Daz, thanks for taking the time to leave such a detailed post. Your points and ideas are pretty stimulating, and after being so unsure of this spot, it's nice to hear a view that's firm. 

I really like your reasons for raising rather than limping. Your argument is essentially why make things more complicated than they have to be? Why try to reinvent the wheel? Raise because the MR 1. Gives you a good price to win the pot 2. Is consistent with my previous actions. I'm on board with you here. Also I think calling it needlessly fancy is a fair view.

I'm not as sold on your other reasons, though. However, I do find them interesting and fair points to be made. It's true that I don't have an exact constructed range for limping the button in this circumstance. I don't think I need to though. I feel like I can get close enough to a reasonable range on the fly. I also feel that as informally constructed my range is, it's a bit more difficult for my opponent to range my range here. I think that I'm getting a tiny bit of edge from reciprocity here - that is he will 1. Give me credit for having a more scientifically constructed limping range here and 2. The inherent ambiguity in introducing an unusual play/range for that play favors me. I'm the one who's taking the action, and he's forced to react to the action I've taken. Plus I'm in position, so I've got an advantage almost no matter what option I pick here preflop.

Which brings me to my next thought. You say my limp here is setting me up for a losing spot. I disagree. I don't see how I could lose money by limping a hand with maximum playability in position, with an ambiguous range to guard it. I'm facing the bottom 80% of hands here in the BB, with a lot of free range to barrel that weak/wide range, and the freedom to rep whatever I want postflop since my range is unknown to him. Again, in this brief instance (especially the first instance of this dynamic) I don't have to have a constructed range, and I don't have to have it balanced. To play devil's advocate with myself: It would of course behoove me and increase my EV to have that formally constructed and balanced range(s) for this spot, though I think my "on the fly" construction is very close EV. Could be wrong about the proximity of the EV between both options, it's a weakness in my game understanding the depth of the power of theoretically optimal ranges. Finally, to state that the EV of limping this hand / a range here is less than the EV of raising one's entire range as normal, I think is very fair and could be convinced to agree with you. 

Lastly before getting into the hand specifically, what do you think about my primary reason for limping, which is to ensure that my equity gets to the flop with as little investment as possible? AKA, preventing myself from having to call a 3b. Even this isn't the end of the world, we're still deep enough and my hand has strong playability. 

We disagree on a few of the details on how he might play his range here. I feel pretty strongly that he's likely to opt for a check raise with his 2p hands here because 1. He captures a cbet from my air, 2. He sometimes also captures a peel from the SB, 3. He fears no turn card if it checks through, and 4. He can make the pot bigger more quickly by CRing in the event I also have a hand strong enough to continue. You say you think he's capable of leading his whole continuing range, with the caveat of some of the time. I guess your statement is general enough that it's always going to be true, but I think when you break down his range into specific portions, we can comfortably assume he's taking certain actions with certain portions. In the end, we come to the same conclusion. We think he arrives to the river with a pretty strong range. 

Turn play. I think I have to call the turn. My flop range is so heavy with floats, that he thinks his double barrel is going to get a ton of folds. Once he continues on the river though, I think he's left with the value portion of his range here in pretty heavy fashion. 

The one thing that's still bothering me is that my range looks pretty damn capped. Basically he can have the straights, sets, and small 2p much more often than I can. That combine with his decidedly unusual bet sizing makes me very suspicious. I just can't think of logical combos that he could have to bluff with, but maybe that's my problem. Maybe his bluff combos are just two cards that decided to bluff the flop, and had to bluff the turn, and then had to bluff the river (to win) after that.  

That said, I still like the fold, at least for now, haha. Thank you for the comment! Like I said it's good to hear a firm take on the hand from an outside view. 

BTW, any idea who villain is from that hand? Never seen him before but he's clearly has some decent poker experience.

Hey Jvank, thanks for taking the time to break down this hand. We tend to agree on a lot of these points, which is funny because we end up coming to different conclusions! Haha. To start with, I'll quote a paragraph I made in a post above, that I think sums up your thoughts pretty well:

"The one thing that's still bothering me is that my range looks pretty damn capped. Basically he can have the straights, sets, and small 2p much more often than I can. That combine with his decidedly unusual bet sizing makes me very suspicious. I just can't think of logical combos that he could have to bluff with, but maybe that's my problem. Maybe his bluff combos are just two cards that decided to bluff the flop, and had to bluff the turn, and then had to bluff the river (to win) after that."

