Anatomy of a Sunday Million (2 of 5)
Posted by Nick Rampone
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what are your thoughts? thanks.
I see that you also mentioned if we had AA or KK instead of QQ. Well, really, these hands are all the same. I mean of course if we have QQ a king turn looks bad, when it wouldn't if we had AA. But really, how bad is it if a king turns? He can have so many hands here, Kx is just a tiny piece of the pie which is all of his possible hands. Hell, a king could even be a good card for us. Maybe he will use that card to bluff thinking we have 77 or something and might fold. When the stack-to-pot ratio is so low, when he has a bet left that's about the size of the pot, and his range is wide, no cards can scare us!
You might look at it the other way and say "Well, what if he has top pair and an ace comes and now he will check/fold when he would have gotten allin with me on the flop, when I was way ahead". That is a totally fair and true point. My response to that is this; the times that a scare card come and hurts or kills our action, happens less often than any card comes, scare card or safe card, and he bets big of allin with either a stone cold bluff, or a hand like top pair that we still crush. Let me know if that makes sense. I feel pretty strongly about it and it makes a lot of sense in my head, but I'm not sure if I'm articulating that well.
Back to the actual flop. 754hh. We have QQ. Now, the same logic we were applying in the first paragraph, let's apply to this situation. I see having QQ on 754hh as largely the same as having AA on 954r. The main reason being, he only has a pot sized bet left. The money is more than likely going in on the turn no matter what the card is, and we're usually going to have the best hand. Also, by flat calling, we allow him the opportunity to continue bluffing if he has no hand, and to continue betting with a hand thinks is good, or isn't sure is good, like 78.
I like a raise on the flop too, i think villain is mostly willing to stack off here so why not get the money in on the flop with QQ on 467 before the turn kills the action
Because of this super conscious involvement in each hand I played for years, I'd like to think the body of my experience is really useful, both actually and relatively. I've found myself constantly using my mental archives of past hands for reference on what to do in current pots. It's really helped me make accurate assumptions and decisions.
The other component to the accuracy of my decisions is the confidence I have in my logical reasoning and analysis. You're just going to have to trust me on the experience thing, but for the logic side of things, I can show you that right now. Let's apply it to the three hands you mentioned.
First let me note that each of these three hands are very different. You can't really compare them with one another. Each has such a unique set of circumstances (stack size, hand strength, opponent tendencies) that they each demand their own individual attention.
Hand1 : KK, 15bb, HJ. You say that you think shoving looks weaker than limping. This might come down to just a difference of opinion, but I'm pretty confident that limping looks weaker. If you shove, it's pretty safe to say that you don't have certain hands, right? You're not shoving 74 suited, but one may limp with that hand. You're not shoving A3o, but one may limp with that hand. What do our actions, limping and shoving, do to the way our opponents can play their hands? When we shove, and our opponent isn't a crazy gambler, they can only call with good cards. The exact range of "Good cards" is debatable, but let's say the top 20% just for simplicity sake. Now when we limp, all of a sudden we are forcing them (the big blind at least) to see a flop with us, usually with bad cards. If we limp and he checks, we can assume he has the bottom 80% (or so) of hands, because he is most likely to raise our limp if he has good cards. Now all of a sudden we're in a pot with amazing cards, vs bad cards, in position, with better skills, with a shallow stack-to-pot ratio, where we're likely to be able to double up through this player if he flops a pair. We simply eliminate this opportunity when we shove, without really adding a benefit for ourselves.
Hand2: ATo UTG2 7.5bb. This situation is totally different. Limping would be weird here, no one ever does it, amateur or pro alike. Our stack is short enough that basic math says it's a no-brainer that shoving is better than folding, so we must shove. The decision is easy, and since we have 7.5bb instead of 15, our options are much more limited. Plus we have worse position in this hand than in the KK hand. It is a fact that I can make money shoving ATo here, the fact that I got called, or what hand I got called by in this one instance, really means absolutely nothing in the bigger picture of our decision making process and trying to make the best ones we can. I know that is a tough concept to grasp, because it seems to contradict the obvious. Of course we care about what hand calls us! We're deep in the Million. But really, in terms of the bigger picture, what happens after we make our decisions means nothing, because we have no control over that. So even if something bad happens, we can't fix it. When I'm playing a lot of tables, I'll make an allin bet somewhere and usually turn my focus to another table while the board is being dealt out. I don't even watch because it really doesn't matter. What matters is focusing on another hand where I still have decisions to make, and making the best ones I can. After I've done that, I'll go back to the allin table, look at how many big blinds I have (if any), my position, and my cards, and try to make another good decision.
Hand3: KJo 3b HJ vs LJ. Great question. How often do I think he's folding, and what do I need for this to be +EV? Let's do the math! Before we do, let's consider the info I have on this player. I had him with extremely loose stats, as well as an actual written note that said "raise/folds often with less than 20bb". Not to mention, it's deep in the Sunday Million, which is a situation I would expect him to be opening more than usual, trying to take advantage of players, mostly amateurs, who want to move further up the payout scale. Without doing the math, I can confidently say that I know this play shows a profit, and quite frankly, I expect it to be a large one. Let's see: (actually I'm going to put this in a post below since it will take up so much space)
Reading back through your post one final time, I see that you're making the argument that since we shove AT, we should shove KK. You're talking about being balanced in these spots. I argue that in a massive field tournament with amateur players that you will likely never see again, that balancing doesn't matter. Also, in those two hands, I believe I was at different tables for each of those hands, so no one there saw me limp KK, which means they would probably still assume I'd be shoving with that hand too.
