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

I'm just trying to rephrase in my head what you just explained:

If villain isn't going to raise us often on this flop we really aren't exploitable if we fold QQ.

We only have to worry about exploitability when villain is likely to exploit us. On this board meaning that we are only exploited if villain raises us often with air which if this is not the case we can fold QQ.

My little pokerbrain is just trying to understand here

I'm just trying to rephrase in my head what you just explained:

If villain isn't going to raise us often on this flop we really aren't exploitable if we fold QQ.

We only have to worry about exploitability when villain is likely to exploit us. On this board meaning that we are only exploited if villain raises us often with air which if this is not the case we can fold QQ.

My little pokerbrain is just trying to understand here

I think it's more like "if villain's raising range is ahead of us most of the time(more AK/KQ/KJ/KT than 87ss/98ss/T9ss), than it's OK to fold here with QQ, even though we're technically making an 'exploitable' decision since our exploitable move is the most profitable (or the least unprofitable)."

The fold is correct until we have reason to believe villain takes this line with enough hands we beat that shoving is +ev vs his entire range. Even though it's "unbalanced," it doesn't matter as long as our villain's range is unbalanced towards better hands. In addition, he doesn't know we have QQ here, even after we fold, so I don't expect villain to adjust to our play..

And even if villain DID know we folded QQ, and he adjusts and starts calling 3bets with suited connectors, than we can adjust too-no reason to try and play game-theory optimal against a living/adjusting player-it's much more profitable to observe his tendencies and 'trade mistakes' than try to play perfectly balanced poker all the time.

The way I look at it is like this: we should stay balanced against an unknown opponent until we come across a situation where we now know villain is unbalanced. Then we adjust, thus becoming unbalanced ourselves vs him. If he adjusts to exploit our change in game plan vs him, that gives us an opportunity to do the same to exploit him.

iow, we don't make money by playing balanced. We make money when we exploit our opponent, and to do so, we technically become exploitable. The difference between us and the fish is that when we play exploitably, we have the ability to be aware of when we're being exploited and adjust to villain's adjustments.

Nice video, nice summaries from my foreposters - but one thing disappointed me a little:

You explained the concept very well (though I think it was not overly complicated at all - but you explained it way better than Nina did!) but you didn´t answer my question (Nina neither did):

Looking at the the HUD-stats of this guy it seems as if he´s pretty aggressive. He opens 62% from CO and folds 66% to 3bets. Let´s say he folds a little more on BTN - say 75%. Still he takes ~15% to the flop. Needless to say that he has tons (!) of worse hands in his range.

Now we "know" that he loves to raise cbets (35% overall, 50% in 3bet pots over small sample). Doesn´t that at least "indicate" that he probably raises with lots of air? Which means - our "exploitable" play does not aim at exploiting him - but just follows his game plan, namely us folding anything < AK? His raise his so small that he has to succeed slightly less than 50% ...

Nice video, nice summaries from my foreposters - but one thing disappointed me a little:

You explained the concept very well (though I think it was not overly complicated at all - but you explained it way better than Nina did!) but you didn´t answer my question (Nina neither did):

Looking at the the HUD-stats of this guy it seems as if he´s pretty aggressive. He opens 62% from CO and folds 66% to 3bets. Let´s say he folds a little more on BTN - say 75%. Still he takes ~15% to the flop. Needless to say that he has tons (!) of worse hands in his range.

Now we "know" that he loves to raise cbets (35% overall, 50% in 3bet pots over small sample). Doesn´t that at least "indicate" that he probably raises with lots of air? Which means - our "exploitable" play does not aim at exploiting him - but just follows his game plan, namely us folding anything < AK? His raise his so small that he has to succeed slightly less than 50% ...

