Poker Video: No Limit Hold'Em by BalugaWhale (Mid Stakes)

Wow, what a Monday lineup! Anyone else feel like it's Christmas today? This has been a great series, looking forward to this one.

Kristy,

I think it's very brave of you to broadcast the most brutal session you've ever played. I'll admit it was hard to watch in some places but it reminded me of some sessions I've had that I looked at after and thought 'wtf could possibly have gone through my head to do that' which made me smile.

In terms of poker, I'm really not liking these 1/2 pot cbets you've been making. There was a hand where you opened UTG w/ KQ and cbet QJxtt for 8 into 16, this wasn't the only example but it illustrates the point. I really think your standard should be something closer to 2/3-pot as half pot really interferes with your ability to build the pot over the coming streets, whether bluffing or value betting.

I am a monkey aggressive bad player when tilting too.
I think that it could be alot worse at least the times you were contemplating it or did it you had some equity - the next level of tilt is just to playback with everything.
I think it is accurate to say that without image or history most 1-2 players are not playing back at you without decent history with you. So I think that those regulars would be likely treating you as an unknown in many respects and not getting outta line.

there my thoughts fwiw

Sick beat being a 1/2 reg and not luck boxing into this vid.

Kristy, you have nothing to feel bad about, just a standard part of the learning process. It's easy to focus on all the things that go into making the correct decisions when things are going well, but when you are tired, and you lose some pots, especially when those pots represent more of your roll than you are used to, reverting to trying too hard to win is common. One of the biggest factors I use to determine if I'm going to play or not is how rested I am. I really struggled with playing bad when I was tired b/c I want to play all the time, so now if I'm not 100% I use the time I would be playing to work on my game or if I really want to play, I drop down in stakes. So, don't be discouraged and keep up the good work.

everybody makes mistakes, I've had tons of sessions where ive spewed way more, and far more severely.

Keep up the good work, 1/2 is a bit of a tougher game. But once you get used to it you'll realize its not much tougher then .5/1 or .25/.5

ps im glad that unlike you I've never had to broadcast my bad sessions on a poker training website and try and justify my bad plays. That takes guts.

Thanks for the support guys.... haha if you guys have read my last blog, this is the session I was talking about.

Last Blog

After I played the session, I obviously knew it was the worst poker I've ever played, and of course I thought about scrapping the tape and recording a new one, but I didn't think that would help me, or anyone else who was watching. I signed up for this knowing that I'd put myself in a vulnerable spot.

Phatmanrivers -- Good advice. My thoughts were that half pot size c-bets in three-bet pots would be ok because I could get stacks in by the river if I wanted to since there is so much money in preflop. Do you still think I should be making it more?

DiggerTheDog -- Yeah, good point. I'll keep that in mind when I put in my last 1-2 sesh for the last episode

Jsturm -- Haha yeah where were you? I was just giving away money Thanks for the comments

PATheDeuce and CDoubleU -- Thank you

Great episode Kristy and Baluga. U probably helped more people by showing mistakes made than just showing a good session. I ve enjoyed all 7 episodes but am curious why u picked 6 man ring instead of 10 man ring?
does deuces cracked have any 10 man micro limit cash episodes. are there advantages to playing 6 over 10 man . thanks.

Horrible Hank

Time Link to 01:55:19

This is hilarious - it's like you were watching my session yesterday - I can do all 3 at once. Bad aggressive mode 60%, call station mode 30%, super-nit mode 10% (probably because it's the least expensive - hard to lose a ton of money doing that).

Kristy, let's be positive here!! While you were discussing the bad plays, I saw a ton of hands you played perfect. Once "the process" is applied you'll make $$ on the "bad" hands too.

Although you spewed off a few chips here I think you have done fantastic across the series so far, I hope I can do as well.

Kristy,
....I really think your standard should be something closer to 2/3-pot as half pot....

Hi Kristy,
It did seem to me that the betsizing changed when we arrived at the $2nl stake. You dropped your normal betsize down from what you were doing before (constant 2/3-pot bets) down to a different standard (1/2 pot bets). I am guessing this might be because the money is bigger and more intimidating. You definitely kept cbetting/3betting (aggression), but with lesser relative $$. I noticed this right away.

But regardless, a super congratulations for stepping up to the plate! More than any other video, I was really looking forward to this one. When this video didn't show up last week, I thought you may have backed out of the $2nl challenge. Baluga promised "disaster" and "fun" (and learning).

Hat off to you! You inspired me to give it a try (someday soon). After all, if a "girl" can do it, why can't I? Just kidding! I'm sure it also helps knowing that Baluga is going to review the session. Lucky you!

