Justin Oliver

Really liked it... More live hands vs. well known villains please

The Q-10 hand at the end is really interesting.

Personally, I feel its a shove or fold spot. Like Jason said, calling wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world, but I think its too thin really, and we just miss and c/fold flop so much....

Problem with the 4bet/fold is that we just induce him to shove a lot, and then in reality we have put ourselves into a terrible position because you 4bet too much of effective stack and now when he shoves you are getting 2:1 on the call and I know this sounds NUTS but I actually think that at 2:1, Q-10 is actually a slightly marginal +EV call here! So you've put yourself into a spot where calling is absolutely disgusting, but probably the right play! IOW you've induced villain to put you in a horrible spot. According to my calculations, we have 35.5% equity vs his shoving range (I don't know villain specifically, but you guys said he was agro I believe and he sees you opening every hand since you've been at the table so I gave him a somewhat wide shoving range looking something like 22+,A8s+,A10o+,KQ) ... Hell, villain could be wider than that if he is agro enough .... So the bottom line is, out of all the options you guys talked about I think 4bet folding is the worst ... Curious what people think about the shoving range I have assigned him, and if we do in fact have 35.5% equity, and you just dropped me in from outer space after villain shoves and I have to decide what to do, am I crazy that I think its actually a call?

I watched the whole 9 part series - start to finish. Best series on MTT I've ever seen. Love the approach and agree with Ben Sulsky. I love how you analyze spots that seemed standard at the time and discover your own leaks in real time. Excellent work bro.

I fold to his c/raise flop... Like you said, his hand is face up. He's just showing too much strength. He limp raised, now c/raise - he's strong as hell and you didn't give any details on his tendencies, but I'm not gonna float this trying to hit my 6 clean outs. I'm also not gonna float this hoping to hit a heart and try to make him fold sets because he's a fish and fish don't fold sets (this is a general assumption and obv not always true, but without anything else to go on I think its a good assumption.)   

I don't think you are deep enough to play this hand this way with this fish in this inflated 3bet pot. I think if you were both like 5k deep or something, you could MAYBE try your line because you'd have higher implied odds to make your hand and also you'd have the ability to apply more pressure to the fish if the heart comes ... But with stacks as is, I don't like your line here ...

I think I c/fold river as gross as that is ... I just don't see many hands he can call with if I shove. AQ got there. BDF got there ... And all the hands I beat, I just don't think they call river shove... I don't expect him to turn QJ into a bluff here or any other of his SDV hands... I think he checks behind with what we beat MOST of the time and shoves what beats us ..

Ok, my first post on RIO - hi everyone...

I'll take a shot here with some questions and observations.

1) I have never played with Phil Ivey but I have watched a lot of video on him (as everyone has I guess). Obviously, this is not the same as developing reads playing with him but I think I have a decent idea of his style. When bvb here, I think his pre-flop call is super wide IP and I think his flop call is also SUPER wide IP. I have seen him float flops like this with next to no equity just to try to outplay on future streets. On such a dry board, when you check the turn I think he is betting with almost his entire range as he will act to protect his one pair hands, bet his huge hands for value, and stab with his air. When you c/raise this turn on such a dry board, I think it looks super suspicious to him and I think AGAIN he calls super wide, but I do have to believe he is calling with something that has SDV because I don't think he'd call here with intention of bluff shoving river given stacks aren't great for that IMO.  

A) You said your plan was to shove brick rivers. You would be shoving 33k into 48k. Do you think that is a good bluff size on river? IMHO whatever he is calling you with on the turn, would call a brick river for 68% pot shove. Again, I haven't played with him, but this is my read based on video. 

B) I GUESS that to be perfectly balanced, we could shove our entire range here on the river. We could shove our air like was your plan, shove our value range obviously and shove our top pair as we ended up doing. Personally, I lean more towards exploitative play than balance, so if it was me, I would expect him to call this river shove so I'd be shoving for value and not as bluff, and I believe the 10 on the river allows us to shove for value. I expect him to call with worst. I expect us to have the best hand here a good percentage of the time, and I expect him to call with worst enough to make it a plus EV shove.

2) Table selection. Seat selection. hand selection.

A) Is there a big fish at this table that makes it worth your while to sit with Phil Ivey directly on your left? Seems to me I would do almost anything to avoid this seat, as to me table selection and seat selection are HUGE parts of playing winning poker. Maybe you don't think Ivey is as scary as I do? lol 

B) Let's just say we think the table and seat are still plus EV... Why are we opening 10-5 OOP vs one of the best players in the world?