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

Thanks man, I was looking for some elite 6max good ol video to start the day. Been breaking even for 30k hands I need inspiration.

How many tables do you usually play?

Thanks man, I was looking for some elite 6max good ol video to start the day. Been breaking even for 30k hands I need inspiration.

How many tables do you usually play?

Sometimes I'd like to mass table a bit, but usually I play 4-6 tables. Hope you enjoyed the video!

Poker always seems so easy when you're playing, Hielko

@12.30. Can you explain in more depth why you 5bet jam K7s vs this player? I think 3bet was standard fwiw.

Your only reason seemed to be because it was his first 4bet vs you....i dont think this is reason enough to justify the jam. Could you give more reasons?

Had you decided when you 3bet that you were going to 5bet jam? As it didnt seem like you had...To me, seemed like spew at nl200.

Time Link to 00:07:19

Pretty amazed, that you didn´t instafold to the riverbet ...

Pretty amazed, that you didn´t instafold to the riverbet ...

Agreed, 1/2 pot into 2 players. Im folding.

But i think he called because it was on a video???

@12.30. Can you explain in more depth why you 5bet jam K7s vs this player? I think 3bet was standard fwiw.

Your only reason seemed to be because it was his first 4bet vs you....i dont think this is reason enough to justify the jam. Could you give more reasons?

Had you decided when you 3bet that you were going to 5bet jam? As it didnt seem like you had...

No didn't really decide this in advance. But he looked like a regular, so he probably opens fairly wide on the CO so it's pretty hard for him to have a premium especially since I have a king. And it is fairly common that people 4bet-bluff in this spot.

Some semi-random numbers; If we for example would assume that 50% of players are tempted to 4bet bluff here, and 50% would stay in line (and that tt+/AK+ is 10% of their initial open raise range), the fact that we see a 4bet here would imply that there is actually a 83% procent probability that this is 4bet bluff (50/(50+10)=0,83)

So yeah, long way of saying; I did this because it was his first 4bet after just playing a few hands.

Pretty amazed, that you didn´t instafold to the riverbet ...

Hmm yeah, maybe I'm a bit too paranoid against fish sometimes. The flushdraw hitting is obviously not good, on the other hand I don't think his line so far is strong at all and especially overcalling 3way on the flop he can have every missed straight draw or just overcards. And getting a reasonable price of course.

Poker always seems so easy when you're playing, Hielko

Thanks. Planning hands and taking lines that don't put you in hard spots for no good reason at all is imo part of solid poker

No didn't really decide this in advance. But he looked like a regular, so he probably opens fairly wide on the CO so it's pretty hard for him to have a premium especially since I have a king. And it is fairly common that people 4bet-bluff in this spot.

Some semi-random numbers; If we for example would assume that 50% of players are tempted to 4bet bluff here, and 50% would stay in line (and that tt+/AK+ is 10% of their initial open raise range), the fact that we see a 4bet here would imply that there is actually a 83% procent probability that this is 4bet bluff (50/(50+10)=0,83)

So yeah, long way of saying; I did this because it was his first 4bet after just playing a few hands.

imo, i dont think this is a great answer/advice for people watching the video. People try to replicate what coaches do in videos, so you said you jammed as you had a suited blocker coupled with him being a regular who, under your presumption, opens a wide range from co and will be more likely to 4bet bluff us = we should 5bet bluff first time he does this ....you think this is good advice?
Without checking the video again, i remember him being unknown. So your advice to those watching is...jbluff 5bet jam vs apparent regulars who open co, because they will4bet bluff the first time a high enough % to make it profitable???

What i am trying to say, even though some basic math backs this up, i think we need reads to 5bet jam K7s vs a co open.

Lets go one step further....what if he is 4bet/calling 88+/AJ+ because he knows your screen name and knows you play higher and are more likely to 5bet bluff. What if he knows you are making a video and wants to get into spots to talk about? These assumptions can be compared to yours. You have no reads to say he is going to 4bet bluff, therefore you have no reads that he will 4bet/call a wider range vs you specifically.

What i am trying to say is...i think jamming here with your reasons is not good advice.

NOTE : Edited first para.

Thanks. Planning hands and taking lines that don't put you in hard spots for no good reason at all is imo part of solid poker

Not intending to belittle the video in any form, but hey, you were running pretty much in god mode, huh?

Not intending to belittle the video in any form, but hey, you were running pretty much in god mode, huh?

If I would be running like god I would have called that fish with 99 and be good No, just kididng; of course running pretty hot this vid.

imo, i dont think this is a great answer/advice for people watching the video. People try to replicate what coaches do in videos, so you said you jammed as you had a suited blocker coupled with him being a regular who, under your presumption, opens a wide range from co and will be more likely to 4bet bluff us = we should 5bet bluff first time he does this ....you think this is good advice?
Without checking the video again, i remember him being unknown. So your advice to those watching is...jbluff 5bet jam vs apparent regulars who open co, because they will4bet bluff the first time a high enough % to make it profitable???

