Todd Fletcher

Hi, Nice Vid. In the hand with 66, you talked about 99 for like 5 minutes, but didn't mention what you'd do with TT/JJ AQ AQs AJ AJs KQs or KQo. Thoughts?
On the KTs hand, otf you have quite a lot of neat turns, 8 9 T Q K A, are all decent for you. Even that said, I think bet/ bet is a better line then checking otf. Good analysis, I was wondering though how you think opponent would play JT JQ JK JA, you didn't really get into it much.

What benefits do you feel you gain by opening to a large size?
when you level, it benefits you more, if you have the situation understood holistically.

What negatives do you feel are caused by this?

when you lose, you feel more pain, or see more colors of frustration.

What stack sizes(both you and your opponents) do you feel is a good time to stray away from the standard 2-3x?

Impossible to awnser (position/history/imiage...) You just have to go Ninja mode, and counter adjust. like a fuckin kung fu panda

What table dynamics do you feel this works best for?

Adjustments are usually best for all tables after history has been made. more history, more dynamics.

What are you trying to accomplish by doing this?

Therapuidic release, of anxiety. Nick Rampone is beast moding me in 5 card PLO (props) in the 82$ Scoop-M.  (getting closer to the $)

What style of play is best for incorporating this type of style?

Art/Mathematics/Human-Beings, just be.

IMO it's all about game.

Right, makes sense. So a Akk3ds is automatic, and a AKK5ss is closer.

How does villains vpip affect our decision process. Or should I be looking more into a 4bet % ?

I feel like I may be thinking about this wrong, and I should be keeping it simpler, and thinking more along the lines of, "in sb vs 2 opponents, a CO open and OTB flat with AKK6ss"

Thank you for reply.

I thought, that the squeeze, would get one opponent to fold at least about 40%.. is this hopeful thinking?

The dangler is ugly, what x do we need here, for this AcKcKsX to become a fairly obvious 3bet? or when does it become close.

Villains were both about 25 vpip... Does it matter if they are 15? 35? 60+? Or does our relative position trump this when figuring out what's more optimal preflop.

Short answer, bet/fold. you played it fine.

I think this is a tough flop spot to play without reads. Vs maniacs it's an easy bet/gii spot, vs nits it's probably best to 2/3 pot  fold to a x/pot , and readless I like both.

Merits to both imo, betting builds a pot which is good considering you have a ton of equity vs a typical check/calling range and there are a lot of good turns for you. 

checking back it good too, because when you turn a flush your hand is under-repped and you may get two streets of value vs a smaller flush or vs a straight. You can also turn a 9 which is a good card, giving you a wrap+flushdraw. A 7 can be a good card as well, not to mention a Ten or Ace isn't that bad either. 

The problem with checking here, is you don't give your self a chance to pick up the pot now, and you have no idea how much equity you have vs your opponents x/r range because your readless. Not to mention, there are a lot of turns that you hate, like a 6 5 4 or Q. The fact that your actual hand is only a pair of 7's, is enough for me to favor betting over checking here.

Thanks for video, like your logic in a lot of spots.

I think these spots need more context. Near money, in the money, buy in size/field size/players left would be nice.

6:30 I think he can have TcJc sometime. Although I do think most TJ's are betting flop, TcJc isn't necessary. I can also envision a lot of random guys value/raise call off with KQo here, not even thinking about your range, just playing their hands with a level one mindset

19:35 can you talk about your cbet sizing, seems a little fishy to me, doesn't really set up a nice 2 barrel shoving size, and looks fairly weak. Also, think it's strange you don't mention Axhh for his range, do you deduce those from his range, because you believe the majority of them will be raise/folded/4bet preflop?

26:00 I think your hand is pretty close to the top of your range, definitely top of your non flush range. Would you be raising flop with KBss and ABss on flop? 

