Thanks Sam! I enjoyed the video. In the next video can you show us some hands where villain is flatting your 3b. Can you comment on what you perceive their range to be, and what your thought process is in these spots.
This is a very good idea. I'm ahead of schedule at the moment and have submitted my next two videos, but this is definitely something i'll look into in the future.
I think developing a craising range here could be good. Our standard is to check call medium strength and strong hands here the exploit I make is to lead with this specific hand is to put pressure on Ace high hands and medium pairs. AK has a lot of strength on TT2 as indeed do other 'bluff' 3-bets like AJ. Villain can check them back and get them to show down on a lot of run-outs. However, when we lead and treble favourable run-outs it's very hard for him to call down. This is why we to exploit with a lead rather than a craise.
I dont understand the lead with KQs on TT2r hu vs a reg, especially with that sizing.You wouldnt do that with a T when villain is likely to cb 100% of his range on that board, so youre either x/c or x/ring, and you want some stronger hands in your x/c range.Villain seeing you lead T9s on a similar board multiway shouldnt impact his decision making or perception of your range at all (unless hes clueless), because the two spots are nothing alike.
KJo defend, villain with 4% 3b over 500 hands gonna have a wide bluff range, really ?
QJo speculative open, easy fold vs 3b.
Hi SPrince. Thanks for probing me on this question as perhaps I haven't been emphatic enough in the video in conveying that these are exploitative plays where we are deviating from a base strategy.
In general we should be checking to the 3-better on most flop textures, particularly TT2 because they have a stronger range and we keep our strongest hands in that check call range so that when we call down 2 streets with strong ace-highs and the like we also have nut hands in our range. I do say all this but perhaps not clearly enough. Should probably have included a more 'standard' hand first and then showed these as contrast.
The reason I lead with these particular hands is because they are the strongest hands which can't really stand a check call. On T86 this is a hand which we can unproblematically lead and fold to raise and which can turn decent equity, the same with KQhh.
I agree that these spots are a little on the marginal side and perhaps I should have placed more emphasis on a more robust, standard plays in my first video in this subject.
Thanks for another great video Sam, I always look forward to them. I have a question regarding your lead out at 18:30 when you have T9s and the board is TT5 rainbow. Your thoughts expressed in leading here were to extract full value from a 3 better in position who we put on a very good preflop holding. (Presumably something like JJ+, AK, ?AQs) Of course given our holding, we will always want all the money to go in regardless of what he holds. Wouldn't it be more likely with this type of lead, which as you acknowledge, is extremely hard to balance, that we would potentially let him off the hook with the bottom of his range here? If he has any of the big pairs in his range, he will certainly cbet here, and likely will with AK or AQ. Whereas with leading out, if he is toward the bottom of his range, he has the potential to fold. The leading out bet by us in my opinion is strongly weighted to 10s, as you mention perhaps we could throw 8s or 9s in there. If he were deeper, I think I like leading out more. With him at this stack depth, I see him rarely showing restraint when checked to on the button after the flop. Just a thought. Thanks again. I likely haven't a clue what I am talking about, thank God medicine pays the bills. Jeff
Hey Jeff. Good breakdown of the spot. I think the two key factors that sway me towards leading are firstly that because we've gone 4 way it's unlikely villain we'll auto c-bet. I think AQ just check backs this board. Another benefit of leading is that the player jammed between me and the squeezer can have 88, 99 and call between my lead as well, where as when squeezer c-bets and i call he'll fold possibly even JJ.
The lead works well because opponents get 'locked' into a certain course of action. We've identified because of their pre-flop sizing that they are likely to have AA-KK and they cant fold that to the lead and then the pot is to big for them to relinquish their hand. Let's imagine we check-call TT2r. Villain will nearly always check-back turn and then when we lead all-in on the river it's gonna look very much like we just have Tx. Think they more likely to make a big fold this way.
This works as an exploit until either players balance their squeeze sizing and bluff-to-value ratio pre better or they are capable of folding big-pairs to this lead. At the moment vs the general population neither of these is the case.
Nice vid Sam, don't listen to all the "bots" commenting... They obviously don't understand that it's the "nonstandard plays" that make these particular games profitable... And paying attention to the thinking processes of various winning players regardless of what your actual starting hands are.
/rant!
Hey Sam, great idea making a video on a concept like defending against 3bet! On the AK hand...sorry! At 12:14, when you c/r the monotone board, what is your c/raising range there?
