Couple of low content, quick comments:

1) You said the p-word!

2) Why do solid players like this play solid players like you? Just to see whether they can find any leaks or maybe see if you prone to tilting? Just out of fun? For challenge and improvement?

3) Do you ever check behind flops with the intention of giving up unimproved? I think it's sometimes a decent play against a player like this who is going to contest a lot of flops. So with say Q2 on a 67Tss board you're going to get check-raised so often that it's tempting to just not fire that c-bet, because you're going to have to give up later so often.

4) That is all. For now.

hey just curious how many mano a mule episodes are u gonna do?

DD...
Excellent video, the speed at which you analyze all the variables in a hand or street, absolutely and constantly amazes me.

And of course you know me..lol...I gotta ask.

I can learn from the differences between this player and the red lettered early maniac.

You seem to be able to handle this guy better and/or outplay him more easily.
Yet you respect his play more that the red letter guy.
I do notice the difference in the play between the two, if only in my limited poker mind way.

to me, this guy plays closer to the center or "more normal" most of the time, and attempts to adjust in small portions to what he sees or reads you to be doing.
the red letter guy, has big swings in his game, either crazy or passive with not much inbetween or "normal play" involved.

I guess what I am saying is, this guy's style fits your play more than the early maniac.
you are a boxer(DonkeyDeath ali), this guy boxes,,,,you destroy boxers.
the red lettered guy is a puncher. he throws bombs, granted not many connect.
I still think you under-estimate that red letter guy.

I know I am wrong here, can you tell me how, please?

btw, when I get some time, I gonna try more HU, I seem to do better the less players at the table.

DD, you have a beautiful mind.

Hero defends 94o and board is KQ8. Hero c/f but then u say that this is a good board to attack, but feel opp has some momentum. That I understand as u sometimes CR here, correct? Could you discuss some why this particular board texture is good to atack? And perhaps give some examples of other good boards to attack.

Sorry to intervene with perhaps a simplistic comment, but I think the main thing with this flop in particular is that there are potentially a large chunk of hands that can't even call the flop check-raise. There's such a dramatic difference in having the villain fold right away to a flop check-raise and here there's enough such hands that just cannot continue. Hands with no hearts and undercards to those KQ cards might very well give up right away. And even hands like A2-7 might also give up right away. With hand like 94o you're somewhat dead if the villain calls your check-raise because you can't trust your outs anymore and the villain's range is just that much stronger.

Whereas in a flop of J96r you're almost never going to get the villain to fold right away and most aces will at least take one off and perhaps call down if the board doesn't fill up. So the value of a pure flop check-raise bluff isn't good enough.

Ace high boards are another common "attacking texture" though they are quite often contested very aggressively. If you find an opponent that's willing to fold to flop check-raises on Ace rag boards, you can pound on this pretty relentlessly. Just be sure to showdown some Aces in this spot too. :-)

DeathDonkey obviously has a tons more experience in these spots so I'm not the best to comment on the effect of the match dynamics. I do agree intuitively at least with the idea that when hero has the clear upper hand, the villain isn't going to be as optimistic with his outs in spots like this and might just fold some of those ace high hands which I think you need to get to fold in order for this to be a profitable check-raise bluff.

(And I don't know if that's a good explanation, but that's how I think about it.)

Ok let me get caught up with this thread:

jaj, awesome post about board textures, I really couldn't have said it any better than that. Regarding your initial questions:

1) I never figured out what the p-word is.
2) It's probably one of the things that's keeping him from playing higher stakes, but I don't really know. People love to talk about good game selection and employ it when they know who someone is beforehand (like I'd guess he might not play me again in the future but who knows), but once they start a match with someone they HATE quitting. This is especially true considering he was losing a bit to me, which makes no logical sense but happens to the best of us, we just love booking wins even if its the silliest measure of poker results in a lot of ways.

3) Yes I will sometimes do this against hyper aggro tough guys, but generally its just a slippery slope of playing way too weak tight vs. saving money in obviously tough spots. You are always getting such a good price to win it on the flop though - I mean take your example of Q2 on T76ss flop, but now give the BB the Q2 and me xy. You basically just argued he should checkraise that flop but I don't think its a good play, so even the most terrifying flops can often appear awful to the other guy too, flop texture is in the eye of the beholder :)

4) More comments always welcome


Mickey, hope I don't offend, but you seem to take my videos a bit results-orientedly. I mean, I won a bit off this guy and lost a bit to Ali, so it appeared that I handled this guy more easily. That's not really true, I had a more clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish vs Ali, but the cards didn't really cooperate. This guy is a much better and tougher player because he made it difficult to have a clear idea of how to beat him, I just had to try my best to play each hand as well as I could, and hand read him as well as I could, but even by the end of the hour I only had a couple ideas for ways I could exploit this guy long term, and he might even close up those gaps by adjusting, the mark of a good, tough opponent.

I somewhat agree with your boxing analogy, except that I don't destroy boxers, I am somewhat comfortable against them, but the tougher they play the more its just a sparring match and a waste of time for both to try to get a victory. I happened to be playing live poker last night with my friend and DC coach mike l. and he was watching my match vs Ali on his iPod LOL - I told him how some of our posters thought he was a very tough opponent and he said "what? I'd play this guy forever". It's just an experience thing of playing against aggressive opponents, when you haven't done it much, anyone aggro appears to be devastating, but once you no longer even raise an eyebrow to aggressiveness, you can more accurately judge how the guy is using his aggression, wildly or correctly.

I would say the guy I played this week was one of the better 8/16 players I've ever played, but again it was a short match, and maybe he would have tilted wildly another hour in, who knows. I love playing longer matches against people, I feel I out-adjust them in the chess match and they tilt before me, but certainly that guy had fewer holes than most.

-DeathDonkey

1) I never figured out what the p-word is.

I hope you didn't watch the whole thing again to find this out. ;-)

The p-word is "polarized." Not that it isn't a good word to describe situation where the range is, well, polarized, but I feel that it's such a trendy word nowadays. Nothing wrong with it, though!

i have two comments!

In 46:30 you openraise in the button Q9o, he 3bets, you peel a Kc7d2s rainbow flop, he checks and you take a free card in the turn Js, and he bets a As river and you decide to call. I really hate that river call. What worse hand do you think he may have after 3betting preflop? Q8s? T9s? T8s? 98s? Can't think of many more, and he is probably betting again that hands on the turn as a semibluff.

In 49:15 he openraises in the button, you call with 9s6h, you checkraise a Ts8s6c flop, check-call a As turn, and check-call a 2h. This time he shows a bluff (9d4s), but I don't think that line is a bluff often. When you checkraise flop+checkcall an ace turn, your hand is very often a mediocre showdownable hand, and not a draw or a bluff, because you are firing again with a draw or bluff on the turn, no? So he is probably value betting, not trying to bluff you out of a small pair.