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

sweet, v good content on the first one was looking forward to this

Everyone who is making videos in stars complains about timebank. You should notice that you play on FAST tables so timebank is a lot of smaller if you played on normal u'd have at least 2min's of timebank if not more.

looking fwd to this!!

Time Link to 01:07:09

there are definitely a bunch of spots worth commenting on in this vid. but i feel like your flop donk defined the type of range for you that put villain in a spot where raise flop gave him much better opportunities than when you c/c flop. in particular, your flop donk/3bet range is way too narrow on this board. and i would remain unbalanced by donk/calling monsters here in this match. does this sound okay? i feel like board texture is determining all of this.

OMFG that call on 24:00~ was sick.

How do i start getting to the level to make these calls? Maybe it's the desire to be a hero in all of us but most coaches tell you trying to make hero calls is something you should not be concerned with.

Time Link to 00:41:56

g-man
Thanks for the video.
I have seen in various 5-10+ videos discussion about how vs good players they tend not to c/c river spots like this to our river valuebetting range - and tend to take their range equity and either fold or raise.
In this spot - what do you think the top and bottom of his bluff-catching range is?
what do you think this range SHOULD be vs other good players?

It seems you were mildly suprised that he was capable of turning a made hand into a bluff in this spot........
Do you think it makes sense for him to do this at all vs your range and the gameflow? 1400 to win just pot just over 700
I saw a Dear FoxwoodFiend video on turning made hands into bluffs (admittedly a 6max setting) and this K of d appeared to be a gin card for opening up the profitability of running this type of bluff. Card that develops the board which can crebibly help bluffers range and bluffers c/r bluff reps more than one holding.
But you seem to think that flushes are more in your range than his based off of early st frequencies? Do you think perhaps that he might view your range and tendencies differently? and might think that he has more XX diamonds in his range than yours...

"this is the bottom of your value range"
At what point does it become a bet/call - Qx or AQ or is it only flushes?
And now that you know that he is capable of doing this - in this spot.....does this make it an easier or harder bet/fold?

* Note I am not a MSNL player or a HU player.

Thanks for your videos, and I look forward to more of your work.

Time Link to 00:30:04

boys and girls please dont try this at home....these are highly paid professionals

there are definitely a bunch of spots worth commenting on in this vid. but i feel like your flop donk defined the type of range for you that put villain in a spot where raise flop gave him much better opportunities than when you c/c flop. in particular, your flop donk/3bet range is way too narrow on this board. and i would remain unbalanced by donk/calling monsters here in this match. does this sound okay? i feel like board texture is determining all of this.

Because of everything I mentioned in the video, I still feel comfortable w/ my play w/ JT in this hand. It was just a bit a negative variance that he had one of the few hands where we aren't able to take this pot down. Specifically, he is likely to only value raise something like K9+ and he certainly may flat a hand bigger than that, which is a good outcome for us w/ J high. I didn't except him to value raise air much there, and if he did, as I mentioned I didn't expect him to follow through on the turn much at all. And even if he did, we have 14 cards we're not going to be folding on the turn. Just unfortunate that he ends up having T7 here. When he has 8x or some other hand with weaker showdown value than 8x, I think we can take the pot away from him by the river a bunch. And if we were to c/c the flop, we'd often just have to c/f the turn anyway.

I agree that my getting it in range when I donk the flop is kinda tight here, but that's because I didn't expect him to be playing back against my donk much at all. If I did, I'd be fine getting in a bunch of money w/ 2 overs and the OESD. How light we are willing to get the money in on this texture is completely dependent on the donk betting dynamic established in the match. There are plenty of situations where I'd get it in w/ a T9 type hand.

How do i start getting to the level to make these calls? Maybe it's the desire to be a hero in all of us but most coaches tell you trying to make hero calls is something you should not be concerned with.

Ya I mean I hate his call here, so this hand is a terrible example of when to make a hero call imo. But there really isn't a paragraph I can give you that will help you decide when to make hero calls. It's again one of those questions that ends up essentially being the same as asking "How do I play poker"

I will say that at the level most of my students are on, I don't discourage making hero plays just because. But I suppose that seems like a reasonable thing to tell a SSNL player or a student who plays way too FPSy

g-man
Thanks for the video.
I have seen in various 5-10+ videos discussion about how vs good players they tend not to c/c river spots like this to our river valuebetting range - and tend to take their range equity and either fold or raise.
In this spot - what do you think the top and bottom of his bluff-catching range is?
what do you think this range SHOULD be vs other good players?

