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

I noticed you generally make your flop cbets 2/3 pot. Do you think there is any merit in making the flop cbet smaller like 1/2 pot or even less, depending on board texture and villain, to give ourselves a cheaper price?

Really liking the vid, and looking forward to hearing more about your theory and application of bet sizing on all streets in various spots.

I do try to vary my cbet size sometimes depending on the situation. I do not think players should have a static cbet size. I stay more balanced when in pots against regs though, I think against fish you can just cbet what is best for you in a vacuum most of the time.

If he was actually 10/6 that makes sense, but you only have 30 hands on him, much more likely that he has normal TAG stats and just ran a little cold than that he's a 10/6. Standard deviation on a 30 hand binomial sample with p = .14 is going to be something like 7% I think. Plus just the fact that he's raising this hand means he's already actually a 12/9 according to your sample.

If he's actually a ~15/13ish type of reg do you like a call?



I mean an 1.5 pot overbet. It seems like a super good spot for an overbet: you have the nut blocker, his range is quite weak, and he's the sort of player you don't expect to hand read enough to work out AJo is almost never good here, but who is also going to play emotionally and first-level enough that when he sees you overbet he'll just think you made the nuts and fold.

You could probably get away with 1.3x, but his range is so mediocre and there are so many hands close to each other that I think it's worth paying more to make sure you're scary enough for him to be folding everything Ax and lower. He probably folds two pair and better a decent amount too.

Why is it much more likely he has TAG stats if he is 10/6 after 30 hands, than that he is a nit reg? Even being incomplete information of 30 hands, it is now considerably more likely that he is a nit than if he were running at 14/12, 18/15 or anything looser. If he was showing as 15/13, I would probably 3bet or fold. I don't want someone in the blinds to squeeze, and the value of cold calling there is questionable. 3betting could definitely be good if the raiser folds to 3bets a good amount, or calls them OOP too often.

As for the overbetting , it occasionally comes up where you can take lines like you're referring to. It definitely helps to have nut blockers, and I would pay keen attention to the type of opponent I am trying this line on. At microstakes, I don't really recommend too much overbetting unless you have a very solid thought process and a read that the opponent isn't just a calling station who doesn't respect money or bet size. I would most often try this line on a reg where I put them in a situation where I am really polarized and they are getting very bad pot odds and rate to have a low to mid strength range.

Why is it much more likely he has TAG stats if he is 10/6 after 30 hands, than that he is a nit reg? Even being incomplete information of 30 hands, it is now considerably more likely that he is a nit than if he were running at 14/12, 18/15 or anything looser. If he was showing as 15/13, I would probably 3bet or fold. I don't want someone in the blinds to squeeze, and the value of cold calling there is questionable. 3betting could definitely be good if the raiser folds to 3bets a good amount, or calls them OOP too often.

I think the easiest way to explain would be to use an extreme example: suppose 99% of regs at 10NL are 14/12, and 1% are 10/6. After 30 hands you have a reg showing as 10/6. The chance that a 14/12 reg is going to read as 10/6 or tighter after 30 hands is around 33% though (guesstimating here from binomial probability). The chance that a 10/6 reg would be 10/6 or tighter after 30 hands otoh is around 50%.

If you run this on 100 random regs you expect to hit 99 14/12s, of which around 33 will read 10/6 or tighter over 30 hands, and 1 10/6, who will read 10/16 or tighter half the time. That means that at these hypothetical stakes if you see someone running 10/6 over 30 hands it's over 60 times as likely that they are a 14/12 running tight than that they are truly 10/6 or tighter. The sample only made it about 50% more likely that the reg is a 10/6 compared to a random situation - now 1.5% of the time he's a 10/6 and 98.5% he's a 14/12.

It's probably more realistic at 10NL that ~14/12 regs are about twice as common as ~10/8 regs, but the sample that you have is still going to have a fairly negligible effect on how likely it is this particular reg is one or the other, especially since he's already showing another VPIP and PFR this hand which takes him up to 12/9 on the sample. To do the math properly would require someone with a better grasp of the equations and the distribution of regs at 10NL, but I'm quite confident that you should be treating the guy pretty much like he's 13/11-15/13.

It's the same mathematical logic you'd be using to bluffcatch in a spot where it didn't look like he was bluffing, but upon analyzing his range he had very few value hands. If he has 100 combos of bluffs and one combo of value, even if he only bluffs like this 2% of the time and value bets 100% of the time, he's 2x as likely to be bluffing. Just applied to HUD statistics.

I thought the stuff you said about overbetting made a lot of sense, thanks.

Time Link to 00:26:30

on table 5 with JJ you throw a thin value cbet into A82r board... wouldn't it be better to check:

1) allow him to bluff/value cut himself by leading on the turn
2) allow him to call more comfortably with 8x/2x lower pp since often cbetting into an ace scares many weaker players into folding.

Or would betting for thin value be best at this stake and against this opponent?

flop was A82, I feel that a 48 vpip opponent will call just wide enough that I can bet that flop. I don't think 8x, pocket pairs, 2x, 34, 45 are folding . check-calling seemed pretty iffy, I am not sure how much this guy bluffs if checked to, he can easily have an ace, and I can at best c/c one street and fold the turn.

Time Link to 00:28:39

table 2: you elect to donk in 2/3rds pot on the flop and bet another 2/3rds on turn and was curious why your bet sizing was such instead of say pot sized bet or 1/2 pot?

