Defending the Big Blind
Posted by Tyler Forrester
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Tyler Forrester Thanks for making this video. I'm about halfway through and I'm loving this rant about maniacs and seeing crazy action early on in a session, after the T9s vs AKs AKQT runout. That's a pretty solid example of making a Bayesian inference. I try not to do this too much because I believe I try to use it as justification for bluff catching too often, but dang is it useful.
Thanks Corgi, I'm stoked that I actually made it sound like Bayesian inference, it's an easy argument to muddle. I definitely think about this, but also use other indicators like stack-size, preflop action to make the decision. The obvious examples are someone with a weird stack size is more likely to be fishy or someone who limped. But you actually should be more likely to call against a preflop caller in the field or in the SB, because lots of regs have very small cold-calling ranges so the caller is more likely to fishy if its outside the BB.
At 19:45ish, you're talking about ck/raising as a bluff. I wouldn't have considered bet/folding strong top pairs on that runout, but I play with active players that don't think incredibly deep. If your opponents let you ck/raise bluff those turns, are you doing it more often than the flush draws? I don't know what other hands you'd have, but that feels like an amazing time to overbluff. Counter to that, in my games where bet/calling the turn is the normal, I'm thinking of leading small with the draws, betting large when I have trips. I played a hand last week where I overbetted the turn and blank river on this type of runout (slight difference in ranges. I overlimped vs a whale while in co, btn raised) and was snapped off without any thought whatsoever. If my opponents don't raise the turn vs a lead with AJ/AQ, it sounds like betting small with the draws would work as a good exploit. But then they also end up on this turn with air in many occasions, and will float with air. So that gets me back to thinking overbetting both hand types is best, and ck/folding misses on the river.
Really good thoughts, I'd certainly consider checkraising this turn with flush draws especially when the average player isn't necessarily aware of how often they should be checking back here and can likely find a bet fold.
I really like leading big against recs if I hit here, because I think you are exactly right that most weaker players will snap off two streets here without thinking too deeply about hand ranges.
The more challenging part of this as you point out is how to play draws here. It's not necessarily clear which line will make the most money. An overbet on the turn will likely fold all air, but then again most players will check/back then fold their air on this runout, so betting the turn or checking the turn then betting the river might be similar value.
The small lead is also interesting, I think against most loose passive players, think older or distracted, then leading small with draws should net the most money, but it would switch if we were playing someone younger or more aggro, it actually makes them more likely to bluff.
I consider these spots a judgement call as to the line that my opponent is likely to play poorest against and that can be very dynamic based on my assumptions.
Great questions!
~ 25 minute How is your BB defending range will look against 3x BNT 50BB stack compare to 100BB stack. (Both equally good players but not top tier)?
And last hand don't really like those small leads on draw boards vs weak players. I would prefer (w heart blocker) going big once or twice depending on runout. Would you still bluff same river card but non heart?
The ranges are going to be very similar, because 90% of pots are smaller than 50bbs, most of the ev in these situations come from playing small pots.
I think that's a better line, Jeff. Those bigger with blocker bets are excellent against weaker opposition.
thank you, what about 40bb stack who is doing 3x and that's weak player? will you deviate from 100bb 3x weak player, if yes in which side
Depends on the flaw, the more loose aggressive the rec, the tighter I need to play, because weaker hands will have lower equity realization because of less free cards seen and less opportunities to bluff. On the flip side of this if the rec is tight passive, it's not unreasonable to think playing 80%+ is going to be profitable, because I can consistently run very profitable bluffs. A calling station is going to be more in the middle, I'm likely to have higher equity realization with nuttish hands, but lose money with my bluffs, so I'm more inclined to play big cards and some clearly profitable drawing hands like 87o or 74s.
Regarding the K9 hand (1st one) when facing the river bet from villain:
This maybe pool dependent (I don't play in your pool, I'm a stars NJ guy) but in my experience the way people in the population build their check back-call probe ranges coupled with how they typically do not find creative bluffs (with pairs and A-highs, especially bigger A-highs because all those hands seem like showdown hands, to use your ideas in an "average" spot to them) results in near no bluffs in this exact spot.
IMO most combos wrapped around the 9 end up bet on the flop and pairs and A-highs end up checking back on the river. I would not call here unless up vs someone very good who is planning ahead to have bluffs by the river after checking back flop vs a probe-check line.
Thoughts?
