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

Nice concept and that was "short" for Rob

I actually had a decent discussion last night on a concept similar to this where we were talking about whether we would check raise middle pairs on an A83 board and how we would balance our check/calling range based on whether we did or didn't.

My arguement was I'm going to attack that board with semi-bluffs and sometimes pure bluffs especially in button/blind and SB/BB battles so I need to have sufficient hands in my x/r range for value that an opponent can't just go "Oh you have a draw way more often than a made hand" and call down K-High profitably.

The flip side of that coin came with "Well doesn't that make our x/c range somewhat readable as a weak made hand or some kind of overcard hand to the 8 with backdoors?" and I was thinking that maybe we can use the kickers on our Aces which we'll have (since I don't 3-bet all Aces even in SB vs BB) and take some X/C lines and some X/R lines to make sure we keep our range wide enough to not be super readable.

Ok that was a ramble:

In this particular hand with a much wetter board texture I wouldn't mind waiting until the turn with some strong hands (Some T's, even Big 9's) here since our equity is going to change a lot on the turn. If it's a brick then our pair hands now look a lot better and his 8's and clubs and other assorted draws are going to now have a lot less equity and we can use that to somewhat balance our x/c range.

If we x/c the flop here, I'm probably still x/f the turn. It's hideous.

I think this is an awesome concept. Great idea and great vid!

could you please explain a little further what you expect your opponent to do on the Turn/River with hands that we still beat, like AK, 22-55. K7,Q7, bad flushdraws?

Is he checking back those hands for free showdown or betting again to move us off a hand?

How likely to call are you on the Turn depending on his cbet turn / cbet river % ? (always calling down if x (cbet %) > ?? % )

could you please explain a little further what you expect your opponent to do on the Turn/River with hands that we still beat, like AK, 22-55. K7,Q7, bad flushdraws?

Is he checking back those hands for free showdown or betting again to move us off a hand?

How likely to call are you on the Turn depending on his cbet turn / cbet river % ? (always calling down if x (cbet %) > ?? % )

With most of those hands, I'm expecting him to bet again. Of course, this depends on the specific turn card and the likelyhood of it hitting our range vs. it hitting his range. If it's the 8, for example, I'm expecting him to check more of his range than if it's the 2. So I'm calling the vast majority of the time on the turn and folding only occasionally.

Rob

Nice concept and that was "short" for Rob

I actually had a decent discussion last night on a concept similar to this where we were talking about whether we would check raise middle pairs on an A83 board and how we would balance our check/calling range based on whether we did or didn't.

My arguement was I'm going to attack that board with semi-bluffs and sometimes pure bluffs especially in button/blind and SB/BB battles so I need to have sufficient hands in my x/r range for value that an opponent can't just go "Oh you have a draw way more often than a made hand" and call down K-High profitably.

The flip side of that coin came with "Well doesn't that make our x/c range somewhat readable as a weak made hand or some kind of overcard hand to the 8 with backdoors?" and I was thinking that maybe we can use the kickers on our Aces which we'll have (since I don't 3-bet all Aces even in SB vs BB) and take some X/C lines and some X/R lines to make sure we keep our range wide enough to not be super readable.

Ok that was a ramble:

In this particular hand with a much wetter board texture I wouldn't mind waiting until the turn with some strong hands (Some T's, even Big 9's) here since our equity is going to change a lot on the turn. If it's a brick then our pair hands now look a lot better and his 8's and clubs and other assorted draws are going to now have a lot less equity and we can use that to somewhat balance our x/c range.

If we x/c the flop here, I'm probably still x/f the turn. It's hideous.

The thing about the A83 board is that it's much less likely to hit your opponent, so for pure balance you could checkraise it with anything from unlikely gutshots to backdoor club draws and get enough folds vs. his entire range to have it be worthwhile. You may be sacrificing value with your Ax and 8x range by checkraising 100% but you'll have many more pure bluffs available. On the board I in my hand there are so many middling cards that pair/draw-up your opponent (and you) that your ranges seem easier to define with a c/r, which is what made me start thinking about c/c and c/r turn more often or c/c c/c more often in general. Basically BTN vs BB I'd expect that your board is more attackable even if both of you know it's more attackable.

Rob

I definitely agree with this hand and this board I am c/c and c/c blank turns and rivers. Basically this would be the strongest bluff catcher in my range, and give some weight to my peeling range here. I'd probably CR 88 on this flop so I think we found the best hand I c/c here.

