---

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

We see a button 1/6 hands. Lets say we steal blinds 100% from the btn.
Thats 100 hands / 6 hands * 1.5 BB = 12.5ptbb

Thats 12.5ptbb/100 difference to our winrate. If we only open half our hands on the button and they only fold half the time, we still have a 3.125 bonus. I checked my stats and I steal 48% from BTN and 44% are successful. Thats 2.62ptbb right there without accounting for postflop equity. How can this be a misconception or considered not "much money"?

If we open J7o or T4s, we win 0.375 ptbb just when they fold. Per hand. Thats $7.5 at 5/10. Thats more than we are ever going to make on such hands in any other spot. Thats a lot more than we make per hand.

Another great video guys, thank you very much. I have a minor critique, the screen had so much visual clutter on found it heard to follow a long as well as I would have liked to. It would be great if you asked people to use a cleaner layout for these videos.

Also a series with clowntable being coached by Baluge would be epic.

Now, your profit on steal, will not obv change much whether you open 30% or 50% OTB, at least at these stakes. People just won't adjust, nits will still fold and fish will still call regardless of your dynamic. However postflop it will change. If you open junk like 95o, you much rather just take it preflop than say you had AA. I think its pretty obvious that the wider your opening range is, the less money you gonna make per hand (not overall, but per hand) postflop. And I think there is a certain threshold of button opening range, where a steal is more profitable than playing the hand postflop. This may not be true for AA, but certainly is for 23o against most players, varying on blinds and players edge.

Great video!
So far this series is the absolute best that I have ever seen, and look forward to more. I am seriously canceling my subscription to certain other training sites, just because I feel I don't even need them.

Tubasteve is always good, and with Baluga added, this series = GOLD!!

corsak--
youre obviously not wrong. I'm just trying to get people into the habit of thinking "what will my hand look like postflop" instead of just saying yay, 2 cards on the button, i raise. While you may make extra money by stealing more blinds, you often lose even more money by being in bad spots postflop when you get called. obviously if the blinds are super nitty you raise a wide range of hands that play well postflop vs tight players, and if the blinds are super loose you raise a range of hands that play well postflop vs loose players.

xerocat--
to answer pretty simply:
suited connectors aren't the greatest of all time to play against loose/passive players, but they're still good enough.

Anyone have the link to the 2+2 discussion between Chaostracize and BalugaWhale? I'm curious to hear their respective theories on what type of hands are good to 3-bet and which hands aren't. I continually find myself in good spots to 3-bet but I'm not sure whether the hand has enough value to call or if I should be 3-betting them, or possibly mucking them. Any info on the subject I can get would be much appreciated

xerocat--
to answer pretty simply:
suited connectors aren't the greatest of all time to play against loose/passive players, but they're still good enough.

Baluge, i think you're wrong here.
As you said SC are not that good to raise from the BTN than vs. tags/regs.. Although i agree i like to raise them vs. loose players nearly as often than vs. tags.
Beside the fact that you're stealing the blinds a decent amount anyway there're times where you flop a very strong hand/draw. And this is exactly what we want vs. loose players. These times we will stack them very often, so that we don't need very much FE the other times (i'd even say that winning the pot w/ a cbet in 1/3 of the times is enough considering that we stack our opponents often when we hit good).
This said you can open actually pretty wide range like 86o/42s from the BTN vs. loose players. I guess the point is that i want to play as many pots with them as possible, because when i hit good (even w/ offsuit connectors) i'll stack them a good amount of the time..

Baluge, as you were advocating not raising too light from the BTN vs. loose players I really like to hear your counter-arguments, as imo these are very good reasons to raise very light (50/60%) from the BTN.

Another thing i wanted to be clarified is the calling/3betting thing at around ~15:00-18:00 min.
You said that you prefer calling over 3betting in this spot, because your hand has more value postflop than preflop.
Just to clarify there're certain conditions for it to be true right?
I guess the most important one is that my opponent plays passive postflop, meaning that he cbets and gives up when he misses (so that you can take the pot from him when HU)and that there're no 3bettors behind me.
But how do you know that calling is more valuable than 3betting?
He has a wide opening range and probably a tight 3bet-calling range, so this makes it perfect to 3bet for hands like T8s, cause he'll often fold and WHEN he calls you're not dominated and can play for really big pots (not to speak about that he'll often fold to your cbets as well).

