Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by Joe Tall (Micro/Small Stakes)

more baluga = sexy times

GOGOGOGO

I bet I got AT LEAST half a chapter from BalugaWhale's book...and for free!

And about Joe Tall, he is such a self-promoter, lol...

this is awesome listening to baluga talking poker @ micros

Baluga-

I have a question about the 9Ts hand. After the flop given that its multiway and that flop basically has to hit part of some ones range, but we most likely have the best hand right now and we have alot of bad bad turn cards that we are just lost on. So as a standard line as leading out here as a default, how do you feel about c/r big given the stack sizes of the opponents. Its somewhat like a hand I read about played by OMGclayaiken in omaha where he flopped top set on a drawy board and checked to contol the pot and shoved over a bet bc the draws didnt get there yet and he knew he could put it in a favorite.

oneillsurfer03--

jman is playing in some super aggressive games, where he expects players to both A) be aggressive with nothing and B) value bet thinly. We have neither of these assumptmions.
C/r big also completely overreps our hand. What are you hoping to get called by? i'd rather c/c than c/r, but betting is clearly best imo.

oh and ulkis--
im sure you have the general idea of at least a few chapters. that said, there are a lot of chapters. and theres a lot of stuff i leave out in videos. the book is sickkkk

oh and ulkis--
im sure you have the general idea of at least a few chapters. that said, there are a lot of chapters. and theres a lot of stuff i leave out in videos. the book is sickkkk

I am sure of that and I wish I make a good start at 200NL 6max in order to justify buying the book...I could afford it no problem but my view has always been to keep poker separate from my other finances and to justify poker-related purchases ie they should come from my poker earnings.

But heck, even if I downswong 2009 big time it looks like I will talk myself into buying your book - no matter what format or price.

So far what I have been doing is piecing together the puzzle, your strategy posts, videos...and I think you are right on the money when it comes to 3bet pots, when to 3bet and with what etc, and 98% of the 3bet pot strategy posts in the forums say different, 3bang 65s because it is EASY to play postflop. But we need equity, right...

Anyway, I like your style and your stuff at DC and 2+2 is the nuts. Perhaps I'll get get a nice upswong and buy some coaching together with the book.

Baluga-

In the 77 hand at time 21:00, you said pocket 7's is an easy call to a 3bet hu, in position. What happens when the flop comes K,Q, or J high, and you get cbet 2/3 pot. Calling is a significant chunk of change, but just playing fit or fold to set mine doesn't seem right either.

Steve

hey steve,

well, to start its an easy call due to stack sizes. the deeper we are, the more implied odds 77 has, which is good for us.
obv for an A, K or Q to flop would not be a good thing for us. however, we need to have an idea of what types of hands our opponent is 3betting. pay careful attention to what hands villains show down in a 3bet pot. for example, if a guy is 3betting SC's and stuff, you can call a bet on a KQ8r board because he's going to c/f a ton on the turn. Or, on a J65 board, you can call a bet with 77 because villain is likely to have missed overs and shut down.

Nice vid Baluga, just one question that's been bugging me -

Why is Joe so tall and old?

first off, this is pure gold... really nice selection of hands and analysis.

question @ 40min mark you have A8s. Get CR on super dry flop and you talk about how the villain will give away his hand strength on the turn. What if on the turn he bets something like 1/4 pot?

Why is Joe so tall and old?

Tall is easy, I have 100% Lithuanian blood. My grandparents spoke fluent Lithuanian and my dad still remembers some.

Old, well, g-damn, I'm not really THAT old! But I was born in '72 and played my first hand of poker ~'78, where you alive?

first off, this is pure gold... really nice selection of hands and analysis.

Thank you. I played about 1k hands and pulled these hands out as I played specifically for this video.

question @ 40min mark you have A8s. Get CR on super dry flop and you talk about how the villain will give away his hand strength on the turn. What if on the turn he bets something like 1/4 pot?

I think if he bets 1/4, we found a good spot to turn our hand into a bluff and raise. (especially with that card that came off, as we have a ton of outs if we do get called.)

question about the A8o hand in which you 3bet BVB. Given the read that he gets aggro pre but shuts down a lot post, I understand that 3betting any two can be profitable. I'm assuming, however, that he isn't bad enough that we can literally 3bet indiscriminately.

Baluga even says 3bet is better than call but I don't understand why (unless its just bc we are basically bluffing him by 3bet/cbetting all the time). A8 has decent value postflop vs his stealing range, and we can also presumably outplay him quite a bit postflop IP. I definitely think we fold out weaker A's most of the time here with a 3bet. A8 seems like one of those marginal hands that would be better to see a flop with, especially IP; I'd be more inclined to 3bet really good hands and weaker hands (which AFAIK baluga usually advocates). Are we actually 3betting A8 for value? Am I totally off with my thinking here?

richbrown-
i love where your head is at

joe-
depending on what the turn card is, thats probably not a good spot for us to "turn our hand into a bluff". What better hands are folding?

consuela-
your thinking is fine. eithere a call or a 3bet is fine. 3bet/cbet is good, as you said, as is calling.

joe-
depending on what the turn card is, thats probably not a good spot for us to "turn our hand into a bluff". What better hands are folding?

