MattC

Works for me

Fair enough. I’ll have to spend some time revising the way I think about the spot then.

Thanks for the responses.

“Regarding your turn range construction: Let's say you would bet flop 60% of the time for a very small size. You check and I check. Who has the range advantage OTT and what kind of advantage is it? You should have an edge OTT and it should be across a lot of the distribution, not a strictly polar advantage. As a result, you should do quite a lot of turn betting as otherwise I won't be incentivized to stab into a range that is stronger than mine.”

OTF, I expect OOP to have the advantage at the top of range vs range interaction, mostly coming from big flushes, and mostly from the nut flush. This advantage is big enough to give OOP the overall equity advantage as well. I expect IP to have the advantage in the middle of range vs range interaction with a higher quantity of all the lower flushes, straights, and sets. (As a side note: I wonder if the straight flush combos make significant headway for IP on catching up with OOP’s top of range advantage, it is 5c after all).

How this translates to OTT, I think OOP is more incentivized to continue betting on the flop more so than IP is to bet when checked to because IP has more control over deciding if a bet goes in on each of the later streets and thus can better afford to have the pot stay unchanged going into the turn. The board is also static/lockdown in nature, so taking the free card probably isn’t going to change or risk very much relatively speaking.

Going with your 60%, now that the flop went check check, I think OOP probably still has an advantage at the very top of range because it has so many more nut flushes to begin with on the flop as a % of total range and the turn favors OOP. IP is going to want to check flop usually because most of the hands it is ahead with don’t want to play for all the money, but rather something smaller, so not much has changed for them. Or in other words, OOP’s decision to check flop was more negative toward the overall value of it’s range as compared to IP’s decision to check to it’s range. It’s not immediately obvious to me that the range vs range advantage going into the turn is the same or necessarily similar to before it went check check on the flop.

And yea, if OOP check raise % is a reasonable threat, and I think it should be, IP is still incentivized to check turn in an effort to realize it’s equity and control the pot size to be in a place where the amount going in thereafter is about the amount that fits where his advantage lies. That seems to me like a really good thing for OOP. If it’s not a threat, the hand becomes too easy for IP to play in the check check check line.

For OOP, to lead out with bet small bet big, yea, I think that IP is happy playing this game, for these bet sizes amounts, in this position and situation. What happened here specifically is an example of why a check raise would be really effective and should be used, your hand got pushed to indifference very quickly.

“As a result, you should do quite a lot of turn betting as otherwise I won't be incentivized to stab into a range that is stronger than mine. If you are heavily checking the nuts, you won't get many stabs from me. So you'll mix your nuts into both bet sizes and have some lowish check frequency, but also consider that the nut flush is only the 3rd nuts on this board so again, checking to check raise a lot can be problematic.”

I’m on board with what you said here, I just think that OOP should be utilizing/mixing the very top of range heavily here into check raise, betting out with the next tier down value hands, and do so often enough to prevent IP from having a day at the beach when checked to for the second time. Often enough that if IP bets and finds the response being raise, IP shouldn’t really be surprised.

It is a good point about the straight flush possibilities being problematic to OOP’s nut flush combos, I didn’t consider that. However, after thinking about it some, I think the fact that IP decided to check flop has mitigated the relevance of that factor substantially.

“Why would someone check the nut flush twice? Of course it exists in the range at some small frequency, but is a rare hand.”

Hmm.. on the turn spot, I seem to think the opposite of you. To me, if comparing bet small turn bet big river to check raise turn bet big river, the later is more representative of a line that is indicating “I’m polar”, which is what I want to be doing if I actually am. If I were in villain’s shoes, I’d probably be doing the bet small/bet big bet big line with the few level below flushes and mixing between the two with the nut flush with a heavy mix into check raise depending on my side cards. I need to protect against delay stabs and I’d do that by taking a line that bloats the pot to the maximum possible when it happens. A nutted hand/polar range makes the most sense to me to do that.

“When he misses this option, I elect to go for thin value arguing that he has few better straights and my blocker is significant vs the check/check line.”

I agree the blocker you have is key, but even given that, are you going for two streets? Even on the brickiest river, that seems thin to me.

“Based on my experience vs this player, I also think his sizing is a tell of thin value or a bluff, against which I'd rather bluff raise because I think I can make him fold both.”

It seemed the same way to me too when watching in real time, so I like the play for similar reasons, but I also think the reason you are having to do so to begin with is because of the position the turn bet has put you into. I agree with analgrande, think there is a decent chance you might be bluffing with the best hand here and the raise might be unnecessary, but I can also see that it might be raise is better than call.

