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

dling right now

it seems like you like to make a lot of plays.

Do you think this works on lower stakes too?

I really like the fact that this vids make me think more creative, on the other hand I think its dangerous to do if you play on levels where people really don't think that much about my range

Great stuff Dan.

When I saw that first set of stats I was freaking out and was like "Wow. He really is a nit" LOL. I really liked the breakdown of the player type and how to exploit them.

DJ arent alot of these guys at mid stakes just mad tabling for rake back and is why they just arent that great at actaully playing poker?

DJ arent alot of these guys at mid stakes just mad tabling for rake back and is why they just arent that great at actaully playing poker?

It does appear that a high percentage of the regulars are slightly over breakeven players (like, winrate about 1ptbb/100) but I've been playing on stars where there is no rakeback per se... so, I dunno?

it seems like you like to make a lot of plays.

Do you think this works on lower stakes too?

I really like the fact that this vids make me think more creative, on the other hand I think its dangerous to do if you play on levels where people really don't think that much about my range

Yes, making plays should certainly work at lower stakes, especially against weak-tight nits. Just don't bluff callstations

If your opponents are weaker handreaders, then you should focus more on their actual hand range and less on your perceived range. As they get more skilled, you'll need to be more aware of what you're representing, too.

It does appear that a high percentage of the regulars are slightly over breakeven players (like, winrate about 1ptbb/100) but I've been playing on stars where there is no rakeback per se... so, I dunno?

gotcha

Time Link to 00:53:41

DJ, let's change the board up a little and say that it is a 77c3c 9 8c and you took the same line to the River (c/c, c, c). Would there be any merit to a big river check/raise this time since you could better rep trips/FH along with the flush, or is he just not folding OP's often enough for this to work? Also, can we even rep those hands taking a c/c, c, c line vs a typical reg? Not saying it wouldn't be sometimes good to go for a check/raise on the River after checking the Turn with those big hands on a non-club river, but is he going to be able to figure that out enough to fold OPs? I don't think so, but that is mostly uncharted territory for me.

Is check/calling or check/folding just always going to be better than check/raising until the board texture is one in which his range is heavily weighted towards bluffs + thin valubets?

Time Link to 00:40:31

Thank you for making this series and hope DC makes some more FR content like this, it's been great so far.

I was wondering in this hand with KQ when it gets really interesting on the river K. First thought was we are always good here (well most of the time) but my second thought was is it better to bet and not showdown the hand, even possibly get looked up by worse (not likely IMO). I was thinking it is probably better to not showdown because of the information you give away and letting other players adjust to you or gain some more valuable info. Then you explain how he is now going to be afraid of you and other players or regs will be playing to many tables (seems realistic for FR) to notice. Can you maybe go into more detail and specifically about how villain may adjust to you when he does see your hand and how you may re-adjust to his adjustments.

Great Episode again DJ. Continue the great work! DC needs a little bit more FR content. Success for the next hands!

Another great full ring video DJ, keep it coming! I was wondering if at any point you were planning to go over some of the big losing hands that you played. It looks like on the graph there were some points (esp near the end of the session) that you lost a few big hands.

Maybe they were just totally coolers and pointless to talk about. On the other hand I think maybe we could learn something from hands that just went bad, or spots where you followed your read and your plan and it just didn't turn out right. But again if they were just standard hands that didn't turn out in your favor then its pointless to go over them.

Anyway thanks for the full ring stuff!

Hi DJ,

This might be a dumb question.. When we start checking back a balanced range of hands on the flop, does that increase the ratio of good hands to air in our cbetting range, or does it just appear that way to our opponents?

I'm guessing part of the reasoning for checking back more is to make villains think things like, 'oh this guy only has a 66% cbet stat, so he has a hand more often than someone who cbets a ton, so I'm not going to checkraise bluff him'. Is this just an illusion though?

Great series so far, btw

DJ,

In the KQ hand, assuming the K does not come on the river. What is your betsizing since we expect him to fold pretty much all of the time anyway. I was thinking something like 1/3 pot that looks like you're going for value? What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks, and great vid!