If you are trying to accomplish a fold, you wouldn't need to bet as much as 2/3rds but if you were trying to build the pot up in case you hit wouldn't you want to bet more (say pot sized) since obviously any spade will kill future action and you would want as much already in as possible?

Great vid BTW.... glad to see some quality FR vids and looking forward to the rest of your series!

Time Link to 00:30:36

lol at getting a loose/passive fish to fold a good tp... please coach me how to do this

ps. how do you get colored rings around the players? is that a mod?

table 2: you elect to donk in 2/3rds pot on the flop and bet another 2/3rds on turn and was curious why your bet sizing was such instead of say pot sized bet or 1/2 pot?

If you are trying to accomplish a fold, you wouldn't need to bet as much as 2/3rds but if you were trying to build the pot up in case you hit wouldn't you want to bet more (say pot sized) since obviously any spade will kill future action and you would want as much already in as possible?

Great vid BTW.... glad to see some quality FR vids and looking forward to the rest of your series!

2/3 pot is pretty near my standard size for donking into multiway pots. I think 1/2 pot isn't as effective at getting value and protecting my hand, as usually when I am donking I either have a hand needing protection, or some kind of semibluff where 2/3 pot gives me greater fold equity, and it's not that bad if it is called because I can still barrel turns or hit my hand and win more. Potting it as a standard for donking just seems to be risking too much as I am often bluffing/semibluffing in these spots. It also will be hard to get called by worse for full pot usually, so overall I think around 2/3 pot is a good middle ground.

lol at getting a loose/passive fish to fold a good tp... please coach me how to do this

ps. how do you get colored rings around the players? is that a mod?

Hi, I don't think it's a mod. I think someone's color ring lights up when the action is on them, or when they are in the pot. It might be a feature of mini-view, not sure.

Hi, I don't think it's a mod. I think someone's color ring lights up when the action is on them, or when they are in the pot. It might be a feature of mini-view, not sure.

ah, maybe that is it! i got really excited when i thought it was like the color rings on stars for their note system

thanks for the vids!

figured out the other tags you use. I cant quite figure the orange tag you have on some players???

Time Link to 00:39:32

Why do you raise this turn? Is it because there are a lot of draws that can call? Plus may call wider if they have a hand like 87s because they have a pair now.. I can see this raise getting a lot of draws to call.. and the villain's sizing is kinda small.. .66 into $1.33 so like half pot.. Raising here usually isn't my standard line, and I want to know if this is a pretty easy play and am I missing value by not making this same raise? I think I'd usually call here, but now I see a flaw in that line because a lot of rivers are ugly, and I can't value bet too thin because he will have a lot of draws and such.. but if the villain calls your turn raise, he's prob got a draw.. never a set.. and will either donk straight/flushes or try to go for a check raise which I presume we will just x/b most rivers correct? (Except Tx because we could VB this since not many villains are going to be just calling your turn raise and checking to us on the river with a set.. If the river is a T, and the villain bets.. Should we raise? He'd do this with all worse Tx hands.. most two pair hands that are beating us prob re-raise us OTT)

Thanks.

Btw, I'm famous! I'm in this video I'm wangtkkik.. That was on March 11th.. I'm now at 25nl after grinding at 10nl I can't wait for the rest of this series. I'll definitely keep track of this. (Btw, I started a PGC thread about my progress and next month's goals will be for me to get to 50nl+)

figured out the other tags you use. I cant quite figure the orange tag you have on some players???

It probably means regs since a few of those guys I know grind 10nl a lot.. probably means TAG or reg

figured out the other tags you use. I cant quite figure the orange tag you have on some players???

yellow = semi-fish or meh reg
orange = solid reg or someone who seems solid so far
green = fish
white with red x = short stacker

Why do you raise this turn? Is it because there are a lot of draws that can call? Plus may call wider if they have a hand like 87s because they have a pair now.. I can see this raise getting a lot of draws to call.. and the villain's sizing is kinda small.. .66 into $1.33 so like half pot.. Raising here usually isn't my standard line, and I want to know if this is a pretty easy play and am I missing value by not making this same raise? I think I'd usually call here, but now I see a flaw in that line because a lot of rivers are ugly, and I can't value bet too thin because he will have a lot of draws and such.. but if the villain calls your turn raise, he's prob got a draw.. never a set.. and will either donk straight/flushes or try to go for a check raise which I presume we will just x/b most rivers correct? (Except Tx because we could VB this since not many villains are going to be just calling your turn raise and checking to us on the river with a set.. If the river is a T, and the villain bets.. Should we raise? He'd do this with all worse Tx hands.. most two pair hands that are beating us prob re-raise us OTT)

Thanks.

Btw, I'm famous! I'm in this video I'm wangtkkik.. That was on March 11th.. I'm now at 25nl after grinding at 10nl I can't wait for the rest of this series. I'll definitely keep track of this. (Btw, I started a PGC thread about my progress and next month's goals will be for me to get to 50nl+)



It probably means regs since a few of those guys I know grind 10nl a lot.. probably means TAG or reg

Hello Wang thanks for the post! You should post more in the forums we'd love to have you in the full ring forum. I raised the turn on that hand because usually when the opponent plays passive pre then calls flop, and leads small on the turn, I find they are probing or trying to 'set the price' with hands like draws and weak one pairs. I think they fear checking and having to call a big bet, like full pot, so they lead out small hoping you will either fold, or just call the bet , letting them see the river for the price they are comfortable with. I find that nutted hands much more often lead big, or checkraise the turn.

Therefore I felt my top pair, ace kicker was good often enough to value raise. If he 3bet I was done.