Really enjoy this series!

regarding the 1/2 pot bets. The correct adjustment in villain's shoes is to call more, since he is getting better odds. This means that against a thinking player we need to bluff more in later streets as his range will be wider and he'll have more hands that will fold but bluff if you check.

i.e. if we plan to bet once and give up, 1/2 pot is better against someone who plays fit-or-fold. But a lot of people will peel with stuff like overcards+backdoor and letting them do that (check-folding after one stab) is giving away money. Against those people we need to either bet bigger, or barrel more.

There's also a lot of players who will have a level-1 gameplan of the sort "I have second pair, so I'll call one bet and fold to the second". Against them we profit more by betting big with our whole range, since what they put in the pot is effectively dead money that we can take later.

solid vid as always + great content

BUT

The difference between when kristy/and we see it und Baluga sees it and talks about it, gets really annoying with time. I find it at times hard to follow btw dont (directly, takes a short time^^) understand where we are in the vid^^. And so its pretty hard to focus.

Maybe iam the only one, but i already didnt liked it in the last one.

I go into super nit mode when I'm running bad. What are some suggestions to deal with changing mode when you get frustrated or is running bad?

Hey for future videos could you try to normalize the volumes a bit? Kristy is like 10x as loud as Baluga and it's impossible to find a balance where I can hear Baluga and Kristy isn't shockingly loud.

solid vid as always + great content

BUT

The difference between when kristy/and we see it und Baluga sees it and talks about it, gets really annoying with time. I find it at times hard to follow btw dont (directly, takes a short time^^) understand where we are in the vid^^. And so its pretty hard to focus.

Maybe iam the only one, but i already didnt liked it in the last one.

agree, i was kinda lost sometimes about what hand baluga was commenting

but i don't think there's much they can do about it. great series, thanks baluga

Time Link to 00:16:18

200% agree with the whole exploiting thing. People often misuse the idea of being exploiting by equating it with folding in general, which is bad thing to do.

+1. been sitting with the remote control in my hand all through this series (the volume issue). good series otherwise

Phatmanrivers -- Good advice. My thoughts were that half pot size c-bets in three-bet pots would be ok because I could get stacks in by the river if I wanted to since there is so much money in preflop. Do you still think I should be making it more?

Kristy,

I wasn't talking about a 3bet pot, this was a single raised pot. 1/2 pot cbets are fine in 3bet pots at 100bb as you can go 3.5bb->11 = 23.5 -> 48 -> 124 -> shove or something like that, so you can still get stacks in by the river. I wouldn't be cbetting 1/2 pot after a 3bet if you were >150bb deep, slightly bigger is better with your entire range in my opinion.

Edit: My >150bb point has nothing to do with anything in your video, but I put it in as it illustrates the point of deciding why one should choose certain sizes for bets.

OOOOHHHH I finally figured out who kristy is after watching the pokernews item about Ivey room yesterday.

I need to keep up with the times

Time Link to 00:05:26

97s - why are we calling this preflop ?

Good video , good addition to the series imo , every player makes these mistakes but its those who learn from them that come out the better player. I wish more coaches would be open to making videos inwhich they run and play bad.

Just to say I have loved this series, and well done to Kristy for everything so far, sure you will be smashing 200nl in no time!

It's helpful to see people making mistakes we have all done and do, then go over them.

Thanks for this!

OooOO and Guinness is fantastic especially Extra Cold! You should try Guinness Red too if you ever find that lol

OOOOHHHH I finally figured out who Kristy is after watching the poker-news item about Ivey room yesterday.

I need to keep up with the times

Yeah me too. I just watched her Ivey interview yesterday and thought to my self "Oh, there's our DC girl". Great series both Kristy and Baluga. Can't bring myself to take a shot a 200nl never mind record it. Good work.

kristy, being the reg on your left in this video and the biggest winner at 200nl on ftp (winrate+$hr wise) , dont listen to whatever the people in the forum tell you about people not playing back at you without history, or your small bets being -ev

half my bets at this limit are less than 1/2 and some regs ive never seen will call my 4bet and raise my turn bets on boards like QT9x with their AQ and call my shove on the first time it happens..

The fact is, the more you play with 1/2 regs, the less shit they do unless they're part of the 10-20 guys who play 200k hand a month and breakeven (the 2+2 posters)

is I like boomboom a DC member?

Just finished the vid,

Really good vid actually, don't feel too bad about it Kristy, I did this once as well, went supermonkeysh*t when I moved up from nl2 to nl5 when I first realised that A stack was worth more than a bigmac.