PokerStars Hand #91939536158: Tournament #701020010, $200+$15 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXIV (6000/12000) - 2013/01/06 18:21:44 PT [2013/01/06 21:21:44 ET]
Table '701020010 497' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: DT_Jesus (145376 in chips)
Seat 2: funny007 (127288 in chips)
Seat 3: de bluffer (195518 in chips)
Seat 4: tomba26 (118582 in chips)
Seat 5: kpoidoki068 (581063 in chips)
Seat 6: guinor (217891 in chips)
Seat 7: PureCash25 (407328 in chips)
Seat 8: Ballertimes (694940 in chips)
Seat 9: Mex717 (347515 in chips)
DT_Jesus: posts the ante 1200
funny007: posts the ante 1200
de bluffer: posts the ante 1200
tomba26: posts the ante 1200
kpoidoki068: posts the ante 1200
guinor: posts the ante 1200
PureCash25: posts the ante 1200
Ballertimes: posts the ante 1200
Mex717: posts the ante 1200
funny007: posts small blind 6000
de bluffer: posts big blind 12000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PureCash25 [Jd Kc]
tomba26: folds
kpoidoki068: folds
guinor: raises 13250 to 25250
PureCash25: raises 24800 to 50050
Ballertimes: raises 48705 to 98755
Mex717: folds
DT_Jesus: folds
funny007: folds
de bluffer: folds
guinor: folds
PureCash25: calls 48705
*** FLOP *** [Td Ks 7c]
PureCash25: checks
Ballertimes: bets 91555
PureCash25: calls 91555
*** TURN *** [Td Ks 7c] [6d]
PureCash25: checks
Ballertimes: bets 240000
PureCash25: calls 215818 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (24182) returned to Ballertimes
*** RIVER *** [Td Ks 7c 6d] [3s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PureCash25: shows [Jd Kc] (a pair of Kings)
Ballertimes: shows [Ac Qd] (high card Ace)
PureCash25 collected 866306 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 866306 | Rake 0
Board [Td Ks 7c 6d 3s]
Seat 1: DT_Jesus (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: funny007 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: de bluffer (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: tomba26 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: kpoidoki068 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: guinor folded before Flop
Seat 7: PureCash25 showed [Jd Kc] and won (866306) with a pair of Kings
Seat 8: Ballertimes showed [Ac Qd] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 9: Mex717 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Scenario 1:
There is 28,800 in the middle preflop, and the initial raiser, guinor, makes it 25,250 to go. My 239 hand sample on this villain up to the moment of this pot had him raising preflop 33% of the time he had a chance to to. This doesn't mean he opens exactly the top 33% of hands every time he has them and sees a chance to, be it on the button or UTG. It's a basic framework from which we can identify that he's opening a lot of hands, and aggressive. My note confirms this is regardless of his stack size. Let's use that 33% number though, because it looks very reasonable for what I would estimate on my own. Using HoldemViewer, a free downloadable program which is very similar to the original PokerStove, I see that 33.3% of hands is Ax+, 22+, 98s+, J9o+, T8s+, and K7s+. That's wide for sure, but I could definitely see this player raising any of those hands in this spot.
KJo has 47.54% equity vs this range. But it's not that simple. Because when we 3b, he's not going to shove this entire range. Let's breakdown what he would do with what hands. Which would he fold, call, and shove with? Let's make this worst case scenario for me. Actually yeah, for this first scenario, let's say he will shove on us with every hand that he opens with. This will make my my 3b as least profitable as possible, because we never get folds preflop and easy, big profit right then and there. From there we can estimate more reasonable ranges, and see how the math plays out across many different scenarios. Bear with me, this will be a lot to process, but it should give you a great resource to approach future hands. You can copy this math process and do the math on your own hands that you play. Soon you'll have solid estimations for various spots already in your head, so you won't need to run the math on every single hand. Also I'm sure there are programs out there that will do this for you these days, but I think it's helpful to know how to actually do it, as well as to struggle through it a few times on your own, longhand, to let it really sink in.
Let's say he's shoving every hand he opens. I just want to see what the boundary for loosest possible response would be (shoving every time). This should be the response that reduces my EV in the hand the most, but I still expect to show positive EV on the play.
Shoving whole range, 33.3% of hands:
KJo is 47.54% vs this range, so the probability that we win if we get allin preflop vs this range is (PW) is .475. Conversely, the probability that we lose (PL) is .525.
In this scenario, my 3b is essentially putting him allin, since he never does anything else besides go allin. So I'm risking the amount of chips in his stack to start the hand, 216,691, to win the blinds and antes 28,800, plus his initial raise, 25,250. That = 54,050.
So when I win this pot, I win that 54,050 that's already in the middle, plus the remainder of his stack which is 191,441. That = 245,491 chips won (CW)
When I lose, I lose the amount that's in his initial stack, that I'm risking to call his allin. That amount is 216,691 chips lost (CL)
So my two scenarios here are when I win this allin showdown, and when I lose this allin showdown.
PW (.475) X CW (245,491) = 116,608 CW
PL (.525 X CL (-216,691) = -113762 CL
Finally, 116,608 - 113762 = + 2,846 chips
What does all of this math mean? Okay so we see from the above work that we make 2,846 chips. Let's put that back into the context of this hand. The big blind is 12,000 chips. So we make 1/4 of a big blind by making this play. I think it's safe to call this play break-even! But remember, this scenario was the worst possible, giving him the loosest possible 4b shove range - his entire opening range, which we estimated to be 33.3% of hands. I had said I expected to still show a profit here, and I suppose that was right, by the slimmest of margins. Now let's look at a more reasonable scenario and range for him, and see if we can't make some clear profit.
