V plays 25/50/100+ for fun and not afraid to put chips in the pot

Here’s one of the previous hands featuring this V- have countless like it.


I’ve seen V pile in several hundred bb with those hands as well as just flat an open in the bb or limp/call pre

yeah, V has all offsuit combos of J7 pre

this extends to all possible straight draws like 64o, 65o, 89o etc though so mostly a good thing for sure in a vacuum across all streets

V is extremely unpredictable as mentioned but I’d say air is reduced given flop is multi-way. He also views both the PFR and myself as tight.

I think 3-betting flop is the play for this reason.

Even if V has a gutter, he’s not folding vs a small click back.

With AJ+ he’ll just GII otf for this amount of big blinds for the most part I think. That doesn’t mean he always raises Jx though. But I’ve seen him do it multiple times.

The reason I just flatted is V is super wide generally speaking and not afraid to blast off (good for us when we have a set obv)

We benefit so much the times when V 2x river w 9 high etc


Ty for sharing your thoughts



Ty for dropping in and sharing your thoughts

It’s pretty tricky vs this V

I pay tons of attention to showdowns and I get more confused with each one lol

my spidey senses told me had it here in game (which was why I inevitably ended up calling ) but I’m not really sure how much weight that holds in a vacuum spot to spot and it’s not the greatest way to come to a conclusion

This is after I considered everything, of course.


It could be one of those spots where with this specific turn + river sizing he just has it 100% of the time but generally speaking we have no way to know that ofc so with my history with this V and from what I’ve seen I don’t think we can reasonably click fold.

That being said, I think these spots are fairly complex for a million different reasons and you’re a much better player than me.

This is also why I love super deepstack games vs creative, splashy players as they’re infinitely more complex than 100bb 6m.

Complex not equaling difficult of course.

Ty for sharing your thoughts.

I think this is pretty spot on.

oops

<3

Result:
.

V says “nice call” in the chat.

sick life what a needle smdh

I screwed this hand up on the flop. I should be making it $500~. V makes it $1000-1500 probably and then I just stick the 3k in.

I’m aware V ends up getting there and had we back-raised flop we end up losing a 6.5k pot instead of a 3.7k pot but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

I’m fully used to it by now. okay, not really. *cries a little*

thanks for reading

You've completely under repped your hand specifically keeping his punts, bluffs and overplayed Jx in his river bet range.

As you state his overcall range pf is super wide so Jx includes J7 etc.

No need to shove just call and hope he is punting

Game 3 of the WCC was apparently the most accurate game in WCC history? Pretty crazy how slim the margin for error is. Mostly every move is perfect lol.

This is across 40+ moves over multiple hours of play


WCC Game 4:



Fivethirtyeight has been recapping the match as well, for those that are interested but prefer reading:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...end-his-crown/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ht-rook-dance/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...-a-chess-game/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ss-tug-of-war/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...o-good-to-win/

400nl
Main V is aggro live reg. Likes to engage in clicking wars with everyone, including me. Not afraid to put it in with whatever, whenever, for any amount but decent and aware in general postflop.

Basically tries to appear as action.

$1230E

OTTH

Pre-flop: Hero open MP with K K. V 3b $70 SB. Hero $200. V $330. Hero calls.

Flop ($664): 9 4 3. V c-bets $185.

Hero? V has $715 back after the bet and is the effective stack

Not sure about preflop. Always feel like a whale sticking in over 300bb w KK. I wouldn’t read too much into the click back- V has 5b me with 5 3 and K 7 before.

Thought I’d keep those hands in pre if V is choosing to sprinkle in an unhealthy mix of spice here.

Lots of action killing turns though if V has a pear/flopped a pear

also equity denial considerations..

Thoughts?

gotta be a call right?

I think pf is fine, but vs this specific villain given that he has shown he can 5b pretty much anything 6b KK with the intent of getting the rest in can't be too bad.

The flop I think can go either way. You can just jam now or peel one and then gii.

I think when a board is set up this way where the turn can potentially change things a lot and I just have a one pair hand I prefer to flat. But I don't think either one can be bad vs this guy.

