Chidwick posted yday a very good tutorial to the holdemresources software and showed how a approach a spot that is considered standard to call, but considering a bunch of forward hands it is losing call. The last hand (88) would be great one to do it and I think that is on the best a slightly profitable call, from a guy who wouldn't shove that wide, even a little bit tilted. Phil should hire Sasuke and we will know what he had... I've played this guy Politonic at SM and he took some very strange lines and surprising calls (for me, obviously).
On the spot he raises JBT I don't see, giving SPR, that he is very strong there, following the same logic from the 2x 3bet with QJs or something near that. For me, he may be trying to take a line similar from which he faced when playing against you. Ok, I have KQo here and I need to fold to a raise from this guy who is raising on this low flop. Now, JBT has KQ and if I do the same he would fold. That can be too ambitious but I think it can be reasonably from the notes I have from him.
I liked the comment from the 87o hand, "I'm so sick lets just final table the Sunday 500" haha. Gl
Thanks for the recommendation of the Chidwick video. I just watched it and got a ton out of, truly wonderful content. Come to think of it, I've got to watch all of his content. The guy is at the absolute top of the MTT/STT game and has been at or near this level for years now. Seems like the guy makes 100k at every EPT he goes to - including last week at the EPT Grand Final where he FTed the 25k Euro high roller. I'd recommend you binge all of his videos ASAP, I know I will be.
As for the HRC calculator, what a tool. I have little experience using it myself, but plan to use it daily, as Chidwick advises in his video. I put this hand into the calculator, but couldn't figure out how to get accurate data in a 4b situation. I'm afraid the task was a bit too complex for my rookie level in using that program.
However, I think longing back on the long-hand (albeit much less comprehensive) math I did in the video shows us pretty accurately what we want to know - according to our best assumptions of villain's range, this spot is going to be close to breakeven. If villain widens out, our profit increases. Now from there it's going to be up to each of us in the seat to make our our own decision, but after looking over the math closely, I'd call if presented with this spot again.
I think Sasuke would be a fine addition to RIO, for a number of reasons, my curiosity in that pot among them =) Yeah, your experience with Polotonic sounds in line with what I would expect. I mean I can tell he's a thinking player with a good mind, but I just don't think he has the experience to correctly implement a lot of the ideas he's aware of. Regarding that potential JTB hero-bluffshove spot OTF - I'm glad you think my line of thinking is reasonable. And I think you make a fantastic point - his sizing in previous pots that was shown to be weak (made the 2x 3b and folded to 4b) is a very reliable read that he's likely to be weak with smaller sizing across the board. I'll have to pull this hero-bluffshove a couple of times and get a sample on how it works in practice :P
I was sick man! Slouching in my chair, covered in blankets, drinking tea. I couldn't even feel or show much emotion as I won or lost crucial pots. I felt a little bit better going to bed that night after the tournament though.
25:07 - JJ hand on AQx is interesting and I personally always like checking back IP on one over card boards here but with 2 over card boards and the likelihood villain is gonna probe/lead turn and its usually difficult to know where we are at as was the case in this hand I think a small cbet is just an easier way to play the hand in this particular spot given stack depths and value of chips etc. I am not 100% sure what the best way to approach this spot is, just some thoughts.
34:22 - We make a x/r with top pair when we peel BB with A8, one off exploit. I find this spot tough because as you say when we call there are just so many bad turns which we have to x/f. I think I do normally just call in game and usually do pretty bad in these spots. Curious what your preferred line is here if the flop is rainbow?
38:44 - K9s, You said it yourself, 3b versus some and fold versus some.
48:50 - We ISO 88 versus EP 8BB raise, just curious what hands if any do we like flatting here?
25:07 - I tend to agree with your approach on one overcard boards. I disagree with your take on 2 overcard boards though. The 2nd overcard (middle card OTF) is not a pair that OOP is likely to bet OTT. He figures that most of the time only better calls and never calls, and worse often folds and occasionally calls. You're right that it ultimately devolves into a guessing game for me IP here, but I think we can safely eliminate middle pair from our list of potential guesses. Additionally, if I'm betting JJ here OTF with two overcards, I'm only getting called by worse a slim percentage of the time. And in a spot where I have little to protect against, I don't think the merits of betting to simplify by decisions on later streets outweigh the costs of me putting in money too often with very little equity. Of course checking allows for a scenario where I fold the best hand OTT, and it's not a far-fetched possibility that that's what happened here. I'm not certain of what's best here either, and I find it an amazingly fascinating spot for how "lol simple" the spot is / should be.