Scenario 2:
Now let's say he shoves on us with the top 10% of hands, which is about the top 1/3 of the hands he's raising preflop in the first place, and folding the rest. For the sake of the example, we'll see that he is never flat calling any hands. Which is probably mostly true to begin with, but there must be the occasional time or hand that he will flat here. This top 10% of hands range is 55+, AJo+, KJs+, ATs+, and KQo. Our equity vs that range with KJo is down a lot, to 33.7%.
So our PW when we get all in vs this range of his is .337. Our PL is .643.
There is an added element to this equation compared with the first one above. Now we have a percentage of the time when we win right then and there preflop, since he's not going allin with every hand that he's raising with in the first place.
That can be shown like this: Since he's shoving the top 10% of hands total, and he's opening 33.3% of hands overall, he's folding to our 3b about 2/3 of the time. Exactly, it's: 10.0/33.3 - .300. Nice, this number came out round and easy to use. He's shoving on his 30% of the time, and folding 70%.
Win preflop (WPF) = .70. .70 X 54,050 chips won preflop (CWPF) [This is the money that's in the middle preflop, and his initial raise] .7 X 54,050 = +37,835 CWPF. We'll keep this number in mind for our final equation.
Now back to the stuff we did in the first scenario. We've accounted for what happens in this hand 70% of the time, that is he folds to our 3b and we win preflop. Of the remaining 30%, we need to figure out how often we win and lose, and how much we win and lose. We already found those numbers above: PW = .337 PL =.643. To use them, we first need to break down this 30% chunk into two pieces, one for when we win, and one for when we lose. We do this multiplying the times it happens (30%, or .30) by our equity for each scenario.
.3 X .337 = .10
.3 X .643 = .19
.10 X (245,491) CW = 24,549
.19 X (-216,691) CL = -41,171
Of the times when we 3b and call his 4b shove, we lose -41,171 + 24,549 = -16,622 chips lost
Now we need to combine that with the times we win preflop to see the complete, overall picture. -16,622 chips lost when we 3b/call + 37,835 chips won preflop when we 3b and he folds = 21,213
Now let's get out of mathland and think back to the hand to find out what this actually means. The bb is 12,000 so we're making nearly 2bb by making this play, under these conditions.
Scenario 3:
Okay now let's see the other boundary, the ultra, impossibly tight side. Let's say he folds every time except when he has JJ+ and AKo+ This is the top 3% of hands. KJo has a miserable 22.6% equity vs this range.
PW = .226 PL = .774 Villain is opening 33.3 % of hands, but only 4-betting allin vs our 3-bet with 3.0% of hands. 3/33.3 = .09. So 9% of the time he is 4-betting, and 91% of the time we are winning preflop.
.91 X 54,050 = 49,185
.09 X .226 = .02
.09 X .774 = .07
.02 X (245,491) CW = 4,910
.07 X (-216,691) CL = -15,168
-15,168 + 4,910 + 49,185 = +38,927
As his range for 4-betting tightens, we pick up so much more money preflop when he folds to our three-bet. Under these conditions our play here shows a profit of over 4bb. That's pretty good. I think it's also cool to note, that he can't play a range that makes our play unprofitable. If he's opening 33% of hands like we estimate, if he 4-bets allin with all of his hands, none of his hands, or anywhere in between, we still make at least a little bit of money. He would have to have a tighter opening range to begin with for us to have to rethink our strategy here in this spot. I hope you see how this play is very useful against players who are opening too many pots.
This is a ton of stuff man, let me know if you have any questions.
U are showing how that 3 betting is profitable if he shoves his entire 33 prcent opening range, and if his 4 bet allin range is lower you profit in chips by him folding certain percentages of time depending how much he narrows his 4 bet range making you most profit if 4 bet allin range is supernarrow 3 percent
When u opt to 3 bet call allin, how do you knw what is his 4 bet range actually
We know his opening range, but not his 4 bet allin range? Player opening loosely doesnt mean that will 4 bet allin loosely
In case he goes allin, how do you know how to deal with it because you cant do correct math for 4 bet allin if you dont know that exact 4 bet is 33 percent all of his open or its 3 percent at THAT moment
Or you just follow math of hand, and if you run in exact moment player is 4 betting 3 percent only and you run into that spot in exact time he had that 3 percent and allined and you dont care and just move along cause it was correct play at given spot?
In few spots I would have played diffrentlly so I want to ask u what u think about that.
At 12:50 u defend with A9o. I think in this spot 3bet is better cos A9o plays poorly oop and its great hand to 3bet cos of CRE. I'd rather defend hands like 78s or TJo which plays better imo.
at 15:50 KJo u says that ur 3bet/calling. What u think about bigger sizing? If u are gonna call him anyway, I dont think u want to induce with KJo, + u have some more folding equity with bigger sizing. I would do same sizing as u if I were 3bet/folding or if I had some hands that I want to induce a shove from him.
Later in this hand u call a 4bet and I cant see it beeing profitable. I like your reads based on timing, but even when u discount nuts from his range, his range still beats u and he has almost no bluffs due to
Guinor stack. So u gonna play oop, most of the time not hitting any pair nor draw, with very low SPR so ur skill advantege doesnt really metter too much . Why u think u have to call there PF?
Thx in advance I hope my poor english isn't problem.
