I’m currently watching zZzTILT Crushing Regs video pack. Great content from a great player.

However, I collected four reg vs reg hand history hands that were addressed where I feel like the recommended river calls are too light. All hands are readless (without HUD stats available), besides the fact that we know they were played against regs. Do you think the river calls are fine or too light?

Hand 1:
25BB starting stacks. Hero flats KQhc. Board: AJ7cc, 8c, Qo.
Hero x/c flop and turn. Villain shoves 330 into 340 on the river. zZzTILT recommends to call, while the flush and multiple straights completed, besides the TP+ hands that Villain can credibly have.

Hand 2:
15BB starting stacks. Hero min-raises K2o, Villain flats. Board: K84cc, 9o, Jc.
Hero cbets flop, Villain calls. Hero checks behind the turn (a mistake, as zZzTILT also points out). Villain leads the river for 150 into a 210 pot, leaving 190 behind. zZzTILT says we can never fold here, while almost all draws came in and I feel like Villain has very little air in his range after check-calling this flop. He can’t have A high that he turned into a bluff, as he would’ve shoved it pre. Most draws he called the flop with completed. All pairs besides Kx (which outkick Hero) will likely check this river. So, I think we don’t have the 30% equity needed vs Villain’s river leading range here.

Hand 3:
25BB starting stacks. Hero flats QJo. Board: KQ2ccd, 5d, 4d.
Hero x/c flop and turn. Villain shoves 345 into 270 on the river. Again, it’s recommended to call it off. I think this call is more clear than the ones from hand 1 and 2, but still it feels a bit light on this run-out. Maybe I’m just a nit.

Hand 4:
25BB starting stacks. Hero flats Q9o. Board: Q84r, Ko, 6o.
Villain checks back. Hero calls a 3/4 pot delay cbet. Villain bets 160 into 200 on the river. zZzTILT says we get crushed by any decent reg if we fold here. However, if Villain checks back the flop with A high, he likely won’t turn it into a bluff like this. If he checks back the flop with 8x or 4x he likely barrels max one street. Pure air isn’t likely either, as he would’ve cbet it on the flop often. That leaves a lot of Kx and 2pairs.

outdated

I don't believe the reg population's barrel tendencies changed so much that in the hands I posted calls have become folds and vice versa.

they changed a lot. still some calls are definately right.

How helpful Malte!

3 seems fine to my eyes. Lets see what better people think on these though.

Nice selections, should make for good discussion points.

His advice seems good, K2o is a limp pre now though imo

Can you tell me where my reasoning behind thinking some these hands are folds is off?

What are the reasons to limp K2o? Is K2s a limp too? What about Q3?

has less foldequity preflop than K7o imo.

Hand 1: Worth noting that there's some room to x/shove turn as a bluff. It's usually not a great options because players don't bet/fold enough value, but versus a very strong player it can be important to balance our turn x/shove range and this hand has extremely high equity when called and so it shoves well. As for river, Well just because draws complete doesn't mean villain shouldn't have bluffs--in fact turned back door flush draws do miss. If you have a read that they only barrel turn with strong draws, then that does limit villain's river bluffing range somewhat (he'll still have hands like Tc6x). However, it's important here to also consider how thin we believe villain shoves for value. In some cases our opponent may still be limited in the number of value hands, and so even a few bluffs can make this a call.

So there's a lot of factors going into our river decision--we do beat some bluffs, but we certainly lose to all value (including thin value--ie Ax), and we need to decide the ratio of value:air by examining both of the ranges. In many cases we can assume our opponent doesn't bluff enough on turn or on river and we can make a hero-fold based on that (between reads on him or specific population tendencies). Or we believe villain value bets thin too often and is limited in his air combos and that lets us fold. We can have reads that our villains 3-barrels a lot of air on A-high boards, or alternatively never value bets thin but bluffs wide on turns, and in those cases we have a clear call.