It seems you were mildly suprised that he was capable of turning a made hand into a bluff in this spot........
Do you think it makes sense for him to do this at all vs your range and the gameflow? 1400 to win just pot just over 700
I saw a Dear FoxwoodFiend video on turning made hands into bluffs (admittedly a 6max setting) and this K of d appeared to be a gin card for opening up the profitability of running this type of bluff. Card that develops the board which can crebibly help bluffers range and bluffers c/r bluff reps more than one holding.
But you seem to think that flushes are more in your range than his based off of early st frequencies? Do you think perhaps that he might view your range and tendencies differently? and might think that he has more XX diamonds in his range than yours...

"this is the bottom of your value range"
At what point does it become a bet/call - Qx or AQ or is it only flushes?
And now that you know that he is capable of doing this - in this spot.....does this make it an easier or harder bet/fold?

* Note I am not a MSNL player or a HU player.

Thanks for your videos, and I look forward to more of your work.

Although I agree that better players tend to fold or raise on the river more often than others, I felt comfortable v-betting this river because as I mentioned in the video, I felt he would give me credit for bluffing here more often than a lot of other players, and yes I did deem it v unlikely he would c/r bluff the river. And in either this video or the previous one, I bluffed on a similar texture w/ KJ on a 6789x board.

A bluff catcher is a bluff catcher. There really isn't such thing as the top of someone's bluff catching range. I would phrase that as having a hand that is ahead of some of my opponents value betting range. When this is the case, given a) the price your getting on a river call b) chances he's bluffing and c) chances he's v-betting worse often make it correct to call (obviously this is a huge generalization, but w/e). In this exact hand, if he has 7x, that would often qualify.

As for the bottom of your bluff catching range, it should be a hand that is ahead of virtually all (maybe 95%) of his bluffing hands, assuming that it is a close decision. Obviously if we feel very confident our opponent is bluffing, we can call w/ a few more hands that might be behind his bluffs. In this spot, the bottom of his bluff catching range is and probably should be Kx, or like AA/89 in terms of a hand he will realistically show up with.

I think his play is debatable but overall probably not good. It seems likely given his play he thought I was a) bluffing kind of a lot there or b) v-betting very thinly. a) is a reasonably bad assumption given the dynamic in the match at the time. b) is also not so good because as I mentioned in the video, I was not going to v-bet that thinly there because he knows I am def capable of doing that.

I'm never folding Qx+ there, and I think I show up w/ one of those hands more than enough to make his play -EV. For combination reasons alone, I have way more Qx than 7x hands once I flat his 3bet.

Yes I feel as though he has a dd hand very rarely here, even less often than the admittedly low % of time I have a dd hand.

If this hand were to happen again on the very next hand against magicninja and many other solidish but not overly tricky MSNL/HSNL players, I would play it the exact same and fold the river again.

Thanks for the compliment and good questions.

Gman, I watch a lot of videos and you do a great job of explaining your thoughts compared to most. Your audio is fine imo. Great series too, I really am enjoying it.

Further to Ninjas made hand c/r river bluff.

You described that you thought it was 'uncharacteristic' of his play.
Does that mean that if it was characteristic that it would be enough to make the difference between bet/call and bet/fold by itself?
i.e. if you had history ( not necessarily intra-session) where you had seen him play spots similiar too this with a merged river c/shove range that you would bet/call with some frequency here with 7x?

So what would have to change?
A much more aggro dynamic or a possibility of tilt - where he was stuck say 5-10 BIs or he was up heavily.

Just trying to think of what would need to change for this to be bet/call on this board, broadly speaking.

And if there is not much - then if you are never valuebetting much thinner here - does that make the bet itself or the bet size less than optimal?
If he is only going to bluff catch certain two pair/set/7s and value shoving Qx+ and bluff shoving some frequency one pair hands.

I hope that makes sense and hope you have not already answered this and I have just not understood - I apologise in advance.

Lots of bitching about running bad but otherwise good content and interesting hands like that 3bet pot where Magicninja turned his Jx into a bluff.

