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

really excited for this after our recent blink conversations

also, fucking sweet intro

I was pretty sad at first to see this series not being ipod compatable. That lasted for all of 15 seconds and I realized it was going to be a series about the games I play in. I love it! DD is the best and his analysis about players I see everyday is priceless. I like the new format as it provides quantity of interesting hands and the ability to pause provides quality of content. Perfect as usual.

The audio seems to be a bit messy. It skips for short periods and is slightly out of sync, i think.

Apart from that, great video/series.

Yeah, great discussion as always, but the sound was messy to me too. Also, you had some problem following the action and you didn't know how the action went before you paused. (I don't have the timestamps here, but the other one was you opening J8o on the top-right right table and the other was you opening A9o at around 36 minutes where you get donked on the flop and maybe there was some other hand too.)

I don't see why you couldn't just two-table and do the same thing. There's still always enough to warrant discussing and it wouldn't be so difficult to follow the action. But this might be just partly because you are perhaps somewhat inexperienced with this style of videos.

Great video DD, absolutely packed with excellent content. I have a couple of questions.
1. Why have you stopped having the HUD showing stats on your opponents?
2. When your playing in these mid/high stakes games at sites like stars what do your stats end up like, are they similar to Oink ie. something like a vpip of 35% and pfr of 25%, or do you play a little tighter than that?

I noticed you missing the action in some spots too.
Maybe you can discuss one hand at a time and then rewind if there is action on multiple tables.

Think you should play fewer tables since youre recording audio after the fact, since theres a lot of stopping/you missing action in hands other than the one youre focused on in your commentary. You have great insight and some cool ideas, it just gets a little messy with this format imo. The amount of hands really isnt that big of a deal either as far as im concerned.

I found the audio skipped a little also, was workable but distracting.

I know I am improving, cause this is the first video you have done DD, were I was NOT completely lost. I was pretty much able to keep up. Course, I still gonna watch it a few times to absorb.

I have some questions, but I think I prefer to post them in small stakes as to get more replys as they are not about specific hands, but more conceptual and the reply may help others also.

I like the format, as you are not rushed in your analysis and can spend as much time as possible on each hand or even action. I like watching you analyze your own play, cept you dont find any mistakes. is that because there are none, or because your mind was blind to the correct play live and still is?

I was very excited this morning for this series to start. Nice work DD, this will be a great series.

I guess I have one suggestion

I feel like you are talking faster than you usually do because you have action happening on 4 tables at once. I don't think you need to do that considering that you can pause and rewind, so you shouldn't have to squeeze everything you need to say in a short time span.

That didn't bother me really, just something I noticed (It's a tough crowd here at DC, so they might complain).

Awesome content. I was surprised that you were that showdown bound. And you said yourself that you like your opponents to think that you are showdown bound for metagame purposes. Will you be extending on all of these concepts in future vids? And as a previous poster mentioned, I'm curious to know what your avg. VPIP is in these games (not that it makes a big difference, but i'm still curious)

Is your call in the BB with K7o standard in a multiway pot? I always fold here. It seems this is too easy for you to get into trouble as you did, with a hand that is easily dominated.

Great video DD, absolutely packed with excellent content. I have a couple of questions.
1. Why have you stopped having the HUD showing stats on your opponents?
2. When your playing in these mid/high stakes games at sites like stars what do your stats end up like, are they similar to Oink ie. something like a vpip of 35% and pfr of 25%, or do you play a little tighter than that?

the first point, I do really care about much, how u can find a optimal preflop play w/o vpip and pfr ranges? since those ranges aren't easy to pick on while 4 tabling?

Thank you all for the feedback, I really need it for this series, as the concept of it I have in mind but the execution I am still on the fence about. To address a few things, I realize the pauses were not perfect in this, my first attempt to use that feature in our recording software and I found out my laptop lags a bit with such large files (4 tabling videos are BIG) and so the pauses are far from perfect. I went through the whole video and tried to edit the sound to sync up as best I could, but I know it wasn't perfect. I am going to try a slightly different method next week.

