Hey guys,

Hopefully this one is interesting for some of you. Josh and I tend to talk a *lot* of poker, so what we came away with from this was about an hour of analysis for three hands. I know it'll be boring for some of you but I think the material here could be pretty good for someone who tends to be a bit of a lagmonkey in limit to help convert aspects of their game over to NL.

Anyway, don't worry about being gentle when talking about how much I suck -- we intentionally took three of the hands I played the worst over a 2hr session and systematically ripped them apart for your benefit.

Enjoy. :)

Rob

I like this video very much. The "in limit this hand would go" and a "limit player sees on this flop" are very instructive.
1) In 3 bet or 4 bet pots, can we put both players on the same range?
I mean can we assume villain has us on the same range we have him?

2) I am novice at NL. Is it a trapping game? A extract as much as we can from opponent when we have a big hand game? A get opponent to fold so I can rake the pot game? or some other/all of the above ?

3) from the little bit I have played so far, It seems the hand ranges are wider in NL than limit and because of the more successful bluffing aspect in NL, very difficult to narrow. how does one deal with that dilema?

4) It also seems to me that player reads are way more important in narrowing the ranges. How is it, some players even at high limits can play 4 or more tables, when player reads are so important?

5) in the JJ hand. Villain c/r flop almost all-in. Can we deduce from this play, that his hand is not all that strong, because he is allowing us to escape so cheaply?
either that or he thinks we are a bad player, that will just call willy-nilly.
for this reason, shouldn't the majority of "real hands" , move all the chips in on the river?

1. Usually the caller will have a tighter range. This is true in just about all situations preflop. The player 3-betting is putting a ton of pressure on the caller. The caller has to call usually around 10% of stacks, putting a very large burden on him to hit a flop. Usually a calling range will be like AQ, AJ, KQ, 77+ plus some more in position. A 3-bettor usually has these hands (maybe excluding TT-77) plus some trashier hands that most people wouldn't call a 3-bet with.

2. They're all true to an extent. I'll cover each indivdually:

- It's definitely a trapping game in many ways. Most decent (and better) players are very hesitant to stack off with worse than TPTK, so it's tough to stack people by just betting for value. It's often more effective to act weak by checking and calling. Many times, the hands that would've called a bet will bet for you anyway, which means you don't lose much value from good hands, but you get hands that would fold to a bet to sometimes bet you. So yes, trapping is very effective against aggressive opponents. The other great part is that it lends protection to the hands you ahve that really are weak. If you always check-raise or lead sets and overpairs, then when you check-call in a 974 flop, you're always going to be weak. By sometimes check-calling with a set there, and subsequently checking the turn and river as well, it becomes easier to let go of 76 on the turn because your opponent has to fear a big hand. This is all against TAGs and LAGs though.

- Extracting value by betting is of course very important, as it is in any form of poker. Whether to trap or just fire away depends on your overall style. For instance, I play a very aggressive style, which lets me play hands like KJ on K74 like it's the nuts. If I was more passive and trappy, I'd tend to check and call with it, as a check-raise would induce a fold from most worse hands. Regardless, if I'm against a loose and average or passive player, I just bet bet bet for value. Checking costs you too much value from worse pairs.

- I made a video for the old DC, and something I said is that big winners are the players who can efficiently take down dead money. That's something I also stressed in Episode 1. Anyone can bet bet bet their good hands and play nitty, and on paper it's a solid strategy. But there are constantly opportunities to take down the pot when no one's interested, and playing a generally aggressive game will make your big hands more valuable, since your opponents will constantly suspect you're up to no good. This last part is pretty hard to quantify, but it absolutely has merit. If a casual player sees you 3-bet Q3s or get picked off on a bluff, he's going to assume you're nuts and give you entirely too much action. He might also do things like come over the top of your raises.

3. EXPERIENCE. Limit is so much more technical and fundamentals are huge. So you could study a book and be decent right off the bat. For NL, there are no great books like SSH or HPFAP that teach you to play fundamentally sound. And conversely, a good hand reader who doesn't understand the basics will typically make for a bad limit player, whereas that same type of NL player has a chance to be successful. That's because hand reading is so important. And the only way to learn hand reading is to gain experience.

And also, I don't think it's entirely true. Preflop yes, it's very difficult to put a player on a range. But hand ranges get significantly chopped down street by street, much moreso than in limit. Typically, the range of hands that a river bet will attempt to represent is pretty narrow, like TPTK or better, and bluffs. In limit, it can be any pair, A high sometimes, and bluffs.

Something I used to do for limit when I was playing 10/20 and wanted to move up to 30/60+ was just watch the games, and try to put the players on hands. Even categorically looking at a player's line as weak or strong will help. Your instincts of what's strong and what's weak are probably reasonably accurate right now. The hard part is figuring out if he's strong or weak. Here's an example.

UTG+1 raises 6-handed and you decide to call (rather than 3-bet) on the button with KQo. Flop comes AQ4, he bets and you call. Turn is a 3 and you both check. River is a T and he bets. This is a very strong line. By checking the turn, he's showing weakness, and it's obvious to both of you. When you check, you're essentially telling him that you're showdown committed. Given these two, it makes no sense for him to bet the river without a hand. He's shown weakness, you've shown that you want to see a showdown, and his river bet becomes very strong.


I have to run but I'll cover the rest in a bit.

I know this is a bit old to rehash, but after watching the 1st hand of the video it created some questions.
CO limps, BB checks holding K8o. Flop AK8 2 clubs.
My 1st thought is to lead at this flop. I assume any ace, most K's, some PP's, any FD and 10J, Q10, QJ calls here. Against say anyone but a nit, am I stacking off here often? Say I bet, he raises. I think I'm likely to 3 bet or fold here as I don't imagine calling. A c/f seems inevitable to most turn cards if I call a raise OTF. I can't really imagine folding though. Especially given his range and the limp. The only way I imagine ever folding is if he 4bets AI OTF, calls flop raises turn or calls flop and turn raises/shoves river. And none of these are definite folds. Is my thinking reasonable here?

My other thought, given the c/c OTF line, would it be reasonable to c/r the turn, shove most dry(any non A,or club) rivers? I've held off on 10's, J's and Q's as I think most gutshots are folding here and any straight/flush draw is shoving anyways OTT. Is this too spewie in this spot? I feel like I see alot of A's, K's and FD/SFD's take this same line as villian when in position. If I did cr the turn, I'm pretty much committed as he'd only have about 35-40bbs left behind him. This is another reason why I'm curious how often we stack off w/bottom 2 vs. a CO limper w/about 80bbs.

Is any of this reasonable? While writing this, my 5yearold has asked me a question after each sentence I've typed. Wish there was a preview option. Either way, thanks.