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because that's going to be natural variance that's going to happen during the course of a session and if you have a stop loss of two to three buy-ins you're going to be quitting your sessions way too early and missing out on plenty of opportunity so it's important to be comfortable with the usual variance of a session and the swings that are going to happen and setting a stop loss that's more rarely going to be instituted but going to be protecting you from really low quality play when it does this is why we don't keep all our money in one place this is why we don't bring the ATM card with us to the casino while we don't withdraw from the credit card because we don't want to be in a position that we can bust our entire bankroll on one session of really bad tilting really bad decision making this is why your pocket bankroll the money that you bring with you to the casino is separate from your total bankroll the money you leave at home or the money you leave in the bank this is why your bankroll online is not your bank account and why we have money that we can play with online versus money that's cashed out and protected and will require time to get back and play because that time in between is going to be the time to reset and check in and say oh I can make some better decisions than this let me check myself and let me get my head back on straight now quality of play is more important than the quantity of hands played in the previous video on the channel we talked about how to make a hundred thousand dollars a year that volume is important to getting results but it's not just about putting in the volume focusing on Purely getting volume can lead to a trap and that is because not all sessions are created equal if you could play 50 000 incredible hands of poker Planet your A game your best decision versus a hundred thousand hands of average quality poker you're probably going to make more money on the 50 000 high quality hands than you will on the hundred thousand average chance and if we start adding in bad quality hands in there you can imagine how that's going to affect things so the quality of your play and the quality of your opponent's plate is almost like a multiplier on your winnings per hand and that's how you can see that playing quality hands is worth a lot more than just playing quantity hands when you're playing well and you're in a good game you like to squeeze as much juice out of the situation as possible and that's where we're going to talk about the more conscious approach to quitting that's going to ensure that you can make the most of your sessions when you're playing well and you're in a good game so take a note

5. Value Betting Our goal in becoming proficient online poker players is not just to beat the other players. It's to beat the other players so badly that we're still earning money after the poker site has deducted the rake. While we strive to be better than the other Regs in our games, we must accept that the majority of the money we earn does not come from them. While we may break even against decent Regs post-rake due to our edge or even glean a small profit from them, most of our earnings come from the types of assorted Fish we met here in Chapter 3. If most of our money comes from Fish, then we need to make sure we're playing very well against these weaker players in order to make sure that we realise the full extent of this profit. Though some Fish bluff too much, open too many hands, fold to c-bets too much and more, the most mainstream Fish leak is calling too much. They put too much money in the pot with marginal hands and struggle to find the fold button when they should. Hero's job against players who don't fold is clearly not to bluff them, but to extract value when he has a better hand. In this chapter we'll be learning: What constitutes a value bet. When we have a sufficiently strong hand to value bet. When there's a need to build the pot. And where there might be better ways to obtain value than by betting. Though the primary use of good value betting is to maximise all that money from Fish, ensuring that we maximise value with good hands against Regs is also a crucial part of our win-rate in NLHE. V alue betting is a core enough skill to need coverage from this early point in the manual.

See... I said the math would be easy in this manual. We'll soon look at some examples relating to stealing wide from the BU, but first a word on sensible sizing. I'm going to recommend that vs Regs, Nits, semi-Nits, and anyone in between, Hero uses a 2x opening strategy unless he gains the read that one of the Regs in the blinds flats a lot (Nits won't do this by definition). Against Fish in the blinds or the more flat-happy type of Reg, Hero can revert to 2.5x, 3x or even more, depending on the severity of the caller and their post-flop tendencies. I won't be providing exact rules to blindly follow in this manual. I'm teaching how to play poker, not how to follow instructions. By now you should be skilled enough to make a good estimation as to when to up your sizing and by how much depending on the situation. There are plenty of hand examples in later chapters that also happen to provide models for assessing pre-flop sizing. Use these to solidify your skill in this respect as we move forward. Let's take our first example spot and have a go at applying our newly learned math skills. One more thing before we do though: there is an important HUD stat that can give Hero a lot of information about how often the opposition fold to steals. The third (green) number on the HUD in Hand 1 below stands for the stat: Fold vs BTN Open in Poker Tracker 4.

