Thank you Kamator123

Hello RioZg
I won't be answering questions on/about previous videos. Time is a limited resource and run it once has thousands of videos so coaches are not expected to answer comments from old videos. I'm sure you can see how that makes sense.

I'm using an approach of answering all comments from my latest video within the week it was posted. So if you want your doubts to be answered, please make sure to post them within such time frame.

Support told me about your complaint and I believe they already gave a pretty good answer. I can't make an exception for you otherwise I would have to make one for everyone that felt as strongly as you about solving specific doubts, and then all of a sudden I would have to answer all question from all my previous videos. You can see how this is not sustainable.

If you watch this new video I'm sure you can think of many more things to ask so go ahead! :D

Hey. I don't think there is a strict policy in the site when it comes to an acceptable time frame for answering comments/questions. I think one week is a pretty reasonable amount of time, since most of the views will probably come within that span. I've told support about my approach and received no further complaints. That said, I agree with your argument, and I think Rio should implement locking threads after a certain period of time, since its misleading for the viewer who will expect replies to their questions when there is the option to ask. And when you browse Rio videos, you see that there are many of them with often many questions unanswered since videos can be quite old.

Lets now get to your question.

From that I drew the conclusion that you open smaller from early positions and larger from later.

Yes thats correct.

It seems you got it backwards from what everybody else is teaching. Big from early, small from late positions

This, however, is not. The vast majority of regs - probably more than 90% - open very small from early and middle position. It varies from player to player but very few open to a size bigger than 2.5x. I've also never seen personally a video producer advocate large sizings from such positions.

When it comes to late position, you are correct that most regs advise smaller sizes and thats what most regulars use. I don't think it ultimately makes a big difference to your winrate so it isn't something you should spend too much energy on, specially if you are not beating midstakes games yet for example. But I did some research over how population reacts preflop vs 2x, 2.5x and 3x and based on my study the 3x size performs better than the other sizings. It was a limited study, because for example if I had included other sizings such as 2.25x or 3.5x I might have concluded that one of them was best. But its very time consuming to do preflop work on solvers so I picked the 3 most frequent sizes for my study.

Whats most important is to open the correct range your sizing of choice, not necessarily the sizing itself, at least when it comes to EV. Also be aware of the fact that changing your preflop sizing will change your opponent's defense strategy. So for example if nowadays you open 2x and decide tomorrow to start opening 3x, you will have a pretty different postflop situation to play since your opponent's defense range will have changed a lot. So focus on studying your range for your sizing of choice and also OOP's defense range vs your specific size.

Thanks.

Thank you ikol

Those are the geometric sizings for 2 streets and 3 streets.
I use the HUD option in stars helper to calculate those sizings using a formula

1:15 Table 2: I haven´t study this type of boards (2 broadway +1 low card) EP vs BB. I use mainly a 1/3p. What do you think about using a polarized cbetting strategy instead of range betting since villain should have a tighter range here (compared to BTN vs BB) and less air in his range than on a really dry board like as example K43r?

Yes that makes sense. I would do that vs reasonable regs.

5:40 Table 1: As already mentioned haven´t put much study into this spot. However, wouldn´t it make sense to polarize ourself here by checking a lot (including some overpairs which do not need protection like AA/KK) and when betting using a bigger sizing due to the fact that this board is very good for the BB?

Yes, same as above. Thats how most likely the solver constructs the cbet range. However against recreation players I'm not going to try and play like solver most of the time.

11:00 Table 3: I know villain from the 100z pool. He is very nitty and uses a pretty polarized 3bing strategy (which you find quite often below 200z). What is your opinion by not 4bing monker ranges when having such a read? Reason beeing is that we are wasting hands like AJs, KQs, KJs, etc at decent freq. as 4bet bluffs when they have a lot of EV as a call vs ppl who 3bet polarized ranges and fold quite often vs 4bets. Imo hands like AQo, etc perform here better as an exploit.

Yes that would be a fine adjustment I think. Don't think you will ever see these types of strategies from regulars at 200nl+ tho.

15:20 Table 3: I am pretty sure that the solver prefers here to range bet. What´s the reason to use a polar bet size on the flop?

Probably not that sure :D Solver will mix large bets and small bets here, with some checks as well. In most flop decisions I will just pick one sizing and build my strategy around it. Here I prefer using the larger sizing and polarizing my cbetting range because that leads to a more natural range construction on future streets, therefore allowing me to make fewer mistakes. That said, picking the small bet and cbetting at a high frequency is also totally fine from an EV perspective. Maybe you want to use both sizes as well! As long as you understand the range interactions on future streets, flop strategy won't matter too much.

Thanks for the response, Saulo. Regarding the last part of your answer:

Maybe you want to use both sizes as well! As long as you understand the range interactions on future streets, flop strategy won't matter too much.

