Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by sthief09 (Micro/Small Stakes)

Lovely!

Veeery good concept! New favourite day of the week is tuesday.

I'm biased, but this is great.

It looks like I'm doing pretty well on most of the bet/don't bet postflop decisions (outside of the horrific A6 hand) but I still need work on the bet sizing, which probably isnt surprising considering the fact that I'm still not fully divorced from my limit days.

re: the preflop raise sizing being the exact opposite of what you recommended -

I really like the idea of varying raise sizes based on position rather than card strength or not varying them at all. I got that from a Chris Ferguson post that made sense and has been working well. His rationale is as follows:

Raising from early position is to advertise a very strong hand - one that can beat the seven or more other players who still have to act. Since you are representing such strength, it doesn't take much of a raise to convince the big blind to fold. Also, since your hand is so strong, you actually don't mind a call from the big blind anyway. The real reason for a small raise is that you have so many players acting after you, any of whom might wake up with a monster and re-raise you.

When you raise in late position, you're representing a hand that can beat the two or three remaining hands. This gives you a lot more freedom to raise with marginal hands, but your raise must be bigger or the big blind can call too easily. Another reason to raise more from late position is that you're trying to put pressure on the big blind to fold, not call and, more importantly, you don't have as many remaining opponents who can re-raise you.

Of course the methdology requires that the hand ranges counteract the obvious vulnerabilites, so my EP opening range tends to consist of monsters, pairs, and suited connectors. The only hands that really suck to open with are ATo, AJo, and KQo. On the flip side, I've had to work on my button opening range so that I don't lose money by stealing for too much money with too wide of a range (which I was absolutely doing at first). Tightening the late p range keeps the strategy pretty balanced and at least at these stakes has been doing fine. I'm sure I'll have to re-adjust again as I move up and as players get better, but hey that's poker.

I'm going to watch the vid again and pose a specific question about the KQs hand later on, but for now I'll just say that I have loads of gratitude and respect for the commentary throughout. I think its flat out excellent!

Raising from early position is to advertise a very strong hand - one that can beat the seven or more other players who still have to act. Since you are representing such strength, it doesn't take much of a raise to convince the big blind to fold. Also, since your hand is so strong, you actually don't mind a call from the big blind anyway. The real reason for a small raise is that you have so many players acting after you, any of whom might wake up with a monster and re-raise you.

When you raise in late position, you're representing a hand that can beat the two or three remaining hands. This gives you a lot more freedom to raise with marginal hands, but your raise must be bigger or the big blind can call too easily. Another reason to raise more from late position is that you're trying to put pressure on the big blind to fold, not call and, more importantly, you don't have as many remaining opponents who can re-raise you.

This seems flawed because he's not really taking into account the fact that if you're playing out of position against multiple players, even with a big hand, your equity goes way down, whereas even if you're on the button and the big blind coldcalls you and plays you out of position, you're banking with your position and stronger handrange. This logic would be sensible if after preflop, we suddenly got dealt 5 cards and could showdown our hands, but he's not taking into consideration the tribulations of playing postflop out of position or in position.

The correct adjustment should be the opposite - raise bigger OOP, raise smaller IP.

yah, like UTG 4.5bb through to 2.5bb on BTN, which seems cool, but a lot of effort

if people start raising 3x UTG to "leverage their position" i'm going to see that many more flops and only put my money in postflop when ahead, so whatever. it's better in a 6-max online game to just raise something standard then sometimes vary your open-raise a bit smaller if you are OTB/CO so your steals are cheaper.

yah, like UTG 4.5bb through to 2.5bb on BTN, which seems cool, but a lot of effort

hows it a lot of effort? if you have a bet pot script, set it up to use the mouse wheel...if you don't, you have to type in the bet size anyway.

I just click to the left and right of the slider, it makes it climb 1BB at a time.

multitabling josh himself previously said it is too much effort. fwiw my FTP script doesn't work great and I haven't been able to get the support to edit it properly.

Great commentary and idea for a video.

Finished watching it.
Good stuff, picked up some tips for instance the stuff about 22-55 and Ace Rag, also early vs late sizes.

multitabling josh himself previously said it is too much effort. fwiw my FTP script doesn't work great and I haven't been able to get the support to edit it properly.

on stars it doesn't really take much more effort. just one extra click. for FTP, try this:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=192941

I see a lot wrong with that Ferguson post, when applied to cash games. It makes some sense to me regarding tournaments, since the implied odds are much smaller, and people will typically be trying to play hands they think are ahead of your range. With 20 BB stacks, whether you open to 2.5x or 4x, you're not providing anyone with the implied odds to call with 76s or even 55.

In a cash game if you open small UTG, especially at an 8 handed game like he's describing, you're just inviting people to call cheaply with position on you. You don't want this unless the caller is a megafish or you have AA-QQ. Even with AQ, the best possible outcome is stealing the blinds. If not, then you at least want to steal the button and play the hand in position. Opening for 3x UTG is just inviting people to take pots in position with you.

So, to summarize why I think we should raise more UTG rather than less:
1. Raising slightly bigger out of position is good fundamental NL. Whether you're raising limpers from the BB, or 3-betting from the blinds, you usually want to give your opponents encouragement to fold when they have position on you.
2. We need 3 seats to fold in order for us to have the best position postflop. Bigger raise gives us a greater chance of this (and of course, stealing the blinds).
3. Raising bigger with a stronger range is good fundamental NL. This is somewhat of a side effect of this strategy, but it works out nicely.
4. Your UTG raise includes some reverse implied odds hands. A button opening range doesn't offer much in the way of implied odds, since many hands will be crap like Q9o. An UTG raising range offers some legitimate implied odds, as a bigger portion of it is big pairs and hands like AQ and AJ that will usually make only a strong one pair. Raising to 4x cuts down on those implied odds. Instead of 3 BB to win about 100 (~33-1), it costs them 4 (~25-1). Stacks will also be shorter relative to the pot postflop, making it slightly easier to stack off with your big pairs.