Lots of bitching about running bad but otherwise good content and interesting hands like that 3bet pot where Magicninja turned his Jx into a bluff.

Haha thanks. Rewatching this video, I do think the whining was a little much. Sorry about that guys

Time Link to 00:28:31

In brief, this is the bottom of your bluff range So he only splits against the bottom of your bluff range. Amazing hand.

gman, have you ever made a midstakes HU video where you don't say "two good players" at least 5 times?

Gman, always enjoy your videos. What do you think about doing this in 4 episodes, where you in the 4th one go through hands in Holdem manager and give thoughts on what/how you should play this specific hands different with everything you know about him now(I know you already had tons of hands vs this guy, but I still think you learned some new things about his game in this match + He may have improved his game b4 this game)..

You said that you have to be a bit crazy to be a good HUNL player and I would really love to see some hands where you play as you call it "unorthodox"(right spell?) and crazy.

When two good thinking opponents play eachother, sometimes the edge can be so small that the "thing" who make the money move is = running bad or running good..
So please go through some unorthodox/crazy hands in HEM & show how to beat those games. Doesnt necessarily have to be vs MagicNinja.

I would really appreciate it..

Further to Ninjas made hand c/r river bluff.

You described that you thought it was 'uncharacteristic' of his play.
Does that mean that if it was characteristic that it would be enough to make the difference between bet/call and bet/fold by itself?
i.e. if you had history ( not necessarily intra-session) where you had seen him play spots similiar too this with a merged river c/shove range that you would bet/call with some frequency here with 7x?

So what would have to change?
A much more aggro dynamic or a possibility of tilt - where he was stuck say 5-10 BIs or he was up heavily.

Just trying to think of what would need to change for this to be bet/call on this board, broadly speaking.

And if there is not much - then if you are never valuebetting much thinner here - does that make the bet itself or the bet size less than optimal?
If he is only going to bluff catch certain two pair/set/7s and value shoving Qx+ and bluff shoving some frequency one pair hands.

I hope that makes sense and hope you have not already answered this and I have just not understood - I apologise in advance.

Yes, against some other players, I could def see myself calling his shove.

I feel like I can overgeneralize a bit here a break down a few player types

a) This player is incapable of c/r the river with air. He's just not good enough
b) This player knows the play exists, but just plays very very solid, and even in the perfect spot to c/r bluff, he probably wouldn't ever actually fire the trigger
c) This player def is on the more solid side and is unlikely to c/r bluff often, but the play is in his arsenal. This describes my opponent decently well.
d) This player is very aggro, tricky, FPSy. You can tell by the way he has played that he is a big fan of making hero folds/calls/bluffs etc.
e) This is player d) on roids and/or just a complete spaz.

Obviously the further you go down the list, the more likely I am to make this call. As you can see, when playing an opponent one of the many things I focus on is how he thinks about the game and even some of his character traits like assertiveness, arrogance, motivation, etc.

Of course sometimes something like major tilt might make me more likely to call down player b or c.

And again, because of the dynamic in the match, I still felt completely comfortable betting the river as I think he calls w/ worse a good amount of the time.

In brief, this is the bottom of your bluff range So he only splits against the bottom of your bluff range. Amazing hand.

Haha, yes this is exactly what I was trying to say. But you found a way to do it in a sentence instead of my wordy 10 paragraphs

gman, have you ever made a midstakes HU video where you don't say "two good players" at least 5 times?

I would assume no haha. I know I have a tendency to do some annoying stuff with my audio during video, so I apologize for that. But I guess with the good players thing I just get a little paranoid about some members who a playing are fish at 50NL doing some stuff that only works well against thinking opponents.

Gman, always enjoy your videos. What do you think about doing this in 4 episodes, where you in the 4th one go through hands in Holdem manager and give thoughts on what/how you should play this specific hands different with everything you know about him now(I know you already had tons of hands vs this guy, but I still think you learned some new things about his game in this match + He may have improved his game b4 this game)..

You said that you have to be a bit crazy to be a good HUNL player and I would really love to see some hands where you play as you call it "unorthodox"(right spell?) and crazy.

When two good thinking opponents play eachother, sometimes the edge can be so small that the "thing" who make the money move is = running bad or running good..
So please go through some unorthodox/crazy hands in HEM & show how to beat those games. Doesnt necessarily have to be vs MagicNinja.

