---

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

I think that flops like QJx or QTx are pretty good for us if the villain's range is polarised, and pretty meh if it's unpolarised. Sometimes we flop 78T two tone and have to c/f but whatever.

Something I was trying to make apparent is that the logic that could make those boards decent is the same logic being used to justify the call pre. I think it's completely safe to say someone is more likely to 4b blockers here and a value hand at this point in their encounter than say 76s or 83o. Either way, if you really want to argue both sides then we don't have a clue as to what his range is and WILL ABSOLUTELY MAKE MISTAKES POST. So lets just assume value hands and blockers, because that's far more likely and avoids an unneeded discussion.

We're still likely to have 24% or so equity vs a bunch of hands that's made a pair (AJ/AQ/KJ etc) though even if he's unpolarised and sometimes we're up against other gutters and straight draws that we have crushed. If he has like 98s or K2s then we can say hooray and either call down or just ship over cbet, depending on how likely we think he's bluffing on future streets.

Once again, we can't argue both sides. If we do, we're already admitting it's bad because we don't know how to play either board. Based on your example though, in the case of a depolarized range we're getting it in with 24% equity or taking down dead money on the flop. Or we can take down dead money pre and get it in with 50% equity? Plus, we ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO check fold some boards. It's not close.

Oh ok. I didn't think I was arguing both sides, I was arguing that it was good vs polarised ranges, but was like talking about how this board just isn't good vs unpolarised ranges in contrast to that assumption (which is the worst case scenario, but we still have decent equity).

I guess I was trying to say that if flopping QJx and having semi decent equity is one of our nightmare scenarios flatting AK can't be that bad.

I'm not arguing both sides, I was arguing an either or scenario vs different villain types.

So isn't this board excellent for us if the villain's range is Axs or Kxs a bunch and will cbet/fold? We've gotten a bunch more money vs the bottom of his range and we'll probably get it in vs JJ+ and AQ+ pre anyway if we 5bet.

If that's what he does. For this call to be good he absolutely has to have a bluffing range that's ASTRONOMICAL, which would need to be compensated with a wide value range which still makes getting it in pre best. You're ignoring him ever having a better hand, if we're making so many calls, and you're ignoring the time he hits a pair with an unpaired hand by the river. Also, as I've said before, you HAVE to fold some boards, probably at the very minimum 20-30% of the time you make it to the flop. It's very likely more like 40-50% of the time, and the other 50% of the time you still have to deal with his value range.

I assure you that if you ask around in SSNL or MSNL on 2+2, everyone will agree that calling is bad.

I assure you that if you ask around in SSNL or MSNL on 2+2, everyone will agree that calling is bad.

You didn't say that. Must've been a typo.



What is a BTN 4bet range? JJ+, AK obviously. What do you add to it value-wise?

What do you add to it 4bet bluff-wise?

I said it, if you post there you'd know who the legit posters are and what advice is nonsense, and the better players would all agree on this because it's clear cut. I think the only reason Baluga did it in the video is because he hasn't played in a while so he's just getting used to things again and his overall style is based moreso around creating bigger equity edges, which lends itself to a call pre in this spot. That said, it's still a mistake.

I don't know how either of those questions are at all relevant. However, I've already stated that our best assumption of his bluffing range is blocker hands, KT, QJ, KQ. Valuewise I'd add nothing.

I said it, if you post there you'd know who the legit posters are and what advice is nonsense, and the better players would all agree on this because it's clear cut. I think the only reason Baluga did it in the video is because he hasn't played in a while so he's just getting used to things again and his overall style is based moreso around creating bigger equity edges, which lends itself to a call pre in this spot. That said, it's still a mistake.

If it's a mistake, and you could be right, it's a mistake because there's more value in playing it differently, not because a bunch of small stakes tagfish on some forum will say so.
I fail to see why it's bad to create big equity edges. In fact, I wish I could do it all the time.