Wouldn´t you say that the range interaction on future is a function of the flop strategy? What I mean by this is that a poor range construction on the flop would yield to a poor strategy on future streets. One example would be using 2 bet sizes and not having strong/medium strength hands in our small bet sizing. Vs recs I think it doesn´t matter and we can freestyle a bit more. However, vs stronger regulars I am more comfortable
currently just having one sizing on the flop and playing a simplified strategy.

Thanks!

Yes, thats the reason why I play only one sizing on the flop. Using more than that brings a very disproportionate return compared to the complexity + the amount of mistakes you can make.

Hey Saulo, very nice video format, great pace, great content...

Thank you gabuzzzz

The approach you outlined above has some merits. For example, check raising 76dd 54dd 65dd much more often then say T high or J high flushdraws makes sense and it will happen in solver strategy. However I think overall it's too simplistic when it comes to trying to achive a pseudo-gto strategy. I think such range construction is totally fine in terms of simplification tho, and it will yield a pretty similar EV to a more balanced strategy.

At equillibrium most combos will be played as mixed strategies in the majority of the nodes. They are a product of 2 players maximally exploiting each other. When you start playing too many combos as pure strategies, your strategy will eventually become unbalanced and exploitable.

In this hand, you can see here that T8dd is a mixed strategy between raising and calling, which means that both have exactly the same EV vs a perfect opponent. That said, it is a low-ish frequency raise as I predcited in the video. If I XR more than that then for sure my range will become unbalanced towards bluffs. If you take a look at my RNG at the time of the decision, you will see it was showing 14.58. The way I use the RNG is as follows:

• Low numbers will represent the most aggressive strategic option
• High numbers represent the most passive strategic option.

With that hand I have only 2 strategic options - call or raise.

Then I pick the number (lets call it X) from the RNG and ask myself: will this combo be played at least X% of the time as the most aggressive option? If I think the answer is yes, then I choose the most aggressive action. If not, then the most passive.

Back to the hand, I asked myself: will this hand get raised at least 14.58% of the time at equillibrium? And my answer was Yes, I thought XRaising that hand around 15-20% of the time would be totally fine. So I raised. You can see above that I was correct.

Also, keep in mind that most regs these days cbet their entire range for simplification on boards where their cbet frequency is naturally pretty high (as it is here). Against someone cbetting their entire range, T8dd check-raises much more often.

For more information on how to use RNG to randomize your play, watch this video from Sauce. Hope that helped!

Hey gabuzzzz

It seems like you have a very distorted view over how both ranges interact here on this board. Vs my 3x sizing preflop villain should not call T9o and should 3bet most of his 99 and TT. He also obviously has no overpairs. So I do have a signifcant equity and nut advantage on this board => IP Overpair+ OOP Overpair+ Equities

This is the cbet strategy for IP player. As you can see, only the overbet sizing is used, and 1/3 is never used. It doesn't make much sense to bet 1/3 on this board because it doesn't accomplish anything. Pretty much any hand in both players ranges have some equity on this board. We bet very large since we have a significant nut advatange and we are interested in denying equity to a lot of our opponent's good-equity hands, which will have to fold vs such a large bet, such as KJ, KQ, AQ, AJ, AXcc etc.

WRT the turn, you are correct that the 3h favors the OOP player. But that doesn't mean we should check QQ with a heart there. As you can see here, QhQx is a very high frequency bet on this turn.

I recommend you to take a look at these hands you feel strongly about before posting your thoughts here. Proving you wrong in the comments section is not a fun exercise neither for me or for you. Perhaps asking why I made such play when you perceive something else to be correct is a better approach then just saying this or that doesn't make sense, when you could actually be completely wrong.

Hello ikol . I haven't yet tried GG but it is in my plans for the near future since I'm playing 500nl+ exclusively nowadays and 500z doesn't run 24/7. I prefer stars for many reasons. First and most important is that my winrate is pretty high there so I don't feel the need to hunt softer games. Other arguments are the great software, the great zoom action for my stakes and the opportunity to adjust to individual players very effectively. GG has the donwside of not providing HHs which is pretty bad. Other sites like bodog (which I occasionaly play) have the downside of being anonymous, which forces you to play vs population as whole.

Thank you bobbito77 , glad you liked it.

I do use a HUD, I just don't show it in the videos.

AK hand - against recreational players Im gonna play hand vs range not range vs range. In other words, there is no concern about balancing. Shoving some combo draws there is probably fine.

T8s hand - yeah preflop is very close. Regs are 3betting a lot in those positions nowadays tho so calling is likely +EV. On the flop yeah definitely raising some Kx, mainly KQ and some KJ. On that turn I will check a lot and keep barreling some flush draws, KQ, 55 and 33.

Thanks for the response, gabuzzzz - definitely helpful. Especially the part about the nuts advantage. . . I had made the mistake of auto-piloting my analysis of the flop and just saw low cards and thought, "better for my range!" without actually thinking about what nuttish hands we could have there. Another lesson learned. Thanks!