read that he doesn't value bet well would lead me to believe that he prob doesn't have Axh unless its 2pr.

At the same time, there aren't many pure air bluff combos. If he can have some BWs but that's like 3 combos. Given the spazz factor that we have to include, plus the fact that we only need to be good around 30% of the time (or less) I think a call is fine until we get a better read for his range.

Yeah, pretty interesting spot. His range is just so weird to me. I think he's unlikely to play a set like this. He likely doesn't have 2pr very often. Plus our read that he doesn't value bet well would lead me to believe that he prob doesn't have Axh unless its 2pr.

At the same time, there aren't many pure air bluff combos. If he can have some BWs but that's like 3 combos. Given the spazz factor that we have to include, plus the fact that we only need to be good around 30% of the time (or less) I think a call is fine until we get a better read for his range.

Ya, you might be right. My feeling at the microstakes is that most players don't have the guts to 3 barrel bluff unless it's a situation where they miss a draw, but as you mentioned, he shouldn't have very many draws in his range. Then again, his line is so strange, and I agree I wouldn't expect him to play a set like this. I think he's spazzing less than 10% of the time here, personally (there's no strong aggro dynamic, he's played weak in the past, and we've never caught him bluffing) But there's always the one time someone decides to turn a small pocket pair into a bluff or something.

That means for us to make this call profitably, he has to either value bet worse (very unlikely) or have more missed draws in his range for a combined total of >20%. I'd say he's value betting worse near 0% of the time (especially if we're giving him nearly 10% of "spazz" which could be pocket pairs played horribly), so we're talking about 21+% of his range has to be missed draws here...is that really plausible? I think he shows up with Aces up more often than a set with this line. Keep in mind, if any of his "spazz" included Ax hands that were bluffing on the flop and turn, they just pulled ahead, so 10% of "worse spazz" might even be generous.

Another quesiton-how do you play this hand vs an unknown at 50nl? What about a decent REG? It's the read that villain is generally weak and doesn't vbet thin that makes this call more likely to be profitable, correct? So does that mean if we didn't have this read, the fold becomes more standard? Would we even get to this river spot vs other player types?

Ya, you might be right. My feeling at the microstakes is that most players don't have the guts to 3 barrel bluff unless it's a situation where they miss a draw, but as you mentioned, he shouldn't have very many draws in his range. Then again, his line is so strange, and I agree I wouldn't expect him to play a set like this. I think he's spazzing less than 10% of the time here, personally (there's no strong aggro dynamic, he's played weak in the past, and we've never caught him bluffing) But there's always the one time someone decides to turn a small pocket pair into a bluff or something.

That means for us to make this call profitably, he has to either value bet worse (very unlikely) or have more missed draws in his range for a combined total of >20%. I'd say he's value betting worse near 0% of the time (especially if we're giving him nearly 10% of "spazz" which could be pocket pairs played horribly), so we're talking about 21+% of his range has to be missed draws here...is that really plausible? I think he shows up with Aces up more often than a set with this line. Keep in mind, if any of his "spazz" included Ax hands that were bluffing on the flop and turn, they just pulled ahead, so 10% of "worse spazz" might even be generous.

Another quesiton-how do you play this hand vs an unknown at 50nl? What about a decent REG? It's the read that villain is generally weak and doesn't vbet thin that makes this call more likely to be profitable, correct? So does that mean if we didn't have this read, the fold becomes more standard? Would we even get to this river spot vs other player types?

If we can give him 3 combos of missed draws, plus a 10% spazz factor, he can have 8 combos of better hands and its a call. (11 combos plus 10% spazz means about total 12 combos with us beating 4, ie we're ahead 33% of the time, which is more that enough to call).

Vs an unknown reg, I prob fold the river. I'm prob not folding the flop/turn vs most players although there are some that it is possible.