Set of 3's, 8's, 9's, AA and KK with no heart, AKo with a heart. That looks good to me. Then we can check call slow-played overpairs with a heart, flopped flushes, weaker overpairs and AQo with a heart.
great vid sam!
at the beginning of the video, u mention on kq4 flop, u seem to think guy cbet JJ here. would u cbet that?
Also at 17min, u say u can make explo fold UTG with AJs if guy only 3bet for value. but with the pot odds, isn't it still ok to peel and try to outflop them or flop a draw? it does have equity versus their value range.
You definitely shouldn't be c-betting JJ on that board nor 3-betting it vs utg at this stack depth.
Regarding the AJss; as shown in the vid i think peeling when you get this price is completely standard. My point simply is to keep an eye on peoples tendencies. If someone has an extremely tight 3-bet range it's fine to adjust your defending range to exploit that. Hard, of course, to get a big enough sample.
Thanks for the questions and glad you liked the video.
Sorry also for the slight delay in replying. New Years and PCA have taken up some time!
Hey Sam! I have a few questions about flatting JJ at 14:25.
You say that the flat is profitable because we are
a) Playing against a weak player
b) You believe we are up against AK a high % of the time
I am curious how we can apply our postflop edge at such a low SPR playing OOP. Is the plan postflop to x/f all K-high and A-high boards? If it is, then we open ourselves up to very costly mistakes when we range the villain imprecisely and he, for example, cbets K82r with 99 and we fold JJ. I feel that if you are quite sure that V is never sizing like this with KK+, then we realize more of our equity on average by 4betjamming pre.
Hey bro, so someone who takes this kind of preflop sizing is liable to be fish. Against players like this we should be taking a lot of notes and adjusting our ranges to maximally exploit there leaks. Without a decent sample size I just go with a read on how a lot of fish play in my experience. In this instance that read was off, but although we do get bluffed on some flops I think at 25/50 going to a flop and putting all the chips in with a huge equity advantage rather a narrow one i think is best.
Defo an unusual spot tho and hard to be sure of the best way to proceed.
Hey Sam. On the QT hand (36m) you discuss the small sizing the bb makes w/ AA and allowing the other players in the hand to profitably peel. Isn't your goal here to get a call and extract value (from bb perspective)? I understand calling to keep your range wide but if I raise in this spot I want QT,Ax to call (as opposed to fold). I'm getting a hand w/ 20% equity to call me (whereas he'd fold for more) and then I get opponent to call on a Q high flop with 22% equity. Outside of flatting in the bb and keeping my range wide why is this such a mistake for the bb?
You defo make some good points but i would say a couple of things:
Firstly at this stack depth taking a sizing that ensures two callers when your gonna be out of position is not ideal. Position obviously means that our opponents will likely stack us when they do outdraw us on the flop or turn so we need to compensate for this by forcing them to pay preflop.
Secondly our opponent (me) has a pretty strong range opening utg here and have a lot of hands that i won't be folding so we have little fear of opponents folding when we do size bigger.
Thirdly we're doing this with super strong hands and some bluffs so we want a sizing that means at least on some occasions opponents fold.
I would just like to add, villain is offering us 140 into 480 (making the very reasonable assumption that btn overcalls). Thats 1:3.43 or 22.57% equity we need to be able to realize, while in position for the duration. A range of 88-JJ,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs+, T9s+, AQo+ has 20% equity vs an assumed extremely tight 3b range of KK+. So calling can't be that much of a mistake. This range I used for our 3b defend is purposely slightly loose to show that the preflop peel is perfectly justified given the improperly good odds villain has offered us, and our position.
Hey. I liked the concept very much as it's something i definitely wanted to work on, but was a little disappointed with the fact that there wasn't too much of a mathematical proof as to why were were flatting the ranges we were flatting vs the range we think villain is 3betting. It seemed quite an intuitive guess type thing where they were a fish or they are bad post, which are good reasons, but not really quantifiable range wise and leads to a guess call range.
Also we pretty much always hit hard. Most of us don't have many problems playing postflop when this happens. Biggest help for sure is when we flat 3bets IP and OOP especially and whiff and what kinds of lines on various kinds of boards we could be taking vs the ranges we assigned villain pre. Thanks very much for your video, i hope this wasn't overly negative as it was not my intention since i did gain some nice value from your post so keep it up! :)
Thanks for the response mate. really good to have this kind of constructive feedback. I agree entirely that it's a much more intuitive way of playing and that really says a lot about my game and my style. Think I just wanted to demonstrate the great things that can happen when you take pot odds and the mistakes that villains will make.
