So just finished a live session.

Went and watched the Australia vs France game at the casino. Not a bad effort by Australia despite France demonstrating a poor performance. The atmosphere was great and good to see some brave French supporters chanting amongst an Australian crowd.

So after the game my friend and I decided to put in a small session - particularly as the tables were populated by fish from the world cup game.

So ended up down 625$ in a 2/3 game.

I didnt play many notable hands.

Hand 1:
Hero KK on Btn
3 limpers. Hero makes it 20$
2 callers.

Flop - 63$ Td8d3h
Check Check
Hero bets 40
Fold fold

Hand 2 - Hero AhJh on CO
UTG opens to 10
HJ calls
Hero squeezes to 45
UTG calls
HJ folds

Flop - $90 - 883r
UTG checks
Hero bets $35
UTG folds

Hand 3: Hero AhKs in SB
Effective stack: 240~
UTG+1 opens to 10
UTG+2 calls
Hero squeezes to 50
Utg+1 calls
UTG+2 folds

Flop - AcTs9c - $110
UTG+1 Checks
Hero bets $60
UTG+1 jams for $189
Hero Calls
UTG+1 shows AsTh (i think suits are correct?)

So this hand was kind of annoying. Villain is a young businessman looking guy. Has shown tendency to play splashy but also not bad. I think preflop squeeze size is good since I am OOP. Flop is not bad. My plan was to bet big on flop and jam any non club turn (I thought pot was 90 but I realised since writing this it was 110) by betting 60 I set up so would have a nice turn jam size.

When I get jammed here I am not happy about it. But given the price I think it would be a disaster to fold. I was really hoping villain has overplayed AQ or AJ but I think that might be somewhat ambitious. I think its possible villain has many straight flush draws like QcJc KcQc 7c8c 7c6c. It was annoying cos I was saying to my friend if it was any deeper I probably would have explo folded.
Unfortunately board runs out well for AT and I lose approx 240. Let me know if you guys think this is a fold or if the call is super standard. I know 6 max this seems like a standard call off but I am not sure in 10max live setting. I have little experience live.

Hand 4: KhJh in SB
Effective Stack $500 (160bb)
Non-Live straddle to 6
EP calls
HJ Calls
CO Calls
Hero squeezes to 40
Straddle calls
Fold
Fold
Fold

Flop - $101 - 5c5d3c
Hero bets $35
BB calls

Turn - $171 - 8s
Hero bets $120
BB tank min raise to $240
Hero folds

So this hand was kind of interesting in terms of dynamic. At this point in time I was way more interested in the Argentina vs Iceland game. Played next to no hands (except limp defends from sb and BB) for about 70 minutes (I remember this because there was only 20 mins in the game left and Messi choking a pen just before). So I understood my image was very tight. So for me to look down in SB and take my attention away from game and squeeze after very little activity would send some alarm bells (at least thats what I thought, maybe they just arent noticing that stuff at this level).

Honestly not sure what Villain was like. He sat down on table for 160bb (500$) but because of the game wasnt paying too much attention. Seemed like a bit of a whale but didnt seem to do any stupid donk leads or weird raises.

So preflop call is kind of strong. Assume its going to be like 88-QQ? And maybe some suited Ax and offsuit AQ?
Not expecting villain to fold flop on this board but I have so many overpairs it makes sense to at least double barrel here.

Turn 8 does not change anything. My plan is now to bet turn and jam on any non 3 5 8 or club rivers. If a king rivers I would value jam and if I river a J I would check call vs club club bluffs and other random floats. Fortunately villain min raises and it prevents me from firing off my last 300 on river bricks as a bluff. I think not having a club in my hand is important. I also think having a J is decent to have as it blocks some JJ combos that are most likely to cold call a flat. I think a Q would be better to have as QQ should never fold vs a reg's triple but that would just be greedy.

Hand 5: AdKd - UTG
Hero opens to 15
BB defends

Flop - $32 - QdJh8s
BB checks
Hero bets 20
BB raises to 55
Hero calls

Turn - $142 - Js
BB checks
Herk checks

River -$142 - 6h
BB bets $75
Hero Folds

Pretty standard hand. Usually check this flop but then realised UTG crushes board. Im probably nit folding 109s in high rake game. But I still have all the sets and some QJs. I would fold non bdfd AK and continue with the ones that do.

Turn is interesting. I dont think either player has any naked Jx so both ranges are generally boated or drawing. Decided not to bluff as I think villain has all combos of QJo and QJs and villain is also not bad player either so understand checking with boat here is not bad.