I agree that he can lead the flop super wide, and continue very wide on the turn, although dropping out hands from the middle of his range like weak 1p (even TP) that want to pot control. I like your idea on the river that he could be using different sizing with bluffs and with value bets. In the video I state that I think that he thinks that I won't fold my hand here. My hand is somewhat obvious by this point, as 9x. I thought given his unusual line, and potentially super wide range, that he doesn't think I'll fold this hand - it's just too likely he's bluffing. Therefore he's free to use whatever sizing he wishes to valuebet, since he expects me to call. This doesn't really address what he'll do sizing wise with his bluffs, and he could still have many of them by the river. 

So far of the two responses we have two very different opinions. I hope we get some more! It's good food for thought. Thanks again Jvank. 

I've spent who knows how long thinking about this hand, tons of time. And then you come and introduce a couple of thoughts that hadn't crossed my mind. That's exactly what I wanted. Thank you for writing! 

The first of those new thoughts are specific hands that could be in his range. You named 56, 57, 52, A5, and A3 in one group. I'm glad you brought this up specifically. While I disagree with you on specific hands being in specific ranges of his, I'm glad you put these on the table for discussion. I feel most strongly about 56. This is the strongest draw, and the most obvious (thought still not too obvious) on this fairly drawless board (apart from many weak gutters). Because this draw is so strong relative to the board, and more importantly, relative to my perceived range, I expect him to x/r it on the flop. I could see him leading a draw like 52 or 57 though, certainly. In fact I think those hands make a ton of sense to lead, and that a lot of players would choose to do so here. I think A5 and A3 are check calling the flop. The thing with 52 and 57 though, is that I expect those hands to check the turn once they pick up tangible showdown value. Especially considering they picked up enough value to showdown, but not enough to confidently value bet (particularity to a bigish size on the turn). Ultimately, while those hands are very reasonable for him to start with in this spot, and good to note regardless, I think I can safely count them out of his get-to-the-river-this-way range. 

Now hands like K6, Q6, and J6, make much much more sense to me here to be in his range by the river. I can see flop playing this way - "I have weak backdoors and no SD value, time to try to bluff this limped pot on a board that's good for my range:. Turn - "Oh sweet, I picked up my shitty backdoor draw, lucky me, time to keep betting and make him fold his floats". River - "Oh sweet I made top pair with J6, awesome time to value bet my disguised TP big, he has 9x here all day and isn't folding" OR "Damn my K6/Q6 bricked, but an over hit and some draws missed, maybe I can fire fat and get him to fold his missed draws and middle pair type hands, and maybe occasionally some 9x since I'm applying so much pressure here on the FT bubble". See this kind of hand and line and thought process is what's having my question my fold here. If this player approaches this spot the way we're speculating, which is very aggressively and assertively, than we can find tons of hands to throw into his range for doing so. T6, 86o. K2 and Q2 (think these are less likely, but still could be here). It gets to the point where his air range could contain tons of combos very quickly. 

But, having said that, I think the nature of this board, and his range, he doesn't have that many possible air combos. Regarding his range, basically he would raise tons of broadway combos pre, so that whole region isn't in his flop range in this (checked pre) spot. Also, a lot of his one pair hands are check calling here (usually I think), so that blocks off a whole other vast region of possible hands. What's left are a lot of the air and draw combos we talked about, which isn't a ton at this point. 

I agree with your thoughts on bet sizing. Some players do indeed have each of these thought processes behind their river sizing, especially when choosing big bets. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with a firm read on this player on what his big river sizing was likely to mean. I had a read that he was aggressive and capable, but I couldn't translate that into a firm read on his sizing in this spot.

I'm glad you liked the video Pedro, thanks for leaving this thoughtful comment! GL. 

Hey thanks Smile! It was nice to build on this Ftops FT with a win heading into Wcoop :D. And thanks for leaving this detailed comment, good stuff! Let's get into it.

