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

Looking forward to this - gl pad and josh.

Thanks dig.

Just a note to everyone that this one is fairly heavy on the maths, but it's an incredibly worthwhile exercise.

Josh's work in this episode has changed much of my perspective of play, I'm really still digesting and turning the concept over in my mind.

Will definitely be checking this out asap.

Immediate download. Really looking forward to this series. Josh's coaching series' have had a huge impact on my poker game.

Another great series from Josh that makes my brain hurt.

Hi - just watched it - sounds great. Will rewatch it a couple of times to get some more detailed comments.

Pad - what was the book that you mentioned on Talent?
I remember readin quite recently a thread on 2+2 that Bond18 wrote specifically regarding talent vs practise which was along the same lines with which you were talking.

I agree that the actual writing and calculating of EV and the doing of it yourself rather than just watching or reading is very important. The repetition and familiarity of seeing the ranges and the numbers filters straight into the pattern recognition and its development within your brain.

Josh - if your instinct are telling you to lighten up I would follow them - mainly because most will find it hard to digest. But having said that - I am hoping you don't. There are many others series with which to not get heavy math based stuff on the interwebs - and few that do - so I hope you do not lighten too much. But I might be in a minority there .

I have been trying to get a good handle on reducing my own and creating/exploiting 'dead money' - this video seems not only to be good at getting us to look at a more refined,accurate ranging process but also hopefully it will get us thinking about hands more wholistically. And reduce the 'wtf' moments we have mid hand.

Thanks will comeback with more specific things after this meal has settled in my stomach more.

Cheers

The book is excellent - Talent is Overrated Amazon Link

Josh, Any idea how I can activate Pokerazor?

I downloaded it to do some of the Prof Plotkin stuff but not being able to save the trees is a real pain. It would be really good to have for some of this stuff.

The book is excellent - Talent is Overrated Amazon Link

Sounds like a very similar premise to Outliers, a book I would strongly recommend.

Thanks for the link, sir. I'm ordering it now. Looks like a great read.

Nice Vid. Maybe someone can help. I understand the math, but how do you apply/plug/crunch the numbers while at play? I only 4 table, but 20 seconds isn't much time? Are you just plugging in on big decision hands, or is it just a matter of practice? Thanks and looking forward to next vids.

Nice Vid. Maybe someone can help. I understand the math, but how do you apply/plug/crunch the numbers while at play? I only 4 table, but 20 seconds isn't much time? Are you just plugging in on big decision hands, or is it just a matter of practice? Thanks and looking forward to next vids.

You can't do these calculations precisely at the table. You have to do the work away from the table then combine that with experience (yes playing and reviewing lots of hands is important too).

The hand Josh picked is a great example because even if you didn't know any math you should be aware that the majority of an opponents range for c/c c/c a wet board is heavily weighted towards medium strength 1pr hands. The math he did obviously confirms this.

In future episodes we will be looking at some techniques and exercises that will improve your ability to recognise ranges and the strength of these ranges.

congrats on the series SS.... dl'ing

Another recommended book on talent:

http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/055380684X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279743992&sr=1-1

Anything by Josh is a must-see. Thanks alot.

In future episodes we will be looking at some techniques and exercises that will improve your ability to recognise ranges and the strength of these ranges.

If you manage to do this in accordance with the 'talent' book(s), then you'll take the poker training video to a whole new level.

May I suggest that you do a mini quiz at the end of the video (5-20 questions, the more the better) to hammer down the concepts just introduced in the video? (You could allocate each question a couple of seconds, so that the quiz doesn't prolong the video unnecessarily.)

May I suggest that you do a mini quiz at the end of the video (5-20 questions, the more the better) to hammer down the concepts just introduced in the video?

Speaking as someone with experience with quizzes, even 5 questions is quite daunting unless they are more or less one word answers. Instead of 5-20 questions, I would suggest maybe doing 1 question based on the information in the current video that involves some homework on the user's part (counting combos, weighing them, and then seeing how it breaks down for example).

Time Link to 00:24:22

Hi,

The equities in red at the bottom of the Turn Equity chart were (I think) made taking the weights into consideration. Which program was used for this please ? Razor ?

Cheers.

