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must therefore weigh the need for protection against the merit of the delayed c-bet. Take the following board for example. Imagine that Hero has raised BU

and Go poker coach, I regularly encounter common mistakes that players make,… An Introduction to Spin & Gos I was playing Tournaments for the first decade of my career. But after my first… Relationships and Poker In my more than 15 years of poker coaching, I’ve helped hundreds of clients improve… Do Multiple Sizes Matter? Should I work out the other tools or just stick to the crowbar? Solver results… The Science of Learning Applied to GTO Wizard The way we were taught to study in schools was flawed and has negatively impacted… Check-Raising a Single Pair In this article, I will address a question raised by Twitter/X user ’Matt Riley’, who… The Turn Probe Bet Imagine yourself defending as the BB caller vs BTN preflop raiser in a 100bb cash… When To Encourage Multiway Pots in PKOs I was recently shown this fascinating PKO hand from the GTO Wizard PKO library. Somebody… Protect Equity and Prosper When we think about the best hands to bet in a given situation, we tend… Do Solvers Have Targets? Targeting has long been a staple of exploitative poker thinking. When you’re value betting against… Disciplining Big Blind in Limped Pots When the BTN open-limps off a short stack, the postflop play against the BB should… I’d Rather Be Drawing Which is the better hand on a K♥8♦5♦ flop: K♠T♣ or 7♥6♥? OK, I’ll admit… The Curious Case of Open-Limping Buttons Before the advent of solvers, open-limping was considered the province of passive, gambley recreational players… Cleaning Out Sticky IP Callers A “sticky” player on your left, one who calls your preflop raises too often and… Defending Against Tiny 3-Bets Tournament poker is about precision. Cash games, where stacks typically run into the hundreds of… Heads up! Exploiting SB’s Preflop Mistakes Heads up (HU) tournament play presents unique challenges to the average player. Many tournament players,… C-Betting As the OOP Preflop Raiser Position is an extremely valuable advantage in poker. Most players would describe the comfort zone… Overchoice: Making Sense of Multiple Sizings Solver solutions with multiple bet sizes often involve a lot of mixing between those sizes,… River Refinements: When Your Opponent Won’t Check-Raise One of the biggest strategic differences between playing in versus out of position involves betting… Turn Barreling in 3-Bet Pots There are two articles on the GTO Wizard blog that make good prerequisites to this… The Right Way To Think About Protection Suppose Paul the Protector is in a 200bb cash game and opens A♠A♣ in the… The Importance of Board Coverage The first public version of the GTO Wizard announced AI upgrade already has some useful… How To Adjust When Villain Has No Bluffs “They always have it!” is a common, semi-joking expression in poker to describe the tendency… Adjusting on Later Streets After Exploiting Flop The key to exploiting opponents profitably is knowing when to stop. I’m not referring to… C-Betting IP vs Passive Poker Players A preflop raiser enjoys a significant range advantage over a BB caller, enabling them to… C-Betting Against ICM Preflop Ranges You raise from

Diagram 103: BB vs 2/3-pot c-bet: BB vs UTG on 9♥8♥4♦ (40bbs) Diagram 104 On 9♥8♥4♦, the BB’s range only has about 4% strong hands against UTG. This results in UTG using a large bet-size and the BB having a low x/r frequency of about 4%. The BB’s strategy consists of waiting until the turn to start splitting their range, depending on the runout. This avoids revealing information about their range on the flop. If the UTG uses a 1/3-pot c-bet-

Two-tone All of the community cards are of two of the four suits. Two suits or two "tones". A term mostly used to describe flops and indicative of the possibility of flush draws.

wasdrawing to a flush, the check-fold on the river is completely in order. But what happens when the third card in suit hits the turn, completing to A♠-8♦-2♦-6♦? If you have the high suited card, holding A♦Q♣, play the hand like there’s no texture, as you would in position.As you recall, if the board is dry, your AQ would go for a check-raise on the turn. Similarly, with the ace in suit in your hand, you can check to check-raise, because if your opponent checks back you are very happy to take a free shot at your flush draw. If he does check the turn, bet the river no matter what. If he bets the turn, execute your check-raise semi-bluff. Not only will sets lay downto the texture here, but small flushes will too. And you have the advantage of knowing your opponent can’t possibly be holding the nuts. The c-bet onthe flop and check-raise on the turn line of play just scream flush. And if you’re wrong? It was a semi-bluff, after all, so you know you have outs to suck out if the fourth diamond hits. That goes under the category of how bad could it be? If you don’t have that wonderful high diamond in your hand, you are just going to have to bet when the third diamond hits. The fact is that whenyour opponent calls on the flop, he either has the flush draw or he doesn’t. When that flush card hits, you can’t let a free card come off, because thecoordination of the board is working so hard against you. And you can’t check-fold; that’s just wimpy. So you bet. Maybe AK will believe you have the flush and fold. Stranger things have happened. Fortunately, even big made hands will have a hard time raising when the board has a possible flush on it, so that minimizes your investment and decision-making problems. If a fourth diamond hits on the river after you are called on the turn, you have the opportunity to bluff and get a set to fold, as long as it isn’t a set of aces with the ace of diamonds in it (but you’d have already heard from that hand). If the board bricks again on the river, you can either check and hope to get it checked down or throw in a defensive bet if you’re planning to call a river bet anyway. If you get raised on the turn when the texture hits, you have to fold if you don’t have the A♦ in your hand. Were you bluffed? Oh well, you were bluffed. If you ran into the flush, at least you didn’t lose much. But such is life out of position. That’s why you try to avoid positional disadvantage inthe first place. Top Pair, Heads-Up, Out of Position, Without the Lead, Textured Board Now let’s put you out of position without the lead. Probably you called from the blind, because otherwise what did you do, limp withAQ and call a raise out of position? Hope not. Anyway, the board

when you do play tournaments a lot of the times if nobody's three betting you and you could get that big blind player to call you and that big blind player is just going to call you with half the deck and hit lots of really crappy Pairs and pay you off way too much you really want to think about opening hands that you would normally never open in a cash game similarly if someone is just opening way too many hands in a tournament and it's just calling every single time when you three bet them and they just have tons of garbage hands out of position in those big pots you really want to be attacking now that's going to make you a very active player in tournaments but that doesn't matter as much because the tables are breaking so fast your the blind levels are moving up so often people are busting so often that everybody's got to get moving at some point so if you're attacking it's not going to affect you nearly as much now a lot of cash game poker uh in my experience is convincing people that you're bluffing way more often than you actually are and actually taking advantage of the fact that the blinds and Annie's don't go up that often I mean don't go up at all unless you decide to go to another table you know what I meant anyway continuing you have time in cash games there's less money in the middle of every pot so there's less incentive to steal with weekends in this environment you can play more solid hands in position to make more money you have time to wait for big pots and positions so I do this experiment you should always do experiments when you're playing because the great thing about experiments is they're allowed to fail so don't be afraid to try and experiment every once in a while when you're playing just to see what happens so sometimes when I'm on a bad run in early position in cash games I'll just start opening eights plus Ace queen off suit which is way too tight for the long term but I'll do that whenever I'm feeling like I'm getting out of line a little bit from early position I've just gotten in the habit of opening too much and it's embarrassing how often that works just opening tighter so it obviously you expand it beyond that once you get a little bit more comfortable uh playing a little bit tighter again and not just going for it every single time you have uh a ten seven suited and whatever you were opening too much was just causing you so many problems but yeah you in cash games you can definitely be more solid because you do have the time now in tournaments there's a lot of times the other thing about tournaments is let's say you're a little reckless at the beginning just to touch Reckless that's not necessarily a bad thing

Split A pot shared between two or more players at showdown due to them having hands of equal strength.

Flop Heuristics for Defending the Blinds in MTTs The field of Game Theoretically Optimal poker is extensive, and thus, to simplify our strategy, we frequently rely on heuristics or “rules of thumb.” In this article, we will utilize GTO Wizard’s aggregate reports to create heuristics that aid our defense of the blinds in tournaments. Donk Betting Donk betting refers to a bet from an out-of-position player who was not the aggressor on the previous street . For example, a player in the BB who calls a raise from the BTN preflop then leads the flop is donk betting. So is a player who checks and calls a flop bet and then bets the turn. Had the flop checked through, an out-of-position player betting the turn would not be donk betting, because there was no aggressor on the previous street. Donk betting acquired its pejorative name long before the advent of solvers or the rigorous application of game theory to poker. Even in those dark days, smart poker players understood that it was generally correct to “check to the raiser”. Now, we can prove it with the help of GTO Wizard’s aggregate flop reports! Here’s a 40bb BN vs BB MTT scenario . The solver’s average donk betting frequency across all flops is 2%. Its donk betting is concentrated almost entirely on connected flops, where a straight is possible. Even there, it donk bets barely 7% of the time: By getting even more specific, we can see the donk betting occurs mostly on low connected flops (but not 432): This is not a fluke of stack sizes or position: the BB’s donk betting frequency is lower still against an early position raiser, and it remains minuscule at all stack sizes . A preflop raiser’s range is much stronger than a BB caller’s. The reason for this phenomenon is simple: a preflop raiser’s range is much stronger than a BB caller’s. The following chart displays the BB’s donk betting strategy across all flops, ranked by how much equity the BB has on each flop. The boards at the far left are the very best for the BB. Even there, BB barely clears 50% equity. Not coincidentally, most of BB’s donk betting occurs on these few flops where equities run close : On most flops, BB has less than 45% equity, and on the worst, they have barely 35%. When at such an equity disadvantage , they have little interest in putting more money into the pot than is necessary, so they do their part to keep the pot small by checking. Even on the rare occasion they do have a strong hand, they can count on the BTN having a lot of incentive to bet, at which point the BB can check-raise. The SB suffers from a similar dynamic. Though their calling range is stronger than the BB’s would be, they are still quite capped after calling preflop. Consequently, they, too, will be at an equity disadvantage on the flop and should mostly check to the raiser: By utilizing this aggregate data, we can

it seems like most people are able to see the PowerPoint I'm not really the troubleshooter on the program here I'm not sure why maybe refreshing and trying to get back in on my end it shows that you should be able to see it and it looks like some other people are able to see it all that said we're gonna go ahead and get started little intro about 30 to 40 minutes today and we'll have love a lot of time for questions today good glad to hear Gary the refresh worked so today we're gonna look over for sure two hand histories from the world series and possibly three if we have time I have three hands prepared and we have a specific kind of goal in mind today with going through these hand histories I have some students people always asked me you know I played this hand what should I do in this spot and the main you know me coming up in poker as well the main when I had a problem or I didn't know what to do in a spot I would ask someone else or I would go on to you know two plus two forms and post the hands when that you used to be able to get constructive feedback there you know you used to be able to post a hand on twoplustwo and get responses from like Ike Haxton and Scott Seiver a bunch of good players they used to post on there all the time that's not really the case that much anymore and so the point I'm getting out now is yeah you can ask someone else and just take and copy their answer but how do you know if you they're right how do you not know if they're just saying whatever you need to learn how to figure things out on your own for a couple reasons one you're not going to learn anything from just copying a strategy from someone and we'll see that later today when we look at a hand and piosolver how I how I look at it how I'm trying to learn from it you need to learn about situations you need to learn about the adjustments you need to learn to understand the nuances and not just the entries and knowing the steps that got you to that end result and when you learn those steps that's gonna help you it takes a little longer to do but it's gonna help you so much more in the future when a slightly different spot comes up you're gonna be able to solve that spot in real time because you've done the work learn the steps and know how to solve that problem so in general when I'm playing you know and this is one of the biggest things with online poker online poker it's really easy and I actually wrote an article I'm not sure if it's been released yet on why you need to have online poker in order to

and you're just in a tricky spot knowing that you almost never have a nine and if Justin does have Ace nine here I don't see how I don't lose all of it anyway yeah yeah 100 and definitely need to put some hands at the stocked up into a pretty strong limp range man it feels so bad to call 40 bigs I mean Ace hit suit is so good right foreign so look at this my my but my mouse goes to call yeah yeah it's now we're playing 40 BBS deep and this is a spot where should we bring up the 35 and see if anything comes up there and yeah well off that yeah absolutely probably a little closer than the 50 is yeah I agreed and I think that um I think that the 35 is probably the last uh last shoves that exist yeah yeah I'm seeing a bunch of shell yeah so look at this this is the first this is the 35 BB um big blind versus small blind limb strategy and so this is again a function of the fact that there's an entire big plan in the pot you have 35 big so when you shove you're increasing your stack by almost 10 right you're picking up the three bigs so it makes sense to have a lot of shoves now let's see small blind lamp first big blind Jam for 35 I'm peeling into ace5 suited 10 9 suited King Knight suit and so do you want to talk a little bit about Jaffe about one of the um adjustments that you were making it kind of yeah I thought you were going to overfold but I never dreamed you're gonna fall they say too didn't offense oh you're good you're good yeah I I honestly I thought you were going to be my best guess is you were going to be around 880 A6 suited um I thought maybe pocket fours and then I thought there was a portion of the middle like um actually I thought you'd probably be about King Nine suited so I was just off there I thought that might be a little lighter um but the biggest portion that gets neglected is people don't call off with Queen 10 suited Jack 10 suited 10-9 suited everybody like it just looks like you're not trying if you call with those yeah um so I think that gets neglected a lot where I think people may overcall and I'm projecting this is where I might is King Jacko that's about the only one I can see okay um but yeah I so if we see where I'm supposed to if we go back to the other chart um jams are coming you know the ones that I remembered was I remember the 9-6 suited because it's kind of on an island outside of what's below it there um eight six suited um I remembered that and then I remembered the ace lows although I remember them

to simplify the game of poker. This game is so… Mathematical Misconceptions in Poker Pot Odds and MDF are foundational mathematical formulas in poker. How to solve toy games Poker is a complicated game. It’s impossible to calculate GTO strategies on the fly. By… The Value of Fold Equity – Experiment The term “fold equity” is ambiguous in the poker community. Firstly, it’s an EV equation,… MDF & Alpha MDF & Alpha. Minimum Defence Frequency and Alpha are metrics on poker that determine how… What are Pot Odds in poker? Pot odds are a fundamental calculation in poker. In the simplest terms, pot odds tell… Does your range affect your strategy? Advanced players will often tell you that your range affects your strategy. Visualizing implied odds Implied odds are the value you expect to gain over and above your raw equity.… ICM Basics As a tournament player, you may have heard about the concept of “ICM”, but what… What is Equity in Poker? The term “Equity” is ubiquitous throughout poker theory. Equity refers to your chances of winning… Range Morphology “Morphology” is the study of form or structure. You’ve probably heard terms thrown around such… What is Expected Value in Poker? Expected value (EV) is the most fundamental metric in poker. Every decision you make is… Why doesn’t my solution match GTO Wizard? So, you’ve got your own solutions to some spot, compared it to GTO Wizard, and… Understanding Nash Distance Understanding Nash Distance. One of the most common questions when studying with solvers is “Why… Combinatorics Poker Puzzle Today we have a special puzzle for you that will test your intuition as a… The 10 Most Important Concepts for New Poker Players The 10 Most Important Concepts for New Poker Players. Fundamentals are one of the most… What is GTO in Poker? The meaning of GTO in poker is Game Theory Optimal. Game theory is a study… What does GTO aim to achieve? So what exactly is a GTO strategy? What makes it “unexploitable”? What does it try…

Multiple Level Thinking Multiple level thinking is largely what separates professionals from amateurs, what separates players who win at the top levels from those who lose. The notion itself is simple enough, but its implications are far-reaching. In deep stack no limit, your success will directly reflect your mastery of this concept. Multiple level thinking is a fundamental hand-reading technique. Simply put, it’s the ability to analyze a series of actions on different levels and to use that analysis to formulate likely ranges of hands for your opponents. What are the different levels? The first level (we’ll actually call it the “zeroth” level to reflect its triviality) is to know what you have, and to know what hands you can beat and what hands beat yours. If you have T♡8♡on a Q♠J♠9♠8♠K♢board, you have a straight made with your ten. You beat any of the myriad two pair and trips hands, you tie with another stifften, and you lose to king-ten, two spades, a full house, quads, or a straight flush. That’s the zeroth level. Almost everyone masters that level. The next level, the “first” level, is to think about what your opponent has. He made a big bet, so he probably has a good hand. Or his betting pattern was typical of a weak hand or a bluff. These are all first level assessments because they draw conclusions about your opponent’s holding without regard for what he’s thinking, just by looking at his actions “in a vacuum.” The second level is to think about what your opponent likely thinks you have. Your opponents are thinking people (probably), and they will do some analysis of their own. They will try to put you on a range of hands, and they will choose their moves based on what they think you have. Thus, it behooves you to consider, based on your actions, what your oppo- nents might think you have. If you raised preflop, your opponents are more likely to think you have ace-king than ten-seven. (Obviously, if you actually have ace-king, this is bad. If you actually have ten-seven, it’s good.)28 If you bet the flop, but checked behind on the turn, your opponents are likely to think you have a weak or marginal hand. The third level is to think about what your opponent thinks you think he has. That’s a bit of a mouthful, but the idea is simple: Thinking opponents will 28It’s good if your opponent thinks you have ace-king and you have ten-seven in one sense. But it’s still bad that your cards are weak. 112

the pot, since it’s going in no matter what. So you have the three chips from the blinds and the two chipsfrom your call for a pot size totaling five chips. If you want to raise to triple the big blind, for a total of six chips, you need to make sure that those four extra chips you’re putting in the pot aboveand beyond the two-chip call are justified. Well, with five chips already in the pot and four more going in, you’re basically betting four to win five. Thepot is laying you 5-to-4 odds on your raise. In order to show a profit on this raise at this price, you’d need to win 45% more often by raising than youwould if you’d just called. And that’s easy. Having to win just 45% of the time more often is very low pressure for your hand, since you might win preflop when everyone folds and you’ll generally win post-flop when your opponent whiffs the board, which he’ll do two-thirds of the time. Truth: Considering uncontested pre-flop wins, post-flop foldouts, hand strength, position, and all the other things we’ve talked about so far, the original raiser in the pot will win well over 60% of the pots he plays. In fact, if you size your pre-flop raises appropriately (making them large enoughto force your opponents to be selective), you’ll actually win at a rate approaching 70% of the time, merely by raising and taking the lead. That’s anice profit margin, considering that you’re in profit if you win even just half the time. So raising puts more mathematical pressure on you than calling, but it also vastly increases your chances of winning. Opening for three times thebig blind is a relatively low-pressure proposition and it’s very profitable; you’re getting 5-to-4 from a pot that your raise makes you a favorite to win. What falls out from this is that if you raise with a hand with which you wouldn’t otherwise call, the mathematical pressure on that raise is muchgreater. Here, not only just the raising chips, but all the chips must be mathematically justified because you are raising with a hand you would not ever just call with. There’s a big difference between a hand like TT, where your option is to call or raise, and a hand like 72o, where your option is to fold or raise with no option to just call. When we look at a three-times-the-big-blind raise with a hand like TT where the minimum action, a call, is already a given, we only need toconsider the mathematical pressure the extra four chips puts on our hand. But if we raise with a hand like 72, then we need to consider themathematical pressure that all six chips in the bet put on us, because our choice is between zero and six chips going in, not between two and sixgoing in. Now we’re risking six chips to win three (rather than four to win five) and laying 2-to-1 odds. That means we must believe we will win that hand two-thirds of

