Richard Hoadley

Hey Lucas. At 37:15 you check back 2nd pair on 2tone A high flop. This is always a spot that I can't decide whether to CB or check back, in that I worry about capping our range vs tough regs (we always CB our Ax combos with potential flush/straight draw hands in opponents range)? Obviously having position is awesome and if it goes bet bet on different runouts we can decide, but some people put me in awful spots here when I check back flop and I wonder if they are just exploiting my Qx capped range.

There are antes btw, for some reason it hasn't shown, 240 in the middle so Ante = 10

Not that it will make too much difference to your thoughts

Hey

I remember what it was like just starting out, those small suited cards do look pretty and are hard to fold, but seriously like Nick says you won't show money here playing 43s.

I like how you are already looking at players tendencies, many players new to the game tend to look at their own cards and don't really think too much about opponents or situations. 

I would also add that it is a lot harder to call preflop with speculative hands like 56s, 67s etc when there are still plenty of people left to act. The nearer you are to the button the more speculative hands you can profitably play for reasons such as there are less people left to act behind you so the chances of there being a strong hand behind you that they can reraise you with is reduced. You also get to act after your opponents most the time (everytime when you have the button)

You said :

" there was a guy on my right with 25bb who was raising a lot of pots but folding almost always to 3 bet preflop, and giving up on flops, without making c-bet, i had 4-3 suited on UTG+3, so the guy on my right raise like he was doing it (2.5bb) "

So this is what I mean't when I said it's good to see you noticing players tendencies. I would suggest you invest in Holdem Manager 2 or Poker Tracker which can help you track players so you can see how they play general situations. It also tracks every hand you play which is great for analysing your own game. But back to the point I was going to make, this is why your positions are important. If you know the guy gives up a lot of flops then you are correct in thinking you can call hands and outplay him but it's only really advisable when you are in later position near the button for reasons I said before.

Another thing, you noticed this guy had been folding to a lot of 3bets, well in situations like this you should consider 3bet bluffing with hands that are not good enough to flat call maybe like 34s although I would still suggest something stronger or hands that block possible combinations of his strong hands, for example Ax. You have an Ace which means it is less likely he will have AK, AQ, AA etc etc strong hands that will either call your 3bet or reraise you.

"the other "benefit" i tought playing that hand is that people would see me too agressive, and win a little bit of " fear equity"

Definitely overestimating the importance of "fear equity". People are more likely to be scared when they know you are a player that puts people to difficult decisions. Calling raises and 3bets with 43s hoping to outdraw someones AA will not put a fear factor into other players at the table. They will just think, oh this guy called with a speculative hand and then when he made a strong hand he played it aggressively. However, if the flop comes 56x and you check raise all in, the opponent folds and you show a 3 or 4....now that is more likely to make your opponents fear what you can do.

*Please note, I am not advocating calling the 34s and going crazy on bluffs ha. I'm just trying to make the point that I don't think this is an example of you winning a bit of "fear equity"

Anyway, hope some of what I have said can be of use to you. GL!

Nice first video and welcome! 

16:00 - A8o - Impressive to get 3 streets. I'm often sizing bigger flop and turn and getting 2 streets and checking back river, but I like the line and sizing here, it probably equates to more EV than bet bigger twice and check back river, or bet/ch/bet. Although I think you have to have the right read on the villain to execute this line without value towning yourself.

32.50 - A9o flat - this is good to see. I think a majority of players incorporate a 3bet or fold strategy from the sb and it's kinda like a rule that has just been accepted. A bit like you can't raise fold from short stacks, or don't defend your BB too wide. Nowadays people are taking the pot odds more from the BB or they know that they can raise/fold from shorter stacks and show a profit. I think it's good to see a different strategy from the sb here.

Also, given the other stack sizes at the table OMGELBARTU can really put you in some tough spots by flatting pre or 4b. Yes 3bet will get him to fold a lot of his junk hands but I also don't think it would be the worst spot for him to turn some of those hands into 4b bluffs as he can really leverage you with 2 15-18BB stacks at the table. 3betting to me just inflates the pot OOP with a hand that flops poorly, can be put in tough spots on wet flops and is unlikely to get action on Axx boards.

Another thing I like about this spot is how the villain will probably perceive your range here, possibly barreling Axx boards too light and shutting down on K/Qxx flops should you c/c a street allowing you to either take showdown value on good run outs or turning Ax into a bluff should you wish.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of your videos and listening to some of the concepts you will be talking about.

