You're not jamming overpairs on that runout.
You flat a ton IP so I don't understand why you're acting like you have all those suited combo's in ur 3betrange.

3b 10% KJo but 100% 43s/86s/J8s? Makes sense

Oh god that raise with AQ...

raising river to a smaller sizing looks fine to me, that sizing was way off though

I don't mind jamming JJ when the SB fish flats.

KJ hand is lol

AQo is a 4b pre, river is prob a call

Gotta disagree here mahsjdi, KJ hand looks fine postflop, should probably refrain from 3betting pre flop though BTN vs CO, but postflop play is definitely fine

Also if you construct a balanced cold calling range in this spot from the bigblind then AQo would probably fit in there, 4betting is also fine of course, but can't dismiss his cold call as bad just because the strategy you use is different (I also do not cold call for what it's worth, but that's because I haven't put the off table work for that) I'm also pretty certain that mixing both cold calling and 4betting here yields a higher EV than just 4betting.

If you are jamming jj what you expect him fold otr?

Sent from my SM-N920W8 using Tapatalk

Lets see.

AQo you flat because bu is apparently a fish, as if playing Aqo oop in a 3bet pot is a good spot? Its a bad spot against anyone imo. Should 4bet and take it down. River is over played, a decent raise would be ok though.

JJ, you say bu is light 3bet, yet you are scared to 4bet in that spot and decide to play JJ 4 way out of position, and then stack off on the worst possible flop for sb defend jam range there. I would 4bet pre and fold if SB jammed, or just jam pre is a decent play.


KJ is whatever. Your value range is not as big as you claim on that river which is bad for your range imo. I doubt you are barreling many fd's 75% on turns, and not jamming over pairs on that river.

I meant KJ is lol because villain called his jam with 55

Reading this blog is both entertaining and painful at the same time.

Respect for the people who are exchanging ideas and discussing hands and generally just trying to genuinely help each other improve.

However, you are not helping OP. Not because what you are saying is useless, actually some of the advice being given here makes a lot of sense sometimes. But because OP is one of the most insistent and stubborn people I've ever seen in poker (what actually says a lot about you guys patience so again, respect).

OP, you got some really nice ideas and strenghts, but you are self sabotaging your own growth really hard. You say you are here to learn from other people, but you aren't man. I've been reading this blog for some time now and every now and then there is a totally misplayed hand that at least 3 people can say with confidence how bad it is and then, instead of showing some humility and surrendering the need to being right, you just try to come up with fantasies that can make your play look good.

The 83s hand is the best example I could think of. Seriously mate, and I speak from a place of honesty and willingness to help you: stop. You have to accept the fact that you are not always right and that some of the things you do at the tables are really but really bad. Which doesnt mean you totally suck, you definitely do a lot of things right but you need to completely change your mindset.

Poker is already a very tough industry to thrive in when you have a perfect mindset. Imagine when you spend your study time in a public forum trying to convince everyone else that calling a 4bet with 83s is a good thing. If someone is 4betting you light mate you simply do one of two things: you 3bet only value or you start expanding your value and bluff 5bet shoving range. You don't start calling the complete bottom of your 3betting range pretending that it suddenly became profitable to do so just because he has a lot of bluffs in his range.

Seriously mate, I hope you receive what I'm saying as constructice criticsm and not an attempt to harm you in any way. If I didn't care I would just keep watching you sabotage yourself. I'm saying this because I was just like you at some point in my career. And being insistent in my arrogance prevented me from getting better for quite some time.

GL to you mate

^ to balance that a little OP does say above he misplayed some hands and wants to post some bad hands to keep thread honest.
Re 83s, it probably/definitely is -ev but sometimes extreme cases need to be disproved to help understanding of the whole concept.
Second your thoughts on thread in general, very useful, keep it up please OP, I am rooting for you as you seem like a nice guy and have a lot of interesting and original ideas to learn from.

Who said 83s is the bottom of my 3-betting range? lol!
I'm 3-betting 72o, 23o, stuff like that, which will fold to a 4-bet.

But you're right that I'm quite stubborn, it's something that I'm trying to change, but the thing is that I can't completely change my mind in a split of a second, it takes some time to do it, but I learn with time.

The thing is that I think poker is such a wild game with so much space to creativity that people easily dismiss some plays as "bad" without thinking about the "whys".

As an example, the question about calling a 4-bet with 83s is simple: "Do we have enough equity to call?". People usually think of 4-bet ranges as 99+, AK+. The thing is that with villain's sizing, tendencies, I had enough arguments for calling 83s, because it probably had enough equity to call, specially IP. With that sizing villain probably didn't have AK/TT+ in his range, it was an explo sizing, we all know we should make a 4-bet 3x OOP. And I was right that he was FOS.

I'm not saying that I'm calling 83s all the time vs anyone, vs most players I don't even 3-bet with that hand. I even fold AKo pre-flop vs some 4-bets. As a general rule, calling 4-bets with 83s is bad, insanely bad, but in this specific time, considering variables like tilt/loose open/sizing/my image, it was probably right.

