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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by sthief09 (Mid Stakes)

this is really really good stuff Josh

4-betting to $105(under 2.2x) seems quite small. Pretty much everyone @ 2/4 on FTP 4-bets in the mid 120ish(over 2.5x) range. I think I've been 4-betting a bit too large, but can we really get away w/ $105? Whats other peoples standard?

4-betting to $105(under 2.2x) seems quite small. Pretty much everyone @ 2/4 on FTP 4-bets in the mid 120ish(over 2.5x) range. I think I've been 4-betting a bit too large, but can we really get away w/ $105? Whats other peoples standard?

It think 105 is a very good 4bet size. If you want to be able to make 4bet bluffs you need to make small 4bets because you will be committed with larger 4bets. Making small 4bets also has the benefit of inducing light 5bets when you have a real hand. When I 4bet at 200NL I almost alwyas make it something between 52-56.

Just want to point out what I think could be a small mistake,

at 23:30mins you say that 'we need him to fold to our 4bet 42% of the time' when in reality this number should be 58% as you state later on in the video. The calc you have on the screen is 66/(91+66) when I think it should be 91/(66+91)=58%. I'm pretty sure that you do the rest of the calculations later in the video using the 58% number so they should be correct.

Awesome video btw, this is the type of stuff that every player could work out but they're too lazy and they leak because of it.

Also would you be willing to do a video or maybe just post some advice on calling 3 bets also and general postflop strategies which you employ because I just checked a sample of my hands and I seem to be losing a ton of money in these spots also.

If I had to sum up my own strategy I would say
a) Shove 8 out+ draws on the flop
b) if I make second pair try and get to showdown cheap Usually (90% of the time) fold to a turn bet unimproved.
c) with top pair+ get the money in as profitably as I can
d) Bluff shove some flops where I figure to have 20% equity vs his calling range and he is cbetting with a high frequency.

It think 105 is a very good 4bet size. If you want to be able to make 4bet bluffs you need to make small 4bets because you will be committed with larger 4bets. Making small 4bets also has the benefit of inducing light 5bets when you have a real hand. When I 4bet at 200NL I almost alwyas make it something between 52-56.

I don't quite agree with this. Assuming that villain is a reasonable 5bettor (something like AK, AQs, JJ+, which is already kind of loose, depends on the game), the bluffs in your 4bet range will have about 30% equity. With 30% equity you can stick in up to 40% of your stack and still get away preflop (30% of 200bbs = 60bbs, which is what you'll have to call off if you 4bet to 40bbs). Even if you're generous and give your bluffs 35% equity you can still 4bet to 30bbs and get away.

And intentionally inducing light 5bets obviously has some potential downsides (it's sweet if you only 4bet for value but you'll end up folding a lot of bluffs - it's not obvious to me that it's a net positive). I'm not saying this is an argument for 4betting as large as you can, just that I don't think what you've written is an argument for 2.2xing it.

Isn't the 3bet range extremely flawed? You are never always 3betting JJ+,AQ+,AJo,KQo. Most of the time you are just raising them preflop instead of 3betting with them.

sorry, but i don't understand your question.

Just want to point out what I think could be a small mistake,

at 23:30mins you say that 'we need him to fold to our 4bet 42% of the time' when in reality this number should be 58% as you state later on in the video. The calc you have on the screen is 66/(91+66) when I think it should be 91/(66+91)=58%. I'm pretty sure that you do the rest of the calculations later in the video using the 58% number so they should be correct.

Awesome video btw, this is the type of stuff that every player could work out but they're too lazy and they leak because of it.

yeah i have a tendency of doing that. i usually try to edit it out, but i hope it was clear to everyone what i meant.

Also would you be willing to do a video or maybe just post some advice on calling 3 bets also and general postflop strategies which you employ because I just checked a sample of my hands and I seem to be losing a ton of money in these spots also.

If I had to sum up my own strategy I would say
a) Shove 8 out+ draws on the flop
b) if I make second pair try and get to showdown cheap Usually (90% of the time) fold to a turn bet unimproved.
c) with top pair+ get the money in as profitably as I can
d) Bluff shove some flops where I figure to have 20% equity vs his calling range and he is cbetting with a high frequency.

sure that sounds interesting. i can't it guarantee 100% but i like that.

i 4-bet very small to make it cheaper to 4-bet bluff. as long as you're under 120, you're not committed with hands like KJ or A8. so why make it 120 when they fold roughly the same amount for 105? if i was OOP i would make it a little bigger to make him less tempted to float.

A+ video. Thank you.

It was very interesting to see just how much they will often fold to a 4bet in this video. I only went by HEM's fold-to-4bet stat, which obviously differs alot in each position. Seeing you hand numbers helped alot.

I only yesterday realised that for us to not be exploited, we need to be non-folding at least 28-31% of the time to 3bets against a wide 3better.

If we are 4betting or folding that amount, their light 3bets are 0EV for them. And if we open up a little more than that, 3betting light is -EV for them.

At that point, to make sure they can not exploit us by shoving any 2 profitably, we need to be stacking off at least 68% of the time that we 4bet there.

So, their light 3bets become 0EV (or if we 4bet above 28-31%, -EV), and if they 3bet and then shove over a 4bet with a hand that has less than 44% equity against that 68% x 28% of our range we are stacking off with, they are -EV for that play. I found that comes out to be pretty interesting (assuming my numbers are correct). And once you have those numbers, it is very easy to plug in to see what hands exactly to 4bet/call-shove with and what to 4bet/fold-to-shove with depending on our opening percentage.

Very well done. I've spent many hours working through some of this stuff back in the day and this is a great refresher (and I'm sure even more valuable to anyone who hasn't thought these concepts through extensively).

This video is extremely comprehensive, extremely well organized, and an overall excellent summary packed into an hour long lecture and should serve as a much more efficient guide than any combination of word documents and excel spreadsheets I could put together.

One thing I never thought of before, and although it's not very significant, is still worth considering is applying card elimination to villain's 3betting range.

At around the 39 minute mark, we apply it to their 5betting range to reduce 3.8% of hands down to 3.3% of hands, but if our data says that they 3-bet 11% of the time, then we need to be lowering that number by AT LEAST 0.5% for our calculations. I say at least because we already know that 0.5% of hands he'd 3bet are out, but there may be others such as JTs for example that he would have raised in that spot that are now less likely. (arbitrarily) eliminating another 0.5% from the 'bluff' side of their 3bet range, we get 3.3/10 = 33% push or 67% fold. Still profitable, but for closer situations, applying card elimination to 5bet ranges but not to 3bet ranges may turn a marginal situation around (although I guess at that point, it's so close that metagame considerations may be enough to negate it).

Just thought I'd throw that out there. Cheers!

When you 4b to 105 and get called,what % of the time you need to follow up the bluff on the flop? And if so how big you go?

There's a quite famous Scottish professor of Computer Science called Plotkin. Are you by any chance related?

that's funny, but no relation afaik

When you 4b to 105 and get called,what % of the time you need to follow up the bluff on the flop? And if so how big you go?

i think most people initially call with JJ, TT, AQ, sometimes AK afraid to get it in, maybe AJs or KQs. so pretty quality hands. you can check his fold to 4-bet% if you have a ton of hands on him. so i don't bluff all that often, and when i do it's about 30-40% pot in this situation. if my hand is vulnerable or i'm semibluffing i'd be more likely to push