You take notes for "saw Villain pre-flop" & "saw Villain post-flop" but do you take notes of "what Villain saw of Hero" (to anticipate Villain adjustments) eg Villain saw showdown where Hero bluffed random cards in spot where Villain had capped range and Villain had decent bluffcatcher?

Yeah, I also make notes about my own lines and what villain saw from me. Usually I either: 1) write it above in the tendency section if I pretty much assume villain will few me in a certain way based on our history or 2) write down a seperate note for pre or postflop (example: saw me triple barrel with 0).

Also, do you see value in deliberate gear-changing? That is, do you advocate exploiting Villain to the maximum all the time (which is the impression I get from the video series) or do you think it is better to start out your session say maximally exploiting and then tighten up having created a super LAG image so as to wrongfoot and hence exploit Villain's otherwise "correct" counter adjustments? If the latter, any guidelines on when to change gears eg Villain has bluffcaught us exploiting twice in a row? Do you tighten up versus the population or just versus the Villain who appears to be adapting to our exploitation?

Yeah for sure this is an important aspect of exploiting. I haven't talked a lot about this, but in general you should be able to know how villain will perceive you based on your notes, history and dynamics etc. Anticipating on villains adjustments is obviously difficult and will involve some guessing, but overall I feel it involves using some simple logic and you should get a good 'feel' for this with more experience. Like I said in the video, once you have your notes and tendencies, the adjustments you should make are pretty obvious. In general I will try to keep exploiting players who I think won't realize they are being exploited and/or are reluctant to do something against it. Also, it is important who you focus on, because fish will have more consistent patterns (also when they will start spazzng/tilting), same for mass tabling/straight forward regs who often dont realize what you are doing.

Will Tipton talks in his HUNLHE books that when faced with multiple ways of exploiting a Villain we should choose the option that incents Villain to move further away from GTO. I understand that means we shouldn't target Villain in such a way that his obvious adjustments might get him playing more correctly but I'm not sure what that means in practice with reference to the many avenues of exploitation you paraded in this series so some examples of how your preferred exploitation techniques lead Villains to counter adjust in anti-GTO rather than GTO ways would be good. Maybe an example might be that if we as BB mercilessly 3B a BTN opening too wide he will probably tighten up moving him closer to GTO but if we instead call his open and then punish his loose range post-flop he is unlikely to deduce his problems begin pre-flop. Mercilessly X/R'ing flops might lead him to playing the flop face-up way below GTO CBetting frequencies and then when he checks we punish his face-up missed range. Is that a reasonable example?

Good point. I've read that part of the book as well and I know what you mean. I think in practice this definitely holds true, but not for all spots, but more in spots where villain faces aggression vs their aggression. So if they open and we 3bet ATC we don't like to flat vs a 75% fold-to-3bet BTN open range, villain is likely to catch up and counter-adjust in a way that may not be desiable (however, we face less BTN opens and thus will play more BvB or get a fold from the SB and pick up the pot). The same goes with attacking a high cbet/fold % like you talked about. So for these spots I adjust and exploit to some degree and try to see how far I can go, but not in a way I do it with 100% frequency and with ATC.

But when our opponent only face our aggression, so like opens/cbets or w/e I tend to think it's not that bad to keep exploiting maximally as when players do have a leak for, let's say, folding vs too many cbets, if they realize we are cbetting bluffing a lot, they might defend wider but that also takes them out of their comfort zone as they were used to play differently, and from there they may end up making more and bigger mistakes (where in the other scenario, our opponent is more likely to take a tighter adjustment --> open tighter, fold less vs 3bets)

Let me know if I explained that well as I know that example in the book was very good and made me realize that relentless exploiting might be counter productive in some spots. It's definitely something I try to find some "balance" in (funny I use that word) in a way that I don't eliminate the opportunity for exploitation.

Thanks for your feedback :)

Thanks, I think I follow.

Cliffs:
Exploits versus Villain overpassivity eg Hero stealing Villain overfolding BB, Hero CBetting Villain overfolding to CBets tend to lead to Villain adjustments that favour Hero so exploit maximally.

Exploits where Hero is aggro versus Villain's aggression eg Hero X/R Villain too high frequency CBets tend to lead to Villain frequency counter adjustments that are more GTO-correct so best to keep our exploitation less than maximal to stay under the radar so Villain is less likely to notice and adjust.

Yeah I think that makes sense to me, but I'm not 100% convinced to be honest, and it probably also depends on the players, stakes and games you play.

