Hey Jaypatel!

We certainly don't have alot of equity in the pot, but we also don't have a ton of fold equity. Player 2's range starts with so many hands that connect with this board that even if he only checks air and 30% of hands that connected with the board, then he'll be playing well over 50% of the time. Player 1's range is similar and he's going to be far more willing to c/r his overpairs/draws, because he has a reasonable expectation of a bet behind him.

Since we have dodge the parlay of neither player check-raising and us folding, I'd prefer to play the hand as a weak draw that gains from seeing an extra card. Especially with the backdoor flush draw that makes the hand playable on roughly 18-21ish turns.

Thanks for the question. I hope your learned something from video.

Thanks Church Cat!

Yea i'm interested in this as well, i tought it was a fold but maybe it's not, would be nice to see a CREV of this hand.

nice video as always btw

Hey Jd,

It's great you enjoyed my "feisty" side :)
I'm doing a hand review video series next. In the second part of the series, I'll be going in depth on A9o in this hand. The 8 is difficult card and calling here depends on whether or not molswi cbets KQo.

Hey,

I cbet it because I thought cbetting was the most profitable play. My hand benefits from folding random Ax hands, small pocket pairs, and I have barreling cards in A, T, 9.

I don't cbet my whole range here, and I'm more inclined to check/back fold my Ax hands. They have slightly more showdown equity and can more easily call some turns.

Thanks, I've raise the same size for years. Its an easy way to hide information.

Hi Raphael,

Sweet! It's good to hear that video was a success.

J8s equity is relatively constant against his handrange, so when he flats the 3-bet, I have roughly the same equity as when I cold call. When we combine this with the opponent's high fold to 3-bet, it seemed like a no brainer. I tend to raise more suited connectorish stuff as my opponent fold to 3-bet rises and less of them as opponent's fold to 3-bet falls. It's the preflop equivalent of semibluff.

That vocabulary caused me to be teased unmercifully as a small child :).

challenge em to heads up if it happens again.....or a spelling bee.

If we bet, we win this pot a fair bit. However most of his folding range is 55-22 and random Axs, which we beat when we check. He still has probably some fraction on AK, K9, 88, 98 which are always calling a bet. And if I'm betting as high as 66's on this river, he should bluff raise me with his low pocket pairs.

I don't, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was. There's a big overlap between the pro gaming community and the poker community. Nanokoko started out as a Marvel vs Capcom player and Luis Veldhuis was a Starcraft guru. It's really very common.

You're looking to maximize your ranges value with a river bet. If I didn't get to the river with enough bluffs in the first example, shoving would still be a co-optimal play. I could deviate and bet smaller with my nut hands and my bluffs, but my opponent should still fold to the smaller sizing because otherwise I could bet my nut hands small and my bluffs big (which he would fold too) and gain more than the pot from him.

Hi what does co-optimal mean? More vocab :-)

My main point is though that you don't seem to maximise your value betting range at all, as obviously the value bet is going to depend not only upon your size, but the frequency at which our opponent calls- and the massive size just means our opponent folds everything except close to the nuts a lot. There's obviously an optimal size somewhere, but it just doesn't seem to me that the bigger sizes are optimal in as many spots as you seem to think.

Hi Dan,

Co-optimal means multiple strategies have the same max-min (GTO) value.

I disagree that my betsizing in the 86s was too big. It was a little under 1.5 pot which means he still needs to call 40% of the time to make my bluffs breakeven. If he calls optimally, given that 2p+ has 95% equity against his hand range, I still win 7 out 8 times he calls. If he chooses to call too often, then I win much more. If he chooses to call less often, then I have a profitable bluff on the river with any busted flush draw/ gutshot/ or straight draw.

Thanks for your thoughts. I'll take harder look at some of the other spots.

Ok thanks again.

I'm sorry to keep going, but I still have a lot of confusion.......