What is CRE? Card removal equity? I agree with you, I'd rather defend with JT or 78 as well, I think they play better and give you more options postflop. However, I think A9o does not get enough credit for being a good hand. It is underrated. I do not think it was always this way, but I think recent changes in MTTs have made a hand like A9o in the bb a good situation, when it used to be a bad situation. What I mean is, that now most players are min-raising. They used to be raising 3x, then 2.5x, then 2.25x. As the raise has gotten smaller, the odds for the BB have gotten better. Also, players are opening with so many more hands these days. Even from UTG, as in this hand. So, now I have 4:1 odds, and a hand that is just about even (maybe even ahead) of the range of hands this player, and most players, are opening. I feel very confident that I can make money with this hand in this spot because of those factors. I should also note, that a tougher player, who would double and triple barrel bluff me a lot, hands like A9o again become must less valuable, because your opponent will be so aggressive that you will have to fold your hand on the turn and river a lot of the time. I don't like three-betting A9o here, because it will get called more often than I would like, and now I'm out of position in a 3b pot with a hand that is dominated a lot, and doesn't flop well, vs a range and an opponent I don't have a great feel for. Plus by three betting, I lose the benefit of having 4:1 odds to call preflop, and that is a good thing for us that I want to keep. Also, I think it's just less variance to flat call instead of 3b.
Well, I am trying to trick him with my sizing. I want him to think that I have a big hand, and I think a smaller raise will do that. It will make my hand look like it doesn't mind if he calls, or is hoping that he shoves. But really the biggest reason is that I don't think I need to make it any bigger. This player has 18bb, so it will be very difficult for him to call here, because he doesn't have very much behind. The smaller I make my 3b, the better price I get on taking down the pot, and the worse price he gets on a 4b shove. It's not a huge deal either way, but I think the smaller I make it (to a point) the better the math works out for me. I also expect him to respond very similarly to my 3b if I make it anywhere from 48-60k, so I think why not make it as small as I can if it gets the job done the same. In general, I want to keep my sizing the same with all my hands so no one notices that I make my bets smaller with AA and bigger with my bluffs. Of course this player would never have time to notice that in this tournament, since we probably won't be playing with each other for very long. I did a bunch of math on the 3-betting for this hand in a post above your post, so look at that and see what you think. As you read it, keep in mind too that we can make the math work out a little bit better for us by making our 3b smaller, assuming that he plays his range the same versus us, which I think is a safe assumption.
Yeah this hand I'm not so sure about. The things you say are very good points, my hand is still behind his range, low SPR, and OOP. After watching that hand again, I will take back what I said that I feel like I have to call. I don't have to, and I no longer feel that I have to. Let's look at some quick numbers to try to figure out what's best here. I ran my equity vs the range I estimated for him TT-QQ, AKo, AQo, AKs, AQs, and KQs. This range could definitely be very different, but that was my feeling based on timing information and card removal. KJo has 32.45% equity vs this range. Not great, but I was getting 4.1:1 odds, so in that sense it was profitable. Plus I feel like I can make a great decision by the turn, for cheap. He will cbet the flop small. If I have no equity, I can easily fold. If I hit something, I can choose between check calling and check raising. If I check call, I can see what he does on the turn. After seeing him bet the flop and act on the turn, I feel like I can be pretty confident in making a good decision at that point. I know this sounds a little bit messy and sloppy and not very fundamentally good, and I am not saying that this is 100% right. I think this is a close situation, and I cannot fault a player for going either direction with this decision.
Man, I read your post one last time. I really like your point about being OOP and most of the time not flopping anything. I think you may have convinced me that folding preflop is better than calling. I still am really in the middle on this, and would love some more opinions. Thanks for sharing yours with me! Cheers.
I like your line of calling down. You never get called by worse by raising and you fold out his air.
Good video, btw. You explain stuff as you do them which is great and give reasons.
The AQo hand was a bit questionable, because the guy wasn't that short yet and I don't think he would make a move ever from the blind against an UTG OR for his tournament life with 99, KJ or A10. It made me think as well about AQo and how I should play it, because when I get dealt AQ in the later stage of a tournament 9 times out of 10 this means the end of my tourney. The one time the other guy had less chips then me :-) This is off course a bit of an exaggeration. But only last night in three tourneys I got AI with AQ against AK. I am not saying the poker sites are rigged, but it happens so often that when I have AQ somebody else has a bigger hand. So maybe I am going to be a bit more careful with AQ when I am 25bb and up in the end stage of a tourney, like 3B folding or just calling.
As for playing vulnerable hands, and playing vs 3b. I think you make an awesome observation that most players at the lower to mistakes level only will play back at your 3b with strong hands. So for you this is usually going to be a very easy adjustment, just fold after you get 4b by these types! Of course there will be some players who will be thinking at a high level and very aggressive, versus these players you want to have some weapons ready to use against them. Things like calling when they open a lot and you're getting good odds, and calling their 4bs and being prepared to make plays on a lot of boards postflop, are great tools to have in place and ready to use.
The AQ hand was pretty questionable. I just felt that that particular villain was aggressive enough, and perceived me as being aggressive enough, that I could make money by calling there. Like I said in the video, I also thought he might 3b his JJ-KK hands smaller. What do you think about that? Do you see it that way, or see him shoving all of his hands here? I was obviously wrong about that assumption, as he had KK, but I felt pretty good about it at the time. My biggest problem with this hand is that even if I'm making money here, it's not going to be very much I don't think, so I might be better off folding and saving those 20bbs for a better situation down the road. AQ in general is a bit tricky, because more often than not you're in a race. Of course you could be dominated by AK, but let's face it, if that happens for <25bb, that's just bad luck! Smile and move on to the next tournament.
I think the KK limp is totally fine in a field like the Milly. I'm sure you'd play it differently in different fields.
