Poker Video: Limit Hold 'Em by BigBadBabar (Mid Stakes)

Is this series 6max now? I haven't watched cause I thought it was full ring !

Personally, I appreciate the standard spots. At this point in my poker playing, I think I get more from watching you guys play common spots confidently.

I recently finished the Tommy Angelo series, and he has a great quote about the decisions we sweat the most mattering the least. In that vein, the hands that get 20+ minutes of air time on DC videos probably don't come up very often and it's the 10 second hands that affect my winrate the most if I don't play them correctly. Not to say that the long discussions aren't interesting or valuable (they are), but for a beginner series, I liked this episode.

Time Link to 00:15:50

I like the raise with AK. I don't think we have enough info on the donker to say "he always has it". Monotone boards I've seen some liberal donks because fishy players (correctly actually) assume they can take it down a fair bit. Thus Im suspicious.

Oh, and there are many spots in small stakes that are NOT standard that we never get to see in the mid/high stakes videos. Spots where we have two limpers, a cutoff poster and a chronic flop donker will never come up in a "Relentless Assault" type video. So, kudos to DC for mixing in some small stakes content as well.

Time Link to 00:15:44

Awesome discussion about the AK hand

I'm kind of conflicted here cause if it was hu vs the donker most times I just call and hope he barrels worse draws

3 ways I think it gets way more complicated cause some % of the time if you raise dude can't over-call some of his pairs on this board which would be a huge win for us to get it hu vs a worse hand while making a better hand fold

I've done both things in this spot before and I've always been a little bit torn on what's best

Time Link to 00:11:33

I agree the higher you move up , the fish just get more aggro preflop, they still play terribad postflop so thats were your edge comes from. I run into 40/20, 50/20, 35/15, 45/15 guys.

That AJ hand: Pyg talks about calling the turn and fold a lot of rivers. I don't like that line vs these guys, becase in my experience once they have started bluffing they don't stop. Under that assumption calling turn and folding river is obv real bad. Do u guys agree on this general read? I don't mind folding the turn though. However I think he can have Ax and sometimes a bluff, so I typically call down.

We have to treat the donking read carefully. Yes he had a pair each time, but he has not checked that much (ever? cant remember). Thus we don't know how he plays draws and bluffs. Basically we know he donks when he has a pair. But we can't really be sure of how his donkin range looks like.

It probably wasn't clear from my mumbling, but I was just kind of going over the analysis of calling the turn and folding the river - I wasn't strongly advocating that line and I do in fact favor folding the turn.

He can't have any draws on that board, he has had it in the past, we have not seen him bluff yet, we could be drawing dead, if he's even remotely positionally aware he can see we're UTG, etc.

It probably wasn't clear from my mumbling, but I was just kind of going over the analysis of calling the turn and folding the river - I wasn't strongly advocating that line and I do in fact favor folding the turn.

He can't have any draws on that board, he has had it in the past, we have not seen him bluff yet, we could be drawing dead, if he's even remotely positionally aware he can see we're UTG, etc.

easy call down w/ AJs, he has air here a lot. If my math is right we're getting effective odds of 3 to 1 on a call down and were good way more than that.

Pyg, we've seen him donk twice, just because he's had a pair both times
I don't think we can assume he always has a pair here. He's a fish and he likes to donk that's what I got from his play so far.

Him betting that K on the turn makes me want to call down even more. Most Fish slow down when a overcard to their pair comes.

Time Link to 00:51:48

Cmon now!!!!!
Canadian tables are metric!!!

QTo on left at 21:45.

Board is Q2A, K.

I really don't like b/f when we have str8 outs as well and he's spazzy. I generally check this turn back call the river if he checks or bet if checked to. I don't really want him folding 77 (or air) on the turn if I can get a bet outta him on the river in this small pot.

Well, he called turn with 88, so wahtever (why Pygmy was laughing, which is kinda my point above, his calling turn was terrible), but if you don't intend to bet the river for value as well (because he calls down way too lightly), I like checking the turn and vbetting the river against the same 88.

