Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by BigBadBabar (Mid Stakes)

Cool I'm looking forward to this. Will be back with annoying questions latter.

Time Link to 00:03:37

I wish I could say something about this 36 hand here but I have no idea what the best play is. I think I'd 3bet the flop and barrel off since we have some backdoor equity and no SD value on a fairly wet board but in a low stakes high rakes HU game it might be better just to keep it straightforward until we get a better read on the guy.
A flop call to try and pick up something or flop fold due to us only being happy with a turn straight 4 or draw pickety-upperting 8 may also be good but even the 8 may not be too worthwhile since we only gain a 9 as an additional out which once the board is 4 straightened may throw our implied odds out the window when we do improve on the river anyhow.
So yes..... this is my long winded way of saying I have no idea what the best play is here.

Time Link to 00:10:52

I was wondering with J3s here on the turn what do you think about implementing the dreaded FREE SHOWDOWN RAISE!
I can't see KX being a large part of a BB's flop c/r range on this flop and it should push out air and pacify low card flush draws since we could have a strong A hand or 4 here?
I'm also wondering if my month off has turned me into a complete FPS monkey for suggesting this.

Time Link to 00:36:41

I'm undecided about the raise with J9 here on the flop.
I think it's definitely worth fighting in a big pot with our backdoor draws on a board unlikely to be that good for either of our opponents and I'm not sure if you have any reads on the BTN guy but if they are both mostly passive and showdown bound I don't know if we're going to get them to fold enough as I don't see that kind of player folding say KQ here until the river no matter how many raises get put in and if they do spike a pair of their flush I don't see them ever folding in which case I'd probably just call and hope the BTN not to raise.
If the BTN is remotely decent though and could fold an non-heart pair or a hand like KQ here to our flop raise or I guess I could say if we think we have any fold equity then I think it's very good and worth getting aggressive for. What do you think?

Time Link to 00:45:09

Here I think my default play would be to bet and call down his raise but being this guy is a 41/9 which seems on the passive side and the K completes a straight draw I doubt it's particularly good to bet and call down this guy's turn c/r here (assuming we have no postflop reads of him semibluffing paired boards or floating OOP with junk backdoor hands and c/r'ing scares or something) so if we do bet it's probably a frustrating fold which is why I like your check the turn and see if he's inducable line.
Good stuff.

Time Link to 01:03:23

With your induce line here if we're confident enough that this player will bet the river with anything is there any merit to c/r'ing the river and potentially getting them to look us up with their crap-pair-turned-into-a bluff or from something like KX since this player appears to be out for your blood?

Time Link to 01:07:16

Did you realise here on the turn with A7o that we have a double gutter (both 3's and 6's for our straight) because I don't think with that draw + an A (and maybe even a 7) that may be good and a player behind us padding the pot that I'd fold here?
I guess the pot wasn't too big but I'm not sure if you noticed which is something I'm usually guilty of.

Time Link to 01:08:50

With J9o here and the read that the SB is a bit of a freak I'm with you on the call here, the pot's decently sized and every so often I see people turning weak pairs like 77 into bluffs here or catch them for no apparent reason c/r a hand like J2o or ATo and then with the bust flush draws out there he could also be air c/r bluffing them.

Time Link to 01:12:03

With K2 here i'll sometimes take a c/c turn c/f riv line vs an unknown.
I will take a c/c c/c line with hands like K8/KJ, depending on rivers.
With hands like 89 and 96 i'd usually 3 barrel.
Hands like 45, J6 etc I'd just c/f turn.
This is specifically until I get any reads on the opponent but it could all be a pile of WTF and I may be taking the wrong lines with the wrong type of hands. Any thoughts?

