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

First

K43, you have JJ. "I would never fold to a raise here, but i don't think he ever raises without a king. Hmm thats tough"
That sounded very funny from a viewers perspective is it really that tough?

K43, you have JJ. "I would never fold to a raise here, but i don't think he ever raises without a king. Hmm thats tough"
That sounded very funny from a viewers perspective is it really that tough?

lol the only reason its tough is because its pretty hard to be absolute like "he never raises without a king" when the stack sizes are so small. no reverse implied odds makes me want to call. given timing in this case i kinda felt like it would've been a fold but i think usually its a call?

Time Link to 00:35:45

K6s vs TT+, AQs+, JTs, T9s, AKo :

Hand 0: 31.945% 31.60% 00.34% 27598265 298836.50 { Kh6h }
Hand 1: 68.055% 67.71% 00.34% 59131566 298836.50 { TT+, AQs+, JTs, T9s, AKo }

A $48 call into a $192 pot yields +$28.67, but that's includes the turn and the river for free. We are OOP but he is playing 66% of his hands(!) I would have liked to see a call for the sake of the video. A fold seems nitty from whitelime...

Great stuff more please.

the KT call vs the short stack early on seems bad. Havent checked in pokerstove but im pretty sure at that price the call is pretty bad, unless villain's shoving range is really wide.

Great rant about bad players, multiway pots, short stacks and fold equity and how it affects the strength of the BTN, if that's what you were looking at the end of the show.

Time Link to 00:05:41

Kinda funny to see whitelime trying to bluff here.

Made me smile a little
Glad I am not the only one who is spewy.

Loved the explanation of what happens in pots when fold equity is decreased.

Time Link to 00:18:50

Why the A9 cutoff fold to the limper? Staying in the pot with the loose aggro fish in position with an ace has to be EV+

always a pleasure never a chore. not as many intersting situations as the last few vids but good vid anyway.

would love to hear more of emil's thoughts on defending A4, 98, 97 type hands in bb vs sb. He's mentioned before that if we dont defend those hands then we're folding too often in the bb.

What are some of the adjustments you make vs aggro "bad" players? The types who c/r 884, lead at scare cards and blanks. Most of these guys tend to have very high aggression on the turn and river. It's so tough to play against them when you dont hit anything. Tightening up is okay, but it seems like you're giving up a lot.

Time Link to 00:19:16

Andrew,

Thanks for another great vid! You have influenced my thought process more than any coach on this site. Specifically I now always consider how to play pots in position as a primary determiner of whether or not to play a marginal hand. That said I still strongly disagree with this KJo being a call. Yes we are in position on the fish but I think you are ignoring too many other negative factors I believe swing this decision to a fold. (Good work Whitelime!) What I mean is by calling here we are calling a solid players UTG raise. His range includes many hands that dominate our holding such as AK, AJ, KQ, AA-JJ. That is like half his range that crushes us. Also we have 2 short stacks left to act who could shove. I think this is worse than the KTs which you said was a fold vs a shorty so we may not even get to see a flop. Obv. if one of the deeper stack guys 3 bets we fold pre as well. So if we are lucky enough to see a flop we don't love a K or a J due to domination and won't flop 2 pair plus often enough to make it plus ev to call. If the fish opened and we were on the button I totally love the call but with so many players to act and the fact that best case we play the fish and a solid player who is raising UTG makes me want to fold. Do you still think it is a call? If so, how do you overcome getting rr and being dominated? Thanks.

Sincerely,

JCamp

I meant to say "I always consider how to play pots in position vs a fish as a primary consideration of whether or not to play a marginal hand."

Time Link to 00:06:42

"And we've seen this guy on the right, this John Tex A-S guy open limp the button..." haha
Going out on a limb but it might be John Texas, Andrew
Keep the Baluga vids coming ad infinitum

Time Link to 00:16:13

Given that bb is not a pro shorstacker (difference between vpip and pfr is too large), I would make a normal standard raise here with the JJ.

Time Link to 00:25:07

Are you shoving blank turns if called?

Hi Baluga,

First of all, I'm a fan of your teaching style and your way of thinking about poker in general. I've learned a lot from you.

My question is regarding your comments on calling A4o in the BB vs an SB open. I find it quite surprising that you say this is not a playable hand in this spot considering we have skill advantage, positional advantage, our equity is about 45% vs a reasonable SB opening range AND we are getting a price on our call (4:3). Your primary argument for folding this spot was "not enough equity to play this hand in general" but that is clearly not the case. What more can you say to defend folding this hand here? If you are just going to say "in terms of hot/cold equity vs his range we're doing OK but in actuality on the flop, we will rarely flop a hand with effective equity that we can use to call and/or be aggressive" then you had better make it very convincing.

Great production quality!

More importantly, I really become a better decision maker watching BalugaWhale's analysis.

Time Link to 00:02:04

Hey Emil,

I was just wondering what your thought process was on turning your Q9 into a bluff on the 6-7-9hh board? Did you have a certain read on this opponent that he would fold? I think Baluga commented that he was bad which he seems to be since he only is sitting with $300.

Thanks!