Hi Coolknights

Top right 4:18

I know you don't like talking about these spots in general, but this board seems like it should get donked a lot with normal 3 bet sizings. Do you think that's still the case here? I enjoy watching you play these spots in general because they are so outside of what I'm used to.

Understand if you don't want to comment

Sorry, I prefer to keep all of this private! I hope you can understand.

Great stuff as always,
Knights

Thank you very much. More to come :)

you guys remember that time when phil ivey just mucked a winning hand with 2p on wsop in a showdown scenario? :D

I hate you Brian Riera

Captain2323 I don't remember the hand, but it actually sounds a lot worse than my T2 so I'll take it hahaha

Steve Paul Thank you very much!

Was sweating the bluff hard for you there, nh :D

Thanks mate! Trust that I was, too! If I were not recording, it would have been minimised immediately; I cannot stand to watch villain's tank down, it is agony. Maybe this is why I don't play live? haha

Can be forgiven checking back the nuts given you were clearly flustered by the other table

Well I'm glad you have such a compassionate outlook on this. I thought I would get some stick for it!

Great video and love all your other vids <3

Thank you very much Had0uken <3

Hey wadja94 , nice to see you commenting again!

Cool series ! Few questions about the Q4cc spot at 42' :
- how come OOP Turn gets to reopen for 1/2p rather than more polarized here ?

Thanks!

Many strategies are OK OTT. We will almost always want to play polarised when probing turn on Ahi boards in SRP's. However, on specifically A436, where we've lots of low hands wanting to some equity, depolarising a little to 1/2p performs quite nicely. It's niche and not too frequent of a play, but you should find it performs well in PIO subtree's

• reasons for IP to delay 1/3p turn as well ?

It is a good response if OOP is supposed to depolarise a little (as I did)

• you mention clubs being fine to catch with on the river, but aren't they IP's most obvious bluffs ? Or do they end up not being good bluffs precisely because of the delay cbet line ?

Vs the 1/3p, we have many XXcc hands that xcT→xfR, so that should be his first suit to give up.

I guess his 5x/7x non club make great river bluffs as well but they also get into the Flop Cbet line so they might end up missing also in the river range ?

They will perform a lot better than XXcc, yes. As you mentioned he'll be finding them OTF often, but not every time.

Thanks and kudos for dealing with constant high pressure during this session !

Thank you very much! Hope you enjoyed the series :)

37:12 bottom left, J8o fold. Given that 10/20 run low on the rake and the weaker player is on the BB isn't this an open? Would you rather open another hand class instead of J8o at this more fringy hands?

Raphael Nogueira Hey Raphael. I'm not sure of the hand you are referring to. Sorry if I'm missing something obvious here.

As always, crystal clear high-stakes video.

Appreciate these types of feedbacks a lot, thank you very much! :)

Luke Johnson sorry, I missed the timestamp and can't find it anymore. Anyway, was J8o on the button, DavyJones on the SB and Nacho on BB $10/$20 table.

Raphael Nogueira No problem. Sounds like a mistake from me yes. However, Nacho isn't a weaker player.

Hi Luke
Great video!

Hi Ben, thank you :)

SB first in why are you 2,1x ing? Especially with antes I don't get it we are not pressuring any hands, BB can just vpip everything.

I do not believe BB can VPIP everything (although I believe it is very close!). Also, try to put yourself in villain's shoes for a second; are you happy about playing 72o postflop? Would you prefer villain opened to 3x allowing you to fold, or opened smaller forcing you into playing it?

On the same spirit : why such small 3bet IP in ante games? CO 2.4x you 6x. Although here I could see more merit as villain is OOP and might struggle to defend 70%+

Sorry, my small 3b's are the only topic I do not discuss here on RIO. I hope you can understand.

Well I clearly prefer sb minraising and I pip 100%. Literally a 100.

Defending 100% is not correct

EV between humans is gonna shift to IP even more so even fringe hands get more profitable imo

I disagree. If I've specifically studied how to play vs a wider than normal BB range (the effects of 2.15x vs 3x), I will most definitely play better than the BB who is for the first time playing said wider than average range.

