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

Fwiw, Gman, I like your analysis of the AQo hand 23:00 or so; it's a general read vs a thinking, competent opponent and I'm thinking he'll chime in and agree he'd have the same line w/ A9o etc.

Level-war cooler imo.

I hope we don't get housed in this one?

few hands i didnt really like your lines.

basically every postflop 3bet. You said multiple times in this video this guy didnt seem like he was the spazz bluffy type. And the entire video I don't think he bluffed or got out of line (that we saw) at all, excluding the $80 river bluff. So really, I doubt he'll ever continue light if you 3bet as he just doesnt call down with marginal hands.

What do you think of a river bluff on the KQ hand? The board read tt54r. He showed earlier that when his hand is faceup he has a propensity to fold (specifically the QQ hand on the river). I thought there was another spot but maybe not. He also hasn't once shown a marginal calldown with a middlepair type hand despite you guys playing for over 60 minutes (In a large pot). I assume he would rarely flat anything better than queens on the flop.

I guess my question is basically, why didn't you shove the river? I realize he could have Tx but there are a lot more combos of weak pocket pairs like 66-99 and 5x (well only 56 and maybe A5s). But the shove would have to work 50% which is a lot. Do you think he has Tx or a calling hand too often to shove? Would things change if the board was like T84Tx? Obviously if he can show up with JJ+ here a lot that changes a lot of things, but in the vid you talked a ton about him having Tx despite how hard it is to make trips.

also, in real life do you actually say for what its worth that often?

Now thats G

Heya,villain here.

AQ is played pretty well vs me, worse A's are in my range and I gotta get it AI on that flop, unless I managed to like 4th level gman.

The 885Q4 board where gman has A7, I guess I leveled myself I was trying to rep the polarized range with Qx

Im kinda sick at how much I got owned. Rematch?

Btw my call with 56s on the xT5Tx board where gman has KQo I think is good. Its a flop where I can be floating a ton, add the fact you have kinda been running me over, so I figure you know I'm likely to be floating and so I assume you barrel the turn trying to make me fold all my air. Which you were.

few hands i didnt really like your lines.

basically every postflop 3bet. You said multiple times in this video this guy didnt seem like he was the spazz bluffy type. And the entire video I don't think he bluffed or got out of line (that we saw) at all, excluding the $80 river bluff. So really, I doubt he'll ever continue light if you 3bet as he just doesnt call down with marginal hands.

What do you think of a river bluff on the KQ hand? The board read tt54r. He showed earlier that when his hand is faceup he has a propensity to fold (specifically the QQ hand on the river). I thought there was another spot but maybe not. He also hasn't once shown a marginal calldown with a middlepair type hand despite you guys playing for over 60 minutes (In a large pot). I assume he would rarely flat anything better than queens on the flop.

I guess my question is basically, why didn't you shove the river? I realize he could have Tx but there are a lot more combos of weak pocket pairs like 66-99 and 5x (well only 56 and maybe A5s). But the shove would have to work 50% which is a lot. Do you think he has Tx or a calling hand too often to shove? Would things change if the board was like T84Tx? Obviously if he can show up with JJ+ here a lot that changes a lot of things, but in the vid you talked a ton about him having Tx despite how hard it is to make trips.

A river shove is pretty awful vs my range. The more worse pairs I have to call with eg the lower the PP and SC I call with PF means the more Tx Ill have in my range, Im like 90% sure a bluff shove is bad although some maths could prove the point.

If the board was TT9xx then I think a river bluff would be better as now I could have a lot more busted draws that I decided to double float with

few hands i didnt really like your lines.

basically every postflop 3bet. You said multiple times in this video this guy didnt seem like he was the spazz bluffy type. And the entire video I don't think he bluffed or got out of line (that we saw) at all, excluding the $80 river bluff. So really, I doubt he'll ever continue light if you 3bet as he just doesnt call down with marginal hands.

