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

Nice

It looks like it is again a series where you also get the keypoints out when you only listen to it (not watching it) - am I right with this assumption?

I LOVE YOU ANDREW PLEASE PICK ME FOR THE NEXT ONE

Where can I apply for this?

By the time I saw his request thread, only after about 45 minutes, he had too many applications... sigh.

This is perhaps the greatest concept for a series in poker video history. Makings for a great series

Time Link to 00:02:41

If we had A8o in this same situation, would we going for 5bb raise, 10bb raise or somewhere in between?Now I kinda feel like going for 6-7bb and 10bb just feels too big. Dunno if that's just because nobody really does it.

Time Link to 00:11:27

Would betting 2/3 instead of 1/2 be better thou? I know it's kind of a math question, but also I think we should start building the pot a bit more so we can win bigger pots on the turn, we have 18 cards at max that we can barrel on (39.6%(?)). So my idea is to bet 2/3 on the flop and then make it 1/2 on the turn.

edit: I know we get better odds by betting 1/2 pot on the flop where we expect the most folds to come, but making it 2/3 should not have a big impact on our flop c-bet bluff EV right? I know I should do the math, but I think I should find a spot similar to this from my database to do it.

Haven't watched yet, but I gotta say Andrew, I really admire and appreciate that you make so many videos for us, it is absolutely awesomeness.

Haven't watched yet, but I gotta say Andrew, I really admire and appreciate that you make so many videos for us, it is absolutely awesomeness.

+1, Thank you a lot Andrew.

Time Link to 00:24:12

Nitpicking here!
A 4bet size of 18bb isn't possible when we open to 3bb and get 3bet to 11bb
Just sayin'

Nitpicking here!
A 4bet size of 18bb isn't possible when we open to 3bb and get 3bet to 11bb
Just sayin'

zing, got me.

Call it 19bb then

Andrew

Andrew with regards to the KT hand, I'm just wondering about ranges. When villain shoves its really difficult for us to call with worse. So is he turning his hand into a bluff? Seems unlikely he would/could in this spot. So this would make me think he's a bad player and bad players are generally terrible at folding so how does that make double and triple barrelling a good strategy versus him if your trying to exploit his "weaker" range?

Andrew with regards to the KT hand, I'm just wondering about ranges. When villain shoves its really difficult for us to call with worse. So is he turning his hand into a bluff? Seems unlikely he would/could in this spot. So this would make me think he's a bad player and bad players are generally terrible at folding so how does that make double and triple barrelling a good strategy versus him if your trying to exploit his "weaker" range?

Pretty sure he's doing it for value. Most people aren't going to fold better hands often enough to justify bluff shoving in that spot. Most likely he's doing it because it looks bluffy and we will hero call with a Jx hand.

Time Link to 00:17:10

i know im getting in trouble in spots like these, should just click the fold button more often

round 4 i dont agree with your conclusion at all.

the first most obvious thing to point out is to even simply conclude that your opponent is bluffing by the fact that he snap folded to a 4bet is pretty silly. just take it in the example of a fish. we 3bet the fish very wide for value often, with hands that we would never stack off with pre. although our hero in this hand is likely not a fish, he could very well be viewed by the regular as someone who plays too loose to 3bets and doesnt 4bet enough.

also
depending on how you construct your ranges, how you play postflop, and how your opponent plays postflop you should be adjusting your raise sizes properly. Against a player who you think will play very aggressive and use his position to his advantage, you may want to 3bet a tighter range to a bigger size - that way you have stronger range preflop and he has less room to abuse his positional advantage postflop when you do have the weaker part of your range

video was a pretty cool idea, i always like these sorts of things - reminds me of the WWJTD series from forever ago.

would have been cooler if the person that you had on the show actually discussed and shared his thought process instead of just nodding his head and agreeing with everything you say. i feel like almost always the student-coach mentor type of videos are almost always bad because it always ends up with the non coach just keeping quiet and agreeing with everything the coach says. ansky and blah was a good example of the student defending his plays and getting the coach to explain his thought process more

if u need someone to argue with you about everything ill be happy to go on but it sounds like u got ppl lined up already

would have been cooler if the person that you had on the show actually discussed and shared his thought process instead of just nodding his head and agreeing with everything you say.

Not sure what you mean by this, I gave my thought process when I selected my answers.

Not sure what you mean by this, I gave my thought process when I selected my answers.

and the majority of answers were correct

and the majority of answers were correct

He Jedi mind tricked me into choosing a wrong answer on the question where the choices included a check/raise or a donk bet. My first thought was that c/r was far superior.

Really great job guys. This is a very cool video concept and I'm looking forward to the next one.

