PLO Live Session: $2.5/$5 through $100/$200
Posted by Phil Galfond
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flush blocker hand gone wrong at 37:00, think villain should be jamming any hand worse than a flush vs our line?
Given that I think my line looks a lot like what it is, I would shove any hand that loses to the 1 card straight if I'm villain. I may consider shoving the 1 card straight as well... I just don't see people take my line and then call river very often.
(This of course means that I could potentially check the river with the nuts and make more money than shoving, but thinking of that plan in-game with the nuts here is rare)
Hi Phil, nice video as usual!
In the last years we have been seeing lots of discussion about GTO approach being the best approach to be a winning player. And as you have already mentioned in some of your videos, your edge comes much more from you reads about the players than from fundamentals, right?
What is your opinion about this? Do you really think that exploitative players will have no chance against the very very good GTO players?
And if you answer is YES, then what is your plans to keep improving your game? Do you intend to focus more on the math of the game, run more simulations (despite the fact you don’t like too much inst?) e have perfect balanced ranges?
And if you answer NO, could explain why??
Thx!
Hard to say whether it's "more" from reads than my fundamentals, but compared to most regs, yes.
In theory, one day, yes, but we definitely aren't there yet.
This is a big question. The short answer is that I do try to do a little bit of work here and there to stay sharp, but I won't become a big study grinder.
My success in poker comes in large part from making reads and adjustments in-game. My skill-set lends itself well to the approach I take. I'm not good at studying.
If poker progresses to a point where exploitative players have no shot, then the best players will mostly be the hardest workers and the best memorizers. I'm not either of those things, so I don't have any illusions that I'd be a top player in that scenario.
We'll have to invent new poker games :)
Hope to see more of these types of videos.
Thank you! What type specifically? Live play? Higher stakes? The 2.5/5 part? :)
9:22 Table 4 (Replayer). 97dd85ss on T82ddd, Jh, 2s.
You stated, "We could consider the fact that with JT we might consider raising." " I wouldn't feel very confident doing that though given I don't have many boats in my range." "So, yeah, I probably don't defend with those hands by either calling or raising."
This series of statements, particularly the bolded one perfectly describes a situation I think about often and find difficult to handle well. As humans in real actual game play how do we create bluff ranges in spots we rarely have value? I mean, I hear myself (in my head) make the same thought process all the time. "Im going to pass on this spot to bluff because I don't have many value combos in this spot" "I will get looked up lightly." Well, the fact is we do have value sometimes even though its rare, but if we prescribe to this mindset of skipping bluffs because of that, we will usually have 0 bluffs and more certainly will be under bluffing. The times I have the value, I hear myself saying in my head, "I hope I get called but it would be a bad call, I really am not bluffing here." We choose to under bluff here basically because we give our opponents enough credit to realize we don't have much value, but not enough credit to realize we as well realize we lack value combos and thus wont bluff much. If you don't bluff with JT ever in that hand then you are saying that either, you aren't playing optimal or that you think opponents are over calling on that river. Obviously GTO wise the answer is to use JT to bluff sometimes, but in reality do we want to do that and if so how the heck do we realistically decide when to?
Great post. I loved this part in particular:
This is absolutely true, and in most cases I think I'm comfortable with giving that amount of credit.
Good question. I'm okay with just using my judgement (and rarely bluffing those spots). There is definitely a nice (mental) freedom that comes from playing against a really good player who you know respects your game.
I know some more GTO-based players who just prefer to stick with GTO unless they have an extremely strong reason to. It gives them more peace of mind. I think that's a pretty good approach if your fundamentals are really strong... keeps you from questioning yourself and from playing your C game or worse.
Table 2 @ 46:00.
This is a very interesting spot on the river.
First, given the action and the run out, I don't think (But I don't know) either player reps nutty hands any more than the other. However, with the 99 blockers and a dry run out, wouldn't you agree that your opponent's range here is Kxxx/busted draw heavy enough that value raising is good/necessary? 99xx blocks your opponents most likely raising combinations, (K9) while also failing to block the largest portion of his potential bet/calling range that you beat, (Kxxx/44xx/55xx) no matter how he constructs it. In addition, given the run out/line/your hand, there are more plausible hands he must consider calling with than any other combination, giving him the largest opportunity to make a mistake/call with a weaker hand than yours. Plus, I would think you would like to be bluff raising on this river at some reasonable frequency, correct? If so, with what value combos would you feel more comfortable supplementing your value raising range, excluding 99xx, while maintaining a balanced river raising range/optimal raising frequency? Considering the fact that this river would benefit greatly from having multiple raise sizes, we would need more combinations of non nut hands, (on which we are running low), and as a result, I don't think flatting 99 here is as good as raising. Do you?