I don't know how either of those questions are at all relevant. However, I've already stated that our best assumption of his bluffing range is blocker hands, KT, QJ, KQ. Valuewise I'd add nothing.

Considering we're talking about AK v a BTN 4bet, it seems pretty relevant. Have you stoved your range? Vs. this, we're 60%

JJ+,AKs,A9s-A5s,KQs,KTs,QJs,AKo,KQo,KTo,QJo

All of the hands (I only put A5-A9s as blocker hands) that aren't pure value (JJ+, AK) are dominated by AK.

What is 4bet-calling a ship?

If it's a mistake, and you could be right, it's a mistake because there's more value in playing it differently, not because a bunch of small stakes tagfish on some forum will say so.
I fail to see why it's bad to create big equity edges. In fact, I wish I could do it all the time.

I didn't say it's right because they'll say it's right. I said it's right and they'll tell you why it's right. Well, I didn't say either, but I meant the latter. Can see how this would be misinterpreted. I never said it's bad to create big equity edges, I was not belittling his style, I play a similar style. I was just citing the reason why I think he thought the play was valid, which is because if you haven't been in this spot a lot recently or thought about it a lot recently, someone who plays like that would have the first instinct of "call".

Considering we're talking about AK v a BTN 4bet, it seems pretty relevant. Have you stoved your range? Vs. this, we're 60%

JJ+,AKs,A9s-A5s,KQs,KTs,QJs,AKo,KQo,KTo,QJo

All of the hands (I only put A5-A9s as blocker hands) that aren't pure value (JJ+, AK) are dominated by AK.

What is 4bet-calling a ship?

Once again, 12% is are the odds that we dominate him on the flop, 16% by the turn. We'll have 40% equity vs JJ+, AK+, if he has AQ it becomes a flip. Either way it's a much better spot than we would get in otherwise. I've explained why it's better already, at this point I don't wish to continue this conversation. I am absolutely certain that calling is a mistake here, and if you asked other DC video producers, or any sites video producers (earlier poster steel108 is a leggo video producer), you would find that they're all in agreement.

This AK hand argument is getting pretty dumb. Flatting and jamming are obv both +EV. If i ever flat a 4 bet with AK i'm never ever ever ever folding on any board. I do it because I think villain is likely to fire out a cbet large percent of the time and I'm going to jam over that cbet and get him to fold thus trapping a extra bet out of him.

The times villain out flops you and stacks you will be compensated for the times you cooler him/suck out and stacks him. Now if villain is just going to c/f boards where it missed him then jamming pre is clearly better.

Saying jamming AK is the only correct play is just dumb doesn't matter how many people agrees with you. Shit is situational for almost everything in poker.

No, not in this case. You are absolutely wrong. I really thought I'd just let this die but that's an incredibly wrong comment and it'll only bring detriment to other players games. Seriously, open up every poker forum ever created and ask anyone if you should flat or jam AK when you're OOP 100bbs deep with an unknown player, everyone with a decent winrate will respond with jam (so long as they have been in the spot in the past few months). It's a clear spot once you think about it.

The idea of never folding post is horrible, it's MUCH, MUCH more likely that a majority of his range is value, not bluffs.

No, not in this case. You are absolutely wrong. I really thought I'd just let this die but that's an incredibly wrong comment and it'll only bring detriment to other players games. Seriously, open up every poker forum ever created and ask anyone if you should flat or jam AK when you're OOP 100bbs deep with an unknown player, everyone with a decent winrate will respond with jam (so long as they have been in the spot in the past few months). It's a clear spot once you think about it.

