Nice to see you in the RIO-team, would love to see you make all kind of videos since you obviously are a well-rounded player. MTT-series with Dylan at the top of my wishlist. 

such a boss avatar

like you are from K-PAX

Good video.  The back raise jam hand is interesting.  I've been thinking about that scenario a lot, especially when you flat the CO or an earlier position.  I've been toying with not ever 3 betting unless I am Btn, SB, or BB because I have noticed people are unwilling to fold to the back jam.  I think you are more likely to get called by KQ then you are to fold out AQ with that play.  Also, it protects your flatting range to have all the big pairs and all the AKo in there.  

with the 66 hand what do you think about 4betting smaller than AI and not folding, think its more believable that you have a trap hand especially if he has been 3betting a lot so it looks like you have set it up. Also he might sometimes just hood a hand he would not of gotten in and wont realise all his equity (you get to do the small cbet), you sometimes dont get stacked by those hands on terrible boards etc.

worm: I definitely have some AK's and occasional big pairs in there but i think you are giving a lot away by not 3betting these most of the time...especially in tourneys with big antes and small preflop sizing. Some would call KQ but I can actually have AQ very easily...should have mentioned that in the video, I would flat AQ more than 3bet it vs Andrew so he really shouldn't call off too wide.

phil: Only if I thought he would be three-ing to five with low pairs which I thought was very unlikely. We actually do pretty bad when he hoods. SPR will be around 1.5 and he is gunna check shove really wide to our small cb and we might make some incorrect calls or incorrect folds on a lot of boards...whats your plan on J95 two-tone for example? Our 4b size in this spot has to be really small if its not all in and he is going to easily have odds to call vs our hand and may end up realising more than his hot and cold equity while we probably realise less. We love when he folds and we pick up 16k without showdown

I see your point.  I think it is bad in tourneys now too thinking about what you said.  I think there are a few spots in cash games where your 3 bet value range is so tight anyways its probably best to just call everything.  It's more like UTG vs HJ  in 6 max 100 bb games so your hand isn't a great example, but you so rarely see someone put a back raise hand in a video I thought I would bring it up.  Thanks for the reply because I probably would have taken my new flatting obsession into my next tournment and now I won't

i think it was in the 3k highroller in barca. i was sitting at your table. i wasnt paying that much attention to sizes but i think you bet flop when checked to by the pfa on k85 (think fd out there, not sure tho) and shipped over his cr with not much money behind. i was just curious on your thought process since i find it strange at the time that you took that line with AT. also what is your generall thought on developing a C/R range as the pfa on boards like this one, that get floated a toooooon. specially in livetourneys.

Hey Grezi, I think I remember the hand you are talking about. I 3b pre and he called and then checkraised small. My reasoning behind shoving was that I expected 88,55 and AK to shove pre most of the time given stack sizes and I didnt think he had any 2pr combos in his range given he opened from earlyish position and called a 3b. So i thought his value range was capped at KQ which I have an over against and was weighted towards bluffs and flush draws which im doing pretty good against. If he is ever folding I pick up so much money without showdown and it seemed like the kind of board he might do this with air on when I make a very small cbet. As it turned out my assumptions were wrong as he had K8s but this is what was going through my head at the time.

worm: I agree with you in the spot you mentioned. I pretty much dont have a 3b range vs utg in the first few levels of tournaments preante for the reasons you mention.

Hi Stephen, welcome to RIO, I enjoyed this first vid!

What particularly stood out to me while playing the WSOP with you this summer was that when I was observing hands you were in, it appeared that you consistently made the correct exploitive adjustments in spots where your opponent was doing something weird.  I almost never play live poker, but I'm usually aware enough to realize someone is giving off something big, if not exactly how to use it.  It seems like you're better able to connect those dots and I'd like to learn a bit more about how.

So, I'm particularly interested in the methods you use to utilize exploitive info at the table, and see how that information makes you deviate from your multitabling or unexploitable style.  Ideally, I'd like you to first sketch your unexploitable style for the given situation, then see you go through the process by which you weight the info at the live table (reads, feelings etc), and then connect the information gained with exploitive adjustments.  Obviously, you can't do this kind of analysis while actually involved in the hand, so if possible I'd like you to share how you simplify the hand reading process for rapid application at the table.

-Ben

Hey Ben, glad you enjoyed it and thank you for the compliment. 