I wish I could say something about this 36 hand here but I have no idea what the best play is. I think I'd 3bet the flop and barrel off since we have some backdoor equity and no SD value on a fairly wet board but in a low stakes high rakes HU game it might be better just to keep it straightforward until we get a better read on the guy.
A flop call to try and pick up something or flop fold due to us only being happy with a turn straight 4 or draw pickety-upperting 8 may also be good but even the 8 may not be too worthwhile since we only gain a 9 as an additional out which once the board is 4 straightened may throw our implied odds out the window when we do improve on the river anyhow.
So yes..... this is my long winded way of saying I have no idea what the best play is here.

i'm also reasonably happy with a turned 6.

i hadn't thought about b3b and barrel. on the one hand i can see where you're coming from, because we will make him fold a lot of missed draws that beat us by the river. on the other hand it seems a pretty expensive way to fight for not a big pot early on in the session. what do you think of call flop raise turn? it's even more expensive but it carries a lot more fold equity i think.

i'm not really 100% sure what to do here either. i think it's a spot, i suspect, where you can do a lot of different things based on reads, dynamic of the match, etc

I was wondering with J3s here on the turn what do you think about implementing the dreaded FREE SHOWDOWN RAISE!
I can't see KX being a large part of a BB's flop c/r range on this flop and it should push out air and pacify low card flush draws since we could have a strong A hand or 4 here?
I'm also wondering if my month off has turned me into a complete FPS monkey for suggesting this.

meh, imo we don't have a hand worth freeshowdowning. then if he 3bets me i probably call because i have a gut in a big pot and all of a sudden i'm putting way too much money into this pot. also, the potential problem is that he folds total air (which if i'm gonna put 2 bets in to bluffcatch vs. i don't really want to happen) and he might even 3bet me with a random draw that is a worse hand, since he seemed spewy.

i think i agree w/dale that folding is best. i think if i want to put 2 more bets in i should do it by calling turn and calling riv ui. i also just thought now that i could easily raise turn and then he calls with k5 or some draw or something. i might have to fire river again to make him fold, and now it's gotten super expensive.

i think summing it up it's not really clear where my hand falls vs his ranges so i'm not really sure if it's worth putting in much money. i mean from bird's eye view i do have jack high in a small pot vs a turn raise.

I'm undecided about the raise with J9 here on the flop.
I think it's definitely worth fighting in a big pot with our backdoor draws on a board unlikely to be that good for either of our opponents and I'm not sure if you have any reads on the BTN guy but if they are both mostly passive and showdown bound I don't know if we're going to get them to fold enough as I don't see that kind of player folding say KQ here until the river no matter how many raises get put in and if they do spike a pair of their flush I don't see them ever folding in which case I'd probably just call and hope the BTN not to raise.
If the BTN is remotely decent though and could fold an non-heart pair or a hand like KQ here to our flop raise or I guess I could say if we think we have any fold equity then I think it's very good and worth getting aggressive for. What do you think?

i didn't have much of a read on button, other than that he seemed kind of bad-ish, maybe tilty, and is shortstacked. i forget if the chat with him had kicked in yet or not. my thoughts at the time were just the pot is very big and i can make a lot of good things happen with a raise, such as cleaning up outs, getting the button for the hand, opening up my options for the turn, etc. i think even vs most buttons i like my play.

Here I think my default play would be to bet and call down his raise but being this guy is a 41/9 which seems on the passive side and the K completes a straight draw I doubt it's particularly good to bet and call down this guy's turn c/r here (assuming we have no postflop reads of him semibluffing paired boards or floating OOP with junk backdoor hands and c/r'ing scares or something) so if we do bet it's probably a frustrating fold which is why I like your check the turn and see if he's inducable line.
Good stuff.

yeah it just sucks so much to get c/r on turn here by this player and i feel like i'm not good often at all when i call down from that. i think i like bet/fold as a turn line also just to get value from all the draws that are out there. i do like to find out if guys are induceable or not so sometimes i sacrifice a little turn value to find it out as i think it will pay off later in the session/in the future

With your induce line here if we're confident enough that this player will bet the river with anything is there any merit to c/r'ing the river and potentially getting them to look us up with their crap-pair-turned-into-a bluff or from something like KX since this player appears to be out for your blood?

i like it. they might even bluff3bet.

Did you realise here on the turn with A7o that we have a double gutter (both 3's and 6's for our straight) because I don't think with that draw + an A (and maybe even a 7) that may be good and a player behind us padding the pot that I'd fold here?
I guess the pot wasn't too big but I'm not sure if you noticed which is something I'm usually guilty of.

wow, no, i definitely missed the doublegut. i wouldn't fold if i'd seen that. nice catch!