theory you will test. It’s easy once you start looking at specific scenarios, to nod along and convince yourself it’s all common sense and pretty much what you expected to see and that you understand it now. You’ll retain the information better if you force yourself to articulate your initial understanding of the problem and then see what surprises you. That feeling of “Oh! I thought it would be X, but actually it’s Y” will help new knowledge stick in your brain and, most importantly, make itself available the next time you’re in that situation with real money on the line. illustration Test Your Hypothesis If you formulated your question well, you’ve already isolated a single variable you will test. If not, this is your chance to get more specific. In this step, you will conduct an experiment designed to either corroborate your hypothesis or send you back to the drawing board. If you’re going to investigate the effects of stack depth on continuation betting, then you want to keep all other variables the same: the same flops, the same positions for the players, etc. Change only the stack depth and note how that changes the continuation betting frequency and size(s). If you’re investigating barreling on flush card turns, then you’ll want to choose a set of scenarios (which will include boards and pre-flop and flop action) and then look only at how betting strategy changes on various turn cards. Changing more than one variable at once will confound your results . For example, if you look at continuation betting as BTN vs BB at 40BB effective on a K ♦ 8 ♦ 2 ♠ flop and try to compare it to continuation betting as UTG vs BB at 100BB effective on the same flop, you won’t know whether the differences you observe are a result of changing the stack size, changing the starting ranges, or both. This article offers a helpful overview of the many tools and displays available within GTO Wizard to help you choose the one(s) most relevant to your experiment. For example, this report offers a graphical overview of the BTN’s continuation betting strategy on every flop when heads up against the BB, 60BB deep, in a single-raised MTT pot. By comparing it to the same overview at a different stack depth, you can look for patterns and surprising anomalies that may tell you something about how stack depth changes the BTN’s continuation betting strategy. Analyze the Results Compare the results of your experiment to your hypothesis 👨‍🏫 Where were your predictions accurate? What did you miss or get wrong? Record the results of your experiment in as much detail as you can, paying particular attention to anything that surprised you or was not in keeping with your hypothesis. Outliers are promising candidates for theory building because they defy expected cause-and-effect relationships. Explore why these outliers break the norm. Draw Conclusions Use the data and observations from the previous step to formulate a new theory that accounts for anything you got wrong with your initial hypothesis. What seems

scooping. Of all the concepts I’ll cover in this section, this one is the most important. I can’t emphasize this point strongly enough. You’ve heard of the Golden Rule? Well since this is twice as important, I call it my Platinum Rule. When you are deciding whether or not to enter a pot or proceed to the next street, you should always ask yourself, “Can I scoop this whole pot? Or am I playing for half?” If you are only playing for half, strongly consider folding. There are exceptions to this rule, and we’ll cover these later in the chapter, but always keep this rule in mind. Tattoo it into your memory. Just as the continental divide separates the eastern and western United States, this concept separates mediocre players from great ones. Extremely smart and successful people play this game for decades, learn the ins and outs of the game, and then forever break even—or lose. This concept simply eludes people for some reason. Learn and practice my Platinum Rule and you will have a leg up on some more seasoned veterans. CONCEPT 2: THREE BIG OR THREE LITTLE, BUT NEVER THREE IN THE MIDDLE Three Big If you’re playing a pair, you’ll want the biggest pair. Never play catch-up like you might in stud high. Two jacks with a king kicker against a raiser with a queen up is a good spot in stud high, but usually not in eight-or-better. There are two reasons for this. First of all, in stud, there’s a real good chance that the raiser doesn’t actually have the two queens. A three-flush, three-straight or a smaller pocket pair are actually more likely. Therefore, a call with jacks in stud is usually a sound play. This is not so in eight-or-better though. When 226 a queen comes in with a raise in eight-or-better, he will usually have what he’s representing, a big pair. This is a much more straightforward game than straight high. A second reason you won’t want to play less than the biggest pair in eight-orbetter is that you will most likely pick up at least one hitchhiker going low. Now, not only are you a dog to win the high half of the pot, there’s a good chance the low half will be gone, even if you manage to draw out on the queens. And you also need to consider the fact that the low hitchhiker may make a straight or some other hand that beats you. So, like I said in the beginning of this concept: Always try and start with the biggest pair. Three in the Middle Avoid split nines, tens, and even jacks or queens on third street if you have overcards behind you. There are two exceptions to this rule, and they both come into play on rare occasions: (1) There’s nothing higher than an 8 on the board; or (2) You are low with split eights or another low pair. In the latter scenario, you would simply revert to seven-card high strategy and play underpairs with a kicker higher

do is start 3-bet bluffing sometimes and Hero's approach would become dreadful. That's fine though. We don't fear being hit by deadly meteors from outer space because they don't come around so frequently. Players who are this passive adjust well to the strategy above about as often as meteors wipe out life on Earth. Grab that free EV and exploit this Villain to the extreme.

Hand Range 86: BB vs SB Limp • 3.5x 40.6% / • Check 59.4%

Edge our Roi return on investment well what you do to figure out your your return on investment is you take your total profit over your sample of games and divide it by the total buyings now your profit is the amount you win minus the amount you bought in for just to be very very clear so let's say you play 100 tournaments with an average Buy in of $115 maybe you play some $100 games some $75 games some $200 games whatever you play a 100 tournaments and the total Buy in is 1,100 1,000 I'm sorry gosh I can't count $1,500 which is 150 times 100 okay and let's say you cashed for 15,000 bucks what is your profit on $155,000 well it's $115,000 minus 11,500 which is$ 3,500 so we have $3,500 profit divided by $11,500 which equals a 30% return on investment you can figure out this this uh use this formula to figure out your return on investment for any scenario very very clear rewind it listen again make sure you understand this because knowing your return on investment will let you know how large of a Buy in or how many buy-ins you need in order to ensure you have a low risk R of ruin it is important to note though that your return on investment will fluctuate sometimes wildly from event to event based on your skill level in relation to the opponents the number of players in the field the structure of the tournament etc for example whenever I go play tournaments in the poker Go studio against the best players in the world I don't expect to have a very high return on investment at all maybe 5% or 10% but if I go and play a main event that has 2,000 players I expect to have a very high return on investment Maybe 50% or more so make sure that you are accounting for that if you're playing a $60 local tournament where 20 of that $60 goes to rake well you're going to have a very small Edge or no Edge because you can't get away with paying 33% rake or 50% rake or whatever it ends up being out the door to the casino you cannot do that and expect to win so you want to make sure you are really keeping track of your results and you know how much you are profiting if you're not profiting well you're losing and if you're losing again no amount of bankr management will save you here are some tips to help you manage your bankroll first recognize that you can keep a smaller bank roll than the numbers I have recommended if you consistently add funds to your bank role say you have a job and you don't play poker a ton you're not necessarily even trying to be professional but you want to you know have an edge in this hobby that you have if you know you can let's say they put $500 in your bank roll

K, Q of Hearts. If four Hearts appear on the board, a person holding an A of Hearts, and a 2 of a different suit beats someone holding any other pair of Hearts, because only one card is needed to complete the flush. Having an Ace-high flush is referred to as having the nut-flush. Of course, if the board showed 3, 4, 5, 6 of Hearts, someone holding a 2 of Hearts beats someone holding an Ace since the 2 completes a straight flush. RULES 9 STRAIGHT-five cards of differing suits in sequential order. The higher the rank of the top card, the higher the straight. The highest possible straight is an Ace-high straight (A, K, Q, J, 10) . The lowest possible straight is A, 2, 3, 4, 5 and is often referred to as a bicycle or wheel. At least three of the cards in the straight must come from the board. El Fl THREE OF A KIND-three cards of the same rank, also referred to as trips or a set. You have A,; trips if a pocket pair matches one of the cards on the board, or if one of your pocket cards matches a pair on the board, or if three of a kind appears on the board. Note that more than one player can hold three of the same kind. If a pair of Aces is on the board, and you hold one Ace and an opponent holds the other Ace, you both have three Aces. If three of a I kind appears on the board, all players have at least three of a kind. TWO PAIR-two cards of one rank in combination with two cards of a different rank. This is a very common hand in Hold'em and illustrates a concept discussed earlier-the kicker. Suppose the 10 THE INTELLIGENT GUIDE TO TEXAS HOLD'EM POKER board shows K, K, 3, 7, 5. You hold J, 3 and another player holds a 10,3. Both of you have two pair, Ks and 3s, but you win, since your J-kicker beats the 10-kicker. As mentioned before, it is possible for the top kicker to appear on the board, in which case the pot is split. Suppose for the same pocket cards, the board showed, K, K, 3,7, A. Both of you have Ks and 3s with an Ace kicker. Your J does not get to play and the pot is split. When comparing hands with two pair, the top pair determines who wins. Which brings us to another important concept in Hold'em-the overcard. Suppose you have K,Q in the pocket and the board comes up K, 3,3, Q, A. The Ace on the board is an overcard to your King. Your hand is 'two pair, Kings and Queens but you lose to anyone holding a single Ace in the pocket, since they also have two pair (Aces and threes). ONE PAIR-two cards of the same rank. If you have two pocket cards of the same rank, you have one pair. If two cards of the same rank appear on the

Questions and Answers 65. What is a play that expert players make against mediocre opposition on fourth street? They will bluff from an early position into several opponents, all of whom have checked on the flop. 66. When does this play work best? When the turn card is not an overcard or a third suited card. 67. What is another idea to keep in mind? Some of your opponents are more likely to be weak if they bet the flop, as opposed to check-raising. 68. On the flop, suppose there is some chance that you have the best hand and that everyone will fold if you bet, but if you don't have the best hand, you have little chance of improvement. What should you do? Frequently bet. 69. Example? You call a raise from the big blind with a pair of sixes, are against two opponents, and the flop comes A+T+54. You should strongly consider betting. Ifraised, almost always fold, and if called, usually check on the next round. 70. You are against a small number of players, flop a good but not great hand, and someone to your surprise bets into you. What should you do? Frequently just call on the flop and fourth street, and then raise on the river. Playing in Loose Games 1. Against bad players is it detrimental to mull over your decisions? Yes, it probably is. 2. Why? When you sit there and think you encourage bad players to play better against you. 3. What is it that you don't want to portray? That you are capable of throwing away good hands for one more bet and that you look at every single decision critically. 4. When do you extract the most money from your opponents? When you put them in a position to make big mistakes. 5. What should you do in a loose passive game where many players see the flop and then play poorly after that? A. Play more hands, especially for a single bet. B. Frequently keep it to a single bet before the flop. 6. With a hand that is pretty good but not great, what happens if you don't raise and cost yourself a little bit of money at that point? You gain it back plus some because had you made the pot bigger there woyld be less opportunities for your opponents to make significant mistakes later on. 7. What if you're playing against extremely terrible opponents? It's hard not to raise with pretty good hands even though you're costing yourself money on the later streets. 8. What is a reason not to play K+5+? It can be a problem if a king flops. 294 Part Eight: Questions and Answers 9. What if you are a good player? You won't get trapped. You should be able to play K+5+, flop a king, and still often fold. 10. In a multiway pot when is it often correct strategy to call with bottom pair? If there was a raise, but not if there was not a raise. 11. If the game is

remember anything it would be those guys well when they're when they go into the field they only are given one two or three things to remember if any of you follow American football Bill Belichick the head coach of the New England Patriots probably the most successful dynasty of all time in the NFL when he is at halftime and he's giving people things to remember for the second half he has a rule that it has to be three things it can't be more than three things it can be one thing to thing or three things but it can't before and I find we get more results in no-limit hold'em when we focus on specific thoughts okay because let's be honest we've all looked at this situation a hundred times before and there's a lot of things to look at one person in the chat said could he possibly check-raise me what am I trying to set up on the turn and River does that board hit his range or my range more all of that stuff is great but we can start with one thought that if we understand this question and the answer of it it makes everything else superfluous not as big of a deal that's where we should start from now obviously if you get a more complex opponent you do have to broaden out the thoughts you are thinking to become a little bit more exacting in your ways but for the vast majority of poker hands we don't have to go that can complicate it I still use what we're going to talk about here even in Atlantic City WPTZ and what not so you want to see that too foldout high cards the biggest question to ask yourself here is how can I get rid of the high cards and I bet a lot of you answered that you were saying how can I get him to just fold with when he missed this board yeah hi car it's okay different phrasing but the same thing now here's my question you want to see that to fold out high cards right well betting half pot do that if you know tell me because I don't know a lot of guys will call with their ace highs of any kind with a half pot bat when there's two-wheel cards out there others will hold it's a little more likely actually much more likely they'll fold if I bet bigger and obviously less likely they'll fold if I bet smaller let's say I've got this much 450 how often does this need to work guys what do you do mathematically to figure out how often this works this is one of the first things I learned when I started learning poker very beginning this is the beginning of your poker studies well you do 450 the amount you're risking divided by the pot you're gonna get back when he folds because that 450 doesn't go off into the ether it comes back to you

of 52 Usually raise on the river with the best hand if another player has bet. To raise for value on the river, you must be fairly certain of a few things. First, you should be confident that you hold the best hand. The problem with raising when you are only 50 percent sure that you have the winner is that some of those times you are wrong your opponent will reraise you. This will leave you muttering to yourself about what an idiotic raise you just made. A good guiding principle is not to raise on the river unless your chances of winning are 75 percent or greater. Another important consideration is whether your opponent can call a raise. There are instances in which you feel your opponent is likely bluffing, but there is a small chance he has a monster hand. So, even though you might have the requisite 75 percent chance of holding the winner, raising is still a bad idea. This is because you cannot win an extra bet from your opponent. He will either fold if he was bluffing, or call or reraise if he has you beat. There need to be some logical hands that your opponent might bet and then call a raise with and still lose the pot for you to make a raise on the river. Essentially, he must be capable of calling your raise with a worse hand for raising to be profitable. If it's an either-or situation, either he is bluffing and cannot call a raise or he has a hand that has you beat (no matter how unlikely that is), raising is not a good idea. In a multiway pot, you may wish to decline an opportunity to raise for another reason. Suppose the first player bets, and you are next with a queen high flush. It is probably the best hand, and certainly one worth a raise. However, if several active players remain behind you, you might make more money if you just call. Your call might induce one or more other players to call as well, making you more money than had you raised. Furthermore, if the original bettor does happen to have you beat, your decision just to call doesn't provide him the opportunity to reraise you. Thus, you might win as much or more money with your hand by calling, and lose less if you do not hold the winner. Tip # 42 of 52 Bet with a toss-up hand if you are first to act. There are several good reasons why betting is correct if you feel you have about a 50 percent chance of holding the best hand. Here are three. 1. There is a small chance that an opponent might fold the best hand. This won’t happen very often, but you gain the pot when it does. You will never win a pot this way if you check. 2. You might bet a toss-up hand and get a call from a slightly worse hand. Had you checked, it is unlikely that your opponent

Figure 29 - Calling vs. HJ In Position The opener now has a wider range of hands than he did from UTG so Hero's adjustment is to flat more big cards that are now in good shape vs Villain's range. Our small and medium pair hands are still decent here in position as Villain's range is not yet a steal range and contains a high enough concentration of good hands to ensure implied odds remain reasonable. Hero is advised not to play the purely implied odds pairs: 22-55 from the CO unless the BU and blinds are the kind of players who are unlikely to interfere by squeezing. These hands are virtually hopeless against a squeeze and so flatting them on aggressive tables equates to Hero folding far too much to squeezes. What good are implied odds if you don't get to realise them by seeing the flop? Before moving on to facing opens from the blinds, we'll take a look at the very adversarial CO vs BU scenario. How does Hero's strategy change now?