34:22 - See here's a hand I feel pretty good about my one-off exploit / in-game adjustment. I just think my reasoning is very sound, and that my assumptions on villain are going to be accurate enough, and enough of the time, to justify this play, and to make it my best option. The flop being rainbow doesn't change anything in my mind. I don't have any special fear of his FDs in this spot - they're going to comprise a minuscule portion of his range overall. I'm much more concerned about myriad overcards hitting and either letting him realize his equity to the best hand OTT, or give him a card to bluff that's going to put me in a very difficult spot if I check and face a turn bet.
38:44 - Roger that. I just wish I knew which category this spot fell into! I was okay with taking the conservative route in this spot, and early on at this FT in general, so no real regrets here.
48:50 - You know, great catch. I should have called. I don't know what I'm doing shoving here, I accomplish little. Especially because I view the CL in the BB to be a pretty honest player - if I were to call and he were to shove, I'd feel very comfortable and happy about folding 88 here. I think what happened was a mental error, a lack of wherewithal on my part. I became so focused on the decision of "should I call this allin or or not" that I forgot I had a 2nd decision in the hand should I choose to call - that is should I simply call, or shove allin myself. Pretty silly to be making such a simple mistake in this spot when it should be an ingrained fundamental habit here to call (with range). To answer your question, I should call here with my whole range. I'm generally doing so, however in this case I wonder if there is any merit to shoving with hands like AK/AQ in an effort to fold out PPs that might shove on my should I flat. Perhaps shove AQ only and flat AK? AK wants to give AQ the chance to shove over me, and I think that if I were to shove AK in the first place, it won't change the PPs that he's wiling to get in much if at all. Same with AQ, however there is the odd chance that I can get 77/88 to fold if I shove with AQ, but those hands may shove if I flat call. Stated more clearly: His 77/88 are more likely to get all in vs a call than vs shove, so we're freerolling by shoving AQ (this is also under the assumption that he never gets in worse overs than AQ, which I think is fair).
I agree that the board usually hits bbs range more than PFR but with under 20bbs, are you usually flatting those hands that hit that board? I assume you are gonna be shoving pre all hands that hit sets on that board, same with overpairs. That would only leave 87 and 65 as your "nut" hands on that board which looks like what you are repping with the small raise but are you usually defending those with your stack size?
With that in mind, what you think about c/shoving instead of the small raise? if it works, which I assume would happen a lot, you´re increasing your stack in almost 40% and also, I may be levelling too much but maybe there is also the small chance that he can hero you w/ Ax or alike because your shove would look a lot like a draw instead of a made hand?
Also the recap of the 88 hand from previous video is a very tough spot that most time people are going in auto pilot in similar situations with "oh that's insta call or damn didn't expect this other guy to shove, I guees I have to fold now .." and you get some surprises once you start breaking down the hand afterwards with math and the given ranges.
Great series and looking forward to what you think about this. Thanks!
OpenFoldBTN, first of all, your name sir, is sacrilege. Secondly, I'm glad you made this post because I think I have a good feel for how you're thinking about this spot, and I think I can help clear some things up for you.
A big component of this hand is that I made the assumption that villain in this hand will be playing this spot pretty honestly (straightforward). I think he's a thinking player with some understanding of many concepts, yet he just doesn't yet have the experience to apply those concepts as well as one would like. To me, that is manifest in this hand as follows: He knows to cbet, so he cbets. He cbet to a number that he can click to on his bet slide, which suggests to me that it's just another routine cbet spot - he's not putting any extra emphasis on typing in the perfect bet size (I don't put a ton of stock in this read here, or in general, yet it's information that is present so it bears mention.) I also think that he will think that a x/r is a strong here, and more importantly, in general. I think that he won't be willing (or perhaps capable) of shoving in with pure overcards here.
So what I'm left with is top pair vs a guy whose range contains a ton of overcards, leaving me with the best hand most of the time. Yet I'm vulnerable, both to card that improve his hand, and cards that provide him with bluffing opportunities. Since I'm vulnerable, I'd like to end the hand now while my advantage vs his range is clear. Furthermore, when he shoves, I can be very confident that I'm crushed by his range.