I would not advice people to randomly replicate stuff they see in a video. People might be more tempted to 4bet bluff me the first time I 3bet because they think they have a read on me because I make vids on DC. And maybe things change after this vid.

What i am trying to say, even though some basic math backs this up, i think we need reads to 5bet jam K7s vs a co open.

Yes, I would recommend jamming here with K7s without reads. You can't wait for reads here, it would be a way different spot.

Lets go one step further....what if he is 4bet/calling 88+/AJ+ because he knows your screen name and knows you play higher and are more likely to 5bet bluff. What if he knows you are making a video and wants to get into spots to talk about? These assumptions can be compared to yours. You have no reads to say he is going to 4bet bluff, therefore you have no reads that he will 4bet/call a wider range vs you specifically.

You're really giving the average 200NL reg too much credit. He's probably thinking oh I know that name, he's an aggro regular, he could very easily be 3bet-bluffing here, I'll just try to rebluff him. Don't think he's going to make those adjustments the first hand.

I would not advice people to randomly replicate stuff they see in a video.

Of course. But people do things without understanding WHY they are doing it, with their justification being they saw it in a video and it worked.

Nice video, you're explanations are really good

What is the origin of the term god mode?

@Snarble5: First person shooters I think .

@Buby2132: It's not his job to make money for people that replicate w/o thought & understanding the players at their limits. Really, the only reason he needs to back up his move is "I know how often he has to fold, and I think he folds at least that often." It's not exactly complicated, especially when regulars that high will probably open alot of Ax/Kx in the CO and will use them for a 4bet bluff range.

Of course. But people do things without understanding WHY they are doing it, with their justification being they saw it in a video and it worked.

This is always going to be true, people mis-apply advice and information all the time, in all aspects of life.

@Buby2132: It's not his job to make money for people that replicate w/o thought & understanding the players at their limits. Really, the only reason he needs to back up his move is "I know how often he has to fold, and I think he folds at least that often." It's not exactly complicated, especially when regulars that high will probably open alot of Ax/Kx in the CO and will use them for a 4bet bluff range.

Its not hard to understand that people should not replicate exactly what is done on a video, but they do. Exactly like Joe said in the post above. People mis-apply things. And i think in this video, without it being highlighted, players who dont think for themselves may mis-apply it.

Secondly, your whole argument for 'i know how often he needs to fold' does make sense on level 1. But we dont know and cannot calculate our FE or anything else. We can calculate simply we have around 25% vs a standard calling range (TT+, AQo+). What is he is a fish? And calls with K5o??? We can have the best hand.
We have 3 hands on this player who bought in full...thats it. I see fish buying in full all the time. We can do rough mathematical calcs to see what we roughly have, but cannot do anything more. As we dont know him.

Im an unknown, can you tell me exactly how often i am going to 4bet bluff you or anyone else for that matter??? You dont know my tendancies, or my perception of other unknowns. You cannot calculate exactly how often i am going to fold without having reads and a bit of insight into my game.

lol. I ramble a lot.

Im an unknown, can you tell me exactly how often i am going to 4bet bluff you or anyone else for that matter??? You dont know my tendancies, or my perception of other unknowns. You cannot calculate exactly how often i am going to fold without having reads and a bit of insight into my game.

The good thing about being in that spot is that you would also have no reads against the person shoving. This alone is a good amount of fold equity.

Not being able to calculate the FE accurately does not make it a bad play. I actually think this is part of the line between small winners and big winners, at any stakes but especially midstakes+, in that the better players are almost always making very good decisions based on feel and assumption. That does not make them a "feel player", because they're doing the maths where applicable also.

Incidentally, this isn't an attack on you Buby2132, but I wanted to use your quote to springboard into the topic.

The good thing about being in that spot is that you would also have no reads against the person shoving. This alone is a good amount of fold equity.

Not being able to calculate the FE accurately does not make it a bad play. I actually think this is part of the line between small winners and big winners, at any stakes but especially midstakes+, in that the better players are almost always making very good decisions based on feel and assumption. That does not make them a "feel player", because they're doing the maths where applicable also.

Incidentally, this isn't an attack on you Buby2132, but I wanted to use your quote to springboard into the topic.

Im not suggesting that we should never 5bet bluff shove in poker and that assumptions should always be backed up with reads, just incase people think im being that dumb. Hielko is an established winning player who knows what he is doing. (Or is on god mode constantly. hehe). I am bringing this up as so many players will watch this and go...oh, he 3bet/5bet shoved that because he was unknown and assumed the guy was bluffing...maybe i should try that. I could link MANY threads over the past few weeks where ppl have said they have tried something because they saw it in a video once (namely Apex Predator) and didnt understand the concept properly which led to them spewing.