Obviously with our weak draws (small flush draws being the primary part) its a good semibluff spot, to target the hands our opponent simply can't call down with (stuff like king high and worse, and possibly plenty of stronger hands when a scare card like a 4 card straight comes). Balancing that with all my big hands being fastplayed on such a board, and medium to strong hands like top pair, strong 2nd pairs (could see an argument for playing some 9x more passively here but I don't think its my standard).

When we peel this sort of board we usually either have a weak made hand, bottom pair, ace high that may or may not want to call down, a small pocket pair (though I think check/folding something like 33 on this flop might be better honestly). OR we have some sort of draw that we didn't semibluff, which for me is usually like a weak gutshot that I'm peeling intending to fold a blank turn, or over cards on this board which are actually sexy strong, because we can usually get in a CR when we spike top pair on the turn (villain will second barrel a big 'scare' card more often).

like this format alot , its similar to how much i digest from a day to day basis when i do my own hand reviews.

I definitely agree with this hand and this board I am c/c and c/c blank turns and rivers. Basically this would be the strongest bluff catcher in my range, and give some weight to my peeling range here. I'd probably CR 88 on this flop so I think we found the best hand I c/c here.

Obviously with our weak draws (small flush draws being the primary part) its a good semibluff spot, to target the hands our opponent simply can't call down with (stuff like king high and worse, and possibly plenty of stronger hands when a scare card like a 4 card straight comes). Balancing that with all my big hands being fastplayed on such a board, and medium to strong hands like top pair, strong 2nd pairs (could see an argument for playing some 9x more passively here but I don't think its my standard).

When we peel this sort of board we usually either have a weak made hand, bottom pair, ace high that may or may not want to call down, a small pocket pair (though I think check/folding something like 33 on this flop might be better honestly). OR we have some sort of draw that we didn't semibluff, which for me is usually like a weak gutshot that I'm peeling intending to fold a blank turn, or over cards on this board which are actually sexy strong, because we can usually get in a CR when we spike top pair on the turn (villain will second barrel a big 'scare' card more often).

Curious: what would you do with ok draws with showdown value here (A8, AJ, K8, KQ, KJ?)?

Rob

DC shorts is a great idea. It would be great if they videos got sorted on what kind of situation they discuss so that when you have a large library it's easy to find all blind defence videos etc.

Curious: what would you do with ok draws with showdown value here (A8, AJ, K8, KQ, KJ?)?

Rob

Oops should have clarified in my last post, those fall under the "sexy strong" draws for me that I c/c. I don't see better hands folding and I don't think we are equity favorite vs a calling range, so yeah those are my protector check/calls.

Time Link to 00:04:30

Thanks to Rob for choosing my hand for the video. I have already been sat on by an elephant, and generally lambasted on Skype, for the 'c-raise to find out where I am at' comment! I can see now that its faulty thinking, but this is just one of those tricky spots that confuse me. I thought I had a bit more equity than the analysis here shows that I have. This video is definitely going to change how I approach these spots. I probably need to look again at the possibilities for playing 'passive' lines in a number of situations.

I have experimented with raising some hands from the big blind. I feel that certain opponents don't really think well in terms of ranges (perhaps this is more true at 2/4 and 3/6 than at 5/T) and are generally untrusting of my raises, especially when I have been lagging it up. So the temptation is to build pots for value with my better hands. This can also make it easier to play post flop. Against better opponents - such as the one in this hand - I can see more reason to keep things balanced.

Nice vid guys. Rob covered it already but one way I look at it is based on this board texture and what we know about villain, I think we can expect a double barrel a ton. So I have no problem having a wide and hopefully balanced c/c c/r range and c/c c/c c/decide range here too. So I'm not really that uncomfortable with checkcalling flop with this particular hand or even some stronger ones from time to time.

and that was "short" for Rob

+1 obv lol


I really like this concept! And thanks for going with the replayer instead of just a regular HH too. For some reason I've always had some trouble focusing and absorbing everything when going through posted HH's but with the replayer I tend to think through the hand much more clearly. I know that's pretty weird, hell maybe I'm the only one lol. I guess it's probably just b/c it's easier to get into the mindset I have when I play when the "environment" is more similar. Would be cool if we could get some sort of pop-up replayer for the forums so those that like the reg HH's can read that format but the ADD monkeys like me could click on the replayer link. iirc, I think it was stox that had something like that back in the day (obv, I have no idea how much of an undertaking it might be to implement something like that so may not be feasible/worth it.)