J8o limp/call. Great job of outlining your well thought out ideas about this hand. You took many important factors into account. However, looks can be deceiving! I don't think this board is as good for my range as you think. Not do I think it's as bad for his as you think. I'm not sure he would expect me to limp call 46s or 35s here, so when I x/r, I'm repping only 9 total set combos! Granted I can have FDs, FDs+ gutters and things like that. I just think that he's going to suspect it's air a fair amount of the time.

 Also, this villain is raising 50% of hands. I've seen him raise 58s UTG. I think it's entirely possible that he raised my limp with 35o here. At the same time he could have K3o too - his range is way wide. My point being that he has board coverage here. He can credibly rep (and have) the nuts on this board. And he most certainly has all of the sets himself, in addition to overpairs and strong draws. This player has some play to him, so I think he could choose to float with a gutter or even pure overs here vs my x/r. 

I agree with you in a lot of ways too. Our hand is a good one to include in our x/r bluff range, is has good backdoors, and the overs figure to be live ones. If we had KQ here I might be more worried that he peels with AK or AQ or something and he floats his way into turning a dominated TP hand vs us. At the same time, it's important to note that if this is in our x/r bluff range, then our c/r bluff range is likely way too bluff heavy. I suppose we could polarize it in extreme fashion, x/r our sets, mega draws, and backdoor hands like this, while check calling our gutters as OOP floats with a bit of equity. But remember, we have 9 combos of sets, so x/ring J8o is 12 combos alone. Yikes that adds up quickly!

At the end of the day, a lot of this range analysis has little practical effect on this spot, as I doubt villain is thinking in those terms. You're right that we're getting a good price on a bluff, so it doesn't have to work tons, and that's always nice. However, I think villains range can have actual hands in it to combat this play more often than you think, as well as he can have some floats and more play-backs in his range to combat our x/r as well. In terms of our overall standing in the tournament - no, I don't think this play is "necessary". But I also don't like using that word here. Our goal is to make as many chips as possible safely, so if we can do that, we should. Basically, first determine if a spot is +EV. If it is, consider how much variance is involved with it, and if it's not much or if it's some and you're willing to stomach it, make the play. I don't see a ton of variance being associated with this play since if we x/r it's not going to be a huge amount of chips immediately. However, following through with barrels on favorable cards is where a lot of that comes in, and it can sneak up on you quickly, so make sure you play accordingly, and don't just make hugely variant plays at random or on a whim. 

24:04 99 cbet spot: I agree with all of the possible outcomes you outlined, but I think you overlooked the most common one. If I check the flop, he has free reign to bet turn and river and try to get me off my pot controlled hand. I'm not going to feel confident in calling down here because he can value bet pretty well, and he can have tons of semi bluffs that 1. give him confidence to bet and 2. have good equity vs me that can be realized. I see what you're getting at that there aren't really a ton of scare cards that can come, and I think that's a really good point. Admittedly, this board looked scarier to me in-game and at first sight than it does after reading your post. You know I'm actually coming around to your side of this mid-paragraph, ha. I can turn my hand into a bluff on a lot of cards. If a K comes I can rep AJ, if an A comes I can rep AT. Things like that. Being in position I'll have the benefit of having a pretty good idea of what his hand is based on his turn and river action, and I can make appropriate check downs, bluffs, or bluff raises depending on my determination there and the specific board run out. Pretty on the fence here. I think that I'm not getting x/r a ton here on the flop, so I may as well cbet and keep my range wide and uncapped. However, as we sort of just talked about, I can kind of uncap it in a way, and rep the nuts very credibly on several different turn and/or river cards. 

98o BB defend vs UTG: This is a really clever thought. I like where your heads at on this one. However, I'm not sure villain will be as accommodating as you might be thinking. The smaller we bet, the better the price we get on our bluff, but the more incentive he has to peel / float. This board contains endless gutshots, so while his range is super wide, it's also going to flop a gutter+ much of the time. Definitely something to look at in Flopzilla, as I'm not too sharp on knowing these things intuitively. He also may be inclined to bluff raise, because it may look fishy that I'm leading into such a wide/weak range here. I don't know if the villain will recognize all of that and bluff raise his A7o here, so let's keep this as a very minor factor in this situation. But yes my plan is to check fold this flop, so if leading shows a profit, it's automatically better. I would prefer a stronger hand to do so, I mean who wouldn't, but the fact remains that if we can indeed show a profit, then we should make the play and earn that profit.