I felt the explanation was a bit too dry and didnt really cover why he did it. After all, it is going to be a high variance play, hence why i am bringing this up.

Doing something because they understand the concept will mark the line between small winners and big winners.

Buby; sure, there are a lot of unknowns here, but that's poker. Everything about this player screams that he is a regular. Not only the full buy in or the lack of a low Stars VIP-status, but also his 4bet sizing is exactly what you expect from an aggressive regular. His 4bet sizing alone is already reason enough to be almost certain that he's a reg (I didn't even feel the need to check for example how many tables he was playing).

And yes, it's a few hands but we do have some useful clues that it's a 4bet bluff here (the fact that he didn't fold really provides information - it's called Bayesian inference in statistics). So why should our default action be a fold? Sure we can be totally wrong, but all the arguments you offer can also used against folding. It could easily be an equally big mistake.

But I totally agree with you on copying stuff from a video, randomly shoving K7s against 4bets is probably going to end bad. Thanks for the feedback, and certainly agree that my explanation while playing was brief at best.

Nice video, you're explanations are really good

Good to hear

Time Link to 00:15:04

Can you please explain your reasoning for wanting to checkraise the turn here, and your decision to bet the river?

nice, thx hielko!

Ok so since 5-bet bluffing AI with K7s is standard there, do we do it with our whole 3-betting range?
Or is the K blocker the key here?

Can you please explain your reasoning for wanting to checkraise the turn here, and your decision to bet the river?

Turn; basically I can rep a lot by check/raising, I do have some equity, and villain basically has never better than turned TP or flushdraw. Goal of the riverbet is to get him to fold small PP's, think that's a big part of his range that's better than A-high.

Ok so since 5-bet bluffing AI with K7s is standard there, do we do it with our whole 3-betting range?
Or is the K blocker the key here?

In this specific spot I might also be tempted to shove stuff with less blocker value, but would certainly not shove random crap. Being suited and having a high card is pretty good for our equity when called.

Time Link to 00:07:44

Hey Hielko,could you explain why you think calling in this spot is,as you said not terrible?I mean how much of his range can you really beat?i actually felt a small amount of pain when you made the call

Time Link to 00:01:06

you dont like the nova tables?

Time Link to 00:29:13

Don't you think it's good spot to 3bet this raise of a fish and bloat a pot IP with a hand that makes TPGK often?

Time Link to 00:04:44

Haha funny you say that. My friend plays highstakes up to Sek 10k deep (some $15/30+). He got some cash on Stars from buying a piece of someone yesterday and because of limit restriction put $800 on 2/4 deep, just one table with like 5 other on his regular site. He was a bronze star, 1 tabler, search feature on, and has hyper aggro style with stuff like calling 5bets oop etc. Within 20 minutes there was a 12 strong wait list with just one other 2/4 deep table running lol and others wit people sat out.

You gotta love the MSNL bum hunter regs, he left 3 hours later with 3k stack and completely ran them over.

And I just read the fun discussion about the K7s hand love it A+!

a lot of people will do it even when it is immediately roughly break even play, because they make money off of it no matter what happens. Villain folds - free money, they won't get 4bet so much. Villain snaps with QQ+AK? Voilla retarded image IP. I wish I would not lose more in EV by tilting myself more than I gain in meta game

Time Link to 00:24:26

lol you really like getting it in. I've been watching some people that play deep and 100bb at higher limits feels like short stacking where it revolves around ending the hand pf a ton these days. I really hope the NLHE scene will start leaning towards deep poker

lol you really like getting it in. I've been watching some people that play deep and 100bb at higher limits feels like short stacking where it revolves around ending the hand pf a ton these days. I really hope the NLHE scene will start leaning towards deep poker

Fairly standard to get QQ in pre.

Hey Hielko,could you explain why you think calling in this spot is,as you said not terrible?I mean how much of his range can you really beat?i actually felt a small amount of pain when you made the call

See my previous reply to Tackleberry

Don't you think it's good spot to 3bet this raise of a fish and bloat a pot IP with a hand that makes TPGK often?

Agree with you, a 3bet here would be good.

lol you really like getting it in. I've been watching some people that play deep and 100bb at higher limits feels like short stacking where it revolves around ending the hand pf a ton these days. I really hope the NLHE scene will start leaning towards deep poker

It is, altough i doubt that more than 100bb will really become standard. But at least most sites now offer deep tables, and a lot of sites now have min buyins at 35~40bb for standard tables.

Fairly standard to get QQ in pre.

55. And it still is when you 3bet, that's how 100bb poker is these days

One more question about K7s if you don't mind Let's assume on the next orbit the same exact hand happens to take place. He raises, same position, same hand.

Do you fold now, 3-bet-fold, or 3 bet-shove?

