Your latest videos have been golden to me. Given your competence on the matter I believe it would be amazing if you did some new hand review content on 3bet pots and exploitive play

What is this RNG software you're using?

Also great video as usual.

Thanks Nick. I got a lot out of this at a point where I am losing motivation in cash games. I understand betting frequencies better now and it's good to see that even you are not always sure of exactly what to do and usually in those spots it's good to mix it up. This probably makes you harder to play as well. I think I'll go back and watch your videos from the beginning and see how your strategies have developed. That would be time really well spent.

great video. i mirror the sentiment above that ur videos and thought process seems to evolved really well.
About that 98s hand in first 5 minutes, you say the ace is good for his range on 762. Isn't a lot of Ax being checked or bet smaller (in a merged cbet range) then $20 into 28? I dont think the ace turn is that strong for him bc u have definitely have a good amt of ace highs and idk if he's betting like AT-AK. I can see him betting some Ace high for board coverage but in general I don't think it works well for that size.
Also, when you talk about a smaller c/r size that is unpolar and has a lot of weak Ax hands and thin value hands like that. If that's the case, doesn't that mean that he never like gets value from worse and is only charging draws? Bc u have incentive to fold all worse pairs and turn certain hands into bluffs given he's putting in a lot of money with thinner value hands. I don't see the logic in being unpolar bc if I were you i wud be turning my 7x that I was betting for value on turn into a bluff now that we block his 2pr combos like A7 and leaves him with lots of Ax that doesn't wanna be 3b on the turn? also leaves him really vulnerable on rivers when he calls turn.
At 7:30, u say u dont bet turn bc he gunna peel like QJ and stuff and that not good for you as well as obviously he can have 9x on T969. wouldn't it be a better strat for him to (given he doesn't lead turn with 9x or range), to c/r 9x on that turn and balance with strong draws with little SD value, like QJ? I can see a case for peeling KQ given it beats bluffs but QJ has equity and can lose a decent amt when unimproved. Also, 9x is gunna wanna get extra money in the pot if IP bets this card (which arguably will be a strong range given how good of a card it is for OOP, but still, 9x raise wud be decent on dynamic board like this).

thanks Five,

98 hand ... i agree with your line of sight, but only from your line of sight -- you're right that it really doesnt make sense for villain to play an unpolarized XR range here.

at the same time, it also doesnt make much sense for villain to play a XR range to begin with for his sizing , since it is so anti-GGOP.

so considering he's already likely doing something wrong with his range, I think we have to discredit assumptions that he's thinking at a high enough level to know ...
-that our range is well protected by Ax ott
-that he cant rep much Ax OTT (if his flop strat was even to X most Ax).

more importantly, if he knew those things about his and our range OTT, XR bluff shouldn't have be appealing to him. this makes things very hard for us b/c now we really have no real merit to any range we assign him. considering he has recreational stats , he could just be throwing darts. could be XR bluffing aimlessly, could be XR'ing unpolarized, could be milking the nuts. So while i think your speculation is valid, there's also a lot of assumptions in it about the level he's reading into the hand on. I think we need a more objective approach to the different strategies he could possibly be taking , of which we have no real way of quantifying the fqcy of. intuitively i want to say that the solution to that mess is likey just to make a cheap river bluff and get on with life.

7.30 hand -- basically my thought process here was: his range just improved, it will defend often, and my implieds on the straight just got trimmed due to a board pair. whether or not he defends by XR'ing or XC'ing 9x is whatever, tho betting turn def gets worse for me as he opts to XR more. he has enuff combos of QJ that it's very likely mixed ott as XR/XC

Great Video, Nick.

How do you approach constructing a BB cold call vs SB 3bet range? You put a lot of emphasis on not splitting up ranges, especially preflop, so I'm surprised to see you mix in a BB flatting range. It also seems to not function naturally given that you'll often be multi-way with bad relative position to the 3bettor. Along with it being tough to balance a flatting range and a cold 4betting range, unless you never 4bet vs SB. I've always been one of the "don't cold call 3bet" people so I'd love to hear your thought process for how you approach this spot in general so I can improve my own understanding and construct better ranges as BB.

hey gutz,

i just feel like there is a subsection of hands that really wants to flat vs the SB 3bet range. hands like AQ/AJ, KQ/QJs, 77-99. the type of hands that are too weak to 4bet value but too strong to 4bet bluff. they just want to call and realize equity.

my IP linear 3bet strat funnels villains into OOP scenarios with deeper SPR where i have more playability. the depth also tends to invoke more of a call vs 3bet range than a strict 4bet/fold strategy, which helps the equity realization of my 3bet range. where as if BB 4bets SB, SB will defend mainly by 5betting, putting a linear 4-bet range in a very bad equity spot. since i dont want to invite that, i think playing a calling range is a good solution and is probably a big favorite to exist in theory

