I don't go into much detail because this is the tv poker forum and talking strategy is for the most part useless. You should go visit some strat forums and participate there.

You said he 3bet to get the 8x hands out of Antonio's range. That's just stupid. Do I really need to explain why? I'm 3betting JJ because they will call with worse, which may include 8x hands in position. My goal is not to get ride of 8x hands. If you are going to discount 8x in this hand, the more compelling reason is the turn bet by Antonio. He's usually going to be pretty happy to take 8x to showdown there.

You also make the assumption that if Matasow calls the turn, it means he eliminates Qx hands, which is ridiculous. Matasow could think that Antonio will bet floats/worse enough on the turn, but gives up on the river. He might be planing on calling him down regardless, but then the 8 comes, which is not scary at all for Matasow, yet Antonio continues to bet it, which is scary because it's not a good card to bluff.

I'm not going to pretend to think that's necessarily what Matasow was thinking. But your preschool analysis assuming you need to take Qx out of his range to call the turn, means you should be calling the river is overly simplistic.

I also just read another of your posts in the HSP thread where you talk about Phillips knowing Durrrr bets the river 75% of the time. You spouted of these type frequencies before in your posts, and it's just ridiculous. If Durrrr had that kinda of river bet frequency he would be so exploitable that the other high stakes regs would be destroying him. Not to mention if you actually watch him play (without ur durrrr hatetard glasses on), you'll see he doesn't bet the river nearly that often.

edit: now that i've read all the posts after the one I quoted...

If you are going to get so heavily involved in a strat discussion in TV poker forum, at least get the action in the hand correct. Antonio has position in this hand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And for people that don't feel like reading trip's posts, here's the cliffs:

I (TripTwelves) am a super tricky player that feels that slow playing is the best way to guarantee I only ever get one street of value on the turn and river with a Q. I can, therefore, conclude that Antonio would play the same way and not bet a Q, and MM should have realized this.

I get that it's POSSIBLE he could have an 8 in his hand. However, it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY he does. That's the point. Please tell me 5 hands AE is playing oop to a 3-bet against a nit at the table. This is usually (80% of the time) burning money...not something you or I enjoy doing at the poker table. You seem to understand the numbers, but not what's really going on behind the numbers.

Poker isn't completely played on paper. It is a game of subtleties and you are just an elephant in a glass room.

I edited my post to include a few more things and am reposting it here.

Trip Twelves,

I was going to make a post pointing out some of the flawed logic you have, but your sheer number of responses to other posters scared me away. Veil nailed it pretty well. But, you definitely don't understand a few basic poker concepts.

For example, in one of your early posts you stated that Matusow 3 bet JJ to get 8x combinations out of Antonio's hand range. That is ******edly wrong poker logic.

Here is your exact post:

But wait Mike...you 3-bet preflop for a reason----to weed out any 8's from Antonio's range. You really think Antonio's cold calling out of position with an 8 in his hand for 4500?

First off:

Hold'em Simulation
325,337,760 trials (Exhaustive)
Hand Pot equity Wins Ties
JcJs 81.12% 263,131,284 1,544,976
8* 18.88% 60,661,500 1,544,976


Secondly, please pay attention to the hand. A) Antonio is not cold-calling. He was the original raiser. B) He is in the position.

These secondary points aren't as important because they just indicate you didn't pay attention to the hand or that you are throwing out terms such as "cold-call" when you really don't know what they mean. But the first part about trying to get combinations of 8x to fold by 3-betting indicates you don't even know why you are 3 betting hands such as JJ. I could go on, but that is enough.

Triptwelves, you can't be serious with your posts ... please never start playing poker, you'll be broke before you know it. Each line you type is just horrendous is any possible way.

Agree on most parts with Veil though.

1. I'll make as many posts as I want. This is a public forum and nobody, not even you big guy, have a right to tell me to do anything other than what I want to do.

2. Yes, I re-evaluate on different streets. But, Mike, in this situation, seemed to be taking Q's out of Antonio's hand with his turn bet, or just hoping he shuts down on the river. The problem is, He isn't going to shut down on the river with a Queen, and he can't shut down on the river with a bluff if it's checked to him. It all adds up to an easy call from the Mouth.

