The argument for bluff-raising the top of one's folding range is that it is not true that worse will never call, at least online. Villains occasionally misclick, and they can misclick a call when they intend to fold. When that happens, we want there to be at least a chance that our bluff raise will beat the villain's accidental call.

Not saying it's bad, but this is exploitative, not GTO, imo. And people misclick live as well (i.e. misread their hand or the board, fumble their chips, etc.).

Drive south from LA before noon on Wednesday and meet a friend at a casino bar because he's pulled an all nighter from his game on Tuesday and sleeping is out of the question. We drink far too much, play 10/25/50 NL deuce until 7am Thursday and I decide to sleep it off in a nearby hotel since I don't feel like ubering to my house and then back to get my car the next day.

Wake up at 11am regretting that I was born and walk back to the casino. I'm still in no condition to drive or do anything that a functional human is able to do so I sit in a 2/5 NL game. The game is filled with top pros, as most live $5 blind $600 max buyin games are. As they are all top notch hustlers, they are all friendly and seem to be happy limp calling their entire 60% vpip range, something that I've been doing a lot of homework on with solvers at home in my free time.

Around 30 minutes (or maybe the first orbit or maybe 8 hours. Hard to say in the condition I was in) into my time at the table, a hand comes up where seat 1 limps before the flop, a couple other guys limp, and someone in late position makes a large raise. Seat 1 thinks briefly before folding. Seat 2 was never involved in this hand and is just leaning back in his chair texting or something. Both players have been fairly talkative and seem very friendly. Flop comes something raggedy along the lines of K72r. At this point seat 1 turns to his left and hits seat 2 in the shoulder with a closed fist VERY hard. This wasn't a "man I would've hit the flop" jab as a joke, he absolutely slams the guy like he was trying to hit a home run.

Seat 2 obviously reacts with shock. Seat 1 just says "sorry man" with no explanation. The dealer is just sitting there. The other 7 players are just sitting there. Again seat 2 is like "man, what is wrong with you?" and again seat 1 just says "I'm really sorry" with no explanation. A reg tries to lighten up the situation by making a joke which was not particularly funny but at least he tried. The dealer just sits there. All 9 of us just sit there. We just keep playing poker.

I've seen some remarkable things at the poker table over the past 14 years but this is possibly the most uncomfortable moment I've ever witnessed. Dude gets assaulted at the table for no reason and somehow we continue playing poker. No floor. No getting a guy barred for attacking someone in front of 8 people. Just keep playing poker. Not even a seat change for seat 2. Wow. And I feel crazy because I feel like I'm the only one who feels like they just witnessed one of the most ridiculous things that has ever happened before noon at that casino.

I miss you.

You'll enjoy leo docs upcoming post on our first Louisiana trip since 2013 or so, we flew home today. They're all memorable but this one was especially interesting. I think I've gotten way better at life ever since I started playing live again a year ago and have been on the most remarkable downward spiral since basically the very beginning.

Check it out. Resident limit guy who’s posted lots on 2p2 vs his friend and hs bot dan zack:

And bc the vid isn’t loading: linky

leo doc says he can't post pictures so he asked me to post this one. More to come soon. We should also have some cool videos

Looking fun

And we filleted four of the small ones and took them to Volio's so he could do blackened, almondine and fried. Two decent chardonays and dinner was good.

40/80 live at the bike

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB79_aS6ivU

Awesome, much better view of forum member Rodeo this time too.

Cool. Never knew they did limit latb. No idea who rodeo is. Aaron and dan (from my link above) were borg regs. Dan might live out in Cali now and I actually haven’t seen Aaron in a while since I haven’t been playing poker. Def a good dude though.

Is rodeo Jonathan?

Rodeo was the guy wearing the Portland Oregon cap.
Didn't notice people named Dan or Aaron.

Sorry. Dan/Aaron are from the link I posted (25/50nl big bluff hand).

linky broke

Yeah, it was a live show for 2-3 hours last night.

Wow. And the poker guys picked up the hand. I now see that there’s a lot of info they don’t get. The dynamic here is wayyyyy more in depth bc of the friendship and experience that Aaron and Dan have with each other. I think Aaron’s most likely reason for folding (he can chime in if he wants to link his 2p2 name to a face but I won’t out him) is bc he knows so well that dan knows Aaron knows how creative dan can be. He was probably setting dan up to do exactly what he did, but then felt in the end it was too likely dan rivered the nuts to follow through w his plan.

https://youtu.be/iO7nUilIwqg

That hand isn't even remotely interesting if at any point in the past couple years you have been a winning reg in any even remotely tough NLHE game. One player chose a hand in his range and played it the way it should be played at some frequency at this stack depth, another held a hand that is a trivial snapcall against pretty much any strategy, chose not to based on an emotional response and the result was a catastrophic error.

Agreed dan was playing gto (as he does). I don’t think it’s unreasinable for Aaron to think dan would play more exploitatively against him.

Agree with Sean as usual.

That is one helluva tan

"And I don't think Dan Zack plays like a HS bot at all. Def a great player who can play all games from what I've heard (never played w him), but he doesn't employ a GTO-oriented approach in the big NL games, from what I've seen. I've seen him miss a lot of value at times and I've seen him turn TPGK into a x/r all in bluff at times. Most of the limit hands seem to kinda play themselves, but he seems to be employing a NL strategy that doesn't rely much on theory" - guy who cant really play NL for **** aka me

Dan studied very very hard. Multiples of the time I put into games and I studied for a lottttta time. His lhe game is def close to gto (though he’s prob studied the big limit draw games more) if he doesn’t believe he can play exploitatively and I’d suspect his nl game is too. He has to do what he did for value and as a bluff sometimes where blockers and other considerations can be used as the randomizing factors. But I’d def bet he’s put in a lot of hours thinking about this.

You guys are nuts if you don't think Dan is a solid NL player. It's pretty clear he's a cut above a majority of the players with respect to how he plays his range and his bluff strategy. I do wonder why that game even runs. It's one of the biggest NL games that runs semi-consistently, is filled with strong players, and all the hold cards are revealed.

Who said he wasn’t solid? I have no idea other than what people who I respect say about him, but from what I understand he’s very good at everything.

Dan's analysis of the AQ/999 hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQcVKYaaTtc