Nom de Guerre

you talk about defending widely against late position opens.  do you defend your big blind as loosely against early position opens as you do from the button or cutoff ?  e.g. KQJ4 at 19:30, AQ27 at 29:00. hand equities in PLO run closer as you know.  

would your defending range change if there was a caller after the initial opener ?

nice video btw

A95Q 19:19

half pot bet with 'air' ?  hmmm.  i guess the answer depends on what we block and what the breakdown of villain's BB range is (likelihood of each of villain's possible holdings)... and out of all these hands what portion would he fold on turn after bet calling flop, because he doesn't have enough equity to call a half pot bet on turn and a potential bet on the river

from range point of view less than pot size bet might be okay with made hands too, if you have redraws.  not all rivers are gonna be bad, obviously.

just thinking out loud

A264 hh at 32:00.  HC's range on turn

IMO HC's turn range is weighted towards hands with redraws that will bet call.  e.g. straight with flush draw.  maybe sets with hearts or top two with straight and heart redraw (not sure what turn equity is against better hands).

straight with no redraw would probably go for a check raise given stack sizes and potential board runouts as touched on in video.

don't think HC would risk facing a raise with naked top two or set on the turn, i.e. those would seem to be candidates for check calling and not bet folding.

his turn lead extracts some value.  yes there may still be bad rivers for HC's actual hand but that may be sort of a moot point, kind of tricky trying to assign a range of hands to him in the middle of the hand and the pot is three way and somewhat protected anyway.

man i wish i could be as um confused as phil preflop w/pocket pairs and grow stacks like he does

26:20 AT76 in SB.  i would lean to folding, unless if a 3 bet can maybe make it HU versus opener, which then becomes a matter of figuring out how well AT76 plays HU against opener's range.

calling can lead to three way pots and often you're OOP against the combined ranges of two players OOP, and obviously stealing or semi bluffing against two players versus one is less likely to succeed.

thanks for sharing your winrate.  it's good to know what winrates might be sustainable and what aren't, and what kind of volume one might need to realistically win a certain amount of money (e.g. monthly nut, like paying the rent!  haha)

brick and mortar poker is usually softer than online.

having said they each offer a different experience to a player it's just whatever you prefer. 

live poker - softer games, but you may occasionally have to put up with less than savory characters at the table, etc. etc.

online - tougher games, but you can multi table, etc. etc.

you'll need to figure out what works best for you.

ahh i didn't see that eff stacks were 30bb.  i was assuming 100bb eff stacks, would you have played differently in that case?

with 100bb eff stacks if you four bet preflop and get called there's enough stack post flop where you might end up in some sticky situations.  if you four bet preflop and get reraised you can call or raise again but you may not be too happy about it unless if you have AAxx and maybe KKxx.

edit: u were in a similar spot and folded never mind

at around 19:35 you get the money in with AcKcK5  against a TAG (21/14) without much of a thought (standard play).

question: what's the bottom of your range for getting 100bb stacks in preflop against a TAG?  e.g. if AKK5 weren't suited or if the suit were king high or if you even had QQxx would you do the same?

i ask because even at these stakes 3 betting IP is fairly common and being able to play back a bit is needed.  open folding or four bet folding kind of sucks.

appreciate your commentary of state of games in pokerstars vs full tilt.  i didn't know the PLO games online varied that much with evolution of poker ten years post moneymaker.  good video, appreciate the thought process real time.

re QJ

there doesn't seem to be enough room with 100bb effective stacks for a multi street bluff for a hand that's 4bet pre flop.  seems like you were kind of torn between giving up or just going with it on turn (u've committed a chunk of your stack through preflop 4 bet and yet you likely don't have much fold equity because the pot is so big).

maybe flatting pre and proceeding from there is better?  i don't think villain is going to fold to a 4 bet getting given that he is in position and getting about 3 to 1.

what do you find 400NL/600NL player pool's 4 bet flatting ranges to typically be these days (apart from AA KK)?  does stack size affect this range much?