Your analysis never seems to factor in the strength or otherwise of your own range. For example, if I get to the river with 10 value hands and 5 bluffs, then the betsize for the river will be pot, as this gives him a break even call with all his bluffcatchers (giving him 33% equity on a 2:1 call). If I'm stronger than that, and have 15 value hands to 5 bluffs, then the betsize will be half pot, and so on.

Is this just totally wrong? Or is just a sort of quasi game theory approach that has no actual basis in GTO play?

Thanks for your time.

Hey,

"For example, if I get to the river with 10 value hands and 5 bluffs, then the betsize for the river will be pot, as this gives him a break even call with all his bluffcatchers (giving him 33% equity on a 2:1 call). If I'm stronger than that, and have 15 value hands to 5 bluffs, then the betsize will be half pot, and so on."

This logic would only hold if you had equal to pot left in your stack in the first example or 1/2 pot left in your stack in the second.

If we have a 2x stack back and we bet 2x pot in both scenarios, villain would always fold and we would win the pot. Since betting 2x pot would always assure us the pot with our bluffs, we could deviate to the smaller size with the nuts to try and get paid. And our opponent would then fold to any bet we made.

There's a chapter in MOP that deals with this sizing issue. I suggest checking it out. I hope it helps :).

Sweet, still don't fully understand but I have MOP so will take a look. Thanks again for your time.

Great video tyler. what you said doesn't make sense to me either.
""....For example, if I get to the river with 10 value hands and 5 bluffs, then the betsize for the river will be pot, as this gives him a break even call with all his bluffcatchers (giving him 33% equity on a 2:1 call). If I'm stronger than that, and have 15 value hands to 5 bluffs, then the betsize will be half pot, and so on."
This logic would only hold if you had equal to pot left in your stack in the first example or 1/2 pot left in your stack in the second.
If we have a 2x stack back and we bet 2x pot in both scenarios, villain would always fold and we would win the pot. Since betting 2x pot would always assure us the pot with our bluffs, we could deviate to the smaller size with the nuts to try and get paid. And our opponent would then fold to any bet we made."

why would our opponent have to fold to any bet we made? wouldn't they just defend 1-a based on sizing?

I'm paraphrasing pages 149 and 150 of the Mathematics of Poker by Chen and Ankenman. (Refer here for clarification)

Suppose that villain is 3/5 value and 2/5 bluff and stack sizes are 5 times pot. Suppose that Villain bets all-in and we call 1-A of the time or alternatively we always fold.

Game Values:
.

Our 1-A strategy's value is 0 with villain bluffs and 1/6 (times we call) * 5 pot with villain's value hands. Villain's EV is 1/2 pot. (2/5 * 0 + 3/5* 5 * 1/6) . Our always fold strategy value is 1 with Villain's bluffs and 0 with his value hands. Villain's EV is 2/5 pot (2/5 * 1 + 3/5 *0) .

Since always folding has greater EV than 1-A, we should always fold and 1-A can't be optimal! "Villain's distribution is so strong that he can simply bet and "claim" the pot with all hands (p. 150)"

So what if Villain only bets 1 pot?

(Chen and Ankenman hand wave this argument so it's going to be derived from a mathematical theorem. If anyone has the actual theorem that validates this statement, I'd appreciate if they could post it or pm it to me. )

Mathematics of Poker:

"To see why, consider how Y [Villain] might exploit X's [hero] call. We know that X will fold all his hands if Y bets all his chips. Now suppose that suppose that X will respond to a smaller bet by calling in some mixed strategy. Y can exploit this by adopting a strategy of betting the smaller amount with his winning hands and betting all his chips with his bluffs. X could exploit that in turn, but since Y can increase his equity against X's strategy, it cannot be optimal. From another perspective, Y can simply push all-in with every hand and claim the-that Y's optimal play. X does no better playing against Y's optimal strategy that he does by throwing his hand away in the dark. Hence X can play optimally by always throwing his hand away. (MOP p.150)"

This statement has been the basis for my argument. You can be exploited if you choose to call any bet-size from a villain's whose hand range is too strong. People intuitively know this. We see it in situations where the out of position player is folding > 80% of the time and a strong player bets 1/5 pot with his entire range. The correct strategy for oop is still to fold > 80% of the time.