May i further ask how you're dealing the question "What is more valuable in this spot? 3betting or calling?".
It seems that you're first searching for reasons to call before you search reasons to 3bet, aren't you?
What factors do you need to justify a call over a 3bet IP and OOP?
It would be nice if you could give me an answer to that as well.
Thank you & keep it going :-)

Anyone have the link to the 2+2 discussion between Chaostracize and BalugaWhale?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/bad-habit-3-betting-range-choice-146036/

It's a long read but definitely worth it. Just ignore most of the usual 2+2 morons and focus on the posts from people who know what they're talking about.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/bad-habit-3-betting-range-choice-146036/

It's a long read but definitely worth it. Just ignore most of the usual 2+2 morons and focus on the posts from people who know what they're talking about.

This discussion was excellent and had enough good points that it's hard to be sure of whom is more correct and is very thought provoking; a sure sign that you'll walk away with a better understanding than what you began with.

cobby--

you've gone into a lot of depth here and i appreciate the thought and effort. Unfortunately i'm currently in the sahara desert and am unable to write out a really long, thoughtful response.

but i think you have a lot of stuff backwards. i think if you think raising 42s into a player who gets to showdown a lot is a good thing, you're off.


on the contrary by the way, id look for reasons to 3bet first before reasons to call. T8s doesnt play super well in a 3bet pot compared with in a raised pot.
watch more of the vids ill try to explain further.
thanks
Andrew

Baluge, as you were advocating not raising too light from the BTN vs. loose players I really like to hear your counter-arguments, as imo these are very good reasons to raise very light (50/60%) from the BTN.

This highly depends of the playetype you are up against. Yes, you will stack a 45vpip/35WTSD fish if you hit big with your 57o, but whenever you do not hit big and you are forced to see a showdown, you will lose a good amount in the proccess of trying to hit big. If you however to play a bit tighter and play hands that are more likely to hit big and win at showdown you will be able to win alot more in the long run, because you will not nearly as often lose at showdowns.



Also the more often someone goes to showdown the thinner you have to bet for value.

Lets say someone goes to showdown +40% (VPIP +45) and you have A2 on a AK593 board, no flush. Against this guy you should bet all 3 streets for pure value and might even consider overbet shoving the river, because he very likely will call you with worse, while against someone with an VPIP of 19 and a WTSD of ~20 you usually can shutdown after betting the flop.

Another thing I'd like to mention is the different value of SC's against different playertypes.

The general assumption that you want to play them against players that are too loose is wrong. Usually the more often villain goes to showdown the higher your SC's should be, because in 23s will loose alot more at showdown against those playertypes than lets say 78s, therefore you shouldn't raise 23s or 24s on cu/btn against players that are likely to go to showdown.
Against people that are loose but do not see too many showdowns however you can play 23s a way more profitable because you will be able to apply more preasure against them on later streets when you have decent Equity and Fold equity.

Here just a few examples for those situations...

against a 42VPIP/WTSD 38

23s on a KsJd6c5s (we are IP)

Villain here is NEVER EVER going to fold to your turnbet and even if in a vaccum people would say that given the equity we have this is a good 2nd barrel spot to fold out TT/Jx/6x, against this kind of player it would be a -EV play and we should try to hit on the river.

against a 38/19 WTSD

23s on a KsJd6c5s (we are IP)
In this scenario we have a way more foldequity on the turn to fold out his weak holdings and also are more likely to be able to bluff the river if we miss one of our outs and therefore a 2nd barrel along with a 3rd barrel are a way more profitable.

And as you can see, in the 2nd scenario we have a way more options than in the 1st and therefore are more often able to play a weak SC profitable.

corsak--
youre obviously not wrong. I'm just trying to get people into the habit of thinking "what will my hand look like postflop" instead of just saying yay, 2 cards on the button, i raise. While you may make extra money by stealing more blinds, you often lose even more money by being in bad spots postflop when you get called. obviously if the blinds are super nitty you raise a wide range of hands that play well postflop vs tight players, and if the blinds are super loose you raise a range of hands that play well postflop vs loose players.

Right, just the way it sounds in the video is like you undervalue blind steal in general. If I understand you correctly, you consider blind steal as a side effect or bonus to the hands postflop equity and your skill edge. Rather than seeing the steal as the primary goal and postflop equity, such as suit or high card value, as a back up plan.