Hi Marshall,

A slightly more general question from me. How often do you flat 3bets from regs OOP? I used to do this a fair bit, but recently have heard a couple of good players saying it's better to only 4bet or fold in these situations. I've been experimenting with this a bit recently but seem to end up folding to too many 3bets, having to tighten up my opening range more than I'd want, or 4betting and calling a 5bet shove when it seems very likely I'm well behind villain's shoving range. On the other hand, when flatting OOP you obviously end up in some tough spots postflop especially with the sort of range the villain will have compared to yours (ie. he can have AA-QQ, AK and you can't, but he can also have a nice amount of 'semibluff' type hands to go along with it).

Discussing hands helps the most because it helps you to formulate your overall gameplan in different spots.

What I mean by overall gameplan is how you will play different parts of your range on particular types of boards. The merits for each action and how you expect most opponents to react based on what action you choose.

Watching videos, yeah it is good in order to stay sharp regarding how the game evolves, but most people do too much passive video watching. The way to watch videos is to do it with the sound off first, and to pretend you are actually in that particular spot, and to reason out what you would do and why. After you come to your conclusion, listen to what the producer says and determine whether you are right, if you are wrong why you are wrong, or if it's the producer who has made the mistake and not you.

I honestly don't do much analyzing of my own play anymore. I'd always instruct anybody to constantly be analyzing their own game, and I certainly would make more money if I did, I'm just lazy about that I guess and don't find it particularly interesting.

Focus on all parts of your range given the board when you are talking hands with friends.

AJ+/88+

1. You have to put yourself in that guys shoes. Nobody ever bluff raises this guy because he's so tight so whenever he has gotten it in in the past it's almost always against the nuts. You can use his image against him in order to push him around.

2. I dunno I didn't look at the sizing that closely the first time around, on second look it's probably a too big.

would you still barrel the turn on Ah3c2s-4d then shut down on 6d river?

It's usually not good to flat 3bets OOP at 100bb depth. I'd prefer to do it with deeper stacks if I'm going to do it at all.

On average you should be folding to roughly 65-70% of 3bets depending on the frequency of your opens. I open like 15% UTG, 18 MP, 25 CO, 50 BTN, so for me ~70% is right.

I agree with most of your friends telling you to not flat 3bets very much in position or out of position and I think most people 4b bluff too much and defend 3bets too light.

Even if you are behind your opponent's 5b shoving range it still can be correct to 4b/call. Reason is, if their 3b range is too wide, the percentage of times that they fold to your 4bet so much that it becomes profitable.

I gotta go to the gym then gonna play some basketball, I'll check back here later tonight though if the thread is still going.

i made the big river bet because villains range on the river is usually going to be a Q that pot controlled the turn or something like 99. I assumed that villain would call any size bet with a Q and fold anything lower no matter what i bet.

I know that everyone has different perceptions of a "balanced" strategy.

Could you find a couple hands were you are balancing your range and post your history with villain/table dynamics/thought process?

If that is too much effort, I understand haha.

Say a guy raises first in 20% from UTG, he opens and it folds to you on the button with unknowns in the blinds. UTGs fold to 3bet from UTG is 50% (100bb eff)...

What's your 3betting strategy in general i.e. how do you construct your range, what types of hands would you rather flat vs this villain?
How do your ranges change if one/both of the blinds are squeeze happy?
How does it change if you are BB and it folds to you (i.e. you're OOP)?

What's your general 3bet strategy vs people that fold around 50%?

How high does the squeeze% of someone from the blinds have to be for you to abuse this and how do you generally go about doing it, do you flat CO opens and flat the squeeze when it comes around to you, do you flat CO opens with premiums and if so with what frequency? Do you 4bet light, if so what sizing?

Do you call 3bets OOP frequently vs someone that 3bets you light (say COvsBTN) and if so what's your general postflop gameplan?

How much "feel" do you use when deter,ining when a villain is going to change his play (i.e. playback because you abused him, start to tilt etc.). any way to accelerate the development of said feel for the flow of the game?