call this is probably too thin on the river to bed i think maybe it's not too thin i don't know because if he thinks i'm checking back a whole lot of asex some people get annoyed when people um it's called hit and run some people get annoyed whenever they get hit and run don't get annoyed when you get hit and run be happy about it uh we'll just check this one this is a board that's very good for the opponents so this guy raised like three betty called i think we just have to bet and get our money in yeah he's gonna have a lot of kings i think i'll just fold to this big flop bet immediately now if he doesn't hand like tens i'm not sure we'll be able to get him to fold so i think the players just let it go check check and then try to get to the river try to get to the showdown uh now do we try to bluff them off of a hand like eights or nines or tens and i don't think so i think we just let it go check check here we are gonna be days high sometimes we'll be like pocket sixes sometimes of diamonds all right all right good would you like to keep playing he will raise this one if this guy re-raises i'll just not fold i know it may sound a little bit optimistic with the king queen but this guy is clearly splashy yeah kind of saw this one coming but whatever he got a call fair flip looks like we're not gonna win when the guy's doing stuff like this with the ace four like obviously can't go around folding i'm playing 60 minutes we won 42 dollars all right good spots like this come up sometimes where someone's like clearly getting in there a lot right and used to be willing to gamble with them once you put in the raise when they jam if you think their range is much much much wider than normal you just can't fold sometimes they get you obviously you don't love it with the uh king queen but king queen suit is a pretty good hand um should we three bet the king eight king nine suited or just call i think it's i think you can mix it up all right this guy lamps i raise this guy freebasting we'll definitely call in position with the queen jack suited look at this raise call all in all right not a great flop for me should we ever float here against a small bet i don't know he checks though which is nice what would he possibly check here it's gonna be a lot of ace high i guess problem is he's probably not trying to fold it right so we'll just check check and try to improve he could just have aces right that's hand that makes a lot of sense it's kind of annoying that we turned

did not understand the idea of game selection you want to make a point to play in games that are soft because when the games are soft you're going to have a bigger Edge game selection and table selection are key for cash games if you go to the casino and take a seat wherever they put you and you don't move to a better seat all day you're probably doing it wrong next you're going to want to make a point to play on nights and weekends that is when most players who have a job to support their poker habit are playing because they have to work during the work day right you're going to find that nights and weekends are almost always softer than playing during the day for tournaments and cash games to some extent you're going to find that when Prestige is on the line the games are usually going to be softer there's a saying play stupid games Win stupid prizes is that too uh is that too aggressive um look if you're going to play a tournament where people really want to try to win a trophy that will attract a lot of players who well want to win the trophy do I pick on any Series in particular no say a Poker series gives away a super massive amazing Trophy and everyone in the local casino really wants to win that trophy maybe they inscribe everyone's name on it who wins it or something like that that tournament will inevitably get all the players who want to try to win that trophy to come play it and a lot of the players probably should not be in the tournament at least if they want to have an edge so you're going to find that that game's usually very very soft sometimes U maybe there's a stream game your local casino where they stream the play of a cash game maybe that carries some extra Prestige because people like to be on the stream or on TV or whatever right whenever people have the opportunity to get some added value even if it's not monetary that's often going to make the game softer than if they're not I give a good example of this one time I flew to Los Angeles to play the LA poker Classic it was a WPT event and it always has about a thousand players at least they did back in the day two days before that tournament there was a $5,000 Buy in Side Event there were no satellite qualifiers to this I don't they didn't publicize it all that much and that tournament got 60 players 6-0 so the main event in two days was going to get a thousand players for double the bay and this tournament got 60 players which event you think's going to be softer well the one with a thousand players is going to be far softer even though the Bion is twice as high because people were playing that tournament to some

just a c-bet. When he continues on the turn, you can give a lot of opponents credit for taking the second barrel and against those types, the raise will work enough of the time to make it profitable. The lines of play are easy enough, now, to figure out when your pre-flop raiser continues the story by betting the flop. But what happens if that same pre-flop raiser now surrenders the lead by checking to you on the flop? If the board was untextured, you’d check behind; you’re either wayahead or way behind and don’t want to keep the betting open. Remember, he either has the world or he’s checking to give up, so there’s no reasonto step into that mess. With texture present, you might think that now you have to bet to protect against the flush. But before going down that road, let’s think about what he could have. He raised pre-flop, right? If he connected with the board by hitting a flush draw, he’d most likely bet. Hitting a flush draw is a prettygood connection that will trigger the continuation bet almost 100% of the time. It’s extremely unlikely that with a flush draw, your opponent would be checking to call. Why would he suddenly play the flush so passively? He might be checking the flush draw to raise you as a semi-bluff, which will actually workagainst your bet. You’d fold to that bet against such a strong line of play. So the flush draw is either betting out or checking to check-raise and take you off your hand, but that’s unlikely. Most of the time your opponent can’t have a flush draw, so you don’t need to protect against the flush by betting; he can’t be holding that hand or he’d have c-bet. Some small percentage of the time, he does hold the flush draw and will take you off your hand by check-raising (remember, this is a play you’d make with a big flush draw, since you don’t care about letting a free card come off). Either way, a bet doesn’t make a lot of sense here. Once again, we’re in a spot where either our opponent hit the flop huge and is making that suspicious-lead surrendering check to get you to bet, so he can check-raise (as you’d try to do holding a set or perhaps a big flush draw), or he just gave up on the hand. Either way, a bet by you doesn’t seem judicious, since it feels like only bad things can come of it. Any bluffs or lighter connections with the board would have triggered a c-bet. The check has to be setting you up for a check-raise or check-fold, which makes your bet a negative free-roll. If hereally has nothing, you risk nothing with a check. But if he’s trapping, well, there goes your hand into the muck. So check, even though it seems counterintuitive. Check when that tricky pre-flop raiser checks to you on the flop, giving up the lead on a texturedboard like A♠-8♦-2♦. If he checks again to

you stand. You're against a single opponent, so make a standard continuation bet of about half the pot, say about $150, and see what happens. By betting half the pot, you have very favorable odds. If over three such bets, your opponents fold once and call twice and win after calling, you've broken even, even if you never win when called. If they fold more than one-third of the time, you're showing a profit for sure. Action: You actually bet $100, and your opponent calls. The pot is now $460. Fourth Street: 6♣ Question: What do you do now? Answer: Your previous bet was a little too small, and might have encouraged a weaker hands to hang around in the hope that you had nothing either. In any event, you should now check. You made a play at the pot, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in bad position with just an ace-high hand. At this point, you're finished; just see if you can check the pot down. Action: You check and he checks. Fifth Street: Q♥ Question: Now what? Answer: That was a bad card for you, since it fits a lot of hands that could have been calling up 134 to this point. Check, and hope that he checks as well. Action: You check, and he bets $100. The pot is now $560. Question: What do you do? Answer: You're probably beaten, but the pot is offering you 5.5-to-l odds, which is just too much. Call. Your ace-high just might be best, and you're being well-paid to find out. Resolution: You call, and he shows K♦Q♦ and wins the hand with his pair of Queens. You were a bit unlucky, since he shouldn't have called your bet after the flop - there were just too many ways he could have been beaten. But your bet was a little on the small size, and he was too tempted by the pot odds to throw the hand away. Hand 6-4 Situation: In the middle of a single-table satellite tournament. The small blind and Player C are very aggressive players. Your hand: A♠7♠ Action to you: You are first to act. Question: Do you fold, call, or raise? Answer: At a full table, this hand is clearly to weak to open in first position. Even at a sevenhanded table, it's a little less than you should want for an opening bet. I'd open here with ace-jack or ace-ten suited. Fold. Action: Actually, you raise to $120. Player C calls and everyone else folds. Pot is now $330. Flop: T♦4♥3♥ Question: What's your play now? Answer: As always, your first job is to assess the texture of the flop. It missed you, of course, but it's a relatively harmless flop that probably missed your opponent as well. The cards are all low, with the highest card being a ten. The two hearts could give Player C a heart flush draw, but straights are very unlikely. If Player C was also playing an ace-x, or two face cards, the flop probably missed him. As

course, you only do this if you judge the big blind to be playing incorrectly tight. In that case, the general principle of playing loose in tight games applies. On the flip side, if the small blind limps against you in the big blind, you should be more than willing to raise. If he calls (he might not; he might have been trying for a cheap flop), you’ll have both the lead and position. Plus, his call kind of narrows his range. But you can check and play your position if you want to. You can even check hands with aces in them, because no one thinks you’d check an ace here; then, when you actually hit the hand, you’ll get the guy to misread you. So, in the big blind, you can either check or raise, depending on how the small blind plays. For instance, is he on auto-call when you raise? In that case, you should only raise with real hands unless he’s likely to check-fold the flop anyway. Then you can raise pre-flop in order to bluff on the flop. If the small blind is likely to fold to a raise, you should raise quite often. Blind-on-blind action is its own little war, but it’s simply fought. From the big blind, it makes sense to err on the side of raising when it’s just youand the small blind, because position is on your side. From the small blind, it is better to err on the side of limping, for the sake of keeping out-ofposition pots small. That’s when everybody folds to your blind. What do you do with action before it gets to your blind? In the small blind when someone raises fromthe field, even if it’s just the button (who could be raising with air), you take his range into consideration, as you would with any raiser. But you’ll have to play the rest of the hand out of position, so you can’t call with hands equal to the bottom of his range like you could when you had position on the original raiser, only with hands higher in the range. Always always always, if you’re going to call a hand out of position, you need a stronger hand to counterbalance your disadvantage. It’s true that when you call from the small blind, you get to call for less, but that discount is deceptive; bluffs are hard to execute and good hands are hard to cashin on out of position. Example: With blinds of 100/200 and a raise to 600 in front of you, you’re calling 500 to win 900. Yeah, that’s almost a 2-to-1 pot price, but the raiser in position figures to win more than two-thirds of the time, so what you’re looking at, basically, is a losing proposition. Lots of players get tricky or macho here, considering it a point of pride to defend their small blind. You know what? Let the dick-measurers measure dicks. You do the correct thing and fold hands that don’t compete against the raiser’s range. Now, if you’re sure that

well, since you almost certainly have the worst low draw with little hope of developing it into a high hand. I would definitely still take a card on fourth street for one bet—but not for 253 two—hoping both that Player Two catches bad and that I catch good, or maybe even snag that miracle 6. Note: Although Player Three folded on fourth street, the 6 did not necessarily affect his hand. He may have started with split fours, a pocket pair, or a three-flush and failed to catch a fourth card of that suit. So, there is still a fair chance that there are two sixes left. But pairing the sixes is simply the most likely scenario that would make Player Three fold. Blockers In the previous example, the 6 is what’s known as a blocker. Recognizing when blockers are out can enable you to get in extra raises you normally might not be able to make. These situations arise in all forms of stud. They are more important in eight-or-better than stud-high, but not as important as in razz, which is another name for seven-card stud ace-to-five lowball. In razz you can go from an underdog to a huge favorite, depending on the other cards that are out. Let’s look at another example that illustrates the effect of blockers: Example One You: 5-5 5-2-3-7 Player One: x-x 7-6-4-A To emphasize the point, let’s say the last 5 was out on third street. In this situation, you should not only raise Player One, you should put four or more bets in, depending on who your opponent is. If you make any low, even an 8- low, you can raise with almost no fear of being scooped. In order to scoop, Player One would need to make a better low hand—assuming you hit yours with a 6 or an 8—and have three sixes, sevens, or aces to go with it. CONCEPT 14: ELIMINATING THE COMPETITION No, I don’t mean killing off the other good players, although, if a few were suddenly whacked, the rest would probably fall into line. Just kidding—put your gun away. In the previous section, I talked about not raising, or smooth-calling, to keep 254 a third opponent in the pot. In this concept, I will talk about raising in order to limit the field, which will maximize your chances at scooping the whole pot. Often, when hands develop and boards start looking scary, you can use this to your advantage by representing something that a player holding a high hand would be afraid of, so you could bluff him out. So, if you’re in a three-way pot with the best low and a weak high that has a chance to beat your other opponent who is also going low, a raise to force out the high hand might enable you to scoop the whole pot. For example: Example One You: A-2 4-3-J-6 Player One: x-x K-Q-4-3 Player Two: x-x 7-6-5-10 If Player Two bets here, a raise might knock out Player One. If that happens, your A-J might be

winning hand, which might very well be a whole-pot mistake on your part. So in the case of a hand like top pair, when your opponent checks to you on the turn and offers you the opportunity to close the action down with a check, take it. So that’s what you do if your opponent checks to you, but what if he bets into you on the turn? Should you raise or call? (I’m assuming you don’t have enough information to fold, but by all means, feel free to if you’re certain you’re beat.) The majority of players have a strong tendency to call here. But then what do you do if you face a bet on the river? Call again? That’s actually a reasonable answer against any kind of aggressive or creative player. Particularly against a lot of the good Internet pros, it would probably be a mistake to fold on the river after calling the turn. But here’s a better idea. If you’d call the river anyway after calling the turn, then why not raise the turn in the first place? Let’s say the pot has 2,000 going into the turn card. You have the same AQ- or AJ-type of hand on anA-9-3 no-suits board. You were the pre-flop raiser and your opponent check-called on the flop, then led out 1,000 on the turn. If you call there, you’ve committed 1,000 to the pot, then another 2,000+ when your opponent bets on the river and you call again. That’s a total commitment of 3,000+ to the pot—never committed in a way that could get your opponent to lay down a better hand, because all you’re doing is calling off. The call never puts your opponent to a decision that couldtrigger a fold. But if you raise on the turn to 3,000 or 3,500, what does this buy you? A few things. First, when your opponent folds, you don’t have to show your hand. We always like that. Second, it gives your opponent a chance to fold the better hand. Think about if you were on the opposite side of thishand with, say, AQ. You check and call on the flop, then bet the turn, and now you get raised? Ugh. You’re probably folding, right? I bet you’ve even folded AK in that spot. So if you’re the one raising with your ownAQ or AJ (or even T9) in position, this play just bought you a pot against a range of hands that beat you. That’s pretty strong. And it was all for the same number chips you were willing to commit to the hand anyway if you were willing to call both the turnand the river. It’s just that you committed them in an aggressive manner by raising the turn instead of calling, and got your opponent to make his ownwhole-pot mistake. Lastly, raising on the turn prevents you from ever getting bluffed off your AQ on the river. We’ve all chickened out when facing some huge bet on the river, right? If you’re against an aggressive opponent who’s willing

Queen's or a pocket sixes I don't think that's impossible but at the same time it's also unlikely because we have an ace Marian right like we block ace Queen which is the most the most likely candidate so anyway we blog go 1900 yeah get men ranged getting men race here is awful because the opponent is essentially saying if they actually are tight and passive that they have ace Queen or maybe Queens or sixes and it's always annoying when this happens because you don't really know maybe they're just over playing ace Jack or ace king or ace 10 or ace seven for all we know right and this is where poker is stuff because like right here if we call and get a good card like a king or a heart and our opponent keeps blasting it probably know if they're the type of player who just may rip it in you know we're gonna call pops gonna go up to what 10,000 11,000 they give us rip it in for fifteen or sixteen and I would not be shocked if that happens if that's what they're gonna do and we do act improve on this urn like say we get a king we can't fall but we could just ill just be dead right again well not dead but nearly dead against Queens or sixes if they have a draw well that's another thing worth mentioning they could have a draw all right most people typically don't men raised with draws but again who knows right so many people want to get in their hand that they know what their opponents are doing because they think I would never been raised with a draw here so my opponents never been raising with a draw or this player hasn't played very many hands in the first 30 minutes of the tournament therefore they're tight and passive over 30 minutes he just doesn't matter I was talking to someone today and they were giving me very specific reads on the opponent like oh they would never play the turn this way that's so how long have you played with them that go a lot for about two and two and a half hours like to say you don't know you know how this guy's gonna play the turn in a very specific spot with exactly as marginal made and requires a lot of data we don't have any data we have two and a half hours which is like nothing so anyway right here what do we do I don't know there's so much we trust this tight pass and read if we trust this type passive read to be a hundred percent accurate to narrow this guy's range to specifically a six food and better which a bowl but we don't trust that very often and it's important to not trust that all right we call turns the 10 of hearts all right we check I was gonna say please don't go all in haha and it goes

in the little blind does not show an automatic profit. 32. But what if you know that the player in the little blind has high raising standards? You should fold your weaker hands. Semi-Bluffing 1. What is a semi-bluff3 A bet with a hand which, if called, does not figure to be the best hand at the moment, but has a reasonable chance of outdrawing those hands that initially called it. 2. What are some obvious examples of semi-bluff situations? You have flopped an inside straight draw, or second or third pair with an overcard kicker. 3. Cite a specific example? You have T494 against not too many opponents, and the flop comes 7+6+24. 4. Why might you not want to semi-bluff in last position? You may be check-raised. 5. Therefore, what is one of the determining factors about semibluffing when you are last? How frequently you think you will be check-raised. 6. What else might your semi-bluff bet do for you in last position? It might buy you a free card. 7. Give some examples of correct semi-bluff situations? A four-flush or an open-end straight draw, especially with a pair, with one card to come; a small pair with an overcard kicker on the flop; and a small gut shot when the flop includes a high card. 256 Part Eight: Questions and Answers 8. What is a good rule to follow when determining whether to semibluff? If your hand is either worth a call or almost worth a call if you check, then it is better to bet if there is some chance that you can win the pot right there. 9. What is a secondary advantage to semi-bluffing? When you make your hand, your opponent often will misread it. 10. What is a third advantage of semi-bluffing? It keeps your opponents guessing. - 1 1. What happens if you never bluff? You are giving away too much information when you do bet. 12. What is a fourth advantage of semi-bluffing? You may get a free card on the next round. 13. When is it correct to bet two overcards? Frequently, especially if you have backdoor flush potential. 14. What is an exception? You think a reasonable chance exists that if you catch your card, you still won't win. 15. When would you be less likely to bet two overcards? When a straight type flop hits, or a flop with two suited cards. 16. If you bet two overcards on the flop and are raised, should you call? The answer depends on whether you think you will be able to win if one of your overcards hits, and on the pot odds that you are getting. Semi-Bluffing 257 17. If small cards flop, why should you be more inclined to call with KQ than with AK? This is because many more people play hands like Ax than Kx. The Free Card 1. Should you bet most of your legitimate hands? Yes, to give your opponent a chance to drop. 2. Does this include four-flushes and open-end straight draws with two cards

of which could give your opponent either a pair of kings or a pair of aces. So while you will average winning 13 times, the other 10 out of 23 times you will lose the hand when you call the raise and your opponent has ace, king. On the other hand, those three times out of seven when your opponent has two aces or two kings, your two queens are a big 4 1 /2-to-l underdog, meaning in those instances you will lose 18 hands out of every 22 you play on average. Therefore, you cannot say, "My queens are 4-to-3 favorites to be the best hand. So I must call." It works out that the 3/7 of the time your opponent has two aces or two kings, you hurt yourself so much that you don't gain it back the 4/7 of the time when he has ace, king. The general principle operating here is the following: When one alternative will have slightly bad consequences if it's wrong and another second alternative will have terrible consequences if it's wrong, you may be right to choose the first alternative even when the second is slightly favored to be the correct play. Best Play Check Check Bet Bet Approximate Chances 25 percent 35 percent 25 percent 15 percent 254 Chapter Twenty-four Here is an example of the same principle in a limit game, where the consequences of making the wrong play are not nearly so severe as in the no-limit example: Seven-Card Razz $15-$30 Limit Analysis at the Table 255 when your opponent does have an 8,7 made and reraises, you still have a good chance of outdrawing him. However, when he has paired, he has only a slim chance of beating you since your 9 low is already the best hand and you have an excellent chance of improving to beat your opponent — even if he makes his 8,7. In the long run then, you do better by raising than by calling though raising will be right only 45 percent of the time. SUMMARY Accurately and quickly analyzing risk-reward decisions at the poker table in the heat of a hand comes only with experience. Some top players do it intuitively. In this chapter we have presented the theoretical basis for these decisions. Most of the time, when the choice of plays is problematic, your best play is the one likely to be correct more than 50 percent of the time. However, when the favored play has very bad consequences when it is wrong, and the less-favored play has only slightly bad consequences when it is wrong, it may be correct to choose the less favored play. OPPONENT Your opponent bets $30, and you know this opponent will bet anything in this spot except two pair. Should you call or raise? Probability tells us your opponent is a slight favorite — about 55 percent — to have his 8,7 low made when he bets, assuming he started with three small cards. When he does have an 8,7 low, you should not raise since

and he can’t call with whatever draw he has here. If he bets into me on the 4♦ turn, he might be bettingbecause he thinks I flat-called the flop with a flush draw or a straight draw. When the board hits a blank, he might figure a bet will be an easy pick-up against the busted draw. Now I can raise and tell him he read me wrong. I mean, he obviously won’t continue to put me on a flush draw, because who’d ever raise a busted flush on the turn anyway? Instead, he’ll read me for a slow-played made hand. Obviously, this kind of raise is reallyeffective when I actually have a draw. If I’m wrong, I can still get there with a good river card. That puts a lot less pressure on my bluff-raise. Back on that Q♣-J♣-2♥ flop, let’s say the texture hits with a 4♣ on the turn. This might also be good for you, because now your bet after his check(or raise after his bet) says, “Ah ha! I got there!” Either way, then, good card or bad, you can leverage what’s happening on the board. And what’s great, again, is how modest your investment is. When you raise on the flop, you’re making an early expensive bluff without the benefit of muchinformation or of the turn card to help validate the story you’re telling. Worse, the flop raise suggests to your opponent that you’re raising with adraw, hoping to win the pot outright or get a free card, a common hold ’em play. As you recall, you leverage this assumption when you raise with a set on textured boards, exploiting your opponent’s tendency to think you might be raising on the come. Here, if you raise on the come, you’reactually encouraging a call you don’t want. When you flat-call the texture on the flop, one of the likely hands your opponent will put you on is the draw. That’s why he bets when the texture misses: to drive you off your draw. It’s also why a raise behind is so effective—and why he checks when the texture hits the turn and meeklysurrenders when you bet. If, however, the texture does hit and your opponent continues to lead, lean toward giving up the bluff, again, with minimal investment and loss. After all, if he puts you on a possible flush draw and still bets when it hits, maybe he isn’t so scared of your hand, after all. In that instance, it turns out that you needed the texture not to hit. Oh well. That’s just 500 chips gone wrong, a small enough price to pay for those times when the texture hitsand your storytelling is rewarded with a predictable check-fold. A word of caution on the river, pertaining to both textured and untextured boards. If your opponent has shown a willingness to commit chips to the pot on both the flop and turn, be reluctant to bluff the river. On untextured boards, you have to credit him with having at least something call-worthy. If the board was