With K2 here i'll sometimes take a c/c turn c/f riv line vs an unknown.
I will take a c/c c/c line with hands like K8/KJ, depending on rivers.
With hands like 89 and 96 i'd usually 3 barrel.
Hands like 45, J6 etc I'd just c/f turn.
This is specifically until I get any reads on the opponent but it could all be a pile of WTF and I may be taking the wrong lines with the wrong type of hands. Any thoughts?

it's one of those flops where when they call you and you don't have anything you're like 'oh crap'

i think you can't really go too wrong if you doublebarrel most/all of your stuff with no showdown value - either air or draws. then on river you can decide if you want to fire the last shell. early on vs a guy i often will fire the third shell one time to see if he looks me up, and if so, with what. if we're going to contest a pot where both of us are uncertain about each other i don't mind keeping the pressure on. it's tough to balance your turn c/c range here (and do we need a turn c/r range?) but i think probably we should put some pairs in it somehow? i mean if you're c/c twice with like k8 or kj to induce, then some pairs have to be in the inducing/bluffcatching category too, especially smaller ones i'd think, since they probably don't get called by a lot of worse stuff.

being oop in general is a pain though, especially on certain kinds of boards. i don't tend to bet once and then c/f too many turns though. it lets people play pretty well against you in position.

i'm also reasonably happy with a turned 6.

i hadn't thought about b3b and barrel. on the one hand i can see where you're coming from, because we will make him fold a lot of missed draws that beat us by the river. on the other hand it seems a pretty expensive way to fight for not a big pot early on in the session. what do you think of call flop raise turn? it's even more expensive but it carries a lot more fold equity i think.

i'm not really 100% sure what to do here either. i think it's a spot, i suspect, where you can do a lot of different things based on reads, dynamic of the match, etc

Yeah, I think b/3b just becomes spew. It's a small pot and we probably don't have many outs against an opponent who has shown a desire to showdown. Even some of the hands that we could possibly bluff are gonna require 3 barrells, and since we're able to identify that early on, I think the best decision is to play it straight forward.

meh, imo we don't have a hand worth freeshowdowning. then if he 3bets me i probably call because i have a gut in a big pot and all of a sudden i'm putting way too much money into this pot. also, the potential problem is that he folds total air (which if i'm gonna put 2 bets in to bluffcatch vs. i don't really want to happen) and he might even 3bet me with a random draw that is a worse hand, since he seemed spewy.

i think i agree w/dale that folding is best. i think if i want to put 2 more bets in i should do it by calling turn and calling riv ui. i also just thought now that i could easily raise turn and then he calls with k5 or some draw or something. i might have to fire river again to make him fold, and now it's gotten super expensive.

i think summing it up it's not really clear where my hand falls vs his ranges so i'm not really sure if it's worth putting in much money. i mean from bird's eye view i do have jack high in a small pot vs a turn raise.

also meh on a fsd raise. Todd, i think you made a good point about him also possibly being on a draw and needing to fire river to get him off of a better hand.

i didn't have much of a read on button, other than that he seemed kind of bad-ish, maybe tilty, and is shortstacked. i forget if the chat with him had kicked in yet or not. my thoughts at the time were just the pot is very big and i can make a lot of good things happen with a raise, such as cleaning up outs, getting the button for the hand, opening up my options for the turn, etc. i think even vs most buttons i like my play.

I'm still not super in love with raising, but I'm kind of coming around to it a little more. Something else that i'm not sure we mentioned in the vid is that it may clean up some outs. I do however think that if we're going to raise we should barrel turn and even possibly river. I'm not in love with building the pot even bigger and then giving up and not even getting to sd. I mean, sometimes we are actually going to have the best hand here, and we can't very well call a river bet, even though we've invited it by checking behind on the turn. Plus when we hit a hand on the river the pot will be that much bigger.

i didn't really consider raise flop and barrel turn and riv ui and i like that you suggested it. i mean either that or raise flop and barrel turn and hope to win ui at sd? but no, we have jack high, we don't beat anything. with like k hi or a hi i might raise, bet turn, ck back riv ui - what you think?

yeah, i think both are fine actually. J high obv isn't going to win very often, but there is some weird straight draw stuff that we might beat. obv if the board comes K-Q no heart we have to check behind and hope for the best. but then again, that means the board would have come pretty ugly for a small pair. i'm really not sure. Maybe keep firing on some turn and river cards and check behind riv on others. Not really sure what textures are best though.