DJ, let's change the board up a little and say that it is a 77c3c 9 8c and you took the same line to the River (c/c, c, c). Would there be any merit to a big river check/raise this time since you could better rep trips/FH along with the flush, or is he just not folding OP's often enough for this to work? Also, can we even rep those hands taking a c/c, c, c line vs a typical reg? Not saying it wouldn't be sometimes good to go for a check/raise on the River after checking the Turn with those big hands on a non-club river, but is he going to be able to figure that out enough to fold OPs? I don't think so, but that is mostly uncharted territory for me.

Is check/calling or check/folding just always going to be better than check/raising until the board texture is one in which his range is heavily weighted towards bluffs + thin valubets?

I don't think we need to pull a c/r here unless we think he's bluffing a lot with better hands like AK or 44 or something, and I doubt he'll do that on boards like these without many scarecards since he has a little bit of showdown value. Against a polarized range of {bluffs we beat, very strong hands} a checkraise amounts to chip suicide compared to a c/c.

Thank you for making this series and hope DC makes some more FR content like this, it's been great so far.

I was wondering in this hand with KQ when it gets really interesting on the river K. First thought was we are always good here (well most of the time) but my second thought was is it better to bet and not showdown the hand, even possibly get looked up by worse (not likely IMO). I was thinking it is probably better to not showdown because of the information you give away and letting other players adjust to you or gain some more valuable info. Then you explain how he is now going to be afraid of you and other players or regs will be playing to many tables (seems realistic for FR) to notice. Can you maybe go into more detail and specifically about how villain may adjust to you when he does see your hand and how you may re-adjust to his adjustments.

Well my first inclination was to take a chance at another bet over the risk of him seeing my hand here, but perhaps it would be best to hide this line from him so that I can continue to take it in the future as well. I dunno, its pretty close.

As far as adjustments go, I presume that he'll probably barrel me a bit more (because I can float with K high) and call me down lighter (because I can show up with hands like K high), so I'll probably float him less often and valuebet thinner. Also I'm less likely to run a big bluff on him in the near future because I think he'll want revenge, but I may overbet for value a bit more readily.

Another great full ring video DJ, keep it coming! I was wondering if at any point you were planning to go over some of the big losing hands that you played. It looks like on the graph there were some points (esp near the end of the session) that you lost a few big hands.

Maybe they were just totally coolers and pointless to talk about. On the other hand I think maybe we could learn something from hands that just went bad, or spots where you followed your read and your plan and it just didn't turn out right. But again if they were just standard hands that didn't turn out in your favor then its pointless to go over them.

Anyway thanks for the full ring stuff!

Most of the losing hands I played were coolers or otherwise uneventful (well, not all of them, check my last blog post for a few big ones I lost in hilarious fashion). I'm certainly not averse to reviewing hands I lost, but for the most part they just weren't as interesting, and you know how much I like every hand to be interesting!

Hi DJ,

This might be a dumb question.. When we start checking back a balanced range of hands on the flop, does that increase the ratio of good hands to air in our cbetting range, or does it just appear that way to our opponents?

I'm guessing part of the reasoning for checking back more is to make villains think things like, 'oh this guy only has a 66% cbet stat, so he has a hand more often than someone who cbets a ton, so I'm not going to checkraise bluff him'. Is this just an illusion though?

Great series so far, btw

Well if we're checking back a balanced range, then the relative strength of our ranges for betting and checking won't change much. But you're right about our opponents perception! If our cbet stat is lower, most opponents will certainly expect that our cbets are with stronger hands.

That being said, I think that
a) It takes a long time for the c-bet stat to converge, especially if you're altering your gameplan. It'll take a while for it to appear lower to your regular opponents.
b) Most good opponents will take the flop texture into account before your cbet %. If you cbet a K82r flop, they'll assume you're doing so with all of your air, and if you bet a T98fd flop, they'll assume you've probably got a piece of it.