Shoot yeah, that Q6o was careless. Pretty lame and I'm disappointed in myself for that. Q9o looks too damn good, not sure I'd fold that, but nonetheless, it's refreshing to hear that someone is thinking along those lines. Thanks for leaving this detailed post Smile, GL. 

Hello ABV! Thank you for taking the time to leave these thoughts. They're very nicely laid out, and easy for me to reply to. 

1. As a point of clarification, I don't think that his preflop range is devoid of sets - I agree with you that he can check small pairs here preflop, and like the reasons you gave. One other reason I'd like to add is that a small pair will have poor playability heading to the flop out of position in a raised pot vs my ambiguous button limping range. This reason reduces the appeal of the option to raise preflop. I'd say it's pretty close to 50 50 that he chooses to raise or check here preflop. My contention in discounting sets is that he would choose to check a hand that powerful on the flop, looking for a check raise, or even a check call to slowplay.

That brings us here to 2. Where you introduce a valid point that he could be using reverse psychology on me, "leveling" me in poker-speak. I agree with you that this thought process and resultant action is entirely possible, and that my confusion on the river is ample evidence enough to validate it's merit, I still don't think he would choose to take this course of action. I have two reasons. The first and primary being that check raising has so much potential gain to it. He can make the pot bigger with this play than he can with leading, and if he has a set or 2p, this will likely be his aim. I think he can achieve similar efficacy in confusing me with this line as compared with leading, as in both situations it's sort of a suspicious play, because he's not representing very many strong hands. I concede that leading does look more suspicious, and therefore likely to create more confusion and curiosity in me, making it slightly more attractive than check raising in this individual aspect alone. However, I argue that the gap is relatively narrow, enough so that the potential gain from a check raise is more than enough to compensate. Secondly, if he has a strong hand, he at least wants to make some money from it, and the best way to do that is to check to the player with the "lead" in the hand so to speak, which is me on the button. He can figure that I'll cbet my QT suited or whatever hand that whiffed 80% of the time or so, and he can at least capture one bet from me.

Just to sort of sum up, it is entirely possible, and perfectly reasonable that my opponent in this hand choose to lead his set or 2p in this hand for the reasons you provided. I simply think it's less likely than him going for a check raise with those hands, for the reasons I outlined above. This was a notion that no one has introduced into this discussion, so that was keen of you to think of, and I'm glad you added it to the discussion.

3. Now this seems to be the most common idea I've heard in this thread. What I'm learning from this situation is that I maybe was trying to do a little bit too much, get a little bit too fancy/creative - however you want to term it, when I should just be sticking with a tried and true strategy. Especially with a find hand to do so, to min raise, and even one that can withstand the heat of a reraise from either player left to act here, by calling that 3bet.

4. Continuing in the same vain as point 3, raising preflop allows us to define his range more, and for us to make better decisions with that additional knowledge as the postflop portion of the hand plays out. I expected my limp here to create a lot of confusion on the part of my opponent, yet he turned the tables on me and made me the one unsure of his hand and how to respond. Making a simple, standard, tried and true raise preflop eliminates these issues for me from this hand. 

Thanks for taking the time today! GL.

Hey man, thanks for taking the time to write this comment. I like a lot of your thoughts here. I do want to try to clarify a few things, and maybe tie a few of the things you touched on together. 

For example you talk said you slightly prefer raising preflop because our range isn't capped as it is when we limp. I think this is an amazing point in and of itself, and I do agree with you here. But you go on to say that the villain might give us credit for limping huge/top of our range preflop since it's our first limp. I think when one limps the button like this, it's always somewhat implied that we can still have AA here. I think this goes back to when we were first playing $5 homegames and uncle Bob would say "Beware of the limper, it's pocket rockets" like 5 times a night. In practice, I'm not limping AA here much. I mean, I'm limping primarily to avoid getting 3b. If I had AA I would raise, and hope he does 3b, as I expect him to do a bunch. I'm getting a bit far down the path here, hah, so I'll move on. In general though, love the idea of raising pre to keep the range uncapped. That's a pretty fundamental idea, yet one I didn't put enough emphasis on. 