I think it's also worth noting that, in game, the idea of getting raised was, at least to some extent, a contributing factor in your decision to flat, which I think is dangerous. To be clear, I am not claiming that you made this decision because of this thought process, or that it is necessarily bad. But I do think the heuristic in question will frequently fail you, (or at least some significant portion of RIO subscribers) in situations like this. Because, the reality is in most all cases when you are holding a non nut hand on the river, like you do here, you don't REALLY want to get raised. Verbalizing it is redundant. And I think it's very dangerous to, at the very least, use/condone this type of heuristic in these spots, as the influence can be more powerful than it is valuable, causing the player to often oversee/lose value when misapplied. Additionally, I think people forget, in large part because of such heuristics, that as much as we don't like getting raised with non nut hands, there's a player on the other side of the screen who dislikes it just as much, and we should force him into such situations as often as possible as part of a winning strategy.
I think a lot of great players are currently playing poker with the idea that avoiding difficult decisions is worth something. I would contend the opposite.
I'm obviously well ahead of his betting range on this river, which should definitely make me consider a raise.
While blocking 99 means I will very rarely bet 3-bet, he can have plenty of K4/K5 hands that call me, which is obviously a bad result.
A few things to consider about his range:
-44/55 are very rare in his SB cold calling range. He almost exclusively has these as double pairs, many of which 3-bet.
-Kxxx with all 4 cards 8 or higher will usually 3-bet
-Kxxx with 1 or more dangler (2-7) will be more likely to call
-K4/K5/K9 will be more likely to bet the turn than Kx with 1 pair only (I think)
All that said, I'm not sure whether I agree with you or not about raising the river.
The reason this is an especially strange raising spot is that he's representing a value range of trips+... a very strong minimum value hand and one with very important blockers.
It's a tough spot for me to bluff frequently given that. Any time he's not bluffing, he has a King, which is a very relevant blocker to my value raising range. I'd choose hands like 54xx and some 94/95xx, and definitely a hand like 954, as those are the only way I can block a boat without having trips+.
Anyways, I don't know how often I get called by trips vs. how often I get called/raised by boats. We'd have to do some detailed math, and we'd have to make some biggish assumptions about his preflop and turn play.
Good question and comments! I'm curious to hear what other people think.
Thanks for the response, Phil.
I agree with your overall analysis, and a lot of my assumptions were based on the assumption that you would be c-betting your K5/4 combinations at a reasonable frequency, which I am not sure about, and that your opponent would expect you to raise 99/some K9 combos here on the turn with some frequency. If so, I think he would vbet/bluff more liberally than he would otherwise, meaning he would also have to call a raise, particularly a small one, with a reasonable frequency as well.
But, if are you saying that there not many lone K combinations in his turn betting range, I can see calling being clearly the best play. Although, you did argue that you were well ahead of his betting range on the river, which I agree with. However, if you are not raising 99 here, you are assuming that the overwhelming majority of that range is bet folding, with a very small portion bet calling/raising with better hands. And that doesn't seem, but may very well be, true.
We'll see.
I would be betting almost all K5 and most K4 combos on the flop, and I'm more likely to raise some K9 combos on the turn than 99.
There definitely will be some lone King combos, and I'm honestly not sure how many. Every player plays those turn probing spots differently. Even though I've played a lot with Lars, I still don't know much about how he splits up his range here.
I just want to point out that I think the river is close, and I don't feel confident either way yet. My post above was making points to support the play I made (which I think is probably the right play), but I'm definitely not saying you're wrong.
Phil, I think Lars' range is a lot wider than normal here because you raised very small. Lars is definitely smart enough to know what your plan is with that raise size and he knows the BB's tendencies, so I think you'll see a bare minimum of 30% VPIP and perhaps as much as 45-50%. I'm not sure if that changes your analysis or not.
Ty, Ben. Very good point. I forgot about my raise size when responding to the question.
Definitely changes the numbers in some way... not sure which :)
Awesome video Phil. I don't have any questions just 1 request...Can you or will you PLEASE make a few more live session videos on Bovada? I know their software sucks but it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks :D
Btw, Phil, please, I beg you, release another replayer video where you are isolating one particular facet of the game for review. The video you did like this on playing AAxx in PLO is still helping me today, and by far the most memorable, which is saying something as I have watched all your videos since the inception of BFP.
Thanks for the suggestions guys! I always appreciate them, and I'll write both these down to remind myself for future videos.
Lrslzk just having the lols running it twice multiple times for 3bbs
Given our flop check should we at least consider calling the river check raise
since we are near the top of our range?
Sure we have some boats but not all the best boats and we are somewhat capped
or maybe you don't think he will x/r bluff with a high enough frequency?
Thanks
This is definitely a hand that's pretty high up in our range and I wouldn't be surprised if we absolutely need to defend with it. My impression is that the villain here won't be bluffing enough, so I threw concern for that out the window.
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