baohoa: I like your replies.

A2 I'd fold here OTR unless I have a not that he can turn bluffs into air. But as baohoa explained...well its ok maybe. you need to be good here 40% of the time or so. dunno, its thin.

AJ: cbet larger. IF he holds Ax or QK he's going to pay of anyways. or go for c/c. This weird betsizing is not good for any reason on this board. imo.

Increasing my c-bet frequency seems to really help flatten my red line. The usual overall (since I started this challenge) graph and stats.

• Volume: 38.606 hands (this week: 3807)
• VP$IP/PFR: 22.7/19.0 (this week 22.2/18.6)
• 3bet: 4.5 (this week: 5.4)
• Flop c-bet: 64.8% (this week: 78%)
• Win-rate: 4,37 bb/100 (this week: 3.48 bb/100)
• WR w/o SD: -12.42 bb/100 (this week: -7.94 bb/100 // that's pretty good for me )

I'm going to c-bet a lot in the following week again. The optimal value must be somewhere between 75% and 80%.

nice job this week. don't rely too much on cbet frequency. in facts when playing 19% range as the aggressor cbetting more the 60-70% is probably too much. if players allow you that it's fine though. just focus on board texture, villain's range and what you want to achieve by betting ( do i get value from worse often, can i make better hands fold, can i improve ott and dub in order to make him fold?) and how strong your range is vs. a given villain.
i have the impression that sometimes you fold your medium strength hands too early, but i might be wrong. or you take too strong lines with them.
99 hand for istance, as you point out your hand is way ahead of villain's range but once you 3bet we would like a fold or 4bet so we shove (and flip).
thing is that we do well vs. his original range, but not so well vs. his continuing range. especially if he flats (we already decided what to do vs. a 4bet) you have to plan this. what does happen if he flats? we're oop, with a low SPR vs. a range that probably flips vs. us and we're going to hate the flop often. our hand will also rarely improve if we see the turn. so we have little FE and not so good pot equity.
so better flat imo, sounds weak but i think that in this case the playabilty of the hand outweights that fact that we're oop without initiative.


anyway keep on working!

Despite of running 1.5BI over EV this week didn't start well. Flop c-bet: 74.1%, c-bet success: 65%.



There were an awful lot of annoying hands. In the first one villain was a huge fish (42/11, 3bet: 16.7%, station postflop over only 19 hands). I think preflop is fine given how small his 3bet was and that I have position. River is completely standard, isn't it?



In the next one villain was playing 18/11 (over 74 hands), nothing special postflop. Does anybody bet OTT?



The next one is quite interessting (I hope). Villain was a huge maniac (66/57, steal: 88%, postflop AF: 71%, 50%, 64%). How's my line?



Finally a hand against an unknown. Should I have just x/f'ed OTF?

88 hand bet sizing is small both otf and ott. river is fine of course!

77 hand: i would donkbet here. villain is not folding any overpair or tp anyway, but he could put us on a draw so we actually could induce a lighter raise.

AJ hand looks good vs. this guy. and he's so bad...

TT hand cbet is standard. and bet/fold ott imho. paired board= less chances of a set/boat/quads..
we're still ahead of villain's range which include 9x, 77, heart fd, sd, maybe overs...we still need to take value from 9x and draws. sure 67 got there but it's a small portion of his range

OTF I didn't want to scare him off if he didn't have an A. On the other hand the board was very drawy, so yes, I had to bet bigger. OTT a lot of the draws got there and I didn't want to b/f more (so bet big and fold to a raise). Is it false thinking?

Yes, I was thinking about it but I hoped he had something and he would defend his holding so that I can x/r him and put more money into the pot.

Although he was unknown I thought he wouldn't have called my c-bet w/ 9x in a 5-way pot having three more players left to act. How big should I have bet?

I keep on struggling w/o much success. I hope the biggest problem is I cannot win big pots but I'm not that sure about it. I think it's time to make a leakfinder video... C-bet: 76.5%, c-bet success: 34.6%.