The point you make about them all being favourable run outs for his is very valid though. Something I will bare in mind in the next vids I make.
I just watched the first hand and don't want to see more. Given our position, vilain's position and his stat, there is no way we are good against him until the lucky turn. You say he can have QQ/JJ, I doubt he get every JJ, but even if this is the case, we are still bad against his range, and we won't be able to massively value bet against QQ/JJ. He never has AQ imo.
On the flop, we are beating just JJ (unlikely preflop) and not sure if he would cbet JJ anyway. The call prefolp was bad imo, the call on the flop is even worse for me.
We need to call 600 into 1275, so we only need 32% equity to call. AKo has around 38.8% equity vs QQ+, AKs, AKo. Folding here would be a pretty big mistake, even ignoring that we have position.
@28:00 AJo flat vs BU 3.1x 3-bet
1) his 3-bet was 4% over 72 hands but your read of him being lighter here (because is on BU and with big stack) outweighs the fact that his 3-bet% shows a more value-oriented 3-bet range? are you not worried of flatting a dominated hand?
2) I guess then because of SPR you're always stacking off on this board (vs AK/AQ) when we decide to flat AJo and would not find a hero fold in any cases?
@30:30 would you fold to 3-barell on this board? i guess it's dependent on your read about vilain. many players 2-barell but don't have the courage to 3-barell in low-mid stakes which makes profitable flat and call-down 2-barell with JJ on good runouts but fold to 3-barell
@28.00 I mean his hard not to take the hand he shows down into account when replying here. As the T6 shows this is still a spot where peoples frequencies are way higher than would be optimal if everyone was playing correctly. They rely on people folding to much on pre-flop and on the flop and against almost anyone i'm defending AJo here.
@30.30 Yes. This is an untypical hand because of the hand he shows down. In general I would fold to a treble barrel. We defend all pairs and slow-play AA some as well as four-bet bluffing a little. When the 9 rivers JJ is pretty low in our range.
Awesome video, as all of your videos with examples on 1 particular topics. Really love them!
@ 24:22 you defend KJo 51 bb deep and at @ 15:55 you defend AJs 36 bb, both times OOP. In general in similar spots vs unknowns or regs with standard stats - would you be defending hands like this OOP 25-40 BB deep? (particularly off suited broadways like A10o, KQo, etc?) always, struggle with these spots in the game, so would appreciate your generic advice (vs unknowns or people with reasonable stats).
Would be also great if you could make a vid on hands you fold to 3 bets: even though from the first galnce it might be less entertaining to watch (no post flop play), it will be super helpful to struggling mid stakes grinders like myself, cause, let's admit it, most of us are calling stations by nature :)
So as you well know it's a complex question. The first thing to draw attention to is I am sensitive to sizings and also position. So with the KJo hand had I opened in early position i would certainly fold because it would be so low in my range and had he made his sizing bigger i would have folded. It's just so many MTTers offer a great price pre-flop to realise equity and I think i can manoeuvre post-flop well enough to justify calling.
You definitely thinking a long the right lines by wanting to be 'stationy.' People in MTTs are over-bluffing in so many spots it pays to look people up. All I would say is constantly be thinking about your range in spots and adjusting it to protect yourself. So in the example vs HessKopp, when I see this sizing I know i'm gonna want to take pot-odds with a huge variety of hands so I make sure that when I have AA, AK and the like I flat at least a portion of the time. Hope that helps. let me know if you want further elaboration.
Anyway good luck in the mid-stakes. It's tough out there!!
I really liked this style/structure what ever you want to call it, of video. I think I would like to see more spots where you peel, and dont flop so well, so I can get a better idea of how bluff catching is going to work in some spots. Also would be interested in seeing your suggested 4b reaction to these 3balls.
Hello Sam, very good video. I have a question about that AKo min 10, maybe you discussed that already, i didnt read all the comments. I just feel very uncomfortable peeling this hand oop to a 3way pot 170BB deep. I agree this is a pretty good spot for CO to apply pressure by squeezing, but I think our options are very limited on most flops as we gonna face a cbet with a player behing us left to act with pretty wide range. I think with AKs or without the player behind us flatting this is quite a clear flat, but here I prefer 4bet/folding or folding to a 3bet, as we only risked 120 chips and our postflop options are very limited. I think if we want to have a 4bet range in this spot AKo is a pretty good candidate to bluff with. Do you have a 4bet range here? Do you think that folding to a 3bet is a mistake here?