3-Bets Tournament poker is about precision. Cash games, where stacks typically run into the hundreds of… Heads up! Exploiting SB’s Preflop Mistakes Heads up (HU) tournament play presents unique challenges to the average player. Many tournament players,… C-Betting As the OOP Preflop Raiser Position is an extremely valuable advantage in poker. Most players would describe the comfort zone… Overchoice: Making Sense of Multiple Sizings Solver solutions with multiple bet sizes often involve a lot of mixing between those sizes,… River Refinements: When Your Opponent Won’t Check-Raise One of the biggest strategic differences between playing in versus out of position involves betting… Turn Barreling in 3-Bet Pots There are two articles on the GTO Wizard blog that make good prerequisites to this… The Right Way To Think About Protection Suppose Paul the Protector is in a 200bb cash game and opens A♠A♣ in the… The Importance of Board Coverage The first public version of the GTO Wizard announced AI upgrade already has some useful… How To Adjust When Villain Has No Bluffs “They always have it!” is a common, semi-joking expression in poker to describe the tendency… Adjusting on Later Streets After Exploiting Flop The key to exploiting opponents profitably is knowing when to stop. I’m not referring to… C-Betting IP vs Passive Poker Players A preflop raiser enjoys a significant range advantage over a BB caller, enabling them to… C-Betting Against ICM Preflop Ranges You raise from early position (EP) in a multi-table tournament and the BB calls. Both… The Art of Bluff Catching Bluff catching—calling a bet with a modest hand which you expect to win only if… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by IP On some flops, it is simply not possible for the preflop raiser to continuation bet… Is Limping Pimping? In a past Discord post, one of our members noted that an upside of implementing… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by OOP A preflop raiser who continuation bets too often is always a potential target for exploitation,… Preflop Button Mastery in PKOs Playing from the Button presents many unique opportunities in any tournament format, especially in PKOs.… The Worst Turn Card Greetings from GTO land. In today’s article, we will use the Turn Reports feature to… Navigating Range Disadvantage as the 3-Bettor Picture this: We’re playing a NL500 6-max cash game, and we’ve won a few pots,… Mastering Three-Bet Pots In Position in MTTs Playing in position against a three-better is a lesson in playing to your advantages. As… Mastering Three-Bet Pots Out of Position in MTTs Three-bet pots are scary. Playing out of position is scary. Put them together, and you’ve… The Greatest Final Table in Triton History Today, we’ll examine one of the most epic final table battles I’ve ever witnessed! Our… Mastering Thin Value Bets in Checked-Down Pots Valuing your hand appropriately—determining whether it’s strong enough to value bet or so weak you… Maximizing Value on Monotone Flops Monotone flops tend to provoke great anxiety among poker players. It’s easy to imagine that… How to Defend Against Turn Donk Bets Responding effectively to donk bets on the turn is

betting to see who has the best hand. Side pot: A second pot for the other active players when one player is all-in. Seventh street: In seven-stud games, the seventh card dealt to each player. Sixth street: In seven-stud games, the sixth card dealt to each player. Slowplay: To check or just call an opponent's bet with a big hand in order to win more money on later rounds of betting. Starting requirement: The minimum initial hand a player considers he needs to continue in a pot. Start the action: To make the first bet in a particular hand. Steal: To cause your opponents to fold when you probably do not have the best hand. The term is used especially in reference to stealing the antes — that is, raising on the first round of betting so that everyone remaining in the pot folds. Glossary of Poker Terms 291 Steal the antes: See above. Steam: To play badly because you are emotionally upset — especially to play considerably more pots than you normally would when your hands do not justify it. Straight: Five cards of mixed suitsin sequence. is a straight. Straight flush: Five cards of the same suit in sequence. is a straight flush. Structure: The limits set upon the ante, forced bets, and subsequent bets and raises in any given game. Stuck: Losing money, especially a substantial amount of money, in a given session or over a period of time. We might say, "Sammy is stuck $1,500 in the game." That is, Sammy has lost $1,500. Stud: Poker games in which some of each player's cards are exposed. Sucker: A player who can be expected to lose money, especially one who is not as good as he thinks. Suited: Two or more cards of the same suit. Take the odds: To wager less money on a proposition than you hope to win. Texas hold 'em: Another name for hold 'em. Three-of-a-kind: Three cards of the same rank. is threeof-a-kind. 292 Appendix В Third street: In stud games, the third card dealt to each player. Three-flush: Three cards of the same suit. Tight: Playing fewer hands than the norm. Trips: Three-of-a-kind. Turn: The flop in hold 'em. Also the fourth card in seven-card stud, and sometimes the fourth community card in hold 'em. Two-flush: Two cards of the same suit. Underdog: In poker, before all the cards are out, a hand that does not have the best chance of winning. Under the gun: The first person to act on the first round of betting is under the gun. On later betting rounds, the player to the immediate left of the bettor issaid to be under the gun. Up: Expressions like aces up, kings up, and 6s up mean two pair with two aces, two kings, or two 6s as the highest of the two pair. Unless an opponent has a top pair of the same rank, the rank of the second pair is of no importance. Up-card: A card that is dealt face up. Value: What a hand is worth in

card is a jack or lower. 18. If you are the before-the-flop raiser in a multiway pot, your hand is weak, and everyone checks to you, should you take a free card? Yes, you almost always should take a free card. 19. What if the pot is short-handed? You should usually bet because there is a reasonable chance you can win the pot right there. 20. Suppose you have A+K+, the flop is 7*6+2+, and everyone checks to you. What should you do? Bet if the pot is short-handed. You don't want to give a free card to someone holding a hand like JVT+. 21. Why is betting or raising in late position with a hand that does not seem to justify it sometimes correct? Because you may gain a free card on the next round. The Free Card 261 22. What must you keep in mind if you take that free card? Some opponents automatically will bet on the river, no matter what they have or what the last card is. 23. What is a good hand to check the flop after it is checked to you, and then bet the turn if a high card hits? AJ. You will have six legitimate cards to bet - your pair cards, and eight cards to bluff with. 24. Is it usually correct to raise in late position on the flop with a four-flush? Unless the game is tough, this play is generally correct. You should raise more than half the time. 25. Even if you can't get a free card, how many callers do you need to get sufficient odds on your raise? Three. 26. What is an exception to raising? If a pair flopped. 27. What should you do any time that you are in late position on the flop and have a hand that is worth a call? Seriously consider raising. 28. Even if you are sure that the bettor has you beat, it may be worth a raise. Can you give an example? Five players have put in three bets each before the flop. You are in last position with Q4J4 and are almost sure that no one has aces or kings since you put in the last raise. The flop is T47+3V. If the player to your right bets after everyone else has checked, you should raise - even if you are sure that he has two tens. 262 Part Eight: Questions and Answers 29. You have AV7V. The flop includes an ace and one of your suit. How do you play if someone bets? Raise and then bet on the turn with the intention of just showing down on the river if you do not improve. (If you get check-raised on fourth street, you usually should fold, unless you helped or picked up a flush draw.) Slowplaying 1. What criteria must be met for a slowplay to be correct? A. Your hand must be very strong. B. You probably will chase everyone out by betting, but you have a good chance of winning a large pot if

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such a monster draw? All of the above examples are dream hands. Any monkey can play hands like those. What separates the really good players from the rest is how they play marginal 135 flush draws in marginal situations. Whenever you don’t have the nut flush draw, you are vulnerable to losing a lot of bets. To avoid losing the maximum with less than stellar flush draws, you should be a lot more cautious than you would with a monster draw. If all you have is a naked flush draw—meaning you have no other added outs —you don’t want to get involved in a raising war. You should try to make a hand like this as cheaply as possible, and then if you do, you are left hoping that no one else has a bigger flush draw than yours. Remember now, the more players and more action you see on the flop, the more likely it is that someone else is also drawing to the flush. In multiway pots, you really have to pay attention to the action. It’s important to get a good read on your opponents when you are holding a small flush draw. Based on the flop action, you need to decide whether or not one of your opponents has a better draw than you and go with it. To do this, it helps to watch their body language and to know their tendencies with drawing hands in these situations. You should also be cautious when three of a suit flops, say three hearts, for example. In this situation, you shouldn’t proceed past the flop in a multiway pot without the nut draw. Even with the nut draw, I’m not all that crazy about this hand. After all, if a fourth heart hits the board, the flush would be obvious, so it would be difficult to extract any more bets from my opponents. Obviously, you shouldn’t fold an ace-high flush draw, but you don’t want to put in too much action unless you also flopped a pair or think your ace-high might be the best hand. Any other flush draw should be thrown away on the flop in a multiway pot. For example, if the flop came K? 6? 4?, you probably shouldn’t put in another chip with a hand like 10? J?. Sure you have a 10- high flush draw, but even if you make it, keep in mind that any ace, queen, or jack of hearts beats you. If you are lucky enough to flop a flush, you want to make your opponents pay to outdraw you, but you may be better off doing so on the turn. How so? Well, let’s say you have the 5? 6? on a 10? J? 2? flop. Anyone with the ace of hearts is going nowhere. A 136 set or two pair are also going nowhere. If you are in a looser lower limit game, you may not even be able get a hand like 9? 9? out! Not to mention the fact that anyone who’s flopped a bigger flush

for two to comewhen he’s behind on the flop, you can let him see two cards for his flop call and still come out ahead on the money side. You got him to pay a bad price, again, even if you check the turn. So check away. You paid for the opportunity to do so. And when the busybody admonishes you for checking, just smile and nod. That guy is misguided and it’s not your job to set him straight. So by betting the flop, you earned the right to check the turn. But that doesn’t mean you have to. It just means that mathematically you can and still be in profit on the play. So let’s look at whether you should check the turn. First, let’s say you’re against a hand that does have you beat, like AK. Obviously, if you bet here, say 1,000 in chips, you’re losing at least 1,000, since you have the worst hand and your opponent will surely call, if not raise. But if you check, that same AK will now bet the river, most likely the same 1,000 chips. You call (since you must call the river if you check the turn) and lose 1,000 chips. So against a much better hand, checking the turn versus betting the turn is at least breakeven. Either you can bet the turn and lose the 1K chips there or you can check the turn and lose the 1Kchips when you call the river bet. What the check buys you against the best hand, though, is the maximum chance to suck out on the river. If the AK check-raises you off your hand on the turn, you never get the chance to suck out and hit a queen. By checking the turn, you always get that chance. So on the losing end, it tends tocome out the same chip-wise whether you bet the turn or check the turn and call a bet on the river. But if you check the turn instead of betting, yougive yourself more chances to hit that marvelous suck-out. Now, what if a worse hand like AJ checks the turn to you? How does a check stack up against a bet now? Let’s think about what could happen if you bet. Either your opponent calls your 1,000 or raises it. If he calls and checks the river, you’ll be hard pressed to bet there. I would strongly recommend a check, since it’ll be difficult to get paid off when you bet a third time, unless you’re beat; thenyou might get check-raised off your hand. The bet on the river would be low value, so you’ll probably only pick up the 1,000 he would have called onthe turn. But here’s the ugly scenario. What if you bet on the turn and get check-raised? I know what you’re doing. Folding. That’s right. You’re folding. Your opponent called a raise pre-flop. Checked and called the dryA-9-3 board on the flop, then went for a check-raise on the turn. Your AQ is flying into the muck. But here’s an

mostly what we're going to be working on is understanding pre-flop Theory it's going to be incredibly difficult to look up difficult and inefficient to look up pre-flop ranges all the time uh while you're playing well first of all it's against TOS now to do that while you're playing I think or I'm not even really sure anymore but looking at prefab charts all the time and trying to study by memorizing the grids is very difficult so I think a much better way to do it is to get a deeper understanding of why we're you know why we're three betting from what positions what size is what type of hands more like a general base understanding of you know why are we three betting uh what's the point and how we're balancing value in Bluffs and and general structural uh understanding of of three bedding so we're going to work on that and then a little bit of post Lop I'll give you guys some really nice shortcuts for post swap uh that make a lot of money so all right so I took a bunch of notes I've spent like 10 hours today uh looking at all these uh pre-flop spots for three betting and I took a bunch of notes to sum everything up so you guys can get a quick understanding of what's going on so for in position three bets this is when you know under the gun or middle position opens and um we are in position to that player um I took notes on different stack sizes we have 100 big blinds we have 60 big blinds and 30 big blinds the sizing that we're going to be using most of the time for 100 big blinds is 3.5 x and as the stack size gets smaller we're going with smaller sizings some guys even are using 2.6 x uh but these are the study these are the sizings that I've been studying so we're just going to look at what do we do uh what what are our range what does our range look like with these sizes so at 100 big blinds when we 3.5x in position with three bet we're using roughly 45 value 55 Bluffs from all positions uh versus utg open the EP early position three bets are linear and the lp3 bets are polar so what does this mean so if we are if under the gun opens and we are in the Under the Gun we are under the gun one our three bets um will be the top X percentage of range there's no split we don't uh the Bluffs that we're using are just hands that are slightly worse than our value pane so a hand like Ace Coin off or Ace Queen suited would be considered a bluff here and you're not through betting a lot now why are we using this linear sizing it's not a plus EV for this player that's under the gun one player to be flatting a lot

could have seven-four. It doesn’t matter that he’d “never” play that hand, because all the information you’d use to come to that conclusion is now less important than the fact that you’re facing a big bet, and seven-four is the hand you’re worried about.

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will bet again. If you check the turn, and your opponent follows up with a regularly-sized bet, you’ll typically fold. But often he won’t bet; he’ll check behind. Then you’re in position either to make a river value bet or to check and now often

Hand Range 81: BB vs CO 4-bet • 5-bet 18.8% / • Call 49.6% / • Fold 31.5% Against the BN, the BB 3-bets a very linear range and plays in an overall more aggressive manner compared to the strategy employed when facing the earlier positions. The BB now 3-bets 13.4% hands while calling with most suited hands, offsuit Ax, connectors and broadways. The BN range is wide enough that now the BB can call many more hands compared to all the other positions, as the BN’s ability to barrel and overbet very aggressively is downgraded due to the strong hands being diluted (Hand Range 82).

chips. A player with top set on a dry board wouldn’t check-raise you here. He’d be deathly afraid of letting you off the hook. So once you get checkraised here, you know your opponent can’t have the strongest range of hands. Sure, he might be overplaying AK a bit, but even that’s unusual. So what should you do? Re-raise. Most of the time, you’re re-raising with the best hand here. And even if you aren’t, maybe AK will lay down. But more important, maybe AJ will get caught up in the frenzy and call. You definitely don’t want to flat-call here and give AJ a moment to think about it. If you flat-call on this board, where there are no draws, AJ will shut down. The player holding that hand will figure out he’s buried, since an untextured board gives him few excuses to decide his AJ is good. But reraise on the flop and you give him a chance to rationalize that you’re just trying to move him off the hand. Call and you win nothing more. Re-raise onthe flop and you might get his whole stack. Learn this! It’s gospel: The fast play on the flop from your opponent when the board presents no danger firmly places him on the weak end of thespectrum. So play accordingly. That was easy, right? But what if your opponent just calls your bet on the flop? That keeps his whole range of hands open. He might be checking to the raiser andcalling with a huge hand like a set. He might be calling with top pair himself, either AK or AJ or worse. He might be calling with complete air, floatingto bluff later in the hand. You don’t know, because his whole range plays the same. So he calls and now there are two possibilities for the turn: He could either check again or bet into you. If your opponent checks again, resist the urge to bet here. Most players do bet; they think they need to “protect their hand.” In fact, I guarantee that if you do happen to check the turn here and your opponent hits a 3-outer on the river, there will be a know-it-all who will tsk tsk you and tell you that you should have bet to protect your hand on the turn. But that know-it-all (really know-it-some) is completely wrong for oh so many reasons. First, the kinds of hands that you’re beating right now are at best 20% with two cards to come (if your opponent has a hand like T9). Let’s say thepot has 1,000 chips when the flop comes A-9-3. You bet 500 and your opponent calls. That means your opponent called 500 to win 1,500. That’s 3- to-1, folks. But if he’s behind, at best he’s 20% with two to come, a 4-to-1 underdog. That means he’s losing money when he calls on the flop, even if he gets to see two cards. So your bet has paid for your privilege of checking the turn. By offering your opponent such a bad price

strong King X suited etc those are shoving let's assume they do go not all in though now you see the cut off doing some calling but again not a ton they get to call on the spot though because they are in position when you're in position you get to call a little bit more a lot more than when you are out of position in these situations okay definitely an important takeaway another very important takeaway is that the asex suited loves to shove when you raise and somebody free bets knew the asex suited those are the hands that really really air towards just ripping it in one thing I want to look at same scenario 25 30 10 40 15 what happens when under the gun folds cut off men raises button folds notice the button has to be super tight here by the way to shop for 10 big wines we'll talk about short stacks in a second what happens when the small blind rips it in what do you think we should call off with well the answer is almost nothing nines and better Ace Queen suited and better and Ace King and the reason the cut off with their 30 minute line stack has to call off so incredibly tightly even though they know they're smashing their opponent's range is because by calling whenever you do call and lose you just give tons of equity to the other Stacks at the table and that is absolutely detrimental so as a middle stack you'll easily you'll see that you have to be very cautious when your opponent wants to put in all of your money and also you uh you should still be shoving some portion of the time especially when you are at a position when you are facing a raise um we want to look at one more spot no that's probably good for that that's stack depth let's take a look at how shallow stack should play now here we have 10 20 30 15 50. under the gun with 10 big lines we see interestingly enough not only all in her fold for 10 big blinds which is probably surprising to a lot of people but notice the best hands are almost always Min raising when you are somewhat shallow stacked with 10 big blinds and you're said shoving with a condensed range a nice solid condensed range okay so these would just go online if you do Min rays and then somebody re-raises you anybody really notice the cutoff here were 20 big blinds has to be super nitty and why are they so super nitty because the 10 big blind open raising range is super strong too if they do shove let's just actually they don't show they only re-range small interesting enough because if you make it two and then they make it four and then somebody else shoves well now they can actually get out of the way if you call it off and they avoid the all-in

check raise like nine high flush run then get jammed on right if you're either shallow enough to where you can be the one check shoving all in or deep enough to where you can check raise and then still call a re-raise then you're going to be doing a lot of check raising with your draws out of position but from imposition you're going to be doing a whole lot of calling we discussed this thoroughly in the tournament master class where we show that from in position you just call a lot and flush draws are really really good hands to call with same thing with open-ended straight draws very clearly obvious hands gut shot straight draws now gut shot straight draws definitely vary in strength you're going to find that in general you want to float more often as your opponent's range is usually going to be a little bit weaker right so let's say you do have 10 9 9 8 9 8 on queen jack 3 same queen jack 3 board right if you're playing in a scenario where you have a gut shot 9 8 on queen drag 3 if you get a 10 you have a straight but if a 10 comes you could still easily be beat by ace king right and also your opponents have a whole lot of queens and a whole lot of jacks in the range that's the scenario where that gut shot straight draw is pretty bad right and it should probably just be folded to a bet even though you have some equity especially if you're facing a polarized bet but if you have a hand like nine eight on six five two where you get a seven you have a straight or a nine or eight now you have top pair that's the spot where you're way happier with your gut shot so gut shots with over cards are usually pretty good gut shots with one over card are usually pretty good assuming if you make that gut shot it's really unlikely your opponent has a straight you always have to be wary of hands like ace king ace queen king queen etc right you don't have to be so wary of hands like nine eight so over cards what got a gut shot or a got shot with one over card is usually pretty good the under cards are only reasonable when your opponent's ranges should be pretty weak next backdoor flush draws ideally back door flush draws with two over cards is pretty good in most scenarios backdoor flush draws the one over card is weaker backdoor flush draws with no over cards and no gut shot straight draw etc are usually pretty garbage so keep that in mind again they vary in strength like you would almost rather have a hand like two over cards than a backdoor flush draw with no over cards right next two over cards say you have um queen jack on 763 that's the spot where you can call

