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

Chuck,

Nice video. Looking forward to the rest of the series. A couple of comments:

(1) The math for your c/r bluff on KKQt is not quite right. First, you never accounted for the K's and Q's on board, which heavily lowers the combinations of Kx and Qx hands possible. Obviously, these are calculations which are never done at the table and there are several different calculations you need to do based on whether your bluff is to check/raise the flop and then check/fold the turn if called versus check/raising the flop intending to lead out on the turn (unless it's an obvious bad card).

(2) I disagree that waiting until the river to raise your flush is necessarily suboptimal versus typical, more aggressive players. I would still take that line some of the time versus almost any opponent. This particular board texture makes it a nice line because there are a lot of river cards where you won't want to raise and you'll be glad you didn't raise the turn. This is a good spot to mix it up against almost all player types.

(3) Again, I don't think the 86o calldown is that bad in a vacuum. Here, raising is definitely preferable, but the EV difference is not that huge. Your opponent is going to have decent equity against your hand with his entire range and when you have the lead, it is going to be harder to know when to valuebet the river. Here, of course, it helps that your opponent always has you beat if he check/raises the river. So (and maybe this is agreeing with you based on what you did), I like making this a calldown instead of a flop raise some of the time. In heads up you have to be prepared to deal with playing 3bet pots in position with weak holdings, and I think it is important that your opponent never really feels comfortable knowing what you have in these spots. So when your flop peel could mean that you have one pair that is going to showdown, a big hand that is going to wait until the turn to raise, a weak hand that is going to fold the turn unimproved, a draw that is going to semibluff the turn, etc. it makes it hard for your opponent to play well against you. On the other hand, if you 95% of the time you peel the flop you have a very weak hand trying to limp its way to showdown or worse, your opponent has an easier time navigating his way through 3bet pots out of position.

Edit: Also, DC mods, you should update the weekly calendar on the home page.

Edit: Also, DC mods, you should update the weekly calendar on the home page.

Yeah, we need samples of all of the videos produced in a particular size first and right now haven't had time to get that project done. It should be up by early/mid-next week hopefully.

Rob

hand 2) c/r any two, we have FE vs this opp
hand 3) we fire twice, still no play from opp, Read: too FOF, too tight, we have lots of FE, he does peel some, run him over.
hand 4) I think we have already attained a solid read of monster FE, I dont fold anything vs this guy.
hand 5) please limp, if you sneeze he will fold, we dont want him folding this time, guide the opponent in the direction you want him to go, if we limp, I bet he raises more than calls as you have won almost every pot and he would like to take the match over if possible.(physchology..spell ck)
Which brings up a question, you can beat this guy for sure, at will, should we be thinking about slowly taking his chips, what I mean is stroking his ego at some point by allowing him to think he is not way overclassed here, I guess what I am asking is....is it ever +EV to lose a hand on purpose?

20:11 975 board...the turn, in the next couple days, I am going to post a short vid on reading boards, I am taking matters into my own hands...lol. If you get time Danza, please watch it and give some advice.
the flop is such that nothing is folding...he cant fold any two cards above a 7 or 68 or any pair, so only 43,42,32 are folding, so I just dont see how the 8 hurts us that much, cause his range is so big.
the turn hits any 6, any 8, and JT. that just cant be (math) that much of his range. we should bet the turn.

29:00..Td8d...I think villain was not bluffing here, I think I know his hand. he had X9 with the X being a big diamond most likely tha ace cause its so purdy. I know this guy, I think just like him. he folds the river because you called the turn and then raised the river, you either have a 3 or a made flush so he can fold his 9.

the hardest part of playing this guy, is keeping him at the table. metagame?

the KKQ c/r bluff hand. sweetjazz is right the math is even more in your favor beacuse of the board taking out some K and Q hands in villains range. It would be nice to be able to quickly estimate the chances of villain holding a FD or JT. but only 5 cards hit this flop hard.

Great vid Danza, I like your style. You think "outside the box". You are able to tilt 90/10 math into 40/60 with reads, and you are fearless, please teach me that.

Nice vid, hope theres a little more play in the future though.

Hey Psycho,

There is a lot more playing in the future.

Sweetjazz,

1 - Yeah I won't discount those @ the table. I've basically done the math on that 5 or 6 times and now use shortcuts in my head.