What do you think of a river bluff on the KQ hand? The board read tt54r. He showed earlier that when his hand is faceup he has a propensity to fold (specifically the QQ hand on the river). I thought there was another spot but maybe not. He also hasn't once shown a marginal calldown with a middlepair type hand despite you guys playing for over 60 minutes (In a large pot). I assume he would rarely flat anything better than queens on the flop.

I guess my question is basically, why didn't you shove the river? I realize he could have Tx but there are a lot more combos of weak pocket pairs like 66-99 and 5x (well only 56 and maybe A5s). But the shove would have to work 50% which is a lot. Do you think he has Tx or a calling hand too often to shove? Would things change if the board was like T84Tx? Obviously if he can show up with JJ+ here a lot that changes a lot of things, but in the vid you talked a ton about him having Tx despite how hard it is to make trips.

So first, while I did say that he didn't seem really spazzy, he definitely was a good enough player that he was capable of having reasonable bluffing vs v-betting frequencies. Overall I feel like most of what you say in the first paragraph is an oversimplification as my opponent was for sure a good player.

I actually think bluffing the river in the KQ hand wouldn't be that bad. As I mentioned in the video, I do think it would be a -EV play overall though as I thought he was fairly likely to call me w/ any pair on the river considering his turn call.

I think your read that he has a propensity to fold when his hand is face up is a little off. On the AT vs KT hand where he donked out the flop and called down his hand was extremely face up by the turn. Also, by betting the flop in the QQ hand on the Axx board he did disguise the strength of his hand a bit even though by the river I was able to figure out what he had for the most part. And I disagree that he wasn't capable of flatting Tx or an AA type hand the whole way on the TT54 board you are referring to. And as Huggby mentioned, if the board was TT9x a river bluff would be a little better as he could be double floating w/ overs w/ a gutshot and OESDs.

also, in real life do you actually say for what its worth that often?

IRL I never say for what its worth. To be honest, I get really tiled watching my own videos. I mispronounce words I never do and find a way to confuse the flop and turn or right and left a lot and it drives me nuts. I guess when I am recording the audio for videos I just have so much running through my head that I forget how to speak English

Heya,villain here.

AQ is played pretty well vs me, worse A's are in my range and I gotta get it AI on that flop, unless I managed to like 4th level gman.

The 885Q4 board where gman has A7, I guess I leveled myself I was trying to rep the polarized range with Qx

Im kinda sick at how much I got owned. Rematch?

Btw my call with 56s on the xT5Tx board where gman has KQo I think is good. Its a flop where I can be floating a ton, add the fact you have kinda been running me over, so I figure you know I'm likely to be floating and so I assume you barrel the turn trying to make me fold all my air. Which you were.

On the A7 hand, I def. respected your game enough to know that you were likely to make that betsize w/ your entire v-betting range, not just 8x+, but that thought process is good and will get you paid off by worse a bunch.

Sure we can rematch if you want. You'll probably own me after watching this vid tho.

Gman i love your HU vids. in fact, DUEL is probably my favorite series. well done.

I think this is one of the best HU vids I've seen in a while. I prefer it to the Dogisheadup vids where you spent a lot of time talking over each other!

A question:

@ 1:08, you 3bet KQ and cbet T54r and barrel a T turn, the justifiaction being that you think he's floating you a lot.

If this is so, then why not go for a checkraise? Is it because you're slightly deep? (would you consider it 100bb deep?)

I think this is one of the best HU vids I've seen in a while. I prefer it to the Dogisheadup vids where you spent a lot of time talking over each other!

A question:

@ 1:08, you 3bet KQ and cbet T54r and barrel a T turn, the justifiaction being that you think he's floating you a lot.

If this is so, then why not go for a checkraise? Is it because you're slightly deep? (would you consider it 100bb deep?)

Thanks for the compliment man.

Let me say first of all that betting that turn is something I would not do very often at all. It is a) somewhat difficult for me to rep many hands and b) unlikely that your opponent is going to fold a pair if you have been playing pretty aggro.