Hand 4 - If he is calling 68s on the river here than I would assume he finds a call with any 8x, if not all the time at least enough times to make this a bad bluff. Say we say he calls around 50% of his 8x hands, i think thats 15/30 8x combos now calling. Which is 36/54 total combos so he is folding 33% of the time. You are risking 80k to win 200k so the bluff needs to work 40% of the time to breakeven which it doesn't look like it will. 

Obviously, with your assumptions he will fold his 8x combos then it is a very profitable bluff but i think it is speculative to assume he will be folding most of them. He needs to be folding 22/54 river combos assigned to make a profit (assuming I've worked it out correctly) so basically he folds 2/3 time with his 8x and 6x and calls the remaining 1/3. Not unreasonable but still not sure how often he will fold, board hasn't run out in the scariest of ways to increase the likelihood of him folding.

 Do you think he can have peeled flop with say AQ/AJ/KQ with a backdoor flush and hit diamonds on the turn to get to the river? As that will a few more combos of hands that will fold but yet beat you! But saying that there are TT,  99 and 77 in his range too that aren't accounted for

Enjoyed the vid, especially the hand vs Deeb! It's good to see you break the hand down showing your value and bluffing ranges and the combos of each.

I just bought flopzilla and played around with it. Definitely plenty more Jx combos like you say. Was actually quite surprised given I have a J too! And yeah, on.fr against what seems to be a recreational player then I guess they will call with Jx enough. 

I ended up check/folding after he set me in. My thinking was at the time he might find a fold with Jx so by jamming im just isolating against better hands. Also thought Jx never value bet so I could ch/fold not thinking he is bluffing/value betting worse often enough.  Plus I felt like his double barrelling range would contain all turned flush draws too, so to peel my turn raise I weighted it towards FD's and overpairs, although thinking about it more he probably just goes with it on the turn if he has a big pair. 

But yeah, after doing some flopzilla work I tend to agree that a shove is best especially against a recreational on.fr

Enjoying this series. Only point I wanted to make is about future videos. I think it would be great if you not only analysed hands you play but some pots from your opponents, especially on final tables such as this where it's going to be more reg heavy.

Looking back T9s actually plays worse than 67s if you think he's always inducing here. 

I am starting to see more regs peeling vs 4bets OOP than I used to now getting such good odds, inc some of the other RIO instructors. What are you're thoughts on this in general ? 

In this 67s hand, our equity against an inducing range is better than the price by quite a few %, but obv oop and shallowish is against us, however, do you think if you were as deep as villain you'd be more inclined to peel? And would this now give you a 3bet/peeling range (assuming similar sizing from villain)

About 29 mins in you 3b/fold 67s sb vs CO against a small 4bet. What hands would you peel this bet with getting a great price? Assuming you would 3bet something like T9s in the same spot do you think that would then become a call?

I think shoving here is going to be the most optimal line. Not only goes open jamming get some hands that may rejam on us to fold (weak Ax, small pairs, JT, QT, QJ etc and decent suited connectors), it has great equity versus a calling range making raise/folding and having to give up on that equity not good.

Now if the hand was unsuited, JTo is actually on the CO for open jamming 16.5bb on the button and depends more on the blinds as to what would be the most optimal line. Open jamming versus wide rejammers would be the best, but against tight players then raise/folding would be optimal IMO. Being unsuited can effect our equity by up to around 5% versus a likely calling range from the blinds which is what makes raise/folding > shove>fold in this 2nd example. 

Very good point bud! Ipoker software has caused me 2-3 weeks off playing in total, due to their software and windows 8 not working and them not knowing how to deal with it quick! and then hours lost waiting for games and not having sessions as dead! I'm going to give stars a good go!

35% is little poo, but I gather with all the extra value in games and hopefullly fish should be decent. Supernova elite is way out of reach. unless you want to grind 24-7 ha

Around 40 mins you 4bj Q9s for about 30bb vs a 4x 3bet. If I were to think he were light i'd most likely 4b/fold here. I feel the folds we get will almost be the same, it's lower variance and we still have a stack we are comfortable with should we have to fold, even though Q9s will have decent equity that we will be folding.

What do you think is the best option? Also, what value hands do you just jam 30bb in vs a 4x 3b?

If you had opened Ax in this spot would you 4b/fold when bluffing as it is more likely to be dominated when called?

How deep do you think you need to be? He has 35BB, and you would be risking 1.5BB to see a flop (most the time).