Loose To play a significantly wider range of hands than would be considered optimal in a certain situation. More subjectively speaking, someone can be considered "loose" when playing a number of hands considered more than the average for the game being played.

hey guys Lexi Gavin here and today we are going to talk about how to study poker so the game of poker is constantly evolving the pros are getting better every single day and in general the game's just getting tougher every single day so it's really really important to keep a structured study schedule make sure you're studying roughly between 50 of the time and playing 50 of the time and just making sure to slowly over time try and plug as many leaks as you can possibly plug in your game so let's jump right into the presentation here and talk about how to go about studying poker so I'm going to list for you a few techniques that I use if you're playing online you should be using a hand tracking system and going back and studying every hand that you've played now I know this seems tedious and a lot of work but really there aren't that many hands in a session that you you're playing for big pots so if you have a hand tracking system you can go and filter it by amount one and then you can go and study all of your hands that you've played a significant pot in so you can go about it doing that way I like to even study my pre-flop mistakes and so just to make sure that I'm not you know I don't have any leaks in my pre-flop game so I'll study hands that I've even folded pre-flop in if you you know find that that's overwhelming you can just start with the big hands and then slowly going into those tedious little pre-flop spots so that's one way to go about studying another way is when you're not in a hand so when you're playing at a table a live table or online you should be observing everything that's going on in the hand even if you're not in it so what I like to do is I like to watch I like to try and make reads on my opponents when I'm uh just sitting back and I like to try and put people on ranges this is a really really good effective tool to to use that'll help you get better at reading hands and reading your opponents so when you're paying attention when you're on your phone and not paying attention you're missing out on uh reads from your opponents you're missing out on showdowns that you should be taking note of you're missing you know sometimes people will show their cards if they've made a big Bluff and if you're in your phone or not paying attention then you're gonna miss on those spots and those spots add up that they can really help increase your win rate if you are watching all of the action at the table so I know it's hard and I know it's easy to get distracted in poker but what try and you know do use that as an exercise when you're not in the

game but that is not the case when you're playing at a final table because again you really don't want to get it in in marginal spots and when you do defend with the King four offit and you plop A Pair of Kings or even a pair of fours and you get it all in and your opponent calls it's not good right it's marginal so look at this bizarre range again this is something almost no one does or even knows notice this the pairs are all shoving which makes sense good Ace X is shoving which makes sense the best suited high card hands make sense asex suited makes sense but look at these kind of seemingly random suited connected Queens Jacks and 109 suited almost no one jams those and that's a mistake this is why you have to study these scenarios a ton to figure out general rules and heris sixs for common scenarios you're likely to be in all right let's go back to um same scenario but let's now presume under the gun folds okay big stack stack folds notice by the way the big stack is Raising quite wide but not any two cards some big Stacks think they supposed to raise any two cards that is definitely not the case let's presume the cut off with 30 big blinds is in this scenario notice again 30 big blinds deep they're still folding out small Pairs and basically every suited connector hands like 87 suited are just bad they're just bad in this spot let's presume they fold now over to the button with 15 big lines this is a spot where I think this shoving range is pretty logical they are men raising with a very polarized range right this makes a lot of sense they're men raising sevens and better A8 suited and better then been raising a bunch of junk mostly were blockers again notice 87 suited 76 suited 65 suited are not playable let's say they fold and now take a look at this small blind strategy this is when the small blind has 45 big blinds and the big blind has 20 Okay small blind has 45 big blind has 20 and there's a 15 big blind stack at the table look at how wide this Allin range is this is a ridiculously wide Allin range consisting with a ton of suited hands acex blockers King X blockers Queen X blockers jackx blockers 10x blockers super super super duper wide all-in strategy in this scenario because the big blind has to be very very tight can magnify this even more let's take a look at this scario here we have 25 in the hijack 30 on the cut off 10 on the button 40 in the small blind 15 in the big blind I can already tell you whenever they fold around to the small blind here they are going to be playing hyper aggressive because they have 40 the big blind has 15 and there's a 10 big