Thanks for your answer
Hey there. I think you thinking about this hand is good. I think, however, we continually have to think about our overall range in this spot.
We can certainly make a really nitty fold if we have a concrete read on our opponent as playing incredibly tight in this spot. However, if we think about the range of hands we are opening at this point in the tournament, if we're folding AKo it's gonna create a situation where our opponent can squeeze an auto-profit. AK is simply to strong to be folding in these positions.
The same situation applies to 4-bet folding. If we are four bet folding AKo and AQo and just 4-bet getting QQ+ our 4-bet range becomes way too bluff heavy. (18 combos of QQ,KK, AA, 24 combos of AKo, AQo). At this stack depth even if four-betting seems an attractive option as an exploit we have to stop our frequency getting to far out of line.
I feel like as long as we balance our AKo peel with the occasional slow-play and some suited connectors we can develop a strategy where we have decent board coverage and can't be pushed around too much.
Additionally to the AKo at min 10: you mention you would take that spot to squeeze as a bluff sometimes, using blockers etc. could you elaborate on this?
I noticed I'm terribly unbalanced in this spot myself (150bb deep so plenty of room to flat)
which hands do you think are best to put in our 3bet bluffing range while making 3betting>flatting?
what would you do with hands like KJs, AQs, A5s, 97s for example put in your opponents shoes?
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From one Sam to another...
Great video Sam >=)
Thanks bro. Kind words indeed.
found this video really intriguing . defo going to add this strategy to my game!.
Glad you found it useful. That's what we're here for.
Thanks Sam! I enjoyed the video. In the next video can you show us some hands where villain is flatting your 3b. Can you comment on what you perceive their range to be, and what your thought process is in these spots.
This is a very good idea. I'm ahead of schedule at the moment and have submitted my next two videos, but this is definitely something i'll look into in the future.
Hi Sam, at 22 mins you lead the TT2 board with KQs. Why wouldn't a check raise win us more chips?
I think developing a craising range here could be good. Our standard is to check call medium strength and strong hands here the exploit I make is to lead with this specific hand is to put pressure on Ace high hands and medium pairs. AK has a lot of strength on TT2 as indeed do other 'bluff' 3-bets like AJ. Villain can check them back and get them to show down on a lot of run-outs. However, when we lead and treble favourable run-outs it's very hard for him to call down. This is why we to exploit with a lead rather than a craise.
Marginal hands are the things which do this video interesting do not leave them Sam, please
Thanks Maxtere. Good to have your perspective also.
I dont understand the lead with KQs on TT2r hu vs a reg, especially with that sizing.You wouldnt do that with a T when villain is likely to cb 100% of his range on that board, so youre either x/c or x/ring, and you want some stronger hands in your x/c range.Villain seeing you lead T9s on a similar board multiway shouldnt impact his decision making or perception of your range at all (unless hes clueless), because the two spots are nothing alike.
KJo defend, villain with 4% 3b over 500 hands gonna have a wide bluff range, really ?
QJo speculative open, easy fold vs 3b.
Hi SPrince. Thanks for probing me on this question as perhaps I haven't been emphatic enough in the video in conveying that these are exploitative plays where we are deviating from a base strategy.
In general we should be checking to the 3-better on most flop textures, particularly TT2 because they have a stronger range and we keep our strongest hands in that check call range so that when we call down 2 streets with strong ace-highs and the like we also have nut hands in our range. I do say all this but perhaps not clearly enough. Should probably have included a more 'standard' hand first and then showed these as contrast.
The reason I lead with these particular hands is because they are the strongest hands which can't really stand a check call. On T86 this is a hand which we can unproblematically lead and fold to raise and which can turn decent equity, the same with KQhh.
I agree that these spots are a little on the marginal side and perhaps I should have placed more emphasis on a more robust, standard plays in my first video in this subject.