You think a typical player will continue with a weak pair? I think not.

I guess my higher stakes limit play has me thinking about raises like this, whereas at these stakes, no one is folding anything ever, is that where you are at with this?

Baluga-

I understand what you are saying here. But I am playing these limits currently and people who are bad @ these stakes will stack a pair plus draw like QJ, or AJ type hand. I am just going on the assumption that most of the players @ 25 nl are bad and overvalue single pair hands in spots like this alot. Also they will stack bare flush draws also in my expierience here.

not only do i not think people are folding anything ever, i also don't think they're check-raising weak pairs that often either.

oneillsurfer-
with T9 vs QJ on a JT9 board we are at 50% equity.

they also are probably not raising bare flush draws as much as you'd think.

I love the honesty from Joe about just totally not knowing what to do in certain spots. I literally wonder the EXACT same things, what a great video.

I love the honesty from Joe about just totally not knowing what to do in certain spots. I literally wonder the EXACT same things, what a great video.

No shame in my game. I firmly believe humility is a GREAT way to improve. Its an interesting adjustment for me. Not too long ago I was put into a 1k/2k HORSE game on FTP (the game was great and I played great) and now I'm making an effort to finally learn NLHE at the baby-stakes.

Nice selection of hands.

In the first hand with K2s, let's say we miss flop and it comes down with a 3 instead of a 2, same tone, if villain minibets into us what's our move with K high?
Also in general you say that the standard is to raise minibets/minidonks until told otherwise on the flop as you treat them like check and I agree with this, however when we keep getting our raise called and minibetdonked by someone who doesn't seem to be able to do anything else what type of adjustment is ideal? Only playing back/raising when we have equity to improve or already a made hand and give up with the rest, because 3 barreling donk calling station with air is not really ideal in micros even if we are pissed by their minibets?

this is really good

dj mercury--
if we miss the flop, the only real difference is that calling is no longer as good of an option (our 5 outer draw is much better than our 3 outer K draw). we can still raise or fold. i would usually raise a minbet to my standard cbet every time. if somebody was calling a ton of c-bets, i'd probably just call the minbet. but they'd have to be calling A TON of c-bets.

also,
what i liked best about this video is that the spots aren't all that complicated or difficult, just very important common spots that we see all the time in poker and that we have to become familiar with to get past small stakes.

Solid vid.

Robitussin ftw imo.

I think if he bets 1/4, we found a good spot to turn our hand into a bluff and raise. (especially with that card that came off, as we have a ton of outs if we do get called.)

my question was silly actually, I forget we had so many outs

I meant, 'cause we were floating the flop... what if the turn card is a brick and he bets 1/4 pot? Does this seem like a weak stab or would you think he's trying to value bet a weak 7? and if he is value betting would you expect him to fold?

Change the official spelling of Beluga imo.

Love this video.

Hands were interesting and the analysis was great as I have some leaks on those spots.

More videos from you, guys!

Great video guys! Like Baluga said these are the type of hands that happen over and over and getting these lines down is more important than analyzing a tough hand that happens once every 10,000 hands.

Baluga-

for the JThh hand 50m-ish in, after Joe Tall changes his play and calls the flop instead, and then calls a 4$ bet into 6$ pot- why does it seem unlikely the villian will fire a PSB on the river, given we just called the flop and turn? How does this change at like 100-200nl where players will not be “afraid” to throw out a big bet on the river, since our range doesnt consist of big hands (since a raise would be put in on flop or turn since we are deep), but a lot of pair+gutters or whatnot. Even if we had 87 its a marginal call on the river facing bets on all three streets. With our range looking like {Q9, JT, J8, J7, T9, T8, T7, 98, 97, 87, and then some hands 7xcc, 8xcc, 9xcc that turned a FD} wouldn't a biggish river bet seem super profitable on villian's behalf?

DC really needs more Baluga Whale stuff, great vid once again...

Baluga are you really bringing a book out?

chasinglory-

not really. the problem is this-- a turn 2barrel is pretty bad since we're not folding very much of our range at all. the river 3-barrel would be ok after the bad 2-barrel, except for the fact that there are a million cards that a bluffer wouldn't want to see on the river (obv J's, T's, 9's, 6's Q's, K's, A's all could straigten us out or 2-pair us). So, we'd basically have to make a bad 2-barrel in order to occassionally be able to make a good 3-barrel--in short, it's spew.

alexB-

yes indeed I do have a book out. I'll be making a big announcement about it soon. I'm getting really excited about it, I just recently locked down a great editor, and there is a possible surprise development en route.

DC really needs more Baluga Whale stuff, great vid once again...

Baluga are you really bringing a book out?