However, versus a very strong opponent we may need to use a more balanced approach and look to construct our strategy such that we call with hands that beat bluffs and lose to value (ie bluff-catchers) sometimes rather than choosing to always call or never call. Once we want to do that it's important to evaluate the strength of your bluff-catchers. Versus regs an important way is using blocker effects. In this case our hand blocks few bluffs (since K-high might want to check back), while bluffing quite a few value hands--KT, QcXc, AQ, and AK. This makes it a great hand to bluff-catch with since we know it's better than a pure-bluff catcher. This means that even if villain perfectly (as far as frequency, not considering blocker effects) constructs his ratio of value hands to air hands to make us indifferent, this hand will see a ratio that is air heavy and therefore makes calling always correct (though EV of calling will still be pretty close to folding).

Hand 2: This hand is pretty butchered. It's a clear limp pre vs almost any reg. At these kind of stack depths we should be looking to limp with most of our vpip range, and K2o is a hand that has a ton of value in a check-back pot (but much less in a flatted pot).

As played, it's a clear check back on that flop. Our opponent should be check/raising a decent amount on this board and your hand is a bad bluff-catcher vs that range. On top of that we don't have a ton of value when called because later streets can improve a lot of our opponent's range--limiting our ability to value bet later streets and sometimes creating situations where we are forced into bluff-catcher spots). Worth noting that it plays very well after we check back because we can make clear calls vs a probe range (it's much wider than a x/r range so we have a lot more value) as well as clear delay cbets for value (villains turn check range will be capped so our hand won't be as thin anymore). I mention all these reasons because saying "it's too thin" doesn't quite capture the behind the scenes. It's not a big mistake to check back in a vacuum but it could become a big mistake if our opponent adjusts their turn strategies. It's usually a close spot EV-wise but becomes more clear when we consider the strategic consequences and so I think of it as being a spot that is "close, but checking is better for our strategy".

As played it's a clear check on the turn. Our hand was very thin on the flop, and on this card Villain's range improves some (he hits a lot of 2p given common flatting ranges, as well as some fd + straight draw combos). On top of that, he will likely fold some of the hands that we were getting value from on the flop--hands like A high, gutshots, and even some 8x. This means our value versus villain's continuing range will be poor.

As played (we minr, bet flop, checked turn), I'm with you that folding is likely best. Your reasons are correct--villain has very few bluffs compared to value in his starting range and it's unlikely he is a strong enough player to be aware of that (especially in-game!) and bluff extra often to make up for this (especially since this would likely include bluffing a lot of showdown value and never x/f air).

Hand 3: Another pure bluff-catching spot. It's likely a fold given population tendencies, but it's worth considering calling versus a strong reg or given reads. Worth noting that having a diamond is good there, club bad, and J isn't great because we block JT and J9 (but on the other hand if villain barrels extremely thin for value the J may be beneficial--beating value hands is twice as valuable as blocking them).

Hand 4: Leading turn is probably better than checking, but sometimes x/call is better. In the cases where it's better we likely want to call down, since we suspect villain delay cbets and barrels frequently with bluffs. I find most players are value heavy when taking this line (I believe it's because the bluff part of a delay cbet/barrel line is more advanced/unintuitive conceptually so it doesn't come naturally without careful study), but vs an experienced reg that can actually be a reason for this to be a clear call. It's a good bluff catcher in cases where you suspect villain may 2 barrel weaker Qx for thin value (thinking you're capped), otherwise it's not that good--ex: Q2 and A8 are better due to blockers.

Nice post Adam

Thank you very much for taking the time for writing such a long and insightful response! Easily the longest and best reply I'll ever get haha.

I've got two more questions regarding limping K2o pre when 15BB deep. I assume that K2s is also a limp and K8-K3 too at this depth. Am I correct? When 25BB deep, are these weaker Kx still limps readless?

he said limp in most of VPIP range so I think it's clear that K3-K8 is limp

Glad I could help They were pretty cool hands with a lot of very fundamental situations so it was good to go through all of them in detail.