The idea of never folding post is horrible, it's MUCH, MUCH more likely that a majority of his range is value, not bluffs.

hey mal,

i'm appreciative of your enthusiasm for this subject. i'd have just a few quick points i will make:
1) just because people have a +EV solution to a problem doesn't mean it's the most +EV (hence all the 2p2pers with winrates all shoving here and still making money. i never argued that shoving AK doesnt make money, and shoving would've been my longtime preferred option until some very awesome poker arguments convinced me otherwise).
2) if a majority of someone's range is value, not bluffs, then we probably should just muck our AK preflop. However, if somebody's 4bet range is relegated to JJ+ and Ax and Kx, and maybe some random low cards sometimes, then we're not up against that solidly of a value range after all.
3) if people don't bluff postflop, then you are right, we're up against value ranges postflop. you may note that i said, in this case, we should just opt to ship it in preflop instead (because our opponents play perfectly postflop too often).

I think you should be careful about thinking in terms of absolute hand strength (i.e. AK misses a lot of flops!) and instead, think about relative equity (i.e. even when AK misses its ahead a lot, and even when its behind when it misses, it has good equity to catch up, and either way is likely to have good implied odds on its outs).

just probing things here maleficus, when everyone's thinking one way it's usually a good time to start questioning it!

Andrew

if you really do believe you stack QJs more often by 4betting than by flatting, then ofc its a 4bet preflop. I think that might be optimistic, though.

Andrew

in no offense way, but we play against a range at this point both of you don't have a read what the other player would do. like >95% of all players at nl200 would 5b with AK there (I guess a lot would stackoff with TT+, so we can get even more value with the 4b!), and it would be bad for him to not get it in vs those hands. it is just not correct to think in this spot about 1 hand. if you think you get him to stack off lighter postflop with QJ,or maybe he might c/f ~TT on J93r etc. (who knows? like I said, we don't have a read!)

i have even less of a read that he calls off my shove with worse?

Andrew

AK is not a hand where we get it in with, because we have the best hand. we get it in with AK preflop because we have such a good equity vs the normal calloff range and we collect the deadmoney that is already in the pot when he was 4b bluffing. so at that point, especially OOP, I am pretty sure it is wrong to not play the hand straight forward

but: don't get me wrong. I somewhat like the play if we have a read on our opponent, but this isn't given at the moment. I just don't like how you say that this is how you should play AKo in this spot, because that's just not true

oh, and last thing: like everyone else already said: We're not complaining about your content, just about a missplayed hand. Overall the vid was good education for everyone here! And if someone totally diagrees with the things you say, well, he might be better off not watching your vids. keep on the good work!!

If it's a mistake, and you could be right, it's a mistake because there's more value in playing it differently, not because a bunch of small stakes tagfish on some forum will say so.
I fail to see why it's bad to create big equity edges. In fact, I wish I could do it all the time.

Considering we're talking about AK v a BTN 4bet, it seems pretty relevant. Have you stoved your range? Vs. this, we're 60%

JJ+,AKs,A9s-A5s,KQs,KTs,QJs,AKo,KQo,KTo,QJo

All of the hands (I only put A5-A9s as blocker hands) that aren't pure value (JJ+, AK) are dominated by AK.

What is 4bet-calling a ship?

Thats a massively unbalanced range and a lot of those hands probably call pre. If he is 4 betting our 3 bets that much we probably should just ship any 2 and giggle. Equity edge isn't all that great when you have this massive amount of dead money that you're either going to fold incorrectly and lose or get value owned by the random pair that they flop some percent of the time. Without knowing very specific things about opponents tendencies/range I can't see postflop strategies other than 'oh well I better just call it off because the pot is almost stacksize on the flop' being good, and calling it off randomly doesn't seem great either.

So we're playing weird guessing games over huge sums because we think that those guessing games = higher EV than folding out his bluffs half of the time getting in as a flip the other half?. Also this does gross things to our 5-bet range, either making it really really small or dominated by small pairs and AQ.

This AK hand argument is getting pretty dumb. Flatting and jamming are obv both +EV. If i ever flat a 4 bet with AK i'm never ever ever ever folding on any board. I do it because I think villain is likely to fire out a cbet large percent of the time and I'm going to jam over that cbet and get him to fold thus trapping a extra bet out of him.