Time Link to 00:32:29

Also, I'm not sure where the 'Win On River 23.9%' and 'Lose On River 42.4%' came from in the 'EV of Turn Decision (Assume no river action)' chart. Can you clarify that for me. I know they make the 'Get Called 66.3%', I just don't see how we worked them out. Apologies if it's obvious but I've been watching/following this almost all day, along with doing the exercise and my brain is starting to lock up

Edit : The chart is at 31:20, I did put a link in but it disappeared when I edited my post.

Thanks.

If I'm missing something below I apologize in advance for doubting you. This is all mostly based on the fact that I don't understand why you used the pot size of $175 instead of $225 in the calculation below.

At around 30 minutes in you show the calc that your EV of checking behind the turn assuming no river action is your equity * pot size, but you have the pot size as $175 vs the $225 that the 'EV of turn bet' chart has listed.

If you redo the calc with a $225 pot size, you get an EV of ~$87 which is really close to the final EV of a turn bet and a river bet on selected river cards ($87.58) that you presented near the end of the presentation 58 minutes in.

Wouldn't this suggest that the EV of checking the turn would probably be significantly higher than betting the turn as we are almost certainly going to be able to extract some EV on the river either when we hit one of our outs or if we're up against a villain who will c/f certain rivers? I would think that being able to get significant value when we hit from the small % of hands that would c/r the turn if we bet would almost definitely push checking the turn into a higher +EV situation.

FWIW, I definitely would have thought the EV of double barreling the Kh would be significantly higher than checking (when adding in river EV obviously), and I would double barrel here with a large portion of my range in game, but I think the reason why the EV of checking might seem higher when analyzing the situation is that our theoretical villain is probably 'too good' and too suspicious compared to the average uNL/SSNL villain (since this is marked as a uNL/SSNL rated video). In my experience, most TAGs/Regs at even 200nl are c/f'ing the turn (or at least the river) a lot more than you give them credit for in the video with weak, made hands which would support your premise that 2 barreling is a lot better than checking back turn.

With all that said, I loved the video. These concepts are ridiculously powerful if you apply them correctly and thanks for showing all these fun things that I can add to the double and triple barreling pages of my own poker Excel spreadsheet.

Time Link to 00:56:30

Thanks for the great video! I'm looking forward to the rest and I also like the math.

Don't forget about QQ+/AsKs/97s being in the range part of the time though. Do TAG's continue with stuff like Ah8h or A5s on the flop with a "check/cakk" ever here? What about 65s?

Would you rather bet a 2 or a ten river? Thanks, Yojimgari

Also, I'm not sure where the 'Win On River 23.9%' and 'Lose On River 42.4%' came from in the 'EV of Turn Decision (Assume no river action)' chart. Can you clarify that for me. I know they make the 'Get Called 66.3%', I just don't see how we worked them out. Apologies if it's obvious but I've been watching/following this almost all day, along with doing the exercise and my brain is starting to lock up

Please ignore, found it.

Thanks

I'm new to DC and am wondering if I should watch "App Attack" before starting this series. Any recommendations?

Sounds like a very similar premise to Outliers, a book I would strongly recommend.

I picked up Blink by the same author, again super interesting. Only about 2 chapters in but it's definitely going on my must read list.

Also some information about pokerazor, here's the response to an email I sent:

Hi,

We appreciate all the work you did to encourage people to do their
analysis with Pokerazor, but we are very sorry to tell you, that it'll
be better to start your series without recommending Pokerazor for your
students.
At this point we are neither going to make Pokerazor 1 available nor
Pokerazor 2 is comming any soon.

Regards,
Pokerazor Team

Very weird but the crowd that have bought pokerazor have no plans to sell any copies any time soon. The existing version is fully functional and very powerful so I don't know what's up.

You can still get the V1.0 somewhere online, but you can't register it which means that you can't save anything.



I'm going to leave the rest of the strategy questions for Josh when he gets back as he has the in depth knowledge on this one.

Time Link to 00:41:48

What do we do when our opponent reraises the turn but small enough that we can call? It sounds simple to just say well if we have odds then call.

