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

Super episode guys.
The swongs that are happening in LHE especially HUHU never seize to amaze me

As per Rusty's editorial decision here, we let it all hang out. This is a session we recorded pretty much from start to finish. The DC member in the vid had me on my toes for a while and played well. I think there are a ton of interesting spots in here. Gogogo!

Commenting as I watch this, there are tons of interesting spots ( <3 posting not refreshing the page)

1:30 good river bet you beat Ahigh/ pair of 3s and 4s. Wouldn't be surprised to see a pair of Q.....
3:20 A2o: Are we c/c this flop? How many barrels are you going to call say if the board turns out exactly as it is? (or not at all)
3:40 Q5o: Would have loved a flop donk here, but he only raised for the first time.
4:50 T8o: I actually peel this turn like always. Other than getting close to enough odds at least, against more aggro opponents it is really annoying if they can't make you fold and of course you can bring the tiltmonkey out of them when you suckouttttttttt
5:50 98s: I love your play Chuck against this particular opponent. But it'd be bad to make it your standard play(ie against unknowns) though
6:15 63o: I think there are lots of merits here to barrel the turn. You may fold out J/Q high (that didn't paired his 5 of course), your line also looks kind of strong in his mind as you just checked back the turn with junk the previous hand.
11:30 QQ curse and fold .... sick
13:30 43o Why are we not folding now? He has to donk something like A9 for us to be good here and it's not like we're going to fold a lot of pairs. If he was calling to get a str8 he at least has a better pair than us now

Have to say that the final chat at the end should be the new standard:

ChukDiesel: gg
ChukDiesel: you played

I guess this would be Sartre's farewell chat if he played online poker?


Let me comment on the hands vs petersnr, because I think there were several that should be played differently.

11:20 Fold with QQ on the river on the 58T-J-A board is good versus this guy.

12:30 Fold T3o on A26 flop facing donk. Definite fold here and I think you're probably looking to peel a bit too much here. This guy is very weak tight / straightforward so far from what we have seen. Yes, he could have 65 or 44 here, but there's also a good chance he has A7 as well. I think you should not peel very light on this board versus this particular opponent, because you're drawing either thin or near dead with K9 here, and you're probably underestimating how often it's the latter case.

12:40 Check/raise 93s on ATT flop. VERY BAD imo (against this opponent -- it's a fine default play versus someone more aggressive). The check/raise is the "greedy" bluff where you are basically giving yourself a worse price to make the bluff because you expect your opponent to bluff and allow you to make an extra SB when he has air, which is normally most of the time. However, this guy has not given any indication that he won't just check this board through with any unpaired hand. Because he has folded his button so much, his range DOES have Ax, a fair number of Tx, and even some small pocket pair hands. He is much more likely to have connected with this board than a typical limper. Once he bets the flop, your bluff is looking less attractive than it did before you checked. Not sure if it makes check/folding better than check/raising (of course there still is a chance that he will stab in this spot, even though I don't think it's very likely). The optimal play here is to the bet the flop and then just fold if you meet any resistance. If he makes what for him is a hero flop call with K7 or Q9, that's life, you'll still probably get 2 chances to outdraw his hand.

13:20 The 43o hand where you bet 875 flop (fine) and then bet 4 turn and call donk bet on river J. I think the turn bet is bad, you're a dog to his range and he's going to let you take a free showdown when you have the best hand (and some of the time he has the best hand with 5x or 7x). Then the river calldown is also pretty bad, this guy just gives no indication that he is capable of turning missed overs into a bluff (though I will say that IF he does so, he's more likely than anybody else to do it badly with a river donk bet). The J is a really bad card for you. There is much more than JT or J9 that he could have. He could have T9, J8, J7, J5, J4, AJ, KJ, QJ, and 6x that didn't want to scare you out with a turn check/raise. Overall, I'd say it's pretty criminal to put 2.5 BB into the pot with this hand after the flop against this opponent, so something went awry here. Within five seconds, you go from "I am making a free showdown bet" to putting another bet in on the river. So I am now calling your bet the expensive showdown bet.