Another fine candidate for ISOing. Even with poor position and limited fold equity, Hero can consider his triangle more full than empty due to frequent strength alone. This hand has two high cards that flop high caliber pair hands (otherwise known as TPGK - top pair good kicker) and can make very strong draws like powerful flush and straight draws. This is another hand that will very rarely need any help from the other factors. This hand flops either overpairs or a frequently best underpair a lot, and thus can make it to showdown as the best hand quite often. It also has the latent potential to flop a set approximately 1/9 times when a third T comes down. This hand is considerably weaker. While it frequently makes decent top pair hands, the kickers are more easily dominated and it lacks any good draw flopping potential. This hand is nevertheless a clear ISO in favorable situations but will require the other factors not to be too negative. A hand of similar frequent strength to the last. While it lacks the second big card to boost its top pair flopping ability, it makes up for this deficit in its ability to flop draws to the nuts. Also note that any hand containing an ace grants more showdown value when it misses the board and provides an overcard to any non A top pair that Villain can flop.

board, because you can use just one of your cards. Their other card wouldn't matter. Like Hold'em, playing high cards matters most in Omaha, but unlike Hold'em, starting hands are more radically altered by the flop. Your starting hand could be A*, A+, K4, K+, but if the flop came up 5V, 4V, 64, you are not the favorite. With four cards in everyone's pocket, someone could easily have two little cards, such as 3,7 or 7, 8 or a 9, 10 and wait for an 8 to fall, and someone has two Hearts and is drawing to the flush. Your hand cannot make a flush, or a straight, and needs two perfect cards to make a boat. In Hold'em, a flop of little cards such as this probably improved no one and a pair of Aces or a pair of Kings would loom large. Playing high cards still wins over the long-run in Omaha, but because starting hands can be so radically altered by the flop, fluctuations are larger. If you are at a table with aggressive players, plan on needing a lot of money to stay in the game. Ideally, your starting four cards should all be coordinated; that is, have the potential for a large number of favorable flops. A hand like A*, K4, K+, Q+, could flop an Ace-high Club flush, a King-high Diamond flush, an Acehigh straight, a King-high straight, a set of Kings, Kings over a smaller pair, or Aces over, if an A,Q fell on the flop. In contrast, a hand such as A*, 9+, 84, 5V, is less likely to hit a favorable flop. No flushes are possible with these starting cards and in the unlikely event the flop is 10, J, Q, your straight will probably lose to someone with A, K or K, 10. It may be tempting to view Omaha as a more complicated game than Hold'em, but ironically, the reverse is true. Omaha is much simpler because with so many cards out, it becomes inevitable that someone will have the nuts. Since the winner usually has the nuts, for you 166 THE INTELLIGENT GUIDE TO TEXAS HOLD'EM POKER to win, you must have the nuts. Strategy is simple: see the flop as cheaply as possible, and after the flop, unless you have the nuts or a draw to the nuts, fold. Won't this strategy become obvious after a while? Yes, but deviating from it will cost you money. People attracted to Omaha like the excitement of chasing all the drawing possibilities that come up with four pocket cards, and even after they figure out that you always show the nuts, they will still chase you. Unlike Texas Hold'em, where aggression is necessary, it is difficult to play Omaha too tightly. Don't fall into the trap of thinking Hold'em and Omaha are similar games-they are not. Omaha Eight or Better This is a variant of Omaha played for a high-low split. It is played exactly like Omaha, only the low hand splits the pot with the high hand. To qualify for

Table 62: BB Action Frequencies (60bb) With 60bb, there is a slight increase in BB’s defense frequency (65.63%) compared to 40bb (62.91%). This could be because some weaker hands now have better implied odds, allowing the BB to defend wider, or it could be a function of the way the simulations were designed. The main weapon IP has to lower OOP EQR when stacks are deep is to overbet the pot. So, I would expect to see slightly lower BB defense frequencies in simulations where overbets are allowed. In the current game, players still do not use overbets nearly as often as they should in theory, so these BB defense frequencies will fare well in modern games. I would recommend cutting down the weaker hands vs really tough opponents who are capable of overbetting and applying a lot of post-flop pressure. At 60bb, the BB 3-betting range is less polarized than it was at 40bb, including more suited hands with good post-flop playability. As demonstrated so far, the range changes as the opponent’s range changes, going from 3-betting as wide as 16.80% vs the BN to only 5.3% vs UTG and also folding vs the BN’s open 18.10% of the time and 44.10% vs UTG. When facing 4-bets, the BB has a healthy flatting range vs LP, but could easily only 5-bet or fold vs EP (Hand Ranges 175-182).

Hand Range 311: LJ 40bb vs BN 3.25x 3-bet • All-in 21.8% / • Call 27.2% / • Fold 51%

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Positional advantage An advantage coming from "having position" on another player. Firstly, there is the benefit of having more information to base a decision on. The in position (IP) player can observe what the out of position (OOP) player does. Secondly, the IP player can close the action to make the hand proceed to the next street or showdown.

THE CALL BLUFF 98 bluff. For instance, if your opponent is particularly straightforward or prone to folding good hands, you can try call bluffing with “nothing.” The strength of the call bluffas opposed to the raise bluffis that it keeps your options open before you make a risky bet; you get a little more time to gather information before you commit. So the more information your opponents give away, the more profitable the call bluff“on air” can be. Specifically, some poor players will rarely check any good hand on the turn if they have bet the flop and were called. That’s an information leak tailored for call bluffs. You can call the flop and see what they do on the turn. If they bet, you fold. If they check, you know they are probably fairly weak, and you can make a profitable bluff. Defending Against the Call Bluff Given the last paragraph, you should see the obvious defense against the call bluff. After you bet the flop and someone behind you calls, you should sometimes check-raise the turn. These check-raises should usually be made with good hands, but also sometimes not. The primary advantage of the call bluffis an informational one. So to defend against the play, you should make sure the “information” you give offbetween the flop and turn is of little use. Usually you check bad hands and bet good ones, but sometimes you mix it up. Check those good hands. And occasionally when you check bad hands, check-raise bluff. If you keep your opponents guessing, they’ll generally be loathe to play back at you, and they’ll save their call bluffs for more readable players. When you’re out of position, if you can manipulate your opponents into playing more straightforwardly against you, you usually should. Final Thoughts Some people seem to think the call bluffis a particularly clever play. Perhaps it’s because calling with “nothing” is counterintuitive. But it’s no cleverer really than any other play. Don’t be too enamored with yourself when you pull one offsuccessfully. It’s all in a day’s work. Use the call bluffas a tool of oppression when you have the button. Positional advantage in deep stack no limit can be crushing, and one major reason is that your out of position opponents have to fear a call almost as much as a raise. Keep your flop calls dangerous with slowplays and call bluffs, and you’ll paralyze your opponents.

stack. How much bigger, however, depends on how the S-C number is calculated. There are two major types of hands, robust and vulnerable hands. Robust hands can be called profitably by a large number of hands, but they don’t fare too badly against those hands on the whole. Vulnerable hands can’t be called very often, but when they are called, they are significant underdogs.

Hand Range 165: BB vs UTG (25bb) • All-in 2.1% / • 3-bet 4.7% / • Call 66% / • Fold 27.2%

1.4 The Other Two Aspects of Poker Success Undoubtedly, the largest component to success in poker is having a superior technical grasp of the game than your opponents. The following chapters of this book are all geared towards assisting the reader in this pursuit. This is a manual about what I call the 'technical game' of poker - how to actually play the cards in relation to the strategic needs of each poker situation. That said, there are two other areas in which the aspiring player needs to develop competency: I refer to these as the 'mental game' and the 'practical game'. The mental game of poker concerns having the mental constitution to succeed even through the more difficult times when variance is against us. The practical game concerns the player's poker habits outside of the playing of the cards. Practical game topics cover session length, game selection, bankroll management and much more. I'll briefly touch on the importance of these two aspects before we go any further. I don't want the reader to imagine for a second that just reading this technical manual is enough to succeed in poker.

called two bets with a hand like Jack ten suited or ten nine suited um specifically Jack ten suited making it straight here it's conceivable like he'd have jack ten of diamonds where he called the flop with a gutshot turned a straight draw now he has the nuts at the shallower stacked depths Jack ten suited my show will probably still shove the turn so it's more likely there's a lot more hands that could be beating us we got and floated lighter there's more to pair combos so villains range becomes stronger here because he is less likely to stack up on the turn with ace Queen versus in the previous example ace queen is a pretty easy he just shoved the term with ace queen at the 50 big blind example now I'm where I had a hundred big blinds ace Queens a really heavy chunk of his range here when we get to the river so key key point here hand values increase at shallower SPRs even weak top pairs are stronger at shallower SPRs and hand values decrease at deeper to SPR so needs stronger hands to stack off so kind of the same concepts we've been talking about the whole webinar so we can do the question so Matthew asked what about you know Queen nine which would have river two pair or Jack 10 which would have river de straight I think Queen nine is probably not calling preflop at the fifty big blind example and it's more likely a hand like Queen nine could have called at the hundred big blind example same with Jack ten Jack 10 off suit maybe it calls that a hundred big blinds versus at fifty it probably folds so I just think the ranges are easier to pinpoint ranges at the shallower stacks versus a deeper stack strangers are wider there's more combinations of random two pairs that can be made more accommodations and floats you're less likely to get floated at a shallow stack depth and a shallow SPR than you are at a very heavy SPR greater than five like you can float a lot more because you have more implied odds you have more maneuverability on later streets like for example let's say we this flop at the so in this less than five SPR let's say where the button and we have ace deuce of diamonds and the button bets five big blinds we call with our backdoor flush draw back to a straight draw now the turn is the seven of diamonds and he bets two-thirds pot like we're barely getting the right price to call with our flush draw and over like we're getting the right price but it's not that great of a situation because if we don't hit we we have very little way to win the pot he's just gonna shove the river we likely won't get a chance to Bluff on the river versus it a hundred big blinds with the SPR greater than five I'm more happy

bet will scare your opponent away from raise-bluffing. Re- member, we postulated he will call a bet that size with half his mediocre hands. Making a $500 bet means you win $1,000 fifty percent of the time, win $1,500

VALUE BETTING ON THE RIVER 61 hand, he will actually be more likely to have a big hand when he calls (or raises). (It’s 20 percent versus 18 percent.) So is $500 the best option? Let’s see. The expectation is $50 (or $850 total). $50 = (0.60)(0.50)($500) + (0.20)(−$500) It’s still not as good as the piddling $200 bet. Thus, throwing in a small chance you are beaten dramatically reduces your correct bet size to one that is likely to be called by lesser hands. And it might even reduce it to zero. Here’s why. Let’s look at what happens when your opponent will sometimes check-raise bluff. Suppose if you bet $200 your opponent will raise $2,000 with his good hands and some of his worst hands (perhaps half of them). That means he will call your $200 bet 60 percent of the time, fold to it 10 percent, and raise you out the other 30 percent (sometimes with a bluff). You can’t call the raise because you are getting odds of only $3,400-to-$2,000, and he will have you beaten two out of three times. You will win $1,000 ten percent of the time, $1,200 sixty percent, and lose $200 thirty percent. That’s an expectation of $760. But if you simply checked behind you would win the $1,000 pot eighty percent of the time for an expec- tation of $800. The possibility of a check-raise bluffhas now made a small bet no good either. And this is, in fact, an important consideration in real life games. Against players who have the guts to try check-raise bluffs occasionally, you are forced to check down decent hands that could show a profit with a small bet against more timid souls. The above analysis assumed that you were in last position and were checked to. If you are first to act, you can’t close out the action by checking, so it gets more complicated. Continuing with the same example, except this time you are first, if he will never raise bluffor bluffif you check, it reduces to the same question as if he checked and you were last to act. Among the three alternatives, betting $200 is best, and it gives you an expectation of $880 total. But what about the scenario where he will raise big with his top 20 percent plus half of his non-calling hands? We showed that betting $200 now gives you a total expectation of $760 and, thus, it is better to check behind for an expectation of $800. Does that conclusion change if you are first? Yes, it does. Say, if you check, he will make a big bet with those same 30 percent of hands he will raise with (one-third of which are bluffs). Again you must fold. That means that a check will win the $1,000 pot only 70 percent of the time for an expectation of $700. The $200 bet is now once again the better play (because it has an expectation of $760). But it still might not be the best play. Suppose a $500

THE CONCEPTS 183 could even be drawing dead because the board is paired, the effect is stronger still. For instance, compare 9♠8♠on a 7♣6♠2♢board to 9♠8♠on a T♣T♢7♢ board. On the former board, all eight of your outs give you the nuts. On the latter, you have no outs to the nuts, and you could already be drawing dead to a full house (or to an expensive second-best against jack-ten or ten-six). The former hand offers you a decent chance of making your draw, catching someone with a second-best hand, and doubling up. The latter hand offers very little chance to double up: If you were to get all-in against someone, chances are better than not that I you’d be on the losing end. With limited implied odds, semi-bluffing becomes more attractive on the paired board. Your best hope is that no one flopped much and that you can pick up the pot immediately. With the nut draw, however, you have higher hopes: stacking someone. (Note: The above concept applies only when the stacks are big. With small stacks the reverse concept is usually true.) Concept No. 39: You must adapt your play to different-sized bets. If you will call a twice-pot bet as often as you call a half-pot bet, you’re in trouble. Some no limit players tend to pay too little attention to the size of their opponents’ bets. In $5–$10, for instance, they may call a preflop raise to $40 with roughly the same number of hands as a raise to $60. Or they may react approximately the same way with the same hands to a half-pot flop bet as they would to a one-and-a-half pot bet. Different bet sizes offer significantly different pot and implied odds. To treat a half-pot bet offering 3-to-1 the same way you treat a one-and-a-half pot bet offering 5-to-3 will leave you making lots of mistakes. Don’t think in binary, bet or no bet, terms. Every bet size is different and offers different odds. Always think about these odds while you play. Concept No. 40: Certain flops require certain-sized bets. No matter what hand you hold, your flop bets, on average, should be smaller on flops like A♡K♢K♠than they are on flops like J♡9♠7♡. From a mathematical perspective, the “correct” bet sizes in no limit derive primarily from the implied odds they offer. You 4 should size your bets so that your opponents don’t get enough odds to call profitably. But you usually shouldn’t make your bets so large that it’s obvious that they aren’t getting the right odds to call. These considerations set upper and lower boundaries on the amount you should bet. When the flop is something like A♡K♢K♠, your opponents, if behind, will tend to have little chance to catch up. And even if they do “catch up,” they’ll often discover that they were drawing dead. Since your opponents would need far greater implied odds than normal to justify calling, your bets should be relatively small on such flops. (Small bets offer larger implied odds.) Your bets should be small

case), then as long as you're getting 4-to-l odds you can call the bet on fourth street. Actually, 4-to-l are more odds than you really need, for two reasons. 1. After you hit the flush, you may win another large bet on fifth street. They are the implied odds that we discussed in Part Four. They can't be estimated precisely, because you don't know if a bet will be called, or how big a bet might be called. But the possibility is clearly worth something. 2. You may not need to hit the flush to win. Simply pairing another card in your hand might be enough to win, or your opponent may be on a complete bluff (that he abandons on the river) and you may be winning already. These are imponderables, but they both have some effect on reducing the odds you really need. Obviously 4-to-l odds are sufficient. In practice, I tend to call these bets with a little over 3-to-1 odds. But that can change depending on my assessment of how much I can make my opponent call if I bet. For the odds of hitting other common drawing hands, refer back to our table of outs in Part Four. Playing Against Drawing Hands If I have the solid values, and my opponent is on a flush draw, then I have the opposite side of the problem from the previous discussion. My basic problem here is to figure out how much to bet. From Sklansky's Fundamental Theorem of Poker, I want to bet enough so that, if he's on a flush draw and he calls, he's making a mistake. As long as I force him to make a mistake, I've done my job, whether he then draws out on me or not. By adjusting my bet to the pot size, I can control the odds that I'm offering. Here's a little chart that shows how my bet affects his odds 158 If I Bet Odds I Give My Opponent Twice the pot 3-to-2 The pot 2-to-l Three-quarters of the pot 7-to-3 Two-thirds of the pot 5-to-2 Half the pot 3-to-l One-third of the pot 4-to-l One-fourth of the pot 5-to-l I like to bet between two-thirds and three-quarters of the pot in these situations. From the previous section, we know that his call to the flush is reasonable if he's getting about 3-to-l pot odds, so betting half the pot is a little light. On the other hand, I don't want to overbet the pot. Remember, if I bet too much and he folds, he hasn't made a mistake, and my real goal here is to induce an error. In practice, bets of two-thirds to three-quarters of the pot frequently get called in these situations, which is what I want. If I put him on a straight draw rather than a flush draw, my problem is only slightly different. Let's say a player has J♥ T♣ in his hand and the board is 9♦ 8♠ 3♣ 2♥ He can fill his straight with any seven or any queen, a

if you can get all-in preflop against a likely weaker hand, do so.