I know I missed a little bit of the action at times, and I think that's just a function of my uncomfortableness doing the audio commentary afterwards, but I'm really trying to practice that and get better because I think fundamentally this is a better way to present my play (see my article I guess). This might sound cocky but I think if there were no audio at all this series would still be helpful to a lot of people trying to break into these limits, because they can see me playing my A game with no distractions of trying to record a video, and I believe I am one of the better players in the 10/20 game. I am hoping to enhance that experience with my audio commentary but I need practice at finding the best way to do so. All the feedback will help me a ton in that regard.

I don't think I spoke faster because I was trying to keep up with all the action, I am just a huge blabbermouth. I will try to remember to slow myself down a little bit.

My stats are a bit tighter than Oink's (should be obvious from seeing the type of hands I fold in later position that I know he would raise, I remember folding Axo in the CO a few times for instance). I am around 32/22 usually at these games but my stats are sometimes meaningless because I'll often play anywhere from 6 handed down to heads up in these games if the tables break down, I see no reason to quit good games when 4 tabling just because they are less than 6 handed, and that skews my stats.

The K7o hand was a pretty big disaster postflop but I think the preflop call closing the action is +EV for sure.

-DeathDonkey

Excellent first episode DD, full of great content.

I was particularly interested in the idea of keeping the pot small OOP, in particular cold-calling a three bet OOP with your entire range heads up. I can understand your reasoning and it makes perfect sense to me.

Does this however extend to blind defence? In other words would you always cold call rather than 3 bet a steal from the BB, with the intention of check-raising lots of flops?

I've noticed some of the mid-stakes regulars doing this (KPR16 and IanJ to name a couple), and the logic would seem to be very similar to the logic you expounded when calling a 3 bet OOP. In other words the EV you give up by just calling with your big hands preflop, you'll tend to get back plus maybe a bit more when you checkraise the flop.

I really like the four table format and commentary after the fact. If viewers notice a hand you miss we can always ask you about it in the forum thread. Looking forward to the next episode.

DD, the A6 hand at 13:20. You opened on the CO, it got 3-bet by SB and capped by BB. You said "it's a close decision" and then folded for 2 more bets. Is it really that close of a decision? Are the games that more aggressive at 10/20 that you could call with A6 off and not be behind? I think after that you said that you might call if it was suited? Is this correct or did I misunderstand you? Thanks, great content here.

Hi guys,

nom: yes I do the same in blind defense when it will be heads up against almost everyone (the exception would probably be some maniacs where I'd reraise pre for value and never feel that it will hurt my action later in the hand, very rare though).

pvwinkel: I thought it was close because of my read on those two guys as huge spewtards, its just equity / pot odds considerations that I pretty much have intuitively in my mind at this point, if they are capping only a legit capping range I'm crushed, but if they are capping 20-30% of hands which I suspect might be happening its probably an easy call to flop an ace and continue. I would call any two suited cards there vs virtually any opponents, the power of the suited cards multiway and the fact that I was in position is enough imo.

-DeathDonkey

Do you have a link to that Tiltblocker thing you were using? I did a google search but I could only find expired versions.

http://overcards.com/wiki/moin.cgi/AutoHotkeyTiltBlocker

-DeathDonkey

Thanks.

Things I'd like to see (hear):

- less commentary on super standard lines
- more commentary on applied metagame (e.g. preflop capping strategy in position, postflop considerations versus regulars)

A little bit longwinded in this first video, but I very much like the fact that you are willing to stick your neck out and state what you think your opponents range is in tough spots.

Thanks for the replies and thanks for your great work. I could be wrong, but I thought the UTG limped in the K7o hand which means that you didn't close the action. Does this change anything? Can you give me an example of other marginal hands you might call in this situation. I have a feeling I fold too much.

