okdude

Thanks Zach nice analysis :)

Nice video Zach!
I think what make you feel bad was the effect took your emotions in your decision process.
Because your hand analysis show that given different asomptions we could choose etheir way if we are looking to play exploitative.
I find dangerous to choose exploitative mindset against eratic vilain.
I would preffer to define what % of bluff i need in my range to run a 2 streets bet strategy , then define the best hands to do it and stick with it.
Your hand probably need to be in your bluffing range and if you don't use it to bluff you probably deviate a lot from your optimal bluff frequency.
So, you have chosen an exploitative line given asomptions you felt was partly due to your past results and your momentary risk aversion syndrom.
At the end the guy is eratic, who know exactly what he does with his flushs?

Agree, it seems inconsistent to play these two but not the 'trouble hands', I guess I'm just lazy and want stuff that plays well post

I'm curious what the point of the question is.
To get an idea about what GTO ranges are in this spot or just a poll on the population ?

As a midstakes cash eurotard who played this MTT (but who doesn't play MTTs usually) I can help with a poll.

• Preflop :
  I'd flat wide : AQo and stuff that plays well postflop, suited broadways, 65s+ JJ-22, because the open was small and that tournament players don't bet big postflop.
  Not really sure what I'd do with T8s-75s fold or threebet depending on my mood/reads (are they squeezy behind me ?).
  Same, not really sure for suited aces below ATs, but flat or threebet, no folds.
  So TT-22, AQs-A9s, A5s-A3s, KTs+, QTs+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, 54s, AQo
  would be the widest range I see the flop with if I'm in a loose mood.

• Flop :
  I'd raise 44-33 almost all the time. A5s probably. A9s maybe.
  I'd raise gutshots only if I'm feeling super ghetto, but I'd usually flat them given pot odds / position / multiway.
  For the reraise I'd call with everything that can beat or improve to beat 43.

• Turn :
  Against the turn shove I might fold A9s if I'm in a foldy mood.
  I'd call 76s and 75s (and puke on my keyboard if you show 76) hoping that you ever bluff with less there ??

In a nutshell the turn is good for the flop range I described so I'm not folding.
I obviously haven't strategized for this spot and I'm just giving you ranges that I would play in in the heat of the tourney. Now I see that I may need more flop bluffs (bottom/mid pair plus draw maybe ?).

ps : MTT players, please leakfind my preflop, do you think it's a mistake to fold AJ KQ in this spot ?

Td8d flatted ooySB vs BT minraise on QdJc6d 9c vs flop xb :

If I understand correctly, your exploit of what you perceive of the population tendencies (weak checkbacks) is to bet smallish (you chose 70% pot) with this value hand in particular.

• When called, what would be your river sizing on blanks ?
• Given your read, what would you do with your bluffs, bet big ? (I feel that it's hard to find some btw, given preflop, and they wouldn't have great blockers, we'd have 88-77, ATs-A6s maybe ?)
• Does your read also assume that villain would play well against big turn bets (by folding Q4hh for instance ?) ?

I'm curious because, given same read, I would go big twice with my whole betting range here (and probably not bluff enough in retrospect).

On one hand I'm happy to get paid off with this holding in particular, on the other hand I'm kinda disappointed that the thinking seems to just boil down to "Haha he doesn't have much, let's bet small twice and get paid off".

Hi Phil,
I really like this format (3 tables Zoom + Break if severals interestings hands occurs) ! It give me the opportunity to see what you and i would play live compared to my decision with deeper analysis.
It also give us time to think about more creative line and strategic options.

Hi Zach ,
End of video. 97ss interesting spot!
How often vilain need to pick up bluff river to make his flat turn for balance > c/r turn for protection?

I don't know exactly in this spot but from my experience in general, aggro barrely villain tend to bet thiner than the more conservative ones.

You take as assumption that the tight range and loose range will bet the same value hands (KJ+) on the river but usually an aggressive villain who likes to barrel also goes for more thin value (because he gets lighter calls) so if he bets KJ+, the tight villain could only bet KQ+ as value and the right calling frequency with AT will remain the same in both case.

I am maybe offtopic but the thing is in the curret meta, OOP is X/Ring fewer and fewer flops and probably X/R close to 0 on K82ss so it's easier to get away by betting 33 (or 2x) as a thin value bet than it would be against an opponent who is X/Ring a lot (thin value/bluff) and forcing us to give up on our equity.

Hello Ben, thanks for the video !

You called the PFR from BTN on BB with 53 and X/R the 543 flop. If you X/R 2P+ don't you think your X/C range is too weak ? What flop hands are you calling down 3 barrels with, assuming they are not improving ?

I would appreciate if you comment a bit on how you split your range here

Thanks !

eq.fest, the main problem with having too many bluffs on river is that if villain read the situation well he can exploit us by X/Ring or X/C a lot. I agree most villain won't do it tho.

