Thanks bro. Kind words indeed.

Glad you found it useful. That's what we're here for.

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.

Marginal hands are the things which do this video interesting do not leave them Sam, please

Thanks Maxtere. Good to have your perspective also.

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

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.

Hey bro. So you want me to look at KQ vs 3-bets? I can do that for sure.

Fair point!

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 for watching!

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.

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.