wuming

great content Brian!
very insightful and overlooked how drastically an output can change by adding a more challenging input like a bigger raise size on the turn.
speaking of which, on the same A63s bvb spot you might wanna consider inputting a big raise size on the flop, as it's always the preferred choice on Ahighs.

Hi Ben,
the 3bet range BVB you used in the first sim is quite tighter and stronger than what most preflop sims suggest and I'm sure you're aware of it. Can you elaborate on what's the reason behind that?

Sick RNG, did you code it yourself or is it available somewhere?

"I rolled kind of a weird number, then I rolled another one 'cause I didn't know what to do with the first number". Man that that'll make a sweet epitaph on my tombstone.

Nice video, keep 'em coming!

First hand, in the video you say you will be shoving trips+ for value and in the end you point out that IF villain makes such a terrible call we can even get away with a "nasty and disrespectful" jam with AT.
Now you are saying that you know you can shove AT for value against 95% of regs and that's what makes 88 the weakest of calls.
I'm utterly confused, what's what?

You (two) are a breath of fresh air in the community!
Keep up the good work, I love it :)

I loved this series, great job :)

In the 4betted pot with KK on Axxx you say you would call QQ+ and fold JJ-. Being ranges so narrow, wouldn't it be way better to consider blockers instead of overall hand strenght for your 1-street bluffcatchers?
meaning that JJ > QQ >> KK.

Despite how nit it looks i would consider folding KK for the sake of calling JJ instead, if I didn't mind folding one of these.

I hope I can see some other of your session reviews in the future, cheers!

Sun Tzu said: the good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.

One may KNOW how to conquer without being able to DO it.

To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.

Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory.
Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.

The consumate leader [...] strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success.

The art of war, between sixth and fifth century BCE.
Sun Tzu knew what makes a great poker player ~2500 years ago... long before it was mainstream.

Congrats on your first videos, nice job.

About the 1-a, I think you should mention a difference between river and other streets.
On the river the math is perfect because the EV for checking his pure bluffs is theoretically 0;
on flop and turn the EV of checking his bluffs is somewhat >0, most of the times he has some equity (even with low-equity combos which he won't bluff): in this case we don't want to make the EV of his bet bluff equal to 0, we want to make him indifferent by betting and checking, it should be ok then to defend a bit less than 1-a most of the times... shouldn't it?

I remember a RIO's coach talking about that but I can't remember who's the one.
edit: it's Steve Paul's debut video "improving on 1-A"

Yes, I believe it would be better theoretically speaking.

In practice I had lots of trouble while trying to build the balanced flatting ranges in those scenarios. I should play multiples mixed strategies, flatting or raising or folding different combos with different frequencies, some flat 10% of the times, some other 70%, some other 3% and so on, for the sake of a decent board coverage. In the end it was almost impossible for me to play a balanced strategy this way and I ended up choosing an easier strategy, just because I'm a human being.

Sometimes theory and practice fight each other.
I know you know what I'm talking about, I just want to generate discussion on the concept as well :)

It didn't sound to me like "I don't have flatting range here AND you shouldn't either"... it's a common compromise, it's fine, it makes his life easier.

The most common is, for example, playing a 3bet or fold strategy from the SB with both regs on BTN and BB: it's obvious for everyone that you should, theoretically speaking, have a coldcalling range, but still lots of good regs (the vast majority I think) don't.

It's easier, it's a compromise.

I'm glad you're back, good job.

got it, thank you for the clear answer.
I still think it makes money vs this size and deepness, even if it doesn't on average, but I guess nobody in the world has a database huge enough to prove that.
thank you again.

I always appreciate your kind of tighter approach compared to other RIO pros, 'cause I play where rake is much more higher and it's good to get away from lots of marginal spots.

that said I really disliked your fold vs a 3x 3bet btn vs sb with JTo 200bb deep at min. 33.50... okay you already said it's "probably something", but vs such a small size and being so deep, isn't it just a mistake? did you realize you were 200bb deep?

I had the feeling you were kind of bored and payed little attenction sometimes, I could be wrong tho... nice vid anyway, cheers.

yeah sure he can have some of these Aces, but that's another reason why check/something my whole range would be better than stabbing, I guess.