As you noted in the table that our opponent's range changes when he's reraising us on the turn but does it matter if he's crai or putting in some click it back raise? Do we account for him trying to not get barreled and trying to find a cheap showdown + getting value with a9 9j etc? I'm asking because if he puts in a small raise, that gives us more decisions to work with. Will he rr small here with any of those hands and fold to a shove on the turn? Is our decision pretty much limited to bet calling a cheap turn?

If I'm rr'ed here on the turn I feel like we could be up against a 2pr+ hand more often than a blocking marginal hand. If that's the case do we account for less outs for ourselves because paired spades aren't the nuts? Can we still value bet river Q? or what do we do when the river's a Queen?

Very weird but the crowd that have bought pokerazor have no plans to sell any copies any time soon. The existing version is fully functional and very powerful so I don't know what's up.

You can still get the V1.0 somewhere online, but you can't register it which means that you can't save anything.

Thanks for checking that out - I guess if you guys can't get any joy out of them then no one can.

Sorry everyone that it's taken me several days to respond. Without going into too much detail, I had a serious situation that needed dealing with and I was with my family on Long Island all of last week. I'm back now, so thanks everyone for your patients.

Also, thanks for all the kind words. It's all very encouraging as we continue with the series.

Josh - if your instinct are telling you to lighten up I would follow them - mainly because most will find it hard to digest. But having said that - I am hoping you don't. There are many others series with which to not get heavy math based stuff on the interwebs - and few that do - so I hope you do not lighten too much. But I might be in a minority there .

Noted! You know me though, I have a hard time lightening up on the numbers and given the positive feedback on this one, I probably won't change the numbers-to-words ratio too much

Josh, Any idea how I can activate Pokerazor?

I downloaded it to do some of the Prof Plotkin stuff but not being able to save the trees is a real pain. It would be really good to have for some of this stuff.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a way to get the real version. I'm really frustrated about that. Pokerazor was fine how it was, and to take it down for 2 years... just very frustrating.

Nice Vid. Maybe someone can help. I understand the math, but how do you apply/plug/crunch the numbers while at play? I only 4 table, but 20 seconds isn't much time? Are you just plugging in on big decision hands, or is it just a matter of practice? Thanks and looking forward to next vids.

Episode 2 will be helpful for this. In general though, very few people (I am not one of them) can really crunch numbers at the table, so it's just a matter of recognizing familiar situations and applying what you know about them. You can also get in the habit of immediately checking your pot odds, narrowing ranges down street-by-street, and considering the # of combinations of strong hands villain can have.

Hi,

The equities in red at the bottom of the Turn Equity chart were (I think) made taking the weights into consideration. Which program was used for this please ? Razor ?

Cheers.

This was done the old-fashioned way. Well, the 21st century old fashioned way, in Excel. I Poker Stoved the equity against each hand in villain's range, and used excel and Bayes' Theorem to calculate total equity.

If I'm missing something below I apologize in advance for doubting you. This is all mostly based on the fact that I don't understand why you used the pot size of $175 instead of $225 in the calculation below.

At around 30 minutes in you show the calc that your EV of checking behind the turn assuming no river action is your equity * pot size, but you have the pot size as $175 vs the $225 that the 'EV of turn bet' chart has listed.

If you redo the calc with a $225 pot size, you get an EV of ~$87 which is really close to the final EV of a turn bet and a river bet on selected river cards ($87.58) that you presented near the end of the presentation 58 minutes in.

There was a mistake I caught while recording, and I edited it. You'll see the 175 magically changes to 225 when I noticed my mistake.

FWIW, I definitely would have thought the EV of double barreling the Kh would be significantly higher than checking (when adding in river EV obviously), and I would double barrel here with a large portion of my range in game, but I think the reason why the EV of checking might seem higher when analyzing the situation is that our theoretical villain is probably 'too good' and too suspicious compared to the average uNL/SSNL villain (since this is marked as a uNL/SSNL rated video). In my experience, most TAGs/Regs at even 200nl are c/f'ing the turn (or at least the river) a lot more than you give them credit for in the video with weak, made hands which would support your premise that 2 barreling is a lot better than checking back turn.

Yes, this is a good point. If we wanted to expand on this video, we could take a look at a few different types of villains facing the turn bet. Those that c/f their weak made hands on the turn will make 2 barreling very profitable, and 3 barreling potentially very unprofitable.

Thanks for the great video! I'm looking forward to the rest and I also like the math.

