Poker Video: Pot-Limit Omaha by DJ Sensei (Micro/Small Stakes)

First. Excited to see this one! I'll get off DC...as I'm at work...

Time Link to 00:10:31

Could you please comment a little more on the "leverage and commitment issues" of an SPR of ~1? I am assuming that you mean you either A) have to call a lot with an SPR of one, and may do so incorrectly OTT, because your equity is usally considerably less and B) Your bluffs have less leverage, because your opponent is in the same spot as example A? Thanks.

Could you please comment a little more on the "leverage and commitment issues" of an SPR of ~1? I am assuming that you mean you either A) have to call a lot with an SPR of one, and may do so incorrectly OTT, because your equity is usally considerably less and B) Your bluffs have less leverage, because your opponent is in the same spot as example A? Thanks.

I was talking more about a SPR of 4-5ish. If the SPR is 1, there isn't really any leverage either way, because any bet will be for stacks. But if the SPR is 4 or 5, then we often like situations that let us force our opponent into a stack-committing decision while risking only a small part of our stack. That's leverage. Similarly, we want to avoid situations where we bet and get raised, and now face a tough decision for the remainder of our own stack with a medium-strength hand.

One of the big reasons I like taking these c/r lines in spots like this is that if we don't, we're simply conceding too much by checking our weaker hands. Our opponent knows we will c/f or c/c c/f so much that he can run us over easily with his entire range. But if he knows we are liable to c/r in spots like this, that greatly weakens his arsenal. We can also work in some c/c c/r or even c/c donk lines, but those are more fancy and sophisticated so I wouldn't go out looking for spots to try them.

Time Link to 00:03:58

You can right-click and drag that panel into view.

I was talking more about a SPR of 4-5ish.

0ooh okay that makes way more sense! I guess I misunderstood your wording, because I went back and listened to it a couple of times and still thought you were talking about SPR's of 1. Thank you.

Time Link to 00:09:51

Suppose we had 3bet something that has connected with a set this type of flop, how would we want to play that? Actually, what kind of hands would we be better served to bet this with? Hands like pair+straight+flushdraws and hands that we can comfortably bet/fold? Obviously i know why we need to balance with checkraises with these kinds of board because we will a good portion of the time have hands like aces or kings or whatever that hate this flop and just check and fold, but i feel it gets a little trickeir drawing the line at what type of hands to bet.

Suppose we had 3bet something that has connected with a set this type of flop, how would we want to play that? Actually, what kind of hands would we be better served to bet this with? Hands like pair+straight+flushdraws and hands that we can comfortably bet/fold? Obviously i know why we need to balance with checkraises with these kinds of board because we will a good portion of the time have hands like aces or kings or whatever that hate this flop and just check and fold, but i feel it gets a little trickeir drawing the line at what type of hands to bet.

I think I mentioned briefly during the vid, but the kind of hands you want to bet here are:
1) air-ish hands, at least against a player who folds to cbets a decent amount. Obv you won't have many, but stuff like mid rundowns of the wrong suits.
2) unimprovable made hands that you're betfolding but might not hate if you betcall and see a decent turn.
3) very strong hands that are happy to get it in but don't want to let the villain see a free card for various reasons, or would rather get it in now than face tougher turn decisions. Say, set + FD or OESD+NFD.

Ya i made this post somewhat hasty. Keep up the good work, im liking this idea of checkraising/managing the spr very much. Might not be that big of a deal to plo player, but im just coming over and to me this is pretty much a new way of playing.

nice series, good hands and explanations!

about the c/r ranges: it seems that @min12 you say that you would c/r with OP+FD and straightdraw+flushdraw - dont you think that a bare, but strong combodraw is better suited to bet ourselfs because now we are the person who will improve on a lot of Turncards and if we dont improve we can still barrel and expect a lot of folds on blanks? We basically dont have to deal with 'awkward' Turncards.

dont agree with the AAKQ in min22 though: you squeezed SB vs an UTG raise so your range is most likely AA**, strong KK** and some AKQJ or similar hands - in my experience it's quite unlikely that TAGs are going to stabb/stackoff with K*** or bare FD (we have also the A-blocker so he will see our check even more suspicious) ... with the SPR beeing <3 I would always bet reasonable big and then shove all cards other then maybe a 9 and a 4 .

1:01
I think that we have to distingish here between dif boards:

on a Ac8c7s As board Villain will also bet with all his bare trips that have to protect so we should still give him credit for betting.

If the board would be AsKs8hKh and the SPR is <1 we could expect more AK/AA**-hands to check and therefore more semibluffs in his range

nice series, good hands and explanations!

about the c/r ranges: it seems that @min12 you say that you would c/r with OP+FD and straightdraw+flushdraw - dont you think that a bare, but strong combodraw is better suited to bet ourselfs because now we are the person who will improve on a lot of Turncards and if we dont improve we can still barrel and expect a lot of folds on blanks? We basically dont have to deal with 'awkward' Turncards.

I basically want to c/r here with most of my strong hands, for both balance and SPR reasons. And I don't think awkward turncards are all that much of a problem when we have a good combo draw, because he isn't checking back the flop with too many hands that have a good piece of the board. Also, the SPR if he checks back isn't that difficult to work with either. We can just lead out the turn and expect to take it down pretty often (At least that's my experience in these lower stakes games. Even in spots where our hand appears somewhat weak, most players have a hard time pulling the trigger without a strong hand of their own.)

dont agree with the AAKQ in min22 though: you squeezed SB vs an UTG raise so your range is most likely AA**, strong KK** and some AKQJ or similar hands - in my experience it's quite unlikely that TAGs are going to stabb/stackoff with K*** or bare FD (we have also the A-blocker so he will see our check even more suspicious) ... with the SPR beeing <3 I would always bet reasonable big and then shove all cards other then maybe a 9 and a 4 .