It doesn't matter so much here what my range actually is, or what specific combos I'm repping, or can and can't have - he's not thinking in those terms, he's looking at his cards and applying some very basic poker concepts like raising preflop (is better than limping) and cbetting. I think with the high level of confidence I had in this read on this player, my adjustment to make this small raise, was a very good one. And to be clear, as I said in the video, I'm usually shoving this spot vs other, perhaps more experienced players here. I really don't see a downside to my line here. I don't think there is any chance I get called by ace high if I check shove. It is possible he shoves with a PP below 8 (that's not a set) and I end up folding the best hand. However, I think that's a small price to pay considering that the majority of the time he'll have an overpair, and I avoid getting stacked by that.
What do you think? This is definitely an outside-the-box hand, resulting in a non-standard line for myself here. I hope I explained the merits well enough so that you at least understand what I'm thinking here, whether you agree with my ultimate decision or not.
I agree with x/shove in the A8 hand. Calling just makes it to hard to play turn/river unless we decide to x/shove most turns, like random overcards. x/shove would also protect/realise our equity. It would really suck to be folding the best hand, if he decide to shove T9s/JT or 55/66, 98s etc here with so much in the middle.
Hmm yeah, listing the combos out makes me realize that there are a number of worse combos he can be getting in essentially for value. I made a big post right above this about my thoughts on that hand. Basically, I still stand by the small x/r here, though to be clear my standard play here is to shove. And that standard play is made quite quite often. I just feel like we see a turn card so rarely here. He's shoving or folding flop so much of the time. Granted, the times we do see a turn, this is an uncomfortable spot to be sure. However, even with all the negatives - being in a tough spot if we see a turn, sometimes folding the best hand, I think we're making more money with small x/r than x/shove here because villain is going to play so honestly vs us, that we can expect to essentially never bluff shove vs us here. That lets us be confident in folding to his flop shove over our x/raise, even though admittedly we'll be folding the best hand sometimes, and our price is phenomenal. I suppose I could be vastly miss-estimating how these variables ultimately work out together, but I'm still supporting the small x/r line at this point. What do you think?
I dont really like that small turn bet of our opponent in the JJ on AQ68 - Afaik you are pretty much capped except for AA and 88, so he can just bet 400k and shove river with something like AT+ for value and his draws and you cant do much against it. Especially with the ICM pressure against you.
Loading 12 Comments...
Chidwick posted yday a very good tutorial to the holdemresources software and showed how a approach a spot that is considered standard to call, but considering a bunch of forward hands it is losing call. The last hand (88) would be great one to do it and I think that is on the best a slightly profitable call, from a guy who wouldn't shove that wide, even a little bit tilted. Phil should hire Sasuke and we will know what he had... I've played this guy Politonic at SM and he took some very strange lines and surprising calls (for me, obviously).
On the spot he raises JBT I don't see, giving SPR, that he is very strong there, following the same logic from the 2x 3bet with QJs or something near that. For me, he may be trying to take a line similar from which he faced when playing against you. Ok, I have KQo here and I need to fold to a raise from this guy who is raising on this low flop. Now, JBT has KQ and if I do the same he would fold. That can be too ambitious but I think it can be reasonably from the notes I have from him.
I liked the comment from the 87o hand, "I'm so sick lets just final table the Sunday 500" haha. Gl
Hey Raphael,
Thanks for the recommendation of the Chidwick video. I just watched it and got a ton out of, truly wonderful content. Come to think of it, I've got to watch all of his content. The guy is at the absolute top of the MTT/STT game and has been at or near this level for years now. Seems like the guy makes 100k at every EPT he goes to - including last week at the EPT Grand Final where he FTed the 25k Euro high roller. I'd recommend you binge all of his videos ASAP, I know I will be.
As for the HRC calculator, what a tool. I have little experience using it myself, but plan to use it daily, as Chidwick advises in his video. I put this hand into the calculator, but couldn't figure out how to get accurate data in a 4b situation. I'm afraid the task was a bit too complex for my rookie level in using that program.
However, I think longing back on the long-hand (albeit much less comprehensive) math I did in the video shows us pretty accurately what we want to know - according to our best assumptions of villain's range, this spot is going to be close to breakeven. If villain widens out, our profit increases. Now from there it's going to be up to each of us in the seat to make our our own decision, but after looking over the math closely, I'd call if presented with this spot again.
I think Sasuke would be a fine addition to RIO, for a number of reasons, my curiosity in that pot among them =) Yeah, your experience with Polotonic sounds in line with what I would expect. I mean I can tell he's a thinking player with a good mind, but I just don't think he has the experience to correctly implement a lot of the ideas he's aware of. Regarding that potential JTB hero-bluffshove spot OTF - I'm glad you think my line of thinking is reasonable. And I think you make a fantastic point - his sizing in previous pots that was shown to be weak (made the 2x 3b and folded to 4b) is a very reliable read that he's likely to be weak with smaller sizing across the board. I'll have to pull this hero-bluffshove a couple of times and get a sample on how it works in practice :P
I was sick man! Slouching in my chair, covered in blankets, drinking tea. I couldn't even feel or show much emotion as I won or lost crucial pots. I felt a little bit better going to bed that night after the tournament though.