Don't forget about QQ+/AsKs/97s being in the range part of the time though. Do TAG's continue with stuff like Ah8h or A5s on the flop with a "check/cakk" ever here? What about 65s?

Would you rather bet a 2 or a ten river? Thanks, Yojimgari

97s is a bit of an oversight, though facing a 4x open and a flop c/c, we're probably somewhere in the <5% weight. The other hands are probably even less likely, when you apply the flat preflop+c/c flop line. AKs and QQ nearly always 3-bet vs. a MP open, A8s/A5s often fold/3-bet preflop and don't always c/c the flop. 65s is probably the most likely out of these hansd.

I'm new to DC and am wondering if I should watch "App Attack" before starting this series. Any recommendations?

These 2 are different series. App Attack covers the Hold'em Manager apps. It's basically a review on each of them so you can make a more informed decision. This series is going to be about specific hand examples and concepts regarding No Limit Hold'em.

What do we do when our opponent reraises the turn but small enough that we can call? It sounds simple to just say well if we have odds then call.

As you noted in the table that our opponent's range changes when he's reraising us on the turn but does it matter if he's crai or putting in some click it back raise? Do we account for him trying to not get barreled and trying to find a cheap showdown + getting value with a9 9j etc? I'm asking because if he puts in a small raise, that gives us more decisions to work with. Will he rr small here with any of those hands and fold to a shove on the turn? Is our decision pretty much limited to bet calling a cheap turn?

If I'm rr'ed here on the turn I feel like we could be up against a 2pr+ hand more often than a blocking marginal hand. If that's the case do we account for less outs for ourselves because paired spades aren't the nuts? Can we still value bet river Q? or what do we do when the river's a Queen?

If we are c/r small on the turn, then we have a profitable spot. It definitely adds a bit to the EV of betting, but it's tough to quantify how often villain c/r all-in vs. c/r small enough for us to call. If he does c/r small, he's put in such a large % of his stack that I'd just about always call instead of push. Push will take the pot down some small % of the time, but overall I think calling for the clearly +EV spot is better.

Agreed that the majority of a c/r range is going to be 2pr+ or maybe like a KJss that crushes us, but still we're going to have good enough equity to call considering our implied odds he's given us by leaving something like 30bb in his stack, with a 150bb pot. He just won't be able to c/f a spade river.

Time Link to 00:06:14

I am very looking forward to this series

1 question at the beginning: Is this SliceEQ-Tool for free?

I am very looking forward to this series

1 question at the beginning: Is this SliceEQ-Tool for free?

Many of the features are free, but the free version only deals with heads-up pots. It's $25 for the full version. I did a review of it in App Attack episode 8. I'd recommend downloading SliceEQ either way. If you use it a lot, $25 is not tough to swallow for an upgrade.

Many of the features are free, but the free version only deals with heads-up pots. It's $25 for the full version. I did a review of it in App Attack episode 8. I'd recommend downloading SliceEQ either way. If you use it a lot, $25 is not tough to swallow for an upgrade.

great, thank you for your answer

Time Link to 00:20:17

Imo you shoud/could have weighted far more down all the J9s,T9s,98s,T8s,87s. 76s just b/c of Preflop.
I man, vs. a MP-oRaiserange from a standard TAG (15-20%), I would guess that it is not such a good idea for more or less 100BB effective stacks to flat OOP.

For instance vs Co or exspecially a wide Bu-Stealrange, it would be good to flat it pre and hence more realisitc for BB`s Range - but ok, that is only a small note b/c that is not so important for the sake of the series, which will become imo epic - I already love it like I have loved Prof. Plotkin - respect and thank you for this

Imo you shoud/could have weighted far more down all the J9s,T9s,98s,T8s,87s. 76s just b/c of Preflop.
I man, vs. a MP-oRaiserange from a standard TAG (15-20%), I would guess that it is not such a good idea for more or less 100BB effective stacks to flat OOP.

For instance vs Co or exspecially a wide Bu-Stealrange, it would be good to flat it pre and hence more realisitc for BB`s Range - but ok, that is only a small note b/c that is not so important for the sake of the series, which will become imo epic - I already love it like I have loved Prof. Plotkin - respect and thank you for this

Those are among the higher weights overall. I usually prefer not to put anything much over 90% and those are pretty close to that. J9s is only 75% and could probably go up to 80%+, but overall I agree those are among the most likely hands to flat preflop and c/c the flop, along with the pocket pairs.

