I'm not sure, what would be your argument for checking it back or against betting it?

To play big pots with big hands and small pots with small hands.

If you bet it, you blow up the pot with a weak flush draw, so when the flush comes your hand will be a very weak bluffcatcher. If you want to bluff, you will always have enough air to do it with (like Qx6x).

Why does betting the flop w/ Qx6c necessitate playing a big pot?  If we bet the flop we are pretty much guaranteed to see a river in which we are often going to be able to make a profitable call BTN vs BB with a 6 hi flush after checking back turn.  

Also we can take the pot down quite often right then and there.  If we check it back we are going to be lead into on the turn quite often because we have such a weak range.  Maybe there are other strategical adjustments we could make that could help to balance that out by checking back bigger clubs.  I'm really not sure the answer to which strategy would be better but I just prefer my opponent folds when I hold that hand and I really am not happy if my opponent leads turn whether I make a flush or not.

Thanks.

AA yes the sizing isn't 'bad' but in comparison to my other options it wasn't the best one.

K9 if we wanna call once we have to put him pretty much on 89, 78, 67, or 99-22, and we have to think he's bluffing with them.  Based on seeing him call J5s against my A8s then yeah maybe I could've called one.  With the information I had at the time I think I shouldn't be calling there though.  I have a lot of two pairs (every hand that makes two pair I think I would chk flop with, at least I would do it with most of them) and I do have the straight like you said to protect those two pairs, I think the pair of K's is too weak here to worry about protecting.

That river spot ... yeah I dunno.  It's really complex.  I think I wouldn't ever have 72 in that spot so I can't really bluff turn with it.  I could've just shown down the pr of 5s and I think that would have been fine.

Thanks!

Yeah I need to probably work on my terms there.  Did I say terrible?  I definitely didn't mean that.  Obviously the differences in the spots you are bringing up are small so I shouldn't say one is standard and the other is terrible.  If anything, your opponent should dictate which type of hands you choose to play from each spot.  If you think your opponent is a weaker player, you should play more hands, if you think he's a stronger player you should probably fold a few more than you might otherwise.

One thing to note though is that having the gap in the hand is somewhat significant.  Your straight draws will be slightly weaker.  That's probably the one reason I said I didn't really like his call.  I meant from a GTO standpoint though.  It's just harder to justify from an exploitative standpoint.  Obviously certain people are better at doing that than others.

Thanks.  I definitely have a lot of confidence in myself.  You can't really get to this level and maintain a solid winrate without it.

It's just, this is one of the premier training sites and I'm billed as being a top tier player so obviously a certain level of play should be expected and I don't think that my decisions overall were +ev for this session.

hahaha

What you might consider perfect play, others would consider bad play, its all subjective. Sometimes during a session you c/r in all the right spots and win a buyin in all the right spots, therefore it appears you played a "perfect" session. You sound like the type of person that I really hope plays PLO forever :)

Troll! You think your perfect at poker and have nothing to learn... Trust me you have plenty to learn even the best players like Phil Ivey and Sauce123 still think they can improve. You somehow have the unrealistic expectation that Runitonce pros should play perfect poker every time. Firstly, perfect is subjective, secondly nobody plays perfect poker ever, and thirdly the results of one session is rarely a function of how well you played given the nature of the game. 

 I have to say Runitonce is one of the best value for money training sites online and come on if $100 a month is a lot for you  then you obviously are not that great at poker and probably need it to improve in any case.

I think you mis-understand what Lennie is saying...I don't feel like he is trolling, he is saying his opinion: which is that for $100 a month subscription, he is looking to improve his game from better players than himself, not watch them make videos of themselves making mistakes and not playing their best - then improve from the feedback subscribers are provided (although granted it should be a continual process) or just making videos of themselves running good...This viewpoint definitely does not mean that he is not willing to learn or improve, or thinks he is the best player in the world - He obviously does want to learn more or wouldn't be watching the videos / commenting / paying for subscription ! Lennie do you agree ?

The subscription value is tricky because it is 100$ regardless, but depending on your current level or experience: what value you get out of that 100$ per month may be different to what value someone else gets...i.e. new and exciting concepts for a 2 year experienced player maybe fundamentals for a 5 years experienced player (but they both pay the same and see the same videos).