DJ,

In the KQ hand, assuming the K does not come on the river. What is your betsizing since we expect him to fold pretty much all of the time anyway. I was thinking something like 1/3 pot that looks like you're going for value? What are your thoughts on this?

Thanks, and great vid!

Definitely small, probably around 1/2 pot (I rarely bet <1/2 pot because I don't want him to say "pot odds" and make a crying call with a random mid pair). Just another benefit of this line is that our river bet can be small but still quite effective, so our risk is pretty low.

Been stuck in a hotel room with super-shitty internet so couldn't comment till now, but thankfully I downloaded the video before I left. Good stuff, I really liked the in-depth analysis of how to exploit a particular player type; hope you continue to do that for more aggressive types in future episodes. Thanks for adding in the stats I mentioned. I find WWSF to be useful as a measure of overall postflop effectiveness. 46% is incredibly high considering how loose you are playing, so that shows that you are being very aggressive yet still somehow managing to get people to keep folding.

KQ hand vs. joeyjoejr, where you take the out of position delayed float line. Pretending that the K didn't come on the river and you bet to take it down, since that was the plan. This seems like a good line to take against aggressive regs that always bet when checked to. However the opponent in this hand was a half-stack, hence presumably a fish. Doesn't this go against the usual thinking of "don't bluff (passive) fish because they don't fold"?; they could easily take this line with something like Q6 for bottom pair and would snap call your river bet. Did you have reads on the villain that made you believe this play would work? Or is this something you would do even against a basically unknown, but presumably fishy opponent?

(The funny thing is that the villain in this hand is actually a very aggressive reg at 100NL/200NL, so I have no idea why he was half-stacking 400NL; but it's really besides the point since you didn't have that info about him.)

I doubt even a fish would be calling me with Q6 once I call his flop raise. And I don't think you need special reads to take a line like this, you just have to know that your opponent's range is mostly air when he raises the flop. This will be true for most aggressive players.

About playing against the super nit. Since he is folding 80-100% of his late opens to 3bet. You were saying that you weren't going to 3b him with KQs type hands or similar hands with reverse implied odds. What's wrong with 3betting him with almost 100% of hands. Since he is almost always folding it seems you would insta profit. You don't really have to worry about the times when he does call since he so rarely calls. If he does happen to call and you make your top pair with KQ it's pretty much check down mode and fold to much or any heat. This also gives you the chance to win a big pot if you do suckout.

It seems to me that you'd make much more from him folding almost always then the odd time you lose a bit when he does call.

About playing against the super nit. Since he is folding 80-100% of his late opens to 3bet. You were saying that you weren't going to 3b him with KQs type hands or similar hands with reverse implied odds. What's wrong with 3betting him with almost 100% of hands. Since he is almost always folding it seems you would insta profit. You don't really have to worry about the times when he does call since he so rarely calls. If he does happen to call and you make your top pair with KQ it's pretty much check down mode and fold to much or any heat. This also gives you the chance to win a big pot if you do suckout.

It seems to me that you'd make much more from him folding almost always then the odd time you lose a bit when he does call.

I like the way you think, but I think its close. For the sake of balance, I'd rather choose some hands like KQs to flatcall with and 3bet a ton of hands like small pairs, SCs, Ax, etc. Also have to consider other players left in the pot, who will often catch on to whats happening and start to 4bet bluff occasionally (way more likely at 3/6+ than 2/4- imo). If I'm literally 3betting 100% in that spot I'm pretty sure that even a supernit will be able to adjust to it.

The reason to flat with hands like KQs is that they flop very well oop against his opening range, but are in bad shape against his 3bet calling range.

I like the way you think, but I think its close. For the sake of balance, I'd rather choose some hands like KQs to flatcall with and 3bet a ton of hands like small pairs, SCs, Ax, etc. Also have to consider other players left in the pot, who will often catch on to whats happening and start to 4bet bluff occasionally (way more likely at 3/6+ than 2/4- imo). If I'm literally 3betting 100% in that spot I'm pretty sure that even a supernit will be able to adjust to it.