Once again not a very exciting session. Lost quite a lot in opens and calls and flopping almost 0 equity everytime.
Kind of frustrating this is my 5th or 6th losing session in an extremely soft 2/3 game. Down probably close to 7 or 8 buyins live for 2018 - which is not a lot - but for someone who does not go often kind of frustrating to think how many 30hands per hour sessions I will have to play to realise EV.

Anywah back on the video edit grind and online grind tomorrow ao hopefully can get some momentum going for challenge.

It’s kind of standard. Like folding here isn’t as bad as many people would think. I wouldn’t fold this particular hand/board bc of what you posted in first 2 sentences, but honestly bet/folding is like the single biggest skill you can develop live (because villains over call and under bluff)

They aren’t bro. Not at any level. I mean lots of people may notice you’re tight but literally no one will adjust. The last time I played live a guy was openly complaining about how tight I was for hours. We end up getting in a hand where I open/4bet from UTG and he calls...I bet like 1/6th pot on A23r (the cocktail waitress knows what I have at this point), and he raises.

That’s live poker man.

In big squeeze spots I sometimes say “sorry to ruin the fun boys but I’ve got aces” and people still call. It’s sick dude if you just have the patience for it.


One thing I’d suggest you dabble with is open limping and over limping. There is a great deal of strategy on why you would want to do these things in a no fold equity 10 handed game, if you can open your mind and think about them. I realize this sounds like an abomination to a 6 max online player.

Great videos like the shot clock format a lot!

hahaha genius

But yeah a lot of what you said makes sense. I guess thats just from experience and playing live a lot. I guess I just need to put more hours in live and start to identify the dynamic of live poker

hahahah yeah I nearly threw up when I read this. I know quite a few of my live reg friends telling me to limp as well but I honestly cannot see how this can be justified. Ranges become wider and harder to play against. Rake sucks, particularly in Australia and limping is .... well.... very boring. I can definitely see reasons for limping but I just feel like raising pros outweigh the limping pros. There probably is more reason to limp behind in the Sydney casino because preflop is raked as well (daylight robbery over here). In casinos where preflop is unraked, there is literally no justification for limping (in my opinion).

Thanks. Lets hope I actually stick to the timer and not go over it....

Shudda flicked in the 2/5/10 M8!

Yeah next time I go to the cas by myself Ill probably play some 2/5/10. However I usually go early and there is only one table and a fat line.

+ I can't even beat 2/3. Rip the dream

If you really think about it, there are several reasons. I’d challenge you to think of a few situations you’d want to open limp and overlimp. Open limping being a bit more complex, overlimping being a little more straight forward.

There is a recent video of Tom Dwan playing a big cash game somewhere in not America and he open limped several times.

To be clear, your friends and anyone else that advocate limping are probably not very good. They are just doing what they are familiar with and what works. But limping has its place in this game, and there is no format where that is more apparent than in live full ring.

I went from limping a lot, to learning a great deal about poker and never limping, to studying even more about poker and came full circle and limp quite a bit, though now I have a much better understanding of why.

Plenty of reasons to exploitatively limp

Yeah that is true. I probably should sit down sometime and really think about it a bit more. I have made some significant adjustments since I played live in Europe - which unfortunately has not been rewarding since coming back. Saying that I have probably only played 30 hours of live since the beginning of this year so sample size is an issue.

My biggest issue with limping is that I personally find it very easy to play against the regs when they limp. Their range becomes too obvious and very easy to play against. Therefore if I start doing the same, a good reg will also be able to exploit me. A lot of the times I will see a reg limp behind with marginals like small pocket pairs and suited connectors but raise with stronger broadway holdings. Therefore it just becomes super easy to play postflop. This is a very similar concept to cold calling a 3b or 4b in 6max (ranges becoming super obvious pre).

But then again you do mention that most people are not paying enough attention to minor details (regarding balance and VPIP/PFR) live so its probably better to just play super face up anyway. Like I said I just don't have enough experience to make a reasonable comment on the matter and I am 90% sure I'd be tagged as one of the bad regs when playing live. I think I need to do a deal where I trade online strat for live strat .

Also new progress video out now:



For those of you who do not have time to watch my YT videos:

Total progress is at 15/50 Buyins as of 11th June - I will put out next update on Wednesday for the 17th June.

Raising a bunch is counter intuitive. The days where you could raise pre and blow everyone off post flop is gone. Most people are capable of making roughly the right adjustments vs a LAG... and if you're raising a bunch pre then you have to be bluffing.

You're much better off only bumping it up with premium hands and getting in cheap with everything else... depending on amount of limpers. Imo having a tight/nitty image is pretty crucial in today's games. You get a lot more fold equity which you otherwise wouldn't have playing loose aggro

As promised Video out today:



Total progress as of 17th June is 22/50 Buyins.