Time Link to 00:10:01

Great Vid Mr. Hielko

@this JT-hand.
Imo it is even a good spot to also throw in a 3rdBarell-Bluff on a blankriver (should Villain have C/Called), just b/c your valuerange is sooo much bigger than his (you have AA, AK in your range, he mostly not; you have more KQ-combos, you have T7-and 75-combos in your range and still the sets and much more 2pairs in your range).

One more question about K7s if you don't mind Let's assume on the next orbit the same exact hand happens to take place. He raises, same position, same hand.

Do you fold now, 3-bet-fold, or 3 bet-shove?

Would probably go for just a fold or a 3bet/fold, thinking that a 200NL reg is not going crazy and try two 4bet bluffs in a row when the first one failed, and he's more likely to 4bet for thin value.

Great Vid Mr. Hielko

@this JT-hand.
Imo it is even a good spot to also throw in a 3rdBarell-Bluff on a blankriver (should Villain have C/Called), just b/c your valuerange is sooo much bigger than his (you have AA, AK in your range, he mostly not; you have more KQ-combos, you have T7-and 75-combos in your range and still the sets and much more 2pairs in your range).

Villain here is a fish, so deep considerations on how our range should be perceived isn't really relevant. If the river is a blank and the flush misses I doubt that it's a good bluff here.

Villain here is a fish, so deep considerations on how our range should be perceived isn't really relevant. If the river is a blank and the flush misses I doubt that it's a good bluff here.

Ooops, missed obv. that Villain was a fish.
Thought he was a REG^^

Would probably go for just a fold or a 3bet/fold, thinking that a 200NL reg is not going crazy and try two 4bet bluffs in a row when the first one failed, and he's more likely to 4bet for thin value.

So he should adjust by never 4-bet bluffing for the first time but doing it for value, and maybe 4-bet bluffing later? That would pretty much destroy your ranges both ways.

I mean I play NL20 and my range doesn't really depend too much whether it's the first time or not.. Same guys play the game for thousands of hands per day, so I don't really expect them to have too many "first times" vs me. Some don't even notice me.

No didn't really decide this in advance. But he looked like a regular, so he probably opens fairly wide on the CO so it's pretty hard for him to have a premium especially since I have a king. And it is fairly common that people 4bet-bluff in this spot.

Some semi-random numbers; If we for example would assume that 50% of players are tempted to 4bet bluff here, and 50% would stay in line (and that tt+/AK+ is 10% of their initial open raise range), the fact that we see a 4bet here would imply that there is actually a 83% procent probability that this is 4bet bluff (50/(50+10)=0,83)

So yeah, long way of saying; I did this because it was his first 4bet after just playing a few hands.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't understand your little calculation at all. I think I don't even understand your assumptions.
What if TT+/AK was 100% of their range? Using you formula, this would mean that there was a 33% chance it's a bluff.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't understand your little calculation at all. I think I don't even understand your assumptions.
What if TT+/AK was 100% of their range? Using you formula, this would mean that there was a 33% chance it's a bluff.

The wikipedia page on Bayesian interference explains it better than I can do; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference

You basically have to make some assumptions on how the population of players looks like, and how big these populations are percentage wise of the whole player pool. And then based on what you observe you can calculate the probability of the player being in different groups. And if the groups are sufficiently distict (for example; bluffing all the time vs having the nuts all the time) just one observation gives a lot of information.

Thanks for your response, but in your original post you wrote: "the fact that we see a 4bet here would imply that there is actually a 83% procent probability that this is 4bet bluff (50/(50+10)=0,83)"

Bayesian inference can be used to guess which group of players villain belongs to after we have caught him bluffing, but it doesn't tell us anything about how likely it is he is bluffing. So frankly, I still don't understand how you get 83%.

I mean, it's not terribly important. I just didn't understand your calculation and I get really curious when I don't understand something, so I thought I'd ask

No you don't need to catch him bluffing first, otherwise it would obviously not be of much use here.

Example assumptions that I will make (slightly different from earlier example):

1. 50% of all players will 4bet bluff 100% against the first 3bet
2. 50% of all players will never 4bet bluff against the first 3bet

At first sight you might think that when we are faced with a 4bet from an unknown in this scenario it's basically 50/50 if we are facing a player that has a value only range, or a bluff heavy range.

But that is not the case. If we would play ten hands in this scenario and play 5 against both player types. The bluffer would 4bet us 5 times, but the value guy is on average going to have just one value hand. So actually we will get 4bet 6 out of 10 times, and 5 out of the 6 times it's going to be a bluff (or maybe I should say 4 out of 6 times since the bluffer has 1 out of 5 times a value hand as well).

So instead of it being 50/50 that it's a bluff, it's 66/33 in this case. Hope this explains is.

My bad, you are right. It can also be used to calculate how likely he is to be bluffing.