With that being said, I thought this was a good spot to do it against a thinking opponent because a) for leveling reasons I believed he would interpret a turn bet as strong since this is a terrible spot for me to fire the second barrel and b) I did believe that a good % of his range didn't have a pair and I didn't expect him to continue w/o a pair.

With the assumptions above, the risk/reward of c/r isn't nearly as good as just firing again, as is often the case OOP in a 3 bet pot. Yes because stacks are a little deep is an even greater argument for not c/shoving the turn. I also thought he might be good/tricky enough to bet/call w/ any pair on the turn, which really makes c/shoving gross.

great stuff in this, vid, have to rewatch it tho.

I tried generalising the situation and playing with some numbers, I'd be grateful if you could check them out. I'm not trying to say that the play in the video was wrong, I'm just thinking about that general kind of spot- you can decide how much is relevant.

Assuming 100bb stacks, a standard pfr, standard 3bet to 10bb.

Flop pot 20bb, standard cbet 15, call

Turn pot 50bb, 75bb behind.

Let's assume that if I barrel, I bet 30bb, and if I check villain will either bet 25bb with his floats and value hands, or checkback some marg showdown hands.

Further assumption:

if the hand gets to the river, I lose the pot. So if I barrel and am called, I'm not 3barrelling. If the turn goes check check, I'm not betting the river, just checkfold. And we're ignoring any outs I may have to improve

Hand range 1(strongly suspect he's on a float):

Assume that after villain calls the flop cbet, he's range consists of: 75% floats , 15% hands that will bet the turn for value (and call a cr) 10% marg sd value hands that will check back if checked to, but call if bet at.

option a) I bet 30bb

EV= 0.75(50)- 0.25(30)= 30bb

option b) I crai 75bb

EV= 0.19(-75)+ 0.81(75)= 46.5bb

so, crai higher EV than betting

Hand range 2 (think he's floating quite alot):

50% floats, 25% hands that will betcall, 25% hands that will checkback but call if bet at.

option a) I bet 30bb

EV= 0.5(50)- 0.5(30)= 10bb

option b) I crai 75

0.66(75)- 0.33(0.75)= 25bb

again, crai better than betting.

So I tried to construct a range where crai would be worse:

Hand range 3:

50% floats, 40% hands that will betcall, 10% hands that checkback but call if bet at

option a) I bet 30bb

EV= 0.5(50)- 0.5(30)= 10bb

option b) I crai 75bb

EV= 0.56 (75) - 0.44(75)= 9bb

so, crai very slightly less than betting.

OK, so we can never know exactly what villains range is, but don't these numbers seem to show that if we are correct in thinking that villain is floating a large amount, then a lot of the time a crai is more profitable than a bet? Or are the simplifications in this analysis leading us to the wrong conclusion? (Though some of the simplifications, if factored in, would be in favour of a crai- outs we have to improve will work in our favour when we're all in but if we bet the turn and are shoved on we'll have to fold)

A further thought:

There will be some ranges where a turn barrel will lose us money, but a crai be profitable, basically because a turn bet gives us extra information.

e.g, 30% floats, 10% hands that will betcall, 60% hands that will checkback but call if bet at.

If we barrel here, villain is only going to fold 30% of the time, and we require him to fold 30/80= 37.5% of the time to break even. So our barrel is -EV.

But if we check, when villain bets, he is bluffing 75% of the time, giving us 25bb EV on out turn crai.


IF we decided that this is all well and good, then what's to stop us from doing the same thing when we are deep, but not crai, just checkrasing to the same absolute amount (so the numbers are the same), and then just folding if shoved on (assuming we're not priced in)?

This is like the first time like ever I like had to like turn the sound like off to like watch a video.

This is like the first time like ever I like had to like turn the sound like off to like watch a video.

Great 2nd post.

Great 2nd post.

Thanks m8, appreciate that.

