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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by blah234 (Micro/Small Stakes)

Time Link to 00:04:21

How can villain exploit us if we always call?

Time Link to 00:23:14

Just because a line is +EV as a value line does not make it -EV as a bluff. The EV of a bet depends on how often villain calls and how much equity we have when we get called. I understand why the simplification might seem logical but in fact it is more often wrong than correct.

How can villain exploit us if we always call?

He only value bets the river with a range that's ahead of our static calling range and not too thin. He can even have some bluffs in his range as long as it's -EV for us to call he's exploiting us.

Just because a line is +EV as a value line does not make it -EV as a bluff. The EV of a bet depends on how often villain calls and how much equity we have when we get called. I understand why the simplification might seem logical but in fact it is more often wrong than correct.

Thanks for pointing this out and see how people will get confused here.

I never meant to say if a line is +EV for value then it must be -EV as a bluff. The idea is generally when a line is good for value means villain is likely to view it as bluffy so they call more. Then there is generally a different line that will be better as a bluff. We should try to find the best line for value and for bluffs vs individual villains who take standard lines and play their hands in a vacuum.

This is again some generalization and may not always be true but I try to keep it simple for now .

Can you show some examples of your notes for players?

Can you show some examples of your notes for players?

I will show loads of examples starting next week during the live play part as I will be developing reads and taking notes.

One of the best videos I have ever seen. I really like to make reads and use them and this video helped me even more in this process. This episode would be a pretty good continuation of Grindcore's series. Good job Nan !

Excellent episode. Thank you.
What i am noticing is that i have been doing some of the things you describe instictively - however, this is without the reference frame you have described - so i have been unable to describe in words (to myself) fully what i am doing. (edit - i meant to say come up with a concrete range)
I imagine this is natural for most players - to paraphrase Tommy A. - "Every Poker player plays the same - exactly how he pleases".
This raises the question of how effective theory is in changing your own poker style.
For me personally, the process of absorption has been slow, but continous.
Maybe it is because i dont do much math, range estimtes etc etc when reviewing hands - when i ever do this of course.

This series has already changed the way I play and made me more profitable. I can't wait to see the example play which I think will really bring it all together.

Any chance of a quick 5 minutes on the HEM Range Tool? (in future vid)
Cant find any info on waht all the colours mean - i dont find it inuitivr at all.

Time Link to 00:04:20

How can this be exploitable by folding on river if villain doesnt see our cards? I don t have a standard line its obv opponent dependent and how he percieves my range etc.etc. I will also use gameflow a bit. I do however find myself calling more rivers vs players that are capable of valuebetting thin here (A7)(K7) that also gets screwed though when he has 9s-Qs so its really not a slam dunk play either way imo. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Time Link to 00:12:22

You say not to bluff in that spot, but shouldnt it be dont bluff in that spot or fire more barels given how wide he is floating us? Maybe Im nit picking but Im just curious. Cause I sorta randomize between both of those if I have a villian with these tendencies.I mostly use gameflow to determine whether I barrel... check when image is bad barrel when image is pretty good. Any thoughts on this? Please let me know if my thought process is flawed in anyway. TY sir.... BTW I love this series!

Time Link to 00:48:59

Just WOW! I love this video and will be rewatching at least 2 more times. I wanna thank you again for all of your hard work you put into this series and let you know this video alone is easily in my top 3 videos of all time. And I have been watching poker vids for over 4 years. Congrats and please keep making quality videos like these!!! Lastly you can disregard part of my last post in regards of villians floating us, you did a great job explaining that later in the video. Sorry I just dont know how to post a comment without commenting from the time line. If someone can tell me how It woul dbe greatly appreciated... I know im a noob lool. Sorry for this long winded post guys. I just love BLAH!