In the long run it's not an adaptation I'll make vs this guy, specially vs that hand, he won't probably 4-bet me light in a while, because he probably realized that I was fighting for the pot, making his bluffs less effective.

Playing good poker is the art of making the right adjustments vs your opponent's range. If you dismiss some plays as bad without thinking about "why is it bad?" you will lose a ton of opportunities. I like to keep myself open-minded to plays like that. But as I said above: plays like that are really dangerous for my game/sanity, I should avoid playing like that 99% of the time, but be aware of that 1% and not lose that opportunity.

Bankroll is probably around $2600

Played like an abortion yesterday, meh, was trying to run over 50z a ton with what I call as the "max winrate strat" in that environment. In the end, even though I think it's possible to make an insane amount of bb/100, in practice it's almost impossible to do that, because it's way easier to make mistakes. So I have to be careful all the time, which is really hard.

I'll focus more on reducing the amount of mistakes I make, it's the most important part of the game by far. Even though I have no chance of beating very good players right now, I think if I'm capable of being really careful with my plays, I'll do really well.

Some hands:

H1: good?

PokerStars - $1 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 129.83 BB
SB: 23.24 BB
BB: 472.54 BB
UTG: 101.8 BB
MP: 112.38 BB
Hero (CO): 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K J

fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.32 BB, fold, fold, BB calls 1.32 BB

Flop: (5.14 BB, 2 players) 4 A 8
BB checks, Hero bets 1.61 BB, BB calls 1.61 BB

Turn: (8.36 BB, 2 players) 7
BB checks, Hero bets 11 BB, BB calls 11 BB

River: (30.36 BB, 2 players) 8
BB checks, Hero bets 21.63 BB, fold

Hero wins 28.84 BB


H2: vs a reg that was overfolding, tons of guys are making their stands vs me recently. I don't like his blockers, but if he was explo calling he was right, because I'm explo bluffing like crazy OTR. My blockers are also A+, this is one of my best bluffs.

PokerStars - $0.50 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 199.4 BB
SB: 132 BB
Hero (BB): 107.74 BB
UTG: 84 BB
MP: 115.82 BB
CO: 87.94 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J 3

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to 3 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 3 8 9
SB checks, Hero bets 2.96 BB, SB calls 2.96 BB

Turn: (11.92 BB, 2 players) T
SB checks, Hero bets 8.5 BB, SB calls 8.5 BB

River: (28.92 BB, 2 players) 2
SB checks, Hero bets 30 BB, SB calls 30 BB




H3: Terrible hand by me, vs fish. I think vs a whale it's an easy jam OTR, but vs a weaktight fish it's a disaster, should probably have bet-folded for 50% OTR.

PokerStars - $0.50 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 124.56 BB
SB: 136.36 BB
BB: 160.82 BB
UTG: 188.8 BB
MP: 172.18 BB
CO: 202.04 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J 9

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.32 BB, SB calls 1.82 BB, fold

Flop: (5.64 BB, 2 players) 8 Q T
SB checks, Hero bets 7 BB, SB calls 7 BB

Turn: (19.64 BB, 2 players) 3
SB checks, Hero bets 27 BB, SB calls 27 BB

River: (73.64 BB, 2 players) 3
SB checks, Hero bets 88.24 BB and is all-in, SB calls 88.24 BB



H4: vs reg that was quite passive, almost folded OTR, but explo folding like that in B vs B vs a wide range is really bad, specially with my blockers. This guy was calling me a ton, he was never folding, so I feel people like that usually get kinda sensitive and will try to bluff me more usually.

PokerStars - $1 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 374.38 BB
SB: 233.77 BB
Hero (BB): 100.68 BB
UTG: 164.01 BB
MP: 118.22 BB
CO: 109.26 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q J

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to 2.5 BB, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5 BB, 2 players) Q 7 4
SB bets 1.43 BB, Hero calls 1.43 BB

Turn: (7.86 BB, 2 players) Q
SB bets 5 BB, Hero calls 5 BB

River: (17.86 BB, 2 players) K
SB bets 14.42 BB, Hero calls 14.42 BB



H5: explo sizing OTR vs nit, good?

PokerStars - $1 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 121.38 BB
SB: 111.42 BB
Hero (BB): 100 BB
UTG: 106.46 BB
MP: 101.9 BB
CO: 109.71 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 3 A

fold, fold, CO raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) Q 5 3
Hero checks, CO bets 3 BB, Hero raises to 10 BB, CO calls 7 BB

Turn: (25.5 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero bets 18.17 BB, CO calls 18.17 BB

River: (61.84 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero bets 30.85 BB, CO calls 30.85 BB




H6: vs reg, good give up OTR? He was folding quite much, with such a dry board and considering that he folds a ton, I thought he could have a set a ton of the time, also I don't feel people will fold a ton OTR.