An example is, say we play HU (either HU table or start a table at 6max) and we know villain folds his BB more than 50%. We want to minopen ATC, and based on our logic that we want to max exploit vs villains overpassivity, this might go wrong pretty quickly, because a player might very soon realize what we are doing based on our frequency for opening and/or a showdown of a trashy hand.

On the other hand, a reg in BVB with a 65% fold vs SB steal will not realize very quickly that you open ATC in zoom, because you dont play isolated, it takes time between each hand you play with him and its just very easy to (fast) fold in zoom. So therefore it might look like I always max exploit but I guess that just works well at zoom.

That said, a thought/counter argument I had about not max exploiting because you may eliminate the exploitation is that, although we naturally let villain fix his own leak, we also get him out of his comfort zone, which may result in a even higher EV of the leak we were exploiting. So again, someone who folds his BB too much, now is likely to adjust by defending more, but as a result may either fold to a lot of cbets OTF, spazz a lot, call down too light etc. which may yield an even higher EV than the initial exploitation.

Thanks, I think this is a good idea. Most likely I will go over some spots where I was readless during the video review and show how I would analyze that hand post-session using some software.

Yes, I'd like that. I like the idea of dividing our total range into categories such as Value (sub-category high TPGK+, sub-category medium TPWK, 2nd pair, sub-category low 3rd pair, underpairs), Draws, Total air. Then deciding where we want to put each sub-category and why: should it bet flop or check/call or check/raise etc? But I find this too time-consuming to do in-game and too subjective away from the table. Solid reasoning for range choices would be great.

If Pokersnowie gave you a world class rating that means that you're maximally exploiting, because that is what GTO does.

First you have to find out what kind of range they are raising you with.

vs more polarized and/or bluffy range:
- 3bet bluff more flops, slowplay call raise more
- call down lighter/herocall

vs more depolarized range:
- attack capped calling range wider by following through more with bluffs
- may sound counter intuitive, but cbet bluff more often and more polar as a raise flop will still happen way less frequently than call+fold flop, so whenever you get called you know you have a good spot to barrel because villains range is capped (and a fold is obviously fine as well)
- give more respect to raises OTF
- cbet/3bet flop thinner for value than you usually would do

True, but you said in your post before that someone was raising your cbet a lot IP and follow through a lot, so I kinda assumed that this opponent is most likely to be bluffy, obviously vs nutted ranges you don't want to bluff 3bet flop vs them (or 4bet bluff in the preflop situation)

Hey, thanks for the feedback!

See the discussion before with Iamindifferent. It's probably not optimal to punish your opponent by 3betting ATC, unless you know 100% sure your opponent is never noticing/adjusting vs you if you do it.

Vs players with a high fold to 3bet I would 3bet polarized, include a flatting range where I normally perhaps wouldn't have one and which plays well vs the opening range of villain, and include a lot of weaker hands that I don't think are profitable to flat (bottom flatting/top of folding range kind of idea). Players who fold a lot vs 3bets will call you with mostly a strong broadway-heavy range so generally I avoid 3bet bluffing with hands they could possible dominate, and therefore I am more likely to add SC's etc to my 3bet bluff range, because those hands do well vs villain's 3bet calling range and you also can pressure them a lot on low/mid boards because their range doesn't have good board coverage.

Right... I agree with not 3betting in any situation. My question was a little vague. I meant if we are on the bubble or in another high pressure situation. I know many players say to 3b ATC around the bubble or when about to reach the money. This is assuming at least 30bb and villain has high fold to 3b numbers. Personally I like something like 9Ts etc but other players say ATC. Curious on your thoughts.

Seems like you have the same kind of mindset as me with 3betting. I like to have something like SC's etc when 3betting light. Others say ATC but seems like you are against it.

Well I'm not going to 3bet ATC in the spot you described but definitely a lot wider of course. I know some MTT players will 3bet a ton/ATC in some of these spots and that would make a lot of sense if you pick the right opponents. Like a scared money/weak tightish player with a high fold to 3bet you can comfortable 3bet a ton, but vs guys that realize you are making use of ICM pressure, they just don't care and play back at you. That is often what I try to consider first before automatically making use of what in theory should be a good ICM pressure spot.

Hey,

I'm not sure which one you mean, the Notecaddy notes or just the template if I make a note manually? The last one is very simply, I just copy-paste the template from word into the HM-popup for note-taking.

Good luck at the tables!

Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!