The reason to flat with hands like KQs is that they flop very well oop against his opening range, but are in bad shape against his 3bet calling range.

I have had great success at the smaller stakes 3betting 100% of hands against people like that. If I'm in the BB and SB folds I 3b every time regardless of hand and they almost never catch on (if you have a decent player with you it's a different story as you're right they'll 4bet bluff you a tonne). I think one of the advantages of doing it to a super nit is I think they tend to play more tables than the typical multi-tabler, since they are playing so tight they rarely have tough spots, and they need as many tables as possible to eek out their 0.5BB/100. They're rarely paying much attention to stuff like this.

I agree with you that once you hit 3/6 things change as even the super nits pay more attention, but at 1/2 and lower and most of the nits at 2/4 you can rape them without much worry.

Question about why you prefer to raise 22 and call with KQs? I'd feel much worse getting 4bet with 22 and having to fold than KQs. While I agree that KQs is going to fair much better against his opening range, most of the time I don't think it matters all that much. If the flop is Kxx, Qxx, etc and he's got TT you're still most likely going to win the pot with 22.

Also about balance, I don't think you need to balance things against these players. They play too straightforward and I think trying to balance things is going to lower your expectation against them, even if only slightly. Sure if they catch on start to balance things a bit more, but my default is to always punish them until I have a reason not too. I don't play much higher than 3/6 so I'm sure it becomes more essential as you move higher, but at small stakes I think you're losing a bit of money.

Also I was wondering if perhaps you could make a video of hands that you lose. I know you said a lot of them were straightforward, coolers, or otherwise uninteresting, but I still think it would be worthwhile to see the thought process as well as some situations where the villain has the top part of his range, even if only to see how the villain reacts.

Sorry about the novel.

Time Link to 00:22:29

One thing I like about this play is that you have 7 outs to improve if it goes wrong plus ace high could even be the best hand here sometimes.

Nice series DJ.
Where did you find that position layout in HEM?
I only got early and middle not the ep2, ep3, mp1, mp2 etc.

Nice series DJ.
Where did you find that position layout in HEM?
I only got early and middle not the ep2, ep3, mp1, mp2 etc.

I forget but if you search the HEM forums for fullring I bet you can find it.

Time Link to 00:21:45

If you did have a hand like KT AK or QQ would you really raise this turn? bc your not going to get paid off by worse he is only calling with better right? So your range right here is only sets bc if you dont check behind air you cant have it on the turn and you wouldn't raise those other hands ^KT AK &QQ. if he knew you checked behind air sometime on the flop then wouldn't he call you with a somewhat a decent hand expecting you to have air most of the time?

Also would you say 2/4 is the same as it was when u made this video?

If you did have a hand like KT AK or QQ would you really raise this turn? bc your not going to get paid off by worse he is only calling with better right? So your range right here is only sets bc if you dont check behind air you cant have it on the turn and you wouldn't raise those other hands ^KT AK &QQ. if he knew you checked behind air sometime on the flop then wouldn't he call you with a somewhat a decent hand expecting you to have air most of the time?

I would raise this turn with a hand like KT and a few other TP type hands. Still a somewhat small range on such a dry board, but on ones where the turn brings more draws I'll raise a wide range of TP type hands, including QQ-TT. And yes I do expect to get called by worse, at least sometimes. Though I think he'll fold the majority of his range so this spot works quite well for bluffing.

Also I'd probably not check behind a set here ever, with a set I'm looking to play a big big pot and its hard to do that after checking back the flop (unless he's shorter stacked, or I have a read that he'll go crazy if I check back flop).

Also would you say 2/4 is the same as it was when u made this video?