In my opinion the value is really good, the amount you can learn and improve from the site relative to how little 100$ a month is in the poker world is a massive gap imo...even if you just pick up one concept or improve one area of your game, it could mean you save or earn 1000's more for the rest of your poker career.

Caliber,

There was a huge request from the members for me to release this video.  I let them know ahead of time what they would be in store for.  I didn't feel that great about releasing it due to how poorly I played, but there was a vote and it was 42-3 or something in favor of this video.  I can't please everyone.

My only comment to lennie is that I think he is being particularly short sighted.  That there are some very strong players who I've personally spoken to that have discovered new concepts from my videos.  There are Essential tier coaches who's videos I still learn things from.  You can learn from anyone if you keep an open mind and focus your energy not on complaining about a few decision points a coach made and rather focus on what positives you can take away from what you're seeing.

Yeah I think I agree with you that it would be a pretty reasonable spot to bluff, however, it's probably something I need to put a little more thought and preparation into.  That idea of checking back larger clubs occasionally in order to ensure I am able to bluff that spot.  Either that or I just need to adjust my strategy of mixing it up by checking sometimes and betting sometimes and change it to betting the majority of the time.  Which do you guys think is best?

I honestly don't have a good handle on this type of spot.  It's part of the reason I tend to generally shy away from 3betting A6s-A9s SB vs BTN.

I guess if I'm going all in with this hand then it might mean my river checking range is very narrow.

One of the comments I made in the video was that I don't think it's a board that too many players are generally thinking their opponents are going to bluff which should imply that I would be bluffing it slightly more than the average player would.  If I'm going to play an exploitative type strategy there then I probably shouldn't make the mistake of thinking I need to widen my value range by shoving with A8 in order to counter-balance all the times I'm bluffing.

I'm really just not sure.  Maybe I'll 3bet these middling suited aces slightly less frequently, or I'll start checking a wider range of flops a bit more with these types of hands in order to stay out of these river spots.

Hi.  Thanks.  That's a lot of questions.  I'll do my best to answer them but it's probably better in the future to pick two or three specific ones and just ask those because you'll probably get more thoughtful responses.  Or to ask a few, wait for answers, then ask another few.

A9s I'm not doing it on the fly or winging it.  I'm not so much thinking about linear or polarized either.  I just want hands that (1) can often have the nuts on the river, and (2) have relatively stable equity over multiple streets in order to keep my range wide-ish enough to avoid being exploited by tough opponents if I check a certain street and end up 'capping' my range in my opponent's eyes.

K9o Yes against a lot of your opponents, when you are called, you won't be doing terrific against his range.  You have to remember though that a lot of times he is going to fold to the 3bet which is going to make a big difference in the profitability of the play.  I'm going to be playing a lot of boards passively from OOP when I am called so I think I won't lose too much those times.

Defending against 3bets?  I don't know.  I would suspect KJo and QJo should be profitable defends.  I can't answer this question because you could be making a lot of mistakes postflop.

K9s you might be right about checking the flop.  It's something I hadn't really thought about but the more I think about it, this concept I've discussed a bunch of checking A hi flops very often might extend to dry-ish K high flops from these types of positions as well.  Good catch.

4b w/ K9o  I don't think I'm as imbalanced as you suspect here.  Just because I'm 4betting this hand doesn't mean I'm 4betting all better ones.  I'm calling with KTo and most better hands so this is basically just one of the best Kx holdings that I don't feel comfortable calling which was my justification for 4betting it. 

ATdd my opponent was a recreational player so I'm basically throwing balance out the window and value betting thinly against him because I think he's going to call the flop too wide.

I thought takechip should lead a ten because it's so often going to be the best hand when the flop checks through and yes like you said to balance out the times he needs to lead with his draws.  Also if he chk/calls it puts him in that difficult spot I was talking about in the video where good players will overbet rivers frequently.

Quite a few of these questions, the answers to them, I iterated in the video, there's a ton of information in these things so sometimes a second view helps to catch a few of the things you missed the first time around.  I've also answered some of these questions in previous videos.