Spots like this I like to look at 2 things, his fold to 3bet and then fold to cbet. If I expect him to either 4b or fold then I am happy to 3bet/fold and get him to fold his junk/marginals, if I expect him to flat a lot but play very fit or fold then I would likely 3bet this spot a lot and expect my cbet to show an immediate profit, but if he flats often and can make our life harder postflop then I'd either flat or fold pre with the latter being most unlikely.

Do you ever just flat here? I know his range is super wide so we shouldn't set mine against it but do you not feel he is a weaker player and will make mistakes when you do hit a set?

After seeing that hand Pavlik played with the 89s with his 4/5 cbet and then turn ch/raise I think it's pretty clear he'll make mistakes so with the A7 hand in hindsight flatting seems better as there is no guarantee that he'll shut down like he should or even the smallest click back, something that allows him to make a mistake considering his range is weighted towards bluffs given your timing tells and hand combos.

I've never played OnGame but just watching it has tilted me, stack sizes rounded to the nearest K just looks weird.

"This isn't EastEnders finish the f**king hand" - lolz @ this. I'm pretty sure I'd flat to let him bluff river too

27:00 - You discuss defending your BB with shallower stacks. What is the smallest stack you would consider defending your BB with? Also, what are your other considerations when defending your BB with a shallow stack?

I recently had a discussion on the forums with Nick Rampone regarding a spot where he defended the BB really shallow and it opened my mind to looking into it more than I have in the past as I just dismissed it before as a bad play.

One thing that you said that has started to sway my opinion on the subject was to do with the SPR. I'd never really thought about that too much in NLHE even though I had used it a lot when I played more PLO. It definitely makes more sense to me now considering how low the SPR will be and therefore the equity % we need to profitably get the money in and show a profit is lower.

One thing regarding defending shortstacks that I thought I would mention while on my mind. I have just watched Jason Koon's recent video, he mentions you in it and talks about defending shorter stacks. The one thing that he mentioned that we haven't in our discussion was that playing shallower means there is a smaller SPR which therefore means we can stack off wider. Having played a lot of PLO in the past and dealing with SPR i'm kinda annoyed I have never really thought about it in NLHE and translating it into my NLHE game! (Although I still think the K9o might not be the greatest haha) Anyway, just thought i'd mention this while on my mind. Definitely going to look into this subject in more depth.

I'm no wizard but I would be up for giving it ago even though I don't know where to begin just yet! I will definitely give it ago though at some point when I get time!

Even if you do win the pot 1/4.3 times it doesn't mean that this call is great. That assumes you call to see a flop and it checks all the way down to the river, which we know isn't what's going to happen. You may win the pot more than one time out of 4.3, but there will be more times that you get stacked with an inferior hand than times you get a double up, not to mention times the board will favour him and you just ch/fold, so most often you will lose the 1bb when you ch/fold, sometimes you flop a pair/draw and get his cbet, sometimes you flop a pair/draw and get it in crushed, now and then you get it in good. That's just my thoughts right now, I might try and do some maths on it but I'm not too sure how to go about it just yet. Need some Wizard on here to work it out for us!


A2o - "Most of the time he will flop no equity, and given my position, reads, and skill advantage over him, I think I can make that a profitable play. I'll be able to cbet a size that lays me a price of 4:1, meaning it'll only have to work 25% of the time. Since > 50% of the time he'll have no equity, I think it's a pretty clear +EV spot."

This is all well and good but getting through the other players is the harder part of this hand. If table is playing ultra tight then yes sure it's fine but people are attacking UTG raises more these days so it would have to meet certain table conditions for me to do this super super wide!

26:00 - I was actually pretty shocked to see you peel with 11bb, especially after mentioning earlier in the video how important each blind can be. And if you do think he is opening this spot ultra wide then he will be raise/folding to an 11bb jam which would surely be better?

Also you talk about not having to open too wide with the J8o in CO as you feel he can mess around with you as he has chips etc but now you want to peel a flop OOP with 11bb with K9o vs the table chip leader.

Also, you do say that there are flops you will ch/raise jam overs, that seems too high variance a line for me considering how shallow stacks are and he has a stack where he can call and lose and still be in a good position. I know you said you may do this sort of thing in the video but if it did really come 557 are you really going to check/jam K9o this deep in the sunday million with a short stack vs table chip leader??? Seeing as you have passed on some spots with say AJs earlier facing a 3bet jam that probably would show a greater+ EV than this hand I was quite surprised.

