---

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

nice name

epic intro!

This Series: Full Ring NL Dojo: The Fellowship

FATE HAS CHOSEN THEM. DJ SENSEI WILL PROTECT THEM.



i lol'd

man crush for nolan and sensei.

Apparently my Skype went into rapping mode on the 55 hand. What I was trying to say there was that I like 3 betting a wide button opener with a lot of hands, and that 55 isn't a terrible hand to do it with.

Apparently my Skype went into rapping mode on the 55 hand. What I was trying to say there was that I like 3 betting a wide button opener with a lot of hands, and that 55 isn't a terrible hand to do it with.

You don't have to say sorry. We know what you were on, CrackMonkey! :-)

You don't have to say sorry. We know what you were on, CrackMonkey! :-)

Well played sir.

On the final hand (77), if you bet 3/4 pot on the river and got shoved on, would you fold for the remaining 40$ or so you had left?

I thought these videos were supposed to be four hours long with an extra 2-3 hours of extra footage available in the DVD version?

Time Link to 00:21:29

I like floating on this board, but not with this hand. With 44 thout a club id prefer to bluffraise here, if your hand had some improvement potential i think floating would be better. Plus as some of you said, you know nothing bout his turn cbet frequency and hes loose, maybe hes gonna perceive your range as weak and gonna barrel a lot on overcards/scare cards.

I thought these videos were supposed to be four hours long with an extra 2-3 hours of extra footage available in the DVD version?

haha!

On the final hand (77), if you bet 3/4 pot on the river and got shoved on, would you fold for the remaining 40$ or so you had left?

I think it's a pretty clear fold at that point even given the odds we're getting. The only hand we beat is a pure bluff and he is almost never bluffing in this spot.

Hello, in the second hand (33) Dont you think the small cbet of less than half pot could induce bluff a lot more often? I have seen a lot check/raise in small flops like that, even when I make larger cbets.

Time Link to 00:30:54

(the 55 hand where I called a btn raise from the blinds and c/r the flop)

Stats on villain over ~400 hands are 18/12 with 44% attempt to steal preflop, very low WWSF, so I didn't have detailed reads on him but viewed him as more of a weak-tight player than an aggressive player.

With a small pocket pair in the blinds facing a button raise vs. an aggressive player with a wide range, I hate calling because you flop with "polarized equity" - you either flop a set or you have almost no equity, which sucks because you can't semibluff effectively. So vs. that type of player I'd much rather fold or 3-bet if they don't call many 3-bets. Against a weak-tight player I prefer flatting because they will call a 3-bet with a wide range, which I don't want; but I do have to look for opportunities to steal the pot postflop because I don't have good enough implied odds to only set mine.

I thought this flop was a good one to try and take it away because it's one he would cbet with 100% of his range and probably continue less than half of the time, making the c/r profitable with any two cards. I'm definitely representing a very narrow range, so I'd be much less likely to do this against someone I thought was a good hand-reader. In general at 1/2, people give my c/r's a lot of respect though.

When I found the hand, I thought the turn barrel looked pretty spewy, even though it worked, so that's the main thing I wanted to ask about. Seems like everyone agreed. It works if it gets him to fold 88-QQ here, but I guess that's not a big enough part of his range to justify making the move.

Wish I had been there to talk about this one - no more starting early without me!

Isn't the strength of the bet on the end that is seems to be a credible signal of pot commitment from the hero; you can't raise-fold in that spot with much frequency can you?

Time Link to 00:49:21

(77 hand)

The villain in this hand is extremely floaty, he will call me with just about any two cards anytime he's in position preflop, and I don't think he's ever folded to one of my cbets in thousands of hands. He's also the type that will bet 99% of the time when checked to. So I feel like firing the 3rd barrel is essential in this spot, otherwise I will almost certainly get bluffed off the best hand if I check the river (reading this again, I guess that means I should hero call, but ugh).