BBB

i'm also reasonably happy with a turned 6.

i hadn't thought about b3b and barrel. on the one hand i can see where you're coming from, because we will make him fold a lot of missed draws that beat us by the river. on the other hand it seems a pretty expensive way to fight for not a big pot early on in the session. what do you think of call flop raise turn? it's even more expensive but it carries a lot more fold equity i think.

i'm not really 100% sure what to do here either. i think it's a spot, i suspect, where you can do a lot of different things based on reads, dynamic of the match, etc

NN007

Yeah, I think b/3b just becomes spew. It's a small pot and we probably don't have many outs against an opponent who has shown a desire to showdown. Even some of the hands that we could possibly bluff are gonna require 3 barrells, and since we're able to identify that early on, I think the best decision is to play it straight forward.

I agree that a 6 seems like a decent turn for us but I think it could also be deceptively bad since if our opponent is c/r semi-bluffing any draws beside flush draws on the flop it should be with hands connecting round the 7 and 5 like 8/6, 8/9, 9/6, 6/4 which will lead us into having to lose 2 more BB's (unless we spike the river) even if we do improve to that 6 and even then he could still simply have a 7 or Q anyway. Add to that the 4 may also not be brilliant.
Maybe that's too pessimistic I'm not sure but I don't think the 6 is all that good which is why I'd rather get very aggressive and take the pot away when neither of us improve or (and this is probably the line I'd really go for this early on with no info) just fold to the flop C/R and forget about it.

The flop call might well be the best play though and all my small pessimistic points may be silly, i dunno.

don't be so harsh on yourself! both dale and i are saying we're not super sure about this spot either.

i don't think we should fold to the flop c/r straightway because we're almost getting the right price + implieds that we need for our gut

BBB

meh, imo we don't have a hand worth freeshowdowning. then if he 3bets me i probably call because i have a gut in a big pot and all of a sudden i'm putting way too much money into this pot. also, the potential problem is that he folds total air (which if i'm gonna put 2 bets in to bluffcatch vs. i don't really want to happen) and he might even 3bet me with a random draw that is a worse hand, since he seemed spewy.

i think i agree w/dale that folding is best. i think if i want to put 2 more bets in i should do it by calling turn and calling riv ui. i also just thought now that i could easily raise turn and then he calls with k5 or some draw or something. i might have to fire river again to make him fold, and now it's gotten super expensive.

i think summing it up it's not really clear where my hand falls vs his ranges so i'm not really sure if it's worth putting in much money. i mean from bird's eye view i do have jack high in a small pot vs a turn raise.

NN007

also meh on a fsd raise. Todd, i think you made a good point about him also possibly being on a draw and needing to fire river to get him off of a better hand.

I don't really think A FSDR is the best play here, just something that I thought maybe worth considering. VS a spewy player that seems capable of re-bluffing us with draws and calling down without odds it definitely seems very bad .

If we were to FSDR the turn and he were to 3B our raise on the turn though I don't think we could possibly call since we're not quite getting the odds and the board is paired meaning we may be drawing dead.

I think from the opponents perspective check/raising this flop (2 4 A) with K3/K5 would be pretty awful since he has SD value and little to no chance of getting us off a pair when there's some gutters and a flush draw out there unless the turn is 5/3 so if we were to FSDR this
4 turn I wouldn't expect to be targeting KX and QX hands vs a decent player so I definitely wouldn't barrel any river (I wouldn't expect someone who calls the turn to fold 2x on river either unless it's a terrible draw completeing riv but c/r'ing the flop with a 2 seems spewy as with Kx) ...
...but since this guy does seem spewy and probably capable of c/r'ing the flop with those SD value + gutter hands (basically anything that remotely hits this board in any way what so ever) and since he seems capable of re-bluffing and will also likely call our FSDR without the odd's to hit his gutters with those K3/K5/Q3/Q5 hands the FSDR becomes totally useless.

As you said BBB it's proabably a call down if anything vs this guy but a fold on the turn seems best. I think then depending on just how spewy we think he is we should consider calling down with as low as Q3/Q5(maybe on non-spade rivs), Q6-9/, QT+.

Just wanted to add, thanks for all the replies. I know you've got a lot of comments on your peanut collector series to respond to and have work to do at 2+2 as well so all your effort is appreciated. Thanks.

np - this is what i do

ty for the posts in the thread!