You say not to bluff in that spot, but shouldnt it be dont bluff in that spot or fire more barels given how wide he is floating us? Maybe Im nit picking but Im just curious. Cause I sorta randomize between both of those if I have a villian with these tendencies.I mostly use gameflow to determine whether I barrel... check when image is bad barrel when image is pretty good. Any thoughts on this? Please let me know if my thought process is flawed in anyway. TY sir.... BTW I love this series!

this is flawed because villain may not be aware of your image and his image of you can be different than what you think. You want to play based on how villain thinks not how you think.

How can this be exploitable by folding on river if villain doesnt see our cards? I don t have a standard line its obv opponent dependent and how he percieves my range etc.etc. I will also use gameflow a bit. I do however find myself calling more rivers vs players that are capable of valuebetting thin here (A7)(K7) that also gets screwed though when he has 9s-Qs so its really not a slam dunk play either way imo. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

You don't need to get to showdown before villain knows you have a weak range when you fold. No one folds the nuts so you must have a range that you're willing to fold on the river. The first time you do it people can start adjust but not 100% sure they can exploit you yet. Fold a few more times then the read is pretty solid that you get to the river with a weak range = start bluffing.

He only value bets the river with a range that's ahead of our static calling range and not too thin. He can even have some bluffs in his range as long as it's -EV for us to call he's exploiting us.

I order for him to exploit us he needs to adjust so that the X/C on the flop leads to a -EV line for our range. What he is doing is minimizing how much he will lose in the line vs our range. That is not the same as exploiting us.

The correct play for us is to call with such a wide portion of our range that it becomes 0EV for villain to bluff (that depends on the bet size). All in all I pretty sure that it is impossible for villain to exploit us - as long as we know what range we will show up with on the river.

If villain never bluffs the river we will get to show down a lot (which is great for the portion of our range we would have folded on the river).

How can this be exploitable by folding on river if villain doesnt see our cards? I don t have a standard line its obv opponent dependent and how he percieves my range etc.etc. I will also use gameflow a bit. I do however find myself calling more rivers vs players that are capable of valuebetting thin here (A7)(K7) that also gets screwed though when he has 9s-Qs so its really not a slam dunk play either way imo. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

What matters for villain is how often you fold (not so much what you are folding). Obviously villain does not get any information that allows him to conclude something like: if you are folding that hand.. you must be folding your entire range. So the right play for villain is likely to bluff until you start not folding. Remember it is pretty clear that you have SD value (since you we be leading the river with our OOP floats.

Well if I notice him floating me with air alot and he is a reg I can pretty much assume he is putting me on alot of CB bluffs and that I shut down alot on turns... like you said in the video. So im pretty sure I understand how he is thinking, and how he thinks of me. If I never seen him float me with air thats another story... that would be me making bad assumptions.

this is flawed because villain may not be aware of your image and his image of you can be different than what you think. You want to play based on how villain thinks not how you think.

Well if I notice him floating me with air alot and he is a reg I can pretty much assume he is putting me on alot of CB bluffs and that I shut down alot on turns... like you said in the video. So im pretty sure I understand how he is thinking, and how he thinks of me. If I never seen him float me with air thats another story... that would be me making bad assumptions.

Sorry I posted twice first time was in wrong spot.

I order for him to exploit us he needs to adjust so that the X/C on the flop leads to a -EV line for our range. What he is doing is minimizing how much he will lose in the line vs our range. That is not the same as exploiting us.

The correct play for us is to call with such a wide portion of our range that it becomes 0EV for villain to bluff (that depends on the bet size). All in all I pretty sure that it is impossible for villain to exploit us - as long as we know what range we will show up with on the river.

If villain never bluffs the river we will get to show down a lot (which is great for the portion of our range we would have folded on the river).

This would require that we adjust our river calling range based on what range we get to the river with which should be based on villain's cbetting range etc. This means that we will still get to the river with different ranges vs different villains and can't have static calling range on the river.

This would require that we adjust our river calling range based on what range we get to the river with which should be based on villain's cbetting range etc. This means that we will still get to the river with different ranges vs different villains and can't have static calling range on the river.

So villain cannot exploit us on the river unless he was already exploiting us on the flop - which I hold for very unlikely since that would almost require that he could see our hand.

