R G

I have been wanting to ask this question for a  long time now:

Dear mr. Galfond, can you teach us how to dougie?

Interesting conflict between subconscious entertainment needs and educational value!

If GT c&p'd this from the internets, it seems he added some touch of himself "fuking phaggot", thats pretty sweet!

Shit be disgusting, agreed with drunk rant.

Yeah good point on not blocking the calling range here! 

I also see the flop lead being better than x/potting a turn, but still bad, and why for example leading 55 is much better than leading 44, when at first glance I wouldn't look further than they both have excellent blockers to the current nuts. 

You just made me smarter! tyvm

Around 16:00, 4s4c on 7c6h3c, 3way, not sure if you 3bet 54s preflop, but what about xRaising the turn really big and turning our hand into a bluff? The bettor is capped pretty hard unless he checks back 99/T8 on that board, BonusOnTilt isn't very likely to have much either, we have a good blocker hand, and we could definately play all our strong hands this way in my opinion. 

If you don't play strong hands this way, if you for example lead this board with strong hands on the flop, I think it makes sense to lead this hand too, good blockers, have outs, and benefit a bunch from having overcards fold. Getting raised off our hand doesn't matter that much, because raising hands suck to check/call against as well because of implied odds if we hit a straight, or being barreled off our hand anyway.

Turn is decision point imo, when you want to turn your hand into a bluff we need to bomb the turn shove river, our opponent is capped and we are not, this asks for a bigger sizing with our nuts and some bluffs. Betting the turn so small, then bluffing river very large is very bad, and starting a bluff on this turn with TPTK planning to turn it into a bluff already is bad as well for obvious reasons. So if we want to bluff this River after having bet this turn, we want to represent weaker flushes, so don't shove, normal sized bet makes more sense as a bluff in my opinion, but he still has KQ in his range for 8 combos that we beat, he has splits with AQ, so basically we are bluffing to make him fold 2pair+ that didn't raise earlier (very few combos id assume, not a good flop to slowplay but possible, turn I don't think he should raise at all really), worse hands (KQ), and splits (AQ), which all kinda suck imo. The only thing that can suck for us is if we check the river and he turns shit into bluffs himself, but that's not as sucky since we block the Ac bluffs that make the most sense. So i'd recomend xCalling the turn next time, and in this spot just x/folding, he was either drawing and got there or he had a bluffcatcher that he won't valuebet but we beat.

I don't see whats wrong with folding the turn in absence of more information about villain's tendencies. Yes you get a good price, but theoretically that also means he shouldn't have a lot of bluffs, so in that case calling turn means calling most rivers, in which case you are investing all your bb's in this spot based on very little evidence, which could be good and could be bad, but frankly its all guesswork, I would pick our Kx hands to call down not lower pp's.

I think it's good when we know villain is overfolding against this size, if he has overdefending tendencies in this line im sure we want to exploit atleast somewhat bigger, and then structure our ranges accordingly. I think if we don't know we don't know, and i'd rather check down get more information to know more. Knowing stuff is nice, gambling not so much. All we know at this point is that we are playing 500NL Zoom, and some player with a bigger than full stack, checked twice as the PFR on this texture, which in terms of all there is to know about this spot is super very little.

Obviously if we want to have a discussion about whether this is good to implement more regularly, which probably what you are doing. Then we should first figure out what a standard range looks like from our villain, and then what our range looks like. Find hands that normally check who benefit more from betting small, or find hands that normally bet bigger that benefit more from betting smaller, and start from there.

With what seems to be a weaker player in the SB, depending on his VPIP we both should maybe have KJo in our range for opening and defending vs. the UTG open on the BTN imo, or we both should not. So a lot of points are good points but kind of irrelevant, caus they all depend on heavy assumptions about the BTN flatting range. I think BTN's range is only stronger if he flats KJo and we don't open it, to me that situation seems weird enough that we need more evidence for the player to justify that assumption.

To me it's kinda blah even considering building such a big shove range on the turn when we have position, just feels very counter intuitive and probably the poker fundamental gods will frown upon it. OOP it has more merits to build big turn raising ranges imo.