Time Link to 00:10:07

I'd like to make two comments here regarding the A5o 3-bet in the SB.

1) Dale asked about worse aces. I don't think there's much difference between any of the offsuit ace-rags. I agree with BBB that A5o~A2o here.

The one thing that I think is worth mentioning about this situation is that I may decide to draw a line at a certain point strictly to limit the number of combos of Ax I'm 3-betting, NOT because the strength of the hand varies. That is, if I elect to 3-bet only A4o and up I remove 24 combos of Ax from my range (12 A3o and 12 A2o) compared to 3-betting all Axo.

Depending on my overall 3-betting strategy and the rest of my range I may choose to 3-bet Axo more or less and arbitrarily drawing a line in this way is an easy way to accomplish that.

2) BBB says A5s is good here, so A5o isn't a big difference. I think this argument is fallacious. While I agree that changing the pip of the kicker one rank doesn't have a huge impact in this case I don't think suitedness is a similarly small effect.

Doing a quick Stove against a 50% range for villain A5o has ~50% while A5s has ~53% (that gap seems to remain about the same against a few other villain ranges I plugged in quickly). Edited to add: I forgot to mention that losing a pip from A5o to A4o drops our equity only a third as much as losing suitedness does, so again I feel equating these two is without basis.

But really the more important point is when about playability. Obviously when suited we're in much better shape when the hand goes off 3 ways. But even HU I just feel there are so many more boards we're comfortable barreling, more spots we can profitably continue (e.g., due to the presence of BD FD's), etc.

Time Link to 00:32:39

I haven't seen the river action or results yet, but I would say my dislike of the check here with KK is between large and immense. I don't disagree with the range you're talking about for villain, but I guess I would ask this:

When villain has busted clubs, how often do you really think he's going to be induced when we check here, keeping in mind that he seems to be a passive player as indicated by his PF limp?

I also agree with something Dale said that I don't think was addressed enough - villain might actually check back a Q here but will almost certainly call with it.

To me both of those factors point strongly towards betting. I also don't see any even moderately compelling reason why we can't b/f.

Okay, now I saw the results and heard the commentary following the KK hand. I'm borderline on tilt here.

BBB, you KNOW what the right play is. I understand you 'want info on the player,' but I think that's a bit sloppy. I would argue that he ALREADY gave you all the info you need. If I had played this hand as I said I would have bed/folded the river. After the hand I would have had the information that he limped PF, took two to the face on the flop, seemed generally passive, and that he had played a 6 this way (I would be comfortable drawing that conclusion without showdown). What information do you think you would have gained by a river check/call that I did not obtain?

Also, I think there's just a little bit of back-slapping results-orientdness going on after the hand. You're almost congratulating yourself on only losing one bet against his trip sixes, but that ignores the reality of playing against his range and the fact that we may very well have done worse against it. Again, I certainly feel he can have hands like Qx, 88, etc. here that might very well check back but would often call a bet.

I still feel very strongly that b/f is the correct river play.

Time Link to 00:35:06

Alright, I know I often just come in and post everything I disagree with so I'll say that I think this hand is interesting/creative. I'm not really sure that you could back up the play from a strictly mathematical perspective, but I do think it has some merit.

The pot is at/nearing the size where it's worth fighting for given our PF 3-bet. Also, raising this turn is consistent with villain's likely perception of our hand range. I know you mentioned this a bit, but there may be cases where villain has club draws and we may or may not have the best hand. However, since we're probably not going to call down UI this line prevents us from being bluffed out if he barrels missed clubs. Lastly, I don't really expect Qx to fold (which is why I think you might not be able to argue for this play mathematically), but one hand category you guys didn't mention that may very well fold is stuff like 77.

Time Link to 00:38:54

Yo Dale, I think this is pretty important so I'm going to repeat / summarize the benefits of a raise here.

1) We get heads up in position.
2) We have the initiative (BBB didn't mention this explicitly, but it keeps our options open - we can value bet, take free cards, continue to bluff, etc.).
3) There's like a zillion dollars of dead money in the pot if the BTN folds. The importance of this cannot be overstated.
4) We can very easily clean up outs here. There are a lot of hands with jacks and bigger hearts that villain can have here and be forced to fold for two. KJ no heart, QxT, etc.