T8o on the right: I have some rouble reading these boards. I mean BB has a below average hand and BTN doesn't have that much better. There are some draws obv, but given the weird ranges it's hard to say how likely they are. The high cards increase the chace to take it down immediately. It's a tough spot to analyze. I do bet out here sometimes for sure. It depends n the read I have on BTNs flop tendencies.

agree - i didn't see/mention it at the time but i see now that btn has a short stack. i tend not to bluff as much in those situations cuz i think they're more likely to be like 'ah screw it i'm goin all in' a la tuff fish, with a wide part of their range, which is not what i want. it's kind of the converse from HUHU tables where shorties often get very tight

Awesome discussion about the AK hand

I'm kind of conflicted here cause if it was hu vs the donker most times I just call and hope he barrels worse draws

3 ways I think it gets way more complicated cause some % of the time if you raise dude can't over-call some of his pairs on this board which would be a huge win for us to get it hu vs a worse hand while making a better hand fold

I've done both things in this spot before and I've always been a little bit torn on what's best

certainly it'd be sweet to get the last guy to fold a pair - i think pyg was disputing that anyone folds pairs here, and i think that's somewhat reasonable, or basically, that no one folds a pair we *want* them to fold - or putting it another way, if we call then they call, we still have so much equity vs them that it's not like we're valuecutting ourselves either way whether we call or raise. like maybe if we raise and and get it hu our equity is ROUGHLY 40-50-60 % and if we call and get overcall our equity is roughly 25 -30 -35 % and if we raise and get coldcalled and called then our equity is roughly 25 -30 -35% so maybe it doesn't much matter in long run?

Cmon now!!!!!
Canadian tables are metric!!!

i just listened to that whole discussion again and maybe cuz its 430 in the morning but i found it hilarious (disclaimer: i often find myself hilarious) and i think 'offsuit boats' would be a really good band name

easy call down w/ AJs, he has air here a lot. If my math is right we're getting effective odds of 3 to 1 on a call down and were good way more than that.

Pyg, we've seen him donk twice, just because he's had a pair both times
I don't think we can assume he always has a pair here. He's a fish and he likes to donk that's what I got from his play so far.

Him betting that K on the turn makes me want to call down even more. Most Fish slow down when a overcard to their pair comes.

That's fair. Serious question then - how many times do we need to see him use the donk as a value line before you begin to adjust your play?

I didn't re-watch the video to see, but didn't he also x/c and x/f some hands earlier? I mean, because I think it'd be fair to then infer that some of those x/f hands we don't see were just random air that he folded, and some of the x/c hands were draws and such. That would lend more credence to the donk being his value line.

i would tend to either fold turn, or call turn planning to call lots of rivers

i think pyg and i disagree a bit on this one

i do tend to think that a random donkbarrel bluff will be 3 streets often and that we should commit on the turn often i guess

I do think calling the turn planning to call basically every river is the 'standard' line here. My point was in this instance I think we can deviate from the normal line because of the read we have on the player.

Because of the information we have I think we can make an exploitative fold here on the turn not getting the right odds to draw to what I think is often a 6-outer. During the video I think you can hear me counting the pot - had it been bigger I would have considered calling to draw and folding the river UI.

That said, it's pretty apparent to me from this thread that I put MUCH more stock into my read than most others have. That is NOT to say that I'm right. We all saw the same video and I guess I'm just inferring more from the hands we saw, whether I'm right or wrong.

ARGH I just wrote a load of notes using the create note system above but it seems to have deleted all but my last one.
The vid froze, I saved the last one then clicked back and forward to reload the video and they've vanished.
I think I remember most of it so I'll write them up again somewhere else so I can see your responses but just thought I'd let you know that the note system may have a bug or 2.
Edit: OK, I just went back again and reloaded the video and now they're all back. Not sure what happened, I need to learn to chill I guess.

I was really surprised to see a check here, especially from you. Personally, i'm always raising here and was wondering if u could explain why you chose not to at the time.

ya 2 seconds later i realize it. should be a pfr definitely

Time Link to 00:10:54

Right table I'd generally C/F this too as otherwise we'll need to 3 barrel this board often to win since I don't think fishier players are laying down a gutter / picked up 3 high flush draw on the turn.
If either one picks up a pair along the way (assuming they don't have one yet) it's not likely they'll fold it once they get to the river which is also a problem so I think you almost need to 3 barrel if you bet the flop and turn but overall I think it's best to C/F the flop, especially since it's only 2 BB's (with the BTN's bet).
If we really do want to try and win this though I think a flop C/R trying to get the BB to fold and knowing we're unlikely to be re-semibluffed by the passive guy followed by barreling off is probably best.

Time Link to 00:12:47

AK on the right table. I like calling to keep in the BBs worst pairs and clubs so basically when we improve we win a bigger pot and against this passive donker we're usually behind anyway so we may as well just try and improve.
Having said that if we do raise we may be able to fold out the BBs worst unclubbed pairs and draws and the passive guy is likely to just call then check the turn. I'd then check back since he should be unlikely to bluff the river UI i.e should only be betting a hand that beats us.
We can't be 100% sure he won't make a rare bluff in this spot on the river unpaired but I think a passive guys flop donking range is more
made hand heavy then drawy so I think UI in what will be a 6BB pot vs his range we probably should be folding.
If I'm having any doubts about his honesty/passivity though I'm not raising the flop in the first place but in this specific situation, trusting him to be passive, I think raising the flop could be good.

