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

bingo !

bongo

Hey guys,

Just wanted to stop in and say to please, please feel free to ask me any questions about this or any other video I do. I really do enjoy discussing hands and teaching, so don't be shy to ask what you might think is a trivial question.

Also, bear w/ me with my first couple videos. I realize I sometimes refer to the flop as the turn, find a way to confuse "right" w/ "left" and say "um" a lot too much, but my mind works faster than my mouth sometimes i suppose

-Garrett

Hey guys,

Just wanted to stop in and say to please, please feel free to ask me any questions about this or any other video I do. I really do enjoy discussing hands and teaching, so don't be shy to ask what you might think is a trivial question.

Also, bear w/ me with my first couple videos. I realize I sometimes refer to the flop as the turn, find a way to confuse "right" w/ "left" and say "um" a lot too much, but my mind works faster than my mouth sometimes i suppose

-Garrett

Hey Garrett,

Just wanted to swing in and officially say welcome to the forums, and let everyone know that Gman is working on a HU Series for Season 6 with DOGISHEAD. Welcome to the team IMO.

Hey Garrett,

Just wanted to swing in and officially say welcome to the forums, and let everyone know that Gman is working on a HU Series for Season 6 with DOGISHEAD. Welcome to the team IMO.

awesome news

BAM! Welcome to the ballclub Gman my man!

awesome

great first effor gman. in the future, please turn on "display bet amounts" and keep up the good work!

very nice video - welcome !!!

very good vid, u remind me of dogishead

Very cool, so excited for the new series!

woww this video was top notch!!! awesome job

great first effor gman. in the future, please turn on "display bet amounts" and keep up the good work!

This. It was difficult to follow bet-sizing.

This. It was difficult to follow bet-sizing.

Ya sorry about that guys. This will be fixed for all my other vids. Thanks for all the positive feedback so far!

really really good, looking forward to the series with dogishead

What stakes/sites do you usually play Gman?

Just 1 comment on a small hand.

38:20, I would've bet the 44 there to protect my hand, you're not worried of getting drawn out on or getting bluffed off the hand?

What stakes/sites do you usually play Gman?

I play on a few different sites, but for now I am at least going to attempt to keep my names private w/ the exception of Alcohol4Life on Stars which got leaked out awhile ago anyway. If I'm really struggling to find games I will play as low as 3/6NL, but usually I can get action at 5/10-25/50NL.

Just 1 comment on a small hand.

38:20, I would've bet the 44 there to protect my hand, you're not worried of getting drawn out on or getting bluffed off the hand?

Generally speaking, betting to protect your hand or worrying about getting bluffed is a poor reason to bet. When you bet, your primary goal should almost always be to either get your opponent to fold a better hand or get him to call w/ a worse one. No matter what crap you have read on 2+2, you will do yourself a favor by knowing if you are bluffing or valuebetting when you put money in the pot. Sure sometimes you end up bluffing with the best hand and vice versa, but a "2 way bet" or a "value-bluff" is just not a good way to think about betting as you are moving up the stakes.<end random tangent>

In this specific hand, I felt that Adam, like most MSNL tags, would check back any pair on that A high flop texture, specifically Tx, 9x, and other pocket pairs. So when we arrive at the turn, he has the hands I mentioned above, Kx a decent amount, any two other cards that just gave up on the pot infrequently as he wasn't delayed c-betting much at all, and very rarely a slowplayed hand like Ax or better. Against that range and our history when I was OOP and the flop went check, check, I feel that when I bet I will get called by worse hands very rarely, thus turning my hand into a bluff. Furthermore, his range based on what I had seen when he checked the flop was heavily weighted toward hands w/ marginal showdown value better than 44 that I wouldn't expect him to fold.

As a final note, I also did not expect him to bluff the turn or river nearly ever. Soooooo many TAGs are absolutely atrocious at balancing in these type of spots. Specifically, many HU players when they completely miss the flop will either cbet or occasionally just give up on the pot entirely. Many otherwise solid HU players would do themselves a lot of good by waiting until the turn and more specifically the river to fire a bet w/ air from time to time. Against most players if the flop and turn check through when I'm OOP, I can be pretty damn sure that the river either made his hand or he's making a thin v-bet on the river if he bets, making a fold w/ a hand like A high or bottom pair very easy. The same advice can be said about betting the river OOP w/ air against a solidish opponent OTB.

I agree with you on the range for his check on the flop. However, I feel like if we check we lose the hand so often by the river. If he has overcards to our 4 he has 12 outs total of giving him the best hand. You say he's unlikely to bluff the river, but I can easily see him bluffing a K or Q with his 53o or something. Also, he might decide to float our turnbet with K-high and check it down after. So in terms of EV, I just feel like betting now and taking down the pot with a high succes rate is better.

I agree with you on the range for his check on the flop. However, I feel like if we check we lose the hand so often by the river. If he has overcards to our 4 he has 12 outs total of giving him the best hand. You say he's unlikely to bluff the river, but I can easily see him bluffing a K or Q with his 53o or something. Also, he might decide to float our turnbet with K-high and check it down after. So in terms of EV, I just feel like betting now and taking down the pot with a high succes rate is better.