In the following three hands villain is a multitabling BE regular (according to PTR). He's playing 21/17, 3bet: 2.2% (over 285 hands). He's very aggro OTF: AF: 52%, raises c-bet: 3/3 (incl. these hands). I think the preflop fold is std. against him, isn't it?



I don't think I can call in this hand, can I?



I think this is the closest one and I almost called. I have about 32% against the following range: { QQ-JJ, 66-22, AsKs, AsQs, AsJs, KsQs, QsJs, JsTs }. What do you think?

regarding size on 1st hand i think we're ahead ott. villain 3bets + checks the flop (should bet a a fd most of the times). plus the A of heart is there (so we can narrow his 3betting range a little and he probably doesn't have Ax). ott we should bet to get value from his lone (lol..sounds good..) if he has one. (stuff like KK, Kq, QQ with a heart...). so only hand we should be afraid of ott is a slowplayed AA imo. if he raises ott it doesn't make much sense tbh. and i would probably just shove.


TT hand agree it's thin but we're giving too much credit to villain imo (should also check how many tables he's playing when he sits to play). if he was a reg i do agree with you as he could have JJ-QQ here, other than monsters of course. but most of the times unknowns are just fishes. we don't know if he recognize that it's a mw pot.
if we check it's to check call one street imo, especially to that bet size . it's a paired board, connected and we have an overpair.
being oop i think is fine to bet 2,50 for very thin value, but mostly just to take down the pot and force villain to react honestly. if we were IP i would check back as we have blockers for a sd and a lot of SDV.
i think we pick up the pot most of the times (vs. 77 or JT, random high cards ) right here. the times he raises we're beat. i don't expect calls in this case.
he needs to raise at some point if he has a monster.
don't get me wrong, i think it's very close here, but with no reads i prefer a bet. and cbetting the flop is very standard here (just for dead money collection)

Despite of losing w/ KK again I have had a good (and finally lucky ) second session today. Flop c-bet: 74.1%, c-bet success: 55%.



One interesting hand in which villain was completely unknown. Easy fold OTT?

QQ hand it's ok given villain stats. he's very tight for 6 max though!

KQo: wp

TT hand...it's close. with no reads looks like a small overpair to me or even 33...flip a coin!

68s yeah fold even if it sucks to give up once you flopped a monster!

i would also isolate a little larger


EDIT: does PTR really work??

Thx a lot for this! I'm still very confused if I had had to bet OTT in the TT hand. I expected him to play straightforwardly... I don't know...

I only have the basic (free) subscription but I think, yes. It isn't obviously very accurate but it shows some tendencies quite well.

yeah make a vid!

I have played an afternoon session. C-bet: 73.3%, c-bet success: 36.4%. Lost w/ AA PFAI and was running (or playing?) terribly.



Some hands to discuss. In the first one SB was an unknown tighter player (23/12 over 27 hands but had an even tighter stat at the time the hand played out) and the BB was a huge fish (56/26). Given the size of the 3bet, the existence of the fish, the strength of my hand and the my position I think it's an easy call preflop. But how do we play OTF?



In the second hand villain was a 52/7, postflop very passive fish. F2CB: 3/10. Standard?



In the third hand UTG was a fishy player (27/10, postflop passive over 31 hands) while the BB was a nitty player (18/10, no 3bet over 80 hands). Can/should I c-bet on this flop?

AQ hand...pre: we have position and we're priced in so a call is certainly good even if i'm meh about it (i hate our hand 3handed). i would just peel the flop here, we have less FE mw, even if nobody seems to really have a hand

TT standard as played. i wonder if betting small even on this board vs. this passive guy can be good. i mean he doesn't have the IO to draw profitably anyway (if we bet 1,50) and we can still fold if he suddenly shove as he will play honestly regardless to our bet size because of his passiveness + the fact that he's committing to the pot with that stack size.