2 - Maybe I didn't make it clear but I do think it is suboptimal vs. more aggro opponents, not typical. I did mention that a lot of the more aggro fish I play will put in a 4th bet on a FSDR sometimes and fight for the pot too much on the river. As far as there being river cards I won't want to raise, there are also river cards he won't want to bet. In general, I find raising is much better there are on the turn.

3 - You kind of contradict yourself here but not really. Yes, I only have a pair of 6's and my opponent has like 75% equity here or i do, and since he is kind of tight it's a strange spot. But in a vacuum I should be playing my hand for value and due to his tight nature, if this was the last hand we were playing I would have called the flop and raised the turn.

But you do say you want to make it so that your opponent is never really comfortable and that's not really vacuum play. That's basically the other 1/2 of the reason I call down.

Great comments though. Dang you're gonna make me work hard on this series haha.

Mckey you have to be careful with hand reading 3 or 4 hands in. You can think you have monster FE, then you find out he is peeling a Q84 flop is 35 but unfortunately has has 23 both times.

Danza, great video.

I love your idea of making plays early on to gather information. I think this is going to be the most valuable lesson you can learn in HUHU.

The T8s flush hand, I think 3betting the turn is perfectly fine because villain is going to have a diamond so often. But, to be on the same vein as the first point, now I am open to calling the turn so I will know whether he will fire again the river.

Can't wait for the next episode!

I really liked the format though, its just easier to understand the concepts when in a hand rather than talking about them, atleast for me. I like your style alot, and i really like the way you explain your thoughts. Also you and DD have a coold sense of humor, beeing that im mainly a limit guy this applies to me

T8s hand.

Chuck said, "People who are weak-tight often pick random times to take aggression."

This is so true. I think this happens when these players usually get to a point in the match where they realize that you are winning more than your fair share of pots. They fear that they are being run over (which they are) and they decide that THEY are going to win a pot with the worst hand. From my expirience they usually choose paired flops to make their move on in order to represent trips by check/calling flop, check/raising turn. Fortunately for us it's easier to get to showdown on paired boards so this makes the opponent's move even worse.

Also, I feel that making snap-calls on the river with light holdings in these situations puts ALL of the 'momentum' on your side the times you are correct. When this happens I can just picture the opponent sitting at his computer throwing his arms up and shaking his head, realizing that he is being absolutely owned.

I think your commentary on the game play in this video was excellent. Here are some things that I really liked that you did in this video and hope that you continue to do:

- identifying opponents' leaks and how to exploit them
- anticipating an opponents reaction to certain lines/plays
- imparting knowledge based on your experience in close/tough spots
- what you would expect from a tough player - what we should be doing ourselves

Obviously in this video you found the opponent from heaven - the weak tight type. I really have no idea, but it is my suspicion that this type of player would eventually try to adjust to being run over. Obviously the random aggression you pointed to is one way, but have you encountered opponents who start out weak tight but learn quickly and become a lot tougher as the match progresses? I suppose that for you, with your experience, this is not so much of a problem... but for me, a "HU hobbyist" with very little experience, I have found it disheartening when an opponent starts to play better against me and I often end the match fairly soon. As a relative newbie, the one thing that sticks out to me as an opponent becoming tougher is folding less preflop.

During the c/r bluff hand on the KKQ board you were putting in $20 to win $50 and you said you only need to win 40% of the time to break even. I am not sure where you get this figure of 40% from, I think it might be because 20 is 40% of 50, but that is not how often you need villain to fold in order for the your bluff to B/E.

Getting 2.5 to 1 on your money you need villain to fold around 28% of the time to B/E.

During the c/r bluff hand on the KKQ board you were putting in $20 to win $50 and you said you only need to win 40% of the time to break even. I am not sure where you get this figure of 40% from, I think it might be because 20 is 40% of 50, but that is not how often you need villain to fold in order for the your bluff to B/E.

Getting 2.5 to 1 on your money you need villain to fold around 28% of the time to B/E.

He correctly says that 2/7 is ~30%.

The 40% I believe comes from the Stove calculation done earlier where opponent was given a 67% pre-flop range, but was only continuing with 25% of hands (i.e. 67-25 = folding ~40% of hands)