Not sure, think there’s a lot of room for creativity in decision making

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Ty for the feedback!

He's not a reg apparently

Ty for sharing your thoughts.

When I first started grinding the game I thought I was superior at the pokers compared to everyone in the game given a lot of the showdowns— but something I realized is that despite 1k, 5k, 10k meaning a lot to me—- a lot/almost all of these guys (including the highstakes “regs”) really couldn’t care less about this sum of money.

They’re used to playing 10k or even 100+ effective so this is just entertainment while at home with the kids or in bed with the wife or while out drinking with friends and what not

Deepstack poker is a completely different ball game regardless of the skill level of the opposition.

I’m also sure when I make my first million from cards I’ll have a completely different perspective than I do now

Funnily enough these guys are mostly all incredibly sharp and successful from the little I know about them

I’ve also really come to appreciate the small/mid stakes mass table grind. It’s significantly less stressful than this for a variety of reasons I’d probably be happy to get into if people are interested later on

The EV is also significantly easier to realize. I’d estimate I’m probably 25k+ under my true EV in this game easily and that’s just being very conservative given im pulling that number out of thin air. Then there’s the high rake, no rakeback etc.

All that being said, grinding this game is conducive to my longer term goals and I’m incredibly appreciative for any opportunities that come my way.

I'm sure this is true, but folding getting 50 - 1 odds is just objectively a terrible play even with 72o.

Agree 100%. I moved down significantly to gain some confidence when I started playing again and it can do wonders in many directions. It's especially annoying not to be able to track results on a downswing.

Having followed from the off, it's always been noticeable that Op has his own, slightly idiosyncratic, way of classifying villians. Nothing wrong with that per se, but inevitably it will lead to the occasional confused HH analysis with anybody who has a more conventional outlook on villian classifications.


Given you live in the ultimate free market economy, where success in business is a huge factor on the score card of life, not sure why anyone would be surprised that anyone who can happily gamble with large sums of money, purely in the name of recreation, would be "sharp and succcessful". I've met a ton of successful businessmen (and businesswomen)...they are all pretty sharp in the Board Room (way more than me frankly, and I've done OK). A lot of them have huge bank balances (the term "millionaire" no longer cuts it, most of these folk are 10X that).

A lot of them are very much the "one trick pony" though...business success quite often does not translate into other parts of life.

Top Tip. Never get into a private aircraft owned and flown by a succesful businessman...that's how quite a lot of them get to meet their maker.

I agree this particular play is not a good play. We all make bad plays.

But looking over the healthy dose of button-clicking here (which is a function of the environment), funnily enough V probably correctly identifies that I’m not really going to continue more vs this sizing in practice in this exact spot as opposed to jam.

V likely has like Q 10 or something and is probably hoping I’ll click fold with 10/JJ no club (which I would) in which case I don’t even hate trying to save money on the bluff.

He can block/call off A high flushes as well. I doubt he only has bluffs and even if he did I have no way of knowing that as unpredictability is a lot of these guys’ strong suits.

My perspective on this stuff has changed completely in the past six months and an open mind has helped me add countless cool tricks into my game (obviously more suitable for live games/private games)

Can always ignore the bad stuff and implement the good stuff.

From a more theoretical POV, I’ve seen pio repeatedly do some very interesting stuff in my nodelocked sims.

Maybe I’ll share some insights from hands like this if people are interested.

I wrote up a pretty long post from the about big games/deep stack games/ private games/whales etc but I don’t think it’ll come across the way I wanted it to so I’ll rewrite it later lol

The tldr is that if I didn’t aspire to crush high stakes live I would not grind this kind of game. This will confuse a lot of people who don’t understand the stresses of this environment/grind from the POV of a professional.

Which is most people obviously





Very well said.

Thanks for sharing, I wish more people would share their experiences as my real-world experiences are mostly tied around strategy games.

It may be no shock to you or even the average reader- but lots of grinders can’t wrap their head around exceptionally intelligent/sharp people playing poker terribly. Zoom/fast fold regs are the biggest culprit.