Edit: I forgot though this flop raise scenario is a bit of an ideal situation since it relies on the BB folding to our flop raise. If he 3bets us on the flop (not sure what read you had on him) we could get into a real shitstorm if he's semibluff happy and spewy in what will become a big pot.

Left Table: Is 5Ts a standard open for you on the BTN or did you open this for specific reasons such as the opponents / stakes / getting into marginal spots for the sake of the video / kittens / great justice?
Did you see the 54/46 guy in the SB and did it affect your decision to open?

I'd fold this a fair amount. I certainly wouldn't call it 'standard' (assuming standard means it is in my default opening range). I'm going to guess a big part of it was that the hand was dealt 4 handed, and the BB was 0/0.

After two limpers I'd probably raise ATo+ and A8s/A7s+ or so. I'd fold the rest - offsuit ace/rag hands really don't want to play multiway (even in the best case scenario that we knock the blinds out).

As for pocket pairs, I don't mind overlimping 55. I think not raising 77 would be giving up a bit too much value. 66 I could probably just about flip a coin.

Yeh I like your AX raising range. I sometimes feel weak for letting go of A7o in these spots but I imagine we arn't going to win many big pots multiway with a hand like this. I'd probably overcall all my small suited A's though. Do you guys think that's ok?

I agree with your PP's range as well. I'd generally assume at least one of the other 3 - BTN/SB or BB - is coming along as well and I'm never thinking that the original limpers will ever fold anything here for 1SB pre-f, though I have been wtf suprised on a couple of occasions but it's rare and in a 4 way pot I don't think we'll be getting flop folds enough on the flops that are actually worth anything with our small PP's.
I'd also be isoing 77 though. I mean I'd probably also unthinkingly Iso 66 but given my train of thought here maybe tightening it up to 88, even 99 possibly, could be better?
This always happens. I suddenly look further into something that didn't seem particularly complicated and then come out a confused wreck. I think isoing 77 would never be bad though so it's probably a nice line to draw at that hand.

Wow, sorry - I'm just re-reading my post and I'm realizing it's not very good. Let me try to re-organize it here.

With two limpers in front:
Raise: 77/66+, A8s/A7s+, ATo
Call: 22+, A2s+
Fold the rest

Meaning I am not letting go of any pocket pair or suited ace PF, but I am folding a bunch of offsuit aces. And of course all of the above is only a guideline - I may deviate to be tighter or looser depending on the actual game conditions and the players involved.

Great video again, Look forward to watching it more thouroughly

A little late and im sure has been mentioned a million times but i have to say BBB is the best note taker bar none..My notes are usually just incoherent ramblings.

Time for me to watch omakase with BBB and Sushi i think

I would need a very good reason to open K9o in HJ. Pygmy I have seen you open this on a few occassions and you never commented on it leading me to believe this may be closer to a default for you.

Is this a winning hand from this position in your data base?

Hi motienko,

Well since you asked directly I became very curious and looked the answer up in my db. The truth is I don't do much analysis of this kind, e.g., what hands are winners for me from position xyx.' This is mostly because I generally doubt I'll have enough trials for the data to be super relevant. Also, game conditions could vary widely, so I'd probably get a more informative answer by opening up each hand, seeing if my open is justifiable, etc.

Anyway, qualifiers aside, here's the answer...

I have opened K9o from the HJ almost exactly HALF the time I have been dealt it (just FYI that includes trials where UTG raises, in which case I am ALWAYS folding, and times the current hand is 5-handed).

Overall I am showing a profit with it in this situation.

It's too few trials to really draw any conclusions from the latter, but hopefully the half thing gives you some answer. I think I pretty much literally meant what I said in the vid - default borderline for me (look at table, decide).

I guess if you need a 'very good reason' I feel like it might be fair to just say, 'I need a reason.'

QTo in the HJ is about the same. That said, I fold QTo UTG in all but exceptional circumstances and I can prove on video that I even released QJo UTG once.

The video making could change things a bit but I doubt it's a huge factor. All other things being equal of course I will open more when the rake is less. At higher limits it's quite possible I will get 3-bet more often PF, semi-bluffed / bluffed more post flop, the blinds will defend more tenaciously and skillfully, etc. So to me the rake is just one more factor I take into account in the decision.