Edit: it is not so hard to estimate how often villain can bluff on the flop and still "exploit" us in this line.

I really liked the two hands in this episode.

Could you devote a whole episode to hands like these, and deal with them fairly rapidly? You could probably fit as many as 10 hands into an hour.

Also, I'd love to see examples of reads that said that someone was probably best avoided as a skillful opponent.

GREAT video! Watched the whole series so far in two days and I loved it. Can't wait to watch the live play and later apply some of what I learned in my play. I deffinitely fall victim to playing hands using the "standard line" over and over and my profits are severely being cut I believe.

Just watch all the theory vids nice work Blah awesome stuff.

Time Link to 00:41:23

If a reg is floating super wide an making his decision on the river (i know stats are only indicators, but lets assume he s playing 19/17 and his fold to cb and tb are on the low side ) should we be betting a depolarized range and go for 3 streets or chek raising our entire value range and just giving up on crapy flops?

If a reg is floating super wide an making his decision on the river (i know stats are only indicators, but lets assume he s playing 19/17 and his fold to cb and tb are on the low side ) should we be betting a depolarized range and go for 3 streets or chek raising our entire value range and just giving up on crapy flops?

we can go depolarized and go for 1 to 2 streets but most likely higher EV to not be the river with a value hand. Villain has to bet with his wide range in order to win.

Time Link to 00:31:18

What are you saying? - That next time we wanna show up with a valuehand c/r turn and b/c river? - And after that only do it with bluffs again?

Thx..

What are you saying? - That next time we wanna show up with a valuehand c/r turn and b/c river? - And after that only do it with bluffs again?

Thx..

we want to figure how how villain plays his marginal hands so we can get most value. We want to try it by going for x/r or x/c on the turn to see what he's doing. Depends in his tendencies we will try to figure out what's the best play with our range or hand.

we want to figure how how villain plays his marginal hands so we can get most value. We want to try it by going for x/r or x/c on the turn to see what he's doing. Depends in his tendencies we will try to figure out what's the best play with our range or hand.

Okay so yoo're suggesting for example if we have pretty nutted invunable hand OTT we wanna use this hand to get information on how he play his marginal and strong hands(worse than nuts or our hand? because already we have an idea of how he plays he's bluff (AJo) how do you distinguish between when to play our hand and when to play our range depending on Villians tendencies and our reads? Can you give me a conrete example plz..

thx..

Okay so yoo're suggesting for example if we have pretty nutted invunable hand OTT we wanna use this hand to get information on how he play his marginal and strong hands(worse than nuts or our hand? because already we have an idea of how he plays he's bluff (AJo) how do you distinguish between when to play our hand and when to play our range depending on Villians tendencies and our reads? Can you give me a conrete example plz..

thx..

don't need to be a nutted hand to check we can check any hand that can call to get a better idea of villain's tendencies. We play hand vs range vs people who are not hand reading us so we can completely separate different parts of our range to achieve max EV without being exploited. For example, vs fish we bet huge with good hand and bet small with bluff.

don't need to be a nutted hand to check we can check any hand that can call to get a better idea of villain's tendencies. We play hand vs range vs people who are not hand reading us so we can completely separate different parts of our range to achieve max EV without being exploited. For example, vs fish we bet huge with good hand and bet small with bluff.

Very good explanation coach thx..

Time Link to 00:37:54

Hi Blah234,

You mentioned in your recent Part-Time Grinder series that you have a new approach to poker that incorporates GTO. I was wondering if this means that your strategy has changed significantly since making the Apex Predator series or if it is as simple as replacing default assumptions on unknowns with GTO and the rest of your strategy is basically the same?

Thanks.

it is as simple as replacing default assumptions on unknowns with GTO and the rest of your strategy is basically the same?

This

what is GTO can you please explain, by the way i love your thought process.

what is GTO can you please explain, by the way i love your thought process.

GTO is where we can give villain a detailed outline of our strategy and they still can't do anything to exploit us. We don't know what exact GTO is but we have some methods to approximate.