Those are among the higher weights overall. I usually prefer not to put anything much over 90% and those are pretty close to that. J9s is only 75% and could probably go up to 80%+, but overall I agree those are among the most likely hands to flat preflop and c/c the flop, along with the pocket pairs.

hm, I actually meant that these hands are probably (assuming Villain is a TAG) not so ikely b/c of preflop + positions...

Time Link to 00:38:45

When Paddy said "Instinctively I think betting $720..." I was lol'd. I totally was thinking to myself "I'd bet $720".

I think bluffing as over-bet in this spot makes standard TAGs kick off their hand reading and just fold.

hm, I actually meant that these hands are probably (assuming Villain is a TAG) not so ikely b/c of preflop + positions...

Well it depends on how good MP opener is, but I think flatting hands like T9s and J9s is going to be +EV from the BB closing the action HU. QJs and JTs are very standard calls, and T9s/J9s are not significantly worse. I would fold the 76s and 86s, but against a random TAG regular, we're going to see him show up with those hands some non-zero % of the time.

When Paddy said "Instinctively I think betting $720..." I was lol'd. I totally was thinking to myself "I'd bet $720".

I think bluffing as over-bet in this spot makes standard TAGs kick off their hand reading and just fold.

I think Paddy and I would both like to explore overbetting in the series. The problem is that it is so opponent-dependent but I think we can still do it. The secret is out as far as overbetting goes (you see it a lot more than you used to) but most people still probably aren't doing it with correct frequencies.

Well it depends on how good MP opener is, but I think flatting hands like T9s and J9s is going to be +EV from the BB closing the action HU. QJs and JTs are very standard calls, and T9s/J9s are not significantly worse. I would fold the 76s and 86s, but against a random TAG regular, we're going to see him show up with those hands some non-zero % of the time.

All right, thanks very much for responding

Time Link to 00:30:37

Maybe you missed here by accident that the turnpotsize is 225$, instead of 175$?
-> hence EV or Turncheck would be: 0,38 x 225 = +85,5$

Time Link to 00:31:25

Oh hoppla and sry:
Obv. I paused the vid to try the calculations on my own and before there was written out that turnpotsize was 175$....

Time Link to 00:43:00

What is the title of the second column?
It look like combos but at what point in the hand? And are those numbers used anywhere in the spread sheet qouted?

(I am trying to recreate this exercise on my own and are having trouble getting the same numbers as you at the bottom of the columns "Better", "WBC" and "Nothing")

I was also thinking that these categorizations of river cards are simplifications for the sake of our sanity, right? Because different spade rivers will affect the effective combos left for villain, let say the J of spade falls then we can remove AsJs and KsJs from his range.

I think Paddy and I would both like to explore overbetting in the series. The problem is that it is so opponent-dependent but I think we can still do it. The secret is out as far as overbetting goes (you see it a lot more than you used to) but most people still probably aren't doing it with correct frequencies.

Agreed. It can definitely get into a bit of a leveling war. One cool thing about it though is that as your bet grows in relation to the pot game theory tells us that bluffs can be a larger percentage of your range (to have a GTO strategy). Not saying that this is the goal, but generally as opponents become better we have to move towards a GTO strategy more and more. Since we are playing NLHE and often have nothing it can become easier to balance/play well against players who can read hands as long as we are willing to both bluff overbet and can value bet thinner than the nuts as an overbet.

Oh hoppla and sry:
Obv. I paused the vid to try the calculations on my own and before there was written out that turnpotsize was 175$....

Yeah I had a mistake on the original ppt. I went and changed it while recording but I guess I left the original in there for a couple of seconds.

What is the title of the second column?
It look like combos but at what point in the hand? And are those numbers used anywhere in the spread sheet qouted?

(I am trying to recreate this exercise on my own and are having trouble getting the same numbers as you at the bottom of the columns "Better", "WBC" and "Nothing")

I was also thinking that these categorizations of river cards are simplifications for the sake of our sanity, right? Because different spade rivers will affect the effective combos left for villain, let say the J of spade falls then we can remove AsJs and KsJs from his range.

