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

Good stuff.

It really shows that he doesn't have any problems finding the proper level of aggression postflop. And it also shows the power of preflop hand selection as it is clear from the actual hands that you get into trouble by 3-betting with hands like QTo. It illustrates the common "paradox" that in limit hold'em preflop play is very very important to your expectation but on the other hand, it's "postflop where the money is made".

I think it was clear from the beginning that DD shouldn't have much trouble coaching a player like this and it will be interesting to see how soon he will be a decent-to-great player.

I'm also somewhat curious to hear the reasons of this project. There's nothing wrong or bad to learn limit hold'em, but it's still somewhat odd as most people claim that no-limit games are better on average. Or is it just the case that one needs more opportunities for playing in the high stakes in addition to your normal tables or something?

I'm also somewhat curious to hear the reasons of this project. There's nothing wrong or bad to learn limit hold'em, but it's still somewhat odd as most people claim that no-limit games are better on average. Or is it just the case that one needs more opportunities for playing in the high stakes in addition to your normal tables or something?

Ariel will address this in Episode 2 but the gist is he has played high stakes limit several times in his life and always thought he was pretty good. After seeing some of my videos he suddenly felt he was probably not that good and he just had an interest in working on this game. I doubt he's going to drop NL and be a high stakes limit pro any time soon but I think he thinks about poker more as a challenge than always trying to win the most $/hour (which I totally identify with).

-DeathDonkey

10:45 in on the right table

folded to FWF in the SB with A4dd, LAG BB calls
flop Q47r w/ bdfd
bet, raise, call

turn 8r
chk, bet, fold

if this spot is as marginal as you say I think the fold is good due to how bad the turn card is for us. if we were to make a light calldown I think it should be on turn cards that do not improve the straight draws. 56 58 68 and even 48 are a good # of combinations that would play the flop like this

however I really didn't think this was such a close spot. even if we assume that villain only raised the flop with pairs and draws we have 32.6% equity on the turn vs what I think is a reasonable range:
[A4s,K7s,K4s,Q8s-Q2s,J7s,J4s,T7s,T4s,97s,94s,84s+,72s+,63s+,53s+,42s+,A4o,
K7o,K4o,QTo-Q2o,J7o,J4o,T7o,T4o,97o,94o,84o+,74o+,63o+,53o+,43o]

also with the dryness of the board and our read on villain we should expect to occasionally be up against hands like TJ K5 and such

also fwiw our equity vs the range outlined above is MUCH better on a turn deuce, 43%

16:30 in on the right table (last post I meant to say left, my bad)

FWF opens A5dd in the CO, folded to TAGush BB who calls
flop 8h9h4s
chk, bet, raise,

do you think it is a mistake to fold at this point? even if improve on the turn villain will oftem have a strong redraw

if you think calling is best, do you ever plan on showing down UI?

18:00 right table

bryce steals 8To from button, unknown BB calls

flop 562r
chk, bet, call

turn 7 bringing a FD
chk,

you said you would take the free card here. I disagree. I would expect this flop to be peeled by a wide range of hands including any 2 overcards, and many of those hands will fold to a turn bet. by checking we give up on winning the pot UI. even if we get called or raised we have a strong draw to fall back on

Hi Nick,

A 4 hand...Off the top of my head I don't recall villain's exact stats, but lots of LAGs are literally raising any 2 they defend with preflop on the flop here (which isn't an awful way to play honestly). As I reviewed the video in real time I didn't have pokerstove available so I think I tend to agree with you after seeing the ranges (which I agree is quite reasonable) and the turn should have been a call, though we definitely agree the turn was an unfavorable one and I would be much happier getting to showdown on a 2 and a river brick.

A 5 hand I think this is a tough spot and illustrates why its correct to fight back hard from the blinds on flops like this with a pretty wide range. The obvious reason to continue is the board is quite draw heavy and an aggressive opponent will have so many draws here we are ahead of with ace high. The negative is our reverse implied odds of having to call two more BB to get to showdown and not always knowing which turn and river cards improve villain's hand. I believe continuing here is profitable and yes I would call down on some turn/rivers and fold on many scary ones. I sort of feel that using the turn and river cards to determine whether I showdown here or not is a quasi-randomization.