“Also the quick timing on the river works wonders :)”

Haha, yea.

In the last hand, I am surprised you opted to go for the thin value on the turn. I’d figure that this hand is probably worth at most about a full street of value and it really doesn’t enjoy a check raise. I’d think it’s most likely to get that by inducing bluffs on the river (maybe not with this guy, I guess) and it probably isn’t pushing much equity vs anything that is calling anyhow. Maybe with the nut straight as that is blocking improves to higher straights and could get called by a lower straight. You also block the most likely set. In 4c, I consider this a fairly standard check back. Is this an adjustment you are making because it’s 5c and you have to make such bets or is it the opposite and you would have to be more conservative still and that this is just an adjustment to this player specifically? Or am I just wrong to think the turn should be a check back normally?

Also, I didn’t understand why you thought it was weird he’d check raise, that he should be leveraging his polarity by stabbing turn a lot. My line of thought is that this is a bad board for the raiser if they don’t have a flush, the board connects more with you than him overall, and his over pair advantage is nullified. There are a ton of hands that can peel on this board and apply pressure on later streets depending on what happens. He shouldn’t expect to get a lot of folds. So, he’s checking a lot as a result of that, should be continuing to do so for similar reasons on the turn, and the best way to leverage his polarity is to do exactly what he did or to bet the flop and threaten a 3 street game. Could you explain why you think differently a bit further?

100 votes from me for more 5c!

I know, I’m the worst. =x

Appreciate the responses!

4:53 8765ss on 984ssJc2s

On the river, how is OOP deciding which flushes to check vs bet? And for IP, what are the lowest flushes making it into bet and are there any nuances/factors that you may have noticed that cause IP to widen or tighten that range?

9:23 KJJ5ss on T88r

Besides you being sandwiched 3 way, my thought is that a hand like JJ in particular would be a bad combo to call with because it blocks a lot of the (semi)bluffing range of the bettor IE wraps and OESDs.

Have you noticed this or do you think it’s not a very meaningful effect?

14:15 A988ss on A43ssAx

Ignoring the results of the hand, what do you typically expect or in your experience have found to be shown when getting raised here on the turn? Are you ever re raising turn? If so, what size would you choose to use?

As played, what was your plan/thoughts for the various rivers and bet sizes you’d be facing? Would you have called a bet on this river in particular?

16:03 AJ96ds on K77r

What pre flop parameters did you use to generate the ranges used in this sim? Did you use B33 because that is the traditional bet size used by the reg population or did you try giving IP various sizes and find that B33 was still the preferred bet size?

Is OOP leading often on the turn due to how many draws are generated or is that something seen on brick turns as well?

Do still bad hands that pair up with the six also fall into the category of hands that bluff often?

It seems some of the players in the pool were opening 2.5x due to the presence of the short stacks. Have you explored at what stack depths you would choose to start lowering your opening size and what that respective size should theoretically be?

Second the idea of cash over tourney (and theory/spots over both).

Thanks

8:15 T975ss on AJ4hhh 2d 5h

Why did you decide to pot instead of bet small or check?

15:32 9642ss on Q93r 9ss

Why did you decide to check instead of bet? Were you planning to check-call?

21:10 K983ss on AJ6r 2dd

Could you explain your thoughts on why you chose to double barrel?

I noticed you left lead out. What are your thoughts on that one?

I'm thinking lead and follow through for both SRP and 3BP, but these also seem to need splitting between tight and wide range scenarios.

As you keep worrying about being tedious and boring, I think the examples you talked about are exactly the type of stuff I like to hear and look for in a video. I personally vote for more of this. Excellent work.

I've liked all your videos as well, I think you do well with the zoom format, I wouldn't mind if you just kept doing the same. If you're open to doing other formats, perhaps try doing hand history review, pick the most difficult or interesting hands you've dealt with recently. Perhaps the hands can all share a specific theme. I can follow up with some topic ideas I'd be interested to hear if you have nothing specific in mind.

For the AA98ds limp vs raise, is implementing a limp strategy worth the effort? How much ev does it add?

19:45 AQ93ds on A875hhdd

Can you discuss the bet turn strategy here a bit. Do you have just one sizing of pot or do you do any blocking? If it's a multiple size, can you discuss the difference between the ranges in those lines? and similarly between bet and check raise? I think this would be an instance where diving into monker would be good.