I don't think folding is at all terrible and I'll bet it's close between that and raising. I do think calling would be pretty bad frankly.

Re-visiting point 3 because I think it's so critical:
I think this situation comes up more in stud so I don't think LHE players are as familiar with the concept as they should be, but there can be a lot of value in knocking players out of the pot even if we don't currently have the best hand. I really try to encourage people to look for these spots as I think there's a lot of value to be had if we recognize them. Also, it's definitely worth playing around with Stove a bit to see how our equity changes when we get it HU. I think many people are surprised they can gain so much just by investing one extra small bet (the raise).

Time Link to 01:03:20

Well played on the right. I really like the post flop plan.

I actually would argue that PF is questionable and don't hate a fold here. The problem is that your hand doesn't fair super well 3 ways. Being OOP and having a BB that gets to realize 100% of his equity here means that you're not actually in a great spot, even against a wide BTN range.

Time Link to 01:07:17

GAHHHHH!!!!

You have a double gutter!

Time Link to 01:14:50

Wow, Nina Williams is going to KILL you. You better hope he never sees this.

Wow, Nina Williams is going to KILL you. You better hope he never sees this.

LOLOLL!

Whoops, sorry about the double gut thing - I see now that it was discussed earlier and it's too late to edit.

Funny, I just ran across this hand today:

Poker Stars $2/$4 Limit Hold'em - 4 players - View hand 609118
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BB with 9 J
CO raises, 1 fold, SB calls, Hero calls

Flop: (6 SB) 7 6 T (3 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, CO folds, SB calls

Turn: (5 BB) 2 (2 players)
SB bets, Hero calls

River: (7 BB) 5 (2 players)
SB bets all in, Hero calls

Yo Dale, I think this is pretty important so I'm going to repeat / summarize the benefits of a raise here.

1) We get heads up in position.
2) We have the initiative (BBB didn't mention this explicitly, but it keeps our options open - we can value bet, take free cards, continue to bluff, etc.).
3) There's like a zillion dollars of dead money in the pot if the BTN folds. The importance of this cannot be overstated.
4) We can very easily clean up outs here. There are a lot of hands with jacks and bigger hearts that villain can have here and be forced to fold for two. KJ no heart, QxT, etc.

I don't think folding is at all terrible and I'll bet it's close between that and raising. I do think calling would be pretty bad frankly.

Re-visiting point 3 because I think it's so critical:
I think this situation comes up more in stud so I don't think LHE players are as familiar with the concept as they should be, but there can be a lot of value in knocking players out of the pot even if we don't currently have the best hand. I really try to encourage people to look for these spots as I think there's a lot of value to be had if we recognize them. Also, it's definitely worth playing around with Stove a bit to see how our equity changes when we get it HU. I think many people are surprised they can gain so much just by investing one extra small bet (the raise).

The value of knocking out something like AQ is minimal. It only helps when we both make pairs on the turn and river which is pretty rare. Knocking out a better fd is huge. Knocking out a better J is pretty minor also.

I haven't seen the river action or results yet, but I would say my dislike of the check here with KK is between large and immense. I don't disagree with the range you're talking about for villain, but I guess I would ask this:

When villain has busted clubs, how often do you really think he's going to be induced when we check here, keeping in mind that he seems to be a passive player as indicated by his PF limp?

I also agree with something Dale said that I don't think was addressed enough - villain might actually check back a Q here but will almost certainly call with it.

To me both of those factors point strongly towards betting. I also don't see any even moderately compelling reason why we can't b/f.

not saying I check, but villain does show up with a few raunchy draws which favors checking. He also might bet Q or even 3x. I think it's closer than you make it out to be.

I'd like to make two comments here regarding the A5o 3-bet in the SB.

1) Dale asked about worse aces. I don't think there's much difference between any of the offsuit ace-rags. I agree with BBB that A5o~A2o here.

The one thing that I think is worth mentioning about this situation is that I may decide to draw a line at a certain point strictly to limit the number of combos of Ax I'm 3-betting, NOT because the strength of the hand varies. That is, if I elect to 3-bet only A4o and up I remove 24 combos of Ax from my range (12 A3o and 12 A2o) compared to 3-betting all Axo.