Leading vs x/r ing: Yes, it would be a near-disaster for this flop to check through for him, if he has 2p or a set. However, the risk of said disaster may well be worth it considering the potential gains. If he checks his set, and then we cbet, boom he's got an awesome chance to build a big pot with a big hand. I simply think that that benefit outweighs the risk of checking. Also, he ensure that he captures a c-bet from us at the minimum. I think our range here is tons of unpaired broadway type hands, that are likely to fold, though they'll float occasionally, if he leads here. Therefore he wants to check, again to capture that c-bet from us with our air, and hopefully get us on the hook if we do have top or middle pair, or the occasional overpair. I discussed this in a bit more detail in replies to other posts above, so check those out for more info :)

I firmly think he's checking back those hands you listed a fair percentage of the time. I won't say most, but I could see it being close to 50 50 pretty easily. 

Well said about the river. It's annoying for us here because our range is pretty face up. But, since we're aware it's face up, and we're aware that he knows it's face up, we just have to figure out how he's going to play vs that range. That was my approach to reading this hand. I thought that he wouldn't expect me to fold my hand/range to an odd line here, so I folded - hah. 

I hope this response was useful, let me know if you have any other follow up questions. Gl!

Revelation, ship it! That's great man, it makes me feel really good that you're getting that much out of the series. I'm starting to like this format more and more as well, both as a video maker and as a video watcher. 

My BB defense. This player was opening 50% of hands that he had a chance to open. Seemingly, he was opening even more UTG. I had seen 58s showdown from UTG vs me in the BB prior. His range is massive. My defends have to win the pot such a small percentage of the time here to show a profit. Not to mention, my equity vs his range is shockingly good, as this is about the widest UTG range I've come across, lol. Yes, I got a poor distribution of flops during the footage of this video in these spots. I mean it's important to note that I'm still a clear underdog to flop enough equity or playability or even bluffability to continue, but I still will do so more than enough of the time to be making money here. A side benefit that isn't quantifiable, is that I'm making myself tougher to play against, which could lead to people raising my blind less in the future, and bluffing  me less. I expect my BB defend frequency here to have very little actual impact on their ranges going forward, yet it's important to note, and it will have at least some benefit to me, so I'm happy to add that to the equation. 

Fair points here. I mean, it's tough too though. I feel like myself, and everyone who's posting here, is biased by the result here to some (varying) degrees. I don't know how much, if even at all, but it seems like it's happening a bit. I mean if the flop came down 9XX and I get 2 or 3 streets from his 92o, I wonder what the response would be? I honestly wonder. It could very well be "well yeah it worked here, but in general I think there's more EV in just raising preflop". At any rate, yes his range is wide, but I do have some way to define it. It's likely the bottom 80-85% of hands, because the top 15-20% would raise preflop. That doesn't tell us much, but it's a start. 

You say he cares about losing this small pot a lot less than we do. Well that's a good thing for me, right? If he doesn't care about losing it as much, then he won't fight for it as hard, and I'll be able to win the pot more of the time. Actually mid-sentence here, it's occurring to me that you probably mean he doesn't care as much as I do in terms of how it impacts our chip stacks. If so, definitely a good point, lol. 

What good is my equity if those things are true? I feel like you're underestimating the importance of my equity! I think it's still really important, and the biggest factor here. Yes those things hurt me overall, but they're much less important factors than my actual equity. Having said that, this isn't justification enough by itself for limping being better than raising. I'm sort of addressing the points as I see them, without talking from the position of a certain outcome being right or the one I want. In other words, I'm not argruing these points to say that limping is better. 

Finally, "opening and folding to a 3b seems better than the spot we're in here" Totally agree. However, again I think you're focusing too much on the result of this hand, which is one of the very worst for me. Tons of times I get checked to and cbet 743 and win. Or I flop a pair and get one street vs bottom pair. Etc. As you form your own opinion on this spot, I just want you to be sure you're considering all the possible outcomes. I'm trying to do the same! All of these comments are helping :) Gl.

Cool. I understand your point about your equity, and about looking at the possible outcomes of the move. I guess it makes things as murky for them as it makes them for you. 