That said, I still don't understand how you got the result in your original post
If we assume that 50% of players only 4bet the top 10% of hands to call it off and the other 50% of players 4bet every single time and call a shove with 10% of hands, then I get the following result.
Once we get 4bet, the probability that villain is the type of player who bluffs is 0.5/(0.5+0.1*0.5)=50/55. Therefore there's a 0.9*50/55= 82% chance he's bluffing. This is close to what you got, but less confusing to me


More importantly though, I'm not convinced this is really the best way to go about it. If all I know about villain is that he's a reg, I just assume his bluffing frequency is that of an average reg. It's hard to know how villain responds to the first 4bet, but I'm not sure if we gain anything by dividing the player pool into groups of regs who bluff at different frequencies and using stochastics.
If I had to guess, I would say shoving K7s is slightly profitable, but I don't expect to take it down 80% of the time.
Thanks

Time Link to 00:22:02

So whats ur reasoning for 4beting with 10s? Isnt it much better to 4B Jam to get him to fold his equity jamming hands. I mean if he folds KQ,AQ etc. when we Jam but ships X percent when we 4B small isnt it better to ship? Just curious Thanks!

So whats ur reasoning for 4beting with 10s? Isnt it much better to 4B Jam to get him to fold his equity jamming hands. I mean if he folds KQ,AQ etc. when we Jam but ships X percent when we 4B small isnt it better to ship? Just curious Thanks!

No that would be terrible. He can 5bet bluff hands that we have totally dominated (small PP's, Axs) and it would also hurt our 4bet/bluffing range if we remove part of our value range from it.

Time Link to 00:33:45

Isn't it +ev to call with 98s here? You are deeper a bit. Is it a fold normally vs a tight UTG opener?

Time Link to 00:15:30

I see that you are CBetting quite big overall, on dry boards too like the A88 board on table 4 (also when you hit trips on Q55 at the beginning of the video).

I usually bet small on these boards whether it is for value or as a bluff.

Can you explain your logic behind it?
Is it to look bluffy or just to get max value from Ax type of hands? The idea behind a smallish bet (50-60% pot) is that they will peel once or twice with any pair on such a board.

Time Link to 00:25:59

Here again you are talking about bet sizing.
This time you bet smaller on an dry board saying that if he folds he folds to any bet sizing which I agree.

And to come back to my previous post I would bet all these dry boards like this as bluff and for value. However I would also do this vs a reg whereas you are saying that you would bet 10 into 12 if villain was a reg.
Really like to know what's your thinking on this!

Isn't it +ev to call with 98s here? You are deeper a bit. Is it a fold normally vs a tight UTG opener?

I don't like to call here because we will be oop or get squeezed a lot with two players behind us. And even when that doesn't happen it's pretty marginal against the average UTG range.

Here again you are talking about bet sizing.
This time you bet smaller on an dry board saying that if he folds he folds to any bet sizing which I agree.

And to come back to my previous post I would bet all these dry boards like this as bluff and for value. However I would also do this vs a reg whereas you are saying that you would bet 10 into 12 if villain was a reg.
Really like to know what's your thinking on this!

I basically only try cheap bluffs against fush/unkown players on dry boards. Against regulars this makes it easier for them to to play back against your cbets, and since you are bluffing so often on dry boards you are not really losing value if you bet bigger.

I basically only try cheap bluffs against fush/unkown players on dry boards. Against regulars this makes it easier for them to to play back against your cbets, and since you are bluffing so often on dry boards you are not really losing value if you bet bigger.

Interesting. Don't you think regs will catch up with this and play back at you with the same frequency than if you were to bet smaller? In which case that becomes more expensive since, as you said, our range is weighted towards bluff on Q55 or A88 boards?

Would you do this on higher limits too? i.e do you think that regs up to NL200 won't notice and won't play back at us when we bet big?

EDIT: Would you bet big regardless of being IP or OOP vs a reg?

No that would be terrible. He can 5bet bluff hands that we have totally dominated (small PP's, Axs) and it would also hurt our 4bet/bluffing range if we remove part of our value range from it.

I understand that but we can still have a 4B bluffing range we balance our jamming range with AQ,AK sometimes. So we are shipping 7s-Js since AQ is close to a flip vs those hands also KQ. And we 4B small with our complete bluffs which is balanced with AA, KK,QQ, also AKx percentage of the time.
So we are fully balanced in that department. As for your comment about him folding sml pps when we ship lol that rarely happens. TBH if you have a laggy image as u do probably never happens 100bb deep tbh. Atleast for me it seems, cause guys keep callign there baby pps putting me on bluffs, AK . Ive even had guys call with QKo putting myself on those small pps i was talking about earlier... And yes they will also call with Axs a percentage of the time if they think you have alot of bluffs in your range. I duno maybe its spew but I FEEL like i get guys to spew with this stradegy wayy more often than I am spewing... let me know what you think.