In my opinion just read it all, there is no absolute authority in poker, but all smart poker studiers can teach you something. Nobody is going to get that much better from reading a single book or watching a single coaching video, do it all, and you will pick up something small or big from most intelligently done material. To me poker 1% was great because his pyramids provided me with a good visualization and therefor increased my understanding of how ranges work, and why sometimes just adding preflop hands because you for example think you are better than someone can give you lots of problems, and potentially have someone unintentionally exploiting you for example. Haven't read quantum poker, so can't comment on that but looks like I will be reading it.

Super delayed thanks for your post! Small update here I have made it with bonuses and bills, and since have  been getting into HU and learning that game, its been really enjoyable and good for my learning curve. Results so far:

You started this match with saying muumi plays reasonably fast, but in your decision making you seem to quite often put emphasis on the timing of his action, there might be a bit of a bias here where you seem to naturally use timing tell population reads for someone who plays much faster than the population in general. That being said, awesome video!

I think it is a very easy fold, if this guy folds to 3bets so much he will indeed only have hands that beat you. He is getting a lot of chips in against an uncapped range. I think we can play maximum exploitatively here by folding the turn already untill we know he is capable of bluffing spots like this, which I suspect is extremely rare against an unknown let alone someone who folds to 3bets and CB's so much.

If he's one of the bigger winners on 2/4, and he flats your open from the CO I think we should be able to narrow his cold calling range a bit more precise, do you have any information on that? Many people 3bet AJ for example in these positions pre-flop.

Also I am struggling to find folding combinations in his range, I am sure they are there, but what calls twice on this run out and folds the River, that has to be Jx which he probably has so little if you ask me (probably only a few Jx suited combinations that flat preflop). I think if he is decent his range is very strong with a large part of it being sets/2pairs/flushes that are obviously not folding, I also think you underestimate the backdoorflushes he could have, I don't see a reason why he can't call the flop with more backdoorflush draws than just the ones that had gutshots on the flop.

I wouldn't advice bluffing here, and I wouldn't worry about having optimal bluffing frequencies untill we know that he can have more fold combinations on the River.

Checking is not one of the possible options to our disposal from this position.

(I nitpicked GameTheory WHO THE MAN)

Like lots of it.

This will only ever work if you eat meat.

Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences! It's really good to hear for me that I get confirmed from a really good player that the optimal frequency for folding rivers is exploitably high at these stakes. I Always thought so, but somehow always kept levelling myself into, they know this.. they have to be bluffing more right, it can't be that the 3barrels are so tight from the population. Maybe I should start trusting myself a little bit more!

But yeah thanks again for sharing this, you seem to not hold back at all with sharing everything you know here, respect!

Hey Wade, thanks for taking the time to attend to my thread! Sorry to hear about your circumstances. Your advice is also solid, but for me getting a job would mean there is no more time for poker, there are personal reasons for it but I can't work full time and play poker on the side, there is not enough time in the week to do so because that would leave no time for my girlfriend. 

I am currently moving down and moved site for some bonus and added rakeback, to grind my bankroll healthy and will see if I can make everything work or not. I am not checking my results anymore, am only allowed to do that 1 every 2 weeks now. I have done this before and it helps great with the mental stress. Poker wise I am only getting better and better, it is only a matter of time when I am in a more comfortable position, because my life expenses will not go up, and my income will only go up.

I am much more relaxed and comfortable now, but it's still a long way to go!

I really don't see the absolute in the difference between sets and straights for villain's possible thought process. Sure that can be what is he thinking, sure that can be what he is doing, but frankly we have no idea what the f* he is doing. I personally don't think his play is good with a set or a straight, so I really have no clue what he is thinking. But if you can be so accurate in assigning this player yes for sets no for straights because of possible action killer River cards, and then using that information to fold our top2 against this sizing, sure go do it it might be the maximum exploitative play here, my problem is "might be".