Any stats or reads on his 4betting range? I think that is pretty crucial here. For instance, as Andrew said, if we know he flats AK in this situation (LP v blind 3bet) it makes the fold easier. Sounds like he's either 4betting or calling a good amount given his F3bet stat of 66%-I'd guess if he's raising that many cbets, he's either slowplaying preflop or "floating" preflop with air and bluff raising-but unless we know which, we have no idea what side of his range makes this play, air or top pair+. I'm also curious what hero's image is here-does villain expect us to bet/fold a hand like QQ here? Given he's been raising cbets a lot (assuming these stats are recent), might he expect a decent observant player to bet/call or check here with QQ? Can we confidently make such an assumption in a 3bet pot with the sample we have?

You make a decent argument with his stats that he may have a wider range of worse hands. I know BW isn't big on stats, but with a decent sample size, they can definitely direct us to better understanding how villain plays. The thing is, without a huge sample size, I don't think these stats alone tell us how he plays in this exact situation or what his range consists of-as you said, his raise-cbet in 3bet pot is over a small sample, and I'm pretty sure hero would have mentioned if he had done this to him 2ce before in the last hour or something. So I'm not sure stats help as much as we'd like, here. A read such as "ch/R with top pair in a 3bet pot" or ch/R in 3bet pot and folded to a shove" or even "slowplayed AA preflop vs a 3bet IP" would be much more useful than his fold to 3bet and raise cbet stats here, I'm afraid.


It sounded like BW's response was regarding a situation where we don't have any info on villain other than the fact that he is a good reg. Curious what Andrew says about his stats, though.

Any stats or reads on his 4betting range?

Only 41 hands => 12% 4bet, 4b-range 2.3%.

It sounded like BW's response was regarding a situation where we don't have any info on villain other than the fact that he is a good reg.

Clearly he was - and his explanation was fantastic, still I´d be interested what to do against a reg we know a little about, even if we don´t have "stone-cold"-reads (which obv. would make things way easier).

I don't know why it took me 11 episodes to post this and I hope nobody beat me to it but;

http://images2.cpcache.com/product/whale+pod+swimming-whale+ocean+artwork-scuba+divers/99991522v4_225x225_Front.jpg

Baluga shorts!?

I don't know why it took me 11 episodes to post this and I hope nobody beat me to it but;

http://images2.cpcache.com/product/whale+pod+swimming-whale+ocean+artwork-scuba+divers/99991522v4_225x225_Front.jpg

Baluga shorts!?

lol D:


Feedback: nothing to add expect of another great short

"If he can't have AK, then it's really hard for him to have KQ"... "now we're really worried about sets ... of 7's and 5's"

Isn't KQ a hand that he will call our 3bets with pretty much all the time? (Whereas AK will obv 4bet very often). Card removal is significant, but not as much as suggested: There are 6 combos of KQ still available, while only 3 combos each of 55 and 77

6 of 16 = 62,5% less KQ-combos possible - that is imo a significant cardremoval.

6 of 16 = 62,5% less KQ-combos possible - that is imo a significant cardremoval.

Well, 6/12 given that there has to be a K on the board for us to be worried about KQ in the first place, but that's just semantics I suppose.

As I said in my previous post, "Card removal is significant", but suggesting the combos of sets are more significant than combos of KQ can't be correct - they are equal even assuming he always calls with KQ, 77 and 55 (in fact, it may be reasonable to discount small pp's slightly from his calling range)

Usually, I wouldn't mention this sort of thing, given how nitpicky it is, but it seems to be fairly common on 2p2/dc to say "I have card removal, therefore he's very unlikely to have this particular hand" without actually considering the number of combos involved (even relative to the rest of a range).

Time Link to 00:05:09

Can you come up with more than 1 reason to raise QQ here versus someone who raises bluffs here since you beat his bluffs?

Can you come up with more than 1 reason to raise QQ here versus someone who raises bluffs here since you beat his bluffs?

Iwould guess,
Collecting deadmoney and making possible PotEQ-Shares to fold.

Can you come up with more than 1 reason to raise QQ here versus someone who raises bluffs here since you beat his bluffs?

super valid question, so here's my answer--
if a person plays SC's and stuff, they have a LOT of FD's and things that they will call it off on the flop, making our shove clearly for value.

if a person doesn't play SC's and stuff, you're right, flatting is better than raising.

Andrew