Leatherass

I think you have about 10% equity in this hand and should fold.

One thing I will say is if your opponent is taking this line for value pretty often, can’t we raise the flop and print money? He can’t really fight back against a raise with 89 suited and if he’s checking so much of his value hands, it would stand to reason his betting range is pretty weak.

I’m not sure how these games play but a plan to call turn and fold river wouldn’t be good in the games I play. Once they over pot turn they’re just going to go for it on the river extremely often. If that’s the case, calling turn and folding river is absolutely terrible. So I think these are some of the toughest spots in Holdem because you’re basically in a spot where it’s just a matter of understanding what type of plan your opponent has for his hand. And that’s why your opponent’s play is a good play to have in your own arsenal. You’re in a spot where you basically have little to no equity and the board favors their range over yours. And he’s shoving River a ton so you’re basically making a decision for your stack on the turn. The only way to show a profit is if your opponent is over bluffing in these spots, but it takes a long damn time to figure that out. So frankly I’m not sure what to tell you here. I wouldn’t fault you for calling it off or folding turn. But the very worst thing you can do is call turn and fold river in my opinion. This is the worst of all worlds unless you have a strong read your opponent won’t fire river, but if you had a strong read on him you probably wouldn’t be posting this hand in the first place haha.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. There are so many potential spots to pick up the necessary EV to make this a profitable situation. Between over folds, fish getting it in terrible as they over value hands, post flop squeeze spots and more, no doubt you’re making money with calls here.

I like bet/calling it off on the turn if raised. I’ve got to think you have enough fold equity on the turn to make it profitable and if he is nutted, you may have like half the deck as an out on the river. I don’t think checking is the end of the world but I prefer betting here.

Nick -

Thank you for the detailed reply. That all makes great sense. I tanked and eventually time out folded the river. Never truly decided what I wanted to do on that river as I was short on time bank and didn’t get more than about 20-25 seconds overall to think about it. It was a bit of a leveling situation for me where it seemed like such a bad spot for him to bluff me, but then again it made no sense how he had anything lol. I think a call was in order, I agree.

I’m stoked you weighed in on whether to bet the flop because that seemed close and part of me wanted to check. I thinknyoir rationale makes perfect sense to me. Anyway, thanks!

Sorry I forgot to include stack size! Don’t know how I missed that. I was about 175 deep playing 3/6 and my opponent had me covered. Thanks!

I think Phil’s reasoning is perfect here.

Totally standard at these stack depths. I’d be delighted to be check/jammed on here to tell you the truth.

Man that’s a pretty weird spot on the turn I’ll admit. I’m not sure I have the answers. I think a flop c/r is a reasonable option.

As played, gosh it seems all options are somewhat reasonable. Bet/call seems reasonable, as does check/jam. Check call makes some sense as well. Don’t think a small bet on the turn does much for you, it almost seems by default just pot/call or check/jam. Don’t love a check/call. You’re obviously in terrible shape against an over pair and a FD like QQ with diamonds, so so against trips and great against draws. Seems to all add up to where you have no great options but it seems you can’t fold so I guess just get it in?

I’m definitely betting this turn if I’m floatinf this flop. Otherwise what are we doing here? The idea is to take the pot away and if we aren’t bluffing a card that gives us some two pairs and top sets, when are we trying to take this away? If we get check jammed on, that’s obviously not very much fun, but I don’t see any reason we can’t just bet smaller on the turn and size up more on lots of rivers.

As played on the turn, I’d check down the river or bet small, much more likely to bet small. Pot kinda polarizes you and you’ll probably get called just as often by a J high rundown type of hand for pot as you would half pot. Half pot gives you such a better price, so I think that’s the way to go.

Great spot! Love this post and comments!

I’d probably tank/call here. I think you’re chopping a fair bit and he’s got to have some hands where he’s drawing with the plan of bluffing rivers when checked to, especially board pairing. Not a fun call but I think it’s definitely making money at this price.