I don't know if it's good I don't know if it's bad, nobody really does, but I personally believe his play is very likely sub-optimal, thus I am not folding on the turn. I agree it is not my everyday minraise, I actually never make this play I am fairly confident I don't have any type of every day minraise, and I am also not sure what dynamic description I am supposed to be missing. If you mean do I know that minraising with a fish in the pot can be very nutted, yeah I definately do, but I am not sure enough about his range to make such a hero fold on the turn already with these odds.

I am not disagreeing with you with a high level of confidence, but I do have a high level of preference for calling turn folding to a river bet unless we boat up, but yes I say that with healthy insecurity.

Why fold to a minraise?  Why does raising 98 makes no sense but raising sets makes sense?

Thanks again man, I can't do anything but completely agree with what you said. It is all very true, yet there is no way I am going to not do it, and not get there. I shall overcome and will update progress right here!

For starters today I formatted my pc, if it is about to break down, a format will sure delay it dying, but more likely than not the format will still fix some of the issues. 

I decided to cut down on the tables, cut down on zoom, now I am only playing HU and 6max normal speed tables to focus on getting better mostly. There is only one way to where I want to be, and that is by getting a lot better, and the only way to really get better is to play less tables, have time for decisions, and study away from the tables. 

I shall do all, and what will happen will happen. Today I had a big mindset switch, a lot of things happened in my life in the last 2 years, I won't bore anyone with details, we all get our fair share obviously, but I was always thinking deep down inside that my luck will change eventually. But today I figured out, luck isn't going to change, we create our own luck, and I for one will start engineering my own future, instead of doing 80% and hoping someone or some unknown entity to give me a push in the right direction, that unknown entity/someone shall be me.

It is probably better and more practical to use GTO slightly more practical in low stakes. Instead of asking ourselves and trying to find out with what hands we have to call his River bet in order to make the weakest hand in his range close to indifferent, we are usually better off asking to ourselves, knowing what we know of our opponent is he more likely to overbluff or underbluff this situation? That will definately lead to more profit and a better way to use GTO in a practical sense, villains will always be either under or overbluffing even if they are trying to balance. Then the next question becomes if we think he is overbluffing for example how wide do we want to go with our exploit? The wider we go the easier he will pick up thus the sooner we will give him incentive to play better, so how long will the match be, how long will we play this guy and is there more EV in smooth ninja-style exploits, or superduper overboard obvious exploits nobody gives a crapola.

Thanks for your responds!

Sure but if I haven't been so unlucky this month, I would have been in the comfortable spot where I should be playing professionally, and there would no problems making a living having a healthy bankroll, and moving up the stakes slowly but steadily. So that being said, all I need to happen is get to that point which isn't super hard with my edge on the field.

Quitting poker now or doing it on the side, which isnt really an option I live together with my girlfriend, doing anything fulltime does not leave anything for on the side. So I would have to take a job that pays way less than grinding NL50, to built up a healthier roll and pay bills which will take several months, and then come back to poker :(.

Thanks for responding! It isn't about having more money in the cashier it is just to cash them out to cover bills and use additional part of my bankroll to cash out as well to fix PC. Instead of waiting for supernova, that will cost me about 350 USD or something. 

I am definately not an emotionless robot, but when I play overrolled I hardly tilt, and when I play underrolled I tilt quite a bit. 

Problem with part time job is that it won't solve my bills that are due in a week, plus it will never make as much as just grinding 50NL and getting back to 100NL. 

I have been looking into some staking offers, but they are simply beyond ridiculous, they have to be the most one sided investment I have ever seen. Make up + cuts like 50%? Jesus Christ what's that for a low risk high ROI deal, I can't believe how any winning player would ever do that who has a normal functioning brain (should go hand in hand with winning poker player I guess). Then some of them also take cuts of rakeback and bonuses, and some even force you to play on certain sites, help me make sense of it all! The world is so unfair boohoooo emoface.

Or should I maybe cash out 90k FPP's now and have 1k USD and throw in some bankroll part to get the stress out, and then built back up with a danger roll on NL50? That would solve short term, aka this month and PC but it will give me a jump back for making next month bills as well.