I tried generalising the situation and playing with some numbers, I'd be grateful if you could check them out. I'm not trying to say that the play in the video was wrong, I'm just thinking about that general kind of spot- you can decide how much is relevant.

Assuming 100bb stacks, a standard pfr, standard 3bet to 10bb.

Flop pot 20bb, standard cbet 15, call

Turn pot 50bb, 75bb behind.

Let's assume that if I barrel, I bet 30bb, and if I check villain will either bet 25bb with his floats and value hands, or checkback some marg showdown hands.

Further assumption:

if the hand gets to the river, I lose the pot. So if I barrel and am called, I'm not 3barrelling. If the turn goes check check, I'm not betting the river, just checkfold. And we're ignoring any outs I may have to improve

Hand range 1(strongly suspect he's on a float):

Assume that after villain calls the flop cbet, he's range consists of: 75% floats , 15% hands that will bet the turn for value (and call a cr) 10% marg sd value hands that will check back if checked to, but call if bet at.

option a) I bet 30bb

EV= 0.75(50)- 0.25(30)= 30bb

option b) I crai 75bb

EV= 0.19(-75)+ 0.81(75)= 46.5bb

so, crai higher EV than betting

Hand range 2 (think he's floating quite alot):

50% floats, 25% hands that will betcall, 25% hands that will checkback but call if bet at.

option a) I bet 30bb

EV= 0.5(50)- 0.5(30)= 10bb

option b) I crai 75

0.66(75)- 0.33(0.75)= 25bb

again, crai better than betting.

So I tried to construct a range where crai would be worse:

Hand range 3:

50% floats, 40% hands that will betcall, 10% hands that checkback but call if bet at

option a) I bet 30bb

EV= 0.5(50)- 0.5(30)= 10bb

option b) I crai 75bb

EV= 0.56 (75) - 0.44(75)= 9bb

so, crai very slightly less than betting.

OK, so we can never know exactly what villains range is, but don't these numbers seem to show that if we are correct in thinking that villain is floating a large amount, then a lot of the time a crai is more profitable than a bet? Or are the simplifications in this analysis leading us to the wrong conclusion? (Though some of the simplifications, if factored in, would be in favour of a crai- outs we have to improve will work in our favour when we're all in but if we bet the turn and are shoved on we'll have to fold)

A further thought:

There will be some ranges where a turn barrel will lose us money, but a crai be profitable, basically because a turn bet gives us extra information.

e.g, 30% floats, 10% hands that will betcall, 60% hands that will checkback but call if bet at.

If we barrel here, villain is only going to fold 30% of the time, and we require him to fold 30/80= 37.5% of the time to break even. So our barrel is -EV.

But if we check, when villain bets, he is bluffing 75% of the time, giving us 25bb EV on out turn crai.


IF we decided that this is all well and good, then what's to stop us from doing the same thing when we are deep, but not crai, just checkrasing to the same absolute amount (so the numbers are the same), and then just folding if shoved on (assuming we're not priced in)?

So the math there looks right, but your assumptions are a little off against a lot of players. We have to assume in all 3 situations that a) he is floating at least 50% of the time, b) he will always bet/fold the turn. Those are both pretty big ifs imo. Often when people float they do so w/ 6+ outs, so in a lot of scenarios our opponent will hit a hand 14% (or more) of time and bet/call then as well. Also, our cbet is a little big which inflates the pot a bit, but I know that's being pretty nitty.

Anyway, I agree w/ your analysis overall. If you are really that sure that your opponent is floating you that often, we should pretty much be checking our entire range to him on the turn almost always. Unfortunately most good players realize how much they are risking to run that bluff and consequently they a) just don't pure float with the intention to fire the turn when they miss >50% of the time (sometimes they wait until the river, sometimes they hit a hand on the turn or river, and sometimes they give up completely), and b) they bet/call the turn w/ a pretty wide range. This is where counterstrategies such as double barreling w/ air, c/r the turn w/ big hands, and checking the turn and firing the river w/ air become powerful weapons in your arsenal.

