It seems like being able to capitalize on the (possible) mistakes of players featured in this video takes a bit more than 20 hands. The villain can get away with spewing on the big streets if the cards co-operate just a bit.

DD rocks... I have learned so much from this series.

Any chance of making more than 8 episodes? :P I know I'm greedy

Hi Mickey,

1) a and c I agree with and are a good example of poker theory at work. At the highest level there are sort of two varieties of good player (though obviously they all have unique tendencies), 1 likes to bloat the pot early and then try to get his opponent to make a folding mistake, the other plays a bit more straightforwardly early in the hand and then tries to get a lot of bets from an over aggressive opponent (I guess you could call this a trappy style). I fall into the second category but there are very tough players who play more the first way (and probably have higher variance).

1) b. is possibly correct in theory, but I think the problem with it is many people are completely incapable of winning their share of pots when they limp in. I think this has to do with what Tommy Angelo calls our "bread and butter" situations - basically where we were the last aggressor on the previous street and our opponent checks to us. We are extremely comfortable when this happens because it's happened so many times before to us. Changing that momentum preflop is usually disastrous because we just aren't used to that style, the ramifications of the smaller pot, etc. Additionally, from a theory point of view, if you are often playing bigger pots out of position than in position, you are going to have a tough time, and the limpy strategy does exactly that.

AJ hand: Well with the bloated pot due to preflop I felt like I protection was more important than normal, also I just felt strongly that my hand was good so I wasn't overly worried about a CR I guess (I know that's sort of a cop out answer, sorry about that).

46:17 bluff hand: thanks, I was pretty proud of that one. One thing about making the videos that isn't really something we can solve is I feel I lose a bit of my instinctual ability when doing the commentary, probably because I "logically" talk myself out of things that my subconscious would have me correctly do. When I am playing fast on my own I often make plays that have no real "logic" other than my batting average is pretty good. While I'm disappointed I can't totally convey these things in my videos, I just chalk it up to the value of experience and something people will learn on their own after a lot of hands.

I'm really not clear on your question about bad turn and river cards. Good players strike a balance between not missing value bets for fear of scare cards, and recognizing when a particular card changes everything about the hand. For a great demonstration of this (hehe sneak preview) my episode 8 has a lot of situations with board-changing cards and how I adjust to them mid-hand. For example within 15 min or so of each other I call down with king high on a scary board and fold top pair on a not-nearly-as-scary board. Check it out Wednesday :)

-DeathDonkey

The last comment from mickeywins is very interesting. Do you really think that HU is the best place to start learning poker? I never heard that kind of comment from anyone, so I assume it's false, but who knows...?

Hey muscle,

I think you are probably right in retrospect, at the time I was thinking he was probably bluffing very often and would have a hand that couldn't call a raise, or the fives, so yeah I probably should have raised. Certainly there was some chance he had a nine with a better kicker but its not that likely that he'd check the turn of course. Re-reading the hand after this much time since I played it I agree it was a mistake.

-DeathDonkey

Great video as usual. At around 9:00 you have 97 on a AA9 board after villain limped in, u check call, check turn trying to induce more bluffs, he checks behind and on the river it's AA965. you check again, he bets and you elect to call. I think check raise, folding to a 3 bet could be a good play here, since you're ahead sooo often. (he limped in preflop so he's got the A close to 0%)