$50/$100 HU PLO vs TheFish77
Posted by Phil Galfond
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Good luck man, good to see you grinding it back! :)
I'm balancing my school and poker, and right now my range is school heavy. I'll watch this again at home and post some questions that I might come up with :O
go for the triple merge
Seeing autopilot as a bad thing is a pretty interesting topic, especially for someone who has worked with and/or read Jared Tendlers books. The definition of unconscious competence reads as follows:
Unconscious competence: You’re on auto-pilot. The skill is second nature to you. You’ve developed the mental or muscle memory that allows you to perform it with ease.It seems like this is not enough or even desirable as a top player when facing someone headsup who plays an unorthodox style. You said in the video you were playing a couple of triple draw tables on the side which were probably for much higher stakes and take up way more brainpower. But then again I have watched you countless times playing 6 tables of headsup or 8 tables or more of 6max PLO.
So I guess my question is, where does good autopilot end (if it even exists) and bad autopilot start?
I've spoken with Jared a decent amount and have heard him discuss unconscious competence.
I think that he may be using the term 'auto-pilot' differently than I am, but I can't be sure.
I know that the majority of my skill set comes into play when I can actively think through a hand, not only about the math and logic behind it that have become second nature to me, but about getting inside that opponent's head and figuring out what he's trying to accomplish. I can't do that on what I consider to be auto-pilot.
I think that a HU match, no matter how many tables, allows for a level of that. 6max, on the other hand, where there are too many villains to keep track of and focus on, I lose that ability. I think that anything over three 6max tables and I'm playing more off of my learned abilities than my instincts and insight. That insight will still play a part in certain hands, but it's greatly diminished. Most "regular" hands, meaning small pots, get ignored on some level.
Hi Phil,
Good work on the video, enjoyed watching it - here are my comments/opinions take from them what you will...I don't have much ('much' as in...none lol) experience playing 50/100 HU :D
2:55 - J784: Once you have check behind flop & called his lead on the turn, I feel that it is pretty obvious to him that you have a middle strength hand like a straight, set/top 2, or a very weak flush and that you are rarely going to fold the river (but also will most likely check behind if he checks).
His sizing 800 into 1350 looks very value like; facing this bet I'd ask myself is he capable of bluffing here enough of the time to justify a call...I know you said he has made some tricky merge bets but with this pot size, this specific board and the way the action had been in the hand; it just felt like an unnecessary call to me and that he is expecting you to call with what you had a lot of the time (I like to do the opposite of what people expect unless it costs me a lot of $$$ lol, if you fold the river how do you think he would read into your turn calling range?)
3:20 to 6:45 (and just in general): I think you should slow down your play a bit! I feel like I want to say 'hey: slow down, relax, enjoy.'
Play your best (and refuse anything else)! Take your time with every decision, make sure you check the stats you want to check, are happy with your analysis and avoid any rash decision making that you may regret later (i.e. catch yourself off guard because your going too fast), even with the easy decisions. The tempo of the game in HU can have a lot of impacts imo and can give away information...maybe this is what you prefer and it suits your playing style best, unconfirmed. I do like to have a little bimble when playing me ;)
7:37 - JJ34: Is there merit to leading this flop for value/protection (because his CBet stat is low) + adds some more dynamics to the game / your ranges
8:26 - 6642: Once he has called the turn there must be a lot of FH's in his range right?...it can probably contain a lot of pairs from say 88 upwards imo (do you think he would play all hands 88-AA the same pre-flop, on the flop and on the turn? I think he does).
You talked about pot betting the river? I think this has a few merits:
1) if he has AA you are getting max value (I just can't see him finding justification for folding AA regardless of the bet sizing, unless he has an awesome read on you - not after flatting it pre-flop and getting a real nice run out)
2) if he does have a weaker boat like 88-KK it puts him in a tricky spot - Heads up to me is all about getting into your opponents brain, figuring out how they think and constantly putting them in tricky spots where they have tough decisions; because this is when they are most likely to make mistakes. Potting the river looks more like an all or nothing bet to me and if he does talk himself into calling with a hand like KK/QQ/JJ/TT then it could have a big impact on the momentum of the heads up, leaning it in your favour, putting him off balance (does this happen to you? Maybe it did after the 10:20 KK63 hand?).
3) if he folds then it is something that we may be able to use in future dynamics with the player (i.e. pot bet the next river in the next hand, see how he reacts)
10:20 - KK63: Granted he made a good value bet here (although I think he should have done bigger to make it look more bluffy). However I think there is something you didn't discuss in your analysis that may have leaned you towards folding more than calling, which is that you didn't consider the hand from his perspective (i.e. what hand does he put you on?).
Do you think that if you went back through the hand from his perspective, he would often put you on a hand like a single pair Ace or KKxx (3 bet preflop, c bet flop, then check-call, check...)