Excellent point! I found myself with the same argument, but that also decreases the probability of KJ, JT, and QJ which are his value range. I found myself thinking that both ranges were reduced roughly equally.
Hey Tyler, good video!
1:45
Just simmed K9ss hand in Pio, mostly because the turn lead felt non standard to me. I expected on the broadway cards we would develop a polarised turn leading range.
Based on the sim, OOP does develop a pretty polarised turn lead strategy on the broadways in general relative to other cards in the deck as we can probably expect. I was actually pretty surprised that OOP splits its turn range in roughly equal proportions between overbet and blockbet - K9ss occasionally blocks but is extremely high frequency checking hand in fact of all the K9s combos it bets the least.
https://gyazo.com/90273eefe47c92586c6370518ea595a0
My question relates to the anonymous nature of these games since optimal strategies are less likely to be highest ev. What factors would lead you to choosing to exploitatively bet K9ss over check in these games, or do you prefer the x in retrospect? It appeared to me that given sizing and combo chosen you might be playing your exact hand pretty vacuum-like, is this something that ends up being quite effective (and thus a frequent strat choice of yours) in this environment would you say?
Thanks for the sim and critique! It's nice to get another opinion on these spots.
I'm not surprised by the high-frequency check with K9 in fact I think I actually say that Ks9s is basically only combo I'm betting here. But that is apparently backwards at equilibrium, I should be more preferred to check this combo. I wish I could claim some clairovoyance, but it's more of me using the heuristic that hands with better semi-bluff equity are more profitable bluffs than those without that equity. It's usually solid, but in this case leads me down a sub-optimal route.
Fair enough, I agree the general heuristic is pretty solid, I wasn't sure if you thought there was some more exploitative reason to deviate here
Hey Tyler Forrester ! Not sure where to post this, and I'm not totally sure which videos I was watching where you discussed them, but this is on MOP and Tipton's book.
I've owned physical copies of MOP and Tipton's Heads Up books since college (almost 6 years ago now). I like math and I spend 50 hours a week in Excel between poker and work. Are there videos or a series of videos you recall where concepts within these books are explained? I don't have the drive or time to dedicate toward the true work into rereading those books. I know I didn't grasp a lot of it, and it's been a few years since reading, though I've gone through pieces of Tipton's book several times since then. I feel they're probably beaten to death across several hours of videos. I've watched Sulsky's Toy Game series and have started watching it again. I've watched your videos for the most part. I'm not a winning player in 25-100nl bot lineups, and I have a billion holes in my game. I recognize and take advantage of holes in other peoples games, but I'd like to stop consistently losing vs. some of the people in my fields, and would like to stop feeling lost when I jump into a reg pool on WPN. I don't feel lost on Ignition, but that's not the point. I don't know where to focus.
Hi Corgi,
You caught my awkward Bayesian inference reference, so I'm guessing that you are pretty good at math :) .
More generally, looking to beat low-stakes, I would look to making sure that my preflop ranges were solid. You should be able to build reasonable ranges from either Elusive Mark or Innerpsy or Eraser live play videos. I'd suggest my own, but my analysis is usually too deep to get a good sense of my preflop play. Once the preflop play is solid (and this worth a lot of winrate), then I'd start to look at Minimum Defense Frequencies and Cap vs Polar situations along with some basic psychology exploits (when regs like to bluff, when they don't etc). One of the ways I've done this without grinding was to read Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Prospect theory describes humans playing poker very well.
The other really smart thing to do is to invest in a decent hud and start looking to max-exploit the regs statistics, especially preflop. Regs that play unbalanced strategies like fold 100% or bet 100% in certain situations are very detectable using a hud. Ideally, you can then use the preflop stats to play max exploitative 3-bet and call strategies, based on the opponent preferences. These add quite a bit to winrate.
I offer private coaching based on PIO, MOP, and to lesser extent Tipton. I haven't asked around about this, but I suspect several other RIO coaches do as well. In general, the material is too technical and valuable for run it once videos.
Id like to talk about coaching for pio. Im pretty good at math, and kahneman has been a favorite of mine for a while now. Prospect theory is beautiful and one of my favorite parts of my university experience. My bs is in economics and i focused on behavior. Ive mentioned previously i try to go max exploit too often based on assumptions whos accuracy can mean massive differences in ev, mostly downward. Ill look at cap vs polar stuff some more. Thank you.
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