I completely agree with this assessment and I think Phil would too. His call is a definite mistake vs. the ranges of his opponents in this spot. It isn't close either. Rest of the video was outstanding as usual.

I'd like to follow up with one more clarifying/related question if I may. Let's say we don't check raise the turn here what do you expect him to do if on a blank river with AA/KK? What do you expect him to do if he rivers a medium strength flush or a nut flush? Thanks!

Great video Phil! One quick question about the last hand in the video with the J3. Love your thought process here but was wondering what you meant when on the turn you said, "I could check raise here...but I might force out a lot of his hands that are doing well against me."?
Do you mean doing well against your range and not your specific hand? Obviously no hand doing well against you will fold that's why I am confused.

Let's say you do check call the turn. Are we check/calling a blank river? Leading some rivers? I love the check/raise bet river line myself, but just wondering what we are doing on different rivers if we do check call?

Thanks in advance!

Just pot/call the turn. I don't see any other play.

I think you sort of answer your own question. I like a jam on the river.

Call flop/call turn/call all non diamond and ace rivers. The thing that type of player is preying upon is guys who make it to the river here and c/f blank rivers. You've got to showdown in those spots and make him have to adjust.

Are we folding on an 8h river? If he is making a play on the turn are we expecting him to bluff shove most rivers? It'd feel dirty to me to call the turn and fold a brick river. It seems like we need to have an answer to this question before we even call the turn raise. If we are completely unfamiliar with what he does with his range on the river and leaving us vulnerable to making an enormous mistake vs. his range on the river, can a case be made for folding the turn?

How likely do you think he is to flat the turn with KQ? Does he have all of the KQo hands here? If the blinds aren't very squeeze happy, he might flat with that hand a lot. He is also likely to have quite a few combos of Adxd as well. QsTs, KsTs make sense. KsTs can't be 100% turning itself into a bluff. And if he is auto turning hands into bluffs, some of them beat you! I like a check fold here on the river as played. I much prefer a flop check. I think the turn lead is debatable.

What hands will he very often turn into a bluff that you beat? Ts9s, 7s8s I'd presume. What else are we auto turning into a bluff here? Obviously any hand potentially, but how many are you almost always turning into a bluff? I can think of only those two hands that I would 100% of the time bluff with.

One more question if you're up for it. I have noticed a trend of greatly limiting instances where guys bluff with little to no equity, instead favoring opportunities where they do have equity or at least some showdown value where they might win say 5% of the time.

My question is do you think this concept has been taken too far? I understand that for GTO purposes if you start getting carried away bluffing with your range that includes little to no equity, you are going to become tremendously imbalanced. But at the same time, should we give our opponents so much credit for being able to recognize this imbalance?

At the highest stakes games against very strong opposition, getting carried away with bluffing with little to no equity is likely to become exploited, but I am curious about your thoughts when playing against good as opposed to great players, the importance of worrying about being exploited. Maybe it is a leak in my game, but I feel like I find quite a few spots where bluffing with no equity seems to be a reasonable option, especially if overbets are used to induce folds.

For example, lets say you have 44 and you raise from MP. Fairly loose preflop BB calls. Flop comes down AK6. He checks and you check. Turn is a 2 and your opponent fires into you. You min raise and he calls which sorta defines his hand a bit. River is an 8 and then you 1.25x the pot after he checks to you. I just feel like guys puke and fold here a lot. Since 90% + of the members play low to mid stakes where hand reading is not what it is at the high stakes, do you think perhaps it is worth a video here and there to discuss highly expolitative lines that in practice just seem to flat out work?

Maybe the answer is that you simply don't play those stakes and therefore don't know what these spots are which makes a video tough to do. Not a knock on you of course, how would you know what works against competition you don't play against after all. I'm curious if you ever take these lines against high stakes guys? Do you think even against the very best players, perhaps just taking a line like that once a session might yield a few extra BBs a day that adds up over the course of a year. Or do you simply think at those stakes your opponents just aren't going to buy it and toss in the chips far too often for a random line like this you might take once in awhile to work?

