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

yes i love baluga videos

I was right! It was a video - Sunday just got a lot better.

I was rooting for a PLO-video to come up this Sunday but a balugawhale video is just as good

"we are pretty excited to find out, what flush this particular player is going to run down right now"
lol xD

nice video so far

vid seems a bit out of sync while streaming but the content in this is really good. i found the early "how to play against shortstackers" quite interesting and useful. thanks.

Good content, sickening hands though. AQ vs. AA w/Ace on flop is gross beyond belief. Good composure throughout dude. Definitely good it's not 25/50!

An excellent demonstration (again) on following "the general game plan". Baluga explained the shortstack strategy and how to combat it in The Coaching Tree episode 7, this time we saw it in practise.

awesome stuff

you run quite good

Baluga,

I do not agree with your flat of QQ vs sb 3bet.

You were quite aggro so we can assume that if you 4bet you might be sick of his 3betting and he might 5bet bluff shove.
He might stick it in with AK and we are happy about that.
He might stick it in with JJ or worse

BUT, most important aspect would be:

HOW are you expecting to stack him when he has a hand he's going with preflop but not postflop because Axx flops will scare him (like it happened) OR flop comes 678 for example and he c/f his AQ/AK??

another question:

You talk about leverage however you bet on 8TQ FD boards into the fish with A3o or similar when the fish always has a draw or a pair he's not willing to fold.

Or you bet 30 into 36 on Q33 with JK when you could bet 20 and make him fold as much as he would if you bet 100, right?

Maybe it's because you got annoyed of how much FTP likes you or did I miss something?

Thanks for this great video and hope to see more in the future.

awesome stuff

you run quite good

Baluga,

I do not agree with your flat of QQ vs sb 3bet.

You were quite aggro so we can assume that if you 4bet you might be sick of his 3betting and he might 5bet bluff shove.
He might stick it in with AK and we are happy about that.
He might stick it in with JJ or worse

BUT, most important aspect would be:

HOW are you expecting to stack him when he has a hand he's going with preflop but not postflop because Axx flops will scare him (like it happened) OR flop comes 678 for example and he c/f his AQ/AK??

That's ofcourse for a large part ofset by the times he 3bets a hand that would fold against a 4bet, but is going to stack of after flopping toppair - or giving a away a cbet a large % of the time.

Great video.
I love your attitude when you lose pot after pot. That must have taken years to master....!

haha i got so housed in this video.

I don't know if it's just me or you're really abusing your microphone. I have it turned down low enough to not see any volume at all but it still sounds like you're talking too loud and that buzzing sound when you overload hurts my ears.

The audio is bit out of synch, but please run better in the future.

Suprised to hear a professional high stakes player get so whiny over taking a few low stakes beats

Also sync is really bad, hard to follow vid when you're talking about decisions that aren't even on the screen yet.

So i was playing normal up a few bi and then I watch the vid and start getting these ridic coolers... I blame you !

Solid vid like always btw.

early in vid with AJ, you raise a donk bet on J84hh, bet big on 5 turn, and call small river donk shove from villain on 7 river completing backdoor flush. Cards may not be exact, but it's close enough. Villain has KJ with backdoor flush.

iirc, the river bet was like 115 into 310 or so, you snap called. This a product of you playing lower than usually? I don't mind a call here given that you're getting such good odds and people do dumb stuff, but you didn't discuss at all?

BalugaWhale, in this video you said "we can beat shortstackers"

do you think it's possible to show a significant profit against pro shortstackers? color me skeptical.

btw sorry your vid got drowned in all the coaches corner videos

Hey guys,

I'll take a look and see what I can do about the sync, the clipping we couldn't fix much more than is fixed right now unfortunately.