I would really appreciate it..

Thanks! Unfortunately, next week is the last video DC has me slated for until later on this year and it's reserved for part 3 of this match. DC has a schedule and a budget, so I only produce so many videos annually, which is what allows you guys to get your monthly memberships for such a reasonable price.

I think your idea is a pretty good one for a video though, and it's something I may do later this year for DC. Thanks for the input.

Thank you for your detailed responses.
I personally do not mind your qualifications by "two good players repetition" because establishing where in the hierachy of opponents you think a play is applicable is frequently overlooked by other video producers.
So I would not stop that differentiation of scenarios just to avoid sounding repetitive.

Its a shame that there is not enough budget for more of your videos because I believe that they are excellent particularly how you discuss the variables and tendencies with such effort and detail.
Which is very educational for aspiring players like myself who attempt to improve overall hand reading and villain range assigning by watching all types of videos not just the games I/we play.

Look forward to more of your stuff.

In the last hand of the vid when you get snapped by 77 on the river...You say its possible for villain to find a fold in that spot.
I have some problems understanding this..77 should be pretty close to TT or even JJ in this spot. I dont really know if you are valueshowing 88-TT on that river..
Also I guess he would shove TT+ himself for value..
My point is that villain needs a callingrange on the river (given that you can show up with air, and would bluff 100% when you do)
But he needs all his strong hands in his valuerange given that you can call him down pretty light here.

Sry for all the rambling..Hope my question makes some sense.

In the last hand of the vid when you get snapped by 77 on the river...You say its possible for villain to find a fold in that spot.
I have some problems understanding this..77 should be pretty close to TT or even JJ in this spot. I dont really know if you are valueshowing 88-TT on that river..
Also I guess he would shove TT+ himself for value..
My point is that villain needs a callingrange on the river (given that you can show up with air, and would bluff 100% when you do)
But he needs all his strong hands in his valuerange given that you can call him down pretty light here.

Sry for all the rambling..Hope my question makes some sense.

The answer to this is all just based on assumptions, and thankfully part of the reason I often get paid off in this spot is that people assume I will do things that I am actually v unlikely to do in reality.

Why does he need to have a calling range on the river? I mean yes in many spots it's helpful to have one, but on this board texture I'm not even convinced it's necessary. I have a hand w/ some SD value soooo often that it may be completely fine for him to never c/c here. I mean ya it's cool when he c/c w/ AA or 6x on the river and I valueshove worse, but I'm checking back the river often enough that it has to be better just to shove those hands himself.

In order for him to have the best hand here, I have to:

a) valueshove worse, which although I may do in another situation w/ v specific gameflow, I def wouldn't do here.

b) Double float the flop-Again, something I want my opponents to think I do, but in reality am very unlikely to actually do it. If I have some type of decent draw, I'm a lot more likely to just ship the turn or put more money in on the flop.

c) Turn a made hand into a bluff-Although I will do this a lot more than many players, on this texture and the way the hand played out, it really just doesn't make any sense. If I have a hand like 3x, I am ahead so often that there really isn't a good reason to bluff. In addition, I also can't really rep much, and MN is def the type to check a decently strong hand like 77 here a lot more than most.

Because I will very infrequently do b) or c) I at least think calling has some merit, but I just think it's kind of a bad/unlikely spot for me to ever bluff. I'll stop rambling now, but certainly one could make an argument that goes "Well you know that he knows this is such an unlikely spot to bluff that we might as well just ship AJ every time here because he should never call us." But overall, I think that's a pretty poor argument.

The answer to this is all just based on assumptions, and thankfully part of the reason I often get paid off in this spot is that people assume I will do things that I am actually v unlikely to do in reality.

Why does he need to have a calling range on the river? I mean yes in many spots it's helpful to have one, but on this board texture I'm not even convinced it's necessary. I have a hand w/ some SD value soooo often that it may be completely fine for him to never c/c here. .

I heard Baluga talk about this concept.
Where there are a ton of spots where its not necessary to have a balanced range.
It is very hard for players of my standard to get our heads around concepts like frequencies. Which is why I like the way you talk about the dissection of ranges. Its not that 5/10 HU videos have much direct utility to the games I play.
But I try to keep my head in check when you mention stuff like this - where it makes no difference that your range is completely value-biased when you get to the river in some spots.