Thanks for the feedback. Sam
Thanks for another great video Sam, I always look forward to them. I have a question regarding your lead out at 18:30 when you have T9s and the board is TT5 rainbow. Your thoughts expressed in leading here were to extract full value from a 3 better in position who we put on a very good preflop holding. (Presumably something like JJ+, AK, ?AQs) Of course given our holding, we will always want all the money to go in regardless of what he holds. Wouldn't it be more likely with this type of lead, which as you acknowledge, is extremely hard to balance, that we would potentially let him off the hook with the bottom of his range here? If he has any of the big pairs in his range, he will certainly cbet here, and likely will with AK or AQ. Whereas with leading out, if he is toward the bottom of his range, he has the potential to fold. The leading out bet by us in my opinion is strongly weighted to 10s, as you mention perhaps we could throw 8s or 9s in there. If he were deeper, I think I like leading out more. With him at this stack depth, I see him rarely showing restraint when checked to on the button after the flop. Just a thought. Thanks again. I likely haven't a clue what I am talking about, thank God medicine pays the bills. Jeff
Hey Jeff. Good breakdown of the spot. I think the two key factors that sway me towards leading are firstly that because we've gone 4 way it's unlikely villain we'll auto c-bet. I think AQ just check backs this board. Another benefit of leading is that the player jammed between me and the squeezer can have 88, 99 and call between my lead as well, where as when squeezer c-bets and i call he'll fold possibly even JJ.
The lead works well because opponents get 'locked' into a certain course of action. We've identified because of their pre-flop sizing that they are likely to have AA-KK and they cant fold that to the lead and then the pot is to big for them to relinquish their hand. Let's imagine we check-call TT2r. Villain will nearly always check-back turn and then when we lead all-in on the river it's gonna look very much like we just have Tx. Think they more likely to make a big fold this way.
This works as an exploit until either players balance their squeeze sizing and bluff-to-value ratio pre better or they are capable of folding big-pairs to this lead. At the moment vs the general population neither of these is the case.
Is it me or too much AK in here? =)
KQs>>>> AK\AQ\flopped tripses imo
Hey bro. So you want me to look at KQ vs 3-bets? I can do that for sure.
defending v 3bets in mtts and then having first 5 times AK. vwp, Thats like 'what hands we want to 4b' and then have aces 5 times...
Fair point!
Nice vid Sam, don't listen to all the "bots" commenting... They obviously don't understand that it's the "nonstandard plays" that make these particular games profitable... And paying attention to the thinking processes of various winning players regardless of what your actual starting hands are.
/rant!
Hey bro. Negative and positive feedback welcome. That said it's great to have a supportive post and i'm really glad that you're enjoying the vids.
Hey Sam, great idea making a video on a concept like defending against 3bet! On the AK hand...sorry! At 12:14, when you c/r the monotone board, what is your c/raising range there?
Set of 3's, 8's, 9's, AA and KK with no heart, AKo with a heart. That looks good to me. Then we can check call slow-played overpairs with a heart, flopped flushes, weaker overpairs and AQo with a heart.
Sam, why do you call with AQo with heart when you shove AKo with heart here? AQo with heart plays so much worse as a shove?
great vid sam!
at the beginning of the video, u mention on kq4 flop, u seem to think guy cbet JJ here. would u cbet that?
Also at 17min, u say u can make explo fold UTG with AJs if guy only 3bet for value. but with the pot odds, isn't it still ok to peel and try to outflop them or flop a draw? it does have equity versus their value range.
You definitely shouldn't be c-betting JJ on that board nor 3-betting it vs utg at this stack depth.
Regarding the AJss; as shown in the vid i think peeling when you get this price is completely standard. My point simply is to keep an eye on peoples tendencies. If someone has an extremely tight 3-bet range it's fine to adjust your defending range to exploit that. Hard, of course, to get a big enough sample.
Thanks for the questions and glad you liked the video.
Sorry also for the slight delay in replying. New Years and PCA have taken up some time!
Hey Sam! I have a few questions about flatting JJ at 14:25.
You say that the flat is profitable because we are
a) Playing against a weak player
b) You believe we are up against AK a high % of the time
I am curious how we can apply our postflop edge at such a low SPR playing OOP. Is the plan postflop to x/f all K-high and A-high boards? If it is, then we open ourselves up to very costly mistakes when we range the villain imprecisely and he, for example, cbets K82r with 99 and we fold JJ. I feel that if you are quite sure that V is never sizing like this with KK+, then we realize more of our equity on average by 4betjamming pre.
Hey bro, so someone who takes this kind of preflop sizing is liable to be fish. Against players like this we should be taking a lot of notes and adjusting our ranges to maximally exploit there leaks. Without a decent sample size I just go with a read on how a lot of fish play in my experience. In this instance that read was off, but although we do get bluffed on some flops I think at 25/50 going to a flop and putting all the chips in with a huge equity advantage rather a narrow one i think is best.
