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Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by BalugaWhale (Mid Stakes)

Time Link to 00:15:55

Would you rather raise the turn unimproved vs a LAG, or would you rather call the turn again and maybe bluff raise the river if we miss?
What kinda cards are you more likely to bluff on? Higher broadway cards or lower blanks?
Assuming broadways cause he will barrel those more often?

ANDREW HAVE MY BABIES PLEASE

Would you rather raise the turn unimproved vs a LAG, or would you rather call the turn again and maybe bluff raise the river if we miss?
What kinda cards are you more likely to bluff on? Higher broadway cards or lower blanks?
Assuming broadways cause he will barrel those more often?

The asnwer to all of these questions relies on how often he barrels as a bluff. So, if he bluffs broadway cards, then those are good ones. If he bluffs any card on the river, any card is fine.

If he doesn't bluff riv, then i'd rather raise turn.

Andrew

Excellent questions, primarily due to the options based on adjunct inferences. For example, in the penultimate question (#7), we're given an option to 3bet depolarized once we see that his 4bets are more polarized (in the sense that they'll lack nut combos). While I wasn't enthusiastic about the choice, it did prompt me to think about how villain is 4betting, and if he IS 4betting with a decent frequency, then would 3betting depolarized with the thought to bluff shove have any merit? I'm not saying I'd do this, but the option presented caused me to think about it. The video only discussed villain's flatting of 3bets with some consideration to his 4bets in the answer options (folding less to them)

Too bad there's no way to rate the video, or I'd give the series my highest marks. Keep up the great work!

Time Link to 00:42:17

I understand that just because he has a capped range, doesn't mean he'll fold it, but shouldn't we be more inclined to barrel against weaker ranges than ones that include more TP+ hands. I'm not saying we should just barrel mindlessly regardless of the board texture, but it seems like we should want to barrel at least somewhat more often in general.

I understand that just because he has a capped range, doesn't mean he'll fold it, but shouldn't we be more inclined to barrel against weaker ranges than ones that include more TP+ hands. I'm not saying we should just barrel mindlessly regardless of the board texture, but it seems like we should want to barrel at least somewhat more often in general.

of course it helps when your opponent has weaker hands (less hands that definitely wont fold), but I'm just trying to get people to think about players, not cards. If that makes sense.

Andrew

of course it helps when your opponent has weaker hands (less hands that definitely wont fold), but I'm just trying to get people to think about players, not cards. If that makes sense.

Andrew

Yeah, I know what you're saying.

Time Link to 00:40:52

However, if we stack him with 2 pair here after he thinly raised us on the flop, isn't it ambitious to assume that he'll play this kind of situation the same versus us again? Even if he's a bad reg, I assume that most players chill out a bit after getting stacked with a certain line. Any insight on this?

(I have watched only the 1st episode so far)

Feedback to the series
- Excellent idea of "a game show", it is very exciting
- It forces us to think while watching
- It is good for any player, from micro stakes up to mid stakes

I think the series has so much potential, that it could be improved a bit. I'd love to see some pictures and animations (maybe even sounds). Especially pictures, because it would be much easier to answer the question.
Here is my idea of how the "answer screen" could look like:

http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/5452/round7u.png

very good idea stack, it's quite annoying to go back to video to see all informations and i also agree this is a excellent concept (we could also have questions monday and answers friday, so we think alone and you can make little competition betwenn members on answers)

Time Link to 00:29:37

wow check fold? vs a regular?
we are really face up we raise from utg, we don"t have much flush draws, we dont have much T, we have a lot of overpairs
he's a reg so he has a lotf draws here and he can read us perfectly (at least at nl200 i believe and often at nl100) so he will often turn his made hands in bluffs and bluffs his missed flush draws,
hard to see X/F > X/C
does this answers depends of the level of the reg (and so the limit you play)?

very good idea stack, it's quite annoying to go back to video to see all informations and i also agree this is a excellent concept (we could also have questions monday and answers friday, so we think alone and you can make little competition betwenn members on answers)

When I watched episode one, I paused to think about the answers before continuing. This is a classic Haj School tip, but is more applicable here than ever before. I would definitely recommend doing that while watching. While appearing in the video, you have no choice but to sit there and be tricked by the host and his evil, evil questions.