See this thread: CLICK HERE

I think with all the pair plus draw hands we just have to realize the difference in their calling and raising ranges given the different situations @ the table.

Very interesting the point that when people min-c/r flop, turn gives away their hand - call and if they pot turn they are strong, if they check they are most likely giving up and are weak so 1/2 pot bet is ok on the turn.

Didn't go as planned...;-)

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $200.00
SB: $212.85
BB: $480.45
UTG: $200.00
Hero (MP): $200.00
CO: $97.85

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is MP with T T
1 fold, Hero raises to $6, 3 folds, BB calls $4

Flop: ($13.00) 2 6 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $9, BB raises to $18, Hero calls $9

Turn: ($49.00) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $24, BB raises to $121, Hero folds

Final Pot: $97.00
BB wins $94.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Awesome video - thx.

Baluga, at around the 44 minute mark in the discussion about calling vs reraising the JThh hand, you say that while it's fine to reraise here 200bb deep, reraising 100bb deep would be 'pretty bad'. I wonder if you could go into that a bit?

I 3 bet quite a bit, in a polarised range between a tightish 'value' range that i think dominates people's calling range (and obviously can be wider of narrower depending on villain), plus some 'other stuff' to take advantage of people's tendency to either fold pre or play fit or fold on the flop. I guess that JTs might not fall into the latter for a couple of reasons - either because 1) it's profitable to flat call with, so in a sense it's a waste to 3 bet it, or because, 2) if called, you would prefer to have 65s because villain's range intersects much less than with JTs?

Cheers
kokiri (who 3 bets JTs 100bb deep...)

Awesome video - thx.

Baluga, at around the 44 minute mark in the discussion about calling vs reraising the JThh hand, you say that while it's fine to reraise here 200bb deep, reraising 100bb deep would be 'pretty bad'. I wonder if you could go into that a bit?

I 3 bet quite a bit, in a polarised range between a tightish 'value' range that i think dominates people's calling range (and obviously can be wider of narrower depending on villain), plus some 'other stuff' to take advantage of people's tendency to either fold pre or play fit or fold on the flop. I guess that JTs might not fall into the latter for a couple of reasons - either because 1) it's profitable to flat call with, so in a sense it's a waste to 3 bet it, or because, 2) if called, you would prefer to have 65s because villain's range intersects much less than with JTs?

Cheers
kokiri (who 3 bets JTs 100bb deep...)

If you haven't seen this article yet you might get some information out of it: 3-betting is overrated

cheers,
Rob

oh and ulkis--
im sure you have the general idea of at least a few chapters. that said, there are a lot of chapters. and theres a lot of stuff i leave out in videos. the book is sickkkk

When I read this I thought the book was out and spent the next 5 minutes searching for it through google. It isn't out yet is it?

Hey Zane,

not out yet. I'll keep you guys posted.

Andrew

Commentary was great Baluga- I actually found myself finishing some of your sentences from things I learned when you coached me for 3-4 sessions last year. For anyone thinking 'oh no a 25nl video', the basic concepts Joe asks and how well baluga explains his thought process really apply through many levels.


The only hand I really disagreed with was the 87s towards the end. We open 87s on btn 3 handed. BB calls. 675cc flop we cbet. 6x turn we valuebet again. Now on the 2x blank river it seems like we are valuecutting ourselves hard vs his range. Obviously on the flop/turn we are getting value from both draws and worse pair + straight combos among other things. When we get to the river all of the draws have missed and the only worse hands I can really see calling are 5x's or maybe 33/44?(both of which would be herocalls at best). On the other hand every 'reasonable' 7x in his range beats us along with passively played overpairs and wouldn't be surprised to see 6x sometimes considering its 25nl.

Basically I think were turning our hand into a valuebluff(if its even possible villain would fold 7x) which I know wasn't the intention. I'm kind of surprised nobody else asked about this hand- I'm clearly missing a part of his range that makes this a +ev river bet

That was a bit strange to me too.. I would definitely check behind, seeing no worse calling there.. Nice video of course, Baluga is I think the best video coach I've seen, saying things so clearly and yeah it does make sense : ] More videos from Baluga please

Baluga.. I can't even begin to explain how good it is to have you going over the micros. Between this and the coaching tree there really is some epic content.

Wow, just found this gem! Made several new notceards. Thx for this one.

Wow, just found this gem! Made several new notceards. Thx for this one.

If you liked this video, you might like the Late Night Coaching series and What Would Joe Tall Do?

Time Link to 00:28:03

As we later see, we bet the river for some thin value when a blank comes off
And this confuses me now a little bit:
Does it really matter if we bet the river or raise now, because for us this river card doesnt change anything handstrength-wise and we still got no info because we are oop, we just bet because we think that our hand is best given the small betsize and the caller, but we have that information on the turn also, so we could raise there too, right?

Or do you think that looks too strong, or maybe that could get us into trouble when the flush hits, because there could be alot of higher flush draws out there, and they both have very tiny stacks compared to the potsize.