I think I speak for all if I say: It would be awesome if we could see you while you talk to us like in Sulsky's videos :-))))

Wow A+     I think I'm going to buy this program and start playing around with it. Seems invaluable to experiment with spots to protect your range. 

waahouu very reactive ! a request and soon after the video hope it will happen for all MTT ideas as well. in the meantime it is good to see you making NLHE vid. thanks Phil

Hey Phil, what's the name of the book you mention at Minute 14?

Great video phil! kind of changed how I think about hand ranges, I have never seen a hand mapped out this way. Pretty cool

Thanks for the feedback, guys!  I'm really glad you enjoyed it.

I've asked for an explanation of range advantage in a couple of other threads and not understood what I've been told. Your explanation of the 7c turn situation has helped a lot. Thanks!!

Great video Phil. I have been experimenting a lot with checking after 3betting preflop and its been going well. I think Cbetting to much in 3bet pots is a massive leak. I have made a lot of money against these types of players who will cbet close  95% oop  by raising their flop bets with impunity and barrelling off on favourable runouts. 

  Just have one question? For example, Say on 9,8,7 board do you think hands like 66,77,99,89,7,8 are good check raise candidates? Because i am going to be check/folding most of my no pair no draw hands on this board as it is so much better for in positions players range than my own. Im no expert and still have a lot to learn myself so my thinking could be flawed. 

- butalwayshaveequity
this was a tough one. But i guess i focused too much on "shave".

~8:00 - 9:30 -- Board Connects with Each Players Range and Effects Their Strategies

You first compared the equity of each player range (strong for the Hero with 55%). And then you compared the frequency of different hand types (sets, overpair, top-pair) of each player with the Hero having a significant amount of the "nutted" type hands -- over-pair and better. The result being that the Hero would likely be able to have a relatively frequent check-raising range. I thought this was all good analysis, but I thought that you could have commented more on the board itself and how it effects each players strategy. 

On a Th 5h 4c board the equity of hands is going to change often on the turn. For example, even a hand like JJ which we were putting in our "nutted" range, since it is so rarely beat on the flop (3%) would lose a lot of its equity on a Q turn -- not only because it's an overcard but also because the Villain has lots of Qs in his range (AQo, KQ, QJ,). Similarly, even a very strong hand like a set could lose significant equity on a flush turn which will happen ~19%. The effect of the equity of our hands changing so much between streets is that some of our "made" hands will be vulnerable to being outdrawn. (This scenario tends to arise on "wetter" boards compared to "dry" boards -- these terms are only meaningful in context of the players actual ranges). And the more frequent that our hands are vulnerable, the more likely that we're going to bet for "protection" as opposed to betting for "value", and often a combination of both. This means that we'll being betting and check-raising thinner -- which is another way of saying that we'll be betting less polarized. For example, if the board was A72r (ie very dry) we might only check-raise a hand like 77 for value -- no need to protect cause it will almost never be outdrawn. However, on this board Th 5h 4c, we might check-raise a hand like AT for a combination of value against weaker Tens and to get overcards to fold. 

In addition, when the turn card is something like the Ah which will change the equity of our ranges a lot on the turn our ranges will be less polarized. The less polarized are range, the more difficult it is to play for the oop player, and the valuable it is for the in position player. In other words, it's much easier to play a nuts or air range, than it is to play a range of some nuts, some really strong, some strong but vulnerable, some weak made hands which are really vulnerable, some drawy hands with equity, and some really bad draw hands. And when I say that it's harder to play, I don't mean the line that we take, instead I mean that it's harder to realize our equity with these type of hands when oop compared to in position. Beyond helping the in position player, the way we play our hand on future streets will be different at a much higher frequency than on a dryer board. 

I find that by thinking about how the board texture effects each players ranges, helps me to think about how I'm going to want to construct my ranges on the flop. 

~37:30 Equity needed to check-call AQo

You take the Villain's betting range and compare it to the equity of AQ which is ~33%. You say something along the lines of "we're getting 2.5 to 1 on a call, so we have enough equity with this hand".

This logic is ONLY correct on the river. When on earlier streets and you have higher equity than the pot odds are laying you, does not mean that your call is then +EV. It obviously doesn't mean that your call is -EV, but it really doesn't tell you either way. 

The further street you are from the river, the less relevant your showdown equity is vs the villain's range because it's not clear whether you'll get to realize that equity.

Check-Calling Range is Exploitable

The Hero's flop check-calling range that you created is unbalanced toward unmade hands which don't have enough equity to call down (ie. AK,AQ,AJ). The Villain can exploit you by betting all his pairs on the flop, and then barreling his entire range on all non-flush or A,K,Q turns which makes up more than 50% of turn cards. This will make check-calling with AK,AQ -EV on the flop.

Check-defend at too high of a frequency

When you check-defend (check-raise or check-call) more than 72% of the time, then the Villain won't have an incentive to bet his weak bluffing hands such as the backdoor clubs and probably even gut shots, since it'll almost certainly be higher EV as check-backs. 

It's hard to know which hand that the Villain should be indifferent between betting and checking. But we do know that his entire check-back frequency even the weakest hand in his range is certainly +EV because they'll always improve on at least some turns. What we're implying with the Villain's betting range is that a hand like QJo (without a heart) and 98 no flush draws will probably be indifferent between betting and checking, but I'm pretty confident that they're going to be much higher EV as a check-back because you have hero defending so much. All of these hands will be check-folds to a check-raise and they're getting very little fold equity. 