action is on you, you will… When ICM Breaks Down If you have read my previous GTO Wizard articles and my books, you’ll know I… When Is It Correct To Fold AA Preflop? One of the criticisms of ICM is that it is boring and robotic. In my… OOP C-betting vs Loose Cold-callers In a previous GTO Wizard article, I asserted that “Playing against an in-position cold-caller is… Short-Stacked Play in MTTs Playing a short stack well is an essential tournament skill. It is extremely rare to… When To Ladder in Tournaments In my last two articles, I wrote about the effect field size and payout structure… How Payout Structures Impact ICM Last time we discussed the ICM considerations in game selection, we looked at field size,… C-Betting IP in 3-Bet Pots When you three-bet before the flop and the original raiser calls from out of position,… C-Betting OOP in 3-Bet Pots Continuation betting from out of position can be a dicey proposition in single-raised pots. Cold… Dynamic Sizing: A GTO Breakthrough Dynamic Sizing is a revolutionary new poker algorithm that automatically simplifies your strategy with the… Dynamic Sizing Benchmarks Dynamic Sizing is a revolutionary new poker algorithm that automatically simplifies your strategy with the… Understanding The Impact Of Field Size On ICM In Poker When people talk about game selection in multi-table tournaments (MTTs), they invariably talk about the… Defending vs BB Check-Raise on Paired Flops This is a companion piece to Attacking Paired Flops from the BB; you will get… Mastering PKO Final Tables Final tables can be the most exciting and rewarding phase of a tournament, and being… Attacking Paired Flops From the BB Paired flops present unique challenges to both a preflop raiser and a BB caller. The… KK vs QQ vs JJ at WSOP Main Event With only fourteen players remaining in the 2023 WSOP Main Event and blinds of 400K/800K/800K,… Responding to BB Squeezes You open raise, someone calls, and the BB squeezes. How should you construct your strategy?… Crushing a Top HUNL Poker Bot In 2022, Philippe Beardsell and Marc-Antoine Provost, a team of Canadian programmers from Quebec, developed… GTO Wizard AI Explained We are excited to introduce GTO Wizard AI, formerly known as Ruse, the world’s best… GTO Wizard AI Benchmarks GTO Wizard has combined the power of artificial intelligence with traditional solving methods to bring… Table Management in PKOs Perhaps the most important strategic consideration in Progressive Knockout Tournaments (PKOs) is making sure you… Overcalling From the BB In poker, overcalling refers to calling a bet or raise after another player has also… Understanding Which Mistakes Cost You the Most Money I am fortunate enough to have worked for many years with the mental game coach… Overbetting The Flop in Cash Games Although most commonly analyzed on turns and rivers, flop overbetting can be a devastating weapon… Using New Skills at the Poker Table How many times has it happened to you that you make a mistake only to… Flatting Ace-X Hands Shortstacked Playing out of position is tricky, but it’s an essential

Hand Range 336: UTG 60bb (2.3x vs UTG+1 3-bet) • All-in 5% / • 4-bet 15.8% / • Call 28.2% / • Fold 51% 10 THE THEORY OF

how important that initial decision to play the pot really is, and why it's so dangerous to get involved with sub-par starting hands. Note also that the jacks missed an opportunity to make a little more money by betting on the end. Weak players lose a lot of money over the course of a tournament by missing these highpercentage situations. Good players don't. 106 Hand 5-9 Situation: About halfway through a single-table online tournament. Your hand: A♥A♦ Action to you: Player A calls. Players B and C fold. The pot is now $150. Question: Do you raise, and if so, how much? Answer: With a pair of aces, the question is never "Will I get involved in the hand?" but "How can I get the most money into the pot?" This can be a tricky business. Here are some tips to keep in mind. 1. You want more money in the pot, but not more players in the pot. Aces are a big favorite against a single opponent, but winning chances start to drop drastically as more players get involved. Against two opponents, your aces might be no more than 60 percent to win a showdown. True, you will triple up when that happens, but 40 percent of the time you'll be out of the tournament, which is a high price to pay. Ideally, you want lots of money in the pot and a single opponent. 2. Rarely slowplay aces! This is a key insight which beginners frequently violate. Slowplaying creates a smaller pot with more participants - exactly what you don't want. 3. Watch the stack sizes of your potential opponents carefully. Unlike the case with most other hands, with aces you don't need to be concerned with staying away from stacks that can break you. Here the big stacks are your natural prey, since they will be the most willing to play with you. Also remember that you can make a slightly bigger bet against a big stack, since they can call you more readily. Here you have one player already in the pot, and that player is the biggest stack at the table. You should probably raise about $180-$200. That should discourage other callers from getting involved, while being a pretty easy raise for Player A to call. Action: You actually put in only $120, a raise of $60 to Player A. Player E folds. The small blind calls, putting in $90 more. The big blind puts in $120, raising the pot another $60. Player A folds. The pot is now $480. The big blind has $80 left. The small blind has $2,580 left. You have $650. Question: What do you do? Answer: A cute situation has arisen. The big blind will be all-in this hand, but with a very small stack. You're not really concerned about him any more. Your real target is the small blind, who has enough chips for you to double up. Your real problem is keeping the small blind in the hand, and for that you need to just call here. A raise is

of Open-Limping Buttons Before the advent of solvers, open-limping was considered the province of passive, gambley recreational players… Cleaning Out Sticky IP Callers A “sticky” player on your left, one who calls your preflop raises too often and… Defending Against Tiny 3-Bets Tournament poker is about precision. Cash games, where stacks typically run into the hundreds of… Heads up! Exploiting SB’s Preflop Mistakes Heads up (HU) tournament play presents unique challenges to the average player. Many tournament players,… C-Betting As the OOP Preflop Raiser Position is an extremely valuable advantage in poker. Most players would describe the comfort zone… Overchoice: Making Sense of Multiple Sizings Solver solutions with multiple bet sizes often involve a lot of mixing between those sizes,… River Refinements: When Your Opponent Won’t Check-Raise One of the biggest strategic differences between playing in versus out of position involves betting… Turn Barreling in 3-Bet Pots There are two articles on the GTO Wizard blog that make good prerequisites to this… The Right Way To Think About Protection Suppose Paul the Protector is in a 200bb cash game and opens A♠A♣ in the… The Importance of Board Coverage The first public version of the GTO Wizard announced AI upgrade already has some useful… How To Adjust When Villain Has No Bluffs “They always have it!” is a common, semi-joking expression in poker to describe the tendency… Adjusting on Later Streets After Exploiting Flop The key to exploiting opponents profitably is knowing when to stop. I’m not referring to… C-Betting IP vs Passive Poker Players A preflop raiser enjoys a significant range advantage over a BB caller, enabling them to… C-Betting Against ICM Preflop Ranges You raise from early position (EP) in a multi-table tournament and the BB calls. Both… The Art of Bluff Catching Bluff catching—calling a bet with a modest hand which you expect to win only if… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by IP On some flops, it is simply not possible for the preflop raiser to continuation bet… Is Limping Pimping? In a past Discord post, one of our members noted that an upside of implementing… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by OOP A preflop raiser who continuation bets too often is always a potential target for exploitation,… Preflop Button Mastery in PKOs Playing from the Button presents many unique opportunities in any tournament format, especially in PKOs.… The Worst Turn Card Greetings from GTO land. In today’s article, we will use the Turn Reports feature to… Navigating Range Disadvantage as the 3-Bettor Picture this: We’re playing a NL500 6-max cash game, and we’ve won a few pots,… Mastering Three-Bet Pots In Position in MTTs Playing in position against a three-better is a lesson in playing to your advantages. As… Mastering Three-Bet Pots Out of Position in MTTs Three-bet pots are scary. Playing out of position is scary. Put them together, and you’ve… The Greatest Final Table in Triton History Today, we’ll examine one of the most epic final table battles I’ve ever witnessed! Our… Mastering Thin Value Bets in Checked-Down Pots Valuing your hand appropriately—determining whether it’s strong enough to value

that work that me and my team have done and consolidated it here for a book for you so that you can get great at tournament poker quickly so check it out at dnbpoker.com secrets hope you enjoy it thanks for watching and good luck in your games what's big green and gives you the freedom to do whatever you want yeah it's money and if you want to start your journey to a big pile of money click the subscribe button right over here see in the next video

Hand Range 229: BN vs LJ 4-bet (60bb) • All-in 33.5% / • Call 16.5% / • Fold 50.1%

doesn't really matter as much and the villain will also have a bunch of ax in his range and King X maybe not so much but Jack hex and he will probably just call you off so we go back the fer um when it go check check Ace of Diamonds now sixes this combination is actually really bad because now we block uh we um we have um we block some of the worse hands that they the the villain will be uh falling into a bed right like clubs that didn't improve M like 67 for example stuff like that doesn't really matter as much but the thing is um it also has Showdown value the um D here might um just check check back randomly some um some worse hands here um maybe um pocket FES just checks and you know we win and so there's no need the PO is not as large when it went check check on the turn uh compared to what it will be if he goes Check bet bet all right uh so this is the final hand um really hope you guys found this uh this webinar useful I think I went over time uh by a lot I apologize for that uh maybe you know um some of you had already somewhere to go but I wanted to cover them uh the hands completely um Merry Christmas to everyone thank you a lot I really appreciate you guys coming here and well happy Christmas and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year I see you all hope to see you all again back here next year um best of luck to to everyone bye

THE CONCEPTS 182 someone who might make a big pair on the turn or river. But with 7♠6♠, you don’t want to lose your action if someone made a smaller straight against you or is drawing to something like a pair and a straight draw, e.g., 6♢4♢. Concept No. 37: Bets on the turn should, on average, constitute a smaller percentage of the pot size than flop bets. Say you took an average of the size of every flop bet you ever made, and you found that it was (picking an arbitrary number) about 75 percent of the flop pot size. The equivalent average for your turn bets should be significantly less than 75 percent of the turn pot size. In general, turn bets should be smaller fractions of the pot than flop bets. Primarily, the pot odds and implied odds you offer your opponents deter- mine your bet sizes. You should bet enough with your good hands so that you don’t offer your opponents enough odds to call profitably with their most likely hands and draws. With two cards and two betting rounds to come, the flop is a good round for drawing hands. Made hands have to bet a relatively large amount to make it unprofitable for draws to call. With only one card and betting round to come, however, the turn is a good round for made hands. Bets don’t need to be nearly as large in relation to the size of the pot to make draws unprofitable. Thus, flop bets should generally be larger as a percentage of the pot than turn bets. (Remember, though, that this principle does not hold if you think your opponent believes that he is likely to have the best hand. In that case your turn bets can be big.) Concept No. 38: Be more apt to semi-bluffwhen your draw isn’t to the nuts than when it is. When you contemplate a semi-bluffwith a drawing hand, you have to compare the expectation of betting against the expectation of checking. Say you estimate that the expectation of semi-bluffing is some positive amount $X. Knowing that bluffing has a positive expectation shouldn’t nec- essarily convince you to bet, however, as checking could still be better for one of a couple reasons: 1. You might hit your draw and win money from someone who would have folded to your bluff. For instance, if you have 9♠8♠on a 7♣6♠2♢board, and a T♡comes on the turn, you could win money from someone with T♢6♢who would have folded to your flop bet. 2. Checking, especially when last to act, could allow you to see an extra card those times your opponent already has a strong hand and would have raised you out had you bluffed. If you check and catch your draw, sometimes you’ll win your opponent’s entire stack. Thus, occasionally checking will turn a loss (of your bluffbet) into a huge win (of the pot plus your opponent’s stack). Both of these effects are stronger (favoring checking) when you have a nut draw than when you don’t. And

happened. In June 2014 I was down to my last $2,000 and had to make a decision. I could either go back to my day job and forget about poker for good, or lose the fancy apartment and move back in with my mother, giving me one last shot to try to get a backer for online tournaments and start from scratch playing micro stakes. To cut a long story short, I finally understood that I must have been doing something wrong

piece to Probe Betting. It stands on its own, but understanding… Probe Betting As far as rules of thumb go in poker, “check to the raiser” is a… ICM and Blind Battles: The Big Blind This is a companion piece to this article on the SB’s strategy for blind vs… ICM and Blind Battles: The Small Blind ICM incentivizes more conservative play, which means that at stages of the tournament where risk… The Initial Bettor’s Advantage The mathematics of poker holds a little-known secret: the first bettor enjoys better bluffing odds… Mastering the Chiplead: The Scalpel and the Sledgehammer When you have a lot of chips at a final table or in another situation… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in Cash Games Our never-ending quest for money and fame leads us to the flop. We open the… How ICM Impacts Restealing From The Blinds When I first started working with preflop solves, one of the features I found most… The ICM Benefits of Late Registration in Poker Tournaments Why do so many professional poker players register late for tournaments when they clearly would… Flop Heuristics: OOP C-Betting in MTTs Playing against an in-position cold-caller is dramatically different–and dramatically more difficult–than playing against a caller… Counterintuitive Calls Solver outputs such as those provided by GTO Wizard are models of no-limit hold ‘em,… How To Negotiate Final Table Deals Most people’s first introduction to the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is not from studying bubble… How does ICM impact PKO strategy? If you have read The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments you already know why we… Understanding Blockers in Poker Often when looking through a solver’s meticulously crafted grid of deception, one of the following… Flop Heuristics: IP Cold-Caller in MTTs A Cold-call refers to the act of calling a preflop raise when you don’t close… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in MTTs In the world of poker, the flop is a crucial stage of the game that… Flop Heuristics for Defending the Blinds in MTTs The field of Game Theoretically Optimal poker is extensive, and thus, to simplify our strategy,… Multiway strategy in Progressive Knockout Tournaments Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments are much more complex than traditional MTTs. The fact that players… How To Calculate Raises In Poker One of the most frequently asked questions in poker is how to calculate the size… Principles of River Play The river offers the least complicated strategy of any betting street. With no further cards… Exploitative Dynamics GTO solutions are designed to be unexploitable, performing reasonably well no matter how your opponents… How ICM Impacts Postflop Strategy Most players understand how the Independent Chip Model (ICM) in poker impacts their strategy preflop,… 10 Tips for Multiway Pots in Poker While lots of work has been placed into research and explanation of heads-up pot strategy,… What is the Bubble Factor in poker tournaments? The Independent Chip Model (ICM) shows us the real money implications of tournament chip decisions.… The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments In poker, a PKO (Progressive Knockout) tournament is a type of tournament where a portion… How To

Pocket Aces A preflop hand containing AA.

Do Multiple Sizes Matter? Should I work out the other tools or just stick to the crowbar? Solver results can appear daunting when they employ many different bet sizes at a single node, especially if most hands mix across all sizes with no clear heuristic for choosing between them. There are methods for making sense of the apparent madness , but it also helps to understand what this mixing is worth and when you might be better off with a simpler strategy . Let’s find out together! Continuation Betting Flop solutions tend to be the most complicated because the solver is balancing its strategy for tens of thousands of possible turn and river scenarios . When it uses multiple bet sizes, each betting range must be robust, not just on the current street but in all these future scenarios as well. For a computer, this is a tractable problem. It can crunch the numbers and spit out something that looks like this: That’s five different ranges, with none clearly dominant over the others and most hands mixing across all of them. There are some trends drowned by the noise; hand classes that skew toward one size or another, but mixing is essential to prevent exploitation . There are, for example, just enough strong hands in the small bet ranges to keep BB indifferent to check-raising more aggressively. That’s the kind of precise balancing a computer can execute, but a human cannot . Experiment Setup To see what all this complexity is worth , we will examine an assortment of flops with complex continuation betting strategies in the UTG vs BB formation in a 100bb cash game single-raised pot (SRP). The horizontal bar chart on the left of the first graphic represents the complex strategy, a Fixed simulation where UTG may bet 40%, 67%, or 127% of the pot, and all other bets and raises are determined with the Automatic feature . Because UTG’s flop bet size options are fixed, their raise size must also be fixed; I chose 50%. The horizontal bar chart on the right of the first graphic represents a simulation where all bet sizes, including the continuation bet, are determined with the Automatic feature. This means the solver is restricted to a single bet size but may choose whichever size offers the highest EV. The EVs for each complex-simple strategy couple per board are shown in the second graphic. On most of these flops, the EVs of the two strategies are within one one-hundredth of a big blind of each other. In the worst-case scenario, the simple strategy loses .02bb relative to the complex one. Two-hundredths of a big blind is less than .5% of the pot, but it isn’t trivial. That’s 2bb/100 hands, a substantial portion of anyone’s win rate. If you could actually claim that 2bb/100, it would be well worth pursuing. Chasing small edges risks greater exploitability if you implement a complex strategy imperfectly. The risk is that, in trying to chase that small edge, you introduce a lot more exploitability into your game due to

nan

important that A.D. was a good enough player to think on a second and third level himself. Otherwise the play would make no sense. Just as you can't put a weak player on a hand, you can't put him on a thought either. A weak player might reraise with two aces, without analyzing the possibility that the other man might have kings up. Very sophisticated poker play can go considerably beyond the third level. An instance of such play came up at the Sahara in Las Vegas in a tough seven-card stud game. One player had: The pair of 6s bet on the end; the A,K raised with aces and kings; and the pair of 6s called with 6s up. On the surface it may seem as if the 6s up made a sucker play in betting, that the aces and kings took a big chance in raising a possible flush or trips, and that the 6s up made another sucker play in calling the raise. In a typical game, the two small pair would no doubt check on the end, and the aces and kings might very well check behind him to avoid a check-raise. However, the thinking of the two players in this game was much more complicated. First, the was betting all the way; that player knew, therefore, that his opponent put him on a four-flush. So with two small pair he bet for value on the end because he knew his opponent thought he had a four-flush, and he figured the opponent would call with one pair to snap off a bluff. The A,K took it a step further. He thought the pair of 6s might in fact be betting two pair for value because he knew the man with the two 6s thought he put him on a four-flush and that therefore the man with two 6s would bet two pair to get a call from one pair. So the A,K raised for value, thinking his opponent might think he was raising with only one pair. The man with the 6s up was hoping exactly that, and given the size of the pot, he felt his hand had enough of a chance to justify calling the raise. If the pair of 6s' first two up-cards had not been the same suit, the aces and kings would never have considered raising the bet on the end. At best, he would only have had a crying call because with two small pair the other player would probably have checked since he couldn't represent a flush draw. But with those diamonds showing each opponent was trying to outwit the other, and the aces and kings ended up getting the The Psychology of Poker 239 best of the situation. The 6s up didn't reraise, of course, representing a flush, because he knew that at that point the pot was so large his opponent would certainly call with something like aces up. At the expert level of poker, the dialectic of trying to outwit your opponent can sometimes extend to so many