Also he knows that I'm very tight from the first 3 positions, which means that there is very little air in my range here (AQ is about all I can think of). I chose to bet half-pot because I thought it looked like I was going for value and wanted a call, and it would save me a little money if he shoved and I had to fold - plus it's still gotta look to him like he has zero fold equity. I hate having that kind of stack to pot ratio on the river, though; it feels like anything you do is wrong. But I don't think there was any way to really avoid it in this hand.

I thought these videos were supposed to be four hours long with an extra 2-3 hours of extra footage available in the DVD version?

i like it....n1

Hello, in the second hand (33) Dont you think the small cbet of less than half pot could induce bluff a lot more often? I have seen a lot check/raise in small flops like that, even when I make larger cbets.

It certainly could but I find that most of the 12/7 types at these stakes(and even more aggressive players to an extent) don't really respond to things like that. He is kinda just going to do what he is going to do, imo. If he is going to c/c he is probably going to c/c as long as I make a reasonably sized bet(and maybe even when I don't ). In addition, since I have a somewhat small hand, the flop is really dry, and my range is somewhat wide I tend like making smaller bets.

Time Link to 00:42:00

Is shoving turn ever a consideration here? We would likely do the same with all of our strong hands after calling the flop. Calling seems to have much less value since all of the hands we hit make for a scary board and it will be more difficult to extract.

Perhaps we need a more specific read he is weak to consider that line? Is he too loose and has already put too much money in to think about shoving?

Time Link to 00:11:32

Taking away the action of betting or checking, what do you feel is better for your/the game to check and showdown 22 or bet/get called and showdown 22. Or bet and he folds without showing 22, if that makes sence ?

Time Link to 00:33:01

Doesn't the cx/raise look like a draw ? and the call look like a "i wanna a safe turn card. without knowing bb's stats if he had a hand with a K in it would he not be 3 betting, or if say he had k small wouldn't he be tring to get to showdown ?

Time Link to 00:33:23

cont..... would he really call from bb with K small.Doesn't it looks like a set or nothing ??

5-star poker content, but not enough role-playing imo.

Taking away the action of betting or checking, what do you feel is better for your/the game to check and showdown 22 or bet/get called and showdown 22. Or bet and he folds without showing 22, if that makes sence ?

You essentially mean what is best for our metagame, right?

Honestly I don't think that is too much of a consideration at these stakes and against players like that. Generally speaking a guy with stats like that is likely to be multi-tabling and playing his own game with little adjustments.

If we are concerned about that though I would prefer to have the image of an aggressive player so that I can get some lighter call downs so I think betting is better.

Time Link to 00:00:39

This gives him more outs I believe because of the "counterfeit" effect right? Where if the board flops a two pair and both of the pairs are higher than your pocket pairs since poker is the best five cards, your pocket 2's become irrelevant

This gives him more outs I believe because of the "counterfeit" effect right? Where if the board flops a two pair and both of the pairs are higher than your pocket pairs since poker is the best five cards, your pocket 2's become irrelevant

I'm having a hard time figuring what exactly you're referring to since the timestamp you shared wasn't correlated to any strategic discussion (I think 08:32 is what you're aiming for), but I believe you have the right idea. Counterfeiting is not something that we'll really have to deal with too often, though when it is relevant (as is the case on the turn in the pocket 2's hand) it will decrease the equity of the small pair. (However it also slightly increases the equity of the pair if its up against a made flush or straight!)

Time Link to 00:52:49

hmmmmm not quite sure if he is folding a pair of 99s here.. Might put it right back in the face on the river with that hand.

Is it just me or is anyone else chuckling every time DJ Sensei asks the crew on the turn "what would you do here" they all answer they want to fire another barrel.