I won't hold it against you that you had bryce on your mind for some reason describing the 8To hand
Well, this is a spot where I feel what you do here matters far less than what you do with pairs, ace high, hands like QJo etc. in similar spots, because it all sort of goes together as the foundation of your postflop showdown-bound or showdown-averse style.
For me I would check behind here with ace high against many 10/20+ guys and then call a river bet on lots of safe river cards, hoping to induce a bluff from the peeled over cards and the straight draws. If I'm going to check behind and call a river bet a lot it makes sense to me that part of my range to check behind the turn should not have showdown value from a balance POV. Now it could definitely be argued that its better to bet here and check behind the turn only with hopeless over card hands or one over card hands like JTo or K3s, and I think that might be a bit preferable to my stated advice in Episode 1. As you correctly note, with a decent redraw our bet here only risks a fraction of a bet to potentially take this pot down with ten high.

Oh one more factor was FWF's image which to me would be "betting station LAG" - I felt he was never getting ace high type of hands to fold and people would view him as a prime candidate to wait til the turn to CR because he bets the turn so damn often as a second continuation bet. And if they ever start playing back at him with random overcard hands here the situation can quickly become disastrous as now none of their range folds and a lot of it raises in a situation where they really should have no claim to the pot (other than they have the best hand but they can't know that).

Anyway appreciate the great questions and I'm interested in what others think about some close spots.
-DeathDonkey

Hi DD, I really liked this video and although I don't play no limit, I like the idea behind this series. I tend to play pre flop mainly by rote, because I have staring hand charts, but videos like this help me think more about pre flop.

In addition to this series, are you still going to be making your own limit holdem videos say one or at most two tabeling?

I have watched a lot of limit videos by many great players on this site and other sites but my favorite videos are the ones you make. I like the way you go about explaining your decisions, I find I can understand your reasons more than most other players I have watched so I hope you will be able to find time to still make some of your own videos.

Thanks for the kind words as always xrosswind, yes I definitely will be making some regular videos (which we refer to as "stand-alone" videos rather than "series" videos from here on forward) as will the rest of the DC crew and our new friends / team-mates. I also have Oink videos ready to go!

-DeathDonkey

At around 5:50, FF has K 9 on the button and opens for a raise. SB folds and an unknown in the BB defends. Flop comes T 4 9 . BB checks, FF bets, BB calls. Turn is A . Again, check, bet, call. The river is 6 and the villain bets out. I agree with DD that a call here is unnecessary, because basically all other draws except QJ came in and it is highly unlikely that the hero is best here.

But what I would like to point out that it's really important to note that the Ace came on the turn instead of the flop being Ace high. So when FF fires another one on the turn, his range is much, much weaker and the villain will correctly be suspecting of a weaker range on the river and might be valuebetting very lightly. (With the intention to fold to a raise.) And the fact that the villain called on the turn makes his range much stronger. He might be correct to just check/call and bet out the river with a lot of turned pair of aces. So even though he's somewhat likely to bluff out on the river with the missed QJo (feeling that the bluff might work because FF's range isn't that strong), it is the only bluffing hand in his range, making the bluff rather unlikely in this statistical sense.

FF made a note that the villain c/c two streets with FD and bet out when the draw came in. It's a reasonable note, but I tend to scribble down the board texture in these notes, because it matters so much in spots like these. You can't just assume that the villain bets out every time his draws come in. I think it's worth noting that it might have been a decent spot for the villain to check-raise bluff the turn, because FF is going to fire a lot of second barrels with this board and action.

At around 07:00 FF has A2s and check-raises 45Qss board, gets 3-bet. Turn is 3 , completing flush draw and FF's gutshot. FF leads out and the villain calls. River is 4 and FF bets. Villain calls with 7 7 . Is this a spot that you would ever consider folding as the villain? What would you give as a range for FF here? Something like A 5o might make sense, but I just feel like there's not a whole lot of bluffs that would donk on the turn.

(More to come, if the computer's free later. :-)

On the K9 hand, I can't quite remember if I was able to squeeze it in the video review but FWF should consider checking behind on the turn for some of the reasons you mention, which would give him the chance to induce a bluff.

On the A2s hand, or maybe I should call it the 77 hand from villain's POV I agree with you if I were playing well this is a clear river fold against a decent to good player, who will always be pretty strong to bet out on the turn like that. Knowing FWF's play as well as my own ranges in that spot, I'd say a straight or flush is incredible likely, with perhaps a weak top pair type of hand being the only other worth donking there to prevent a free card, so yeah against me its an easy fold on river and close on turn.

-DeathDonkey

At 07:50, where FWF 3-bets hijack opener with JTo, FWF takes a peek at the villain's stats and I'm curious to know what he looked at, because about the only ones that are reliable at this point, VP$IP and PFR, scream together that you should fold your JTo. The villain even seemed a bit loose and passive which gives little chance of winning without showdown.

