Hey everyone!

I commented on this 2p2 thread about playing a draw deep stacked. Because it's such a common issue with people who play mostly with 100 big blind stacks, I decided to make a video about the situation with some easy tips for adjusting your ranges for deeper stacked play.

You can watch the video here, on our channel: Deep stacked play

Enjoy, gentlemen. I hope it helps your game!

Reid

Interesting hand, good video but I think the analysis misses a few things. What are our stats and image btw? I threw the two hands into pokerstove, and it looks like we are a 2-1 dog against an 11% 3bet range. Granted, we have the button and deep stacks, but my issue with playing this hand this way is that against a hyper aggro player, who will also c/c with top or middle pair, and cbet into us a very high % of the time this deep, we end up in a lot of tricky spots on most flops and turns.

We will always have to fold to that cbet bet when we dont pair or catch a decent draw, and sometimes we end up putting in a bet with bottom/middle pair, or some type of weaker draw when we are way behind when he hits and c/c's our bet.

I mean, we flopped gin in this example, and thats very unusual. A Normal flop we hit will look something like Q-10-6 or J-7-3, and unless we pick up a draw or 2pr on the turn, we will have to fold to another bet or check behind and fold to a river bet - basically we are praying to get to showdown.

The Ace on the flop makes this hand harder to play aggressively, because a high percentage of hand combinations he 3bets with contain an ace, which he wont fold unless the board becomes a disaster for him by the river and we apply major pressure.

The nice part about our hand is that when we do hit a pair, 2pair, or trips, we dont have to worry about being dominated, and can often get to showdown in a small/medium sized pot with our weak/medium holdings or get full value from strong holdings with our position.

Honestly, if we think that this player is actually very good and will play well on the turn and river, I think the case becomes stronger for folding preflop and also throwing in a 4bet once in a while because our implied odds are cut down by a lot, and he wont want to play a 4bet pot OOP (i.e., he 5bet/shoves his monsters and folds all else). We need to make 2 pair plus to win a big pot, and that wont happen often, and against a good player we just wont get paid off enough. Against a weaker player, who is happy to play a bigger pot with one pair, Im OK with calling the 3bet regularly with this holding, but I think overall that play (calling the 3bet) is better when our image is tight and we get extra value from confusing a weaker opponent by playing small suited connectors.

Unknown. The only thing we know is that our opponent appears to be a regular.

We do not; here's why. We don't expect to be check-raised or three bet on the flop widely. If we are re-raised, we can happily call or shove, depending on how often villain three-bets flop as a bluff (if we know) or just shove to balance our value hands that shove as part of an optimal range.

When you say an 11% re-raising range has us at 2-1, you're coming at the problem with a few incorrect assumptions. First, that all of his hands get to show down against us. They do not, unless all you do is call and check back or fold to future bets when you're unimproved. Secondly, that we'll have to put in money all the time he puts in money and we don't hit (ex. he three barrels, we miss after calling flop and turn, and so we fold 7 high on the river - his equity doesn't matter because we have 7 high and know it's worse than whatever he's betting). Thirdly, that his re-raising range is linear, by which I mean an 11% range (or whatever % you're assigning) is made of hands like 99+/AQo+ instead of suited connectors and then JJ+/AK+. The equities are different for each range, but still, the main point is that none of that is important because we don't expect to be check-raised by many (possibly any, against this player at this limit, with these stacks) hands on the turn.

...and sometimes we don't get caught and win. We weigh the pros and cons and consider those as part of an overall game plan designed to protect our value range and maximize equity and successful frequencies when (semi-)bluffing. You have to look at both sides of the issue. Just because he can trap well doesn't mean he is going to do it every time or even that he can exploit us by doing so. Imagine if we bet only great value hands when checked to on this turn and combination draws like this. Would you want to try to check-call two streets against that range and make a decision on blank rivers, trying to guess how often we give up with our missed draws? That's not a good situation.


You're talking about a different hand. Different boards to demand different strategies. 76s isn't a hand I would play for stacks with on every board 200bb effective.

Again, this is based on the assumption that his three betting range is largely linear. If it's non-linear, the raise probably will have more folding equity on average. Even if his range is linear, if he's continuation betting 99+/AQ+ on the flop, then he's still going to have a tough time facing this raise against a balanced range. You seem to be considering exploitive options for different hands. I'm talking about using 76s in this situation on this board as part of our semi-bluff raising range because of the large amount of equity we have and the likelihood that we'll be putting pressure on a decent amount of his continuation betting range, regardless of if it's linear or non-linear. If you don't raise these boards some of the time, then you're going to be folding A LOT of flops. Against a good player, they'll simply continuation bet more often and you'll be losing a money on average when you decide to call re-raises; not necessarily as an overall strategy mind you, but I mean with the overall strategy of calling raises in position.

A good reason to call with hands like 76s and not K6s (given certain conditions, obviously) is because we don't expect to be dominated.

We're 200bb deep and in position, man. We have implied odds. A lot of them.

Not necessarily true. I've won many a large pot with worse. There are also the many times that we can (semi-)bluff raise our opponent off a hand like king high, we can float to bluff the turn, or we can call down with a medium strength hand and win. There are many ways which combined happen more often than hitting a monster and taking down a huge pot. I agree that it's rare that we make a huge hand and stack another huge hand, but it's not how optimal poker is played because good and aggressive players are going be looking for thinner edges, rather than always waiting for cooler versus cooler situations.


...then bluff more.

Playing deep OOP is always confusing against a good player. If your image is on either end of the spectrum, with deep stacks and out of position, a good player is going to make your life a nightmare.

Yeah, I guess so. Only the actual preflop, and theoretical postflop parts of this hand are interesting to me. To me, the idea that a player wouldnt raise the actual flop in your video - with 43bb in a tournament or 400bb in a cash game or any other situation - isnt really interesting to discuss.

Groovy man. It was cool rapping with ya.

Agreed. For this reason, I made the video about raising the hand and the hypotheticals that would follow the raise along with the reasoning for the raise and each hypothetical.

With 43bb, one could definitely make the case for calling the flop and jamming the turn unimproved. It probably plays more exploitively, but you did say it was in a tournament