25:07 - JJ hand on AQx is interesting and I personally always like checking back IP on one over card boards here but with 2 over card boards and the likelihood villain is gonna probe/lead turn and its usually difficult to know where we are at as was the case in this hand I think a small cbet is just an easier way to play the hand in this particular spot given stack depths and value of chips etc. I am not 100% sure what the best way to approach this spot is, just some thoughts.
34:22 - We make a x/r with top pair when we peel BB with A8, one off exploit. I find this spot tough because as you say when we call there are just so many bad turns which we have to x/f. I think I do normally just call in game and usually do pretty bad in these spots. Curious what your preferred line is here if the flop is rainbow?
38:44 - K9s, You said it yourself, 3b versus some and fold versus some.
48:50 - We ISO 88 versus EP 8BB raise, just curious what hands if any do we like flatting here?
Thanks for vid.
Hey Kumo, good to hear from you.
25:07 - I tend to agree with your approach on one overcard boards. I disagree with your take on 2 overcard boards though. The 2nd overcard (middle card OTF) is not a pair that OOP is likely to bet OTT. He figures that most of the time only better calls and never calls, and worse often folds and occasionally calls. You're right that it ultimately devolves into a guessing game for me IP here, but I think we can safely eliminate middle pair from our list of potential guesses. Additionally, if I'm betting JJ here OTF with two overcards, I'm only getting called by worse a slim percentage of the time. And in a spot where I have little to protect against, I don't think the merits of betting to simplify by decisions on later streets outweigh the costs of me putting in money too often with very little equity. Of course checking allows for a scenario where I fold the best hand OTT, and it's not a far-fetched possibility that that's what happened here. I'm not certain of what's best here either, and I find it an amazingly fascinating spot for how "lol simple" the spot is / should be.
34:22 - See here's a hand I feel pretty good about my one-off exploit / in-game adjustment. I just think my reasoning is very sound, and that my assumptions on villain are going to be accurate enough, and enough of the time, to justify this play, and to make it my best option. The flop being rainbow doesn't change anything in my mind. I don't have any special fear of his FDs in this spot - they're going to comprise a minuscule portion of his range overall. I'm much more concerned about myriad overcards hitting and either letting him realize his equity to the best hand OTT, or give him a card to bluff that's going to put me in a very difficult spot if I check and face a turn bet.
38:44 - Roger that. I just wish I knew which category this spot fell into! I was okay with taking the conservative route in this spot, and early on at this FT in general, so no real regrets here.
48:50 - You know, great catch. I should have called. I don't know what I'm doing shoving here, I accomplish little. Especially because I view the CL in the BB to be a pretty honest player - if I were to call and he were to shove, I'd feel very comfortable and happy about folding 88 here. I think what happened was a mental error, a lack of wherewithal on my part. I became so focused on the decision of "should I call this allin or or not" that I forgot I had a 2nd decision in the hand should I choose to call - that is should I simply call, or shove allin myself. Pretty silly to be making such a simple mistake in this spot when it should be an ingrained fundamental habit here to call (with range). To answer your question, I should call here with my whole range. I'm generally doing so, however in this case I wonder if there is any merit to shoving with hands like AK/AQ in an effort to fold out PPs that might shove on my should I flat. Perhaps shove AQ only and flat AK? AK wants to give AQ the chance to shove over me, and I think that if I were to shove AK in the first place, it won't change the PPs that he's wiling to get in much if at all. Same with AQ, however there is the odd chance that I can get 77/88 to fold if I shove with AQ, but those hands may shove if I flat call. Stated more clearly: His 77/88 are more likely to get all in vs a call than vs shove, so we're freerolling by shoving AQ (this is also under the assumption that he never gets in worse overs than AQ, which I think is fair).
A8o hand (34:00)
I agree that the board usually hits bbs range more than PFR but with under 20bbs, are you usually flatting those hands that hit that board? I assume you are gonna be shoving pre all hands that hit sets on that board, same with overpairs. That would only leave 87 and 65 as your "nut" hands on that board which looks like what you are repping with the small raise but are you usually defending those with your stack size?