Depending on my overall 3-betting strategy and the rest of my range I may choose to 3-bet Axo more or less and arbitrarily drawing a line in this way is an easy way to accomplish that.

2) BBB says A5s is good here, so A5o isn't a big difference. I think this argument is fallacious. While I agree that changing the pip of the kicker one rank doesn't have a huge impact in this case I don't think suitedness is a similarly small effect.

Doing a quick Stove against a 50% range for villain A5o has ~50% while A5s has ~53% (that gap seems to remain about the same against a few other villain ranges I plugged in quickly). Edited to add: I forgot to mention that losing a pip from A5o to A4o drops our equity only a third as much as losing suitedness does, so again I feel equating these two is without basis.

But really the more important point is when about playability. Obviously when suited we're in much better shape when the hand goes off 3 ways. But even HU I just feel there are so many more boards we're comfortable barreling, more spots we can profitably continue (e.g., due to the presence of BD FD's), etc.

i think we are taking basically the same information and interpreting it in two different ways. i agree with almost all of your points here. for me i think of it as a thematic thing whereas i think you're thinking of it more mathbased. when i say i don't think there's a huge difference between say a5o and a5s, i'm not saying equitywise they're the same, or playabilitywise. i happily concede you those points. what i mean is that they are close enough together such that there's only a few percentage points of equity difference usually, and a small bit of playability issues postflop. let's make up some numbers hopefully to prove my point. say 3% equity and we end up forfeiting another 3% equity later in the hand because of playability type issues. my contention is we make up that 6% or close to it by generating fold equity in this hand by having a wider 3betting range pf vs villain, by making our entire value range more profitable in later hands because villain has to recognize that we are wider ranged, getting to open more pots in future because lp guys won't want to get 3bet by us, etc etc. there is also (important for me at least) somewhat of an ease factor to have a relatively standardized pf.

in re: the kk hand

i think pyg's contention that i have some results-orientedness going on is fair and has some merit.

i think it's quite possible that since i did the voiceover after the session, that at voiceover time i had the image in my head of this player as the spaz that they ended up turning out to be, as opposed to the loosepassive type based on the information that i had up to this point. wow that was a convoluted sentence. so it's possible i had more information than did the audience, basically.

i still think a check here has some merit just because large chunks of his range can't call a bet, and i only have to induce a bit of the time from those in a big pot. it wasn't that i specifically was worrying about trips at the time i checked, but that i didn't see a bet having incredible amounts of value. i think even a passive-ish player will bet some of his pairs for me here. also even against passive players i am not as confident as you are in bet-folding in big pots.

certainly i will say that if i had a big sample size on this guy as 56/9/passive/not induceable or whatever over 500 hands i would just bet/fold riv.

but yeah all in all i think it's more of a bet than a check.

Alright, I know I often just come in and post everything I disagree with so I'll say that I think this hand is interesting/creative. I'm not really sure that you could back up the play from a strictly mathematical perspective, but I do think it has some merit.

The pot is at/nearing the size where it's worth fighting for given our PF 3-bet. Also, raising this turn is consistent with villain's likely perception of our hand range. I know you mentioned this a bit, but there may be cases where villain has club draws and we may or may not have the best hand. However, since we're probably not going to call down UI this line prevents us from being bluffed out if he barrels missed clubs. Lastly, I don't really expect Qx to fold (which is why I think you might not be able to argue for this play mathematically), but one hand category you guys didn't mention that may very well fold is stuff like 77.

this was what i was thinking as well - it just seems like i have some equity (+implied odds) + some fold equity + i'm telling a pretty compelling story to the guy in a big pot

Wow, Nina Williams is going to KILL you. You better hope he never sees this.

