Awesome man...

@42:20 jonna fast fold AK33ds UTG. You didnt comment it so it might have slipped your mind but that's a fine limp/open even UTG? 

Is balance really that important in a low stakes zoom game - when we aren't going to face the opponents/same situations often and rarely showdown our cards? Or am I missing the point of the concept of balance? Enjoyable video as always :-) 

Thanks for an informative video phil,

 I found that much of the content you discussed was really informative but perhaps also quite well known or standard. That might obviously differ very much per person and I should probably know most of this stuff since I am a regular at this specific game. (I might actually be the person who logged the most hands this month at 100$ zoom, so pretty bummed not too see myself swimming around). Stilll some good tips on where to thin or thicking my opening ranges and some interesting insights on some postflop spots. 

I suppose if I want some more in depth advise it's really just time to buckle up and throw down those extra few bucks for elite membership. :)

If I max express some of my desires for future videos; What I would like to see and what I think is usefull advice for regulars of these stakes / people aspiring to be regulars at these stakes is analysis of statistics of individuals with regard to specific spots encountered while playing. Especially in zoom it can often be quite hard to take notes but the HUD should provide us with valueble information like you pointed out in the video. As such I often find myself in spots where I don't have extensive notes on an opponent but look to my stats in deciding what course of action to take. I would really appreciate a video in which you take a look at some gameplay and take into account the provided the statistics somewhat more in depth and provide us what logical deductions from certain key parts.

 I do realize that overall stats might be a somewhat poor way to graps the fundementals of the game and a tunnelvision with regard to statistics will cause stagnation in your growth as a poker player. However since it so readily available it is often the best alternative, especially when multi-tabling a lot of tables. And seeing there are significant differences in players statistics over signficant sample sizes (even within the group defined as "regulars") there must be information that can be obtained regarding playstyle or mistakes. 

As a quick tip in between to players reading this (hard to believe anyone is still reading, but it never hurts to hope) I would always suggest for serious regulars to differentiate between sessions in which you play only a few tables to take ind depth notes (especially in zoom) and larger longer session to grind out a profit and get more familiar with gameflow and make use of the earlier found notes. Though note taking should of course always remain a part of your game, especially for fishes appearing at the tables.

Lastly I do realize that to make an effective video with regard to analysis of statistics (especially of average regulars) both a lot of hands and a good grasp of the style this constitutes is required. As such this type of video might be more fit for perhaps Sam Lang since I suppose Phil is more accustomed with players far beyond our reach (well for now at least). If however you (or Sam) are considering making such a video I'd be more than willing to provide statistics and or footage; Then again probably half the poker community would line up for that opportunity so my best guess is that there never really is a shortage of footage.

I liked the video as general video, but i have some suggestions/questions as well

Jonna is playing solid and well, as you said towards the end of video, and ill second to keizersbaard above comment :I found that much of the content you discussed was really informative but perhaps also quite well known or standard. 

Jonnas play was rather smooth and solid with exception of your disliking him play one AQ9x hand vs 3 bet, all else were small nuances and decisions that could have gone both ways, like defending lil more from blinds given odds etc

That made me think, whats the purpose of doing a review of member play? Find the leaks, misplays improve member general strategy etc and while doing this show to us as well not to repeat certain mistakes

I just find there was not much material thats v interesting to us, nor do i think its beneficial to member reviewed

I was thinking maybe would be good idea to discuss with member, what are exactly spots that bother him/her, what he wants to improve, what are his/hers goals and maybe find some constructive help for member and us in some sort of different way then doing a vid where there is really not much to say beside standard and small nuances corrections

We are all here to improve, I'm not sure this vid improved Jonna or us much :S 

V sorry to criticize, i just speak what my initial thoughts were, maybe I'm missing out something

====================================

- Im rethinking what i said ~ so reedit this a little bit :

Video as essential video is good, looks alike vids you make when you play, there is lot of things to be analyzed etc

Only my idea of member review video was maybe off, and my initial thought was that you re to find   member leaks, imperfections, spots to improve, and maybe little more giving direction to  a player

-Rethinking how you could do what i had in mind member review video is for, maybe its good idea member submitting material to do a list of specific spots troubling them, i just realized you actually can't do what i thought was purpose of member review video, unless spent hours watching someone play :S

-----

So, i might be way off with my thinking about this video, i thought to delete this, but after second thought i reedited a bit and leave you my thoughts, maybe u find something useful :) for making even better vids then :~ as usual great ones

Hey Phil, thanks for taking the time to do this video.  Love it  :)

I'll address a couple of the comments in the thread, and I'm sure others can join in and add their view too.