Below is a very rough EV calculation for betting 98o (someone should check my math). Actually I gotta run, but I'll do it in a bit.

Hey Phil ! 

This kind of videos are awesome to me. This is how you really learn the game. Thanks a lot for showing us how a nosebleeds pro works.

- An intresting thing to notice for explotative reasons is how good low cards are for IP range when OOP checks. Since force to OOP to defend the river with Ace high type hands, which most of the regs on the average mid-highstakes pool won´t.

For other side, there is something in OOP strategy that doesn´t like me too much: 

- This is something like a neutral board, nothing did change. If you were ahead preflop, you must be always ahead on T54ss too. 

-Most of your bluffing hands still have a lot of equity against his range.

-Like you said, you can set up a lot of bluffing escenarios in a lot of runnouts.

-IP range is fairly weak on this board, since ~60% of his hands are highcards.

So i would tend to think that every time that OOP checks, IP says "thanks". Since what IP range wants overall is materialize equity. I think we could cbet a little bit higher than that. 

Another think that i find intresting is that if we know that his range is 60% non-pair hands on the flop, sizing 0.5x+ flop cbets simplifies the strategy for IP, from now he just have to split his call/fold range between pairs and non-pairs hands. If we choose a smaller size on the flop, we would forcing to him to play a more complex strategy. And maybe allow to our own range never check, or if we still want to check sometimes, check less hands.

It´s very interesting that being these conditions, i still believe that you are right when you say that IP will leak by betting too wide this board. I see it a lot in practice. And this game tree prove the mistake that strategy is making.

Pretty nice vid!

Don't you think that check calling too wide will make your range too weak to defend against triple barrels and overbets?

cardrunenrs EV on a mac?

+1 to the CREV on Mac question :)

Hello Phil,

Maybe I'm late but what is the reason for not doing this with exact betsizes (like betting 13 to 20bb etc)? I mean the pot is 1.2 at the start and every bet is 1 and every raise is 2.
I saw this video right after it had been come out, and I had 0 knowledge when it came to CREV, so I didn't know how this software work. I hear you say you want to make things simple, but I don't think it would have made the things much more complicated. Or is there any other reason not to make this with the exact betsizes?

Thanks!

Great video, thanks Phil.    

Great video. No surprises Chael Sonnen has problems in 3bet pots, he probably does it too much as he's always trying to take it down early.

Please continue this series!!!! PLEASE!!!!!

Just signed up and this is the first RIO video I've watched. Head and shoulders above similar attempts on other training sites. 

So what are we doing with 66-99 and A5 or A 4 we bet and he raises on the flop but its small min raise are we folding now?

Hey Phil, What do you thing about turn a check/raise range on turn 7c into a leading bet? (A9s, A8s, A6s)

Great great video :)

Would appreciate if someone could clarify:

Are we using a mixed strategy here between betting and check calling with all our flush draws, or are we betting the bottom 66% of FDs.

Would be grateful thanks..

To know EV on flop you would have to know every action on every single run out, and also every opponents action, because it all affects ev of previous street. So I have a big problem when this program is telling me the ev of a move. I just don't understand something. Because all the high profile respected high stakes players use this program, but it looks false as far as ev is concerned

Awesome video!

Nice video, thanks a lot!

I think that on the flop, since we have a range advantage we should be betting a lot more. If we cbet with a relatively low frequency and we defend a lot of our checks on a board that we connect much better, the opponent shouldn't be stabing a lot.

Moreover, in 3bet pots we dont need a raise to get stacks in by the river, so I don't see the point of building a check-raising range, especially on a board that favours us.

I would cbet a lot more and maybe go for some check-calls or check-raises on the turn.

This is a really cool video that demonstrates the complexities of NLH. What do you think of "pruning the game tree" to make it easier to construct your range? For example, eliminating a x/r or x/c strategy.

Is it normal to be quite lost//confused during this video? Also does it mean I'm a terrible poker player if I have to re-watch some spots multiple time and even then I might still not understand it. ><

I guess what I'm really asking is, how does someone build their poker thought process if he has less understanding of the game.

I know this is 1 year ago vid, but still wanna say it is awesome work and great explanation. A must-watch video.

Hey Phil, Great video!!
Just getting started with CREV, and I was wondering how you get just the players ranges pre-flop, and not the betting action?

My question is about putting the ideas in this video into practice.

The ideas and thought process in the video are really useful and impressive. But how do you apply this to a random flop in the heat of battle with the clock ticking? There's only so deep you can go in 30 seconds (while playing 3 or 4 tables). My problem has always been making the right choice in the moment. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what the 'simplified' version of your thought process might be in the midst of a poker hand under time pressure.

Great video btw!

I've learned a lot this last hour, thanks for this video

I think we should fold out KJ at the ver least. We are calling way to much imo. Maybe some KQ without back door draws too. Unless they have a high fold to check raise then maybe put them back in. I really don't think we have 55 in our 3b range op very often if you wanna be realistic about this unless we are super deep with villain its pretty hard to play post flop op and we just aren't going to flop well enough with it post flop where I think it can be plus ev especially regs that like to float post flop which they tend to do ip.

Hey yall, at around 47:30 timestamp, im having trouble understanding why our turn check-jamming range consists of only flush draws. Wouldn't that be exploitable or am i missing something? Could someone explain pls?

I don't understand why to use crev, flopzilla is so much easier to work with and understand.