If I have this right.

a tight range likes shallower stacks. (removes the implied odds a wide range needs)
a wide range likes deeper stacks. (gives implied odds it needs)

In early position our range is tight, therefore it benefits from a smaller stackot ratio. In late position our range is wide, and benefits more from bigger stackot ratio.

The big questions, I suppose,
is the difference between 3bb and 4bb enough? Is someone who folds to 4bb going to call 3bb enough times to make it worth the risk?

How far can we push this? I personally like to add the odd min raise with all sorts of hands on the button, good and bad. I have position, I have random crap, I have huge implied odds due to the depth. Would a 5,4,3,2 pattern increase this effect?

50NL at iPoker is a non-stop 3bet-fest, so I was very surprised to see how passively these Stars games played. Maybe it was just a quiet session.

I was a little suprised about the AJ hand where guru 3bets the UTG raiser from the sb. Is this standart ? Normally, against UTG raiser who isn`t a total donkey, I would think that I`m not ahead of his opening range. And especially oop bring myself in a bad spot.

I was a little suprised about the AJ hand where guru 3bets the UTG raiser from the sb. Is this standart ? Normally, against UTG raiser who isn`t a total donkey, I would think that I`m not ahead of his opening range. And especially oop bring myself in a bad spot.

do you have the time for this? I agree it's not standard if it was 6-handed. did I comment on it?

do you have the time for this? I agree it's not standard if it was 6-handed. did I comment on it?

min38. This hand in particular was 4handed, don't know if you realized that though. But you did say he 3bet small and that he didn't play the hand that well.

min38. This hand in particular was 4handed, don't know if you realized that though. But you did say he 3bet small and that he didn't play the hand that well.

ah yeah, I might not have noticed it was 4 handed, but that player is right next to the button so I'm pretty sure I realized he was the CO.

ok, thought it was 5/6 handed .but 4 handed i*am most oft the time fine with the 3bet...

Great video and good consept, love it!
Cant wait for more of this.

you talked about not 4betting AK against some players at these limits, but if im OOP, i can't call, so just fold?

you talked about not 4betting AK against some players at these limits, but if im OOP, i can't call, so just fold?

I'm not sure if you guys realize, but we make these videos pretty far in advance, so it's really, really helpful to get the time of the spot you're talking about. You CAN call OOP with AK though. it's not a huge winning play, and typically pushing or 4-betting yields a higher expectation, but if you don't think stacking off has much value, you can call. it depends on the opponent's range. if he's 3-betting only AA-QQ and AK, there's nothing wrong with folding AK OOP. if he's 3-betting JJ and AQ as well, then you can stack off. you're 40% vs. AA-JJ and AK, and assuming only AQ folds, that's still roughly 30% of his range. so pushing/4-betting is +EV, though this is a spot where I'd call if I had position.

thanks for the detailed answer, awesome series concept and video

Late to the party but just wanted to say this a great concept for a series.

I wish I had started watching it before I commented on the Hoodie Wars pt 1 forum. This is exactly the type of series I was referring to.


Paul
Expert_Wanna_B
Transforming from a Donkey to a Bionic Shark

Time Link to 00:07:15

I have a question about the notion that it's best to 3-bet hands like AJ/KQ against 'any type of player' when in the big blind facing a raise from the button.

The line of reasoning makes sense against a competent player. When he calls our 3-bet, we can make assumptions about what his likely range is, and we have a considerable amount of fold equity when we c-bet a reasonable board. Assuming we're doing this often enough, this has the added bonus of merging our range when we do hit a tptk/tpgk type hand.

But against a fish I always considered the best play to be flatting with our AJ/KQ type hands out of position, especially against a calling station. When we have less fold equity on the flop (because these guys don't fold as often as they should), it seems like we are charging ourselves a premium to play the hand out of position, when we could just be flatting and dominating their preflop range with our strong broadway hands.

What is the general consensus on 3-betting strong broadway hands oop against a fish?

But against a fish I always considered the best play to be flatting with our AJ/KQ type hands out of position, especially against a calling station. When we have less fold equity on the flop (because these guys don't fold as often as they should), it seems like we are charging ourselves a premium to play the hand out of position, when we could just be flatting and dominating their preflop range with our strong broadway hands.

What is the general consensus on 3-betting strong broadway hands oop against a fish?

If the bad player is raising some reasonable amount of hands (maybe 20 or 25%+ in that given situation) and not just premiums, there is lots of value in 3-betting AJ/KQ. A loose player will call with all sorts of dominated hands preflop, and 2nd best hands postflop. I don't think it's true that they're going to all any flop, but bluffing isn't how you're going to make most of your profit anyway. You're effectively reducing stack size so it's easier to stack the loose player when he flops a worse top pair, or possibly 2nd pair (or worse). When he decides to call with a draw, his implied odds are limited because the stack-to-pot ratio is smaller. When out of position these hands usually play best with the initiative in spots where most of the money can go in on earlier streets when TPGK is strongest.

Very nice vid ! Loved it thanks a lot...gonna keep watching the rest of the series for sure !