Thanks

Excellent start to the season. I wasn't distracted by any quality issues from overlaying your audio. I usually don't like more than one table videos, but stopping the action works almost as well! I have no complaints.

One area I would like you to explore is the value of the Blink concepts to online poker. I can understand why you would turn of the HUD stat display, but I wonder if it truly helps your play and how? Probably something that can't be explained, heh grasshopper? LOL

great video.I really like when its 4 tables.

Motienko, just keep watching the series and see all the hands I defend with, I'm sure you will have plenty of bb defense example hands as that's a ton of the shorthanded game.

Joe, well I try to describe why at the beginning of my vid and in that article I mention. Basically the concept I stole from Blink is that our subconscious is way better at things than our conscious, but we need to trust it, because it doesn't give logical explanations for why it does what it does. I am just trying to embrace that concept rather than fight it with "logic". For instance, my brain might notice a particular TAG opponent tilting or playing way more hands in the last 10 minutes and yet I won't adjust to his range because my HUD says he is a tight aggressive player.

-DeathDonkey

Joe, well I try to describe why at the beginning of my vid and in that article I mention. Basically the concept I stole from Blink is that our subconscious is way better at things than our conscious, but we need to trust it, because it doesn't give logical explanations for why it does what it does. I am just trying to embrace that concept rather than fight it with "logic". For instance, my brain might notice a particular TAG opponent tilting or playing way more hands in the last 10 minutes and yet I won't adjust to his range because my HUD says he is a tight aggressive player.

-DeathDonkey

Thanks, I'm rereading Blink now. No one has been able to 'explain' the process but the good results are clear. Surprisingly the average person is able to do almost as well as the experts. Hmmm, watch out ...

That article on blink moments is great, I think everyone should read it. I've been going with my gut feeling/blink moment lately and it's been working out real good. Trust your blink moment!


Check out DD's Q high call on the last episode of lags on a leash - I'm guessing that was some sort of blink moment because villain pretty much had to have exactly Jx and DD knew exactly how villain would play his hand!

First off I love the format and hope others coaches adopt it too.

There is a hand at around 54 minutes that I was wondering about. You open 96s in the CO and get 3-bet by the SB. The flop is 652r and you call, then raise a 4 turn and get 3-bet. On the river 7 villain bets and you make a crying call getting 11.5-to-1 or thereabouts. Does bluffraising the river have any merit? Since you plan to call anyway you're getting 12.5-to-1 on a bluff to put in one more bet to see if maybe villain will fold a better hand. I don't know the dynamics of the game but if there is any chance (like 7%) that villain folds a better hand bluffing is at least worth considering.

Perhaps I'm being too optimistic about our chances of folding out a hand like jacks or A7 which he decided to spew with on the turn. I guess if he is putting in three bets with those hands on the turn he isn't likely to fold them on the river either.

Yeah your last paragraph pretty much says it all for me, in these games you aren't getting someone to fold an overpair and that's pretty much the weakest hand he's representing. I pretty much go into every hand with the idea that if I can only outflop ace high I'll get paid off all the way, if you want to know how much fold equity I generally expect to have

-DeathDonkey

@ 34:07

you are delt [22] in the BB and defend vs a HJ open 6max.

you then proceed to c/r a 39Afd board where you have the bdfd and check it down. im wondering what your thought process is here and how you would play other hands/turns in your range like say 97s or 44 if they are any different.

I would not do that today, I'm guessing at the time I thought that not letting random overcards to my small pair peel and possibly improve was the main motivation for winning the pot right there, but my current way of viewing LHE is that is not a strong enough hand to CR and impossible to be balanced if I am CRing all pairs on that board, so yeah I would say that is a little out of date with the typical winning LHE strategies you will see from good players today.

fwiw I do still think that 97s is fine to CR there and bet every street, it is much stronger than 22 or 44.