The times villain out flops you and stacks you will be compensated for the times you cooler him/suck out and stacks him. Now if villain is just going to c/f boards where it missed him then jamming pre is clearly better.

Saying jamming AK is the only correct play is just dumb doesn't matter how many people agrees with you. Shit is situational for almost everything in poker.

Jamming over cbets on like 456 board against a polarized range seems like suicide. Unless you like bluffing with the best hand a lot.

Thats a massively unbalanced range and a lot of those hands probably call pre. If he is 4 betting our 3 bets that much we probably should just ship any 2 and giggle.

If you don't like the range, that's cool. What range would you give him? That's seems like the meat of the hand. Mine reflected what Malefiicus said, JJ+ and some blockers.
Also, because he could 4bet a range doesn't mean he always 4bets every hand in it.

Equity edge isn't all that great when you have this massive amount of dead money that you're either going to fold incorrectly and lose or get value owned by the random pair that they flop some percent of the time.

I would think it's pretty important to think about that some percent of the time. If it's small enough, then we auto profit no matter what.

Without knowing very specific things about opponents tendencies/range I can't see postflop strategies other than 'oh well I better just call it off because the pot is almost stacksize on the flop' being good, and calling it off randomly doesn't seem great either.

So we're playing weird guessing games over huge sums because we think that those guessing games = higher EV than folding out his bluffs half of the time getting in as a flip the other half?. Also this does gross things to our 5-bet range, either making it really really small or dominated by small pairs and AQ.

We don't know alot about opponents' tendencies or range, true. But the same is the case if we ship. We don't know what he'll fold or call off. If you give me a range different than the one I did, and pick what he'll fold out and what he'll call with, then you're doing the same thing as I am, guessing about ranges. Once we determine a range and what he'll do with it on the flop, then we can get a pretty good idea of what extra $$ we'd make by calling and snapping off the cbet (by estimating his bet size).
If he has a bluff range here, we make money from it when he bets the flop and folds or when he spikes and we respike a better pair or he gets counterfeited or whatever.
If he doesn't have a bluff range preflop, then we should fold. If he never bluffs the flop, then like BW said, ship it prf. And like his 4bet range, our 5bet range is fluid.



I'm not definitely saying shipping is wrong or worse. My first instinct watching the video was to snap ship. But I haven't seen any compelling reason why shipping is actually better. It's definitely uncomfortable to whiff the flop after flatting the 4bet, but if your not always folding, and he's always betting, then it seems like you win that extra cbet from his bluffs every time, and his value range gets you whether you flat pre or ship.

Re the AK hand...

One of your main arguments for flatting is that shoving pre allows your opponent to play perfectly, and in order to do that you put yourself in a position where you force yourself to play perfectly postflop, which without reads is going to be insanely difficult. When you flat pre you've obviously got a value hand, not necessarily a monster but you've never got 78s or TJs or something, it seems like you're going to have monsters and stuff like AQ, KQ, AJ etc. So it's unlikely that people are going to go crazy trying to barrel you off a really strong range, especially on A or K high boards which is obviously bad for us. So it is definitely a possibility that people will freeze up a little when you flat the 4 bet and proceed to only bet for value postflop. Given that you've stated you are not going to be check folding very often then that is a terrible situation for us to be in, and it's not too unlikely.

When you flat and check shove flops lets say T-8-2, you're still likely to be letting your opponent play perfectly - he'll never call worse and you're just trying to pick up dead money. Granted, you may pick up a c-bet but we don't know that without reads. So check folding postflop is not going to happen, check shoving is not ideal, which leaves you in a position where you are check calling down, but when you face multiple barrels in a 4 bet pot with AK high how often are you really going to be good? You place a lot of stock in the fact that sometimes you will cooler him when you have him dominated but this will happen very rarely, and you don't really have any basis for the assumptions you make which make this play good (4 bet bluffing a lot, cbetting air a lot in 4 bet pots).

Would definitely love to hear some other coaches opinions on this.