BrownRice

Great video! I think this is the last frontier in poker. I have done extensive work/experimentation in live games with gambit/sacrifices of all types, (strategic, tactical, and meta) and would love to see you talk/analyze more lines/ideas you think opponents are most vulnerable and how we can take advantage!

I think the most practical things I've learned about variance in a career of playing poker, both high stakes online and live, (LHE/PLO/NLH HU/FR) are:

Variance is much more a function of your edge and ability to mitigate risk in game than anything else. If you are playing in games where you are having breakeven stretches of greater than 2 months, FIND SOFTER ACTION/GET BETTER/LEARN HOW TO MITIGATE RISK IN GAME.

Winrates can be MUCH higher than most anyone is willing to believe. Ben briefly mentioned last video how winrates in very good games can be astronomical. I have sustained winrates of 10-50bb/100 in big bet games, and 5 BB+ in limit games for over 10 years. I can't even tell you the last time I had a losing month. And I have done this simply by working diligently on my technical skills but much more so on my "hustle" skills. Hustle skills being your ability to add value to games, finding games, building games, and being the luckiest F&*! anyone's ever met, (this is a skill).

If you are a winning online player at 1/2 or higher and you are having terrorizing downswings/breakeven stretches, or making less than 100k/yr I would IMPLORE you to get out into the world and find softer action. There is an ABUNDANCE of games in casinos, internet clubs/apps (YOU MUST VET FOR LEGITIMACY), and private home games FULL of the worst players you've ever encountered in your life. Coming from an internet nerd that used to kill myself trying to beat the best players in the world and suffering through variance that would haunt the dead, I can tell you there are graphs that look like everest to be had by all. But you need to shift your focus, FIND BETTER ACTION. I GUARANTEE this is the most effective way to increase your winrate and decrease your variance.

Be a good person, make friends, add value, have fun and get rich...

These videos are awesome Phil, very insightful and do a lot more for my game than live/replays. One thing I'd like to hear more in these is how we would be shifting as exploits vs certain player types. Keep up the good work

Tyler has a lot of contempt for the pool...

These vids are really, really insightful. Please upload more! Also vision is an extremely well made tool, will def purchase when I play PLO more regularly. Would absolutely purchase a NL version.

I think K7 is very rational mechanically, it blocks our opponent's continuing range, unblocks opponent's folding range, has some equity, and sets up river bluffs very well in the bet/call bet/call check line. Plus this hand does not show down well and I feel like it would make for awkward/inefficient river bluffs after it goes check check on turn.

The hand at :46 AK vs JTs. I was working with an AI and came across this lead line. My thinking is that OOP leads become a thing when you have a lot of over pairs vs a large range of over cards and 5 bet bluffs that check back flop at a high frequency. Leading for value/protection here seems like a reasonable way to attack this portion of your opponents range.

Implementation seems complicated but clearly difficult to combat on the fly.

What do you think?

This video is the best. I feel like this format is very dense and although can be very difficult to watch passively, it is very rich in value. I think this video does a great job at showing clearly how the game fundamentally works and a lot can be taken from that if you try, much more so in my opinion than the average live vid. I would love to see more of these videos.

For the same reasons, I really like videos where you cover 1 hand, (like AA) in a number of different scenarios, too.

Great video. I feel like this format is really rich in value, def looking forward to the next video.

Between a raise call strategy and an open shove strategy, which one do you guys think is the least volatile? And which one do you guys think the field will perform worse in?

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 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.

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.

12:38:

I don't think this hand is a call on the river. I don't know quite how wide you're peeling turn but presumably spades should actually constitute a very high percentage of your turn peels, particularly king high and queen high spades which will make up a decent portion of your pre flop as well as flop defending ranges. (Perhaps something kinda like this: (k9+,at+:ss,ss:q+) as turn calling range?).

Assuming you just call some of your turn JT combos, it seems 50%+ of your river range might be JT and spades with Ks and Qs making up perhaps as much of a quarter of all your hands hands, and another 20% of your range consisting of AQ or better. Out of the remaining hands it seems only a small percentage, like 5% of total hands will consist of dry Qs or dry Ks (12% if you include AQ type hands with dry Ks or Qs as well). Therefore, presuming opponent is betting at least all flushes for value and especially if he is betting JT combos, I think this hand makes pretty good X/R and not a good call.

At 4:00 and 13:00 you check raise bluff the flop, bet turn, and check give up on a river that you will be value betting with some portion of your range. It seemed to me in both hands you were in the bottom of your range, with the second, (although not the absolute bottom), conatining all pertinent blockers. Despite the fact that your opponents ranges were very string on both rivers, how are you maintaining an efficient strategy in these spots by not betting these hands?

Phil,

This video format is BY FAR the most effective you've produced (And I've been watching since the beginning of BFP). This is as close to block practice as poker players can get. With our own table time and training sites saturating us in live play videos (variable practice), we desperately need more of these to improve efficiently. Please, please continue with this format for as long as possible.

If you can, can you please think of the most frequent, most marginal situations in PLO and make a similarly formatted video on them?

Also, thank you so much, even for just briefly covering exploitative adjustments and strategies. For most players, particularly live players (me), that information is invaluable.

Thanks again!