I think his AsXo range would be more inclined to 2barrel into a 3barrel shove to maximize fold equity vs 88/99/JJ Tx. (do you even have T's in ur range)  Thoughts?

29:00 phenomenal line and breakdown. Can we take this line with JJ/QQ/KK? (It feels good in theory with KcKx)

What do you put the buttons shoving range at, when you call it off with K8o. I don't like this play, because I think that you just barely have the right equity vs his range, but you give up so much when you lose. Don't you think you can find a better pushing spot with 10bb's rather than flipping here? After you were left with 4200 chips, now most BB's are priced in to calling any 2. Vs a 50% range, you have 47% equity, and vs a 80% range you have 54%.. but how important is losing 6bb, and how much equity would you be looking for here to gamble. We also have to remember, about 8% of the time, BB wakes up with a monster.

I agree, i think you played this hand well. I was very surprised to see you 4bet in game instead of flatting. Can you talk about the preflop decision, I think it was a lot closer then the shove OTF.

Constructive Feedback

Everytime you open the button for 1.25 and I watch you click the box and manually enter 1.25. It takes you 1-3 seconds to do this, let me help you, avoid this whole procedure. In stars client, go OPTIONS --> Bet Slider options. Check mark the Bet slider options Box, Under preflop heading, select Button 1 drop down box and set it to Big blind, insert the number to 2.5. Set Button 2, to 3 BB.  Set Button 3 to Max.

This will save you a lot of time, and more concentration can be used elsewhere.

Thx Tom. Ok yea, it makes sense to me now. Interesting, hopefully I don't FPS my next few sessions and use this line way too frequently.

33:03 KKQTss flop comes KT6f 

This is the only part in your logic in the video I didnt understand. To me this hand makes more sense to play fast on the flop for reasons similar to your turn raise reasoning. I think a lot of turns, maybe even half, put you into a difficult place when two barreled into. OTT a A Q J 7 8 9 and spade, all seem like hard spots to play. Personally, combinatorially  25 ( nine spades, one Q, three 7's, three 8's, three 9's, three J's, three A's) cards are going to annoy me, that leaves 20 cards left in the deck, which will put us in pretty nice spots. Maybe this is worthwhile if we believe that we'll get to take the pot away from our opponent a good amount of time due to his high turn bet %.

Can you talk about what you would do if the 3rd player x/r potted u both? Also, if sizing on turn was more standard, say 75% ~14$ how would u have played, fold?

Is there anywhere your mention your hud? I've been thinking about incorporating some form of turn 2brl stat, or turn bet %, or turn bet % oop stat. What would u recommend?  Right now I use a Fold turn to cbet stat, but I find I'm never looking at it, I think replacing it would be more use to me I find WTSD% gives me a good idea of who's calling to river often.

Constructive feedback
Why does every video producer try to pronounce names, can't we just use positions.

The HJ, button, sb, co, utg(LJ), BB would be so much nicer than constantly watching(listening to?) video producers say "name" or whatever it's pronounced" over and over...  /end rant.

Ya, ok thx. i guess i was second guessing myself, i swear tho, live poker sometimes U just know what they have. And also in live poker players seem to under rep there hands and take ultra conservative lines.

Are we ever in opponents shoes, for example. Do we ever have 66xx in this preflop situation? (6678ds? 66w/TT+? ) 

Is his line horrible or decent with 66xx postflop here. What do you think of his bet/call decide rather than bet/3betting ?

I guess I need to play my hand face up once, he calls the flop. On the turn I said his range likely doesn't have any Kxxx's so it's probably stupid to merit a need to bet for protection if I truly think his range doesn't even include Kxxx. 

I should probably be considering a check back and what rivers I can represent a FH, more then likely a card above a 8 is a good spot to represent the top FH? bluff 8 9 T  and value town J Q A?

Awesome thread, Even though I didn't understand how GT came up with a lot of the numbers, he explained the meaning of how it affects each theoretical situation which was interesting to read Ben react to.