KJ hand it's a x/f. we have no plans on future streets and our redraws are really week (1 over + bdsd) that we're going to x/f the turn if our cbet gets called. unless both of them are folding like 80% vs. cbets.


huh you're probably running bad: having that small cbet success % means that you're facing villain's top ranges a lot.

We played a "Leffe session" yesterday evening. 30/26, 16% 3bet, 50% postflop aggression.



Isn't the flop dry enough to take a stab at taking the pot? The thight player most likely has a PP and will fold quite often and it's unlikely the flop hit the fish's hand.

I really hope you're right baohoa. I have lost almost all of my confidence...

Two "funny" hands from yesterday evening against the same fish (48/0, very low postflop aggression).

I keep running terribly. Flop c-bet: 56.5% only as I was involved in a lot of multiway flop having little to no equity. To be honest I'm very frustrated ATM.



In the first hand villain was a huge fish (62/46, postflop not too aggro but couldn't fold). Some hands earlier I lost a BI against him AK < TT PFAI. Spew?



In the second hand villain was unknown but seemed to be a tight player (over 20ish hands). I don't think 4bet/call would be +EV but I didn't want to fold preflop. Thoughts?



In the third hand villain was a 23/15 (over 370 hands), F2CB: 42%, postflop quite aggro (31%, 35% and 48% AF). Seems std but I'm not sure anymore.

88 hand: fold turn, no need to get crazy on that board, we don't even have tp. also what worse is calling us there? (we don't have FE).

AKo: pre really depends on villain resteal % and what type of restealer he is. if he resteals with a polarized range i like the call pre to play IP vs. a weaker range and i like the rest of the hand.
if he's 3betting mainly for value (look at his steal% + 3bet from blinds + overall 3bet% to have an idea of how positional aware he is and how he plays in LP dynamics) and doesn't dub too often...idk turn is close, i don't think it's so wrong, but we're hoping to chop here. i would def fold to a river bet though

AA hand: bet a little more otf imho, especially on that board texture, you get peeled a lot. take a note that villain stabs on scare cards and turns his hand into a bluff, that's something weird. looks played ok

I obviously didn't have FE but he could call w/ overcards+FD. Or am I just levelling myself?

I only had 20-30 hands on him. Can I really be sure his range is { KK+, AK } OTT?

Yeah, I should have bet more OTF. Thx!

88: FD + overcards is the best we can wish for, and even that has decent equity with only one card to come. plus he seems passive and if he wanted to semibluff he would have done it otf more often than ott.
(even though after seeing his hand anything is likely).

AKo: nah vs. unknown you played it ok imo. you need reads to make this kind of hero folds. but if you think about it what to we beat but a bluff? vs. 3barrells is a trivial fold. when he dubs i'm calling but not happily

KJo hand 3 handed some posts above (cbet or not): i don't hate cbetting here on a superdry board but vs. 2 players i prefer x/folding because of our bad position, lack of redraws, less FE mw, UTG is shor stacking.
it's not that we have to cbet any good board, we also need good spots. i'd rather cbet QsTs pn a Js8h7h board even if it looks like a bad board to cbet: we can barrell any spade, A, K, Q, 9...pretty much half the deck!

sb vs bb I get AK in vs almost every opponent. Especially when you have little hands on him, I would rather min-4bet here then flat. You have to give up so often on low boards that you lose money while you are way ahead of his 3betting range.

do you look at your turn cbet% and succes rate? because generally it is a good thing that people float the flop light, as they give up on the turn a lot.
as a reference:
my flop cbet%: 60.5, success: 47.7
my turn cbet%: 47.7 success: 42.0

and in multiway pots:

flop cbet%: 48.1 success: 44.2
turn cbet%: 44.0 success: 37.7

I dont know if these numbers are good or bad, but anyways I pick up a decent amount of money by the turn. So i don't mind them floating at all.

