Hey, thanks man!

Yeah, I was saying that that's a board texture where you usually should be checking with some flush draws to semi-bluff, and that usually the ones you want be barreling instead of checking are the ones that don't have showdown value / get it in bad if played as a x/r. The TJs is a good example, it's a hand that will get it in not so good given it will be dominated by a lot of my flush draws, and it's a hand that don't want to see me check-back the flop usually. So I said that, because of the board texture, I was going to take some % of his flush draw combos out of his range once he bets, and that most likely ones for him to check would be the ones with showdown value (ATs+ for example)

I think folding on the flop would be a pretty big mistake. We're getting pretty awesome immediate pot-odds (3-to-1), we have a lot of great bluffing cards (so we're not only calling to hit, it also works as a float), we have a ton of implied odds on cards like an off-suit 9, and we also have a backdoor flush draw. I think this is not close between calling and folding, and feel like we're giving up quite a ton of ev by folding this on the flop. 

On the turn I think it's a bit closer, but still think we have way too much equity vs his range to fold. Like I said in my analysis, this is a spot where I thought he'd be slightly imbalanced given his range polarization and narrowing of his value combos, and that I could exploit that by calling turn and calling blank rivers. If you think he is going to be more balanced here and on the river, then I think folding turn is fine.
On a flush completing river I don't know, I think from a theory point I should shove, given I'd be at the bottom of my range, and would have no other hands then 87s to get to the river without a heart pretty much. So on that perspective it's a pretty mandatory shove. But I could still exploitatively decide to not bluff, because I don't think there's going to be much, if any, non-hearts hands in his turn betting range here. So if I expect him to be capable of checking the Ah on the river, and maybe not fold some other high hearts, I could just "exploitatively" give up and not bluff the bottom of my range.

I think I did not express myself correctly, I wouldnt fold flop also. 

OTT I am ok that we have good equity against his range but splitting a bit his range (considering that you jam when checked to and he faces a decision)

bbxc overpairs with a heart (the others I think he starts xc turn) 22% equity

bbxf probably some weak showdown hands, like AhQ that he can also put into the bbb since is near the bottom of his range (probably why you called) 68% equity

bbb flushes + missed Ah or Kh hands 25% equity 

If you think that he is unbalanced on the spot (dunno towards value or bluffs) you should put a different probability distribution for the the parts of his range (that obv is not flat as all equity programs assume). 

Hey, thanks!

No, those hands would be too good to be bluffing with pre-flop on BTN vs BB in general. You want to be calling hands that are good to call against the 3bet, and 4bet bluffing with hands that aren't good enough to call, but have good blockers. So KQ and KJ are hands that people might 3bet on MP vs BTN OOP, or even CO vs BTN, or maybe UTG vs SB or something like that, because those hands a lot of the times aren't good enough to call in those situations, so they become good 4bet bluffs. 

4betting KQ and KJ on BTN vs BB at this games is, most of the time, going to be a pretty big mistake.

Hey,

My reasoning for calling was that I expected his range to be imbalanced on the river, given his sizing, like I said in the video. My range is going to have a lot of bluff catchers, like pocket pairs with a heart and that kind of thing. This is pretty much the bottom of my range OTR, and not a great bluff catcher blocker-wise either. So to make this thin of a call, I definitely must believe he is imbalanced and bluffing too often.

Hey, thanks!

hand1 - do you mean on the river, if I prefer 88 or 87s ? I would prefer 88 as it would have 1 more blocker for straights (89s), but it wouldn't make a big diference. Either way, as you said, my call is 100% exploitative, so I would call with both, as I decided to exploitatively call with all of my bluff catchers, exploiting his (in my perspective) imbalanced range.

hand2 - yeah, you might be right, I haven't done the exact math. I'm not sure I flat all of my KQo though. About him having Jxss, I think my assumptions that he never 4bets any JXss is very very like to be accurate, so I do still take pretty much all Jx out of his range. About my turn sizing, I like the turn sizing because of stack-sizes. I want to be able to shove for a big amount on the river, given my range polarization as you said. I think that's more importante on the river then on the turn, given that on the river (after calling turn) his range is already entirely bluff catchers, while on the turn he can still have air and give ups (like K3s and stuff).

hand3 - I think given how wet the board is and SPR, building it for 3 streets is probably not a good idea. I don't think we want to be raising too small on this flop with anything, so I prefer going for two streets here, with a slight turn overshove, in general. On dryer textures I think we can definitely x/r smaller to go for 3 streets.

Hey!

Yeah, but if you think about it, even if he bets all of his flush draws on the flop, it's going to add like 3 or 4 combos to his value range, which would make it go to maybe 16 value combos and 9 bluffing combos, making it still a pretty profitable call with our pot-odds (we're winning 36% and need 30% to break even). So my flop "reads" help me a little bit, but I knew that even if that was wrong, I would still be making a profitable play. For my call to be wrong, we would have to be shoving over pairs for value, or not bluffing enough with high cards with a heart. Then I would be making an exploitative mistake, and being exploited by my opponent. I didn't expect that at all, so I shouldn't be afraid of making exploitative adjustments.