I would love to hear more thoughts from you on this? It's something I never really do with this short a stack, maybe i'm missing something and can add in occassionally but I really don't know how profitable it is going to be long term.

35:00 - A2o. I don't mind the open with a blocker but I wouldn't be keen on opening almost any 2. He is peeling often, rightly or wrongly in the BB and has a shallow stack so i'd imagine his flop get it in range will be widish too, therefore I wouldnt want to have a really really wide opening range that will often flop little equity, not to mention the raise has to get through 5 others before him.

Yeah good point. I think we can fold to BB jam vs that range but the others 2 stacks pretty sure we have odds to call.

Obviously in these calculations I don't have all these factors included, but I think when a play is showing this much +Chip EV (1.5-2BB) then I would factor it in slightly making it not quite as +Chip EV but certainly still a good play.

I think if we were to calculate a situation and it only show a slight profit, then we can factor in the times people do cold 4bet or wake up with a hand and then the play is probably BE or small loser.

Long old post here, been watching series but on this part I literally wrote down whatever was on my mind while watching it so forgive me for the essay. I play a lot of .fr so have enjoyed having a series from that site so thanks.

97o BvB hand - i have come across plenty of similar spots to this, especially on .fr. As you say he literally has no value hands here and does a flush draw make this raise size? Doubt it! I am a sucker for clicking it back here with no equity, but if I had any equity like a gutshot I would probably jam on him. Thoughts on that? As it seems to work way more often than not from my experience. If you actually have a hand then I guess you always call as there is so much air in his range?

I feel like its a bluff line from poor players not realising they don't rep anything given stack sizes and positions and they just think "i'm going to rep the Ace, I doubt he has an ace so he will fold if i raise"

55 hand - Think I like a cbet here. He has a super wide range so any turn card above a 5 can potentially give him the best hand. Sometimes A high may well peel so we get value from that but I would rather fold out all the hands that have like 25% equity against us, these make up a huge portion of his defending range.

AKs 3b sb oop - you said you think checking the KQ8ss flop gives you a wider range but I disagree. If the plan is to ch/call which I imagine it is, you then eliminate any air that you can have in your range, admittedly you now probably don't have QQ/KK but your range will look like one that has showdown value and is taking a check/call line once you do ch/call the flop. Basically my key point here is that you have eliminated the air in your range. Thoughts?

Another thing, when betting the turn you think that you may get floated by some broadway hands and worse pairs. I feel the floats like AJ etc will be more inclined to peel the flop than call the turn as your perceived range will have more air in it on the flop.

KJo - Fold btn vs sb 3bet - I used to find I would 4bet or fold these kind of spots but I certainly feel you can flat and play in position against what we assume to be quite a wide range. Maybe incorporate flatting the occasional monster pre so you can have big pairs in your range if you are worried about only having marginal hands in your range?

Edit - later in video I see you flat 3b oop AA.

Shoving analysis on FietsDePutIn for 17bb in CO - you assign him like 30ish% of hands that he is shoving, do you not think he will raise/call the stronger hands in this range? I think jams this size are often hands that can profitably shove but don't want to raise/call so hands like small/mid pairs, weak/mid Ax, any broadways and some connectors, making A9s even more of a call.

Oi Oi!

Really like the QQ preflop hand too, it's something I definitely don't do enough against wide 4bettors, both IP and OOP! You said you have been experimenting with mixing up your play in these kind of spots, how has it been going? What sort of other hands do you think you may 3bet/then peel out of position that arent trapping if any?

I think betting smaller is better on the river if im honest. He clearly has a marginal hand after checking back flop and calling turn bet and I dont think its a spot where an overjam looks like its a bluff so I like the weak blocking bet lead idea. I think you get calls from worse now so much more often that its better than the odd time you will get called for all the chips. And sometimes he can spaz out, as a 7 can be in his range he can potentially rep it too with the ch back flop, call turn line of his.

Enjoying vids, keep em coming!

No I think you're right, explained in much simpler terms than my waffle haha

Great series, love hearing your thought process throughout.

I have a question regarding a comment you made during the hand where you both have AQ and he 4bets small with like 25% of his stack. Afterwards you make some comment saying that it's bad and we shouldn't be doing it and just wondered if you would go into more depth as to why?

I understand him not jamming takes out the small pairs in his range but surely the 4bet could induce worse hands to 5b that wouldnt have called his 4bet jam?

Also, does your 3bet range HU depend on the sort of villain you are up against or are you always 3betting a polar range?

Tried my best to answer the questions with the KJo hand below