I do have one question.

Ben wrote:

I was trying to be clever, but the point is that:

a) It's very clear the preflop call is significantly +EV

b) It's very clear there is little uncertainty that the call is +EV

c) The variance on the call isn't the size of the player's stack

Isn't it clear that defending the blinds +EV is worth what we give up by playing in a imo, a very -EV situation? (playing the rest of the hand OOP, in an inflated pot vs PG)

Ugh, this is hard. I'm trying to articulate my argument but its harder then I thought. Let me just ramble then, Basically if we think defending the blinds is worthwhile from an immediate result, does it net enough profit right there to warrant the negative EV of playing a weak OOP range vs a strong IP PG range. The pot is inflated because of ante's but does this mean we have to be defending much wider, do you think PG would be defending vs ODD this wide? I think the profit we can expect to give up postflop is likely a lot more than what we gain by the preflop defend. I'm likely wrong though (or ODD wouldn't be defending), I think I could be wrong because of how much lower SPR will be on the flop compared to a non ante game, thus drastically reducing the importance of position and dramatically increasing the variance and gamble. 

The main reason I have a hard time understanding why to defend this light, is how much I personally value position. Looking at the preflop situation again, we are gaining EV on 1 street, to give up a positional advantage on 3, I just can't justify it. SPR on the flop will be ~13, that still seems quite large. There is a high enough SPR that this hand will likely see 2-3 more rounds of betting, where PG will enjoy the benefits of position.

wait, let me rephrase, NL mtt Final Tables are fun.

haha, me too. but NL mtts are fun

Ya cool, exactly the same reasons I had in my head, just kinda nice to see it.  it's like raising a fish limper in hold'em with K3s in the Co or button but folding when 2 fish limp.

@Tom

Basically even though the 3bet out of bb stat is 10%, I think in this situation it's quite lower than 10%.  Because of the two limpers already into the pot I believe his hand is more AA heavy because he should be weighted towards hands that play well HU.  His high 3bet from bb stat is likely because he probably 3bets a lot of late openers and likes to squeeze a lot of hands in multi way pots from the BB. I think that type of player is common with his stats, but this preflop situation is quite unique compared to those.

41:15
Why is QK78o an isolate vs 1 limper, but  a fold behind 2? Shouldn't it be at least an overlimp?

I think despite bb's stats here, he's going to be extremely AAxx heavy, preflop call is fine. I also think if u were considering 4bet shoving, that CO actually folds quite a bit he isn't entirely commited. 

Postflop, i hate the donk lead into a heavy AAxx range imo. As played you have to call now, drawing to the nuts.

I probably donk lead here a bunch, but because of read on villian over cbetting, x/r pot seems optimal.

Hey sam, pretty neat video. I have a question about the river JT9r 9fd Jo hand, I loved the way you balance the flop with a check, and I think ur read ott is spot on. That being said, on the river, what do you think about a check/call? Turning your hand into a bluff catcher may be more profitable than looking for value from a weaker holding. Shouldn't he be weighted towards floats/air and drawish hands (flushdraws pair+gutshots) more often then hands that pay you off like J's(without FH's)/Overpairs/Straights?

NH Tom, well played. ignore everything above. The fact that he turned that hand over on the river, means I need to start thinking about thinner lines even more. Sick value, I was thinking if u are going to go for 2 brls, I would of sized it more like 8 + 13.

(haven't read comments yet, but want to get turn thoughts out while fresh in head)
Tom on hand 45:00 on the turn, I'm curious as to why you believe you're ever getting value from his wraps. Don't you think he folds all his wraps to a 11.25$ bet size? Wraps are a pretty awful draw now that the board is paired and there's a backdoor flushdraw. I think combo draws might chase, but not for 11.25$ sizing, what do you think?

What do you think about checking back the turn to exploit wraps into paying off a value bet on the river once they hit there straights/flushes?