total of eight cards. So of the 46 cards remaining in the deck that he hasn't seen, eight fill his straight and 38 miss. His odds are 38-to-8 against, or somewhat over 4.5-to-1. In this case I don't need to bet quite as much. A bet of just half the pot gives him 3-to-l calling odds, less than he needs even taking his future implied odds into account. When the Bad Card Hits You're playing a solid hand, and you believe your opponent is on a draw. On fifth street, a card hits which either puts three flush cards on the board, or seems to help a hand drawing at a straight. Your opponent bets. What do you do? There are no easy answers to questions like this, but here are a few guidelines. 1. If he's betting at two or more people, fold. It's just too likely that one of you is going to call him, and he knows that, so his bet represents real strength. 2. If he is a known bluffer, call. Sometimes he'll have the hand he's representing, and you'll feel stupid. But you'll pick off enough bluffs to make the call a profitable play. 3. If he's not a known bluffer, be sure to check the pot odds. With odds of 1 -to-1 or 1.5-to-1, you should tend to fold. With odds better than 2-to-l, you should tend to call. 159 Don't Make a Bet that Can't Make You Money A common beginner's error is making a bet on the end that can't show a profit, because it will be called only by a hand that can beat you. You need to be alert to the difference between making a value bet on the end, which has a good chance of showing a profit, and making a bet which has no upside but a huge downside. Study these two examples carefully. Example No. 1: 1. You hold Q♠J♠ before the flop and make a raise from late position. The button calls you. 2. The flop comes Q♦7♣2♥, and you make another bet. Again you get called. 3. Fourth street is the 6♠. Again you bet, and again you get called. 4. Fifth street is the K♦. Should you bet? Answer: The answer is yes. There are no straight or flush possibilities, but your opponent has been calling throughout the hand. He has some sort of hand, but you don't know exactly what. The king almost certainly didn't help him. If he had two kings or king-queen in his hand you were beaten anyway, and if he had K-x his calls didn't make sense because he had too few outs. He's probably been calling with a worse queen or lower pair that you have beaten, so give him a chance to put in a little more money on the end. Example No. 2. 1. You hold Q♦ J♣ before the flop and make a raise from late position. As before, the button calls you. 2. The flop comes Q♠7♣6♥, and you make another bet. Again you get called.

the money in general as the big stack you can play more aggressively on the bubble in spots where your medium and short stacked opponents are highly incentivized to not go broke as a medium and short stacks though you usually want to make a point to get in the money especially when you start to get kind of close to the money and when you're really near the money you should be making gigantic extreme drastic adjustments that most people don't make one time in I think it was EPT Monte Carlo a long time ago I think we were on day three and in the middle of day three we're gonna get in the money but for whatever reason one player was not there and he had been blinding out and he had one big blind left he was going to literally be out of the tournament on the next hand when he took his big blind so everyone's in the money except for this guy all you have to do is fold a hand take a hand off and you get in the money but for whatever reason at one of the other tables two players decided to get it all in for 40 big blinds each one with Queens one with Ace King they just decided to RAM and jam it in there and one of them lost and bubbled and that player who was not even there who had one big blind who was out of the tournament next hand won a minimum cash for something like 15 000 Euros that was a blunder for those two players with Ace King because they just handed that player 15 000 Euros essentially right and that is a big big mistake so when you're really near the bubble you're gonna find that sometimes the adjustments you need to make are extreme now look studying and analyzing bubble scenarios was actually really difficult because it depends on how many chips everyone has in the tournament because imagine you're playing with let's say 20 people left and 19 get in the money if one of the players has one big blind that's going to play very differently than if the shortest stack has 25 big lines right and so that makes setting these Bots super duper tough but these General tips here are going to go a long way to ensuring when you have a short or medium sack you don't get yourself in too much trouble and if you know as a big sack you usually do want to be applying small amounts of aggression usually not all end aggression because if your opponent wants to put their money in you are dead right um so usually gonna be using a lot more small bets but you're gonna be playing more aggressively in general want to take a look at a spot say we are in a situation on the stone bubble of a tournament okay Stone bubble means the next person out gets nothing everybody else gets something big