Defo an unusual spot tho and hard to be sure of the best way to proceed.
Hey Sam. On the QT hand (36m) you discuss the small sizing the bb makes w/ AA and allowing the other players in the hand to profitably peel. Isn't your goal here to get a call and extract value (from bb perspective)? I understand calling to keep your range wide but if I raise in this spot I want QT,Ax to call (as opposed to fold). I'm getting a hand w/ 20% equity to call me (whereas he'd fold for more) and then I get opponent to call on a Q high flop with 22% equity. Outside of flatting in the bb and keeping my range wide why is this such a mistake for the bb?
You defo make some good points but i would say a couple of things:
Firstly at this stack depth taking a sizing that ensures two callers when your gonna be out of position is not ideal. Position obviously means that our opponents will likely stack us when they do outdraw us on the flop or turn so we need to compensate for this by forcing them to pay preflop.
Secondly our opponent (me) has a pretty strong range opening utg here and have a lot of hands that i won't be folding so we have little fear of opponents folding when we do size bigger.
Thirdly we're doing this with super strong hands and some bluffs so we want a sizing that means at least on some occasions opponents fold.
Thanks for the question.
I would just like to add, villain is offering us 140 into 480 (making the very reasonable assumption that btn overcalls). Thats 1:3.43 or 22.57% equity we need to be able to realize, while in position for the duration. A range of 88-JJ,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs+, T9s+, AQo+ has 20% equity vs an assumed extremely tight 3b range of KK+. So calling can't be that much of a mistake. This range I used for our 3b defend is purposely slightly loose to show that the preflop peel is perfectly justified given the improperly good odds villain has offered us, and our position.
Hey. I liked the concept very much as it's something i definitely wanted to work on, but was a little disappointed with the fact that there wasn't too much of a mathematical proof as to why were were flatting the ranges we were flatting vs the range we think villain is 3betting. It seemed quite an intuitive guess type thing where they were a fish or they are bad post, which are good reasons, but not really quantifiable range wise and leads to a guess call range.
Also we pretty much always hit hard. Most of us don't have many problems playing postflop when this happens. Biggest help for sure is when we flat 3bets IP and OOP especially and whiff and what kinds of lines on various kinds of boards we could be taking vs the ranges we assigned villain pre. Thanks very much for your video, i hope this wasn't overly negative as it was not my intention since i did gain some nice value from your post so keep it up! :)
Thanks for the response mate. really good to have this kind of constructive feedback. I agree entirely that it's a much more intuitive way of playing and that really says a lot about my game and my style. Think I just wanted to demonstrate the great things that can happen when you take pot odds and the mistakes that villains will make.
The point you make about them all being favourable run outs for his is very valid though. Something I will bare in mind in the next vids I make.
Thanks again.
I just watched the first hand and don't want to see more. Given our position, vilain's position and his stat, there is no way we are good against him until the lucky turn. You say he can have QQ/JJ, I doubt he get every JJ, but even if this is the case, we are still bad against his range, and we won't be able to massively value bet against QQ/JJ. He never has AQ imo.
On the flop, we are beating just JJ (unlikely preflop) and not sure if he would cbet JJ anyway. The call prefolp was bad imo, the call on the flop is even worse for me.
We need to call 600 into 1275, so we only need 32% equity to call. AKo has around 38.8% equity vs QQ+, AKs, AKo. Folding here would be a pretty big mistake, even ignoring that we have position.
Great video sam, really thankful for it.
@28:00 AJo flat vs BU 3.1x 3-bet
1) his 3-bet was 4% over 72 hands but your read of him being lighter here (because is on BU and with big stack) outweighs the fact that his 3-bet% shows a more value-oriented 3-bet range? are you not worried of flatting a dominated hand?
2) I guess then because of SPR you're always stacking off on this board (vs AK/AQ) when we decide to flat AJo and would not find a hero fold in any cases?
@30:30 would you fold to 3-barell on this board? i guess it's dependent on your read about vilain. many players 2-barell but don't have the courage to 3-barell in low-mid stakes which makes profitable flat and call-down 2-barell with JJ on good runouts but fold to 3-barell
Hey bro,
@28.00 I mean his hard not to take the hand he shows down into account when replying here. As the T6 shows this is still a spot where peoples frequencies are way higher than would be optimal if everyone was playing correctly. They rely on people folding to much on pre-flop and on the flop and against almost anyone i'm defending AJo here.