Interesting. Don't you think regs will catch up with this and play back at you with the same frequency than if you were to bet smaller? In which case that becomes more expensive since, as you said, our range is weighted towards bluff on Q55 or A88 boards?

The bigger we bet, the worse odds they get on plays like floating. When we bet bigger we can simply bluff more often from a fundamental mathematical perspective.

Would you do this on higher limits too? i.e do you think that regs up to NL200 won't notice and won't play back at us when we bet big?

EDIT: Would you bet big regardless of being IP or OOP vs a reg?

Yes and yes.

I understand that but we can still have a 4B bluffing range we balance our jamming range with AQ,AK sometimes. So we are shipping 7s-Js since AQ is close to a flip vs those hands also KQ. And we 4B small with our complete bluffs which is balanced with AA, KK,QQ, also AKx percentage of the time.
So we are fully balanced in that department. As for your comment about him folding sml pps when we ship lol that rarely happens. TBH if you have a laggy image as u do probably never happens 100bb deep tbh. Atleast for me it seems, cause guys keep callign there baby pps putting me on bluffs, AK . Ive even had guys call with QKo putting myself on those small pps i was talking about earlier... And yes they will also call with Axs a percentage of the time if they think you have alot of bluffs in your range. I duno maybe its spew but I FEEL like i get guys to spew with this stradegy wayy more often than I am spewing... let me know what you think.

No, I totally disagree and I'm sure it's not an optimal strategy. You are simply way more likely to get action from worse if you 4bet small. Sure, sometimes people do stupid shit like calling with small pp's, but that would be a terrible play that you shouldn't see very often from good players. 5bet shoving small pp's on the other hand is totally fine if you are an aggressive 4better, so you should see it way more often. You are simply killing the value of TT by shoving.

you seem to have a good read on that TimStone guy hehe...

very good videos from you sir, u def. know wat u r doing...

The bigger we bet, the worse odds they get on plays like floating. When we bet bigger we can simply bluff more often from a fundamental mathematical perspective.

This is only part of the truth. It's true from a GTO point of view if villain never tries to exploit you and always plays GTO based on his hand and your bet size. However, vs players that will try to exploit you, they will realize that your range is equally wide regardless of your bet size so they should play back at you with the same wide range regardless of how big you bet. They will also realize that by betting bigger with a weak overall range all you accomplish is stick more money into the pot with a weak range so they win more money when they play back at you -> they should play back at you more often in those spots. It's kind of like bet big to look scary which obv only works vs people who are not aware of ranges. Also, it's the same concept as to why we raise smaller on the button usually compared to UTG. We have weaker range on the button so we expect to get played back more and lose more pots when we get played back at thus raise smaller. Raising big on the button will not hide the fact that you still open a wide range so villain should not play back at you less often if they're looking at your HUD stats.

This is only part of the truth. It's true from a GTO point of view if villain never tries to exploit you and always plays GTO based on his hand and your bet size. However, vs players that will try to exploit you, they will realize that your range is equally wide regardless of your bet size so they should play back at you with the same wide range regardless of how big you bet. They will also realize that by betting bigger with a weak overall range all you accomplish is stick more money into the pot with a weak range so they win more money when they play back at you -> they should play back at you more often in those spots. It's kind of like bet big to look scary which obv only works vs people who are not aware of ranges. Also, it's the same concept as to why we raise smaller on the button usually compared to UTG. We have weaker range on the button so we expect to get played back more and lose more pots when we get played back at thus raise smaller. Raising big on the button will not hide the fact that you still open a wide range so villain should not play back at you less often if they're looking at your HUD stats.

+1
If we have a wide range (and we do), villain will play back at us regardless of our bet sizing. Hence I think it is better to bet small so that when they play back at us we lose less and when they fold we accomplish the same thing.

I like the "bet big to look scary" from Blah's post.

you seem to have a good read on that TimStone guy hehe...

very good videos from you sir, u def. know wat u r doing...

Thanks!

This is only part of the truth. It's true from a GTO point of view if villain never tries to exploit you and always plays GTO based on his hand and your bet size. However, vs players that will try to exploit you, they will realize that your range is equally wide regardless of your bet size so they should play back at you with the same wide range regardless of how big you bet.

It's indeed just part of the truth, if you are betting a range that for example fold 80% against a check/raise betting bigger is not going to help you to protect yourself against that. But usually villains range is even weaker than your range on a dry board, and the amount of check/raising that he can do is limited. And when he gets out of line with check/raising, he is going to be the one to create more dead money because he's going to check/raise bigger. And with plays like floating, if we continue bluffing and valuebetting enough on turns/rivers the amount of floating that he can do is also limited and when he calls to float just to fold the turn for example we just made more money.