Rob

haha i got so housed in this video.

made for a sick video however.

this is one of the better 6m 2/4 vids ive seen.

downloadinggggg

i enjoyed the video, -1 stars for audio sync issues and the 'buzz' of ur mic though
you had me laughing at some parts

<3 baluga

Andrew hit me up on AIM when you are back from meh-hee-coe pls

ty for the video

Roy

The audio was somewhat annoying but the content was great. baluga's videos are one of my favorites on the site. I like how he comes with a specific agenda and really hammers on it during every possible situation that it comes up in. Also how can you not love a guy trying to destroy shortstackers.

your AK fold to utg 4 bet i completely agree but that is just how i feel, but the math does show otherwise.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 61.176% 40.50% 20.68% 174740892 89232168.00 { QQ+, AKs, AKo }
Hand 1: 38.824% 18.14% 20.68% 78295380 89232168.00 { AKo }

Now if we take QQ out of his range it is still similar equity so how can you justify a fold if the math says otherwise, i feel you on the fold tho just from my experience at these stakes but the math says otherwise and i have never been able to justify the fold to people so hopefully you can justify it for me, so whats the reasoning behind folding?

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 62.943% 34.08% 28.87% 105026856 88972014.00 { KK+, AKs, AKo }
Hand 1: 37.057% 08.19% 28.87% 25243836 88972014.00 { AKo }

I have adjusted the audio on this to fix the desyncing problem. As Entity said we did as much as we could to eliminate the clipping. Sorry. There is a new mp4 and wmv version. Enjoy.
-Rusty

Great vid, baluga, as usual, maybe a minor thing for the next one (may be there many): instead of saying "here I get 3bet and…", could you say "on table 2 I get 3bet and…"? Helps me follow you better.

Take care. Run better.

Great video, the sync/audio issues are really not that bad. It's kind of refreshing to see that even the big dogs run bad sometimes.

Hey Baluga great video, ty!

2 quick questions:

1) When you iso-ed the UTG SSer with K4s, you are folding if he limp reraises? and do you think iso-ing there is +EV not knowing his limp reraising frequency. Or is the assumption always that a professional SSer limping under the gun is weakness?

2) Your K2s UTG hand vs. KentheCow- had you turned a heart or a straight what would be your turn line? I'm thinking leading is best because he is probably never bluffing the flop and checking the turn allows for him redraw out on . . .yes? Actually I think leading is the only play so could a case be made for ever checking there? I'm thinking no unless the player is some super aggro bluffy fish . . .

Thanks,

CE

OMGOMGOMG nothing better than being away from DC and teh internets for a couple days and coming back to find a baluga video

I'm only half-way through atm but I had a question that I wanted to get out. Disclaimer: I play FR NL100 and just starting to venture into 200, so I admit I don't understand the dynamics of this specific situation that well.

The K8 hand where you flop top and bottom after raising from UTG and getting called by CO; is this really as standard as it seems? The guy seems loose/passive/bad so far, so I see why value-betting all the way is good. He could def have turned a worse 2 pair. Besides like T9 though, what hands do we really expect him to stack here? Is he really calling down all the way with KQ after we raised UTG and bet every street? Clubs and the JQ OESD both got there, so not only is he less likely to stack light but we are also more likely to beaten. If I get flamed for this fine, but I'm confident that whatever the right thing to do here might be, it is a marginal spot and one worth discussion at the very least. Obviously c/f at this point seems super weak, but I also hate shoving it in when we could so easily be beat and as far as I can tell there are very few worse hands that call.

consuela-
"the guy seems loose/passive/bad so far" followed by "is he really calling down all the way with KQ?"

yes he is. Probably a lot of other weak stuff. Obviously I'm not elated if he goes all-in. But i'm not folding.

canis-
i think he wasn't a pro shortstacker but i'm not positive, i don't remember the hand can cant check right away. yes im folding to a shove.

also id still check the turn against ken, he's likely to continue to value bet a lot of his hands despite the board becoming stronger i.e. sets and straights.

canis-
i think he wasn't a pro shortstacker but i'm not positive, i don't remember the hand can cant check right away. yes im folding to a shove.

also id still check the turn against ken, he's likely to continue to value bet a lot of his hands despite the board becoming stronger i.e. sets and straights.

If he is a pro SSer do you iso him? (I think he is)

So whether to check the turn here is villain dependent and I don't know his tendencies and you do. So if the turn is heart you are checking because you think he still bets- I guess you CRAI? If he checks behind and the river bricks but doesn't pair and you have the nut flush what is your bet size? Are you leading or would you go for a check raise on the river? What if you make your straight on the river? I guess you lead?

Sorry if I'm asking too many questions but more often than I like I find myself choosing the worst line in these situations.