I notice in these questions we never(?) discuss our image/playstyle(s). Even when we're adjusting to every player, lots of players are going to be looking at our overall stats and their feelings about us. From that, they'll adjust how they play against us. The extra information helps us choose the best play and seems relevant. Is it best to always assume they're going to treat us like an average regular until they show us something else?

I love all your video series. You're sharing awesome concepts. I love that you're teaching the roots of how to think in poker, and I LOVE classroom style videos.

Great series - it's really fun to try to come up with the right answer. Looking forward to number 3. As above, I was initially somewhat doubtful of the ckeck fold with QQ, but the reasoning is quite sound. To be honest I would almost always bet/fold in that situation to avoid being exploited by Reg using position. (I appreciate the argument that it is difficult to see the reg being on the river with a with a worse hand that can call a bet). Is it a huge leak to bet fold in that situation???

wow check fold? vs a regular?
we are really face up we raise from utg, we don"t have much flush draws, we dont have much T, we have a lot of overpairs
he's a reg so he has a lotf draws here and he can read us perfectly (at least at nl200 i believe and often at nl100) so he will often turn his made hands in bluffs and bluffs his missed flush draws,
hard to see X/F > X/C
does this answers depends of the level of the reg (and so the limit you play)?

it depends on how many hands he even HAS that he can turn into a bluff + how often he actually turns them into a bluff.
Andrew

Time Link to 00:14:12

You say we have to get ballsy here and shove some rivers. Then you go and say we may have to jam over some of his river bets even if the board runs out super dry J93xx. Do we really think hes ever folding J here>? Has to be pretty rare, I think he can even call with hands like 9x or pocket 10s as well given the texture. What are we trying to rep? If he has TP or MP That takes out a ton of our sets and makes it super hard for us to have 2P. I think we get snapped off here too often can please elaborate a bit more on why your so convinced he will fold river. THANK you.

Thought Id add also given postions he knows we dont have any of the big pairs in our range since we obv 3B there most of the time.

Time Link to 00:44:52

Is there a way to pause and actually see the screen. Its hard to figure out the quistion without it paused. And very hard to read with it paused. Thanks.

Is there a way to pause and actually see the screen. Its hard to figure out the quistion without it paused. And very hard to read with it paused. Thanks.

+1

Time Link to 01:00:07

Thanks for your well thought out ?s They sure were alot tougher than I thought they would be.
Thanks for the brain teaser, certainly pumped me up for this session Im about to PLAY!

Is there a way to pause and actually see the screen. Its hard to figure out the quistion without it paused. And very hard to read with it paused. Thanks.

Download the movie file and play on your computer, sans internet.

Is there a way to pause and actually see the screen. Its hard to figure out the quistion without it paused. And very hard to read with it paused. Thanks.

When you pause, there's is a minimize button in the top right corner that makes the overlay go away.

You say we have to get ballsy here and shove some rivers. Then you go and say we may have to jam over some of his river bets even if the board runs out super dry J93xx. Do we really think hes ever folding J here>? Has to be pretty rare, I think he can even call with hands like 9x or pocket 10s as well given the texture. What are we trying to rep? If he has TP or MP That takes out a ton of our sets and makes it super hard for us to have 2P. I think we get snapped off here too often can please elaborate a bit more on why your so convinced he will fold river. THANK you.

Thought Id add also given postions he knows we dont have any of the big pairs in our range since we obv 3B there most of the time.

obviously it depends on players. A lot of opponents will see river raise= nuts and fold just about everything. After all, we'd have to be bluffing, right??

Andrew

obviously it depends on players. A lot of opponents will see river raise= nuts and fold just about everything. After all, we'd have to be bluffing, right??