[quote]But usually villains range is even weaker than your range on a dry board[/quote].
I agree with this overall.
However when villain plays back at us his range will certainly be less wide than ours.
He will fold all his crap holdings (that would fold to a small CBet) and play back with stronger range than ours.

[quote]And when he gets out of line with check/raising, he is going to be the one to create more dead money because he's going to check/raise bigger[\quote].
He is not really creating dead money since his range is stronger than ours.

So all in all you end up putting more money into a pot where your range is weaker than villain's one.

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I agree with this overall.
However when villain plays back at us his range will certainly be less wide than ours.
He will fold all his crap holdings (that would fold to a small CBet) and play back with stronger range than ours.

If villains play would be totally inelastic w.r.t. bet sizing betting smaller obviously works, but let's assume for a second that villain is check raising us with the maximum frequency that he can get away with against the small bet size and call this X. And let's assume that villain check/raises 3x our continuation bet, that we raised 3x preflop, making the pot 6,5bb, and that we will cbet small 4bb and big 5bb.

Now if villain is check/raising our 4bb cbet he will be risking 12bb to win 10,5bb, so this would need to work 53% of the time make money. If we cbet 5bb he will be risking 15bb to win 11,5bb, so this would need to work 57% of the time. If villain would be check/raising range X against the small cbet that only requires 53% fold equity he will without a doubt be making a mistake if he check/raises the same range against the bigger bet where he needs 57% fold equity.


What the optimal betsize is in NLH is an extremely difficult question, the math is just too complex (I'm already making all kinds of assumptions for a simple spot, and ignoring future streets). But I'm 100% sure that a bigger betsize reduces the maximum frequency that villain profitable can play back at you with check/raising, floating or other plays.

I'm 100% sure that a bigger betsize reduces the maximum frequency that villain profitable can play back at you with check/raising, floating or other plays.

I disagree with this. Good bet sizing comes from leverage the minimum amount while causing the villain to commit a larger portion of his stack such is the case when we 4 bet to like 25BB to make the villain commit his whole stack. When we are raising someone's bet we do not need to make it exactly 3x their raise (I have no idea who came up with this rule). The only thing we need to think about is SPR in future streets. For example in 3 bet pots no one raises to 3x the cbet size and a minraise would do just fine to be able to ship all in on the turn. The bigger your initial bet the smaller villain needs to raise with respect to your initial bet size to achieve maximum leverage thus they get a better price to play back at you -> they can do it more often.

When playing against people who can hand read, the range of hands they play back at you with will be only dependent on your perceived range and not much on your bet sizing. Imagine a player with 50% PFR and he cbets pot on every flop compare that to a player who does the same thing except he bets 2/3 pot. The range of hands we play back vs both villain will be the same (not folding much) and it's because their perceived range is equally weak not because one bet bigger we have to fold more to be GTO.

Bigger bet size allows us to bluff more in spots where villain can't get a good grasp on our perceived range and is forced to play GTO or be exploited.

blah234; how can you disagree with the math in the example above? If X is the maximum frequency with 4bb cbet, there is really no way that the maximum frequency with a 5bb cbet is equal to X. The only way when this isn't true is when X is in both cases 100% (or 0%). Besides these edge cases it's a mathematical fact. The EV of betting bigger could be lower than betting smaller (just shoving 100bb in a 6,5bb pot would not be +EV, but it would at the same time minimize the frequency that villain can continue).

About leverage; that only applies when you are able to leverage your whole stack with the smaller size, otherwise the smaller bet is also reducing leverage (that also applies for the smaller initial cbet - it's reducing leverage). If villain for example would just check/minraise instead of check/3x raise he would certainly be reducing leverage.

And SPR on future streets is also not the only thing we need to think about. The odds that we are giving villain are also relevant. Just as with the small/big cbet, if we get check/raised small we can rebluff cheaper/float cheaper and play back at the check/raise more often. And since poker hands have equity as well, what kind of odds you are getting to try to realize that equity is also relevant.

Edit: I just typed out the bigger rambling response and felt like this explains it in a simpler way.

People can have both elastic and inelastic ranges with respect to your bet size. People will not play GTO vs you like you want them to. Fish will just be clicking buttons and good regs will go by your perceived range. Vs inelastic range betting bigger as a bluff = spew. Think about a fish calling you down with any pair and you are betting pot every street as a bluff more than half the time then the fish is accidently exploiting you. As you can see in this example bigger bet does not reduce the frequency villain can play back at your profitably.

So saying 100% sure bigger bet reduces the frequency in which villain can profitably play back are you I can't agree with.

blah234; I don't know what to tell you more, but what you are saying is simply not true. If someone is playing back the same percentage against a small cbet or a big cbet they are either not playing back enough at the small cbets, or they are playing back too much against the big cbets.