But in regards to the equity advantage (knowing you have a leg up on anything that just checks, and you want to get your equity to flop): would you have done the same thing in this spot with AA? With 88? With KJs? If you wouldn't with these hands, but you still think you have an equity advantage over 2 random hands, what makes this hand different? Disguisability? (made up word.) I'll consider all the other flops if you promise to consider what other hands you'd do this with. 

Your videos are extremely helpful. I play very small stakes but recently had a 2nd place in a dollar rebuy where I used a lot of the concepts you outline. First leg up I've had in a while. Keep it up, and I'll keep thinking about it. 

That's great news on the score! From what I know about that tournament, I imagine it gave a significant boost to your bankroll. I'm glad you shared that info, because the next steps are crucial for your success (as will this process be any time you increase your average buyin significantly). First all of, don't do anything too quickly. Meaning, don't jump into tournaments that are too big for your bankroll, or too difficult for your current skill level. There will be a time and a place for both, in the not too distant future. What you do want to do is think about what the next step will be for you. What tournaments do you want to add? What's your general gameplan going forward? It's possible the answers to these two questions lead to pretty minimal changes. I think that's just fine. Just be honest with yourself, be safe with your bankroll, and challenge yourself as much as you can and as much is as appropriate. Gl as you continue progressing in poker!

Now to the spot. This is excellent Sean. Your foresight here is spot on. Your correctly noted that if certain concepts apply here with 89dd, then they must apply with other hands. And, they also could potentially stop applying at a certain point/hand. The primary reason for my limp was to try to get my equity to the flop, with a hand that has great equity and playability, as cheaply as possible. AKA, I'm looking to avoid getting 3b here. Some of the points made in this comments thread has led me to believe this may not be the best way to approach this spot, but it was my approach here nonetheless. 

So yes, this concept would apply with a hand like KJs, or 88. It would apply essentially to any hand that doesn't want to get 3b, that can get to a flop. 27o doesn't want to get 3b, but it also has no (very little) equity and has no business getting to the flop. Now what about huge hands? I have AA! With this hand, I want to get 3b. I want to get as much money in as possible, so I'll raise with it, and expect to get 3b pretty often by a very wide range. With both of these maneuvers, I'm attempting to take advantage of what I expect my opponents strategy to be in this situation.  Finally, a hand like AK AQ is miles ahead of his 3b range, yet we don't want to get all of the money in. It would be a disaster to flip for this many chips / this much equity on the final table bubble. Granted it's rare that he has JJ or any hand strong enough to get it in vs us, but it's a disaster when we do, so we cannot expose ourselves to this possibility. (Spoiler**. I win a nice pot in part four of this series where I limp AQs on the button). Tune in for that to see this concept expanded upon.

Again, I'm not saying this strategy is the best one here. At the time, I thought it was, as evidenced by me choosing to use it, ha. Spending hours reading/writing/thinking about it since then, I'm much more on the fence. I do think it's important to note that these were the reasons behind the strategy, and the way I see the strategy playing out over a bunch of potentially situations. In a nutshell, even if your strategy sucks, at least understand why you're doing it and be able to back it up with reasons. 

Note: I elaborated on this point more in one of these other posts, so browse through them if you're looking for more info on this spot.

I'm thrilled that you're getting stuff out of these videos and are successfully applying it to your own game. That is exactly why I'm here. GL!

Thanks man! Glad you're enjoying it. Cheers. 

Hello Klondike! I admire your passion for learning the game. I mean this comment you left was amazing, and the type of thing that one only takes the time to write if they're passionate about the game. You know I like that :) First of all, I love your idea of leaving that spot as a cliffhanger. It makes so much sense in this spot. 

Secondly, the T6s hand. There should definitely be some adjustment to the plays you make at different stakes. I agree in large part with your statement that at lower stakes, many players will not be folding TP. However, in the context of the action that took place on this hand, I would argue that these players don't (usually) / shouldn't have TP in this spot. I didn't make this x/r and then shove to fold him off top pair, I made it because he has air when he takes this line, because his top pair hands are calling my check raise, not reraising it. I suppose at lower stakes that some of these players may be reraising a check raise here with just top pair. In any case, it's a good observation by you that one's play should change based on the stakes one is playing. If I were deep in say a miniftops instead of this, perhaps I would just check call with my FD and play from there. 