I haven't run anything recent for BvB ante's, however, I do have an iteration of BvB 2x RFI (ante-less) and IP is still folding 8%. Perhaps ante's outweigh the bigger open size/decreased pot odds for villain, I'm not sure.

Your comments are good food for thought, so thank you for that. I do not play enough ante formats to make me want to do more thorough research into it right now.

I also just checked my session details for that night; in the 5k ante game I RFI'd the SB 21 times in 3handed+, and it got through 3 times. So villain's are not defending 100% vs it.

wow I'm a nit vs min raises lol. Luke would take my entire bankroll with his strategy.

RunItTw1ce One min raise at a time ;-)

What a tremendous series! I know you want to mix up your video formats but a part 4 to this particular series would be welcome. The learning to be done from this series has been invaluable.
Otherwise a review video or two would be great.

Thank you very much SoundSpeed :), really glad you've found it so enjoyable!!

There will not be a part 3, however, there will be two wrap-up videos in a brand new format, which I'm hoping viewers will enjoy and find educational

40:02 btm left with a3 on turn 3 I would think we get to bet here for block or 66% psb.

Agreed. Missed bet here

43:05 btm left q4cc you said clubs are good to call with on river. Aren't clubs bad as we block his missed flush draws unless the thinking is he wouldn't bet his busted clubs so it's fine for us to have them?

Exactly, he should give them up the majority of the time, so we end up unblocking his bluffing range quite nicely

50:31 top left JTch you mention on the turn you would rather have the Th than Td. Why is that? To me they both have good blocker properties in that they both block opponents continuing rng of straight and flush draws. One just happens to block the back door fd rather than the front door fd.

IP floats some bdfd Tdx hands OTF which muck turn; whereas if he has the Th, he'll be continuing more often

In general my understanding is we get to barrel off more often with busted back door flush draws rather than front door flush draws. Is that something you find?

Yes, because the bdfd are less prominent in villain's call-call line (given not all bdfd's can peel flop)

Glad to see more 5k - how did your shot take go overall?

Hey matlittle not great unfortunately. Have been put back down to 2k. Looking forward to what 2022 has to offer, though :)

6.15 - K84r with Q5 in BB vs SB limp
On this board, should the SB range bet for a min bet?

No, OOP needs to find checks here, due to the 84 having marginally better connectivity for IP

When you face a spot like this where a reg should range bet and instead elects to check, what is your stabbing strategy like here? I know we have to be tight and polarised - does that mean we go for a really big bet size?

Yes, perfect. It sounds like you understand the spot well! The cbettor that should have cbet range does lose a little potshare by checking, but solvers suggest they should still be doing fairly well.

My experience from low/midstakes is that most regs that don't bet range here will tend to bluff all their trashy hands as usual, but will check with a face-up range that is mainly pairs lower than top pair, ace highs and some of top set. How would you adjust your stabbing range to play against this specific strategy?

I cannot agree, not disagree; I haven't researched too deep into it. I would, however, ask you to think if you're being a little results orientated. I imagine take note when villain shows up with the SDV that should have cbet, but do you do the same when they XF vs your flop stab, or the same, but on turn? I'd hazard to guess that you might just move on and not remember as clearly as the former example. I hope you don't mind the projection.

Best of luck for your next shot take in 2022.

Yes, perfect. It sounds like you understand the spot well! The cbettor that should have cbet range does lose a little potshare by checking, but solvers suggest they should still be doing fairly well.

How big will you go in spots like these? Is an overbet called for in some spots or is that too big?

I would, however, ask you to think if you're being a little results orientated. I imagine take note when villain shows up with the SDV that should have cbet, but do you do the same when they XF vs your flop stab, or the same, but on turn? I'd hazard to guess that you might just move on and not remember as clearly as the former example. I hope you don't mind the projection.

That's of course possible and I'll keep an open mind about it. Now that you say it I do recall some times where I've bet and not expected a fold and a reg snap folds.