3. Yes, all of this occurred to me, I am just going over the most likely holding that Antonio has and what Mike's perception of this is given his actions. His actions didn't line up and he pretty much got owned by AE in an obvious spot.

Uhhh, dude. This is what I was scared of and I am falling into your trap of going back and forth with you.

My post did nothing of the sort to suggest whether or not Antonio has or doesn't have an 8 in his range. The only point I was trying to make with the pokerstove equity was to showcase why JJ would want action from hand combinations that have an 8 in them.

Secondly, AE is not OOP. He is IP. I don't know what you mean by I don't understand what is going on "behind the numbers" nor am I familiar with being an elephant in a glass room. What I do understand is that A) you didn't pay attention to the hand because AE is in position and B) you don't understand a lot of poker concepts and C) you are misintrepreting the poker concepts that posters are trying to spell out to you.

I get that people WILL call with worse, but when you break the hand down and get into each player's head. There are only 1 or 2 hands with an 8 in them that Antonio will think "Hmm...3 bet, against Mike the Tight Guy, and I have an 8 in my hand...looks like a good spot to call.) He called with suited broadway cards which is pretty much the lower end of his range there. I don't think he really enjoys throwing hundos in the fire.

And for this reason, the 8 is NOT a scary card. Yes, Antonio could have a queen in his hand. But, he most likely doesn't given the action. I'm not saying it's 100% that AE can't have a queen. I'm just saying that Mike played the turn seeming to intend to check call any river. The 8 pairing the board should have given him more incentive to call if it comes a rag, since now Antonio has to bluff his counterfeited hands that could lose to an ace high.

Antonio betting into this board on the river means the nuts or nothing. The Mouth knew this, and just made the wrong decision.

you guys are ******ed

I know he wants action from an 8...but in all likelihood there is just not an 8 in AE's hand.
I just rewatched the hand...my bad, AE is in position...I thought he popped from UTG and mike repopped from the button but he wasn't.

I'm not trying to be a dlck. I'm just trying to say what I believe and why I think that, but I am open to all criticism both positive and negative. I'm not afraid to put myself out there and say WHY i think something is right or wrong..not just that I think it is.

While Antonio being IP does change his preflop holdings a bit to now include a couple hands like 89 suited...he probably would have checked back the turn (I'm assuming, and like others have posted). Unless he was putting mike on 99-AA minus QQ and turning his hand into a bluff)

It just feels to me that it's pretty clear that Antonio has a boat or air, and he just seems to be taking a more airy line than value line. I'm interested in what he was putting Mike on. Probably ace high, which is why he felt the need to bluff the river.

OMG Antonio raises cutoff and Ferguson folds QTss from the button? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

I promised myself not to post anymore but I just remembered this joke:

'Someone drives home in his car. He heares a warning in the Radio: "Attention, there is someone going the wrong way on the highway." He looks out of the window and thinks to himself: just one? Hundreds of them!!'

I don't expect you to get it TripTwelves but maybe the others will.

The 75% was obvs an exaggeration. The point was that he bluffs this river knowing his hand has no showdown value against someone who MUST have ~top pair to continue with the hand as he did.

And no, slowplaying is not always the best way to make the most money but in some situations it is. Mike bet the flop, inducing a float from AE...fine. Now, if Mike bets the Q paired board turn, he is showing more strength than he is when he checks. If he bets the turn, and you have a queen, a repop might be a great idea because you think the mouth might have AA KK and will now not put you on the queen and will pay you off bigger than if you flat called. However, this is not the situation for this one, singular, individual hand and is not a textbook case. When mike checks the turn, he seems to be giving up, so would you really want to bet a queen here to "maximize value" if Mike doesn't even have a made hand yet? No. The best way to make money with a queen, given that Mike checks the turn, would be to let him hit the river, or not hit the river...and bluff at it.

Every hand is different, and you seem to be too engrossed with the ranges of possibilities and if you play every hand 1,000,000 times mindset. There are unique situations embedded into every hand that make slightly seemingly -EV plays very +EV given the particular nuances of the hand that a lot of internet players can't understand.

Well for some reason, I've made a living playing live poker for 7 years now. It's not my fault you can't understand how to break out from the pack and think above the rim.