Balance: I think it does start to matter somewhere around $0.5/$1 - $1/$2.  There are some pretty good players who play there and will certainly give you trouble if you go too far out of line.  That said, I still think balance doesn't need to be a huge concern against the average $0.5/$1 player.  Below $0.5/$1 it's almost certainly not going to be worth it to try to play a balanced strategy.  (within reason)

Standard spots: Many spots end up appearing standard when you play with solid fundamentals.  In my experience, both from forums and from the tables, players are often uncertain about fundamentals and therefore end up in trickier situations than they would need to.  Phil is spot on when he says preflop decisions are very important in these games.  The way he's extrapolating on hand situations should be very valuable to any low stakes player.  It certainly is to me.  I'm not saying I have it all down, I certainly make my share of mistakes.  But I think it's also true that many of the spots that seem standard here are still played in non-standard ways by a lot of players at micro/low stakes.  So there should be decent educational value still.

Purpose of review: Well, the purpose of all we do here is to learn to play better poker right?  One of the first steps for PLO players is to figure out preflop hand selection.  Phil is pointing out lots of such spots, both ones that happen in the video and ones that don't happen here but happen in other situations.  Another early step for PLO players is to figure out how to play each hand, and which preflop/postflop action to take.  That's also being pointed out a lot in the video.  And finally, for players who have mastered much of that and are trying to move towards mid stakes, bet sizing and balance starts to become much more important.  And you know what, Phil talks a ton about that too in the video!  :)

For me personally, there's tons of value in a video like this.  Not only for the things Phil says, but also because it's fairly easy to extend the ideas to other similar situations.  A hand like the AQJ9 is a good example.  It's a silly mistake on my part, and I already know that I should fold there pre, so there's limited value in someone telling me.  But it extends to many other hands for one thing, and it's fairly easy to understand which.  And along with many other spots in the video, it also extends to the concept of understanding when to tighten up and when to loosen up.  As much as I've already studied this, it still often surprises me how extreme some of the adjustments can be.  In both directions. 

That's just one example, but it exemplifies what I'm doing to extract value out of a video like this.  In general, I'd recommend anyone to watch Phil's videos in a lot of detail and really try to understand all the how's and why's.  Each video is certainly worth 4-5 hours of study, and probably more.  They're not only good for falling asleep to guys!  :)

Minute 29 - AQJ9ss:
Are we x/shoving our nutflushes here as well? I feel like, I would at least consider x/calling with a nutflush if our opponent can't have it but bets this big but Phil didn't even talk about it briefly. 
If we want to balance our nutblockerbluffs with our nutflushes we can obv raise both but I'm just curious wether there really is more merit to x/shove flop than to x/c and hope to make him shove the turn with whatever he bets this big OTF.

Hey Guys,

Thank you very much for the detailed feedback.  I say this all the time, but it's worth repeating: It's just as easy for me to make member reviews vs. HH reviews vs. live videos vs. pre-recorded sessions... etc.  It's also just as easy for me to focus on more advanced concepts vs. more basic concepts.  I just need you guys to continue to speak up so that I can make the best content possible for your needs.

It's a challenge for me to guess the type of content our Essential members want to see.  I've been operating under the assumption that the majority of our Essential subscribers play somewhere between $5nl/plo to $50nl/plo.  However, I have no idea how accurate that assumption is, as we don't ask that information of our members when they sign up.

I receive a lot of intelligent and advanced questions in response to my Essential videos, which could suggest a more advanced member base than I assumed, but I have to consider the fact that many less advanced players may not feel comfortable asking their (less advanced) questions.  (I encourage anyone who's afraid to ask a "dumb" question to look around our forums and see how helpful and non-judgemental our community is)

I do my best to discuss concepts that come up in the footage along with concepts that are tangential to it, especially if I think it's a concept or spot that many microstakes and small stakes players may have trouble with.

I'm always going to be limited in this area as I don't play these games, and in fact never have (I played small stakes SNGs on my way up before finally switching from highstakes SNGs to mid-high stakes NL, then HSPLO).  

We have an excellent team of small stakes players who are far more in touch with the games and with the common leaks people have, but I also want to provide my own content to our Essential members.  

I'll continue to do my best guessing as to what concepts to cover, but please bear with me if I miss the mark, and please continue to let me know if you feel that I am.

Any suggestions for future content are always more than welcome.

