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

Good stuff. Discussion on checking street aggression for evaluating thin flop peels is gold. It sounds like such a basic concept, yet is not something I do with any regularity and seemingly need to really start doing.

Time Link to 00:25:22

A7s seems somewhat close against a lagtag's HJ opening range. What's the worst suited ace you 3bet here? I'm pretty sure I fold A7s as well, but A8s, A9s is starting to feel like a 3!.

Good stuff. Discussion on checking street aggression for evaluating thin flop peels is gold. It sounds like such a basic concept, yet is not something I do with any regularity and seemingly need to really start doing.

Then I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised by the number of guys who have non-zero aggression stats on the flop and turn and then ~0 on the river. There are other patterns, but that's probably one of the more prominent / easy to exploit ones.

A7s seems somewhat close against a lagtag's HJ opening range. What's the worst suited ace you 3bet here? I'm pretty sure I fold A7s as well, but A8s, A9s is starting to feel like a 3!.

Yeah, I agree it's close. I would have popped ATs and probably folded lower. Not that A7s-A9s are the same hand, but I kind of feel like I should tend to play them the same a lot of the time (here, but not in all spots). When he has two big cards my side card is lower than either of his cards whether it's a 7 or 9, so I'm really only gaining significantly on a small portion of his PP range (when I pick up a second OC to his hand).

That said there's definitely an argument for the 3! He tanked PF - I'm not sure if that should affect my decision (i.e., if he has a hand he needs to think about it's because he's making a r/f decision, not because he's considering LRR-ing a monster). Also, to be honest I'm not sure if I noticed at the time that UTG was sitting out and we were dealt 5 handed.

Time Link to 00:47:36

One thing I'd like to add to how I played this AJs hand:

The same villain 3-bet me here with 97s and then barreled off UI.

Incidentally, I held AJs in that hand as well. Please do not confuse either of these with the AJo hand I raised and folded to a cap! The name of this episode probably should have been changed to, 'how to get dealt AJ a lot.'

Good vid as always guys.


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J4o - Second Pair. Why is this a fold?
Unraised pot, 3 handed. Isn't our equity way too high?

I agree. I was surprised you folded.

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22 in the sb. One limper, we complete sb, bb checks, flop KK4 again and we x/f? Neither of you mention one word about this hand.

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KQ on right at about 7:00. We fold to a donk from BB hu on A93. I at least peel with 2 overs to the 9 and the bdFD/bdSD.

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Hero 75o in BB, UTG opens, Flop 743rb, Hero x/r and we get 3-bet.

If we think villain is 3betting the flop with overs, should we call the river when he bets both big streets?

If we cap and lead, if we're raised on the turn we have equity to call and spike verses a probable overpair (and avoid folding to a FSDR), folding the river UI.

Do you think playing the hand in a way that has us fold is bad here considering his UTG open?

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66 on right at 29:00. We open, the btn cc's, BB calls. We fold to a flop x/r from the BB (lagtaggy stats) on a A22 board after the btn folds to our cbet. The BB is getting 15:4 on a flop x/r here. Could you talk about this spot a bit more? How strong does our PP/hand need to be here before you continue?

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K9cc on right 29:15.

Why are we calling the turn here planning to fold the river UI? This doesn't sound like a great plan to me here.

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I like the turn semi-bluff with T8o. I doubt all villains at 2/4 call the turn with all PPs here, much less Khigh. If not, we have many outs verses this large range of better hands we are targeting.


gg

ciao

[timestamp got eaten when I edited: 20:39]

Is this DC's own Slide making an appearance?

Kind of a gross spot with KQo in a capped pot. Equity is not helped by the fact that any A has a gutterball and there is a FD on the board. With the pot so huge, I guess we have to peel but I hate our hand here.

agree, i definitely think a fold would be defensible here, and if we had a nice diamond in our hand i think we'd all be more happy calling, so it has to be pretty close

Regarding the AJo hand, is there any merit to check/calling the turn? You have A high and a double gutter. I think you're 50/50 against a range of pairs and gutshots. Any pair that called the flop is calling again on the turn, and you have a blocker to the gutshots and the J against flushes. A villain with a draw might also be willing to fire the turn but not the river so you can get to showdown against them for just 1 bet.

i think because i double barrel often, and there are actually a fair number of worse hands than ours that have to call, that i'd prefer to put the bet in myself here. i also think checkcalling gives up some info about our type of hand, which i'm loath to do, esp oop

Good vid as always guys.