[3/26/2010 8:02:39 PM] BigBadBabar: ok
[3/26/2010 9:13:26 PM] BigBadBabar:

Time Link to 01:14:50


Wow, Nina Williams is going to KILL you. You better hope he never sees this.
[3/26/2010 9:13:41 PM] ninawilliams: wat
[3/26/2010 9:13:54 PM] BigBadBabar: ppl r commenting on my shout out to u
[3/26/2010 9:15:11 PM] ninawilliams: oh
[3/26/2010 9:15:53 PM] BigBadBabar: did u watch it
[3/26/2010 9:16:05 PM] ninawilliams: yes
[3/26/2010 9:16:14 PM] BigBadBabar: what did u think of shout out
[3/26/2010 9:16:36 PM] ninawilliams: it was
[3/26/2010 9:16:40 PM] ninawilliams: a flase statement
[3/26/2010 10:44:22 PM] ninawilliams: (wave)
[3/26/2010 10:45:17 PM] ninawilliams: your videos are for educational purposes
[3/26/2010 10:45:27 PM] ninawilliams: i dont appreciate false statements
[3/26/2010 10:45:30 PM] ninawilliams: in them

Funny, I just ran across this hand today:

Poker Stars $2/$4 Limit Hold'em - 4 players - View hand 609118
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BB with 9 J
CO raises, 1 fold, SB calls, Hero calls

Flop: (6 SB) 7 6 T (3 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, CO folds, SB calls

Turn: (5 BB) 2 (2 players)
SB bets, Hero calls

River: (7 BB) 5 (2 players)
SB bets all in, Hero calls

nh imo!

BBB, thanks for the replies.

On the A5s vs. A5o thing, I just want to clarify and say that I think both are pretty clear 3-bets in this position. My point was simply that we can't equate hand strengths in the manner you suggest. As another example, if we 3-bet A5o here I think we all recognize that concluding, 'well then 3-betting K5o can't be that bad' would be very poor.

The KK hand - yeah I noticed later in the vid that you DID actually induce him (can't remember the hand and I didn't make a note of comment), so maybe that influenced you a bit. As you say, at the time given the information we had, he seemed straight loose passive.

Nina Williams owned you.

BBB, thanks for the replies.

On the A5s vs. A5o thing, I just want to clarify and say that I think both are pretty clear 3-bets in this position. My point was simply that we can't equate hand strengths in the manner you suggest. As another example, if we 3-bet A5o here I think we all recognize that concluding, 'well then 3-betting K5o can't be that bad' would be very poor.

The KK hand - yeah I noticed later in the vid that you DID actually induce him (can't remember the hand and I didn't make a note of comment), so maybe that influenced you a bit. As you say, at the time given the information we had, he seemed straight loose passive.

Nina Williams owned you.

nina's riposte = straight burl

The discussion of the KK hand (32 minutes) has got me thinking about bet-folding rivers, something I seem to hate doing which is probably costing me money. I may be trying to overgeneralise here, if I am please say so:

* Lets say we have a guy with 56/9 and he raises our river bet. What is the minimum holding we can expect him to have - two pair?

* Is 500 hands the minimum we need to be confident about this sort of read?

The discussion of the KK hand (32 minutes) has got me thinking about bet-folding rivers, something I seem to hate doing which is probably costing me money. I may be trying to overgeneralise here, if I am please say so:

* Lets say we have a guy with 56/9 and he raises our river bet. What is the minimum holding we can expect him to have - two pair?

* Is 500 hands the minimum we need to be confident about this sort of read?

let me turn it around on you

what kinds of things do you see a 56/9 sort of guy show up with in this spot when he raises?

500 isn't a set-in-stone number - i just pick it because it's large and usually means we have a decent sample size on someone. it's not like 499 is crap and 501 is golden

let me turn it around on you

what kinds of things do you see a 56/9 sort of guy show up with in this spot when he raises?

500 isn't a set-in-stone number - i just pick it because it's large and usually means we have a decent sample size on someone. it's not like 499 is crap and 501 is golden

In this case I would say Mr 56/9 has a 6 or 2 pair or better. The only hand worse than this he could have would be something like AK (of course there aren't many kings left) where he has waited until the river to raise it. I can't see that sort of player raising a missed draw.

I suspect I have been influenced by the odd very bad player you get that decides to raise with air for no reason whatsoever. The truth is I adapt quite a lot to individual reads on a player and their looseness/badness, but when it comes to it hardly at all tp their passivity. Must be a leak!

I suspect I have been influenced by the odd very bad player you get that decides to raise with air for no reason whatsoever.

Oh? I didn't know you played on FTP.

Oh? I didn't know you played online.

nh; fyp

Oh? I didn't know you played on FTP.

lol. Actually the only site I have ever played on is PokerStars, but I have heard there can be some spewy-ness at FTP.

lol

"I play NOOOOOOOOO limit."