Awesome video, great idea for a series!
One advice Andrew, send your participants the slides with questions a second before you start recording the video. Then you wouldn’t be forced to go back to reread the questions, because the participants could read them on their own screen. I think this would make it easier for them to concentrate. It’s pretty hard to remember the given situation while going through the possible answers, when you have to explain your thought process live while not being able to see the question and answers at the same time.

@Round 8:
I don’t know if answer C has to be correct. This relies on how tight villains calling range is in the BB. I see quite some regulars, who only call with a very strong range in the BB, when somebody raises 3bb on the BTN. About 10% at best (and 3bet about 15%). This could very well mean these guys flat stronger broadways like AQ, KQ, KJ, AJ, some PPs and some SCs (And I have seen quite some players playing it exactly this way). So seeing him holding K10 in a 3bet pot doesn’t tell us that much, I think. I would agree with your conclusion, when for example we have seen AJ/KQ and A10/K10, because then we can be pretty sure villain can’t have very strong hands in a single raised pot, when the flop brings one or two face cards. On top of that I think it’s a much safer guess to conclude that someone, who is 3betting KQ and AJ 3bets K10, than to deduce, someone, who 3bets K10 also 3bets better broadways. Be that as it may, the concept of how villiains 3betting range affects his calling range in the blinds is very often overlooked and I like your thought process and the idea behind it.


@petzerglin:
Obviously all these situations imply that hero is some kind of regular, who is playing at least reasonable vs. 3bets oop, meaning he is not calling 3bets oop very often at all.
I also think SCS did a pretty good job in giving his thought process considering it probably was his first time to star in a poker quiz in front of a broad audience.

your opponent is bluffing by the fact that he snap folded to a 4bet is pretty silly

villain in this example didn't even ponder if it should be a shove or not, if calling has any merit or not. That indicates an "easy" choice -- and it was easy because it was an easy fold. If it's an easy fold, then it wasn't for value by derivation, and was a bluff. Since he 3bet & snap folded, you can then look to his bet size and see that he's pricing his IP bluffs incorrectly since a smaller size would have produced the same result.

And SCS, I liked your line of reasoning... you actually have reasoning, which may not be true of everyone that will appear in the series. I think donking that texture is not the worst choice in the world... and really the scenarios are far less about the ACTION and more about the THOUGHT... which is why this is lining up to be one of the all-time great series.

lol thinking of these questions is hard!! But I'm glad you guys like it so far. I think episode 2 should be pretty good too

Andrew

He Jedi mind tricked me into choosing a wrong answer on the question where the choices included a check/raise or a donk bet. My first thought was that c/r was far superior.

Thanks for giving future contestants a scapegoat when the questions are too hard!

Would you like to phone a friend?

this video doesnt work for me at all. Screen is all messed up and green??? frustrating.

Time Link to 00:47:30

Hey Andrew,

if MP bets and the fish folds, would you also consider x/raising when you play against this player everyday?

1.) I think you could get big trouble, if you x/raise your strong hands and strong draws on this type of board OOP, because your x/call line will become very weak (hands like J9s,T9s,7d5d etc.), which are to weak to x/rai, but also can not stand the heat if the reg is barreling through.

2.) In Order to balance this you have to x/rai also your Draws, which will hardly make a big profit, assuming his strong betting range. He will probably fold a hand like KhQh, QhJh, but I think you will get called in close to 100% of the cases and will have a flip.

I think x/calling also a hand like a set, could have some merits, because you protect your weak hands and give your opponent the chance to make bigger mistakes on later streets.

What do you think?

Best wishes
Diddy

Time Link to 00:33:29

hi, great video concept
i agree with B and C but, what would you raise turn?
you can't raise more for value since he has more bluff
you can raise more for bluff but what will you raise bluff that you can fold (since he often has equity he may shoves
thanks

hi, great video concept
i agree with B and C but, what would you raise turn?
you can't raise more for value since he has more bluff
you can raise more for bluff but what will you raise bluff that you can fold (since he often has equity he may shoves
thanks

In 3-bet pots, i may shove turns with both bluffs and relatively weak made hands. In raised pots, if i think he'll shove equity over top then i'll raise my whole value range, if not then I'll just raise bluffs.

Andrew

Hey Andrew,

if MP bets and the fish folds, would you also consider x/raising when you play against this player everyday?

1.) I think you could get big trouble, if you x/raise your strong hands and strong draws on this type of board OOP, because your x/call line will become very weak (hands like J9s,T9s,7d5d etc.), which are to weak to x/rai, but also can not stand the heat if the reg is barreling through.

2.) In Order to balance this you have to x/rai also your Draws, which will hardly make a big profit, assuming his strong betting range. He will probably fold a hand like KhQh, QhJh, but I think you will get called in close to 100% of the cases and will have a flip.