As for limping Kx, you're right about limping K2s as well. However, generally as we go up in kickers there becomes more and more incentive to bet because we have more and more equity when called. This means that we can include these in our min-raising range, especially K6o-K8o and K5s-K7s, but even K4o can be min-raised for thin value. These hands can be particularly good min-raised against players who aren't 3-betting enough since we will be able to get some value from protection while still seeing flops for relatively cheap. Vs higher 3-bet frequencies thin value min-raising gets hurt a lot since we are forced to fold our equity (or bluff-catch with it--both suck). How much villain folds won't matter too much since if they fold more we get more protection, if they fold less then they're calling with more hands that we beat and have a weaker overall range.

While limping is used extensively in balanced play, it's important to remember that even at 15bb min-raising is still an important part of a balanced strategy. It can also be very exploitative, as many players have trouble building solid 3-bet and flat ranges and have issues with their post-flop ranges. Once you have reads on your opponent's response versus minraises you can craft ranges specifically versus their tendencies and the decision whether to limp or minraise middling Kx becomes more clear.

All that being said, I'm generally limping most of my Kx at this depth because it's a bit lower variance and the population (both regs and recs) tends to have bigger leaks in limped pots. The suited Kx can be particularly important to limp versus regs because they can flat NAI ISOs. All but the very lowest kickers (K2o, K3o and K2s) are likely indifferent in full GTO play (though it depends on the specific sizing structure of your solutions--with some structures K2s-K8s are all strict limps, but I've found with more optimal sizing they are actually all indifferent except K2s). This means that the EVs in a vacuum run close so there are tons of situations where you'll want to be min-raising them for thin-value instead of limping to exploit your opponents

As for 25bb, min-raising is overall more useful since we have more stack depth behind to leverage positional edge. In GTO play, this leads to all Kx being indifferent between limping an minraising, even K2. However, these GTO solutions minraise much more often with stronger Kx than weaker ones as this allows for our min-raising range to be stronger than our limping range while still having board coverage in both limped and min-raised pots. In exploitative play I'm often min-raising the suited and medium Kx for thin value and limping the weaker off-suit Kx (something like K6o down to K2o) in order to exploit low ISO frequencies and poor play post-flop in limped pots (while lowering variance). Versus regs and frequent NAI isoers in general, limping the low suited kings (as well as some very strong off-suit Kx) can be a good way to include more hands that can limp/flat profitably vs almost all ISO strategies. Again, a ton of room to craft your range for the specific situation since EVs in equilibrium play are same for limping and min-raising so even small reads can make one of the options strictly better than the other.

Hope that helps!

Helps a ton. Much appreciated.

What 3bet frequencies are we talking about, without further reads? What's the borderline between 'not 3betting enough' and 'higher 3bet frequencies'? I guess it's around 20%.

What iso frequencies are we talking about, without reads on play in limped pots? <35% is low and >40% is 'more frequent'?

adam is the goat <3 nice hands for discussion to OP glgl

has anyone who has seen this think its outdated at all? im being crushed by regs looking for something to study on my own time was going to get this any suggestions on better/more to date or is this ok?

The strategic advice is mediocre at best, but he has a really good grasp on population tendencies of low stakes regs and often recommends the correct play by his hand reading skills.

Run it once is the only place you will find videos by great players on Reg battling that are up to date, but they are all for HU cash. Allthough they are all 100bb+ I have learned more for HU SNGs from barewire and Sauce123 videos than any other videos.

Pack is way outdated. Getting a few hours of coaching from someone in 100s+ cartel or someone who has great vs reg results at 60s+ Spins will transform your game and likely not cost too much more than a videopack.

^Those types of players, when they coach, generally charge $150+hr.

But it's apples to oranges. If you're trying to beat $100 HUSNGs or $100 Spins, there aren't going to be strategical video packs for you. There will be some learning ones (like Will Tipton's Solving Poker, or Coffee's Math/GTO Packs, GTO type software too) but at that level you need to learn how to improve yourself, not learn more nuts and bolts of strategy/counter strategy/hand reading, etc.

yeah doesnt matter what your playing listening to those guys is going to be +EV i have access to people crushing regs 100s will just need to pester them more ty for chipping in folks GLGL