This is evidenced by many of the comments you see around the forum, at the tables, everywhere in the poker world really.

Then there’s also the fact that there’s a lot of dumb money out there and I’m referring to smart money figuratively speaking.



I’m actually not sure if serious but I appreciate the tip

I've been around poker now in some capacity for like 17-18 years now. People thinking someone is stupid because they play bad in a poker game has always been around and probably is never going anywhere. People in general are pretty hypercritical of others and you get a lot of ego maniacs in a game of competition. The reality is that different people just have different motivations. People also just have vastly different dispositions. There are some people out there who are very good at understanding the game but just for whatever reason have trouble executing in the moment. The people who have the most long term success in poker aren't necessarily the best at playing the actual game. You need to have discipline in a ton of different areas to sustain success.

this is some great stuff

WCC Game 5:


https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...s-from-itself/

Playing poker well (or well enough let’s say) is one thing.

Having the discipline to do it nearly all the time is something else entirely.

Also the Mike Tyson quote comes to mind:

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

He should call literally any 2 cards getting 50 to 1 odds though. He only needs 2% against your range. This is pretty clear

This is one of the most widely misquoted quotes.

It's not the face, it's the mouth. The MOUTH!!

Sorry please carry on. It's my weird Mike Tyson pet peeve.

Interested in what pio says about the turn. I tend to think people typically play this as a check or jam, but for the reasons you stated I do think incorporating some bluffs in here with a smaller sizing has a lot of merit.

I’m not sure if this is a serious post- but he’s not getting those kinds of odds.

Yes, the odds are great. But if he has air, he should not call vs my jamming range. He doesn’t have the required equity versus any hand I’d be jamming here in practice. I’ve already plugged it lol

This is beside the general point I thought was implied anyways in my earlier post about the game to you.

These stakes are to them what 2nl would be to the average grinder type on here.

I’m not going to label someone a rec just because they’re clicking buttons. V is a reg. He plays poker well. Better than me.

I disagree with this comment you made:

I agree with you this is a sizing I would not be personally be taking.

I don’t think you should be so quick to judge someone’s skill level based on a single line though.

Hopefully I did a decent job of explaining why. I’m not trying to be sarcastic at all and would encourage those posting in here not to as well.





The issue here is that I have absolutely zero clue what hands Vs 5-betting here- let alone how he plays it on the flop.

I need this info to nodelock effectively of course.

I’ll definitely be sure to post some nodelocked sims in spots where ranges are more defined though

Absolutely, well said

Main V is the same super splashy, aggro whale from the 33 hand.

See spoils for some background/info/history please:

H1:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=2422



H2:



200/400/800nl

OTTH

$2670E

OTTH

Pre-flop: V straddle $8. Hero open MP $28 with A A. Nitty rec calls btn. Main V overcalls straddle.

Flop ($90): 10 9 7. V checks. Hero $45. BTN calls. V x/r $180. Hero calls.

Turn ($495): 10 9 7 3. V continues $404. Hero?

Regular timing all three streets. V stuck 5k+. Probably have to be prepared to put the remaining 2k in on most/every river if I click call here.

Thoughts?

I don't think you wanna bet the flop this deep vs 2 players. Your hand is almost never going to be worth 3 streets (bar extremely specific runouts) so i think pot controlling >>>>> betting flop

Agree I think flop is a pure check in this spot.

+3, pretty sure even HU this is a range check spot unless you’re making an intentional exploit (which doesn’t work nearly as well multi-way ofc). AP, i don’t even hate folding to the flop x/r with tight BTN behind. Especially if you think he’ll mostly bet turns for a larger sizing like this.

Side note: you didn’t mention what BTN did OTF, although it seems fair to assume he folded.

historic win by Magnus just now! legend

136 moves, 8 hour game.

here’s how it went down- click the spoiler if interested~



I believe it’s the first decisive classical game in a WCC in over five years.

rooting for ian but will be a tough climb back

lots of chess left though

recaps to follow for the two of you that are interested!