[postflop and misc questions to follow]

Do you generally look at your hand first and say "ok won't play this from this position" or do you generally look at villains stats first and decide? Kinda hard to explain what I mean is what "spikes your interest first", seeng CO folds a lot to 3bets or seeing you hold 76s OTB?

What "progression of stats" do you go through before making a PF decision? Let's say
1) if we are OTB and it folds to us (i.e. something like both blinds fold%, ther 3betVS/3bet, their WTSD/fold to F/T/R)
2) if we are BTN and CO has opened (i.e. something like his opening range from that position, his fold to cbet, his barrelling frequency; blinds squeeze etc)

What "progression of stats" do you go through postflop? If you cbet, do you generally think about the range you want to fold out and how many bets it takes to do so or more about what turn/rivercards you want to bluff on
i.e. you cbet JdTd on Ad4s7c is your thought process more tilted towards "I'll rep an A and think he'll fold all pairs to 2/3 bets" or towards "I'll bluff on any diamond and broadway card"...also kinda tought to say what I mean but I guess it can be summarized as do frequencies or villain tendencies play a bigger role in your thought process

If you have a villain with a pretty low WTSD and you think he folds quite a bit how do you decide if he "has a strong hand after calling two streets because he's folding a lot so he's pretty strong on the river" vs "I have to tripple him because he folds a lot"

If you have a villain who bets flop+turn a lot, how do you decide if he checks to give up on the turn vs checking to call down?

What is your general thought process in spots where villains range should be weakish but we can't really rep a lot either but have no SDV?

What's your general thought process like in spots where you 3bet for value but don't flop a pair i.e. you 3bet AK (or AQ) both IP and more importantly OOP. Mine tends to be "**** now what" which can't be optimal :P I feel like if I 3bet AQ for value there have to be a bunch of worse unpaired combos in villains range so I should be thinking "bluffcatch" but somehow I can't quite pull the trigger often.

good questions^, hope he has time to answer!

Which site would you consider best for US players at the moment?

In terms of both safety and ease of withdrawal?

OP, I've played against you a decent amount and I know you're more aggro than most are pre.

Out of curiousity what's you're 5bet shoving range over 4 bets in late position. Assuming its a decent reg who is opeing wide (50%+ on btn) and 4betting pretty wide for value and as a bluff.

I don't really wanna go digging through all my HH to show specific spots but I'll do my best to explain it here.

When I am describing how my play is "balanced" there are two things I'm talking about. One is, I occasionally take certain lines with certain parts of my range in specific spots in order to keep my opponent from making exploitative plays. The other is making sure you are value betting in all spots you are bluffing and vice versa. If you aren't capable of having a bluff in a spot you are value betting, your value bet should really be like 1/5th the pot.

If you are a cardrunners member, I have a quickie series on there talking about checking back the flop heads up. That explains it quite well so I'd say check that out.

There's a hand that has a ton of replies in MSNL right now where a guy 3bets QQ in a steal position, gets called, c-bets TdTc7d, gets called, turn comes Ah and he asks what he should do. My advice was bet/call because if I check QQ there, I'm creating a problem for myself:

My range to barrel the turn is now quite polarized because if I check QQ I'm only betting the turn with Ax and bluffs... this allows my opponent to take advantage of me big time in this spot whenever I check by taking every hand in his range, betting turn, and after I c/c turn he will shove river and I am stuck having to guess.

Now in this particular spot I could try to protect my turn c/c range by checking when I have Ax, but then you have to think about your overall gameplan. How often am I going to be bluffing in this spot? How often am I going to have a hand strong enough to c/c the turn and river?

It just seems way more obvious to me that I'm going to have a bluff much more often than I'm going to have a hand like QQ there, so what's more important to me? Protect my bluffs by barreling thinly for value, or protect my KK-JJ by checking stronger hands (like Ax) and giving up all my bluffs?

clowntable,

That's too many questions, if you want to focus on just a couple I will answer those, but if you really have this many questions I'd encourage you to get private coaching as that is a better medium to go over all of that content.