Time Link to 00:52:50

Do you think there any Jx hands in his PF calling range? I think the only Jx hands are QJs, JTs. Isn't the turn bet a value bet against draws not a bluff? I think his turn cont range is Jx, Kx+FD and draws. All draws missed. Jx isn't gonna bet the river. If we check the river, he checks back his Jx and bets Kx and missed draws. Because there are more draws in his range than made hands isn't it better to c/c the river? We have a good hand with a pretty good SD value and by betting we're turning it into a complete bluff(and most better hands call anyway so it's a bad bluff).
So the big question is: are we betting river to make him fold missed draws that we already beat? if so - why would we bet if we are ahead and he never calls with worse and folds anything better except Jx.

Time Link to 00:17:53

Regarding small to medium pocket pairs, implied odds weigh heavily, i.e., the upside of your hand versus the downside, i.e., what hand your foe has or can make.

Do you think there any Jx hands in his PF calling range? I think the only Jx hands are QJs, JTs.

I think AJ/KJ,QJ,JT, and J9s are all in his calling range pre.

Isn't the turn bet a value bet against draws not a bluff?

For sure. A bet does a lot of things against a draw. Against a good player, it also keeps us from potentially putting ourselves in a weird spot versus his range if we c/c(more on this later). If we c/c we kinda turn our hand face up and thus a strong hand reader can very easily play pretty well against us with his range. If we think villain is going to make life hard on us if we check, then it prevents that from happening. Sometimes that in and of itself can make a bet worthwhile.

I think his turn cont range is Jx, Kx+FD and draws. All draws missed. Jx isn't gonna bet the river. If we check the river, he checks back his Jx and bets Kx and missed draws. Because there are more draws in his range than made hands isn't it better to c/c the river?

Jx may bet the river, but I mostly agree. I think this villain may be capable of that, so I wouldn't completely discount Jx from his betting range if we were to check. You're right though that there aren't that many value betting combos. The thing is though that I expect a player like this to raise his draws on the flop a reasonable amount of the time. So, that will reduce his total number of draws(pretty drastically, imo) that are going to the river such that a c/f is the right play. I don't expect our SD value to really be that great in this spot, so I do think "turning our hand into a bluff" is a better play. So then it's between a bet and a c/f. I think betting is better. If he weren't so apt to raise a FD on a flop then I would say c/c becomes a good play and it becomes close between the two.

So the big question is: are we betting river to make him fold missed draws that we already beat? if so - why would we bet if we are ahead and he never calls with worse and folds anything better except Jx.

We are betting to make him fold Jx. I don't think we have more showdown equity than FE, essentially. I think our FE is going to make us more than checking and hoping it checks down. Making him fold a draw doesn't make much of a difference if he checks back all his draws, certainly. However, if he sometimes bets his draws, but he only has a draw with a frequency such that we can't c/c, then we do better by making him fold them than allowing him to bluff us with them, so betting does better in that scenario . Said another way, say he bets the river in such a way that his range consists of 15% draws and 85% hands that have us beat when we need 25% equity to call. We have to fold. In that scenario we would rather bet than have him play what turns out to be a pretty solid strategy. It's a spot where by checking we might make our opponent play really well by just bluffing every now and then and value betting normally. We kinda force him to play correctly. That's not something we ever want to do. This topic starts to get really deep, so it can go really down the rabbit hole, but essentially by checking in this spot I think our villain will play correctly most of the time with his entire range.

Time Link to 00:35:43

All that guy does is sniff and it's super annoying.

Time Link to 00:16:53

Hi,
If you had QQ / JJ. what is your answer to his check raise in the same conditions preflop and postflop ?
I like when you take in account the various scenaris
Regards

Hi,
If you had QQ / JJ. what is your answer to his check raise in the same conditions preflop and postflop ?
I like when you take in account the various scenaris
Regards

Admittedly I'm pretty far removed from the FRNL scene lately, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'd have a hard time folding QQ/JJ here on grounds of balance. If we're folding those, we're just folding such a big part of our range that we can easily be exploited by checkraises. Of course if he follows through on later streets, it only gets more uncomfortable, but presumably he'll respect our call enough to shut down a lot of his bluffs and let us play decently well on later streets.