I think x/calling also a hand like a set, could have some merits, because you protect your weak hands and give your opponent the chance to make bigger mistakes on later streets.

What do you think?

Best wishes
Diddy

If i thought he would fold KK or something, then ofc c/c is better. However, I don't think he'll fold either a big draw or an overpair, and that's most likely what he has. I probably wouldn't c/c very often there in general (unless he folds KK so i c/c the nuts, or he's super bluffy so i'd go c/c c/c c/r). So I'm not worried about balance.
He won't fold KhQh, and even so, that's not a flip against a set. A set is way ahead.

Andrew

In 3-bet pots, i may shove turns with both bluffs and relatively weak made hands. In raised pots, if i think he'll shove equity over top then i'll raise my whole value range, if not then I'll just raise bluffs.

Andrew

thanks, very clear as usual

Time Link to 00:36:08

hello, why do we 3bet with such a rag oop?
a reg will often call IP so we have to 3bet depolarized (and if we polarize Axo seems a lot better than 74s, doesnt it?)

i give him this calling range JJ-88,AQo,KQo,AQs-ATs,KQs-KTs,QJs,JTs
ok he misses the flop : he has 4% set, 15% overpaire and 30% Ahigh, 41% air but our range also miss flop so it's easy for him to raise bluff, doestn it?

you say he will flaot with Ax and small PP but he has more Ax than PP so bet turn on A seems really bad, (you say PP will fold to a bet on a A turn). While playing vs his calling range preflop and flop shouldn('t we bet turn everytinh but aces ?

it's allways a difficult spot for me because my range looks like his calling range so its hard to play
same idea for AJ5r, ok he hits harder than before :
4% set, 3%2 pair, 22% top pair and only 27% weak pair and 30% air but we also hit ery good this flop, so our fold equity increases doesnt it? (he will fold all his air and weak pairs that are 60% and if we CB we only need 33% fold

Time Link to 00:48:15

hi ok we donk to protect vs a check, but how to you balance (if we only donks sets here its obvious)
if i'm good there are only 9 combos of sets here so we need 9 combos to balance, you want something you can play for stacks so combo draws? AQs-ATs are only 3...JTs (1)..i find only 4 combos so i dont find how to be balance
thanks (again great concept)

hi ok we donk to protect vs a check, but how to you balance (if we only donks sets here its obvious)
if i'm good there are only 9 combos of sets here so we need 9 combos to balance, you want something you can play for stacks so combo draws? AQs-ATs are only 3...JTs (1)..i find only 4 combos so i dont find how to be balance
thanks (again great concept)

balance isn't very important for me, especially since we're usually value-betting against the fish (who really doesn't care how balanced we are)

Andrew

hello, why do we 3bet with such a rag oop?
a reg will often call IP so we have to 3bet depolarized (and if we polarize Axo seems a lot better than 74s, doesnt it?)

i give him this calling range JJ-88,AQo,KQo,AQs-ATs,KQs-KTs,QJs,JTs
ok he misses the flop : he has 4% set, 15% overpaire and 30% Ahigh, 41% air but our range also miss flop so it's easy for him to raise bluff, doestn it?

you say he will flaot with Ax and small PP but he has more Ax than PP so bet turn on A seems really bad, (you say PP will fold to a bet on a A turn). While playing vs his calling range preflop and flop shouldn('t we bet turn everytinh but aces ?

it's allways a difficult spot for me because my range looks like his calling range so its hard to play
same idea for AJ5r, ok he hits harder than before :
4% set, 3%2 pair, 22% top pair and only 27% weak pair and 30% air but we also hit ery good this flop, so our fold equity increases doesnt it? (he will fold all his air and weak pairs that are 60% and if we CB we only need 33% fold

Clearly we thought that he was going to fold preflop often.

Andrew

Clearly we thought that he was going to fold preflop often.

Andrew

thanks, so why 74s better than Axo (if it s out of the thread tell me), im really not used to 3bet this hand, specially oop

thanks, so why 74s better than Axo (if it s out of the thread tell me), im really not used to 3bet this hand, specially oop

It isn't necessarily. We are 3 betting because we expect villain to fold a ton. Ax is better than 74s, in the sense that it has blockers to hands villain will continue with, but 74s may be better in the sense that we don't have to worry as much about domination postflop.

Time Link to 00:31:51

Love this. Awesome format for a series. May even be better than the "argument" series. Really looking forward to the other episodes!

I have a question about round 5. Is the river a card you expect him to barrel a lot of his air on?

Otherwise I don't see how we can draw a lot of conclusions from this only check-fold. Isn't that kinda similar to say seeing an opponent 3betting a premium hand once and drawing the conclusion that he seldom 3bet-bluffs? Wouldn't you need a lot more hands before you can draw meaningful conclusions about his frequencies in a spot if he doesn't do something out of the ordinary?