Whether he's especially likely to bet when checked to, I think most players will simply outplay us if we lead into them on this board. They'll jam hands with an equity edge, leading us to call off stacks as an underdog (always try and avoid those scenarios in PLO!) They'll float hands with decent equity, and fold those with crappy equity. The best-case scenario for us if we bet the flop is that he calls, the turn is a brick, and we can jam comfortably, leading him to either fold his equity or call as an underdog (who may well be getting the correct price to call anyhow). I'd just rather take the chance to get that c/r in and be the one who forces him to call it off, rather than vice-versa. If he checks back, well, now we have a smaller pot to reckon with and we know his range is weaker, and that doesn't sound too bad to me.

Dan, A couple of Qs for you

On the AA3ss board, I understand your arguments for the line you took and love the sizing of your bet, but I wonder what you think about betting $40 on the flop instead of delaying it until the turn? Seems to me this would also would to get people to fold anything less than Ax


2nd Question. As played, If the river was a rainbow 5 giving you 34567, would you valuebet if checked to? What about if you made one of your flushes?


Great videos so far BTW. Digging em. Looking forward to finishing the series.

Dan, A couple of Qs for you

On the AA3ss board, I understand your arguments for the line you took and love the sizing of your bet, but I wonder what you think about betting $40 on the flop instead of delaying it until the turn? Seems to me this would also would to get people to fold anything less than Ax

It's not bad. I definitely don't want to bet any more than that, lest I be committed to call a checkraise (we have ~25% equity against some hand like AK54 without a higher FD, so we need to make sure not to leave ourselves 3:1 or better to call a shove). Also, I'm not excited about getting check-called by a FD. We'll just be in such an awkward position on any turn card (river card too, for that matter) that I fear we'll get outplayed. Maybe he'll bluff us off a turned pair when we check back the turn?

I also don't expect to get bluffed too much here on the turn, so I think the delayed barrel works out OK. It is important that the board has AA and not some other pair, since people will be irrationally afraid of quads.

2nd Question. As played, If the river was a rainbow 5 giving you 34567, would you valuebet if checked to? What about if you made one of your flushes?

Yes to both, probably, although I'd be less psyched about a club flush. I doubt he'll slowplay all the way to the end with a boat like A3 or A4 since its vulnerable to higher aces, and he should probably be jamming for value if he rivers a boat. Most likely here is that he's bluffcatching with KK-JJ, or just has a draw/combo of his own and can't say no to a good price.

Great videos so far BTW. Digging em. Looking forward to finishing the series.

woop woop, lemme know what sort of stuff you'd like to see covered more/better.

Time Link to 00:10:32

This is also pretty useful concept in NLHE. Not necessarily for the same reasons you mentioned here (you might just bet a vulnerable hand in NLHE), but there are definitely spots in NLHE where you put yourself in a really bad spot by betting and are able to check/call comfortably.

Time Link to 00:23:17

Lets say flop is check check then comes the flush on the turn. We check and he bets..
Do we give up v that one or should go allin ?

Lets say flop is check check then comes the flush on the turn. We check and he bets..
Do we give up v that one or should go allin ?

I think I'd rather bet turn bet river if he checks back the flop and the flush comes in. We can still rep a flush (even a nut flush) that whiffed a flop c/r, but he won't have many of his own after he checks back the flop.

Hi DJ
Really great series you have created. I have just resigned up at DC so I am a bit behind your schedule.
I have difficulties putting people into the 2 boxes: LAG & Semi-fish
TAGs: how aggressive can I expect them to be, is there difference in their aggression depending if they are IP or OOP?
LAGs: You said some are Aggressiv post flop and some are not. I have difficult telling difference about the Passive-LAG and some Semi-fish (who sometimes float)?

Hi DJ
Really great series you have created. I have just resigned up at DC so I am a bit behind your schedule.
I have difficulties putting people into the 2 boxes: LAG & Semi-fish
TAGs: how aggressive can I expect them to be, is there difference in their aggression depending if they are IP or OOP?
LAGs: You said some are Aggressiv post flop and some are not. I have difficult telling difference about the Passive-LAG and some Semi-fish (who sometimes float)?

The main defining characteristic of a LAG is their preflop aggression. Namely, they openraise and 3bet much more than other players. A typical LAG will have VPIP/PFR/3bet in the range of 30/20/8 to 40/30/12. Some (I tend to call them 'maniacs' are also quite aggressive postflop. Others are more pragmatic, and don't overcommit postflop (especially multiway ones).

The 'semifish' type is loose-passive preflop (but not especially so). Something like 35/5 to 45/12. Usually they don't 3bet very often either. With these players it's much more important to pay attention to their postflop play. Some who are fishier tend to call down too much and don't get enough value from their strong hands. The better players of this type have a good balance of aggression, can read hands well, and aren't actually giving up too much postflop. Hence, "semi-fish"!

As far as TAG aggression goes, it really depends, but most are quite aggressive on all streets. They already have a pretty strong starting hand range because they're tight, and they know that aggression wins pots. Still though, pay attention to exactly how aggressive they are, and how they change based on position.