Thanks

Nice vid baluga.

You cbet pretty big sometimes on dry boards like at 54:00 you cbet 25 into 30 with KJ on Q33 against a shortstack. Doesn't this go against the concept of leverage? I don't think it matters too much if you bet 20 or 25, depending on the player.

Btw, in the 3bet pot hand with 88 vs QQ. That's a spot where I would bet the turn hoping he puts me on a float and is planning to call or check-raise. What do you say to that, am I just leveling myself with such a play?

Nice vid baluga, i think your general style and handreading are amongst the best iv seen on here, i think only DJ Sensai has an edge on you fwiw. Couple of things i noticed. You mentioned you thought your raise sizes on the flop were quite small, but i though they were generally pretty large. Impressive the way you kept a level head when running pretty chilly.

Also, with regard to the passive players that check/min raise your flop bets, this seems to be happening with more and more frequency on my tables and i really struggle to combat it with 100bb stacks. How do you adapt correctly if you suspect mr. passive might be moving? It took me a long time to learn to just say no to marginal spots but do you preter bluff3betting more/checking back more flops/ floating their flop CR in any kind of preference. Or is folding and letting them have it ok most of the time?

Real annoyances were the out of synch sound, your microphone and (sorry) your laugh, u gibbering monkey lol. nice vid.

hey baluga,
i know ur good and everything but can you use a hud nextime so i can see whats really going on at the tables?
not many of us (viewers) are experts and almost all of us are using huds so please use one nextime!

yeah, please explain why you talk about leverage so much and then bet near ps conti bet on a dyr flop where betting 1/2 to 2/3 ps woul achieve exactly the same result

np fish

Would have liked to hear more about leverage in postflop situations. For example if we make a bet on the turn which leaves villain with just half a pot sized stack then we leveraged his whole stack, right? But did we really? If the board is dry he can just call with a wider range and fold the weakest hands to a river bet so we do need to risk our whole stack if we're bluffing, which is the exact opposite of leverage.

On a more drawy board, with a flush draw for example, villain might want to shove any made hands he wants to continue with. But in reality we're not going to bet a flushdraw on the turn if it only leaves villain with 50-100% of the pot behind. So again what stops a competent player from assuming he's WA/WB and just calling most of the time?

argghh h stupid mexican internet. i wrote a whole response to some questions and it got lost. im going to write it out again but more briefly.

danndann-- No HUD on its way cause I don't have one. sorry.

everyone asking about c-bet sizes and leverage
1-- laziness and the effects of playing at a different level, both completely my fault.
2-- betting slightly too big on the flop isn't that big of a deal so long as we think the guy is likely to call and not to raise. sacrificing leverage is only really really bad when the other guy is in a raise/fold type of spot and thus you lose the extra money when he raises and you fold. However, if he's likely to call, its not SO bad because A) you can draw out and win a bigger pot, and B) you can make him fold and win a bigger pot. leverage is most important in spots where the guy is reduced to 2 out of his 3 choices (raise or fold).

betting big on the flop on Q33 can be good against guys that will peel one with 88 then fold the turn...ty for free money!

What was interesting was that when Balugawhale was vbetting he didn't stop at river when the flush draw got there, he stacked off "well if the flush got there it got there what can you do" (~17min K8 2p). So in general if there is a PSB or less left should just stick it in there ie we are committed.

actually ulkis it really depends more on how many worse hands he can call with. If i had a worse hand than K8 i may have opted to c/f the river.

KK hand. This hand interest me because you make the comment that check raising the turn is too strong and you will get called only by sets and trip 6's. If that assumption is true than are you check raising this turn with missed overcards considering his range contains very few combinations of sets and 6x? Should you not be bluffing more in general if you find yourself commenting that only a small subset of hands will call in a given scenario?

dangerfish-
i love where you're heads at. However, we need to think just beyond that-- his b/c range is what matters. If he's not folding any actual hands that he's betting the turn with, and those hands have us crushed with KK, they still have us crushed with air. The only reason I would be bluffing more is if he had a range for calling flop/betting turn that would bet for value and then fold to a raise. Thats a range which may be significant, but I don't really know well enough to be too psyched to start c/r bluffing there often, especially if c/c is a better line with a hand like KK (which I think it may well be).

gotta run, in mexico.