"To see why, consider how Y [Villain] might exploit X's [hero] call. We know that X will fold all his hands if Y bets all his chips. Now suppose that suppose that X will respond to a smaller bet by calling in some mixed strategy. Y can exploit this by adopting a strategy of betting the smaller amount with his winning hands and betting all his chips with his bluffs. X could exploit that in turn, but since Y can increase his equity against X's strategy, it cannot be optimal."

So is this implying Y should play a mixed strategy with his value combos and balance the big sizing then put the rest in a smaller sizing or that he should take 100% of his value combos and bet small, and use 100% of his air and bet big? I just don't see how X couldn't exploit this in a clairvoyant by calling the big bet and folding to the small bet.. Is calling any bet it not the optimal response for X because Y can counter that by switching back to value with the big size and X loses a ton in EV?

Hey jd!

My take on this statement is that a property of the mathematics of the Nash equilibrium is that betting big is at least co-optimal. In other words the big bet assures the highest minimum value against your opponent's best strategy, but doesn't assure the highest maximum value against his worst.

Which in practice means that if you think you can outsmart someone and get more value by playing an exploitable style do it, but if you think the guy is better than you, just shove your whole range (or fold depending on your position) and know that he can't do anything about it.

Hi PokerBeast!

It's awesome you like my videos! It sounds a little corny, but your enjoyment is the part that making the videos worthwhile for me.

"Do you play more zoom or regular games? And why you pick one over the other."

80/20 regular to zoom. Regular games have a higher winrate per hand and make worse videos :(.

"Also, how many tables do you play at once? How many hands you get per hour on average?"

Between 6 and 15 tables depending on game quality. I play between 400-800 hands an hour.

"Do you do anything else aside from playing poker, like study, have other business, etc? "

I make videos for runitonce :) and I own a medium-sized home rental business.

thanks Tyler and gl ;D

Hey Pleno!

I'm more old school internet and tend to fold here because I think 96o doesn't have a lot of equity multiway. The only nut hand it makes is on 875 (or quads). However if you chose to call, it would barely nudge your long term winrate because r,c,c,c doesn't happen very often.

Hey Garrett!

@66 That was what I was thinking, though I think if you model the strategies both types 66s are going to be really close in value.

@AK I was going 3-street geometric, though looking at it now, the sizing was slightly too big. I end with with 36% of pot bet-size on the flop and turn then 25% river. Chalk it up to my inability to do arithmetic.

Thanks for agreeing with me on my small blind flats. Watch the next comment be someone complaining I flatted 44s. :)

I tend to cbet a little smaller multiway to keep ranges a little wider. If I mash pot here, my hand is bluff catcher on the next street. (It still might be, but it should be less so at the smaller sizing.)

Thanks Heimerdinger!

Thank you sir!

It was exploitative. I thought they both would fold.

Hi FiveBet!

I'm stoked you liked the video. 65s, 54s, A5o, A4o all come to mind as potential bluffs. Given that Jx+ is my value range here (pretty narrow combinatorially), I feel comfortable that I can get enough bluffs. If not, I can always use 2's.

Thanks Bigdog!

I've always played more then I study. I study a little everday and then sometimes go on study binges when I have new problem that needs to be solved.

Basically being genuinely curious and always finding a better way to do things is how I've been at the top of the game for 10 years.

Specifically, I tend to review sessions after I've played and go through the big pots to see if anything was obviously botched. I also read forum hands quite often and try to think about how I would play the hands. I use an equity calculator to try to test my intuition in all-in spots. And occasionally use cardrunner's EV to design experiments by changing some of the variables of the situation. I watch a lot of live play NL videos as well to see what my other folks are doing.

There's a lot of different ways to learn. The only essential element is love of the game.

A mistake. I raised small suited junk and A2 on the button for a long time and within the last couple years changed to a tighter strategy as the default blind play has become looser.