Stack oh man sticky situation for monsman here big pay jumps does make the call it's a flip he needs to hold here no Ace no Jack not going to be the run out Bond's been wanted but uh strong call there he's going to be our fourth place finisher taking him 445 621.86 the chip dumping talks are off the tables and uh just a few minutes ago while conferno was saying that monsman had found his best friend on the final table turns out that was probably not the case man I'm excited we got some three-handed play here a lot of a lot of play left in these Stacks you know almost 40 effective all around and uh we're playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars between some very experienced players against interest blocked from search but one of the ogs of pokerstar has been around forever to jonik with uh 10 000 games played smaller average stake of only 60 but uh large winnings seven figures and welcome Inferno kind of our mystery man who only had 51 games average stake of 2 000 but clearly no fear playing high stakes poker here I mean with an average blind of 2000 clearly the man capable and comfortable and we've seen him really playing in a fashion that would uh reflect that bringing out an overbed here on the turn probably targeting exactly this kind of hand definitely getting three to four trying to put pressure on a king here even a weak Ace it's gonna be feeling a little uncomfortable Centaurus makes the call is welcome Inferno going to go for the Kamikaze triple barrel with nine High had no draw on the Flop did not improve to any draw on the turn just had absolutely nothing but maybe a range Advantage button versus big blind will he go for it here what puts into us in a very tough spot I I do not think that sinterest could call here and wow welcome Inferno triple barreling with six nine suited nine High absolutely nothing putting centaurs to the test wow what a play just using the range advantage awkward spot for sinterest you beat the Mist backdoor flush draws um you just don't be very much though and a great play by welcome Inferno right when we were talking about how he was not afraid to do battle seems very comfortable playing for these high stakes shows us exactly why he's able to do that triple barely with nine High knowing he has a range Advantage knowing his opponent is kind of capped in his range and knowing that his opponent is very much interested in this 230 thousand dollar pay jump probably not wanting a hero call off with the worst hand so wow great play there for welcome Inferno don't try that one at Home Folks uh welcome Inferno with threes here if it was 20 effective I think we just see a shove for 40 effective not sure since her ass with Queens strong

outdrawn so this is a pretty good spot to check retract button bet small they blind calls now if you consider what a small betting range looks like in a calling range looks like most players have pretty good equity at least some Equity right and now this is a spot where we're going to want to check raise I realize a lot of people may have difficulty finding Bluffs in these scenarios but you should go for Bluffs every once in a while especially as a small betting range gets weaker and weaker hands-like gut shots especially blocking Ace Queen Ace track and Ace 10 for your opponent are going to be pretty good ones to go for this with I think backdoor flush draw is probably pretty good too with those blockers you want to have a gut shot to check raise here we're only check raising for value with a pretty strong range so we're not we don't need to be check raise bluffing all that often so we need to go for the raise to 8 000. full fold we win the pot a lot of people look at this and say oh well we didn't stack our opponents we also didn't get outdrawn and we didn't let them see the turn in the river which is good for us eight four Suited LoJack raises small blind calls we call remember again you cannot be folding suited hands we looked at this spot close to specifically flop comes Jack eight seven check check We're Not Gonna lead in this scenario because if you think about the LoJack range and the small blind range they're both gonna have lots of straights sets two pairs so no point in leading in the spot LoJack bets 2500 a third pot small blind calls what should we do take a second think about it fold we are going to be so dominated in this scenario even if we get a four we could still lose if we get it eight we could still lose get out of the way and move on with your life a pair is not all that great multi-way when multiple people put money in the pot LoJack raises king queen off suit maybe we three bet sometimes we're gonna call s King Jack eight check check nice Dynamic board we are going to bet you're gonna find in position you often want to use like smallish bet sizes just in general I'd realize this board is very dynamic in position though we don't really care if people stick around we bet small be blind calls only now we're playing like a heads up pot right big blind checks and we're definitely gonna bet here our hand is almost always good but vulnerable right words very draw heavy I do realize we could be crushed right now but I think the opponent will put their money in with stuff like King Jack Queen Jack draws so yeah it's a dicey scenario if our opponent wants to play for

average stack is 60BBs, and we are the BTN with 44BBs. In this first example , this is the table set-up: As you can see, the BTN is covered by both blinds when folded to them. This is the BTN’s opening range and the EV of every hand in the range: Now let’s look at this very similar spot , here is the table set-up: As mentioned most of the details are the same, but in this example, the BTN covers the Small Blind . This is their opening range and the EV of each hand in the range: The first thing to note is that the BTN can play more hands , 51.6% of hands here, compared to 45.5% in the previous example. The other thing to pay attention to is that, across the board, every hand is more profitable when the BTN covers their opponents. In some cases the difference is massive. This is just one simple example but it already shows us a lot. The chance to win a bounty makes every hand you play more profitable . Covering people is very important in PKOs and it is sometimes worth the risk to put yourself in the position to win bounties. AA makes 2.58BBs when the BTN covers, but only 2.45BBs when they don’t. That 0.13BB difference is a 13 BB/100 difference over the long term. A weaker hand like A3s only makes 0.12BBs in the covered example, but makes 0.17BBs when the BTN covers. That 0.5BB difference is smaller than the difference between Pocket Aces in the two spots, but it is a 41.67% increase in the profitability of this specific hand. The art and science of PKO table management In this example, we have 50% of the field remaining and the average stack is 50BBs. As you can see, the SB is in poll position with 82BBs, as is the BTN is near to them with 74BBs. We also have some shorter players between 18-34BBs. This is reflected in the Bubble Factors: As we discussed earlier, PKOs are the only format where Bubble Factors are often below one. The lowest Bubble Factor here is when the SB is facing an all-in pot vs the short stacked UTG1, it is 0.72 meaning they only need 42% equity to get it in against them. The highest Bubble Factor is when the BTN with 74BBs is facing an all-in decision against the SB with 82BBs. The Bubble Factor is 1.13, meaning they would need 53% equity – still very wide compared to regular MTTs, but the BTN needs a much stronger range to take on the SB. The consensus opinion here would probably be that it’s optimal for everyone to avoid pots against the players who cover them, and try to get into pots when they are the coverer. You can win bounties against the players shorter than you; you cannot against the players who have more chips than you. This is where we are seeing the limitations of using ICM, Bubble Factors, and Bounty Power as guiding strategic principles.