As for your further thought, if your opponent is bad enough that his ranges consist of 30% floats, 60% check backs and a retarded 10% of hands that can bet/call, then yes checking for information is good when we have an air hand, especially if we have some equity to improve. When deep just c/r is fine except for the fear that your opponent might shove on you w/ some of his air/semibluff range. If in the fortunate situation your opponent is incapable of that, then clearly c/r the turn goes way up in value. To put it simply, I have made a lot more money in my career c/r that turn for value and getting my opponent to spaz shove on me than I have running a bluff. My image usually just sucks too badly for that line to work on a consistent basis.

Gman, thanks for taking the time to look through that, I know it was quite long and numbery.

One thing, when you say:

So the math there looks right, but your assumptions are a little off against a lot of players. We have to assume in all 3 situations that a) he is floating at least 50% of the time, b) he will always bet/fold the turn. Those are both pretty big ifs imo.

I think either I'm misunderstanding you, or you're misunderstanding me (or both?). I don't understand when you say that I'm assuming that he'll always betfold the turn. In each of the hand ranges I analyse, there's a section of hands which are betcalling the turn. (and these hands will include hands that started off as floats, but have now hit one of their 4 outs and are betcalling for value)

Also, are you saying there are hands which will betcall the turn when checked to but fold to a 2nd barrel? That makes any analysis pretty tricky (unless those hands are such a tiny portion of his range as to be insignificant)

Gman, thanks for taking the time to look through that, I know it was quite long and numbery.

One thing, when you say:



I think either I'm misunderstanding you, or you're misunderstanding me (or both?). I don't understand when you say that I'm assuming that he'll always betfold the turn. In each of the hand ranges I analyse, there's a section of hands which are betcalling the turn. (and these hands will include hands that started off as floats, but have now hit one of their 4 outs and are betcalling for value)

All I was saying is that to assume he is floating 50% of the time or more is a pretty big assumption in a lot of cases. And then to assume he will always bet/fold the turn when he doesn't improve is another pretty big assumption. In addition, some of his floats will turn into made hands that will bet/call the turn. That's all.

Also, are you saying there are hands which will betcall the turn when checked to but fold to a 2nd barrel? That makes any analysis pretty tricky (unless those hands are such a tiny portion of his range as to be insignificant)

I mean there are certainly situations where players will bet/call but will otherwise fold to a turn barrel, although it is somewhat infrequent. If your opponents tendencies are quite predictable, this is something you yourself should be doing from time to time. And I agree adding in that variable along w/ many others can make mathematical analysis quite difficult.

Thanks for the clarifications.

I also didn't account for the part of range which is hands that will checkback the turn if checked to and fold the turn if bet at (which I guess you're referring to by saying that he won't always bet his floats). So generally it looks like there are so many factors to consider that it's pretty impossible to analyse.

Thanks for the clarifications.

I also didn't account for the part of range which is hands that will checkback the turn if checked to and fold the turn if bet at (which I guess you're referring to by saying that he won't always bet his floats). So generally it looks like there are so many factors to consider that it's pretty impossible to analyse.

one of the reasons your math was working out so favourably for a check/raise is the stackot ratio. The guy is bet/folding despite being kinda pot committed with at least some of his hands. I think your "further" analysis should have been with slightly deeper stacks. Gma.ns spot was also deeper. He had a near psb back after betting the turn, so a check raise by him on the turn would have to work 50%ish, which seems way too high.

gman I did the math on a triple barrel. Even with very favourable ranges (ie his preflop range containing all broadways except jto/qto/kto it was -EV (-$50 or something incredibly small). If his range is widened to include all broadways (and he still has the marginal pocket pairs) then its a -$270 EV bluff.

in the calculations i was assuming he was calling jacks but folding 99. A lot of the math analysis is very dependent on assumptions, and you probably have a better feel on his ranges than I. To do the math really well I'd need to know his preflop calling range, turn calling range, and river calling range.