Andrew

Im not too sure what to take from your comment, but ya alot, if not all poker decisions should depend on the villian when you are going to make a advanced play here. Not that I think its a great Idea to make a advanced play vs such a aggro villian that was described in this hand. Either way love the vid and love your work with poker. Thank you.

When you pause, there's is a minimize button in the top right corner that makes the overlay go away.

Thank you very much Nixon.Will certainly be VERY useful...

Im not too sure what to take from your comment, but ya alot, if not all poker decisions should depend on the villian when you are going to make a advanced play here. Not that I think its a great Idea to make a advanced play vs such a aggro villian that was described in this hand. Either way love the vid and love your work with poker. Thank you.

the more aggro the villain-- the better a play this is

Andrew

First hand, I prefer c/r any turn over c/c, c/c because villain has only 80bb to start.

Pot size on turn will be 35bb, if villain bets 2/3 pot that would be 23bb, making total pot size 81bb once we call. Effective stacks will be 40bb.

Even bad aggressive players shutdown their bluffs often when they dont have a significant bet size left to bluff shove. Given that he will likely check rivers a lot I'd jam turn. If he was even just 20bb deeper I like a c/c.

Zach

edit: I agreed with all your other answers. Nice work.

Time Link to 00:19:48

Andrew,

You make a good argument for raising in Round 3, but doesn't always raising here wreak havoc on our calling range? It seems to me that if you raise all your strong hands (boats and trips), then a call suddenly means with 100% certainty "I have a PP jacks or less". And villain has enough value hands that he can just barrel us off it.

Time Link to 00:32:51

"No determining factor of what he does against 3bets"

But do we need to know? We know that he opens wide, and that he gives up. So based on that alone, doesn't it make sense that we would want to keep our weaker hands in our calling range (to give them more value when we bluff them after his flop check backs) and keep our 3betting range full of strong hands?

Time Link to 00:32:51

Small request: Is it possible to download the slides somewhere?

Round 5 (QdJd hand)
I chose answer E) as well, but I thought by "reraising" you meant check-raising, not 3-betting. If he is capable of giving up on the flop sometimes, then it means his c-betting range is stronger = if we want to x/r, we should lean towards value.

Time Link to 00:16:33

I was way off on Round 3 w/the KhKs2h flop with our 22. Let me think through this...(also, when you give the sizes of stacks are we assuming the largest stack is the effective stacks? I assume yes? Otherwise it's useless to say they have 150bb when we only have 100bb...)

Regarding short stack:
- we assume villain has inelastic calling range and will never fold w/fdraws and Kx and will not fold turn with those hands
- whether we call or raise won't matter to this villain (given THIS range) as all his money goes in on turn regardless
- we like raising to prevent a call by short stack w/PP's that might randomly peal if we just call??? Seems like we want a peal from that part of villain's range with so little equity?

Regarding tight-aggressive regular:
- calling twice is not ideal because this villain will NOT bluff rivers w/busted draws
- raising is good because we get more $$$ from the flush draws and Kx in villain's range on both flop and turn AND possibly river if it blanks and villain is stubborn with Kx hands

Therefore:
It's most +EV to extract as much value from flush draws and Kx hands from TAG regular by raising on flop than it is to bait a loose call from the shortstack w/PP's. That makes a ton of sense given the effective stacks of 150bb w/the TAG

When you pause, there's is a minimize button in the top right corner that makes the overlay go away.

That is THE Greatest piece of info I've gotten in a long time. LOL

(I have watched only the 1st episode so far)

Feedback to the series
- Excellent idea of "a game show", it is very exciting
- It forces us to think while watching
- It is good for any player, from micro stakes up to mid stakes

I think the series has so much potential, that it could be improved a bit. I'd love to see some pictures and animations (maybe even sounds). Especially pictures, because it would be much easier to answer the question.
Here is my idea of how the "answer screen" could look like:

http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/5452/round7u.png

FANTASTIC IDEA ...would def make the series a little bit easier to follow without constant pause,and re-reading.

Time Link to 00:21:56

So if you had JJ, would it still be clear Raise?

Good episode. V good series.