Betting some of our draws on turn will already strenghtening a bit our river range.

Yeah, I think my biggest mistake is not to bet enough draw on turn because of the fear of being X/R. Thanks a lot for your analysis.

What do you think of turn play ? I dont think strenhgtening our river range by checking turn with our best hand is good here but we could bet/fold more draws. However It sucks to be XR with them thats the reason why I check most of the time.

I am not looking an answer vs a specific opp but more like an approach on how we should play this spot in general.

My sizing was small already (a bit more than 50% of the pot) do you advocate to go even smaller ?
I probably bet AJ on the turn, so KJ, QJ should be the top or my range and even with thoses im in trouble calling the X/R because most villain doesn't XR bluff that much here even if they should.

Another thing is if I bet only KJ/QJ for value (50% pot) I am allowed to bet only 25% of my betting range as bluff and considering all flush, straight, float have miss, I have way too many bluffs that I want to bet. I am wondering if the river is a bet in the first place or just a defensive check/give up.

Hi Ben, very nice analysis!

On the turn, You think it is better to float gutshot rather than hands like 3rd or 4th pair with a big diamond that we can turn into bluff on the river ?

Hi Phil,

58.15  Table 3:

Few asomptions and the question:

This river seems to hit you harder than him, i don't expect him to have so many str8 that don't CB flop and decide to raise turn.

On the river it seem that you gonna lead your str8 / missed draw (with no sdv against AA) so when you check you represent a showdown hand. when you check you probably check/fold  wich can be exploitable i guess if you lead all your valu here.

He still have some hands that can call a small sized lead river but he would check back with it

I don't think it's easy for him to rebluff you here if you bet small

you block some low str8 with your 88 even if it's not very relevant

Questions:

-Do you check/call your 87 str8 river to protect your medium hands?

-Don't you think a lead river sized around 1/4 pot (3.5k) would be great in this case?

Bottom right is Enthusiasm

+1

Hello Ben, Nice vid!

At ~25min the 73cc K44cc Ac 5h I have some questions regarding your bet size on the river. You said a few times that having multiple betsize is not that useful. So are you only checking or overbetting your whole range here ? I guess you could even with Ax to get him off a chop but let's just modify the board and your hand a bit and say you hold Ad5d on Kc4c2d Ac 7h, now overbetting the river doesn't looks that good because we are valuecutting ourselves against better A.
What do you think about having multiple sizing here ? 1) overbet with high and low nuts end 2) ~2/3 pot with speculatives hands

If we always 4bet AKo doesn't that make our calling range too weak and very hard to defend against a villain who 3barrels Axx and Kxx board ?

K9, AK, AT (less for AT ?) on QJ5r, bt vs bb, betting vs checking back :

Qualitatively, with no math to justify it, I feel like these hands make better flop bet/calls as we're playing with a very high SPR in position and BB can not threaten to have the nuts on a T turn or river (is he even allowed to get stacks in by the river against a checkback with K9 if a T comes ?).

Maybe a good strategy for K9 and AK would be to incorporate a (very) small amount of them in our flop checkback range which would overbet T turns really big so that he can never call ?

ps : no need to see your face imo, I'd rather have more visual content (ie tables) and re-watch if necessary
pps : "HU next? :)" +1

Flop hits Seat 9's limp-cold call a 3b range then SB's lead very hard (KK-99, AJ+, ATs+, KJs ?) and as played he's just tightened it by calling your flop raise.

"I'm thinking i want to play a big pot here!" : you're already playing one, you have 8 pot sized bets and position, I would use it with my pot odds and the volatile board texture to play three streets.

Exploitatively : when they're talking, especially non-confrontationally, they're strong.

I'm grateful for your videos.

"6Min table1"Can you explain me how do you proced to estimate mentally combinatorics.  I know how to calculate it at holdem but i have a hard time to estimate it at plo.

Readless we should play as close as possible to GTO or what we think it is. After we got the read we can make exploitive play. Here it looks to me that we are making and exploitive fold being readless. Since our range is stronger than his we can really put pressure on him with our value hand aswell as our bluffs. I would like to know what's the bottom of our 3bet bluffing/floating range here.

The A2s hand on AKT, you said it is a pretty trivial fold but to me it looks like a mistake.
If we open CO with ~26% of hand and only continuing with AJ+, it means that we are folding ~75% of our range. That leave him with a very profitable raise (risking 8$ to win 9$ it has to works less than 50%) with him having like you said a dominated range.

Because if it's +EV to bet it, it means that our opp is folding so much that betting any hand will show a profit, so the maximum EV we can get is by betting all our range

The thing is if we are betting the nut low of our range, relying only on fold equity, we should bet all our range...