Londonjonathan

Already gained my first insight from playing with this. I raise MP; get called by BB; flop KT4r; he checks, I cbet; sizing and frequency of bets on various turns: A,Q,J relatively frequent, but small (his main draw got there, but some of my flopped air got there; T - probably worst card in deck - mostly check; K-low frequency but pretty large as he has quite a few kings but mine tend to outkick him; 2-8 - moderate frequency, but very large.

I definitely have been sizing too small on the brick turns.

Thanks. Didn't realise I could do that.

Your understanding that GTO strategies all maximise EV at equilibrium is spot on IN ZERO SUM TWO PLAYER GAMES.

It's great really that multi-way situations are more complicated as it protects poker from being solved by computers for a very long time. I encourage you to read about "tit-for-tat strategy" as it explores the concepts.

Your hand 2 brought to mind that the old-school propensity to check quite a lot when there are dry side pots, and thereby reduce the all in players Equity advantage in the main pot may need more thought than a one off situational analysis. In the long run cooperation with bigger stacks may be a better strategy.

I'll give you a simple example, with numbers. You are playing hi low omaha8 on the river, and the betting makes it obvious that player 1 has the nut high, and players 2 and three have the nut low. Player 1 bets 2 units into a pot of 3 units and player 2 has to decide what to do. If he raises two units, he makes it unprofitable to call for player 3, who will face a third bet and only stands to get 1/4 of the pot. If he calls, he is in a sense collaborating with player 3 as they each now only face 1 bet and are both plus ev calling the one bet. As player 3, if player 2 knows that my strategy is to make a -ev call in this spot, player 2 won't raise and I'm better off. The reason this is different to the GTO ideas you mention above is that the sub-game between players 2 and 3 is not zero sum. If you are interested in a non-mathsy explanation look up tit-for-tat prisoners dilemma on Google as it explores a similar dynamic where the dominant strategy is to cooperate if your opponent cooperates (by seeing a cheap showdown in my above example) and not to cooperate (by making a -ev call, costing both players 2 and 3 in my above example) in response to non-cooperation from my opponent (a raise from player 2).

Anyway, I'm sidetracking the discussion from your excellent video; I hope you find it interesting.

Jon

I'm not sure that it is necessarily against GTO fundamentals. 3 person games are a strange beast in that your interaction with only one of the players is not always a zero sum game. Some of my loss folding is the third player's gain, not his. It's perfectly possible that my negative ev calls can force him to play more cooperatively in the long run in both of our interests.

What I mean by that is it begins to make sense for sb to make a -ev call there in a meta-game sense in order to make it less profitable for you to raise this type of spot in the long run.

I think nitty players fold over pairs there. I also think nitty players preflop flatting ranges contain more mid range pairs than a standard top 25%. I also think the 3-bets from that class of player remove more aces/kings and wraps than the poker juice 4% range. Don't get me wrong though; I really enjoyed the video.

Actually, I think there's more to this hand than meets the eye. When you push out the big stack, you transfer a load of equity from him to the short stack, and a little equity to yourself (assuming you are correct in the ranges) In a "prisoners dilemma" sense I think mild cooperation with other big stacks to reduce the short stacks edge is an unexplored concept.

Interesting. On the second hand, I think the sb should have a very tight range to call with a short stack likely to shove behind him, and you block none of his sets and heavily block his wraps. I think the range you assigned him for his call was very optimistic.

Enjoyed this, and I love the intellectual honesty in this debate about the possible flaws in the assumptions. I generally play live, much deeper than this, and I suspect flatting KK as part of a mixed strategy becomes more attractive 400BB deep:)

I think it's a common mistake to think that your range is tighter than it really is. I also think the assumption that opponents aren't price sensitive, leading to a conclusion to bet as small as possible isn't very helpful. In my experience people play a lot better than that; they really will put a lot more bluff raises in versus smaller bets. If they really weren't price sensitive, why wouldn't you just bet 1 chip with all your bluffs and according to strength with your value hands?

