Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by Joe Tall (Micro/Small Stakes)

hahaha, awesome!

Hey, playing people you know is the most fun in poker!

By the way, limit holdem makes me sad.

Holy Rakeaments!!

Got to admit I'm not a fan of playing people I know either, certainly not in HU games

That said though great vid guys

I reall enjoyed making this vid w/Joe was fun.

My subscription has run out! Who won i need to know!

just n oticed that with the new layout when I click reply I cannot see the first 2 letters of what i'm writing!

I am using vista, explorer 7, at 1680x1050.

just n oticed that with the new layout when I click reply I cannot see the first 2 letters of what i'm writing!

I am using vista, explorer 7, at 1680x1050.

Hmm, can't duplicate this in IE7/XP, so it's probably an issue with themes in Vista. Probably not something we can do much about.

Rob

My subscription has run out! Who won i need to know!

The Rake.

Hmm, can't duplicate this in IE7/XP, so it's probably an issue with themes in Vista. Probably not something we can do much about.

Rob

FWIW, I have the same issue. I have XP and am using Firefox 3.0.5.

Edit: Had this problem when I went directly to the video page from the main thread. Problem disappears for me when I reach the thread through the forums list. (?!?)

Great video as always guys. I'm going to rag on Joe Tall's HU LHE game a bit here, so I first want to preface this by saying that Joe is obviously a really terrific poker player. For me personally, the biggest asset Joe brings to DC is his ability to play such a wide range of games at a high level. So any criticism below should of course be interpreted in light of the this information, which is so evident in his video series that it does not need further explanation.

HU LHE against a decently tough players plays vastly vastly different than most of the games that Joe is used to crushing. Specifically, in the games that Joe dominates, a large part of his edge comes from his great hand reading and his ability to narrow his opponent's hand range to a very small number of possible holdings. In 7stud, a tight player cold calls a raise with a T showing, then calls fourth when he hits a 4 and raises a 2 on fifth, and Joe realizes "This guy has rolled up tens, maybe aces in the hole; he'd never play (T2)T or any other hand likes this." Things along those lines. Bad, predictable players make hand reading easy because it is a reversible process: xyz hand leads to a definite uvw action, while uvw action only occurs if he has xyz hand. (Obviously, it's not quite that simple, but that's the basic paradigm we're operating under.)

But in a tough HU LHE match, hand reading is no longer reversible. It is often true that players get into a routine where xyz hand leads to uvw action. (That is, players tend not to use mixed strategies based on randomization.) But tough players do something that is almost just as good; they play their range in such a way that uvw action doesn't necessarily correspond to xzy hand. Lots of different hands will lead to the same uvw action. And I think that in your HU LHE analysis, Joe, you don't have this concept at the forefront of your thought process.

A couple instances in this video were analyses that began, "I put you on..." and then naming a specific hand, when Chuck is simply going to play way too many hands with the given action for you to confidently make such an assertion. (I'm not sure if some of this wasn't due to retroactive analysis affecting how well you recall your thought process.) And I'm not saying you don't understand hand ranges; you obviously do. But I do think that your mind naturally fixates on what it considers the most likely holding, even if that holding is far from a sure thing. For example, if your rational analysis would say that Chuck has Hand A 40% of the time, Hand B 30% of the time, and Hand C 30% of the time, you would want to take a line that takes into account all three possibilities. But it seems like your lines are often based on an analysis as if he held exactly Hand A.

I think someone else pointed this out in another DJ+MH thread, but often you go right past the very Stop! signs in LHE (particularly HU) that you so wisely talk about in your From A Donk To A Stud series. For example, you insta-called down T8 on the KQJ-8-2 flop (flush draw on flop that was not completed), and later said that Chuck could have Tx and also that you would have to fold A high. But, if you had used your stop signs, you first would have thought about whether Chuck would barrel Tx and how many combos that was (as well as consider busted heart draws in your analysis) and you also would have realized that your pair of 8s was essentially the same hand as Ax in this spot. So if you "have to" fold A high on the end, then the river can't be an "insta-call" with 8x.

Again, I seriously have tons of respect for Joe. He's one of the best poker teachers out there, period. But in light of the interesting Myers-Briggs thread in the general discussion forum, I think that it's possible that the exact psychological traits which make him such a great educator also make him more susceptible to the leaks I described above. It's not that Joe isn't capable of the kind of theoretical analysis needed at HULHE, but it's possible that his brain is not wired for abstract theory to be his dominant function (since he is an F not a T).

Poker naturally uses more of our T brain than our F brain (as well as more of our N than our S). The problem that an SF has is not that he/she is necessarily incapable of the NT functions, but that they aren't the dominant ones. And because poker -- especially online poker -- happens at such a rapid-fire pace, our dominant functions are the ones our brain is naturally inclined to use. That's why, in my opinion, Joe's "Stop! sign" advice is so good. It's basically a way of slowing us down so that we access the part of our brain that is best for our situation, instead of just the one we instinctually turn to based on our personality type.

Anyway, I hope this isn't too personal; I am really trying to use Joe as an example. No doubt someone analyzing my poker play could find many many more flaws than I could possibly find in Joe.

Cliff Notes time. Fact: JoeTall is a poker player and teacher extraordinaire. Opinion: He has some leaks in HU LHE. Speculation: They could be the result of him ignoring "Stop! signs" when he plays, causing him to rush to suboptimal decisions.

I reall enjoyed making this vid w/Joe was fun.

+ "I don't really like playing with people I like."

= Chuck doesn't like Joe?!?

(Just thought Chuck's logic needed a little ragging on too. My alternative and more plausible interpretation of this seeming paradox that would make even Zeno and Sorites cringe is that Chuck doesn't like playing people he likes, but JoeTall is so awesome and fun to play with that he had fun despite this reservation.)

PS - I'll declare myself the winner of the contest to be the first to make a not particularly sensical reference to the Sorites paradox in a DC thread. But everyone's still eligible for the analogous contest about the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. Oh wait, looks like I just nailed that one too...

@sweetjazz3

Wow, awesome analysis. And you are 100% correct. Against good players I work backwards when it comes to hand ranges (I put them on a specific hand and adjust it as the information falls). I could use to lighten that up in HULHE for sure. I have even said to Chuck before the match, "this will be no way and how I play against a random opponent." And it isn't, as Chuck is not a random opponent but he sure played randomly enough to open my eyes. (see that 53o hand.)

I loved your reply, well done.

FWIW, I have the same issue. I have XP and am using Firefox 3.0.5.

Edit: Had this problem when I went directly to the video page from the main thread. Problem disappears for me when I reach the thread through the forums list. (?!?)

sure the problem disappears for me too when I reply from the forums as i'm doing now.

sure the problem disappears for me too when I reply from the forums as i'm doing now.

TYTY, I logged this bug for our devteam to take a look at.

I thought this was a great video and would like to continue to see more HU battles of coaches in the future.

TYTY, I logged this bug for our devteam to take a look at.

Fixed I see!

Wow this video was excellent. And sweetjazz does some sick analysis. Just awesome guys.