QJ85hhh on 2436K

Do you think having 3 hearts (or in other words, 3 suits that are not blocking backdoor flush draws), makes your bluff on the turn better or worse? What about river once called on the turn?

How would you rank from best to worst which board cards you would prefer to have to make you more likely to bluff river once called on turn?

I tried exploring the spot in vision, but it only has pot turn, so it basically doesn't exist as an option. You showed a few examples of hands that might choose to bluff raise the turn and talked about some of the type of hands that might get used, but didn't really go in depth into what components or combination of components are most to least desirable to make this play, and didn't really talk to much about the same for continuing to river bluff. Could you expand a little bit on that? For example, if you have a wrap on the flop, is there a specific condition that is often being used to differentiate which choose to raise the turn vs which choose to call? Are there specific cards you don't want to have or do want to have that can help you bluff the river at the correct frequency?

QJ87ds on A72ss

The first sim is using stack sizes of 100bb. You used B33 on flop in game, but the turn sim you used assumed B67 (which is now assuming 200bb). I'm assuming it doesn't end up changing your strategy for the turn with the right assumptions, but just wanted to double check on that.

~18:30 T644ds bet river decision. You said you went with big bet instead of pot due to polarity disadvantage. It’s not clear to me that this is the case. We have quite a bit of JT and KK as well and in practice the population probably over cbets flop, over delay cbets turn, with overpair and JT combos. Do you agree? If so, do you think it’d be correct to adjust to pot exploitively?

~ 25:00 as IP on these paired boards with an overpair, do you think it’s more correct to error on the side of checking or betting river? (I’m guessing you go B50 for these). Also, for the turn bet on the lower paired board, there was a pretty decent amount of B50 on the turn, what is the difference between the B50 and B100 ranges?

As a side comment, not often, but sometimes, when you switch over to solver you have syntax already in the filter and as a result sometimes I don’t get to see the base line strategy bet size probabilities, because there’s always a filter in for the entire explanation. I find it helpful to see this first so I can understand what you say for the filtered in the context of the overall strategy.

I think you’ve done really well in all your videos, but I think you’re at your best when you deep dive into a specific concept. I like your spots type of videos the most, or the ones very similar to that.

That balance is hard to strike, of course, but yea I think it’s good to flesh out an idea if it has some real value. Take this example, a lot of the population doesn’t lead and therefore probably botch the turn quite a bit when they do due to lack of experience. As you say, the turn is complex, we need a strategy that can check raise, check call, and bet, with potentially multiple bet sizes, at potentially steeper stack depths, in situations that often have textures who’ve shifted and may shift yet again. There is a lot to think about there and I think leading the flop loses a lot of it’s value if ill equipped on how to follow through. I think as a general statement we probably all feel more uncomfortable and/or play worse when playing OOP and so I think this would be a spot worth continuing to expand on.

I’m interested in opening more discussion about the KT99cc hand specifically about betting the turn and what to do when facing a check raise there instead of the river.

It always gives me a precarious feeling when checking back flop and then betting turn and/or river in these spots given we’ve just capped our (perceived) range and the majority of our value betting range on the turn is a flush that is clearly facing trouble when facing a raise and instantly goes into bluff catch mode. Looking at the turn specifically, especially given your commentary about how much more likely it is that villain has trips or boat in his range here (because the board pair is Ax), I think it’s pretty intuitive for OOP to want to go for a check raise on the turn since a new hand class has just emerged and that will likely want to go for some bets (the flush) and makes betting a flush therefore somewhat dangerous. And even if he doesn’t have a boat, if he checks and then faces a bet, he will (or at least I do) get the inclination to start piling on pressure vs the capped range, especially or even if it’s just trips, or board pair blocker(s). Further, although I get the reasoning behind betting small on the turn, I believe in practice it also induces raises given the “weak” sizing of the bet. All in all, I find myself often checking back the turn as well to avoid the situation of getting check raised for size and a follow through pile on the river in similar instances as this. I do so also because I find it also sort of hard to get the second full street of value. (I think this is why you probably went smaller on the river when you played this hand, you knew your range was somewhat capped and you felt betting pot would make it hard to get value from worse.)

Obviously, we will want to bet flushes on the turn as they are often good, especially the big ones because they beat lower flushes. What factors differentiate a flush that bets turn vs check turn? If betting turn, are we always calling a check raise with a flush and then following the advice laid out in the video vs a river bet or is it different?