Seeing as you 3 bet him pre-flop you could certainly justify a big barrel on the turn...(just a shame that you have scrappy equity to back it up and will probably have to 3rd barrel brick or paired rivers)
12:43 - 89Q6: Strange check back by him on the river...I guess he does not think there is enough hands in your range that he will get value from by betting the river? or maybe wants to see / make you show what hand you are leading uncontested turns with? From the footage I feel like one of the villains strengths is in his hand reading (or hand strength) abilities.
17:26 - 9538: Would like to know his fold to turn barrel out of position stat and maybe river aggression / river donk bet before deciding to bet the turn or not. If he improves to a flush or straight on the river then we might find some value from a spot he sometimes has very low (maybe even 0%) equity.
17:40 - AT86: For the same reasons mentioned above (7:37 - JJ34), I think you should lead this flop (and fold if he raises your lead)
----
Although there is only 10 minutes left in the video, it has taken me a few hours to write the above (I did mention before I like to bimble about things right?;)) and well basically my brains gone squishy. Its 8am here; sleepy time for me zzZzzZz
I did also jot some other stuff down as I was watching though:
General Notes/Suggestions:
When playing I think you should focus on the action, mark up hands that you want to review and then review them later (to me this is like mentally filing the hand so I don't have to worry about it and can concentrate on the current hand); then after the session, in slow time, with software tools, with other players, etc. do the proper analysis and learn what you gotta learn. I see this is so many times in live video captures it amazes me; see what hand they have maybe as that can be useful information for the current session hands, focus when playing in real time though.
You have a decent sample of hands on the player, but it doesn't look like you utilize the stats that much - do you think there are ways you could improve in this area?
Lastly I'd consider adding more donk bet leads to your play for the following reasons;
1) I think by not doing this you miss opportunities to take down / protect pots where you have strong but vulnerable/marginal holdings (you also mentioned your check-raise stat was low, so where are you making money with fold equity vs him?)
2) It make your ranges harder to read and you generally harder to play against, and
3) It counteracts his low C bet strategy, which unfortunately I think is working quite well for him here and allowing him to realise equity a lot of the time (this is a player specific suggestion..against another player a different strategy might be better)
Hope this is useful feedback to you, just my opinions :) ! Keep the videos coming, really enjoyed it
GLGL
Steve
@16:20 If you expect his range to be strong, shouldn't this hand be put into flop x/r range to bloat the pot now? Unless you thought his range is so polar that you didn't want to get 3b, which I am not sure is the case.
@17:55 What do you think about x/r'ing with this hand as a semi-bluff and protection? We might not be able to fold out tons of better hands, but naked T9 or KKJ type of hands might be able to find a fold as well as some equity hands, which is an okay outcome for us. Also, if we get flatted we have a pretty decent equity with good visibility against a somewhat capped range. Or is this a kind of WA/WB situation that happens rarely in PLO?
I think x/c'ing is standard by far, but our hand won't be very strong on most rivers unless we improve, and we risk getting bluffed out because of our action and how the board ran out.
nice vid and well played.! U did not seem to be autopiloting at all during this half an hour.
Cool video, really enjoyed single tabling -you had great insight and reads. How do you have your bets auto selected and entered?
Really liked this one
11:20 You btn K773cchh, BB ca. BB checks, You ch back QJ9 2bdfd.
Curious why you decided to check back here? It seems like a solid c-bet spot given you block a king and hold two bdfd's. It seems like turns that give us a flush draw will play better when we have the betting lead rather than checking back and capping our range, and then playing turns we pickup equity on.
If I may chime in:
I think hands like this, namely 2 bdfd + nothing much else are a good candidates for checking back. This flop hits BB's flatting range well, and our K blocker doesn't play a huge role, because it's not like he's gonna x/f T8, sets and most 2 pairs that have some draws right away. If we had a T or TT, it would have been much more effective because it blocks both straight draws (KT and T8).
Also, problem with betting here is that once he calls and we turn either flush draw, we will only have a naked FD on most turn cards. So if we bet and get jammed, we have to fold but it's ugly, because we can still have ~20% equity. And if we bet and get called, we can assume his range is capped (as not having many KT) and pick on that, but he can still have enough T8, sets and 2p+draw (some bdfd as well) that we cannot go crazy on every river card. Moreover, if we turn a K high FD and bet through, we can value bet on flushing rivers; but if we turn a 7 high FD and hit it on the river, it's gonna be a rather thin value bet, given that he can have lots of better FD's as well in his flop calling range.
That said I don't mind betting flop and checking back turn whether we turn a FD or not, which happens about ~40% of the time. However, by doing that we risk getting check raised on the flop that we def. cannot call, and having to bet/fold this hand hurts a bit when we know we are gonna turn a FD ~40% of the time and continue when he donks into us. Also, betting this flop and checking back turn caps our range rather significantly, and he I think can play correctly on the river if we did that, by having a donking range as well as x/c and x/r range.
Just my 2 cents, and I'm super tired right now so I might be missing something. I'm sure others can kick into this discussion though! :)
Yeah, those seem like very good points. I'm not sure what the answer is here, but I'll take a shot.