BalugaWhale --

Nice video, excellent commentary.

One question though, near the end of the session you floated a flop of JT4cc with 54hh vs PlayaNEO. On the turn, you pick up a heart FD and your opponent bets like half pot.

Wouldn't a good play be to raise that turn as a semibluff since we floated the flop?

When I play these type of spots I usually try to take it away rather than just call and try to hit when it's unclear if we'll even get paid off. Plus when we call and he checks the river we may decide to turn our hand into a bluff and get check/called by his TPGK type hands, whereas many of those hands cannot continue facing a turn raise and when they do we've got a bigger pot (making it harder for them to fold the river) when we do hit our backdoor outs.

Is raising the turn to try and take it away a mistake since we're getting a great price to draw?

You stated the reason you're calling the flop was because you are deep and you've got backdoor outs. We're floating for the chance to steal the pot too not just to try and out draw him because we're deep, right?

kwantum, to answer your questions

no, yes, yes

we don't raise because we have excellent odds and don't expect him to fold many hands that are ahead of us.

Hmm, I mean I would think Jx hands have a hard time calling a raise when they know so much money is behind and they could face a very large bet on the river, but I suppose we blow ourselves off a nice draw when he bet/3-bets his other made hands

50:00 You have AKo and isolate a loose/very passive limper. Flop is J25r. He checks, you bet and he check-minraises you.

You say "I expect him to fold the QT's/98s etc which is good because he's never going to bluff with those hands....you might say 'why don't you check behind', but I'm not checking behind when he's just going to fold those hands."

I definitely understand where you're coming from here since you're getting him to fold his equity in the pot, but I've heard the reverse and have thought about it some myself.

Since he's passive, he's almost never going to bluff us and we are IP so we're going to be able to play the hand just about perfectly against him. We probably have the best hand as well and are not getting a better hand to fold for one bet often. Doesn't checking it back put us in a spot where we can play the hand well against him and gives us an opportunity to get a lot of value from hands in his range that we dominate such as Ax (very common in a limpers range), KT, K9, etc etc if the Turn/River is a King or Ace?

It just seems like with AK on such a dry flop IP against a passive player, there's less value in betting when he's never folding better, only folding hands we already have good equity against, and forgoing a chance to win a bigger pot on an Ace or King. We also save money on the flop when behind (like in this example) and when ahead a free card isn't going to cost us much since he probably only has 5 outs, 3 if he has an Ace or King. Since we can play the hand just about perfectly against him and it costs little to give a free card, it seems like it's almost a value freeroll for us to check behind on this board.

dangerfish-
i love where you're heads at. However, we need to think just beyond that-- his b/c range is what matters. If he's not folding any actual hands that he's betting the turn with, and those hands have us crushed with KK, they still have us crushed with air. The only reason I would be bluffing more is if he had a range for calling flop/betting turn that would bet for value and then fold to a raise. Thats a range which may be significant, but I don't really know well enough to be too psyched to start c/r bluffing there often, especially if c/c is a better line with a hand like KK (which I think it may well be).

gotta run, in mexico.

Hey just started watching this one. Great so far (20 min thru )!

1) Did u respond to the question about the AJ hand early in the vid, where u call a riv donk on a J 4 5 hh 6 8 board or something like that, getting about 3 or 4 to 1? I feel like most of the time (i think more than 80%, but close perhaps) against a random at 2/4 that u will be beat. thoughts?

2) Regarding the above w/ the KK, dangerfish's question is interesting. How much of his betting range is comprised of nut hands versus J10-A10 versus air? I mean, i think we are well ahead of his betting range. U say that his idea about bluffing overcards is suspect cuz he may just be bet/calling here w/ a strong range that crushes us (ur response kinda makes it sound like most of his betting range is nuts). But I think in reality we're ahead of most of his betting range. So the question becomes what does he do w/ the J10-A10. If he bet/calls this, then isn't check raising KK for value best initially? If he bet/folds, then c'r bluffing makes sense. Maybe i'm over thinking this, just kind of confused by ur response to dangerfish.

Nice vids, keep it up.

at 19 the qt overshove is pretty awful on the aqt52 board IMO...

whys that?

What can we do