Cannot believe that river is a value-bet in hand 1.

Seems a reasonable (although a bit thin) value bet to me, given the action.

Agree with your reasons for all 3 hands. Just personally wouldn't vbet hand 1

Yeah it's somewhat close, and I was curious if it was more of a bet when we know we won't get raised very often (by value hands and bluffs alike) by holding the Ah blocker.

Thanks, Midori!

1) I think the Ah definitely helps. Eliminating the majority of his value and bluff x/r range will always be beneficial for a VB or a bluff.

2) I guess my question back to you is: What are relevant blockers on this board? What I like about my hand is that I don't block a lot of draws that will call once and fold the river. Blocking pairs means that I will have a pair or two pair myself, and blocking spades or J97 means that river bluffs on bricks won't be very appealing. I think we want hands like this in our turn betting range so that we have good bluffing hands on brick rivers

3) I don't know what Jungle's strategy is here. Some players don't ever bet this flop - he obviously isn't one of those players.

I agree with your analysis and the general read that most people bet a strong range on an unfavorable board like this and then check this turn near 100%. I think that this strategy is a clear leak:

Firstly, people need to mix in bluffs if they're betting their strong hands on this board (as well as mix in checks with strong hands, of course).

Second, if one does have a very strong betting range on this board, then I would argue that they continue to be the favorite on this turn and shouldn't allow free cards 100% of the time.

So, the strategy and reasoning you suggest are based on the assumption that we (the population) are far from GTO in these spots. When we believe we're this far from equilibrium, you have to be careful employing strategies like this against a tough opponent, as they may be countered by an opponent swinging his strategy very much another way (betting weaker and checking stronger on this flop, for example, and getting a free card on turns like this quite often). And then we swing back, and so on and so forth until we finally find the equilibrium :)

I think you're right but just wanted to point out that I think this hand is likely to be a good bet-call in a game where people are playing closer to GTO.

Thanks Phil!

2) I guess my question back to you is: What are relevant blockers on
this board? What I like about my hand is that I don't block a lot of
draws that will call once and fold the river. Blocking pairs means
that I will have a pair or two pair myself, and blocking spades or J97
means that river bluffs on bricks won't be very appealing. I think we
want hands like this in our turn betting range so that we have good
bluffing hands on brick rivers

I agree on this, and I think my question was worded inaccurately. Let me elaborate a bit.

Sure, we can 2 barrel to fold out missed draws on the river, but there aren't that many brick rivers. Non-spade 4 gives us the nuts, and 5 is relatively safe, but everything else (save for K, on which I'm not sure what we'll do) completes some sort of draw. And on these runouts (=most runouts), we don't really block too many draws that would have hit the river. In other words, our hand doesn't have much of a draw on this turn.

And if we check this flop reasonably often as the 3-bettor, we should get to this turn with lots of draws or made hands. Obviously we're not gonna bet the turn with 100% of them, but we can still come up with lots of hands that are better than our actual hand.

If I understood correctly, we are betting this hand on turn not expecting much FE on the turn, but some FE on brick rivers. But if there aren't that many brick rivers AND we can't bluff on most rivers (due to the lack of "relevant blockers" as I originally put it), aren't we hinging on something too thin?

Firstly, people need to mix in bluffs if they're betting their strong
hands on this board (as well as mix in checks with strong hands, of
course).

I agree -- hands like with backdoor straight draw (and blocker) might be good candidates, say KQ65 with BDF(s). In general though I don't think the 3-bettor should be betting here a lot.

Second, if one does have a very strong betting range on this board,
then I would argue that they continue to be the favorite on this turn
and shouldn't allow free cards 100% of the time.

I think so, but I don't think they should be betting on this turn 100% of the time either. And even for a "very strong" flop betting range, this 4 isn't too great because a) it fills in the most obvious straight draw, and b) BB's strong 1p (AA64, etc.) and most 2p on the flop go down in value on this turn and end up in a weird spot. (To be fair I think they can check most of these hands on the flop and either x/c or x/r, but let's assume that's not the case here.)

On the other hand, when we call a sizable bet on the flop, I feel like our range has slightly more ways of improving on this turn. It's not like we are always peeling the flop with KQT7 without BDF, so the hands in our calling range will often have some draws. Also, since we didn't on flop, we have less strong made hands on flop and more draws, some of which will have improved on this turn.

So, the strategy and reasoning you suggest are based on the assumption
that we (the population) are far from GTO in these spots. When we
believe we're this far from equilibrium, you have to be careful
employing strategies like this against a tough opponent, as they may
be countered by an opponent swinging his strategy very much another
way (betting weaker and checking stronger on this flop, for example,
and getting a free card on turns like this quite often). And then we
swing back, and so on and so forth until we finally find the
equilibrium :) I think you're right but just wanted to point out that
I think this hand is likely to be a good bet-call in a game where
people are playing closer to GTO.

I agree with this 100%.

Once again, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Learned a lot as always!

-- midori

Listening back I didn't hear myself mention 3betting, but if I did it was misspeaking and not misunderstanding the action, so the analysis still applies.

A hand like T876 , JT87dd or similar makes sense to not cbet and x/c T.

I'd be surprised to see him check twice with these reasonably strong drawing hands with zero showdown value. I think it's very reasonable to check the flop with both of those hands, but I think it's likely a mistake to check the turn as well.

I agree that he may bet a lot of Ax hands on the turn, especially two pair, which is why I was a bit hesitant about what otherwise would appear to be a clear value bet.

I think a smaller river bet would be nice for our particular hand, but I don't know how much sense it makes for our range. I don't know if using two sizings on this river makes sense because I don't expect to bet two pair for any sizing, and I almost never have a set given the action. That leaves the overwhelming majority of my value range as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd nut straights, and it feels weird to me to use two sizings for a range that narrow.

If we go with just one sizing, I also don't think a small one makes sense for a range that strong.

Thank you very much!

This is interesting to me! I've always assumed that coaches use 1/2/3/4 as a shortcut for themselves, and that the viewers had to get used to translating that into tables in order to follow.

I was under the impression that 'top-left' was easier as it requires no translation. I'm curious to hear what others think, because I definitely want to make my videos as pleasant to watch as possible!

Some people do need a second or so to actually realize where is left and right. Probably even more when not native language. For some reason I have this 'trouble' with North/South East/West although I do know where is what.Can't explain it :) +1 on 1/2/3/4.

Love the series and just getting to it now. I prefer top left vs. 1-4. Thank you for providing this service it is greatly appreciated!