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I agree. I was surprised you folded.

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22 in the sb. One limper, we complete sb, bb checks, flop KK4 again and we x/f? Neither of you mention one word about this hand.

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KQ on right at about 7:00. We fold to a donk from BB hu on A93. I at least peel with 2 overs to the 9 and the bdFD/bdSD.

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Hero 75o in BB, UTG opens, Flop 743rb, Hero x/r and we get 3-bet.

If we think villain is 3betting the flop with overs, should we call the river when he bets both big streets?

If we cap and lead, if we're raised on the turn we have equity to call and spike verses a probable overpair (and avoid folding to a FSDR), folding the river UI.

Do you think playing the hand in a way that has us fold is bad here considering his UTG open?

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22 - i think leading the flop, or raising pf, are playable, or folding pf as well tbh. one can probably make the argument that if we're not stabbing more post that we should be folding more pre

KQo - i believe pyg and i discuss that some and we came down on different sides of the argument. pretty classic spot to be sure

75o - i tend to think if someone is capable of 3betting overs that they're capable of barreling off ui as well. i am not sure i want to cap and lead, call a turn raise, then cf a riv in a huge pot. we get a lot of expensive information and probably can hero fold with good certainty, but i'd rather uncertainly get to sd for a much cheaper price and keep a lot of bluffs in his range

J4o - Second Pair. Why is this a fold?
Unraised pot, 3 handed. Isn't our equity way too high?

I do think raising would be reasonable here. I think in the vid I even kind of mentioned that I'd almost rather have 54 (smaller kicker) so I could feel 'better' about the fold.

I kind of made a compound decision here based on a lot of small factors:
-the pot is tiny
-I think this hand has RIO
-donker can have me crushed
-player behind me can have me crushed
-if I am currenly outkicking villain I will still get chopped by the river some non negligible and important % of the time
-I didn't think SB was the type of player who would donk a lot of airballs here

Lastly, there is something about this specific situation (i.e., this pot, this lineup of opponents, the bet timing, etc.) that I cannot quite articulate that made me feel uneasy. You can call it intuition or whatever, but I just didn't feel like my hand was good and I made a play based on that feeling.

KQ on right at about 7:00. We fold to a donk from BB hu on A93. I at least peel with 2 overs to the 9 and the bdFD/bdSD.

To be honest I don't really have much to add to what I said in the video - small pot, villain who I think is playing straightforwardly and passively. There are a not insubstantial number of players who I would NOT give up against here, but this guy is not one of them.

66 on right at 29:00. We open, the btn cc's, BB calls. We fold to a flop x/r from the BB (lagtaggy stats) on a A22 board after the btn folds to our cbet. The BB is getting 15:4 on a flop x/r here. Could you talk about this spot a bit more? How strong does our PP/hand need to be here before you continue?

In all of these situations I think where I differ from the lines your post suggests/implies is that I made opponent and situation specific adjustments based on what information I did and did not have at the time.

In this case I just don't think I'm getting bluff check/raised here almost ever. I have seen no hands leading me to believe villain is capable of that type of play, have no past history indicating he would target me with such a play, and it doesn't jive with his stats.

If you are reading the situation differently I would be interested to hear what factors are leading you to that conclusion.

I like the turn semi-bluff with T8o. I doubt all villains at 2/4 call the turn with all PPs here, much less Khigh. If not, we have many outs verses this large range of better hands we are targeting.

Let's just all be honest about this hand - I owned.

I can confirm this. I find it interesting that from your table selecting you decided to sit at a table with a DC member on your left.

To be honest, it sounds like you took a little bit of offense to the fact that I sat at 'your' table. You shouldn't - it's nothing personal. Just off the top of my head I have knowingly played against the following DC members, all of whom I have a lot of respect for:

BigBadBabar
fnupple
HLS2k6
OnTheRail15

I know I've also sat with many other DC members. And I'm sure I've sat with many others who I didn't know were/are DC members. From a practical standpoint I cannot feasibly avoid all DC members (or even all the ones I know of).