PokerStars - $0.50 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 116.68 BB
SB: 108.72 BB
Hero (BB): 106.7 BB
UTG: 157.88 BB
MP: 100 BB
CO: 105.42 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 4 5

fold, fold, CO raises to 2.2 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.2 BB

Flop: (4.9 BB, 2 players) 7 3 K
Hero checks, CO bets 2.34 BB, Hero raises to 7 BB, CO calls 4.66 BB

Turn: (18.9 BB, 2 players) 2
Hero bets 16.16 BB, CO calls 16.16 BB

River: (51.22 BB, 2 players) 2
Hero checks, CO bets 21 BB, fold

CO wins 48.66 BB


H7: vs reg with a tight CO opening range and a very high 3-bet OTF stat (3/4). I think he was 3-betting almost anything there, mostly air, what adjustments would be good vs someone like that? Is there any merit of 4-bet min-raise to put his air in a tough spot?

PokerStars - $1 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 322.62 BB
SB: 282.7 BB
Hero (BB): 100 BB
UTG: 100.72 BB
MP: 120.86 BB
CO: 689.26 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 8 9

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2 BB, fold, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop: (4.5 BB, 2 players) 4 8 3
Hero checks, BTN bets 1.71 BB, Hero raises to 6 BB, BTN raises to 17 BB, Hero calls 11 BB

Turn: (38.5 BB, 2 players) 5
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: (38.5 BB, 2 players) 9
Hero bets 27.44 BB, fold

Hero wins 36.58 BB

83ss has terrible playability and won't realize it's equity nearly enough. Making a 4bet 3x OOP.... don't think that's standard at all

You're the man, rapid. Way too focused on results. His range isn't J6s. Ofc he'll be fos sometimes. That doesn't mean your call with 83s was reasonable in any way.

100% exactly what I was about to type. Does op know the difference between raw and realisable equity???

Stubborness has been pointed out...I concur, but I've long thought that there are some glaring 101 type holes in ops game which suggests he never really learnt some of the basics.

Then there is his ego...he has contempt for most "run of the mill" regs as expressed not just in his words, but also that he couldn't care less that his ranges and postflop style are an open book to anyone who cares to
look him up.



On the plus side, Op is determined, seems hard working and not afraid to lay out his mistakes and argue his corner.

all makes for a very entertaining thread.

U can think he is fos all day but you still have to fold

Subbed! This thread looks interesting especially the last few pages.

Good luck!

his results are so lacking that it feels like he should surrender and listen a bit more to advices instead of being stubborn

also if you're going to talk about theory, at least take the time to analyse pre flop charts, against a range of 77+ and AQ+ and A5s A4s and K7s and J6s and Q5s and KTo and JTo and A8o, your 83s is STILL A FOLD

Lol, I'm not jamming 83s, I'm in 5-bet bluff rehabilitation, only did 1 5-bet bluff in the last 100k hands.


You guys are right, I'll not call 4-bets with 83s anymore. I mean, I still think it was ok there, but I'll reshape my pre-flop 3-bet ranges so I don't have to make atrocious plays like that. My thinking there was "well, I'm 3-betting 72o, 23o, 45o, 46o, if I fold 83s to this sizing I would fold too much, also I have equity against his trashy 4-bets". I realized that defending 100% of hands isn't a good approach, will probably try to defend like 80% of hands or something.


Yeah, lol, basically this is a throwback in the 2009 times where people used to discuss poker strat on 2+2.

thanks, man >D
VAMO!!!!

Lol, someone asked in benas thread if anyone ever 4x pot bluffed, and I thought of you

I do what I can.

you should not 3bet 72o, I haven't ran it but even against somebody who opens 100% I think 72o might not ever be a 3bet

if you want to 3bet trash BB vs SB pick hands like A6o or K3o or Q7o, it at least has some blocker value to villain's calling range

People play bvb so bad he can pry get away with it.

When i was adjusting my bvb play I played 20k hands of bb vs sb where I defended ~100% of hands and had higher wr than my original strat of defending like 60-65%.



Anyways... if they fold to 3b 60%+, play postflop like a litype B**** and never 4b.... Probably best to polarize

Well yeah in this situation polarizing your range might yields a higher EV but assuming you do indeed polarize then I doubt 83s would fit into the value part of that range lol

That's nice but I'm pretty sure you give that speech every page?

H1, looks like spew to me.

H2, J3o is not a defend bb vs sb lol. This is basic stuff. Give up on river, hes not folding 8x/9x to you.

H3. I have noticed that you often believe your good plays are terrible, and terrible plays are good. This was played good and the most normal hand of the bunch yet you think its terrible? lolz.

h5, is a turn give up. you keep barreling with no equity oop into a nit. What did you expect him to fold otr for half pot? lolz.

H6. defending 45o vs co. More lolz.


h7. You know villain has high flop 3bet % so you decide to raise him on the flop, and then wonder how to adjust to him, and consider getting into an even worse spot by 4 betting him light. even more lolz. Did you consider maybe not raising him on the flop with a weak range?