So creeping up to the 50% mark for the challenge. Hopefully can continue the momentum.

love the strat talks in your video! do you use solvers?

only reason I can see to open limp is if people are 3 betting too much with awkward stack sizes that don't let you 4bet bluff much at all, otherwise I think overlimping is totally fine, I do it a bunch live and I've got an online backround

Thanks! and yes I do

don't take this the wrong way but i feel like open limping/over limping is much more complicated than you think it is. there might be some rare situations where it's better than raising/folding i.e. massive whales on the table spewing off post (even in this case i think there are better ways to expo take their money) but i think in most cases at best you are gaining negligible ev and at worst you are misapplying and losing a lot of ev

Is this your full time job? What's your end goal with poker?

Raising a bunch pre.. and even if you only do it IP you will still get limp re raised a lot / play in weird guessing spots post by any observant tag. All you're really doing is making a minimal ev play (it's just the nature of multi way pots) and opening yourself up to the above.

Assuming you know how to hand read and play accordingly post, overlimping in tons of spots is massively ev. If you don't agree then I guess you're just not bluffing enough post which is what makes it worth it ev wise.

At the moment yes. I would say 75% of my time is directed towards poker.

Currently my short term goal is to move up to 500nl (obviously)

Long term I am not really sure. I want to try complete 1million hands for this year and then reassess what I want to do with poker after 2018.

If all goes well I would like to move abroad for 2 years and grind both live and online and then hopefully have enough funds to reinvest that into a business when I return. I personally prefer playing online but the online scene is not so great at the moment. If Galfond's site is successful I will probably move overseas and grind that and try and compete with the very best.

Pokerstars does however look incredibly soft these days and would not be surprising if you saw me back over there (when Australia sorts out their online poker regulation). However I am just a little bit worried about playing and supporting a site that is going in a very negative EV direction for the overall poker environment

just in case you aren't trolling, would you like to come to sydney and play in my homegame? if you tell me more about your advanced live strategy i might even pay for your plane ticket

2p2 so so much


Not sure how I could be misapplying something I've developed myself. I was studying limping before the hs guys made it cool. Though, to be fair, david benefield is the one who opened my mind up to it, back in 2008ish if I had to guess.

Ah yes. Those epic Aussie games that you guys seem to think is normal for the rest of the world. Maybe if you left your dinky little country or if you realized how few posters live in aus you wouldn't make such ignorant posts as above or give such horrible advice.

i can see how not raising everything would be dumb... if you were a little poker tool on your first heater- where raising atc would be profitable . For everyone else that's actually been around poker, raising pre with trash and opening yourself up to stuff isn't the best strat when you can limp with a much wider range (that's somewhat protected) and actually play post flop poker where a winning poker players true edge is.

To put this limping strategy into perspective - if your strategy is producing a good win rate over a good sample size, why does it matter what other people are doing.

If a limping reg has a winrate of 10bb/100 and a raising reg has the same winrate how can one justify one is better than the other?

Like I said I do not play enough live or study enough of it to make a reasonable assessment. However if a reg has a limping strategy online and has the same winrate as me then I would look into what parts of their game I could employ but for me to completely revise my entire strategy would not make a whole lot of sense. Developing a consistent and well structured 3b range is difficult enough.. I could not imagine how tough it would be to develop a rigid limping strategy.

I totally agree with you but your wr will be higher with a limping strategy in low stakes live specifically.

Not talking 5/10 or higher (or any 6 max online obv) but the dynamics of live low stakes poker favor a very simple limping strategy that realizes a higher EV than a binary raise/fold strategy.

Underlined being the important aha.

one sec let me get a pen and paper and write this down so i dont forget

"use the high fold equity generated by my nitty image to raise only my premium hands " ok got it

"limping with a wide range actually defines ranges more than raising with a tight range" wow inspiring

"multiway pots are minimal ev, so you should limp to reduce the field" couldn't have said it better myself

ok so raising pre is bad because we need to bluff post but bluffing in limp pots is good because we have less of a range advantage and have to go through more people... ok cool i think im getting the gist of it

u can def misapply ur own strat

but im genuinely curious, when would u say openlimping/overlimping is higher ev than raising or folding? for me a lot of the time the potential ev gain is diminished by other factors - and this is completely ignoring external things like complicating ur overall strat, increased fatigue from playing more hands, wasting time developing a 0 ev strat when u can actually increase ev in 100 bigger areas, etc

fwiw i think one of the only scenarios where developing a limping strat could be good is if nobody limps in ur games and villains wont know how to play correctly against it. some 500z guy on 2p2 does this successfully in his games