Additionally, being a DC member does not confer the ability to play good poker. I realize you might take umbrage at this, but I had never played with you before and I do NOT have to assume you will play well before sitting with you. Again, this is nothing personal - I certainly had no expectation that you would be bad and you seemed to play fine for the few hands I saw. I'm just saying that I do not tend to make assumptions about DC members or regs - I prefer to play against them and form my own opinion. Many regs (even those that beat the game) are decent but still play in ways that I consider exploitable. And I'm sure they feel the same way about me.

I hope you can understand my attitude and find it fair and logical. I cannot emphasize enough that this has nothing to do with you. If I can get a good seat that has the unfortunate side-effect of giving up position to a good player I cannot think of anyone (the good player) who would stop me from sitting. In fact the only way I would not sit is if I could find an even better spot elsewhere.

Which leads me to my last point - as BBB pointed out, if I'm sitting to the immediate left of a fish and you're to my left, I'm not the one with a bad seat - you are.

Yeah, that's all fair - I'll admit that I was a bit surprised the games I ended up in weren't better. Even though it's near the end of the year and many regs are grinding, when I have been playing I've regularly been finding games I consider pretty phenomenal. Certainly much better than the games in this video.

And of course you're right - I mean, it's evident from how few hands I had on everyone I sat with throughout that I don't know most of the regs in the game. At most I recognize people's names just from what I know/remember/have heard from other people.

You know, I was thinking about this a bit more the other day. If I can get a good seat to the left of a fish I think the only player having a seat to my left that should make me get up is Entity. I'm just guessing because he's the person who's thought most about my game (besides me I hope), but also because, WTF AM I DOING AT A PLO TABLE!?!?

I actually LOL'd.

Nice thoughts on seat selection, though.

Rob

Time Link to 00:27:34

Hi Guys,

If the BB would have called this turn raise, Would you bet most rivers or give up on some? I would think a 4 or a 7 might be bad cards to bet since Ace high and K highs would call but a J could be good if the villian has 22,33,55,66. I suppose I would barrell pretty much any other card.

Time Link to 00:04:44

Raise?

We can expect to fold out <mpgk and he gets here with his whole pair range plus a lot of bluffs. We could easily be inducing.

edit: I edited and my time link disappeared. Talking about 4:44, the AJ hand that we 3bet pre from the sb that went b/c b/c c/c on QT8xx

Time Link to 00:34:31

you guys were getting distracted a little bit and it seems that you had started to miss some of the action on the left table. The hand that you opened AdJd and got 3b by 901ismycode and then capped by w@iting room it appears you failed to realize that 901ismycode is 3betting you w/ 97s which i think is very note worthy and the cap was AQo. Now since waiting room has 3b or capped in 3 pots you have been in i think you should have just noticed that he 3b slide w/ A9s mp vs co and slide led turn w/ tpgk and flush draw instead of c/r. I also would have called on the right hand table and prob. lost a ton of the time, but this player seems weird to me.

I also notice that your style of play seems strange in that you almost never call raises in pos. w/ strong hands. I see some pots were you are debating on 3b and then you fold. Is it illegal for you to ever call?

you guys were getting distracted a little bit and it seems that you had started to miss some of the action on the left table. The hand that you opened AdJd and got 3b by 901ismycode and then capped by w@iting room it appears you failed to realize that 901ismycode is 3betting you w/ 97s which i think is very note worthy and the cap was AQo. Now since waiting room has 3b or capped in 3 pots you have been in i think you should have just noticed that he 3b slide w/ A9s mp vs co and slide led turn w/ tpgk and flush draw instead of c/r. I also would have called on the right hand table and prob. lost a ton of the time, but this player seems weird to me.

I also notice that your style of play seems strange in that you almost never call raises in pos. w/ strong hands. I see some pots were you are debating on 3b and then you fold. Is it illegal for you to ever call?

Hi there,

I tried to look a bit before and after the time stamp but I can't seem to locate the hand you're talking about. If you're satisfied with BBB's response we can leave it there. If you'd like to hear from me (which is certainly reasonable as I was driving) I'll try again - can you check the time stamp for me? ty

I assume the hand on the right you're talking about is where I fold a weak Ax? Basically I just don't see anything I'm beating - why would he raise A6/A7 there? And I doubt this player is bluffing. I don't really have much further justification - it was partly a game flow thing. I do NOT make a habit of folding TP, nor do I encourage that.

I'm interested in your last comment - could you cite some hands for me to take a look at and comment on?