I'm a bit confused. You raised Q3s, then did a load of analysis with you having a range that didn't include Q3s.

Why would I raise this shallow at this table UTG with 98s?

Very well put together - thanks for your work.

Excellent video.
The 1010, flopped top set: his raise to 800, to win 1100 or so if you fold the river means your alpha call rate has to be 11/19. Surely, when he has no jack you have at least 11/19 of your range made up of Jx in this spot. I'd have thought you should pick bluffs and blocking bets as a ratio of your range such that you don't have to call with this? Also, do you a think a smaller river sizing was better, balanced with some KJ and some bottom pair on flop, backdoor flush draw hands that you might bluff raise with on flop occasionally. It seemed to me your block bet wouldn't get any value from worse at that sizing.

Enjoyed the Video. Not sure his call with A5 proved he was calling all his Aces; the 5 kicker was the nut blocker in the hand where you held K6.

It struck me watching this video, that I learn a lot when you discuss "cusp" hands where you aren't sure what to do. You tend to point out the factors suggesting play 1, the factors suggesting play 2, then shrug and say not sure what's best. Great thing is knowing which hands are close helps draw the decision lines. Could be an interesting theory video - decisions I'm not sure of...

Less embarrassing than if I made a video of 3 bet pots I made mistakes in. Mind you, less funny, too.
Thanks, good video.

A winning player's red/blue line profit split is often dictated by the opponents' tendencies. Obviously if you played a table of 100% bet-call-it-offers you'd be immensely profitable blue line, but negative red line. At 2-5 zoom, my red line is flat and my blue is small plus.

I think that it's extremely likely that with s marginal hand like this, at equilibrium, a mixed strategy of some bets, some checks is appropriate on the river. If that's true it means that if OOP is playing a GTO balanced strategy, betting and checking are equal in value. To exploit in positions tendency to bet with too high a frequency on the river, OOP can make sure he gets to the river with a stronger range by over folding preflop. Just because a peel is neutral EV vs an equilibrium strategy doesn't mean it's neutral vs a strategy which bets too much on the river.

if you are betting this river for value can't you be exploited by someone over folding preflop? You have oversimplified this to a 1 street decision.

Enjoyed

Not necessarily. You defend less than 1-alpha when your opponent has a range advantage: more value hands than u particularly. If you have a range advantage into the flop, you can still bet a range of value and bluffs that leaves you able to defend to make it non ev for oppo to bet with no equity on the flop.

Very good. If u put your turn ranges into a solver and solve for turn and river in a similar way, you could make a part two:)

Well played - pwnage. Did you consider you were 4-bet bluffing enough pre flop to cover your wide opening range?

At 6:53, should you fold cK7 here to preserve the bubble, given how much stealing they are letting you get away with. You don't want to lose the hand and winning the hand takes you off the final table bubble and means you can do less stealing.

Exercise

Is it clearly correct to bet all your A5 on the river if you have so much more A5 than 56? You are targeting sets that went for a check raise on the turn. Given heavy flop action and light turn action both your ranges are nut heavy as the only genuine flop draw just got there. Should you reduce your value range so that you can bet-fold A5 combos by only betting some of them?

1. When you bet your value and your bluffs and check call your middle hands on the turn out of position you won't be balanced on all run outs. If the river is a 10 and you are always checking your AT on the turn you may not have enough value for example. This is why the GTO solvers play most hands with mixed strategy on the turn. They are balancing their river ranges on all run outs.

Joyce Meyer: "Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting."

Thanks, Tommy. I enjoyed listening (to the Beatles on the banjo, too.)

AA hand at 38 mins. Given all villain's bluffing range here is high equity draws and the shallowness of the money remaining if we call, I prefer shove to call. With so little remaining for the river, on brick rivers villain shouldn't be bluffing all his missed draw combos. Also if villain has 2pairs, failing to shove turn fails to get value when the board pairs the river counterfeiting villains 2pairs.. Fold may be best, but all in >> call.