14:10 The 75s hand. You bet K64 flop, 6 turn, and raise a donkbet on a J river. Seemingly contradicting what I just wrote, I like this raise. I still don't think he's likely to bluff, but there is nothing here that really makes sense other than a slowplayed Kx or 6x. (His bet with J4 is lol bad, but of course worked perfectly when he inadvertently induced a bluff raise. I am pretty sure he bet because he had two pair and didn't understand/realize his two pair was counterfeited. Like when you call with K5 and they ship the pot to you, he sits as his screen staring blankly for 10 seconds trying to figure out why PokerStars just cheated him out of 20% of his bankroll.)

Overall, I suspect Chuck naturally gravitated toward imagining this opponent was like a similar tight passive opponent at higher stakes, who will tend to make stabs and throw in some bluffs (because that kind of fish will go broke a lot slower than this kind of fish against tough opponents) and didn't have enough time to adjust to the fact that this player wasn't even capable of playing at the level of the typical fish he encounters. I'm curious, Chuck, if you agree with this assessment in retrospect?

14:10 75s hand. I agree with sweet that this is really too good a bluffing opportunity to gives up, although I really don't think this villain is bluffing much.... (so that I can play it both ways....)

18:26 86o: very draw heavy board, what are we trying to fold out here? Since villain knows he's on a vid I'd say the chance of FPS owning you increase too......so I just check back and avoid the headache. Also I always ask myself "what can I fold out" here and I don't really see many hands.

21:55 KQo: Huh why are we not c/ring this river? Villain is going to bet a J he is not expecting us to have a Q we just 3bet the flop and bet flop b/c turn. Obv we disagree the frequency of villain having A/K high and what they'll do to a donk but whatev.....

23:30: K8o: wp by villain

28:20 Q6o: Good river fold imo

30:30 Chuck made a comment about if villain keep betting and shows up with better hand he'll start folding his bottom pair on the turn. This is a little troublesome for me is if villain have middle pair + 10 straight time, he's going to play the same way and you're not going to learn if he is going to check back turn with weaker hands or not. So shouldn't the strategy be to wait for the times when he has a weaker holding (either barrel off or check turn/fold river) and then we decide what to do? I know it'll take forever for him to miss as stars is r****d but this seems like a frustration reaction which I don't think is necessarily good. However Chuck turned out to be right (of course) so maybe you just picked up something I didn't

38:30 75o: yeahhhhh check that turn

40:30 AA: Free coaching!!!! Anyways I need to come back to this hand later super tough. I actually had almost the same hand once but I forgot to dig it up.

46:30 Q7s: you're not folding enough better hands for a bluff....

49:40 K6o: I c/r this river he just b/fed probably doesn't want to fold a marginal hand again.

58:30 wow

59:45 Agree with c/f turn

This is a super awesome ep!

Chuck I still think you played the AA hand correctly. He's pretty much narrowed down to 9x/Kx/semi-bluffs. If we bet, bluffs fold, 9x calls and Kx raise. There are more 9x hands than Kx hands, but we really need to discount 9x a little because he didn't raise the flop. So if we get him to bet 9x or to bluff with his draws with just a low frequency we should be turning a profit. Obv it'll be a super big win if we can bet and get him to bluff-raise but I think we can agree that's not happening.....

I'm working on my reply but had to take a break for this gem - "I know it'll take forever for him to miss as stars is r****d"

I swear 9 out of 10 people in chat lately think the pokerzzz is riggeddd >.<
Their logic is quite fail, they think it's rigged against certain people (them) only o_o
Pure comedy ^.^

Wow Mike, the whole post you made here is amazing and I really like your thought process throughout.

Time Link to 00:14:07

terrible raise here......it seems very obv. that on any board you have nothing and he is calling you need to get out. These players are annoying but typically they are only calling w/ hands that have you beat and they wont fold. Also you know yourself that when players like this put in action, you better have the topish portion of your range if you expect to win. Your play seemed more like a thoughtless grrrr raise. Kind of like you are betting into me here? bullshit grrrrr i raise.

Time Link to 00:14:53

dont agree...you said that you liked your line because he makes folds right? But when did he make all of those folds? That answer would be preflop and i think that players like this once they make it to the turn they have a piece.