Got over that but when I moved up from 10 to 25 I started playing super disgusting weaktight, because I didn't want to go spewspew again.

I think it's pretty damn cool that you get to be coached by a half decent coach and get to talk to phil Ivey for a dayjob tbh. So dont worry about it and own the next session

Hopefully see you soon on FTP!

kristy, being the reg on your left in this video and the biggest winner at 200nl on ftp (winrate+$hr wise) , dont listen to whatever the people in the forum tell you about people not playing back at you without history, or your small bets being -ev

half my bets at this limit are less than 1/2 and some regs ive never seen will call my 4bet and raise my turn bets on boards like QT9x with their AQ and call my shove on the first time it happens..

The fact is, the more you play with 1/2 regs, the less shit they do unless they're part of the 10-20 guys who play 200k hand a month and breakeven (the 2+2 posters)

Boomboom,

When you're making small bets you're doing so with a reason in mind, whether that be to induce bluffs or induce calls to make further barrels profitable. Point being you're doing it for a reason, with an expected result that you can prepare for.

I think Kristy has been doing it as she wants to cbet but sometimes falls into the weak/tight mentality of not wanting to lose money when she's called. In doing this she has none of the benefits of betting small that you experience in whatever spots you decide to do so, and all the negatives.

Thus I think she should consider getting used to the normal lines before she begins to manipulate them in various ways for her needs.

Well, this video is an inevitable outcome of fairly inexperienced players getting powerleveled through limits. She probably is ready for NL200 game theory wise, but definately not ready mentally.

I can also relate to after-work-playing, it's very difficult to maintain any kind of game after long office hours, more so when you're trying to climb the limits.

Time Link to 00:06:34

Chat box on the left table. You're famous!

Edit. Then I get 2 minutes further in and Baluga points it out >.<

I would really like to see Baluga's feedback on the change in Kristy's betsizing. It isn't whether it is right or wrong. For me, it was how her coach wanted her to adjust with this step-up.

I do not remember Baluga saying anything about changing her strategy. She was naturally a bit frustrated with the new level -- but she also changed her game (on betsizing). So, this didn't seem like apples-to-apples (Kristy changed).

In the earlier videos, I remember wondering if I should increase my own betsizing after watching Kristy). That is why it stood out for me. Should WE change/adjust like this when moving up?

I would really like to see Baluga's feedback on the change in Kristy's betsizing. It isn't whether it is right or wrong. For me, it was how Kristy was suppose to adjust with this step-up (according to her coach).

I do not remember Baluga saying anything about changing her strategy. She was naturally a bit frustrated with the new level -- but she also changed her game (on betsizing). So, this didn't seem like apples-to-apples (Kristy changed).

In the earlier videos, I remember wondering if I should increase my own betsizing after watching Kristy). That is why it stood out for me. Should WE change/adjust like this when moving up?

i adjusted my betsize to follow what is said in bobofitos' bible, baluga's book and cts's ebook.. during that time my winrate went from 5ptbb to 1ptbb like most regs.. those kind of betsize are definately not good for today's ssnl games

There are better beers than what you can buy in gas stations. If you're going out, go to a bar/restaurant that brews its own and experiment.

good vid, definitely guilty of doing this too. (going aggro monkey)

I noticed the bet size changes as well. I know she justified one of the cbets as a multi way choice, it jump out at me pretty much immediately that she was cbetting much smaller. I'd say a standard response (whether physiological aware or not) to the intimidation level that came with the higher stakes.

Great example of play being affected by an out of comfort zone environment. We all have to go through it. Especially tough I think since she's moved up so quickly.

Good job Kristy, and thanks for sharing your learning process with us.
]-[

Time Link to 00:10:23

may i ask where are the stats???'

That was an amazing series of videos. So far it is the best I have seen on this site. I really love the last ten minutes or so where BW talks about the "process" in more detail.

Kristy, putting that session out there took courage. We learn the most from our setbacks. Thank you for being such an active participant in the videos. Your feed back to BW's teaching makes for an engaging dialogue.

Fantasitc series,even with the technical issues.

Time Link to 00:07:54

So we cant bet this turn for collection of dead money? Since vs 2players if we are ahead here and usually we are we barely win at showdown vs 2 random hands. I was pretty suprised to not here anyone bring up collection of dead money am I wrong for thinking this?

the video is good but Kristy's volume is so much higher than Andrew's volume. It's kinda hard for us to adjust our speak volume to avoid jumping out of the chair when kristy cracks up lol

it's frustrating to say the least that Beluga Whale doesn't reply to most questions, oh well