I'm not sold on this AQo play either, even if he does have AJ and KQ. What do you think this player is doing with 99, KQo, and AJs here? I felt he was shoving all of those, and felt pretty confident in it. My read was that he was a good young pro, because I'd seen him do some tricky things both pre and postlop that I thought were good and just random aggression. I also expected him to assume I was opening a ton UTG there with 30+ bb, as he likely also knew I was a pro by this point.
Most the time I will attack these weak donks at some point in the hand. I used to to just raise the flop and try to take it down but after more thought I felt calling flops and bluff raising turns is definitely better.
Their range is rarely strong, sometimes we will see a weak top pair hand but in comparison to 2nd/3rd pairs and pure bluffs it is a very small part of the range.
Peeling flop and raising turn I feel will look stronger to a weaker player and also gets more value from their weak hands/bluffs that they will be folding more often than not to make it the best play.
In this hand you obv hit your pair so calling turn is better but I would definitely have raised the turn had we not hit a pair.
The river I feel can definitely be a raise, doesn't have to be big. With no more cards to come people will call in the river spot more often than the turn spot with their 2nd/3rd pair type hands as they dont have to worry about another bet on the river so I do think you will get called by worse.
15:50 - You mention the 3bet/calling with KJo. If I did 3bet in this spot it would often be 3bet/fold, however you bringing up your reasons for 3bet/calling made me look into a few examples and do the maths on expected stacks after the play. I still have more work to do on it but in examples and ranges I have constructed so far, 3bet/folding will show a greater + chip EV, but as I say still playing around with it.
This is a spot where I think the HUD can be really good to help you construct a better figure on their opening ranges by positions and fold to 3bet so we can more accurately assign opening ranges/fold to 3bet/4bet ranges and 3bet/calling ranges for us.
I love your thoughts on this KJ hand vs a BB min lead. I just used to auto raise that lead, knowing that it was with a weak range. It worked a lot, but the times I ran into the random Qx or other pair that wasn't looking to fold, I would just blow up stacks in some hopeless bluff attempt. Now I'm taking a more measured approach in those spots, and calling with good odds, and as you say, plenty of opportunity to raise the turn or river once I've gathered more info on his turn action and the card that falls. And cool, it's good to see that you see a raise on the river too. I felt pretty confident in raising that spot as I was making the video and looking back on the hand.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, and let me know if you get a chance to grade my math homework!
While maths at school was my best subject I have only recently started to implement it more into poker so my calculations may not be 100% either but I have given it a good shot.
You were slightly off but only due to an input error, calculations were correct, you had PW=.337 and PL=.643, which = 0.98, therefore PL=.663.
Anyway, the workings I got showed a +Chip EV of 19505.89 when we 3bet/call
and a +Chip EV of 22788.74 when we 3bet/fold, given the information and assumptions on the villain.
I would post the workings etc on here but I did it all in Excel so can't really. I guess you will have to take my word for it or anyway I can send you the doc if you want to have a look and play around with it?
Richard, you are the man. Thank you very much. The math you provided for us and what it revealed is so important. Most of all I want to thank you for helping your fellow members out by providing detailed and informative answers to their questions. I can tell it was a several hour investment at the minimum and let me tell, it's much appreciated. I would love to look over your math. Email it to me at nick@runitonce.com if you fancy. Finally, thank you for going over my math and critiquing it. I was really happy to learn that it was correct apart from input errors. Working out that problem went a long ways toward getting the process and concepts in my brain.
Aleksandra, thank you for asking such great questions. The question you asked just brought a ton of info from your fellow members out into this thread, and we're all going to benefit. I noticed that you got an award for being one of the top contributors on the site last month, I've definitely found that to be true with my videos and forum posts, and it's certainly well deserved. Congratulations and keep up the good work! Now to your quesion...
Richard and Boller did a great job spotting me on this one, and oboltys made a keen point as well. There's not a ton I can add to Richard's initial answer, which was extremely detailed and complete. I think he's exactly right, and he has the math to prove it. In fact, the math he did taught me something very important. I had just assumed all along that KJo would have enough equity (with the money already in the pot) to optimally 3b/ call vs the 4b range I assigned him, the top 10% of hands. I was surprised to learn that it's more profitable to 3b / fold in that spot. I think this is a crucial point, because this is a spot that comes up very often in MTTs these days.
As Richard pointed out, it's a very fine line, and the formula has a ton of moving parts. In the current example, Richard showed us that if he held KQo instead of KJo, we would make slightly more money by 3b /calling as opposed to 3b / folding, instead of slightly losing more money 3b / calling. Such a small difference! I have a few thoughts about this. My first thought is that it isn't critical that we are barely on the right side of that line. I mean if we're +1 chip as opposed to - 1 chip, is it really that big of a deal? We're talking fractions of one big blind here. I think it's important to keep that perspective. It's not a situation where if we're .01% right we win the lottery, and if we're .01% wrong we get sent to a penal colony on the moon. That's why you see world class players like Ivey and others who don't push/ fold correctly. It's possible to get to the top of the game without knowing all of the precise math in every spot, but it's impossible to get to the top of the game without having a deeper understanding for the concepts behind it and the psychology involved. Remember that as you choose how to spend your time studying the game. Math is important, but it's one piece of the bigger pie.
However, we're in the business of being the best we can be. Let's nail this math too. What things could change this above situation? As we saw, changing our hand slightly could change the outcome from not the best option to the best option. What about my bet size? What if I made me 3b 5k smaller? What if I made it bigger? The size of my bet will affect the price I get when he 4bs all in. What about his actual range? Well, yes of course, this makes all the difference. We'll never know his actually range, his true range. We never know our opponents true range in poker. We have to do our best to estimate it. This gets into your question Aleksandra, "when you opt to 3b / call allin, how do you know what his 4b range is actually?" Quite simply, I don't know, but that's my best guess. That's also why I worked out the math under several different sets of conditions, so you can see how our profit changes as the variables change. You'll never know exactly in the moment, but you can get pretty damn close by working out the math in hands like this one after your sessions. Before long you'll a really good feel for it, and you'll always be very close in your estimations.