One thing I do disagree with is about having to bet/fold flop with our hand.
A) Our hand really has <10% equity vs x/r ranges, and the quality of that equity is fairly average(and will be especially difficult to realize on turns w/o the betting lead), so having to bet/fold that really isn't that bad when our hand is only a pair of 7's on QJ9r.
B) The folds we are getting either now, or on future streets are certainly going to be from better hands, which is obviously great for us.
I think your point about turning a flushdraw (specifically the 7 high flush draw) and barreling it against an already narrowed range is spot on. One thing we should consider is taking a line that allows us to retain our hand's equity the most. For instance, when we turn a K high flushdraw, bet turn and face a call, villain's range has now narrowed even more, however our equity vs that narrowed range is still close to 20%.
Conversely, when we turn a 7 high flushdraw and narrow villain's range by betting, our equity will drop a bit as villain's range holds a few better flushdraws (Haven't done enough sims to know the exact frequency he'll hold better, but I'd guess ~15-20%), not to mention it will be tough to get a street of value on rivers where we improve to a flush when it's a 7 high flush(since villain's range has become even more narrowed and our range contains few bluffs). So, I would lean more towards checking back the times we turn a 7 high flush draw to keep villain's range more wide and realize our equity, then call a bet on hearts, or potentially value bet vs a check.
"Also, problem with betting here is that once he calls and we turn either
flush draw, we will only have a naked FD on most turn cards. So if we
bet and get jammed, we have to fold but it's ugly, because we can still
have ~20% equity."
Yeah, this is obviously unfortunate, but blocking a king was one of the primary reasons I preferred betting flop. So it follows that on the turn, we won't be facing a x/r as frequently as if we didn't hold a king.
"That said I don't mind betting flop and checking back turn whether we
turn a FD or not, which happens about ~40% of the time. However, by
doing that we risk getting check raised on the flop that we def. cannot
call, and having to bet/fold this hand hurts a bit when we know we are
gonna turn a FD ~40% of the time and continue when he donks into us."
See, this part I'm unsure of. Can we peel a bet on the turn from villain profitably the times we turn a flush draw? He was donk leading a ton on turns when flop went ch/ch, so I'd rather check back flop with hands like T8/QJT and gain a street or two from his worse value and air.
"Also, betting this flop and checking back turn caps our range rather
significantly, and he I think can play correctly on the river if we did
that, by having a donking range as well as x/c and x/r range."
Agree, but I think we play our hand near perfectly too. I mean, on rivers we either improve to a flush, or have a pair of 7's, both of which are fairly easy to play. Not to mention we were able to take some of our fold equity on the flop and realize 100% of our hand's equity.
I guess the last step is to get an idea of how many immediate folds we could expect on the flop and various turn cards. If we give villain 50%-8% 3bet (I don't have a 6% 3bet macro, but he did 3bet something like 8764ss in the video which I think is wider than 6%).
So, I gave villain 50% pre minus 8% by playability.
He's continuing on the flop with: (PR+OE>, PR+NGD, TP>, TT**), which is 59.7% of his preflop range. So, we still can expect 40% folds on this flop, certainly making a .6p cbet immediately profitable, and .7p still likely profitable given he's continuing mostly with calls and our c-bets have equity.
I have to run but I can do a turn scenario later.19:20 you btn KK52, bb ca
Flop AT4r BB checks you bet.
This seemed like a clear check to me with 4 nut outs you don't want to get blown off of and a hand that can peel a turn lead on most turns(I suppose bet/call is ok too and it's not a flop we'll face a x/r on very frequently if ever). It seemed like he was leading a lot after we were checking back flops, so exploitatively I kind of like this check too.
Turn 3d
BB ch you bet he raises, you call.
River 4o
BB bets 3.7 into ~9.6.
Did you consider jamming this river to fold out chops? His FH frequency should be fairly low and it's a great card for your range. Not to mention you'll want to be jamming as a bluff here maybe some % of the time.
Thoughts?
26:00 Villain opens you 3b BB KJ98ssss, btn ca
Flop AKJcc
ch ch
tu 2o
ch ch
3o
Pre is loose but w/e.
This river value bet seems to thin to me. Your range contains so few 45 combos compared to his, not to mention your K,J combos block a lot of his weaker 2pr's that might decide to hero you. I feel like I'd be tempted to check/decide this combo.
Well I guess you didn't do a full scale comeback, but you did get some of it back. ;)
At 22:50 you open the button with 2dKc4h9c and get 3bet, isn't this a hand that could fold to the 3bet? I feel it is pretty weak.
In addition to that: When somebody tells you that they will leave soon do you think that affects your game? I know you talked about winning a couple of big pots to make them stay longer, so I guess that means that it causes you to play looser? If it was the other way around and you were up when he said that he was going to leave soon, do you think you would then tighten up a bit? I just think that these things affects us more than we realize and I find the psychological aspect of it pretty interesting.
Very nice vid, Phil.
more live play vids please :) Your thought process is much more accessible to me that way, if that makes any sense.
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