As I mentioned above, this particular opponent would a) be very unlikely to not cbet w/ a hand w/o showdown value like 53o and b) if he did, is very unlikely to try and steal the pot later from what we have seen. If you are playing someone who is likely to bluff the river, you would be better off calling a bet on the river than leading w/ a hand that will almost never be called by worse. The type of player who randomly bluffs this river on the end is typically also the guy who can't value bet thinly at all, making a river call a lot easier. Adam definitely is not that type of player.

Yes there is a chance that he calls w/ K high on the turn, but from what we had seen so far of him, I think he would foldto a turn lead w/ a K more often than not. More importantly, against his entire range of hands in that spot, we are going to get called by a better hand than 44 quite frequently. This is one of mine and DogIsHead's goals during our series: To help DC members to always put their opponent on a range of hands as opposed to one specific hand.

Ok, I see where you're coming from now, should take that high cbet percentage into consideration. Thanks.

Excellent video, really looking forward to your series with DOGISHEAD

very informative video. i learned a good deal. i think you have a lot to add to the DC team . i hope you stick around to teach us more. Thanks

very good so far. your analysis is probably the best i have heard outside of people i have actually heard of

The hand where you fold to the c/r on the river with AJo, don't you think that because his range fits into that board so little of the time, he could be bluffing alot more knowing that you know he won't try to bluff that board like ever. Also, because we checked the flop back, we severely under repped our hand, so much so that calling the river is +eV imo.

The hand where you fold to the c/r on the river with AJo, don't you think that because his range fits into that board so little of the time, he could be bluffing alot more knowing that you know he won't try to bluff that board like ever. Also, because we checked the flop back, we severely under repped our hand, so much so that calling the river is +eV imo.

As I mentioned in the video, in retrospect I think mathematically I probably should have called there getting about 3:1. At the time I decided to fold (in addition to the reasons I mentioned in the video) because he just c/c the turn, meaning he would have needed to turn a made hand into a bluff here on this river, something I wasn't entirely sure he was capable of. Furthermore, I wasn't convinced that his thought process was as deep as you mentioned above. Yes we did underrep our hand, but I am not so sure it matters in that I find it hard to believe he would c/r a worse hand like A7 for value on the river w/ that board texture.

Liked your video very much, Garrett. Also it is very nice that you give such detailed replies to our questions. That is great, i will definitely use the opportunity to ask you something in your next vid thread=)

Re QJ hand at @24 mins, where you river a str8 and go for a checkraise:

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. Your read is that he has some kind of marginal showdown value hand like a 3 or ace high or pocket fives, and that he will fold these the majority of the time if you bet. This is probably true, but is it not still more probable that villain makes a hero call with one of these hands than bets it if you check?

If he has a ten it doesn't matter what you do because he's betting if you check and calling if you bet (and he's not calling the checkraise). If he had an 8 he'd have bet the turn, as you say. So the only hands that a checkraise is better against are total air hands with no showdown value, but if villain had floated your flop lead with one of these then surely he'd have bet the turn as it's really easy for him to rep an 8.

Great vid BTW.

Re QJ hand at @24 mins, where you river a str8 and go for a checkraise:

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. Your read is that he has some kind of marginal showdown value hand like a 3 or ace high or pocket fives, and that he will fold these the majority of the time if you bet. This is probably true, but is it not still more probable that villain makes a hero call with one of these hands than bets it if you check?

If he has a ten it doesn't matter what you do because he's betting if you check and calling if you bet (and he's not calling the checkraise). If he had an 8 he'd have bet the turn, as you say. So the only hands that a checkraise is better against are total air hands with no showdown value, but if villain had floated your flop lead with one of these then surely he'd have bet the turn as it's really easy for him to rep an 8.

Great vid BTW.

I think everything you just mentioned has merit, but I disagree w/ you slightly. I think there is actually a decent chance he calls a c/r w/ a T in this spot because a) my line makes no sense whatsoever b) he likely knows I play pretty tricky. Given that, so many players that I play against always convince themselves "well if I am going to value bet this river, I have to call the c/r" even though against virtually everyone that is pretty flawed thinking.

My other argument would be that although you are right that he would very often bet the turn if he just floated the flop, I think he checks back air a small % of the time on the turn. Furthermore, some players would check back A high on this turn and bet the river as a bluff because a) it looks like I can't really call very often given both of our flop and turn lines and b) he is afraid I may have backed into a pair by the river.

Overall, a very close spot for sure since he obviously may call w/ Ax or 3X on the river if I just lead out.

very good video, i'm new at DC and im learning a lot!!!!!!!!!!

Time Link to 00:14:48

Don't you think he would bet out here with trips/full house? You both went to showdown by checking it down with marginal SD-value before,
so I don't see him not betting the turn with any kind of hand here, Except some sort of turned 5 ?
I'm a small stakes player, but are NL400 regs really so sexy that they check trips/full house here ?
I also think I would raise the river here 100% when we hit our flush, because we rep very little here, at best an 8 on the turn?
I don't see why we shouldn't raise here.
What would you do here if the river blanks? like if a deuce of spades hit? Then I think I would just call the river.

Thats my 2c, and I would really like to get some feedback on this hand, are my thoughts way off?