I hope that helps Aleksandra, let me know if I can help any further or clarify anything. Try to take a step back with those hole math thing and think of it in very general terms. Like "Okay if he's raising a lot, he will be folding a lot to my 3b, so 3b shows profit" Therefore.. "As his preflop range tightens, my 3b makes less and less money" Until ... "Okay, this guys' range has tightened so much he's only opening with AA! Now my 3b doesn't make a profit at all". That sort of thing!
Obottys makes a great point that none of the math done here accounts for someone 4bing behind, which is in fact what happened! I imagine doing the actual exact math with the players behind is possible, but very tedious. I think it's okay to just estimate that whatever profit your math shows, it's actually going to be a little less because of this very point.
Actually, as I was reading your comment that got me thinking. What other things didn't we consider here? One of them is variance. It looks like if I choose to 3b and call the openers 4b shove, then I would make a little bit less profit than if I folded to his shove. Overall, I'm still making a decent profit. But another thing we must consider here, is the extra variance 3b calling invites into our tournament here. The variance in his actual hand alone is crazy. He could have AKss, KJss, or 55. Our equity vs those hands is so drastically different. By choosing to call his shove, we subject ourselves to that variance. The big thing is we put our entire chip stack at risk, and as we just pointed out, our equity could be anywhere from 50% vs 55, to 25% vs AK. Of course the math accounts for all of these individual scenarios and combines them into one whole number. But, we must consider how profitably we need a play to be before we decide we're willing to take on the adding variance to accept the profit. This is something I have no idea how to do math wise, and is also just difficult to estimate in your head or assign a number to at all. It's tough to quantify. Yet it's a thought worth thinking and worth analyzing.
Final thoughts guys. I want to highlight a paragraph from Richard's post that I think you guys should all take to heart:
"You don't know what exactly his 4bet range will be, we are making assumptions. When making calculations to see what play is most profitable I will often give slightly wider or tighter ranges than what is likely, just so I know the play is going to be very profitable. For example, when looking to make a steal against a few tighter players in late position with reshove stacks, rather than give them a tight restealing range (most likely), I will add a few marginal hands that way increasing their range, if the play shows a profit against that range, then we can be pretty certain it is even more profitable against their more likely tighter range (hope that makes sense)."
I really like his approach here, and I do the same thing myself. Thanks again Richard, for all the hard work! Shoot me those Excel sheets if you like. I look forward to working with you, and you all in the future!
With the KJo hand regarding the 4bet jamming range, basically we assign villain a range for what we think he will likely 4bet jam against us. In this example Nick expected he would rejam the top 10% of hands in this spot. These hands are 55+, AJo+,ATs+, KQo, KJs+. His preflop opening range is around 33% of hands. To work out how many times we expect him to 4bet on us you do : 4bet Range divided by opening range, in this example : 10/33 = 30.3% which implies he will be folding 69.7% of the time (1-30.3%)
The question when deciding whether to call the 4bet or not is how our hand equity does against his range.
KJo has 33.69% equity against the 4bet range we assigned villain. So we will win the all in pot on average 33.69% and lose the rest of the time.
For calling to be a better option than folding, the call needs to show a profit or in this case a smaller loss than folding.
I'll try explain that a bit better. Ok, so when we fold we lose the 50,050 chips we used to 3bet. Us calling the 4bet all in must show a smaller loss ( loss >-50,050 chips) to be a better play.
In this example (you will have to take my word for it) calling with KJo shows a chip deficit of -60981, which means on average calling will lose 61k, which is a bigger loss than if you were to just 3bet to 50,050 and fold.
What we can deduct from this is that the tighter someone will 4bet from their opening range, then the tighter we must call for 3bet/calling to be better than 3bet/folding.
If we change our hand to KQo then our equity against that range actually increases, even tho it is only by 3% it actually makes 3bet/calling more profitable than 3bet/folding.
I have worked out other scenarios in this hand, playing around with your hand, their opening range, their 4bet jamming range and looking to see how this effects what our best play is.
Obviously this sort of thing cannot be calculated at the tables unless you are Einstein, so playing around with scenarios and the numbers off the table will help with the decision making process while in game. I have only recently started doing this and found it really helpful.
I don't even know if this has helped to answer the questions you put on the post for Nick but thought I would give it a go.
I have an excel doc that I think would be helpful, can always email to you or something to try and help out if you wish?
We need to invest 166.641 in a pot which will be 462.182.
Hence we need 36%+ equity (166.641/462.182=0.36) to call a shove profitably, right?
Assuming a 10% 4bet range, which is fairly wide given positions and lack of history, KJo still only has 35%, so it's a 3-bet fold IMO.
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 35.252% 33.73% 01.52% 65840222 2972060.50 { KsJd }
Hand 1: 64.748% 63.23% 01.52% 123418313 2972060.50 { 77+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo }
please correct me, if I'm wrong.
Please would really appreciate your excell sheet math for that hand because im looking for proper way to do it myself
If got time please send to sanabozi@eunet.rs
And thank you for great answer , very helpful specially the part Nick pointed out as well, assigning lil tighter and lil wider ranges and see difference in profits will for sure make out play much more profitable in longrun and privide us with so much wanted edge in the game
Thank you both very much for as detailed analysis, stil rereading it
Obviously in these calculations I don't have all these factors included, but I think when a play is showing this much +Chip EV (1.5-2BB) then I would factor it in slightly making it not quite as +Chip EV but certainly still a good play.