I'd like to start out by saying that I really haven't put a whole lot of effort into developing unexploitable ranges for many spots. Tournament poker is such an exploitative game by nature, especially live, that I pretty much always just skip this part of the analysis when approaching hands. I am always trying to think about the most relevant and exploitable pieces of information I have about my opponent and kind of base my strategy around that. Obviously there are some opponents I regard highly and play regularly that I need to be pretty balanced vs but I guess this isn't the area which I feel strongest unless we are talking about fairly short stack sizes where its easy to know the nash push/fold ranges and adjust them according to how our opponents deviate from this.

Taking my first hand from the video as an example...First I will try to categorise my opponent as quickly and accurately as possible. Despite this hand occurring early in the tournament and thus with very little playing history I had a lot of info available to me. He showed up around 20 minutes late to the tournament, had a brief discussion in a language I didn't recognise with the guy on my right and wasn't at the table long before missing several hands being away from the table for whatever reason. He seemed to be in his early to mid 20s and north-eastern european but I didn't recognise him or his friend at the table.  

The next step is to determine the population tendencies for the described villain that relate to the hand in progress. This is an experience based set of assumptions which tell me that he will probably (ranked from highest to lowest confidence level); 

(1) have a larger than optimal opening range from ep 10-handed pre-ante (nationality/age/ADDish behaviour) 

(2) have an higher than average propensity to barrel or be generally play happy (nationality/age/demenor) 

(3) be a thinking player (is traveling cross-continent to play a €5k buy-in/knows other euro regs) 

(4) be somewhat uncomfortable or inexperienced live or in big tournaments (I don't recognise him) 

(5) be disinclined to stack off light (friend at the table/big and soft tournament/possible satellite winner)

Given these reads and approaching my hand starting from the flop, there are obviously a number of options for how to play a hand with this many nut outs and this little showdown value but after he overbets flop I think the only play is calling. I think his range is strengthened by a his sizing and didn't notice at this point he had no small denomination chips because he was in the 1seat. Checkraising gets no more value from his bluffs and we have to fold a lot of equity when he rips on us. In a similar spot but with a few factors tweaked we could c/r small to induce 3b bluffs to shove over but I didn't see this happening here. He will probably defend vs our small c/r by floating a lot of hands like QJs and such with lots of good turn cards making it tough to barrel effectively.  

On the turn when he bets 5000 even and with a single chip I realise he has only a few physical chips and I get another small additional read that he doesn't want to verbalise his betsize. This also strengthens read (4).
Now taking a step back and putting together the puzzle, how do we maximally exploit him given all these tendencies and especially thinking about the reads we are most confident about… 

His range contains lots of combos of overcards, with and without straight draws and/or flush draws(1), probably only the two available combos of T9s for two pair hands, occasional sets which we can weight away from a little but not too much given sizing and a bunch of overpairs. He is likely to bet his turned draws (2) meaning we can pick up a lot of chips vs his bluffs (especially vs his large sizing). He is probably paying attention to our range (3) and will realise that we have few draws with this line and represent sets and T9 quite well which may contribute to him b/f'ing overpairs too frequently (5).
All this led me to believe he would be barreling often and folding way more than the amount I needed to make the c/c flop c/r turn line the most profitable with this hand.

Great vid stevie, looking forward to more. I like the presentation model of dividing general knowledge and HH analysis.

Hi Stevie, thanks for the video. The 3 hands you showed us are close spots and big plays. When facing those decisions, do you consider how soft/tough is the table? Probably the high roller hand takes place in a tough table, the TT is in a softer and 45s It could either side. Do u think this need to be considered a lot before going for these type of plays? For example if you bust with 45s you could have missed clear spots later on. I know it sound a little like an old speech but I would like to know what u think about this matter. ty

<3 <3 <3 <3

haha maybe...ur def not the only one tho <3

;) Tkx, man!

Snap liked this video at the description of the "60 year old Italian guy" lol

Good Vid!   Gonna try some live poker for the first time at the wsop.  Would you suggest sunglasses?  Do you feel that people that wear sunglasses are harder to read?  Do you wear sunglasses?  If you do, do you feel you miss anything when you have them on?  Thanks

Thanks for the good advice!

At 35:00 the SB raises to 8800 giving them better than 2 to 1 and you says it's a "kinda big" raise. Almost seems a bit small to me or just standard. How come you think it's big? Isn't any less just going to price them in with their entire range?

Can anyone here explain me the math?