Agreed, my play here is a theoretical travesty. I try to exploit them, but I end up exploiting myself... Among the many considerations I discussed on the river in this hand was where am I at in my range. It's funny, because my range here actually contains very few hands in total. I'm somewhat in the middle of what is a pretty condensed range. I mean, it seems obvious that I'm heavily weighted toward 9x of various strengths. Because my range is so weak in an absolute sense, and essentially capped, it's a great spot for him to apply pressure. Haha, as I'm rethinking this for the 100th time I still find myself going in circles. 

1. Agreed. At a very simple level this could be a good spot for him to stab at, for all the reasons you stated. Since all of the reasons for this are explotatively based, I should (or at least could) be looking to exploit his attempted exploit of me/ my range. I disagree with you on your thought of the SB x/ring with any kind of high frequency. I don't think players are making moves in this spot a lot. I don't think he completes a lot of the 2 pair combos preflop, and I disagree that he could limp strong here. I'd be very surprised if he did. Both anyone in general, and this villain specifically. 

2. I absolutely love your reasoning here. I find it to be extremely deep and clever. I maybe should have touched on this more above, but I disagree that I can't have many floats. I think that I would have a fair amount of floats here, both from having the benefit of knowing my game in general, and because I think the spot is good for it. (It's a good spot in my view because I think his leading range is pretty capped, and heavily weighted toward air-ish stabs, for the reasons you stated. I think he goes for an x/r or even a check call the times he has 2p or sets). I'm not sure what we're concluding about the consistency / weight of his range. To me it looks extremely air heavy. Do you agree?

3. Exactly, totally agree. This was a thought I had in the video and above. Typically vs capped ranges one applies a lot of pressure and expects folds. In-game, I felt that yes my range was capped at 9x, and yes he and I both knew that, and both knew that the other one knew. I thought he would think I would not fold this 9x here given that we both were very aware of the situation and ranges. I seem to be in the minority with this thought though, based on the above comments. I also notice that it is a logically inconsistent with my thought that his stab-range is very air heavy to begin with... I reconciled this inconsistency by thinking that he began with air, but somehow filled a gutshot or something along the way. That is a very generous assumption on my part... And one that isn't necessarily justified by logic. I'm curious to hear what you think about the consistency of my logic here, and my final conclusions based on it.

4. Wow. "He
can bet his entire range on the turn with plan on betting river when you fold
the top you can have.". That statement says it all right there. I think that's the most important thought that I've seen (or thought) in this discussion thread. Well said man. You seem to have a very strong grasp on this theory stuff :)

I don't have any idea about my limping range either, haha. Unfortunately it's not something I have worked out down to the specific hand rank and combination. It's more of an unscientific construction of hands that "flop well". This range is "constructed" for game flow and peripheral reasons, not as part of an overall, sound strategy. I think hands like K9s are good candidates to be in it, and even smaller pairs that I'm not comfortable getting AIPF like 88. Postflop, I think I have more floats and weaker hands that you would assume I would have.  

Yeah... There are ICM considerations. I don't know how I feel about those considerations in this context though. I mean we get here to the river, vs a villain who is playing exploitatively, and are faced with a river bet. Since he doesn't have a balanced range, he either has it or he doesn't. As cliche and unscientific as that sounds, it's the truth. There are enough clues and enough deductions we can make through reasoning to find out the strength of this villain's hand in this spot. So considering external factors like the ICM value of the chips we win or lose, seems out of place here... As odd as that sounds with 15 left in a major tournament. What do you think of my thoughts here? I should also note that you're right about the chips lost being more important than the chips one. That is true both in general, and especially here in this stack size arrangement. 

You know Klondike, this was a very important and striking lesson for me. You say the biggest thing we can take away from this is to have a better overall strategy before we even get into this spot. That's exactly what I'm taking away from this. Over the course of my career, I've been very good at exploiting other players. I think I exploit them much more than they exploit me. However, that is a dangerous attitude to have, because then I get in situations like this, and all of a sudden I'm trying to exploit someone, and I end up getting exploited in a big way in a major situation. I must learn and perfect this game theory :)  

Thank you again for such a wonderful comment. It honestly is extremely stimulating for me to read and respond to your comment here, and I'm getting a lot out of it. I'll catch you around here soon! Cheers and GL.