My theory is that in spots where you should bet most of your range people know that they can bet random nonsense if they wish (and it be slightly +EV) and usually elect to do so to bluff. Same goes for weak draws - they get bet nearly always.
The optimal checking range for middling to low strength hands is far more complicated to build, especially in-play.
The hands with good SDV that aren't strong enough for 3 streets are pretty obvious to find and get checked very often by (some) players.
I find that lots of weaker regs will end up with a range of mostly middling SDV hands that can call ~2 bets in mixed spots where we should bet for example 65% of our range on the flop for a small sizing. When it comes to a range-bet spot that a not-so-great reg checks - I think this effect is even more pronounced.
[Perhaps not at 5k or 2k though!]

Best of luck for your next shot take in 2022.

Thank you matlittle :)

How big will you go in spots like these? Is an overbet called for in
some spots or is that too big?

When IP BvB, I play 50/70/106 for limped pots and 27/50/70 for SRP's. OB's are likely fine, but I chose not to include them in my solves.

Re. the discussion on villains checking range bet spots:
I think you are getting a little too hung up on this. We play very passively vs checks in these nodes, so there's not much EV to be gained or lost. Imo, focus on you, not villain.

14.55
I like the idea of a video about the selection of turn stabbing hands in low SPR spots like this. Certainly something I used to get massively wrong as I used to bet way too many high equity draws that had to fold to a shove. You mentioned that there are times when you stab more often with high equity hands like 98hh with the combodraw - are these situations where your opponent does not have a high check shove frequency?

Yes, this is a great example of how differently solvers play to pre-solver humans.

I find the times that we get to bet the strong equity bluffs are when we are really struggling (range vs range), so much so that we do not get to use the more crappier bluffs instead.

Does your turn stabbing size affect the frequency of which you stab a hand like a low combodraw here? If we were in a spot where the turn stabbing size was ~30% and we were able to call a non-all-in raise, can we stab this type of hand more often?

Not really. If we are sizing down, we should be depolarising. And if we are depolarising, we should be using all the crappy bluffs first (as you mentioned in your first paragraph)

Yes, this is a great example of how differently solvers play to pre-solver humans.

I can't tell you how many times I have bet a good draw in a 3bet pot IP and been shoved on and sworn at the screen because I have to fold. PIO has introduced me to the wonders of the check button.

When we are OOP am I right in saying that we bet strong draws way more often than when IP given that we (presumably?) get shoved on less, and we can't check back to realise the equity of our draw?

I find the times that we get to bet the strong equity bluffs are when we are really struggling (range vs range), so much so that we do not get to use the more crappier bluffs instead.

This is interesting to know, I'll look out for it in the future when looking at sims!

Thanks!

PIO has introduced me to the wonders of the check button.

matlittle Lol, well said!

When we are OOP am I right in saying that we bet strong draws way more often than when IP given that we (presumably?) get shoved on less, and we can't check back to realise the equity of our draw?

Yes, the low SDV hands typically get nuked a lot more when OOP (often always). When we've some SDV (Ahi w/ 2 overs is a consistent example), we begin to play more passively.

17min Is your opponent calling with worse? You said you don't know how to construct your bluffs here, so given the raise is mostly JX here and very few if any bluffs? You open yourself up to be jammed on assuming QJ pure bets the turn? So opponent is free rolling you off a chop if he jams?

Appreciate you posting the screenshot and saving me scrolling through the video :) RunItTw1ce

We XB turn, so yes I do believe villain should be calling worse some of the time after only betting twice in a limped pot.

Also, from memory QJ was a mix for me (I would have most definitely not found it, though!)

On Wizard J6 is using a ton of 250% turn bets and very little checking, but on the river as played it's mostly just calling the river. There is some QJ that checks back turn, mostly without a spade, like a 20% check back frequency. Then River bluffs I see are coming from Q9 and Q8 for an all-in shove, but super low frequency <2%. I know ranges and sizes are different with ante, just trying to get a guideline for this spot.