With that in mind, what you think about c/shoving instead of the small raise? if it works, which I assume would happen a lot, you´re increasing your stack in almost 40% and also, I may be levelling too much but maybe there is also the small chance that he can hero you w/ Ax or alike because your shove would look a lot like a draw instead of a made hand?
Also the recap of the 88 hand from previous video is a very tough spot that most time people are going in auto pilot in similar situations with "oh that's insta call or damn didn't expect this other guy to shove, I guees I have to fold now .." and you get some surprises once you start breaking down the hand afterwards with math and the given ranges.
Great series and looking forward to what you think about this. Thanks!
OpenFoldBTN, first of all, your name sir, is sacrilege. Secondly, I'm glad you made this post because I think I have a good feel for how you're thinking about this spot, and I think I can help clear some things up for you.
A big component of this hand is that I made the assumption that villain in this hand will be playing this spot pretty honestly (straightforward). I think he's a thinking player with some understanding of many concepts, yet he just doesn't yet have the experience to apply those concepts as well as one would like. To me, that is manifest in this hand as follows: He knows to cbet, so he cbets. He cbet to a number that he can click to on his bet slide, which suggests to me that it's just another routine cbet spot - he's not putting any extra emphasis on typing in the perfect bet size (I don't put a ton of stock in this read here, or in general, yet it's information that is present so it bears mention.) I also think that he will think that a x/r is a strong here, and more importantly, in general. I think that he won't be willing (or perhaps capable) of shoving in with pure overcards here.
So what I'm left with is top pair vs a guy whose range contains a ton of overcards, leaving me with the best hand most of the time. Yet I'm vulnerable, both to card that improve his hand, and cards that provide him with bluffing opportunities. Since I'm vulnerable, I'd like to end the hand now while my advantage vs his range is clear. Furthermore, when he shoves, I can be very confident that I'm crushed by his range.
It doesn't matter so much here what my range actually is, or what specific combos I'm repping, or can and can't have - he's not thinking in those terms, he's looking at his cards and applying some very basic poker concepts like raising preflop (is better than limping) and cbetting. I think with the high level of confidence I had in this read on this player, my adjustment to make this small raise, was a very good one. And to be clear, as I said in the video, I'm usually shoving this spot vs other, perhaps more experienced players here. I really don't see a downside to my line here. I don't think there is any chance I get called by ace high if I check shove. It is possible he shoves with a PP below 8 (that's not a set) and I end up folding the best hand. However, I think that's a small price to pay considering that the majority of the time he'll have an overpair, and I avoid getting stacked by that.
What do you think? This is definitely an outside-the-box hand, resulting in a non-standard line for myself here. I hope I explained the merits well enough so that you at least understand what I'm thinking here, whether you agree with my ultimate decision or not.
I agree with x/shove in the A8 hand. Calling just makes it to hard to play turn/river unless we decide to x/shove most turns, like random overcards. x/shove would also protect/realise our equity. It would really suck to be folding the best hand, if he decide to shove T9s/JT or 55/66, 98s etc here with so much in the middle.
Hmm yeah, listing the combos out makes me realize that there are a number of worse combos he can be getting in essentially for value. I made a big post right above this about my thoughts on that hand. Basically, I still stand by the small x/r here, though to be clear my standard play here is to shove. And that standard play is made quite quite often. I just feel like we see a turn card so rarely here. He's shoving or folding flop so much of the time. Granted, the times we do see a turn, this is an uncomfortable spot to be sure. However, even with all the negatives - being in a tough spot if we see a turn, sometimes folding the best hand, I think we're making more money with small x/r than x/shove here because villain is going to play so honestly vs us, that we can expect to essentially never bluff shove vs us here. That lets us be confident in folding to his flop shove over our x/raise, even though admittedly we'll be folding the best hand sometimes, and our price is phenomenal. I suppose I could be vastly miss-estimating how these variables ultimately work out together, but I'm still supporting the small x/r line at this point. What do you think?
on the kqs shove to the utg open...are we sure that the icm is adjusted for final two tables...it appeared that the math was based on 8 players left
I dont really like that small turn bet of our opponent in the JJ on AQ68 - Afaik you are pretty much capped except for AA and 88, so he can just bet 400k and shove river with something like AT+ for value and his draws and you cant do much against it. Especially with the ICM pressure against you.
I just watched this for the second time, i forgot how much i liked it the first time. Please make more videos.
And by this io mean this series, not just this part.
Be the first to add a comment
You must upgrade your account to leave a comment.