@30.30 Yes. This is an untypical hand because of the hand he shows down. In general I would fold to a treble barrel. We defend all pairs and slow-play AA some as well as four-bet bluffing a little. When the 9 rivers JJ is pretty low in our range.
Sam,
Awesome video, as all of your videos with examples on 1 particular topics. Really love them!
@ 24:22 you defend KJo 51 bb deep and at @ 15:55 you defend AJs 36 bb, both times OOP. In general in similar spots vs unknowns or regs with standard stats - would you be defending hands like this OOP 25-40 BB deep? (particularly off suited broadways like A10o, KQo, etc?) always, struggle with these spots in the game, so would appreciate your generic advice (vs unknowns or people with reasonable stats).
Would be also great if you could make a vid on hands you fold to 3 bets: even though from the first galnce it might be less entertaining to watch (no post flop play), it will be super helpful to struggling mid stakes grinders like myself, cause, let's admit it, most of us are calling stations by nature :)
Hey bro. Thanks for the question.
So as you well know it's a complex question. The first thing to draw attention to is I am sensitive to sizings and also position. So with the KJo hand had I opened in early position i would certainly fold because it would be so low in my range and had he made his sizing bigger i would have folded. It's just so many MTTers offer a great price pre-flop to realise equity and I think i can manoeuvre post-flop well enough to justify calling.
You definitely thinking a long the right lines by wanting to be 'stationy.' People in MTTs are over-bluffing in so many spots it pays to look people up. All I would say is constantly be thinking about your range in spots and adjusting it to protect yourself. So in the example vs HessKopp, when I see this sizing I know i'm gonna want to take pot-odds with a huge variety of hands so I make sure that when I have AA, AK and the like I flat at least a portion of the time. Hope that helps. let me know if you want further elaboration.
Anyway good luck in the mid-stakes. It's tough out there!!
Thanks, Sam!
Thanks for watching!
I really liked this style/structure what ever you want to call it, of video. I think I would like to see more spots where you peel, and dont flop so well, so I can get a better idea of how bluff catching is going to work in some spots. Also would be interested in seeing your suggested 4b reaction to these 3balls.
Have submitted a video just like this already. Not responding to 4-bets so much, but certainly some tougher decisions. Glad you liked the vid.
Hello Sam, very good video. I have a question about that AKo min 10, maybe you discussed that already, i didnt read all the comments. I just feel very uncomfortable peeling this hand oop to a 3way pot 170BB deep. I agree this is a pretty good spot for CO to apply pressure by squeezing, but I think our options are very limited on most flops as we gonna face a cbet with a player behing us left to act with pretty wide range. I think with AKs or without the player behind us flatting this is quite a clear flat, but here I prefer 4bet/folding or folding to a 3bet, as we only risked 120 chips and our postflop options are very limited. I think if we want to have a 4bet range in this spot AKo is a pretty good candidate to bluff with. Do you have a 4bet range here? Do you think that folding to a 3bet is a mistake here?
Thanks for your answer
Hey there. I think you thinking about this hand is good. I think, however, we continually have to think about our overall range in this spot.
We can certainly make a really nitty fold if we have a concrete read on our opponent as playing incredibly tight in this spot. However, if we think about the range of hands we are opening at this point in the tournament, if we're folding AKo it's gonna create a situation where our opponent can squeeze an auto-profit. AK is simply to strong to be folding in these positions.
The same situation applies to 4-bet folding. If we are four bet folding AKo and AQo and just 4-bet getting QQ+ our 4-bet range becomes way too bluff heavy. (18 combos of QQ,KK, AA, 24 combos of AKo, AQo). At this stack depth even if four-betting seems an attractive option as an exploit we have to stop our frequency getting to far out of line.
I feel like as long as we balance our AKo peel with the occasional slow-play and some suited connectors we can develop a strategy where we have decent board coverage and can't be pushed around too much.
Hope that helps.
Additionally to the AKo at min 10: you mention you would take that spot to squeeze as a bluff sometimes, using blockers etc. could you elaborate on this?
I noticed I'm terribly unbalanced in this spot myself (150bb deep so plenty of room to flat)
which hands do you think are best to put in our 3bet bluffing range while making 3betting>flatting?
what would you do with hands like KJs, AQs, A5s, 97s for example put in your opponents shoes?
thx
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