Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by DeathDonkey (High Stakes)

Time Link to 00:27:09

c/c'ing Ax on this board isn't out of the question at all.

To me anyhow, these types of videos are much more useful than the standard hand replayer/ live multi-tabling videos because while certain plays may be good and make sense if I were to employ a strategy similar to that of the person whose play we are analyzing, that same play can be simply awful when woven into my personal strategy/style of play. Because we are looking at a few different boards and discussing how the play of our entire range is affected by taking certain lines, these videos are much more useful as a learning tool because it allows me to see what considerations should be taken into account when building an overall strategy and how that strategy can be tweaked to take into consideration certain opponent types and their tendencies.

Furthermore, although I disagree with some of the conclusions reached by the coaches in these videos as to what the best line is for a given situation, it is pretty easy to see that that is most likely a function of how a particular play with a discrete hand fits in with my overall strategy (not to mention that I'm bad at poker so my conclusions are probably plain wrong).

I'm looking forward to the next installment of this series!

c/c'ing Ax on this board isn't out of the question at all.

I agree, especially in an online game where we can pick off tons of bluffs and as cover to the rest of our flop peeling range. Most importantly though, it helps us cover those hands that we c/c, c/c, c/f on the river like 9x, if that's our strategy.

Time Link to 01:08:06

What Frasier Crane said.

Time Link to 01:08:06

OK I tried 3 times, the link to timeline appears in this post also... please ignore.

In the first hand you touched the subject of CRing the AT9 flop with a good T. This is a line I must admit I don't have a good grasp of. What would be the reasoning behind that and the plan if villain gets aggressive? Would you put that in the "give up before showdown" portion of your range if raised on turn for example?

Giving villain a reasonable CO range, he has already a pair of Tens or better about 50% of the time, and if he's unpaired he'll have a very high equity draw very often. Other than that, maybe a Nine crying all the way to showdown and some very low equity stuff that just folds... so it's not for value?

Hi pasita,

I think / hope in the video we mentioned this was much more of a good play vs a button range than the cutoff - basically the wider his range the better the play since its also a good semibluff board, we need to make sure we have a fairly wide value range as well. Beyond that, again more speaking vs a button range than CO, our equity with Tx is pretty good, and we can get value / have enough hand to pick off re-bluff attempts. Against many villains you are more likely to induce a spew by fastplaying an ace high board and hoping they get stubborn / greedy / spewy with a weak draw or very weak hand (underpair or something). People seem to like to posture on ace high boards and you can induce some excess action by having a bit wider value CR range. I would say in a heads up match this would be totally standard, and that's obviously the widest range situation possible.

What Frasier Crane said.

That's funny, because I actually have been watching quite few Fraiser reruns lately.

Against many villains you are more likely to induce a spew by fastplaying an ace high board and hoping they get stubborn / greedy / spewy with a weak draw or very weak hand (underpair or something).

I'm probably overly reflecting my own actions to other players when thinking that people don't spew around excessively after a CR on an A high board. I have very limited HU experience though.

I'm currently way more inclined to CR second pair on a Q8x board because there's more value in getting overcards to fold, also there are more overcards (and pairs) happily calling you down (on the AT9 against BTN, a T might very well have good equity but not sure whether the CR line is still the most EV). I find it interesting to depolarize my range a bit on the A-high board though... still not sure if there's a need to see a showdown with a T if villain wakes up on the turn (as I'd still have all my Ax hands to call down with).

As always, happy to see links if this has been discussed before.

I'll have a go at solving this during the weekend, assuming villain raises your turn bet and barrels river somewhat optimally (which of course goes against the spew factor). What would you consider a "good T" on the AT9 flop, assuming villain started from BTN? QT+? A bdfd to go with that?

Yeah I'd say JT+ basically

OK it's going to be ridiculously close. After BTN contbets flop, for JT I'm getting 2.27bb of EV for a calldown line, assuming that villain bets all his pairs on turn, and most of his draws (this gives him a pretty reasonable value/bluff ratio). He also doesn't value bet worse on river but bluffs some of his missed draws.
If Hero CR's his JT, the EV is going to be 2.29. That's assuming villain raises his TPGK+ and a somewhat reasonable amount of draws on turn, barrels somewhat optimally. When villain doesn't raise turn he'll fold his underpairs to 9 when Hero keeps betting the river, calls down with T+.
KT actually loses some value with the CR line in my scenario (ev 2.45 vs 2.35), that's probably due to some card removal effects.

This was against a 56% BTN open range. With a 40% CO range, the CR line loses a bit vs calldown line.

Even if this was HUHU (BTN opens 85%), JT will have EV of 3.08 with the CR vs 2.99 with calldown.

The differences are so small that you can easily turn things around by toying with the BTN bluff ratio (spew factor) and calldown willingness (stubborness factor).

So I'd say if you have a read on villain or wish to modify your ranges, go with that. Otherwise, you can't really make a mistake with a good T unless you fold or respew.

Thanks pasita, that's some really good analysis

I am the one subscriber who listened all the way to the end of the video.