dinkinflicka

Hey Mark - nice video. I noticed you are usually 3 betting with your Axs hands in blinds v LP, or otb v co, etc. Do you have any recommendations on what good frequencies are for making these 3 bets at these limits? I've been dabbling in lower zoom games on Ignition where the rake is high, so not sure these 3 bets are profitable at those limits for, example. In mid stakes games, I will 3 bet them occasionally but not always. I'm not a theory expert, so just curious how you'd go about finding precise frequencies for your ranges in these situations. Thanks.

So would you be more inclined to have a raising range in the CO or BB? Not sure, since your CO flatting range will be narrower and absolutely stronger, but may not contain 55/22. How would you recommend going about developing ranges in each spot on this board? Also, are you generally more inclined to have a raising range in position or out?

no set, no play!

Butters!!

Why do you normally prefer checking with KK there? Is it just because you look so strong with the cold 4 bet, and that it's good to have KK/AA in your checking range to balance with AK (but would you even 4 bet AK there? i wouldn't against utg_1 3 bet, so not sure what our bluff/air range would be here- not sure what exactly a good cold 4 bet range would be there - maybe sometimes 4 bet AK/AQ/Axs?)?

Cool video, as always!

1) In the 1st hand, when we c/c turn, villain is supposed to bluff close to half his high cards. But when turn is checked back, he now is supposed to bluff them only 4% on the river. Why is there such a large discrepancy in villain's strategies depending on whether he bets turn or not? Is it just that when the pot is bigger, villain should have more bluffs?

2) A bit before that, on the flop, you said that if villain is playing rationally, he is likely either always betting AQ, or always checking it. Is it clearly wrong to play a mixed strategy in these types of spots? (i.e. my tendency would be to check behind, but i feel like I need to occasionally bet) I think Sauce talks about similar spots saying that it's okay to sometimes check and sometimes bet. Would you disagree?

Enjoy your vids!

Hey, thanks a lot for the thoughtful response. Good, well-reasoned analysis. Will go back and finish the vid soon!

One more question - A88 two toned board you said bb probably shouldn't have a c/r range, but on the TT3r you say good players will usually c/r T3/33. Clearly, a nutted hand on the second board is much more vulnerable - so is it just a matter of protection (on both boards, there doesn't seem to be too many weaker hands you can get much value from- and possibly on the first board, you could get called by the case 8 or stubborn nut FD's). Why is it so much better to construct your range on the first board w/o a c/r range?

new to plo- you seem like an ideal guy to learn from! Very concise, clear analysis.

2nd hand (Ad7c7d6d) on Ad8c8d6c2c, you mention (in your elegant, non-powerpoint presentation!) that it's a mistake to bluff turn with the ace blocker (against the player who calls turned flushes), since he now calls turn 77% instead of 70%. But if he's still folding his flushes (which he holds around 44% regardless of blockers) on the river, shouldn't we still be bluffing turn (intending to bluff river (even with our blocker), since he's folding so much on the river? If players are folding most flushes on the river, aren't we almost welcoming the higher turn calling % so that we win a bigger pot on the river? I guess I'm asking how to quantify the %'s- are we sure that if he calls turn 70% we can barrel, but not if he calls 77%?

Look forward to your future vids!

What do you think of c/r bluffing (possibly jamming) in the Q6dd on the river 4TQhh 8h K?

Against a tight player, the river call seems pretty borderline (as you said, there are a few bluff combos he can have, but hard to say for sure whether you can profitably call). I never do it, but seems possible that in spots like this you can make an exploitive jam, since he almost never has a flush or J9 (AJ is possible, though). Of course, it has to work often and we likely won't have a good read on whether most villains will hero call in such spots.

Curious whether plays like this could potentially be good (either gto-wise or exploitively), but not really sure how to analyze them accurately. Would be interesting to hear thoughts from someone well versed in game theory. (I'd guess that Qx here would be too high in your range to use as a c/r bluff as a gto play, but don't know for sure).

pokersnowie suggests just folding AJo there. is this clearly too weak? also, it recommends folding A2s-A9s, and 89s/87s are the only 8's it recommends calling with. not sure how close snowie's preflop strategy is to gto, or if any good hs players actually play this way - seems like a very tight range for bb here.

If we assume bb plays this way, though (along with adding some slow plays to his range), then the bet with ATo is even that much worse (now he's losing close to 100% when called), and in position has a very easy check.

Assuming the above is close to gto, then katya's bet must be exploitative, as you discussed (but again, you really have to tweak the conditions to make the play seem good). Would be interesting to get his thoughts on the hand. Maybe Katya is just not good at poker! :)

Hey Ben - cool vid. I'm strictly a cash player, and had the same question as Jeff when looking at your examples.

Okay, so clearly we should open less than ICM suggests against players who call too much. How do we quantify this, though? (i.e. in the example where we open 42%, and the blinds can only call 8% according to ICM- let's say one is calling 10%, and the other 35%, or whatever- what's the best way to go about figuring out exactly how much we should loosen up our range- or at least to improve our estimate of this?

Game Theory- would you mind explaining why AK would be an unprofitable call here for 24bb's in the bb? Also, any recommendations for a non-tourney player on a good intro video regarding chip ev versus ICM? Thanks.

nm, should have watched the conclusion before posting! good explanation- i guessed it had to do with card removal. still, the principle might be interesting, since generally game theory wise we think of bluffing the worst part of our range- is this a flawed way to look at it? Do you think this is common, where slightly better hands in our range can be superior to bluff with? Enjoyed the video!

Nice vid. At the very end of the 3rd hand crev analysis, you quickly said that JT would have a higher difference between bluffing and checking then the 67ss did. Why is this the case? I'd intuitively guess that we're better bluffing the worse hand here (sometimes he'll have JT and fold, whereas when we have JT we win if he ever gives up with 67). Generally, here, shouldn't we be more inclined to bluff the very
bottom of our range?

Nice vid. In the first hand, where we make the nuts on the river, you recommend minraising since, w/o, spades, we lack bluffing hands. What hands (and what % of hands) would you bluff with this sizing in this spot? Or is balance unnecessary here? 

What is your definition for 'balance'? How can we balanced if we have only bluff catchers?

Good explanation, Phil. So, say we were trying to play GTO in this example. We'd have 20 nut combos (77/22/AA/88/A8s/A7s/A2s/56hh assuming we opened all of these), and would thus need to find 5 bluffing combos. What (or better, how do we determine) are our 4 weakest combos that we get to the river with here? Are there any hands with blockers here (not sure what they would be)? Initially, I'd guess we could use some combos of 99/TT (although in practice, I'd generally not show up with these on the river - so maybe QQ/KK? , but seems very strange to bluff with these)... So I guess, basically, how would we construct a solid calling/bluffing range in this spot from a GTO perspective, to go along with the 20 nut combos I gave (but as Lefort said, this can become confusing, too, since we may not be checking flop with these combos 100%, and also how do we account for the times our 'nut' 77 runs into AA?

Interesting stuff. Always been intrigued with this theory type stuff, but have never had much clue how to actually apply in practice. Are most great players today doing this type of game theory analysis in all spots, or is it still more common for them to play a more exploitive approach generally?