Posted from my phone while boarding a plane, so please excuse any typos.

I don't think I have wifi on this flight, and tonight will be busy, so I will get to more responses in the next couple days.

Please keep the questions coming!

Nice video,great comments,Mister Galfond you have the knack to dig deep into analysis and it's a treat really,that's one of the many reasons why i chose your site so keep bringing us that knowledge of yours,thanks a lot.

I play mostly NL and have dabbled in PLO here and there having to figure out a lot of stuff on my own. Even with my limited skill level in PLO I find there are a lot of players at these stakes and lower who would benefit if they understood the concepts in this video. This video was very helpful to me and I think a lot of talk about stats would have lost my interest completely. 

The impression I get of players that have these concepts down are probably beating these games and are ready to upgrade to elite and move up stakes.

Also I like the idea of a two half videos a month, one being NL and one being PLO.

One more thing to add. Watching a leakfinder of a good player is far more valuable to me than watching a leakfinder of a player making a lot of mistakes, simply because you can assume there is a thought process behind the good players actions where the less skilled player will just leave you scratching your head for most of the video wondering why you watch. So maybe Phil didn't improve Jonna's game by leaps and bounds but his commentary did lead to some very interesting analysis and discussion that for me at least is very useful.

Awesome, crazysqueezy.  Thanks for speaking up and letting me know.  I'm glad the video helped!

At the 29min hand you suggest a click back instead of the all in. So I assume it is a click back/fold to shove? We save money when he does have it vs. the shove but shoving gives him no opportunity to bluff us which he could do with our click back? How do we balance those two options out? 

hi  Phil,

the vid was great.

My question is about where to play and learn.

At the start of the video you say..... ".50 - $1 Zoom PLO is a excellent training ground"... 

I was wondering what you recommend playing for a new player learning the game?    I have been playing for about 3 months now, just 2 tabling the 6-max 25PLO & 50PLO games mostly but tried the Zoom format a couple of weeks ago and I enjoyed it.  

But for learning the game is it more beneficial  to go slower  and play the same players for a few hours at your table or is volume more important and by playing Zoom that would be better?

Is it better to play Zoom primarily or a combitiaton of Zoom and regular 6-max games,  say 80% Zoom / 20% 6-max for the beginning player?? 

thanks,

Pepper

I am alittle curious about the openranges from UTG is Ax9QJss really an open?

I liked the video more of this stuff!  

awesome video great job!!

   20:00 we open JJQ3ds UTG for a pot, but 22:22 we fold QQ92ss on UTG+1. I realise one more suit IS something, but considering we will get called with JJ most of the time (since its just a raise, not 3bet) and often be out of position with non nut flushdraws (In fact, quite low ones), I suppose hand is more played due to its ability to flop sets. With this logic, I'd think we want to open QQ92ss from UTG+1. Or does that extra low suit really mean enough to make JJQ3ds playable and QQ not? If villains from later positions will be calling/3betting, there will be higher flushdraws in their range.

   Great video nonetheless

When discussing whether AxQJ9 is an UTG open, i noticed that i am still unsure whether the AKQ5, AJT4 (all suited to the ace)-hands are opens. I guess, the fishier the blinds are, the more its an open but usually it´s just a fold isnt it?

And Jona, how do you evaluate the strength of a hand in PPT? Through the range explorer and then rankings, the 6h results are a little bit strange. QJJ3$ds belongs to the top7% and e.g. AsJsT5 is between the top 7% and 29%. Am i being mislead by something?

Hello Phil.Nice video by Jonnas and you.

I have a disagreement about how loose we must be at this stakes oop.Such as the defend with K1065ss from bb against button raise.I think that we are able to play too much hands in position against bad players and because of that no worries to give some ev from oop with marginal hands.

Example of that is how much bbs plays every opponent.At high stakes i believe that its important to not give any ev cause the callings at 3bets and 4bets is more calculated than a plo100 game.

p.s sorry for my english

Thanks for the video, it was a pleasure to watch it.

Can you give some informations about your HUD ?

At around the 10:30 mark there is a discussion on the best check raise sizing with a wrap on 45Kr. Phil states that while pot is OK, a smaller size might be best and better for range. Why is this so? He says that vs a tougher opponent the smaller raise is best. What are the factors that are moving the needle on this raise size between seemingly close amounts? Jonna102 ultimately chooses 14. I'm lost on this nuance. Please help! Thanks guys.

I noticed that this video was made in 2013, pre-solvers. Have any of your thoughts or opinions changed about it in the post solver world?