Yea, I cringed at that. There are three options with that hand, and he choose the worse one imo.

this is giving me a great lesson in playing tight, super nitty. Jesus is very impressive.

he is my new player that I mimic on the felt

Understood that you internet players believe in finding any edge possible and exploiting any possible equity a hand might pose. However, like Kaplan points out on HSP this week when Robl folds KJ off I believe, "Robl goes back to playing old school poker."

There are a lot of hands you simply don't want to play because they only make you second best hands. I get that AE opening from CU means Q10 should be doing fine against his range. But, sometimes, maybe Jesus picked something up, you want to wait for hands that dominate, not hands that are easily dominated.

Sometimes you just don't feel like playing a hand. You don't always have to go crazy with 2 broadway cards.

Go crazy? Calling a 2.5x or 3x (can't remember) raise with position is going crazy?

He has the button making it incredibly easy to play his hand against a player who is opening super light as he can pot control when he feels like it so he's very rarely going to play a big pot unless he wants to, or he can 3bet and make immediate profit and fold to a 4bet (because who other than Dwan would 4bet Jesus light?)

I don't get how folding away huge edges makes you "old school". If he was in the blinds or OOP or whatever I get that, but this is a huge mistake IMO. Of course maybe Jesus "picked something up", in which case he was incredibly wrong.

I also think it's really wrong reasoning to say you should fold QTss because it makes "second best hands". This isn't a 3bet pot that'll be for stacks. This is a single raised pot with good stack to pot ratio with him playing in position and the ability to control pot size very well. He only needs to play big pots when he feels like it.

Obviously there are exceptions. But everything about this hand suggests that folding QTs there is not the most +EV option. And it's nothing similar to the KJo hand. Roble was out of position in a multiway pot, that hand doesn't play that great multiway and being oop he has to worry about the reverse implied odds.

This hand is set up perfectly. It has all the elements of a very profitable situation. You have a very playable hand, on the button versus a loose CO opener and tight players in the blinds.

If you call you are going to get to see a flop almost always. And when you see a flop there are going to be so many favourable situations for you as long as you aren't playing fit or fold vs Antonio.

The reason Antonio can open 42s from the CO, is because Ferguson is folding QTs.

I get that, but because he didn't feel like playing the hand doesn't make it a "horrible" play. He simply didn't feel like playing Q10. Sometimes you sacrifice the battles to win the war. If someone doesn't feel like playing queen high broadway cards from the button, it's not necessarily a mistake, simply a decision he or she made consciously.
It's not that he didn't think his hand would play fine against AE's range, and in a tournament he probably would have called because you need to pick up chips wherever you can, but it's a cash game and it goes on forever. He just didn't feel like right then, right there, playing Q10 was a good idea, so he shouldn't be chastised for making a mistake, rather simply wonder why he didn't feel like playing it right then.

He's not folding away "huge edges." He's folding a marginal hand and there's nothing wrong with that.

I cringe every time Matusow plays a pot. It seems increasingly obvious hes playing these televised cash games out of his comfort zone. Every decision looks like its for his last dollar. Scared money...

It maybe a marginal hand (maybe...), but it is not a marginal situation.

there is other things to consider with that situation. maybe jesus was considering his table image in that situation. there are many things we didn't see, im not saying that folding that hand was right or wrong, im just saying there could have been a number of things running through his mind at that time. I personally like the way that jesus plays. For the most part he pretty standard poker. He may not be exciting to watch, but I think he plays a thoughtful game that revolves around avoiding many marginal spots. I also don't think hes as nitty as some people believe that he is. If you compare his game to many other old school live pros, you see that his fundamentals are pretty sound in comparison.

i'm all tingly in anticipation for a hand >$10k

Hands can't be viewed in a vacuum, QTss under the gun is much different than QTss on the button. I would strongly argue that in 6-max cash QTss on the button is far from a marginal hand. Thinking that it is is a pretty limited way of seeing it as "gosh darn other hands can make better top pairs!"

To be fair folding is a better option than playing it poorly postflop, but Jesus is a smart guy and knows how to play hands well in position I would imagine.

Again it's just two different perspectives on poker, interesting to see different mindsets.