No idea, I haven't played since I made it. But I'd assume its similar unless everyone's watched my series and gotten more aggro

No idea, I haven't played since I made it. But I'd assume its similar unless everyone's watched my series and gotten more aggro

Let's just hope thats not the case lol

Time Link to 00:44:20

I posted a hand that I bet with small PP because I thought he had overs and some of the players said this is an ok line and they do it. Do you think shouldn't be better those small PP on dryish boards after a line similar to the one you took here.( bet flop check turn) how about if it is like a Q92r and turn brings a T? and I have 77

Time Link to 00:48:40

Sorry for asking to many questions but if the river in this spot where you have 97s is like a Tc are you c/f bc you think most of his hand range here is draws and they hit or do you want to shove to get him off of TP hands? So I guess the question is do you think is calling range here is more draws or TP hands that he will fold to a river shove?

I posted a hand that I bet with small PP because I thought he had overs and some of the players said this is an ok line and they do it. Do you think shouldn't be better those small PP on dryish boards after a line similar to the one you took here.( bet flop check turn) how about if it is like a Q92r and turn brings a T? and I have 77

Yea I rarely bet small-mid pp's in position after floating, simply because I don't expect my opponent to call worse or fold better, and it opens me up to getting c/r-ed or something gross like that.

Sorry for asking to many questions but if the river in this spot where you have 97s is like a Tc are you c/f bc you think most of his hand range here is draws and they hit or do you want to shove to get him off of TP hands? So I guess the question is do you think is calling range here is more draws or TP hands that he will fold to a river shove?

I'd just c/f on a Tc, theres no way I'm good there and I doubt he's folding much with that price.

DJ Sensei,

What program are you using to show the data about this player. PT or HEM? If it is HEM how did you get it to show you all the players? If this is PT then you don't know what the hell i'm talking about.

Thanks.

DJ Sensei,

What program are you using to show the data about this player. PT or HEM? If it is HEM how did you get it to show you all the players? If this is PT then you don't know what the hell i'm talking about.

Thanks.

HEM! And if by "all the players" you mean "all the positions", its a custom report for FR games that I picked up off the HEM forums. Search over there for fullring report and you should find it.

Thanks, I got it. very nice.

Time Link to 00:46:06

Breakeven fold equity here is 52.8% ( 132/(132+118) ).

Since we get villain to fold by representing AA/KK/QQ with the CR, how would you recommend we actually play these big pairs on the turn?

The report for all positions for FR is available at http://forums.holdemmanager.com/custom-reports/311-position-full-ring.html

Breakeven fold equity here is 52.8% ( 132/(132+118) ).

Since we get villain to fold by representing AA/KK/QQ with the CR, how would you recommend we actually play these big pairs on the turn?

Standard bigpair line is probably betfold turn, barrel most rivers if called. Against an aggro dude who also tends to call too much, c/r turn is nice.

About playing against the super nit. Since he is folding 80-100% of his late opens to 3bet.

Dj is there a chance you could go back to the super nit stats you presented? I have a few questions...

1. With only 460 or so hands, and his raise first in % so low, how many times did anyone actually 3 bet him? Hard to tell just from the stats.

2. If the table is paying attention, knowing how tight he is, they will rarely attempt to bluff his strong range, right? So wouldn't his folding a lot make sense in a twisted sort of way?

Great series!

Which

Dj is there a chance you could go back to the super nit stats you presented? I have a few questions...

1. With only 460 or so hands, and his raise first in % so low, how many times did anyone actually 3 bet him? Hard to tell just from the stats.

Well, tough to say, but we can certainly increase that sample size by repeatedly punishing him

2. If the table is paying attention, knowing how tight he is, they will rarely attempt to bluff his strong range, right? So wouldn't his folding a lot make sense in a twisted sort of way?

Sure, at first. But it can become a leveling battle quickly once people realize that he's folding to their 3bets and open up their ranges. Then he should adjust to not fold, and they should re-adjust to not 3bet so light. Etc, etc. until everyones ranges are properly balanced! In reality, most very-tight players aren't going to get into sophisticated mind games with you; the whole point of their strategy is to play a small range of strong hands and hope everyone else is too loose and pays them off. Not a lot of difficult/marginal decisions involved.