What you're seeing is basically me accounting for what you're saying. There are 9 river spades. For example, KsJs is impossible when the river is a Ks or a Js. So on 7/9 of river cards, it is possible. 7/9 = .777 and that's why it says 0.8. That should account for me grouping together all 9 spades.

So yeah, for the sake of my sanity I grouped the river by types, but I did account for this by altering the # of combinations. I can post the excel sheet if you'd like, but it's a bit of a mess right now.

I read your recommendation of Slice. I tried a little bit of it but didn't like it as much because I couldn't find out if it had suit selection. Equilab is best but isn't working anymore. Anyways I have a older version of Equilab that works. Have you used it? I recommend it, let me know if you are interested. Good luck, Yojimgari

Hey threads can you expand on what your thoughts are on overbetting - if/when they cover it.

What you're seeing is basically me accounting for what you're saying. There are 9 river spades. For example, KsJs is impossible when the river is a Ks or a Js. So on 7/9 of river cards, it is possible. 7/9 = .777 and that's why it says 0.8. That should account for me grouping together all 9 spades.

So yeah, for the sake of my sanity I grouped the river by types, but I did account for this by altering the # of combinations. I can post the excel sheet if you'd like, but it's a bit of a mess right now.

Thanks for the reply! You don't need to post the sheet just yet, I am enjoying the recreation learning experience right now

So the "unnamed column" is effective hand combinations on a river spade?
Isn't it impossible for Villain to have, for example, 5.7 combinations of JJ when we have weighted it down several times on flop and on turn?

Shouldn't it be something like:
Effective combos after the flop * Percentage of times he c/c turn * the factor that accounts for a river Js
Or
3 * 93% * 8/9 = 2.48 combos of JJ on a spade river

Time Link to 00:45:24

Hi!

One probably very stupid question:

For instance, when you calculate the EV of turnplay of flopplay, you count always the deadmoney (potsize) in to the calculation, when the result is positiv.

For example: EV(Bet Turn, Villain folds)= Potsize * P(Villain folds)

or EV (Bet Flop, Villain calls) = (Flop_Potsize + Villain`s Call[so our betsize]) * EQ * P(Vilalin calls)


Regards to the calculation of the RiverEV it seems not to be the case - why not?

Maybe b/c nobody has more PotEQ, in terms of outs?

Not quite sure if I understand your question but yes, once the river is dealt we are either bluffing or valuebetting and it all comes down to the % he calls as to the EV of either.

Not quite sure if I understand your question but yes, once the river is dealt we are either bluffing or valuebetting and it all comes down to the % he calls as to the EV of either.

All right, I think you got my question right and now it is also logical for me (IDK, why it was not during watching the vid^^)

Thx for answering

catching up on some vids, and i have a question that i feel stupid for asking from 8 minutes in.

the example is 5/10 blinds, 1000 stacks; hero raises to 30, sb 3-bets to 110, we 4-bet to 235 and call a shove for 765 more. then to work out the ev it says "calling 765 to win 1245". how do you get this 1245? i've played around with the numbers involved and can't figure it out. sorry to bump this from one month ago for something trivial but i wanna make sure i understand it fully.

catching up on some vids, and i have a question that i feel stupid for asking from 8 minutes in.

the example is 5/10 blinds, 1000 stacks; hero raises to 30, sb 3-bets to 110, we 4-bet to 235 and call a shove for 765 more. then to work out the ev it says "calling 765 to win 1245". how do you get this 1245? i've played around with the numbers involved and can't figure it out. sorry to bump this from one month ago for something trivial but i wanna make sure i understand it fully.

don't hesitate to bump older threads. people do it all the time. we like to be interactive anyway, so it's good to ask questions.

so you 4-bet to 235. you have 765 left in your stack. the 235 has now become dead money. since we're looking at the odds of calling a 5-bet, the 235 is a sunk cost and it's now part of the pot odds being offered. so if we call and win, we win that 235, plus our opponent's entire 1000 stack (some of which had entered the pot already when he 3-bet), plus the 10 big blind that folded. 1000+235+10 is 1245.

got it, much appreciated. this vid was a real eye-opener.