break even using our set mining rule. As the pot would already contain 19.5BB from both players 9BB plus the blinds, Hero would need to make an additional 40BB just to break even from Villain's stack post-flop each time he flops a set. Out of position against a potentially weak range, this is far too optimistic a target. Hero is not close to having the implied odds to make a pure set mine and so they don't assist enough with the other factors being so miserable. Hero folds. The two spots so far have been relatively straightforward. Let's have a look at a less comfortable situation where the decision is close as to whether or not we should call a 3-bet. By looking at close decisions in poker we get an idea as to where the boundary between +EV and -EV lies in certain thematic spots. In this grey area where EV is likely to be either microscopically positive or negative, it won't matter a huge deal what we do. Still the committed player will strive to find the play that's higher EV even if only by a tiny margin. Against anyone tighter, flatting AQo to a 3-bet in these positions would be dubious and likely -EV . Villain 3-bets 9%, but do not make the common mistake of ascribing him a 9% range in these seats. In almost all games across the microstakes and low stakes, Regs formulate much wider 3-bet ranges against late position opens than early ones. Hero's UTG open implies a stronger range, which causes Villain to 3-bet tighter. If we looked at Villain's stats by position (and this needs a very substantial sample size) then we'd likely see a range of closer to 5 or 6% than 9%. Hero is not in great shape vs. such a range and will struggle to continue on the majority of flops. That said he could be dominating

all goes by so quickly, life. My son Todd and my daughters Pam and Cheryl were just kids yesterday. Now they’re grown. And I’ve watched Todd quit college to follow in his father’s footsteps in the poker arena. He’s impressed me greatly, ever since he triumphed in one of his first tournaments at the Bicycle Club. Many world-class players have told me that Todd is one of the best young players today. So, don’t just go by what I say. I could be biased. Todd has proven himself to the poker world, and that’s why he’s in this book. I think back on why I liked poker in the first place. It was the freedom, I think. You’re as free as a cloud floating in the sky. That’s the most beautiful part of being a gambler. 34 Middle It at 120 As you probably know, I’ve been very heavy most of my adult life. People kept warning me of the health problems that go along with carrying around those extra pounds. But it didn’t really hit home with me because I was able to move about swiftly, golf with a low handicap, and stay active. But recently I sat down and chatted with myself. Things were not as they had been. I was over seventy. In recent years, like a classic car, my chassis wasn’t in good shape. My legs weren’t carrying me well and my shoulder ached. But my heart was healthy, like a great-working, tireless carburetor. Maybe that’s because blood has flowed very fast through my veins during the pressure situations at poker. Maybe that cleansed me. Two different doctors have told me that my body must be programmed to live 120 years, as badly as I’ve treated it. One said 130, one said 110, so I middled it at 120. Then I decided that I may as well plan for a lot more hands of poker, and I had gastric bypass surgery to reduce my weight. I did that six months ago, and I feel a lot healthier now. But what happens after those 120 years? I’ll be gone and perhaps some aspiring players will read this book and new poker stars will be created. They’ll keep poker’s flame flickering, and if the Lord allows, I’ll observe from above and share their adventures. As for now, I’m looking forward to the next fifty years. And while that may not be exactly realistic and may not happen, in life and in poker, the best you can do is try. And I’ll be trying. Crandell Addington Some of my fondest memories of the old days include Crandell Addington. We met over forty years ago when we were both single and adventuresome. We played poker in backrooms, sawdust joints, and high stakes games throughout Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and other southern states. We survived numerous robberies, arrests and other situations that would rival the action scenes you see on the movie screens today. Crandell, myself, and a half dozen other high stakes players from Texas introduced no-limit Texas hold ‘em to Nevada

betting with less than top pair as a general matter so a very simplified strategy that we can Implement here would be to just continue betting with all top pairs plus while at the same time checking weaker made hands but we can refine this strategy even further by getting a bit more granular for example is King 3 really strong enough to over bet in this spot according to the machine no it's not and if you've played for a while intuitively this seems correct so how do we decide where to draw the line when it comes to our top pairs well that's where our next two factors come into play and our last video our primary focus when it came to incremental Equity were draws and we do see that if we isolate our lower pairs hands that also have a flush draw do bet some percentage of the time however in this case since the King on the board is the King of Diamonds we don't have any top pairs that also have a draw so instead we'll look to a different lesser form of incremental Equity to differentiate our combos our kicker if we isolate our top pair is we see a pretty clear pattern emerge where generally speaking the stronger the kicker the more aggressive the solver is with its top pairs with top top betting nearly 100 of the time and these top pairs with lower kickers checking most of the time the reason for this discrepancy is because if we assume that the most prominent calling region of villain's range is top pair then the kicker will make a huge difference in terms of whether our bet is winning or losing EV if we have an ace kicker it means that there's a very good possibility that we will be dominating our opponent and will be able to stack him by the river but if our kicker is weak then there's a good chance that we're just throwing good money after bad another heuristic that may be helpful in this regard is whether we feel like our hand is strong enough to stack off with assuming a clean run out if it clearly is then we should be more inclined to continue the barrel so that the stack sizes on the river are such that we can get all in with a reasonable bet however if it's not so clear that our hand is strong enough to play for Stacks checking will often be a viable option where perhaps we can check the turn and then bet the river or we can check the turn and allow the opponent to Bluff the river for us to hammer this point home let's assume that the button bet big the big blind called the river is a three of Spades and the big blind checks again whenever we're making a decision we start our analysis all over in terms of who is more likely to hold the strongest hand is still likely to be the button

often. In this example, we’ll expand SB’s open range from 64 to 72% and see how BB responds. SB’s range when open-raising 72% of hands (left) instead of 64% (right) When increasing their opening range, SB prefers to do so by increasing the frequencies of mixing hands because the pure limping hands don’t gain anything from adding opens. It is important to note here that the SB is no longer limping any of their ‘Best’ hands (and limping less with their ‘Good’ hands). BB’s response to a limp when SB open-raises 72% of their range (left) and 64% (right) Similar to our over-folding example, BB adjusts to a SB limp with a wider raising range while reducing their raise sizing . In this case, SB has capped their limping range even further by removing all strong hands from their limping range, incentivizing BB to raise more aggressively. BB’s response to a raise when SB open-raises 72% of their range (left) and 64% (right) Again, we see a parallel with our first example, where the BB strategy remains unchanged when the SB opens an 8% wider range . Because the SB is just adjusting frequencies of hands that were already in the range, instead of adding new hands to their opening range, BB is still calling and 3-betting a nearly identical range. When our opponent begins open-raising more often, we should respond by raising their (weaker) limps more often, using a smaller raise size. Conclusion For tournament players that enter larger field games regularly, heads up can be a situation where strategies deviate from a GTO approach. While many players are experienced with the early through late stages of a standard MTT, few players have significant heads up experience. Because of this, we can find many players making exploitable plays heads up, such as the ones shown in this article. Below is a summary of the three examples we looked at: When SB folds or opens too frequently , we should adjust by raising more regularly over their limps with a smaller raise size . If the SB uses a larger open size , we should adjust by folding more often and 3-betting a stronger range . What are some plays that you have seen heads up that seemed out of the ordinary? Let us know in the comments for further analysis in future articles. GTO Wizard the #1 App for Poker players Study any spot imaginable Practice by playing vs. GTO Analyze your hands with 1-click START CRUSHING NOW JOIN DISCORD Author JonnyLaw John Lawford AKA “JonnyLaw” is a midstakes online MTT regular with a passion for the Progressive Knockout format. Latest article Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors It amazes me that, after nearly twenty years of playing no-limit hold ‘em professionally, I… How to Handle Loose-Passive Limpers Solver charts and presolved solutions do not offer much in the way of explicit guidance… Top 5 Mistakes in Spin & Gos As a Spin and Go poker coach, I regularly encounter common mistakes that players make,… An Introduction to Spin &

shoves. He must avoid overfolding the situation at all costs. There are of course other exploitative adjustments Hero can make in order to make life harder on the 40BB stack. If he ups his open size from 2.5x to 3x, then BU will be offering Hero a much better price on a 4-bet shove and, perhaps paradoxically, Hero will be able to defend wider having opened bigger vs. this particular stack size. That said, he would lose more the time he folds and would be advised to accompany the larger sizing strategy with a tightening of his opening range. If Villain's 3-betting was really out of hand, then Hero should make this tightening adjustment, open large and just shove a huge amount of his range to print money. The smaller Hero opens, the wider his calling range should be as his implied odds are likely to better depending on Villain's 3-bet size. He should also shove fewer hands if he opens smaller due to the worse risk reward ratio on a shove. Overall, there are many ways that Hero can counter this strategy. This section has been very instructive not just for countering the aggro 40BB stack, but also in teaching a general awareness of poker math in action. Make sure you're comfortable with the above theory before we move on. Finally, it should be noted that if a 40BB stack opens, the situation is exactly the same with roles reversed. Hero can bear all of the above theory in mind when formulating his 3-bet range using the effective stack of 40BB; the last thing he wants to do is offer Villain the adjustment of shoving a very wide range. Have a go at building an optimal 3-bet game for this spot with the roles reversed. Try out various open sizes for Villain and see how Hero's strategy evolves. 60-80BB: The Awkward Stack This stack size is one we'll commonly run into when facing weaker players. Fish will tend to buy in for random amounts, depending on what they feel like gambling that day, or on how much money is left in their account. They may also buy in for 100BB and then just not top up having lost a few pots. Hero should assume these stacks to be weaker players almost always. While there are Regs who buy in for these neither here nor there amounts, they're few and far between. The first thing that should be recognised against these stacks is that it will be easier to get the money in post-flop. With a 60BB effective stack against a weaker player, value betting until all-in post-flop with decent top pair hands becomes much more attractive. As a result, Hero should favour opening, isolating, and 3-betting hands that can flop top pair frequently. At the same time, implied odds nut potential hands decrease significantly in value. Let's take an example where the awkward stack size causes Hero to make a play that he wouldn't consider 100BB deep in many situations at all.

was considered the province of passive, gambley recreational players… Cleaning Out Sticky IP Callers A “sticky” player on your left, one who calls your preflop raises too often and… Defending Against Tiny 3-Bets Tournament poker is about precision. Cash games, where stacks typically run into the hundreds of… Heads up! Exploiting SB’s Preflop Mistakes Heads up (HU) tournament play presents unique challenges to the average player. Many tournament players,… C-Betting As the OOP Preflop Raiser Position is an extremely valuable advantage in poker. Most players would describe the comfort zone… Overchoice: Making Sense of Multiple Sizings Solver solutions with multiple bet sizes often involve a lot of mixing between those sizes,… River Refinements: When Your Opponent Won’t Check-Raise One of the biggest strategic differences between playing in versus out of position involves betting… Turn Barreling in 3-Bet Pots There are two articles on the GTO Wizard blog that make good prerequisites to this… The Right Way To Think About Protection Suppose Paul the Protector is in a 200bb cash game and opens A♠A♣ in the… The Importance of Board Coverage The first public version of the GTO Wizard announced AI upgrade already has some useful… How To Adjust When Villain Has No Bluffs “They always have it!” is a common, semi-joking expression in poker to describe the tendency… Adjusting on Later Streets After Exploiting Flop The key to exploiting opponents profitably is knowing when to stop. I’m not referring to… C-Betting IP vs Passive Poker Players A preflop raiser enjoys a significant range advantage over a BB caller, enabling them to… C-Betting Against ICM Preflop Ranges You raise from early position (EP) in a multi-table tournament and the BB calls. Both… The Art of Bluff Catching Bluff catching—calling a bet with a modest hand which you expect to win only if… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by IP On some flops, it is simply not possible for the preflop raiser to continuation bet… Is Limping Pimping? In a past Discord post, one of our members noted that an upside of implementing… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by OOP A preflop raiser who continuation bets too often is always a potential target for exploitation,… Preflop Button Mastery in PKOs Playing from the Button presents many unique opportunities in any tournament format, especially in PKOs.… The Worst Turn Card Greetings from GTO land. In today’s article, we will use the Turn Reports feature to… Navigating Range Disadvantage as the 3-Bettor Picture this: We’re playing a NL500 6-max cash game, and we’ve won a few pots,… Mastering Three-Bet Pots In Position in MTTs Playing in position against a three-better is a lesson in playing to your advantages. As… Mastering Three-Bet Pots Out of Position in MTTs Three-bet pots are scary. Playing out of position is scary. Put them together, and you’ve… The Greatest Final Table in Triton History Today, we’ll examine one of the most epic final table battles I’ve ever witnessed! Our… Mastering Thin Value Bets in Checked-Down Pots Valuing your hand appropriately—determining whether it’s strong enough to value bet or so weak you… Maximizing Value on Monotone

the more important equity denial becomes . Calling with a hand that would be strong enough to play for stacks is essentially a gamble that the chips you can induce your opponent to put in from behind on future streets will be worth more than the equity you can deny by raising immediately. When the pot is large and the stacks are short, that’s a tough bar to clear. Denying even small amounts of equity is a big deal in a big pot. This is part of why 4-betting your best hands is so often correct. Yes, this means spotting your opponent a big advantage on the calling node of the game tree, but that’s OK. Your calls are mostly hands that would otherwise fold (and which do fold, as ICM becomes a bigger factor), so anything they can win after the flop is icing on the cake. The important thing is that you recognize this and not expect to win your “fair share” of the pot or find especially profitable opportunities. Awareness of your own range and focusing on equity denial as the way to make the most out of a bad situation are the keys to success after the flop. With such shallow stacks, your strongest hands may not feel strong, but you must recognize them for what they are and play them strongly. Failing to raise gives your opponent not only the opportunity to draw out on you but to outplay you on later streets. GTO Wizard the #1 App for Poker players Study any spot imaginable Practice by playing vs. GTO Analyze your hands with 1-click START CRUSHING NOW JOIN DISCORD Author Andrew Brokos Andrew Brokos has been a professional poker player, coach, and author for over 15 years. He co-hosts the Thinking Poker Podcast and is the author of the Play Optimal Poker books, among others. Latest article Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors It amazes me that, after nearly twenty years of playing no-limit hold ‘em professionally, I… How to Handle Loose-Passive Limpers Solver charts and presolved solutions do not offer much in the way of explicit guidance… Top 5 Mistakes in Spin & Gos As a Spin and Go poker coach, I regularly encounter common mistakes that players make,… An Introduction to Spin & Gos I was playing Tournaments for the first decade of my career. But after my first… Relationships and Poker In my more than 15 years of poker coaching, I’ve helped hundreds of clients improve… Do Multiple Sizes Matter? Should I work out the other tools or just stick to the crowbar? Solver results… The Science of Learning Applied to GTO Wizard The way we were taught to study in schools was flawed and has negatively impacted… Check-Raising a Single Pair In this article, I will address a question raised by Twitter/X user ’Matt Riley’, who… The Turn Probe Bet Imagine yourself defending as the BB caller vs BTN preflop raiser in a 100bb cash… When To Encourage Multiway Pots in PKOs I was recently shown this fascinating PKO hand from

for value in last position unless there is at least a 50 percent you will win the pot if you are called. If this is not the case, then check and hope for the best. Tip # 44 of 52 Call with a toss-up hand if someone else bets. You shouldn’t fold a toss-up hand on the river because, by definition, a toss-up hand is one that you feel has about a 50 percent chance of being good. Even if the pot is very small, you are getting the right price to call. In fact, there is really no situation in limit hold’em in which you should fold a toss-up hand on the river, as you should be getting a price of at least 3-to-1 or 4-to-1 on an even-money proposition. (This is called an overlay.) One of the worst mistakes you can make in hold’em is to fold the best hand on the river. If you play long enough, you will occasionally be guilty of this error. Don’t let it happen with your toss-up hands, though. With these hands, there is reasonable doubt, and whenever there is reasonable doubt, calling is far better than folding. If you start folding toss-up hands on the river in an attempt to protect your chips, you will have no chance of beating the game. Tip # 45 of 52 Playing a longshot hand on the river. Longshot hands are those you feel are highly unlikely to be the best on the river, based on both the value of your holding and the action in the hand. Typical longshot hands might include 9-9 when the board is K-Q-6-6-5, or Q-J when the board is A-J-T-9-6. When you are in last position and it has been checked to you, you should check as well. Although you don’t have a strong hand, you do have enough to show down. Thus, betting as a bluff is not a good option. Opponents who have your hand beat will call, and those who do not will fold. All that can happen is for you to lose a bet here. Just as in Tip 43, check, and hope that nobody has much. If another player has bet, you have a far more difficult decision to make. You can’t automatically call as you would with a toss-up hand, as you are beat here the vast majority of the time. Rather, you must determine whether the price you are receiving from the pot justifies your call. In a good number of cases, it is a close decision. If you never fold a winning hand here (that is, if you always call in these longshot situations), you are calling too often. The times you spend a bet “keeping them honest” will add up to more than what you win when your hand is good. However, by following the action and focusing on your opponents’ playing styles, you should make the right decision most of the time. Sometimes you reach what looks like a break-even situation; that is, the price the pot offers seems to match

General BB C-bet Defense Guidelines ♦ Avoid splitting your range early in the hand unless you have many strong hands you can distribute in a x/r and x/c range. ♦ Generally use large x/r bet-sizes against small c-bets, and small x/r sizes against large c- bets, except for against all-in bets that give a better risk:reward ratio. ♦ In general, flop x/r ranges are polarized, including made hands that are happy to get in vs a 3-bet and hands that are fine raise/folding. A losing proposition is to x/r good hands that are not good enough to get in on the flop while at the same time are too good to fold vs a raise. Think ahead and avoid putting yourself in tough spots. ♦ If your hand has a lot of equity but not too much showdown value, or if it is vulnerable to losing a lot of value in future streets, consider playing aggressively with the intention of getting the money in while your hand is still valuable. ♦ The deeper the stacks, the stronger the average hand you need to x/r the flop. Good draws that can be barreled across various streets increase in value. ♦ When a x/r is a possible strategy, always consider the blocker effects. A value hand that does not block the Villain’s continuing range makes a better x/r than one that does. For example, 44 on 9♥8♥4♥ makes a better x/r than 99. The opposite is true for bluffs. A bluff combo that blocks the Villain’s continuing range is more valuable than one that blocks the Villain’s bluff combos. If your hand blocks both bluffs and value, then try thinking about other variables that could sway your decision one way or the other. ♦ It is tough to x/c bottom pair across multiple streets, especially if the pair is small. Consider putting some of your bottom pairs in your flop x/r range. ♦ A-high and K-high are decent hands in many spots. Don’t be so quick to give up on them on the flop, especially if your opponent bets small. ♦ If your range has a lot of trash hands, you should fold a lot of it vs a c-bet, regardless of your opponent’s bet-size and the MDF. ♦ Don’t try to represent a small value range and hope your opponents will lay down a big hand. That just won’t happen often enough.