Anyways, your HH's look ok most of the time so I dont see why you wouldnt beat 10NL...maybe make a vid 4tabling, so we can spot some leaks.

Thx. Solid advice as always.

At NL10 I don't think 4bet/calling w/ AK would be profitable readless as they always have QQ+ or AK. On the other hand calling a 3bet OOP isn't that great either but folding seems too tight. Catch 22?

About my stats (over 107k+ hands on Stars):
Flop c-bet: 64.4%, success rate: 47.0%
Turn c-bet: 62.4%, success rate: 34.0%

In MW pots:
Flop c-bet: 41.1%, success rate: 42.3%
Turn c-bet: 74.1%, success rate: 29.2%

I think my flop c-bet% is too low (I'm working on it) but my turn c-bet% is too high.

As baohoa said once the recent adjustments to my play seem to have bad results. That's true but I must somehow find a way to fix my leaks (even if it costs some BI).

Making a leakfinder video is something I'm going to do soon but having a full-time job and a family with smaller children doesn't make it easy . These things have almost higher priority obviously.

yeah turncbet def too high. it's not that you're tight pre so that prolly means that you take medium strength hands too far. keep in mynd how big you want the pot to be to get to SD accordingly to your hand strength and villain. vs. some villains tp is a great hand, vs. others it's just a SD value hand or even a bluff catcher.
regarding cbetting decide a plan otf. if villain folds a lot than you can just looke at the board texture, but if not, or if you're mw, plan the hand in advance and think on what you want to achieve:

what kind of hand do i have now? ( value hand, SDV hand, strong or weak draw, air)
board texture (does it hit my perceived range? or villain's range? how?)
can villain call with worse?
can villain fold a better hand?
does villain call flop and fold turn a lot? ( also look at WTSD)
can my hand improve? how many outs do i have?
how many good cards do i have to barrell ott? (backdoors, gutshots,overs,scare cards)
if vs. aggro player...what do i do vs. a raise?

take some of the hands you did cbet with and then you lost and didn't get to SD, i'm pretty sure you'll find interesting things (everytime somebody asks me why i cbet...i'm like...huh?)

Thx baohoa, very solid summary!

That's b/c I hate x/f'ing OTT after I decided to c-bet OTF. In the last three weeks when I have c-bet a lot more than usual I have realized there must be cases when I should just try to take down the pot but give up if I got called. So increasing the flop c-bet% must result in a decreased turn c-bet%.

That's clear. Most of the time I have a plan but it's another question whether the plan is correct.

This is a good list but more often than not I don't have a big enough sample size on my opponents. This is a very big problem for me as I find myself in tough situations b/c of lack of information. This is especially true for tables full of fish: I c-bet twice, he calls twice but there are no third occasion as he has been busted out already.

I normally do this in the course of the session review I usually make but I'll focus on this more in the following days.

Thx again!

well, vs. unknowns who look fishy just cbet good board texture and give up when called! even if you pick up equity i prefer checking ott vs. a fish because you're relying only on your pot equity and you rarely have FE. (while vs. good opponents 2-3 barrells work better).
some bluffs are outright profitable (cbet otf), if they don't work that's fine!
it's nice that you're aggro ott because most people have the opposite problem, and lowering down AF is easier.

I have only lost less than one BI today which should make me happy. Flop c-bet: 71.9%, success rate: 56.5%.



Some interesting hands. In the first one villain was unkown but he seemed to be a tight player. In the very first hand against him I tried to steal from the BTN and he 3bet me and I folded.



In the second hand villain was a reg (20/16 over 347 hands, 8.3% 3bet). Despite of his stats I thought his range was quite strong here so I just called his raise. Looking back I could have bet more OTT. OTR I was completely sure I was beaten but I couldn't fold.



In the third hand both callers were loose/passive fish. I didn't think they folded anything OTF but betting OTT would have been an option. Thoughts?