I think if we were to calculate a situation and it only show a slight profit, then we can factor in the times people do cold 4bet or wake up with a hand and then the play is probably BE or small loser.
Sorry if this was already addressed. At 38ish minutes in you have AQo in the BB, you had just been talking about how it is the Sunday Million and how you had a stack and could stand to wait for better spots. I cannot say I would fold there but in that spot, my thought process is even if I am ahead, I am leaving a huge part of my tournament up to variance. My goal with my game is to maximize my value outside of showdown. You had been talking about stack sizes and table shuffles and stuff like that, which leads me to believe that you were not calling with the idea in the back of your head to show a looser table image in the blinds.
The thing I notice a lot of time later in tourney's in the AK spew. Not many people enjoy to play it post flop, I would have put him on that probably a good % of the time. I still feel even if he spew jammed j10 off you are letting variance decide your tourney life.
Let me know if that mindset is too nitty, cause when I have a huge stack late in a tourney the last thing I try to do is play all in pre-flop pots without top 5% of holdings.
You're other point is really cool too. I'm definitely not factoring in communicating an image into my decsions here. I mean, I recognize that hands I showdown will affect my image. That's fine, if a shit hand goes to showdown, I'll play off my image from there. But I'm not calling a shove with AQ here thinking: "Okay buddy, I'm calling you pretty light in this spot with AQ, all you at the table take notice not to shove on me light because I won't be pushed around". I'm not factoring that into my decision whatsoever. It's purely based on if I can make a profit, and enough of it, with my hand vs his range, given my odds.
Your on the total right track with your mindset ,man, I'm impressed. The example you threw out there is AKo vs JTo. I just pulled an odds calculator up, and that match-up is 63-37. So basically you're asking is if it's worth putting my tournament on the line with a 63% chance to win. Note, this is making it as general as possible, and much more general than it actually would be when carefully considering every detail, like stack size, structure, prizes, opponent skill, etc. But basically you have to look at all of those factors I just listed, and ask yourself if you're comfortable and you think it's worth it, to put your tournament on the line. On hand one of the WSOP main event, nope not taking it. At the final table of the 200 rebuy, yes please.
You specially mentioned later in the tourney. In a lot of late game tourney spots, I think yes, it is worth it for this 63% favorite spot. Especially if you're shoving on someone and there's still a chance they fold. I think the reason why most people don't play AKo post-flop later in tournies is because they think (and I usually agree) that it has more value preflop. That is, they can make more money by re-raising preflop.
I love the way you're thinking, and I think it's correct. You just need more experience being in these spots and seeing what hand is worth what in what situation.
I do however, really dislike the hand where you 3bet KJo and then call the cold 4bet OOP. I think 3betting KJo in that spot is absolutely fine and I'm not disputing that at all. I just have issues with calling the 4bet. I have two concerns:
1. In your analysis, you explained his preflop range as being mostly TT-QQ and AK, which I agree with as the stack sizes at the table dictate that he can't really 4bet light here considering he'll be getting odds to call off vs the original raiser or any of the other stacks behind after he makes it 98k. However, during your postflop analysis you eliminate hands like TT (which I also agree with) based on his betsizing, which leaves AK and JJ-QQ. We have the K blocker so calling the flop bet is probably fine. On the turn however, your analysis suddenly includes hands like AJ/AQ and 'diamonds' or 'other bluffs', which weren't in his range to start with when you discussed it preflop, and it also seems increasingly unlikely he would bet that sizing with JJ/QQ considering how we basically only call with better and fold out a lot of worse, as you pointed out. It seems therefore, that on the turn you polarised (sorry, I'm British, we like our 's' instead of 'z') his range to basically [AK, bluffs] when you had already eliminated bluffs from his range earlier in the hand, and then you called anyway, lol. Based on this logic it would appear the turn is a clear fold - obviously if we did think there are bluffs in his range then the turn is more of a call, and as it turned out there were bluffs in his range, but I just thought that your analysis of each street was a little inconsistent is all. Which leads me to my second point:
2. I don't know if we can justify calling preflop with his cold 4bet being the size that it is. We're getting 4:1 obviously which helps, and means we only need to win the pot 20% of the time or so in order to make it profitable, but I'm not convinced that we win enough given the reverse implied odds in play.
When you consider that on average, an unpaired hand like KJo is going to miss the flop 70% of the time or so, that means we can assume we lose the pot in pretty much all those instances. In order to make up for all these instances and win the pot 20% of the time overall, therefore, that means we have to win 66% of the 30% of total pots in which we do hit the flop.
To keep it fairly simple, I'm just not sure we do win the pot 66% of the time when we hit the flop. When the flop comes AKx or AJx, or QJx, or QJT, it's going to be difficult. When the flop comes K high or J high, we either win a small pot vs a 2nd pair hand or a missed AK that he can easily pot control with, or we lose a big pot vs AK or QQ. Our reverse implied odds might not seem to be that great considering the SPR is pretty low, but in actual fact I think they're pretty big, simply because of how hard it is for us to have the best hand when stacks go in, and how hard it is for us to fold when we do hit the flop.
I think the way the hand played out in reality is pretty much the only scenario that leads to us doubling up, and considering our analysis of the hand preflop (which again, I agree with) dictates that his range might not even include the hand he ended up having, I think it only turns out that way a really small percentage of the time. I'm not trying to accuse you of being results-oriented or anything, I just think that given the range we put him on preflop, we're not deep enough to consider playing the hand postflop out of position because we get stacked so often.