All I can say is that my sim differs greatly from GTOWizard's.

All I can say is that my sim differs greatly from GTO Wizard's.

I have been considering recently whether to get GTO Wizard or whether to stick to my own PIO sims instead. Do your sims differ lots in general from GTO Wizard? If so, do you know why?

RunItTw1ce do you prefer using GTO Wizard to PIO, if so why?

Would prefer to use my own sims with my own sizings, ranges etc, but it's of course a lot of hassle to create batches of sims for every spot so have been considering GTO Wizard recently.

matlittle wizard is really just a convenience rather than building trees and inputting ranges all the time. However, in terms of exact sizing being used PIO will do much better. Can't change the ranges wizard uses or the sizes. If I spent some time with PIO I would probably prefer it, but I barely know how to use it. Also if you know a person's range or pool's range PIO can be great for developing a lot of exploits. I don't have a ton of PIO experience so not the best person to ask. I know Steve Paul uses both wizard, PIO, and also some other tools like simple post flop. I think he would be a better person to ask. Wizard is great because it has the drilling function that PIO doesn't have. I think you would have to do Lucid + PIO to be optimal. PSek has some videos of drilling like this.

Oh, some preflop stuff that holds wizard back is it will use 2.5x from the button where the BB range is going to be the same. Certain spots where BTN chooses to open 2x or 2.2x is going to mess up the range construction quite a bit post flop. Also some stuff Saulo posted in his videos for Monker ranges, Monker seems much tighter than wizard when defending vs 3bets. I would do a trial of wizard and do an exploration of what you are looking for to see if you want to purchase it or not. I think the drilling function and just the convenience of not waiting for a sim to run is why people like wizard so much.

Thanks for the detailed response, much appreciated. Kinda confirms what I was thinking about GTO Wizard - very convenient at the cost of customisation. Also I think having multiple bet sizes in every spot can occasionally affect the strategy further along the tree if you compare to what would happen if you were to play 1 sizing on flop and 1 sizing on turn (as most people do).

PIO v2 now has a drilling feature called GTO Trainer. It's a bit crude and doesn't offer as much feedback as other trainers but still a good tool. It also requires you to create batches of sims of each spot beforehand of course.

I'll get the free trial like you suggest and see what I think, thanks. Also keen to see their preflop ranges - they seem to differ slightly from mine and perhaps slightly better.

RunItTw1ce matlittle

I think GTO Wizard is a great tool. However, its behaviour can be a little broken at times with the way it converges ranges to follow a static set of 2.5x charts. If you are just coming into the world of solvers, then it should be a very worthwhile purchase. However, if you're already very familiar, and in the process of creating your own sim library, I would suggest to stick to your own sims moving forward.

Hey I_Fold_Jacks I'm glad you enjoyed :)

Review coming this Friday :)

Hi Aiaiaiai

Would you mind timestamping as I cannot remember what I was referring to

Cheers

Fantastic video!

Thank you LiveCashGuy ! & I'm sorry for the delay getting back to you

24:30 (top right) w/T8o, seems like you should have rolled for a river bluff/bet part of the time, no?

No, it's a check as our SDV outweighs our bluffing EV. We could do something like this w/ 86

26:07 (bot. left) w/AJo, surprised that you would jam river here 20% of the time with no straight AND boat blocker (i.e. QJ, JT)? Doesn't seem like a thing that often w/o straight blocker to go with it...

Good point, I am probably firing too many bluffs here. Nice pickup!

Thanks!

To you, too!

Hi Hammy

Indeed 43 would be a stronger bluff, but stronger doesn't imply it is better to bet. Counterintuitively, we sometimes want to bet our weaker bluffs first. This should be one of those times. It is hard to explain exactly why over text, however, this is not specific to just this spot. I would advise you to play around with IP bluffing to see if you can pick up what I'm referring to

Thanks mate! Yeah, same here. Happens most of all if I dislike my play and am praying not to be punished, haha. Whereas if I like my line, I'm fine with whatever the outcome is