The J5s defence.  Well, think about the info you gave me saying you weren't winning with KJo and QJo defending 3bets in that spot.  Now extrapolate that to how you think you would do with J5s.  I have a rough idea of how profitable my weakest defends are, and I have a rough idea of my skill level compared to other players in those games.  I can't imagine making that call and thinking I could actually win money in the long run.  It's basically a hood flat because he thinks he's better than he actually is.  I'm not trying to trash talk him because I'm sure if he's winning a lot then he is a very strong player, very strong players still sometimes over-estimate their edges though.  I don't really think there's any player who plays well enough to make money long run against me playing a hand that weak.

The A9s is a more clear check because of how wide ranges are in SB vs BB spots.  If you want to hear a longer discussion on this type of spot I'd suggest going back to the second part of my first series.  There's a hand I go in depth talking about SB vs BB where I flop middle pair or something.  Too much to talk about to go into it here.

Q4 yes against opponents who are very tough and active they won't allow you to bet this turn too frequently for the reasons you gave.  Against specifically those opponents, checking back turn is better.  Against your average regular I think betting is fine, as you can see, they will call with worse.

I don't know.  He just doesn't strike me as someone who has been working to keep up with the evolving nature of the games.  I remember about three or four years ago I attempted to contact him for coaching because he had a similar style to mine and was someone who was having a ton of success in a lot of 25/50 games, so he has been around and been profitable for a long time.  He might very well still be making money because he continues to play in 10/20 lineups but it's tough to know.

Hi,

Hmmm I would guess that the vast majority of the time your opponent's will not be folding very much on that board when they do check.  Yes it's true they will be folding some percentage of the time greater than zero, however, if you try to bluff every single chance you get you will be very easy to play against and severely imbalanced.  I think stabbing is good with quite airball hands but just this one in particular on this flop I think is maybe one of the worst hands to do it with.

A3s, yes I think checking entire range there is most likely the best play.  In the second video which should be released in the coming weeks one of the very first spots that comes up, Juan raises JJ UTG, gets called by BTN, and checks a JT9 flop, so there will be further discussion on that type of spot relatively soon.

Hey.  Didn't catch this comment before.

Thanks.  Next ones out will be a review of a 200nl hu zoom session.  Maybe about a month from now.

Thanks for watching.

Hi Arthur,

Q6s I think you are overestimating how frequently you need to defend in these spots postflop.  I called pre because the raise was essentially a minraise.  I think this is fine.  I think I don't need to continue on every board, even ones that I know my opponents are 'auto-cbetting'.

78cc Yes I call all my big pairs and also all of my AK/AQ/KQ in that spot so I have a lot of strong hands which is why I feel comfortable calling down to 78s there, sometimes against weak opposition I might call 76s as well.  I think if you are bluff raising turn there that you are probably getting too fancy too often against the majority of your opponents.  Guys just don't wanna fold when you represent a very narrow value range, as you would here.

K9o, answered previously.

K9s I think yes it's probably better to c/c twice than to bet flop and bet turn.  I think checking at least flop or turn is necessary here, or just folding preflop might be best at tough tables.

ATs river easy check fold yes.  Good thing he's a weak player and won't bluff often.

AK you can't really 4bet and then fold ever unless your opponent is a huge nit.  Your hand just has too much equity and given the overlay in the pot it's just a really bad idea.  I think these games were playing aggressive enough that it's okay to raise/call.

Andrew,

If UTG had opened and the action had folded around to me I think it's a super standard call preflop and it's not even close.  But when a good player flats in CO it makes me think he's holding a pair or a hand that dominates me very often.  Obviously the odds are very good for us in that we don't need to win the pot often, but anytime either player decides to bet multiple streets against us when we have a pair of kings or pair of queens, it's likely we are up against a set, a bigger pair in the hole, or a better pair with top kicker.  The better your opponents are, the more often you are going to be put in very difficult spots and are going to end up making a mistake.  If this was lower stakes, I generally call and don't really even think twice about it.

Because these weren't my normal games.  I generally don't play on Stars.