PS nice vid some interesting spots, nice bluff with KQ with no time bank left lol

very interesting series/topic.  poker has evolved a lot over the last ten years, nice seeing a sort of survey (GTO vs exploitative) of today's online mid-stakes landscape and what one can (still) do to try to be profitable.

saying poker has been solved (i.e.  skill level more or less being equal across stakes) implies a black and white situation.

players (even those who are either serious hobbyists or pros) have differing levels of understanding of how to play the game..  nearly everyone has leaks or has had to deal with things like tilt that may affect quality of one's play.

are games post black friday as juicy as they were ten years ago?  of course not and that sucks to a certain extent, but i would think that the fact there are pros out there today post BF proves it is possible to still be profitable (whether poker is profitable enough is a different question)

but at least we don't have the world's most corrupt politics [unlike russia]

lol ouch that was below the belt

congratulations you've played tight enough .. to get me lay down a pretty strong hand

lol

PS live format is great, several hands in marginal spots (eg 57s ,63s, AK vs 4b semi deep) were interesting

oh what an ass lol live video is cool 

J977 hand (3:30)

why did you choose check raise line in this hand?  i would think you would only get real action from hands that beat you (e.g. KKxx) or are close to flipping (wrap) and there aren't too many hands that you crush versus an all in range.  wouldn't a check call line be preferable here?

hmm i am inclined to think the problem is the new HD playback feature.  it's kind of cool to tell you the truth

mash the call button

K99 seven card stud hi hand

i think i would have bet seventh street.  you can rep a straight with a flat on third and the raise you put in on 5th street.

yes pot is bloated and ike may not have folded but you only need to be successful once in a blue moon and he was tanking on sixth street with kings up (yes kings up) which kind of confirms what i think he thinks 

254 seven card stud hi lo hand

i think u need to raise fourth street to try to fold out nora or even other villain, you don't want to give his range a chance to catch up to your combined low and straight draws... also you improve your chances of scooping against one opponent versus two.

re AA97 PLO hand against recreational player

ouch  :-)

suggestion for topics - how about something covering transitioning from 6 max PLO to heads up PLO ?

PS - at about 30:30 you raise flop.. that's a ballsy raise, there doesn't seem to be too many combos of naked AJ where you have good equity compared to the A hi, K hi and Q hi wraps plus club draws plus sets villain might commit with.

no system is immune from viruses or malware.  

re anti virus for windows 7.  just get microsoft security essentials.  it's free and it has worked for me :-)

good choice of topic, nobody ever talks about mixed games.

- is adopting an ABC strategy overall more optimal in mixed games versus normal big bet games (e.g. NLHE, PLO) given that many of the mixed games have fixed betting limits?

also, in normal ring games a dynamic may form between you and a particular opponent (he's raising a lot, playing fast and loose, etc).

- do you find the same sort of thing happening in the mixed games you play?

it's a little more complicated when you change games regularly, account for comfort level of opponents with different games, hands going to showdown more often due to fixed betting limits, and so forth. 

villain's repping a made hand on the flop or maybe straight draw and/or flush draw semi bluff around the A and Q.  

you don't say anything about how widely villain calls out of the blinds.  you could try to raise fold the turn to try to freeze villain, i think villain's range is heavily weighted toward pair+draws over made hands (e.g. two pairs, sets).

you can call turn and try to bluff / thin value bet if you think he'll be honest on the river (there are a ton of rivers that can complete many draws and villain may put you on one of them). 

pc versus mac.  ask yourself two questions (pc versus mac and will u run sims) and you're done.

if you care about $$$ (have a budget) get a windows laptop instead of a mac. 

mac is more fun to own but apart from running mac software natively, a mac offers no extra utility over a laptop running windows (macbook air is cool but it can cost twice as much)

if you plan on running a lot of PLO simulations (e.g. cranking out equity graphs), you may want to invest in a more powerful CPU.  if you're not then just about every desktop/laptop on the market is powerful enough to meet most of your needs.. a standard setup (excluding atom CPUs) is plenty for most people.

PCs are commoditized to such an extent that spending any significant time and effort worrying over which one to get is IMO kind of pointless.

there's value [in betting] against somebody from greece i think

lol

squeezing isn't great IMO.  you generally don't have much fold equity preflop and there are a ton of flops where your hand isn't going to do all that well against not one but two ranges.  flat pre and then proceed from there.

you could three bet pre flop but folding incorrectly becomes more expensive.  having said that, as played i would lean toward check folding esp with such a wet board.  woof.

i really don't want money.  i really don't want money.  i really don't want money.

lol don't hold back - tell us what you're really thinking!

PS nice vid it's cool

fold pre.  calling a three bet OOP with 8664 is speculative at best.  as played fold turn.  your spade and straight draws may not be any good even if your draws come in.  and if you miss your hand has no SD value to speak of.