People will not play GTO and fold the bottom x% of their range depending on your bet size like you want them

I certainly don't want people to play GTO, if they don't adjust they are simply making a mistake. Either in the scenario against the small bet or the scenario against the big bet.

People will not play GTO and fold the bottom x% of their range depending on your bet size like you want them to. vs someone who's calling wide range preflop and c/r all in on the flop vs any cbet, are we really going to fold the bottom x% of our range to be GTO where x is higher than if he c/r to 50BB instead?

That's not a strong example since both scenario's are effectively almost the same and hand strengths have a discrete value. If the scenario's are too similar the hand ranges will be the same. It's not like it's possible to call in scenario 1 with 30 combo's and with 30,1 combo's in scenario 2. Poker hands have discrete values. Doesn't invalidate the underlying concept.

blah234; I don't know what to tell you more, but what you are saying is simply not true. If someone is playing back the same percentage against a small cbet or a big cbet they are either not playing back enough at the small cbets, or they are playing back too much against the big cbets.

How? Assuming both ranges are same there's still a point where your perceived range is weak enough that villain will have inelastic playing back ranges which is not related to your bet size and they're not making a math mistake. In that case betting bigger is just spewing.

Also, people don't need to raise to 3x your raise size. The bigger you bet the smaller they need to raise with respect to the pot size to achieve the same leverage ie get it all in by the river. They can actually play back more if your range is weak since it doesn't matter if they give you better odds with smaller raise size most of your range is too weak even given the better odds.

blah234; I don't know what to tell you more, but what you are saying is simply not true. If someone is playing back the same percentage against a small cbet or a big cbet they are either not playing back enough at the small cbets, or they are playing back too much against the big cbets.

That would be true if villain's range was elastic.

But here Villain's range is inelastic. Since our range is weighed towards bluffs and behind villain's playing back at us range, it doesn't make sense to bet big.

How? Assuming both ranges are same there's still a point where your perceived range is weak enough that villain will have inelastic playing back ranges which is not related to your bet size and they're not making a math mistake. In that case betting bigger is just spewing.

Here you are assuming that villain will have an inelastic playing back range. My whole point is that from a GTO perspective villain is making a mistake if that is the case, his range should not be inelastic w.r.t. your bet sizing. You base your argument implicitly on its own conclusion.

And your remark about someone being able to raise smaller to achieve the same leverage is also flawed, because exactly the same concept with regards to bet sizing is also at work there. You simply assume that giving better odds doesn't matter; but it does.

If you are bluffing someone with the maximum frequency possible it's at the point where bluffing more would result in you being exploitable slash -ev (by definition). You would become exploitable by people being able to float/rebluff/bluffcatch you effectively. When you bluff smaller those options are getting cheaper because villain is getting better odds to make those plays. And because of that a part of villains range moves from being breakeven/marginal -ev towards being +ev against your range. And to fix that situation you need reduce your bluffing frequency to restore the equilibrium.

All I'm saying is villain may be inelastic playing back range which makes bigger bet = lower playing back frequency not true. Obv bet sizing matters in general because villain's range's will not always be inelastic and all the GTO stuff can't be argued since math is math. Villain is not always making a mistake by using an inelastic range again us so bigger bet = more folds or villain is making a mistake is not true. Good example is when we bet large villain may view the bet as polarized (perceived range) and may cause them to call with more bluff catchers. They're not playing GTO but they're not making a mistake either unless our range is perfectly balanced.

Good example is when we bet large villain may view the bet as polarized (perceived range) and may cause them to call with more bluff catchers. They're not playing GTO but they're not making a mistake either unless our range is perfectly balanced.

Yeah, but at least his Call has a lower EV when he calls the same % of his range against also a bigger bet as he would call against a smaller bet, if both bettingranges are the same.

Fundamentally as you know, it is true that you can add more bluffcombos into your bettingrange the bigger you are betting.
But I know where you wanna go.
But the thing is that I think a decent REG will definitely decrease his playingback_range vs. a bigger Bet and vice versa, just due to the Odds.
Every C/Raise, Float, etc. would need more FEQ (B/c the costs for any of those moves would be higher).
Also of course every Bluffctacher needs more EQ...

So imo a decent REGs will of course fold more of his range to a bigger cbet (also on dry Boards) than vs. a smaller cbet

Time Link to 00:13:12

After he 4 bets you think about shipping, later on you search him if he plays other tables and the result is no and you then 5betbluff allin. Dont you think it is a reason not to 5betship if he is not playing other tables? (therefor less likely regular therefor 4 betbluffs not as often) ?

After he 4 bets you think about shipping, later on you search him if he plays other tables and the result is no and you then 5betbluff allin. Dont you think it is a reason not to 5betship if he is not playing other tables? (therefor less likely regular therefor 4 betbluffs not as often) ?

He's hidden from search, so more likely to be a regular.