Thanks for your thoughts if you have time. No worries if you don't. Thanks again for another great video!!

What do you think about a weird (but maybe sexy) turn squeeze at around the 20 minute mark with your 9c7 on the AK84 board? You checked the flop and it checked through. You checked the turn and it went bet/call. I know it looks funny and is probably not a play you would make very often with a big hand, but it also seems like unless you are abusing a play like this, it just might work pretty damn well. Almost like a fake punt in a football game. What do you think? What would you do if someone made that play against you and you had AQ (which is probably the very top of either players range other than maybe 44 once in awhile)? My feeling is without a read, I am puking and folding pretty often. Interested in your thoughts.

Ben,

I will be the first to admit that balancing and your overall strategy skewing towards GTO optimal is certainly not a bad option. I am curious however why at stakes below that of the best in the world, why balance is so important? These days no one pays any attention to pots they aren't involved in due to virtually all pros being mass multi tablers. Why is balance so important in situations where it is difficult for your opponents to ever accumulate enough of a sample size to react appropriately to your actions. Why not just do things like 1.5x the pot on the river when you know they will shit their pants and almost always fold in a pot where ranges are capped etc? Is it unbalanced? Sure. But who cares?

I guess I have concerns in general that the unattainable by human beings GTO strategy makes some viewers feel paralyzed on what actions they take in a given hand. Personally, I base my game on a GTO strategy but am TREMENDOUSLY unbalanced in a lot of situations. I find a very large number of situations every day I play where I am completely unbalanced, but it just works! Overbetting random turns, rivers, double check raises where I always have nothing etc. I have kept track of the situations where I am tremendously unbalanced and this is one of my biggest sources of profit in my poker business. 

I say all this not to contest your strategy. While nearly every member of this site probably does at least a thing or two better than even the instructors, I'd be a fool to suggest that your reasoning is not well founded. You don't have the results you have for no good reason. Please take this in the best way possible. I am just genuinely curious as to your response. I saw a few pots in this video where I know you would in theory probably agree with me that a 1.5x pot bet would probably be absurdly profitable etc. but you didn't make it presumably in the interest of maintaining a GTO strategy. So I am genuinely interested in your response.

Again, I think the world of your instruction and have watched every single video you have made. I mean all of this only in the spirit of generating intersting discussion. I look forward to your reply and thank you for sharing your thoughts with me/us. I truly do think the world of you as a player and look forward to each and every video.

Dusty

I stumbled across this thread by virtue of it being linked on 2+2. I was pretty shocked to see that Peter Jennings was being called out for one math error and his unwillingness to open to the public, the books of his own private business. I find this absurd on many levels and am sorry for Peter that he has had to endure this nonsense.

I have played with Peter quite a lot over the years and he always struck me as a tough player. He is someone who I did not expect to make a lot of mistakes. If Peter says he is beating these games for a decent clip I would have no reason to doubt him. 

Personally, I have enjoyed his videos and don't intend to miss a future one. He has great insight into the game. I think if the people giving him a hard time had spent their time more wisely by working to improve their games, they'd be fulfilling the reason they were willing to pay $99.99 a month to be a member of this site in the first place.

I hope the videos keep on coming and are as useful as they have been so far.

Dusty

Ben,

I don't know if you're still responding to this thread, but in the JT hand you open the video with, you said you would check call up to $160 on the river and fold to a bigger bet. What do you think of the merits of check raising the river if KTclubs bets any amount that doesn't often polarize him like an overbet for example. 

I'm new to the site and love it. You make great videos I enjoy greatly! I feel like I'm getting some  "knowledge rakeback" for all the pots you took off of me over the years :)

Thanks!!