I could actually go for a crazy x/shove if I had the 9 of heart instead of the K, in that scenario I'm pretty sure he would be forced to fold his entire range.
could balance that with a few nut flushes and take maximum extra value when he has the 9hxh flush which he's supposed to call anyway.

it would be fun :P

he didn't, but even without the heart, and even if I raise bigger, A9 is way too up in his range to be folded, he's good enough to know that. unless I go for something crazy like a shove.

nice video, your hand reviews are way better than your live sessions because of your more likely exploitative strategy, which is harder to explain in dept while playing compared to a GTO-ish strategy.

good job. ciao!

I died at "the Sauce factor"

nice work as always :) kudos.

min. 20.00, top right.
you didn't peel JTo on the bb over 3 players. weren't you paying attenction, I guess..? or is it a fold for you?

min. 34.30, bottom left. you said you don't like villain's call. I like it.
I think he has to call with such great pot odds, 'cause you are probably bluffing almost all of your KQ, AQ and AK, which are a lot of combos and a huge part of your range when you flat the sb over an utg open. you said you don't like it 'cause you would bet all of your top pair that way... but you're not having a lot of "weaker jacks" in your range. well, I'm not... are you?
if you're not it's probably a spot where you should bet quite bigger with your entire range, otherwise he'll have an easy call with all of his bluffcatchers, in my humble opinion.

Raphael Cerpedes has quite a bit of non zoom videos in his archive, check it out.

I meant in general and on this river too.
although it's true that at this point i won't have a ton of nut-ish hands (I'd have some, but definitely not a lot) our opponent has the same "problem": he would take a stab with lot of his naked draws too between the flop and the turn. that's why I don't feel like it's a particularly great spot for him to overbluff us too much.
but even if it was, it wouldn't mean that we should never bluff: we are plenty of hands that wants to valuebet anyway, and if we play a well balanced strategy his bluffs won't be a problem.

this is a 1-street-bluff hand. and the street is the river.

I can't see any reason to bet OTT with this specific hopeless combo, even if you feel like you're plenty of valuehands. it's really unnecessary.
not only it is unnecessary, but you also NEED to save total air-hands like these for checking the turn and bluff the river, otherwise your x/x/b range range would be way too valueheavy if you stab most of your draws (or even all of these) on the turn - which I think you should.


I apologize if my english sucks :P

nope, I would definitely check back on the turn 7.

hand1, you should definitely put this hand in your raising range OTF.
hand2, perfect one for a xraise OTF, if you want to build a xraising range - which you should imo.
hand3, I'd bet a lot bigger with my entire cbetting range. I'm not talking about the river cause everything has been said already

you're plenty of better hands... bluffcatch-wise - if he's as much polarized as he looks like with the action and bet size - even a hand like AhT could be a better call than 99. (not sure if I'd call AhT btw, just sayin')

it would be pretty harder if facing an half pot bet or so; but vs the 3/4 one we can find a quite easy and safe fold with no regrets, I guess.

you should be carefull with betting this turn vs a good player, expecially when deep-ish.
someone would say you should check your entire range, and I could agree as a general rule.

that said, vs a wwsf 45 I still want to put some bluff OTT, betting some gutters and 2pairs+, which brings me OTR with just 2p+, which allows me to call off with just the strongest ones.

that way, my bottom stack-off range in this spot would generally be as tight as K9~A7.

it could be wider or even tighter, depending on how much combos you start betting OTT and, of course, depending on your opponent. (a lot of not-so-good-regs overbluff this texture way too much, thinking they can always rep top2 and sets [...] yada yada yada)

I can definitely see a recreational player overplaying his overpairs this way, it happened quite a lot on my database - which is a huge and trusty one.
someone would never ever check a nuttish hand ott when it brings as dynamic as this, some other would.

It could be super +ev vs some guys and very very bad against others, and that obviously sucks, but with no specific reads I'd go ahead and shove, I'm pretty sure it's best on the average recreational midstakes player pool.

I do: you'll have 34% equity in the worst case scenario (him calling with JJ+, AK) together with fold equity. it's gonna be a +ev plan vs the vast majority of your opponents.

I could choose to call the 4bet vs certain opponents with specific tendencies; otherwise, without a ton of infos 100bb deep I'm pretty sure jamming is the best play.

as played, you're the only one who can say if this would be an "overfold" or not.
mathematically speaking, it strictly depends on your preflop flatting range.