Bodog without a doubt is the only one I trust at all at this moment. I've been screwed over pretty badly by Carbon and am extremely unhappy with them. Cake is very shady as well especially with that whole 60k scandal. I'm having a huge amount of trouble getting any money off Carbon or Cake atm.

I don't really have a specific answer for this because it depends mostly on game flow.

I think I probably only am aggressive preflop if I think that's where my edge is found. In most 5/10 games I don't think I have much of an edge preflop.

Is there some routine you follow before, during (and maybe after) a session? Like drinking coffee before playing, looking thourgh x number of hands after, etc.

Also do you play if you are tired or feeling bad in general, let's say you can't play your A game, what's the worst game you'd stick with? (As an example I think B- is where I draw the line, if I'm playing my C game I feel like I might as well do something else).

There is a spot I am unsure of against fish:

Say fish has between 30-50bb and opens somewhat loose. You 3bet him oop to 10bb and the flop comes Axx.
What would be your preferred line/sizing with a bluff (KQ or 99 or a hand like that) and what would be your preferred line/sizing with a good Ax? Pot is 20bb so there is no problem getting the money in with various lines.

Great idea giving your advice. Really appreciated.

How do you play AK or KQs from the blinds in a 3bet pot vs someone who doesn't fold to 3bets or many cbets. Let's say it's a 892 rainbow flop? Is c/f my only option?

Also what do you do vs an aggro SB 3bettor when you have KQ from the button. Flatting his 3bet or 4bet folding? Let's say villain has a 20% 3bet from SB. If your calling here how do you play low flops or A86 type flops?

This happens a lot for me at 100NL and 50NL.

Thanks!

Hey MF28, I remember when we played a decent amount HU starting tables at FTP, always thought you were a very tough player, amazing what kind of results you've posted since then.

When do you decide to make a move on an unknown fairly frequent 3better?

Props on your progress
GS

LOL not exactly. I'm not a very good role model for other poker players in this sense of the game. My discipline is probably among the poorest of any player who plays near my skill level. I have no routine, I sleep at random times constantly, I occasionally have 24+ hour sessions, I drink a lot, I play drunk pretty often, etc.

Most of the time I don't play tired because I just don't play that much. I don't put in nearly enough hands in order to be making the kind of money I could make, I just feel like I play poker for a living because I wanna be able to do other stuff whenever and not be tied down. If I was forced to fall into some kind of routine it seems like it would defeat the purpose for me. I like sleeping in and I like rarely being stressed out and I like never really being in a rush.

I guess I'd say I really only play when I feel like playing, so that may be one thing that helps me a bit. I generally enjoy playing when I do decide to, so that probably allows me to play a bit better than guys who are constantly grinding it out and auto piloting.

I don't really put a grade on how good I'm playing. Either I'm playing bad or I'm auto piloting or I'm just winning. I'd say I don't tilt very often though and I usually quit when my image is very bad.

Your 3bet size is a mistake. I talked about this concept in one of the videos that's about to come out in the next week or so. If the guy has only 40bb's, like you said, you don't need to bet more than 2 streets to get all the money in, so instead of 3betting to 10bb, you should be 3betting smaller to make it a 3 street game. So if the fish opens to 3bb I would make it like 6bb in position on him, he'll call like every time, now you have a 12bb pot and 34bb's more to go. Here you can bet like 4bb even on the flop, then 8-10bb on the turn, then shove the river.

Look for spots where you are potentially likely to pick up backdoor equity and continue to barrel the turn. So if you have AKcc on Tc7h3d, this spot is SOOOOOO much better than if the board were 9h7h3d. Reason is, on the first board you can turn additional equity with a Q or J, and you can also turn additional equity with a club. On 9h7h3d you have nothing in the way of backdoor equity.

With the KQ I'm pretty much always flatting the 3bet. There are a few scenarios where I might 4bet, but those are exceedingly rare. I'm basically looking to flop some kind of equity and then play the hand, there's not a huge need to try to get too tricky in those types of spots. Most players likely are always trying to be too tricky and run too many floats or randomly try bluff raises in bad spots. Most people think on average that they should be bluffing way more than they really need to be.