You say your 3b strategy is very linear, but you use a large sizing IP (15->52.5 MP vs UTG). Usually large sizing represents a polarised range. If you are always 3betting KQo, and presumably AQo, AJo too, in these positions to this sizing, are you not pretty exploitable to 4bets (both cold 4bets and 4bets by UTG)?
Edit:particularly very small 4bets

hi flux,

i gear my sizing large there b/c villains are still required to call a lot, and i feel like i can force mistakes postflop. that's literally the only reason i do it, i dunno if it would make sense in theory to smash pot with a linear range. as for defending vs frequent small 4-bets, i'm not worried about it b/c that's one thing my range has a lot of -- hands that make sense to call 4bets with. that being said the right strategy vs me is almost definitely to linear 4-bet, and the guys who do this trim a lot of my edge out .. or at least it feels that way.

Hello Nick, good video!

If I understand correctly you don't want to use a HUD because you want to play as close as possible to what we think a GTO strategy should be (tell me if I'm wrong) but quite often you deviate and play exploitative, For example in the first 5 min 98s should bet OTR sometimes for sure after his weird c/r turn and check river line (and i think should raise flop sometimes), min 7.25 J8ss as you said should bet at least sometimes (like 20-25% maybe?) OTT but you said you check a lot more, min 8.50 you said you cbet (probably) more then GTO would with KJ on 843r flop and so on.

That may sound like a criticism but it's not, in fact I like what you're doing, for example 98s hand OTR I'd probably check more than GTO want too because i feel like i don't have enough fold equity vs a bad player who's playing like that. What I want to ask you is:

1) If you really want to play GTO why do you deliberate go exploitative sometimes? I mean, i know you do because you think it's the right choice and it's +ev to do it, but

2) Let's assume that we can play GTO, I think that if you deviate from what we think GTO is even a little bit you're not playing GTO anymore, you're playing a mixed exploitative style, why don't you use a HUD then to take all the ev you can when you want to deviate?

3) You said you studied a lot of 3b pots, I'm trying to play GTO too or atleast what I think a balanced mixed strategy is but i find myself deviating a lot, for example I call less then i should vs someone I know is not bluffing enough or i don't shove a missed draw OTR in 3b pot against someone I know is not folding enough when a draw miss, my question is if we deviate on 1 street then all the strategy's frequencies in previous streets become wrong right? If we can't shove river for example with a busted draw vs some opponents that overcall turns and rivers maybe we can't cbet draws OTF and OTT with the frequency we're usually cbetting. How do we balance all this? Do you think we should play very balanced and call / bluff anyway in my examples the majority of the times or we should totally review our strategy against a lot of regs and try to play exploitative, calling and bluffing less/more then GTO say? I know that we're making money anyway if they are unbalanced if we play GTO if they are overcalling because the money we lose when we bluff are won when we have top range but it's very unclear to me if in the long run it's best to adjust a lot to our opponents or try to play GTO against everyone .

I apologize for any grammar mistakes, english is not my main language, I hope you'll understand my questions.

Thanks again for your videos, great job!

hey rebellz,

i have nothing against HUDs, i just chose not to use one in this series b/c i was trying to focus much more on playing a balanced strategy. the mixed exploitative stuff is just something that i do b/c intuitively it makes sense to me based on general tendencies the player pool has on certain textures etc.

the answer to your 3rd question is not so simple. for instance it could still make a lot of sense to barrel a FD aggressively OTT even if villain is calling too much, b/c when you improve on the river you're likely going to get paid more often and with a weaker range than you should. so you can't exactly make cut and dry assumptions. it's possible that if a hand should not be played standardly (~GTO) OTT/OTR, it indicates there was a more exploitative option/options to be taken with that hand earlier on .. but it doesnt have to mean that. for instance if i barrel TP twice and now i think it's too thin to v-bet river b/c villain is a nit, it doesnt necessarily mean i shouldnt have bet flop+turn, but it likely means i should just be bluffing river too much.

So GTO he factors in his humanness. Nice one.

EDIT: 47:30 folding 77 as CO vs HJ 2.75x open... does this not play well enough as a 3bet? I know your strategy involved not calling/only 3betting here, but figured 77 would be good enough. Any more recent thoughts on this overall strategy or this particular hand?

EDIT2: 53:09 BTN raises we defend JTo flop A97r we c/c, turn offsuit 5, check villain snap checks, river 2 we bet villain calls and shows AQ. Wondering what you think of villain's line since our c/c twice range on that board is probably limited. Also wondering what you think of that line on an anonymous site like Bovada, because I think it makes more sense there.