Love this. Awesome format for a series. May even be better than the "argument" series. Really looking forward to the other episodes!

I have a question about round 5. Is the river a card you expect him to barrel a lot of his air on?

Otherwise I don't see how we can draw a lot of conclusions from this only check-fold. Isn't that kinda similar to say seeing an opponent 3betting a premium hand once and drawing the conclusion that he seldom 3bet-bluffs? Wouldn't you need a lot more hands before you can draw meaningful conclusions about his frequencies in a spot if he doesn't do something out of the ordinary?

I suppose a more accurate description of the situation is that he didn't bluff the river with a static board (i.e. the board didn't get scarier). This is useful nonetheless (though obviously it might be more surprising if he DID bluff the river on a static board, or if he DIDN'T bluff the river on a dynamic board).

Hopefully that makes sense,

Andrew

There are 2 great things I like about this video / series.

First, presenting concepts with questions forces me to think and avoid waching the video passively. Only that is great for the learning experience! I feel I am working when listening the video!

Also, the situations provided helps a lot making adjustements in different situations. Situations identified in the video makes us think not only about a few specific situations, but how to make plans vs specific type of vilains.

New Baluga video, time to re-sub for DC!

Time Link to 00:24:14

If he's 3betting with bluffs he's probably doing so polarized which means villain is likely to either call or not and our smaller sizing isn't insanely likely to affect his fold frequency? Am I reaching too much here?

Time Link to 00:32:10

Another question:


Should we also include floating turn wide with our bluffs?

It isn't necessarily. We are 3 betting because we expect villain to fold a ton. Ax is better than 74s, in the sense that it has blockers to hands villain will continue with, but 74s may be better in the sense that we don't have to worry as much about domination postflop.

semi-grunch

TBH, I'm not 100% sure that we should be insanely worried about domination if we just give up with all non 2pair+hands which is what I imagine we're doign with 74, to an extent. When polarizing I definitely think blockers are the first priority in establishing our air range. Finally, hands like Ax allow us to have blockers to his 5bet call range as well which will help us to establish a 5bet bluff range.


I'm blowing up this thread but this video and the concept in general are both awesome! Thanks guys!!

He Jedi mind tricked me into choosing a wrong answer on the question where the choices included a check/raise or a donk bet. My first thought was that c/r was far superior.

Haha I thought it seemed like you got leveled into that answer!

Just watched the first episode. It was very good, but I will leave some feedback in the second episode.

Excellent video, I think everyone who views your videos Andrew learns something new. So much knowledge and clearly presented. Thanks.

semi-grunch

TBH, I'm not 100% sure that we should be insanely worried about domination if we just give up with all non 2pair+hands which is what I imagine we're doign with 74, to an extent. When polarizing I definitely think blockers are the first priority in establishing our air range. Finally, hands like Ax allow us to have blockers to his 5bet call range as well which will help us to establish a 5bet bluff range.

one merit for 74s is that it gives us more equity to barrel in many spots...

Time Link to 00:25:53

Isn't it dangerous to be making all your value bets 18 and all your bluffs 20? If he's observant, you'll be turning your hand face up. You said if he adjusts we can readjust, but it seems like a lot of extra balls to keep in the air, which you better not drop, just to eke out a little extra value.

Isn't it dangerous to be making all your value bets 18 and all your bluffs 20? If he's observant, you'll be turning your hand face up. You said if he adjusts we can readjust, but it seems like a lot of extra balls to keep in the air, which you better not drop, just to eke out a little extra value.

not just to eke out a little extra value, but also to cause your opponent to play in ways he's not comfortable with (oh no, he made it big this time, bluffing?? value betting? arghhh= much tougher than "he made it the same as usual")

Andrew

In example one if the blinds are both fishes, lets say 75 -100 bb, can we still isolate with 96s from Bu? and I also want to know if the blinds are 25 - 50 bb fishes what would change and if there were several limpers can we isolate with suited connectors or can we just limp in?

Time Link to 00:18:41

are we playing the same way with AKx in this spot?

or is that one of those hands where we can call OOP to enduce the fish, but we dont mind calling the tight reg with that OOP anyways, as AKx plays ok post flop.

Time Link to 00:22:43

Doesn't that make him unbalanced if he's 3-betting different sizes for bluffs and for value? If he 3-bets to 9bb as a bluff and 11bb for value, won't some players be able to pick up on that and exploit it?

Doesn't that make him unbalanced if he's 3-betting different sizes for bluffs and for value? If he 3-bets to 9bb as a bluff and 11bb for value, won't some players be able to pick up on that and exploit it?

and then wouldn't that make him able to change his strategy and exploit the exploiters? and then couldn't they change and exploit the exploiters-exploiter?