MORE PASSIVE There are a couple of reasons for this. First, players first to act tend to bet out more frequently than they should. They make too many defensivebets and they’re afraid of not getting in those river bets. Second, when I’m out of position against a player in the middle range of aggressiveness or one I’ve never faced before, I don’t like relying on an unknown entity to do my betting for me. I also don’t give unknown entities credit for being capable of bluff-raising on the river. So I’ll put him on the passive side of the spectrum and bet into him more liberally, rather than going for checkraises that Imight not get. Many players just check behind on the river and you’ve got to assume that that’s what will happen with any player until you get evidence to thecontrary. Against these unknowns, then, you have to lead bluff and lead for value. Okay, that’s playing the river and that’s pretty much it for the bulk of the book. We’ve got some odds and ends to get through and then we can all go play cards. Chapter 19 Other Matters Two Key Exercises Here are two easy and fun exercises that will break down the accretions in your poker thinking. The first one will get you more comfortable withraising, the second will get you more comfortable with bluffing—two skills you need to nail if you plan to succeed at this game. In the first exercise, I want you to play some one-table Sit-n-Go tournaments in the $5-$10 range (less and it’s not real poker; more and thelesson’s too expensive). When you play in these tournaments, Iwant you to pretend that you don’t have check or call buttons. For the duration of theSit-n-Go, your options are exclusively bet, raise, or fold. The only exception is when you’re in the blind. You can check in the big blind and limp in the small blind if the pot is unraised. Other than that, it’s raise or fold all the way, baby. The purposes of this exercise are to wean you from the habit of calling and limping too much, and to demonstrate how much pure power there is in the plain ol’ raise. Keep in mind that this is an exercise, not a strategy.As we’ve seen so many times in this book, on the flop, the call is king. However, if you have a choice between only calling or only raising, you’d be much better off with the latter; if you never bet or raise during a hand of poker, you can onlywin if you hold the best hand. You can’t beat the other players; hell, you couldn’t beat the rake. So think of this exercise as an opportunity to stretch your raising muscles and set your inner aggressor free. Since you know you’re not playing anoptimal strategy, you also know you won’t win, but that’s okay; you have a different goal right now. When there’s no expectation to win, there’s also no fear of failure, nor any fear of looking bad because,

third of the time, by making my straight or backdooring two pair or trips. A very interesting thing about that particular 7-6 hand is that I’d rather have it than a 9-8. The reason is that when you flop a straight with a 9-8, you’ll frequently find that somebody is on top of you. For example, when the flop comes Q-J-10, an A-K will have you nutted, and even a sucker who plays a K-9 will have you beat. I’ve flopped many a straight with a 9-8, but when a Q-J-10 falls, I’m always real cautious with the hand. Because people play the higher cards more frequently than the lower ones, you’re less likely to be in trouble if you flop a straight with a 7-6 than you would be with a 9-8. I’ll discuss the general category of small connecting cards in great detail a little later. As I previously noted, they’re one of my favorite hands. Double Belly-Buster Straight Another of my favorites is a hand where you can flop a two-way inside or double belly-buster straight. It’s one of the most deceptive hands there is, and I especially like it in no-limit. It has all the advantages of an open-end straight, but it’s not as easy to read. Because it’s so deceptive, I almost always raise with it when I can win a big pot. For example, say you have a Q-10 and the flop comes 341 A-J-8. As you can see, it’s very deceptive because you can make a straight with a 9 or a king. What’s more, if you catch a king and there’s someone with A-K in the pot with you, you can see all the trouble he’s in. Since double belly-busters are such good gambling hands, you might find the following quick rule of thumb useful: It’s possible to flop a double bellybuster with any two cards that are part of a straight, such as 7-6, 8-6, 9-6, and 10-6. Also, two cards with five gaps between them such as a Q-6 can also flop a double belly-buster draw. In the supplement at the end of this section you’ll find a complete rundown on all the hands that have double belly-buster potential. When you flop a double belly-buster draw, you should make careful note of which of your possible straights will be the nuts. For example, if you have a J-9 and the fall is K-10-7, both an 8 and a queen will make you a straight. However, only the 8 will give you the nuts. If a queen falls on fourth, someone with an A-J can beat your straight. So you must be careful— especially in no-limit play—and you must know how to read the board perfectly in order to recognize what hand is the absolute nuts. Practice at home until you don’t make a single mistake. You’ll learn quick enough if you get broke a few times with what you thought was the nuts but turned out to be only the second best hand. Look again at the example above. A player with

THE IMPORTANCE OF IMPLIED ODDS 25 even though you called as a big underdog, you could afford to gamble because you’d be adequately compensated if you got lucky.6 Avoid offering your opponents too high implied odds. Make sure that you bet or raise enough with your good hands so they can’t profit by playing for a longshot. How big a raise would be “enough?” Since the pocket jacks will flop a set (with no overset) one time in nine, if he raised an amount equal to one-eighth (offering you odds of 8-to-1) of your total possible win, calling would be break- even at best. Your total available win is $520, the $500 in your opponent’s stack and the $20 you already raised. (Remember, once you bet, the money is no longer yours.) So if he were to raise $65 $65 = $520 8 you could not possibly make any money with your jacks. To see that for sure, let’s play the hand nine times. Eight of those nine times, you will call the $65 raise, fail to flop a set (or flop a jack while he flops an ace), and fold to your opponent’s $170 (pot-sized) bet. That’s a loss of $520. $520 = (8)($65) The last time, you’d flop a jack, raise the potsized bet all-in, and (hopefully) get called for a total win of $520 (your opponent’s $500 plus your $20 raise). Actually, you wouldn’t even win the full $520 because sometimes your opponent will catch an ace on the turn or river and win instead. The bottom line is, if your opponent reraises only a small amount, you can call him, hoping to get lucky and bust him. If he reraises about $65 or more, though, there’s nothing you can do. You have to fold. Imperfect Information and Implied Odds The previous example was idealized because you knew exactly what your opponent had: pocket aces. You could play perfectly against him, always folding without the required implied odds and making the most when ahead. In that situation, the player with pocket aces had to raise a relatively large amount, $65 in a $40 pot, to protect himself from you. Real poker is played with hands facedown, though. If you have pocket jacks and all you know from your opponent’s reraise is that he has a “good” hand, but not necessarily pocket aces, then your situation is weaker. For instance, we said before that about one-ninth of the time you’ll flop a jack without him flopping an ace. But about one-one-hundredth of the time, 6When the stacks are deep, you also must know when to get away from hands on the turn and river to avoid offering too high implied odds. We discuss this idea in the next section.

spot where i'm going to be betting this hand this hand does not win at the showdown all that often which is a good reason to turn into a bluff if it also will win sometimes when it makes a very very strong hand so i definitely like betting the flop here and the opponent calls and notice when i'm betting here my range is going to be draws that want the opponent to fold but also the good made hands that don't really care if the opponent calls turns an ace the opponent checks we're definitely going to keep betting here even though the ace is not good for my hand it actually is not so bad for my range because if i had one of those strong hands already three of a kind or two pair i'm still pretty happy i'm just going to keep betting and if i have a draw some of those are going to be the ace high flush draw which is fine they just made top pair some of those are going to be maybe like ace two of spades that bet the flop and just made top pair as well so those want to keep betting so this is a nice spot to continue betting with our draws that also did not hit so we're gonna bet the turn here and if the opponent does call we're just probably going to keep betting the river with this hand the majority of the time so i like this scenario um that's a pretty nice spot that illustrates where we are going to have either a really good made hand or a draw and in those cases you just want to keep betting if we did bet with a hand like pocket tens or pocket kings on the flop i would probably check behind on the turn because now we went from a pretty strong maid hand on the flop to a marginal made hand and then we're going to fold if the opponent i'm sorry we're going to call if the opponent bets the river because now our hand looks much weaker than it actually is right you're going to find that whenever you do check behind on the turn with a marginal made hand the plan is often to call a river bet and do realize that whenever you bet the flop with a premium hand but the turn is quite bad for it it gets downgraded to a marginal hand and with your marginal hands you check right all right what about when it goes check check on a coordinated flop so now typically both players would bet with their best made hands in their draws if you raise in the caller is in position however if the caller is out of position they could still have their entire range right so realize that when the caller is in position that's going to result in it going check check on the turn a lot because both players are going to have mostly marginal

9. Combos and Blockers We've done some intermittent mathematical work throughout the manual so far. I've taught the two most essential procedures of calculating required equity and required fold equity, but I've thus far stayed clear of what's by far the most useful mathematical tool in poker: understanding how to use combos and blockers to aid decision making. We'll kick off by introducing the notion of the 'combo' and then move onto blockers later in the chapter. Before we learn how to apply combos to everyday poker thinking, it's important to memorise the three combo group types pre-flop and how many individual combos each one contains. Figure 47 - Hands and Combos Note that 8c8d is exactly the same combo as 8d8c. We only care about which two cards make up the starting hand, not the order in which they are dealt. There are 1326 possible combos that Hero can be

First thing first: Hero's RFE for a min open = 57% as in Hand 1.

How To Calculate Raises In Poker One of the most frequently asked questions in poker is how to calculate the size of a raise as a percentage of the pot. Fortunately, it’s a relatively straightforward calculation that can be done using a simple formula. Here’s how to do it. To calculate a raise as a percentage of the pot, follow these steps Determine the size of the pot if you had called the most recent bet or raise. Multiply that number by the percentage you want to raise. Add the previous bet or raise. For example, let’s say the small blind bets 2bb (33%) into a 6bb pot, and the big blind wants to make a half-pot raise (50%). Here’s how to calculate the raise: Calculate the total pot as if the big blind had called: 6 + 2 + 2 = 10bb Multiply by the percentage you want to raise: 10bb x 50% = 5bb Add the initial bet: 5bb + 2bb = 7bb Therefore, if the big blind raises to 7bb, they have raised 50% of the pot. Formulas Here are some General formulas to calculate raise sizes: Pot-sized raise: 100% Pot Raise = 3×Bet + Pot General formula: X% Pot Sized Raise = X% (2×Bet + Pot) + Bet Where “ Bet ” is defined as the last bet or raise that occurred, and “ Pot ” is defined as the size of the pot at the beginning of the street. In unopened pots, the BB is treated as the initial raiser, and the starting pot is the SB plus any extra money, such as antes . The Law of Raise Sizes An X% pot-sized raise should always lay the same pot odds as an X% pot-sized bet. To check your calculation, you can calculate your opponent’s pot odds facing the raise. A half-pot bet or raise should always yield pot odds of 3:1 or 25%. Checking the previous example: Villain needs to call: 7 – 2 = 5bb more Pot after they call is: 7 + 7 + 6 = 20bb Pot odds facing raise = amount to call / pot after they call = 5 / 20 = 25% Conversely, if you know the pot odds being laid, you can reverse-engineer the size of the previous bet or raise using this formula: Multipliers Some players estimate raise sizes by multiplying the size of the bet by a certain amount; this method is inconsistent with game theory. To lay the same odds, you need to use a much larger multiple against a small bet and a smaller multiple against a large bet. To simplify things, we’ve created a cheat sheet you can use. GTO Wizard the #1 App for Poker players Study any spot imaginable Practice by playing vs. GTO Analyze your hands with 1-click START CRUSHING NOW JOIN DISCORD Author Tombos21 Tom is a long time poker theory enthusiast, GTO Wizard coach and YouTuber, and author of the Daily Dose of GTO. Latest article Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors It amazes me that, after nearly

percent. If he bluffs 10 percent of the time, he is still a 2-to-l favorite to have his hand made when he bets. Since the pot is giving you better than 3-to-1 odds with the antes, you are forced to call, but you will lose that last bet two times out of three. So you clearly fare better when this opponent never bluffs (or, of course, bluffs way too much) than when he bluffs anywhere near correctly. Inducing and Stopping Bluffs 195 Suppose you are up against an opponent who usually bluffs correctly in hold 'em, and the following hand develops: Opponent Your opponent is first to act and he bets. You are worried about a flush or a straight, as well as other hands, but you are also worried about a possible bluff. Therefore, after he bets, you should raise with your two small pair. If he calls with, say, a pair of kings or a four-flush, he will certainly not try to bluff you out on the end. On the other hand, if he reraises or calls and then bets on the end, you should usually throw your hand away. You know you are beat since your opponent would be afraid to bluff you after you have suggested so much strength. You Board 196 Chapter Twenty Inducing and Stopping Bluffs 197 Inducing Bluffs When you are up against a player who bluffs too much, rather than stop his bluffs, you should usually induce one. Let's take an example similar to the draw poker example earlier. Once again as the dealer you open with two aces or even two queens, and an aggressive player who originally checked now calls. This player takes one card, and you're sure he's on the come. Since you want this player to bluff, you should go out of your way to take three cards, making it clear you're starting off with only one pair. Now if he bets, you call. Even if you've succeeded in increasing the player's tendency to bluff only slightly, you have gained by inducing a bluff. You have given yourself more winning chances when you call that last bet than you would have otherwise had. Just as you try to stop a bluff by representing strength, you try to induce a bluff by representing weakness. Let's say you have a high pair in the hole in hold 'em, and on fourth street the board is something like: You should check behind an opponent who checks if you want to induce him to bluff on the end. The only dangerous thing about this play is that you are giving your opponent a free card. If he has an ace, any ace on the end gives him the best hand. However, if he has a small pair, the odds are a long 21-to-l that he will improve to three-of-a-kind. Of course, if your opponent is slowplaying three 9s, you are already beat, and you save a bet. The question you must ask yourself is whether you want to bet on fourth street to avoid

Diagram 13: Average Response vs 3-bet (SB RFI not Included) Versus HJ 3-bet Since the HJ is playing a 3-bet or fold strategy vs the LJ, their range will be very linear and overlap considerably with the the LJ range. The LJ’s best response is to mostly defend by 4- betting to reduce their positional disadvantage by reducing the SPR and getting the HJ to fold some of their equity. Versus CO 3-bet Against the CO, you can 4-bet slightly wider than vs the HJ because the CO 3-bet range is slightly wider than the HJ 3-betting range. Also, you are happier getting all-in with JJ and TT pre-flop. Versus BN 3-bet The BN 3-bet range is more polarized than that of the HJ and CO because the BN has a small calling range, which means more hands in your range have the right equity to call the 3-bet. Your 4-betting range starts to get more polarized and middling hands like AQs, AJs and KQs get

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the EV of the imposition player is 8.12 8.12 on average the in position player is going to collect from this 14 big blind pot so he's getting you know a little over half pot share so the IP player has on average is going to get 8.12 big blinds back now I have the node locked SIM for what happens if we just bet three which is 20 pot at 100 frequency that's why all these boxes are red um UV of Ip 8.06 so it went from 8.12 to 8.06 foreign foreign this is point four percent posture that we're losing by just using the simplified strategy of betting 100 frequency for 20 sizing if you guys want to know how to do no locking yourself um I can just show you here let's just say we bet at calls turn this to two of Hearts this guy checks you just find the note of the tree that you want to that you want to lock um so I'm just going to lock this turn strategy so turn this is what the strategy looks like in GTO if you want to node lock and play around with it you would just go to set strategy set strategy and lock node you're in here and what you're trying to do is change this grid into different colors based on how you think that you are going to play or your opponent is going to play and you can do so by messing with these strategies right here there's one two three four five five different options here on the turn if you want to fix something and lock it you just click fixed let's just say uh we wanted to bet everything we're just going to fix fix a 100 percent large size bedding and then you can leave everything else as proportional but anything that's locked as fixed um will that's that's Auto locking a strategy and then if it's marked proportional that means that that strip strategy adjusts based on your fixed strategies so all of this all of these proportionals that are somewhat yellow right now all of those will turn pure gray because we have locked and we have fixed this grid here then you click on block all hands set strategy and close and then you just click go where you run this in so this is not only good for testing pure strategies on flops but it's also good for testing how you think your opponents are going to play so for instance I can go in on that flop and I could say I think my opponent is actually going to fold you know 35 percent instead of 40 percent and I think he's going to float with these ends you know maybe he's a maniac he's only going to fold let's say he's only going to fold 25 so I would go in and I would adjust the opponent's strategy facing my bet down to 25 lock it rerun the Sim and then

track data of any poker game on earth one of the things you'll find is that people fold about fifty percent of the time on the flop on average which makes a lot of sense because if you look at a typical calling range it's going to have high cards about exactly fifty percent of the time so it seems like people like to fold high cards especially out of position that makes a lot of sense I know I don't like calling with high cards out of position it seems like most people won't want to do that but typically once people hit the call button on the button on a hit the call button on the flop online or just call in real life they really don't like to fold if you are interested in this topic I would read the undoing project it's written by the same person who wrote Moneyball it's about the men who wrote Thinking Fast and Slow another terrific book what is fascinating to me guys is not that people are logical but that they are systematically irrational look at this spot again what do you think he's folding on the turn what happens when you see bet heads up you generally fold the high cards 50% fold to see that tends to be the statistics you you see many people fast play their two pairs are better to avoid drawers coming in and to build a pot they call with their pairs it's usually a that matches a card on the board comm unit or close so pay attention to this next part guys because this helped me range much better when I started playing poker or once I started making real money playing poker and it took me a really long time to get because flop Zilla didn't exist when I started so we had to do this all by pen and paper so it's really neat that this is available now now let's say in this board he calls you on the flop with anything better than a gutshot so we put little blue filters next to everything we think is calling out of the preflop calling range that we ascribed here for him out of the big blind and then we click this red button to green now look at the top of the screen this is very neat what flop Zilla does you highlight the part of the range that you want to learn more about in up top here it'll show you the statistics about that look at the top of this screen you see the combinations his calling range is 261 combinations six of those are any pocket pair in this case eight it represents 2% of the range however you'll notice the top pair combinations are 72 combos out of 261 are 27.6% this is a huge ranging mistake that many people make in their head because they think what do I think he has well he has a nine or Anna's like pocket eights or something