Having said that, I'd like the play a lot more if we had KJs, because we'd flop decent a lot more of the time and have the option to c/jam some flops and maybe get him to fold more often, and we'd have a much greater chance of actually doubling up on the occasions where we do make flushes. I would also be pretty much okay with the play if his 4bet was sized to around 78k or 80k, just because that puts more bluffs in his range (he can maybe fold to some shoves at that sizing, not sure without the HH in front of me) and we'd be getting even better odds.
Incidentally (final word, I promise) I think 78k with his whole range would be a way better cold 4bet sizing, and I think it'd be an awesome spot to do it with total air providing I remembered the stack sizes correctly and he could fold to shoves from some guys. 98k just makes it really obvious he's never light, and allows you to play perfectly vs it - which, in this instance, I believe would be folding pre.
Anyway, thanks again for a great video, looking forward to watching part 3!
I'm a little new to this highspeed post thing and getting feedback so please don't flame me for thinking outside the box here. I always use to watch these videos have no CLUE what the post are talking about. I took the time to look into not deviating from playing "good" poker. I had to pause the video to see if anybody commented on the KJo hand where you 3bet gunior and get cold 4bet by villian. I saw that a lot of people were interested in this situation, I like the math that was involved, and I also like how you were open to suggestions. At first I wanted to say or mention something long the lines of Jimmykrk, OOP, ranges crushed ie... what do u do OOP KJo when u brick the flop with 1psb. You can agree to disagree with ol Jim but what about a 5bet jam here!? cuz not to toot my horn but i smelt AJ-"AQ" 99-JJ here. If he HAD a premium hand AA-KK he woulda flatted the 3bet, If u jam don't that condense his 5bet calling range? He'd have a tough decision to make, being a vpip of 15, and u can 100% discount AA-KK with ur "timing tell". I guess if u disprove this with math u disprove good poker? jk jk.. gg army don't teach grammer sorry lol, or mayb the new trend isn't to jam here~ but hey i'd try it. It did look pretty cool playing flop turn and river as posed to blastin ur stack like baccarat, BANKER! I know i missed minor details here and there but whose got time for all that EV math stuff when I got the members of RUN IT ONCE!
Hello there soldier! Thanks for your service, and for watching this video. I like a lot of the thoughts you have, but I don't know if the exact conclusions you came to are correct. I stand by the timing tell reducing the instances he has AA or KK. I think that some amount of the time he at least takes a few moments before making that 4b. So you're right in the sense that his 5b / call a shove range isn't as strong as one would like for that situation. I suppose I just feel that if he is 4 betting a hand like AQ, he is going to call a shove with it. This is certainly debatable, but I think he's certain to call a shove with AK QQ and JJ. Whereas I'm not sure if he even 4bs AJ or 99 in this spot to begin with. In short, I think he's calling a 5b shove more often that you think, even though he doesn't have as much AA or KK as you would normally think because of the timing tell. Thanks for leaving this comment, and I hope this response helps you. Let me know if you have any more questions.
Your videos are extremely informative. Keep up the good work. I use Pokertracker but I'm not totally confident with my set up or how to best utilize it. Do you think you could make a video discussing you usage of HUD's and other poker tools? Thanks.
Hey szakhiem. Thank you for not one, but two compliments. I'm glad you're getting something out of my videos. To be quite frank, I'm very behind the curve on using HUD data. I have no familiarity with PT, though I imagine my HEM experience will translate close to entirely. I don't know that I'll make an entire video dedicated to HUDs, especially since I'm more qualified to teach almost any other aspect of poker. However, I did a quick search on the site here and found a thread about PT4 HUDs. It contains more links that you should find useful. And as with almost any question, I imagine more information can be found on the twoplustwo forums as well. Belows the HUD thread link are links to other poker tools. You can expect to see me demonstrate those in upcoming videos, but in the meantime I would encourage you to play around with them. Many of these programs and tools cost money, but there is so many good resources and tools that are free. Spend a little time looking for them and the time spent will pay off.
http://www.runitonce.com/nlhe/pokertracker-instructional-videos/
http://propokertools.com/odds_oracle
http://www.holdemresources.net/h/poker-theory/hune.html
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/poker-tools/equilab-holdem/
Above is free with a simple email registration and is a great tool.
Hey Nick,
i have one question. I was wondering what would you do at the hand at 40. min with AQ you called all in and thats fine with me but what would you do if player on the BB moved all in too?
Whats your play then?
5:40 TT in the bb, utg raises from 25bb stack with 4 shoving stacks on the table, i think his range is pretty thight here so i pref flatting because of this. Is that an option too?
13:40 A9o how bad is it to just fold preflop, i hate OOP guessing games. I dont like your riversizing, would you ever bet this size with a J? I like a 1/2 pot or even allittle bigger bet so we fold out 5x, 6x and maybe Tx, dont you think a bigger bet is better too?
17:00 KJo you learning us to 3bet then call a cold 4bet with KJo for 1/4 of our stack? I understand some of your reasoning/tells but if i bust like this in a big tournament i will feel pretty stupid...
34:00 AA on the button. You correctly saying you are never 3betting light here so i think a flat is way better because he will be folding all his non premiums, also when we flat we give the SB and BB a perfect resteal spot.
I seem to disagree alot with the pro, still like your video's tho ;-)
I know this is an old video, but I don't like the KK limp. If other players know you are a reg and haven't seen you limp, they may put you on a trap late in the SM. It may seem results oriented that you lost chips and missed a double up, but the fact that JJ limped behind indicates that he was very concerned you were trapping. At lower stakes or with a different image, limping would be fine. Think minraise is probably best, but if it is likely to be perceived as strong, then I guess push.
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