I feel like lately the poker community (myself included) have been undervaluing exploitative play too much. I think that as time goes by and poker evolves, theory becomes more and more important. But we're still way too far away from solving the game, and even sick top pros at 5knl will have a TON of exploitable things in their game. And lately, because I've been playing more 1knl, where the field is usually 10-15 players, I think I've been improving a ton in my exploitative game, given we play much more hands with the same regs over and over, making it easier to find things to exploit. So I thought it would be interesting to show you guys some exploitative plays and the logic behind them, and not only that same old theory stuff.

Hand 1 - oh, ok, I though you were asking if I prefer 88o on the river rather then 87s, and not in previous street. Which street do you think I should not call this hand ? Also, there is no "limits" to exploitative play. Thinking this way you are definitely limiting yourself. You're mixing things up. If the play is exploitatively good, no theory argument should be used to go against it. You can't say you're not going to make a +ev winning call because it's at the bottom of your range. And that's the main thing that I meant in my last post about theory. GTO is making people forget about exploitative play, and although I think that maybe 10 or 20 years from now theory will play the biggest role of nlhe 6max in the mid/high stakes, we're still very far from that day, and people must understand that everyone will have things to be exploited in their game (even Sauce for example).

So to sum up, having tons of other hands that are better for making a river call doesn't mean you shouldn't also do it with this one. If it's profitable vs my opponent's strategy, that's all that matters. And you shouldn't use a frase like "you can't make this exploitative call with this hand cuz it's at the bottom of your range" while you're analyzing a hand, as you're mixing two different and opposing concepts.

Hand 2 - Yeah, I'm not sure about this. But another thing to is that OTR my bluffs have 0 equity, and OTT my bluffs have a TON of equity vs his bluff catchers. I don't know how to do GTO math on turn value / bluff ratios, given we have equity, but the logical thing would be that I should be betting bigger when my bluffs have 0 equity (river). Also, as I said in the other post, him having air hands and not only bluff catchers in his range should make the dynamic for bet sizing different. OTR, after he calls turn, he has bluff catchers 100% of the time pretty much, and never has air or any hand with no showdown value. That should definitely have some impact on my betting strategy, allowing me to bet smaller OTT where I have some "inelastic" fold equity (air will fold no meter how much I bet), and have equity with bluffs.

So overall it seems super logical to me that we can bet smaller on the turn here and bigger on the river, but I'm not good enough with math and theory to actually explain why with real proving numbers. If someone could chime in and help us with this, maybe @gametheory ?

Hand 3 - Yeah, maybe, but why is it that bad to make a 40% over bet ? I don't see why it's a bad thing in a situation where I have a polarized range of very good value (but vulnerable / need protection) and semi-bluffs vs a range filled with bluff catchers in a very dynamic board. 

I think I can't go too small on the flop because of the texture, but I think I should go as small as I can. The same argument for Hand2 applies here, where against his flop betting range I'll have some "inelastic" fold equity (given he still has air a lot), while on the turn, after he calls my flop xr, that isn't true anymore.

Hand 1 - Yeah, I'm not entirely sure about turn play. It could be a fold. About his river range though and the PF range I gave him, what do you not agree with ? I guess the only debatable thing is if he 3bets AJo pre. An aggro villain 3betting 11% overall is very likely to, imo. But I think you're probably right that I shouldn't give him 100% frequency with AJo here, given he might not 3bet pre. But even if we give him 50% frequency with AJo, it makes his bluffing range go from 9 combos to 7.5 combos, and with 12 value combos, it would still be a call, as we'd still be winning 38% of the time, needing only 30% to call.

What else do you disagree about our river assumptions ? I do agree that the turn is still debatable and close, but once we get to the river, I still feel like it's a pretty profitable call, and not making it because we made a mistake in earlier streets or because it's at the bottom of our range doesn't sound like a good idea.

Hand 2 - I would really like to take a look at CREV, but I can't cuz it isn't available for mac. Thanks for doing some analyses though! I'm still very unused to the program, as I haven't used it yet, but I've watched a ton of videos here where the pros use it, so I understand it some. About shoving river with whole range, yeah, it would probably be imbalanced and exploitable, given I'd have around 20 bluffing combos (AQ/KQs), and would then need 40 value combos if I'm betting bot on the river, and I don't think I'd have those many value combos.

Hand 3 - Yeah, like I said I'm not a CREV user yet :(. Maybe some other pros could take my hands and make a video on it ?
p.s 2 - Yeah, thats what I think too! Don't tell anyone though :P

Hey Scaramaker, thanks!

I think that A5 might be a little too weak to x/c, given we're loosing to too many better AX. Also, his range isn't only KQ/KJ/QJ, so although we do gain value vs those hands by letting them barrel on spades or put more money in with low equity on other turns, we'd also loose some value by:
1- letting him bet once and check-down with marginal showdown value hands that beat us (like say, 88 or 7x).
2- letting him realize 100% of his equity with hands he doesn't want to barrel turn (although we are protected, a hand like J9hh will still have 7 outs).

I do think that x/c flop with some flush draws could be good here, but in that case, I would say that the AQss, for example, would be better for doing that then the A5ss.

Hey, thanks!

Yeah, with a spade I'm usually check-calling! I'll check-fold without a backdoor flush draw though, having 10 good turn cards for us or 10 bad turn cards makes enough of a difference in EV here, given turn and river playability, ability to realize equity, overall equity, etc.

Exploitative-wise though, there can be spots where you would be able to check-call AK w no bdfd here, for example if you have reads that your opponent stabs vs missed cbet too often, but shuts down and don't barrel a lot.