At around 10:30 FWF opens with 8 9 on the button. BB defends. Flop comes Q 2 T . The villain check-raises. I think this somewhat close to a fold. It's 7,5:1 and one might give approximately four outs. No showdown value of course, pair outs are very dirty, and straight outs are also a bit dirty as there is a flush draw possible and a Jack might very likely give the villain re-draws. Of course, you can't fold too often to flop check-raises or you will be check-raised all the time, but I think this is at least a close spot. (Edit: there are of course a bit of implied odds for the straight, but only perhaps one big bet, which still leaves a bit short. Anyways, it's close, in my opinion.)

At around 14:30, unknown at UTG opens, CO cold-calls and FWF (incorrectly) cold-calls w 5 7 on the button, SB folds and a what seems to be a tight BB calls. Flop comes 5 6 3 . BB bets out and UTG raises and CO folds. FWF elects to 3-bet, which seems like a standard line on a flop like this. While UTG's raise might come with just over-cards, I think BB's bet is somewhat strong on a 4-way pot. He might go for a check-raise with absolute monsters, but I don't see him donking out with gutshots and alike. I would be happy in hero's shoes if BB donked out with a hand like 44 or A4s. Other than that, I can't think of many hands in BB's range here that FWF is ahead with his middle pair no kicker. Without the gutshot straight draw, I don't know if I would be happy to continue with the hand.

Around 15:20 FWF opens with 8 T on the button. SB cold-calls and BB defends. Flop comes T A 3 . SB checks, BB checks, FWF bets, SB calls, BB raises, FWF 3-bets, SB calls two cold and BB calls. Turn is Q and it goes checked through. River is 8 which gives FWF two pair. SB checks and BB bets. Is a value-raise here completely out of line? SB seems to have a draw of some sort or perhaps a weak ace. BB will certainly value-bet any Ace here and might be tempted to make a crying call to a raise, because FWF's play looks so much like a draw and definitely not an ace. The river didn't seem to improve FWF's hand, so it's a bit disguised.

(I'm watching this sounds turned off, so there might be some redundant comments here. Feel free to ignore.)

At 27:16, FWF opens with A5o on the hijack, which is I think is a small error in and of itself, but is exaggerated by noting that the player on the immediate left seems to be loose/aggressive and threat of playing this weak a hand out of position is just too much.

At 28:00, a seemingly loose/passive villain opens on UTG and FWF 3-bets with KQo on the SB. I think this is OK, but, again, I think it's surprisingly close. If the villain opens with 15-20% range on that position I think closer to muck. Well, anyhow, BB calls the 3-bet cold and UTG calls too. Flop comes T 3 4 . BB bets out, UTG raises. I think DD mentioned this on the video, but calling two cold here is a clear mistake.

There are not too many hands in UTG's range that FWF can beat, most of them have FWF dominated. (Maybe something like KJ/QJ, but I don't if UTG would raise these anyhow.) Muck it. When FWF calls and BB 3-bets and UTG calls, he's getting about 16:1 on the call, which makes it tempting, but it really seems like he's drawing near dead here. But I guess you have to call that one bet anyhow. Turn is K , UTG checks, FWF bets out and BB raises. I am just being weak-tight thinking that it's pretty much guaranteed that BB has FWF beat here? The villain in BB doesn't mind at all that K hit the turn. In fact, the villain pretty much insta-raises after FWF's bet. It's not like he has to re-evaluate his hand strength after a pretty scary card. It's pretty tall order to put anyone on specifically a set (AA/KK is unlikely here), but I don't know what else could he have after the turn raise.

Maybe showdown was justified once the K hit the turn, but paying 3 bets for showdown here seems pretty expensive even though the pot is really big already.

At 30:00, FWF opens with J9o on the cutoff. It's close, but I'd still muck this, especially against relatively unknown players. But I guess most LAGs would open this.

At 33:40, opening J4s on the button is a mistake. My line would be around J8s, depending on the nature of the blinds, of course.

At 30:00, FWF opens with J9o on the cutoff. It's close, but I'd still muck this, especially against relatively unknown players. But I guess most LAGs would open this.

At 33:40, opening J4s on the button is a mistake. My line would be around J8s, depending on the nature of the blinds, of course.

I'd open J7s OTB (J6s is close and I couldn't fault someone for doing either based on recent hands) and I'd open J9o there in the CO unless the players were really 3-bet happy. Just FWIW, since I know the trend of this video was "FWF plays too loose preflop."

Rob

This is the first deucescracked video that I watched. I really liked the content which was extensive, but it was a bit hard to keep up with how fast you were talking. When you have that much material to go through, I'd prefer only 1 table or just slowing down, maybe pausing the video occasionally.