One idea I had was to bet the flushes that contained a board pair on the turn, and check the ones that don’t (while also favoring higher vs lower flushes), this should make facing a check raise less likely and also make my range more robust in terms of being able to make call downs. But it also seems that strategy may lead me to be under value betting in these situations, so I’m not sure.

What do you think?

As with one of your earlier videos, the obvious follow up question is “I led, now what?”. A specific question I have in that direction that I’m sure most people have huge imbalances is understanding when to go for the check raise on the turn vs continuing to barrel to protect against being obviously giving up or wanting to check call with something not so great.

In the 97 hand, how does having a board blocker affect your check/bet small/bet big decision and against river raise? Is it basically a non factor since we didn’t get raised on the turn and therefore high card/flush card is far more important? If raised on turn, how important is board blocker vs flush blocker(s)?

Ok yea, that makes sense.

So it seems that you are advocating a 3 part strategy (with a whole slew of subsequent pieces to be sure) for these board textures at this SPR OOP:

1) bet small polarized
2) bet big with decent enough hands to get it in (both draws and made) that don’t want to play more streets if it can be avoided
3) check with very strong hands, hands that can check call, hands that don’t want to get bet raised, and give ups. The continues can check call or check raise depending on a number of factors.

That’s becoming quite a complex decision tree. Have you found that adding that extra layer of complexity, as opposed to combining 1 and 3, (in either way, move them all to checks or all to bet small) is substantially more EV? If so, why do you think that is? Have you tried to quantify it?

A video idea perhaps...

Hi Richard, excellent video as always. I think this format is better than the 4 table format that you did recently as with the tables overlapping, hud info all over the place, and multiple hands going on at once, made everything feel cluttered and difficult to follow. Here you had plenty of good ideas to talk about and didn’t really have to play that many hands to do it. Your in depth look at the sims, especially with many bet size options are great.

Around 16:00, you 3bet A887ss and bet small J86ssc heads up.

I had a few questions about this hand and some thoughts about it that I wanted to open for discussion.

Some initial points:

It seems to me that this texture (specifically the 86 combination portion of it) starts to favor the IP caller as opposed to the OOP 3Ber. So, we should start to prefer check over bet, at least for that reason.

Generally speaking, and perhaps especially in 3B pots, the IP player benefits from extending the game tree to as many bet/streets as possible, and conversely the OOP player benefits from cutting them down.

Dynamic textures favor large bet sizes, static smaller.

If we do have a checking range, sets and wraps are the best hands to protect our checking range as they have the most robust equity and have the best future street playability, especially on a board like this where there are a whole number of cards that will be difficult for OOP to navigate, while also having good check raise potential.

Yet you decide to bet and bet small, which seems to go counter to all those ideas. There seems to be a decent subset of regulars who also do this in the games I play, either leading in multi-way pots OOP, or in situations like this particular hand. I don’t really understand it. Could you share what you think about this both, perhaps both abstractly (philosophically or globally) and practically (exploitively perhaps?).

Thanks!

You spent quite a bit of time trying to guess at where the 15% of raises were coming from in this video. Although there’s probably a lot of value in trying to think about it for yourself and going through it manually, probably a useful feature to add to vision is to be able to click on the range portion you want to focus on learning about (in this case the 15% raise) and be able to have a filter/feature that allows you to do a number of things to get at the info you are interested, in this case sort for characteristics from highest to lowest that makes up this action. In this particular instance, we should be able to see that in this case the majority of bluff raises are 88, 77, then QQ,JJ, so on and so forth.

Not 100% sure on the River AA85 call down in 3BP OOP, but I‘d argue for a fold (flop and turn are good check calls), especially with the As as that’s one of the most likely cards to be in a 3 barrel bluffing range. Would think we need to stack multiple blockers, a pair blocker to the nut straight or a pair with the board, or trips to make this call.. There are many combos of those such that I don’t think calling with second nut straight is necessary. Maybe call if villain value bets thinly with trips.

KJJ7ss I’d argue for a bet on the flop. Hand has good blockers to continuing range but has low chance to improve and I think may have trouble playing vs turn bet and is certainly gonna struggle a lot vs big bet/big bet on a lot of ru outs (due to poor playability). Seems to me like winning the pot on the flop would be the best result. And it’s definitely possible worse hands can call if that’s what happens. I also think we can comfortably fold to a check raise pretty comfortably. What do you guys think?

For future videos, I’d be interested in seeing when to lead in MW pots oop vs when to check and playing monotone and paired boards MW and/or 3BP. Emphasis including bet sizing and not just strategy.