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 tricky;, there’s no getting around that.… How and Why You Should Use Turn

hands very often. In fact, against weak opposition, it is best to almost always raise with them, since the deception you are trying to gain by just calling won't do you much good anyway. On the other hand, if the game is tight and most players respect your raise, be more inclined to limp with the big suited connectors. Again, these hands play well in multiway pots. You may also occasionally limp with AA or KK. The time to do this would be when your early position raises are not getting any callers. If raised, you would frequently, but not always reraise. (However, if you are heads-up and are raised we suggest that you usually just call with aces or kings to add deception against your one opponent. Then plan to raise on fourth street.) In addition, be less inclined to limp with two kings as opposed to two aces. This is because with a pair of kings, an overcard - the ace - can come on the flop, while no overcards can come to a pair of aces. The First Two Cards: Early Position 23 Finally, ifno one has yet called, raise approximately one-third of the time with a hand like as long as the game is typical or tough. This is mainly for deception purposes. Again, keep in mind how strong your competition is. If you are in a game full of extremely weak opponents, it is generally best to simply call with these hands. That is, in a game where most of your opponents are going to come anyway, this play will lose its value. By the way, if you call with a large suited connector and are raised, go ahead and reraise with AKs and possibly with AQs. In addition, if a lot of people are in the pot, you sometimes can reraise with a hand like: The reason for this last raise requires some explanation and will be better understood after you get further into the book. Basically, you are making the pot larger so that if you get a flop you like, such as two flush cards of the appropriate suit, then more of your opponents will be encouraged to stay for one or two more cards with as little as one overcard. Let's return to loose games. Keep in mind that some hands, such as 24 Part One: The First Two Cards play well against many opponents. If there are usually a lot of callers but not much raising, these types of hands become playable in early position. However, overplaying these hands up front - and most players do just that - can get you into trouble. Make sure that the requirement of loose and passive is met. Again, if you are not sure, it is usually best to pass on th'ese hands in an early position. The same is true of small pairs such as: They can be played from an early position providing that you are sure that you will get a multiway pot. However, they can stand a little more action than

only capturing 25% of the EV of the pot), we still raise at a 25% frequency. At a high stack-to-pot ratio, middling equity hands tend to play passively. At a low stack-to-pot ratio, we bet and or raise more medium hands to deny equity from villain’s overcards. Thus, middling value hands have higher valor at a lower stack-to-pot ratio . Wrapping Up Valor is the ability to make the best hand and value bet future streets . Nut potential correlates with valor: the stronger the draw equity, the more likely we will bet a hand; a flush draw is higher valor than a backdoor flush draw, which is higher valor than a hand without either. High valor hands fight for pots by betting or raising often, while low valor hands play more passively. High valor hands also tend to over-realize their equity. Utilize macro analysis (looking at ranges, position, and stack-to-pot ratio) to help you shift your view of valor . Having a stronger range increases the valor of each individual hand in your range. Being IP allows you to realize equity much more effectively, which allows you to continue more often. You can stack off much wider at low SPRs, which decreases the threshold of what is high valor. Valor is extremely helpful in figuring out how much money to put into the pot . High valor hands put money in more frequently and for larger sizings than lower valor hands. Strong value hands, like top pair good kicker or better, and strong draws, like combo draws or flush draws, are high valor. Weaker SDV hands without many outs to improve tend to be lower valor. Valor is the way to take aggressive action to turn equity into EV . 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 Elijah I’m a midstakes player and coach with a passion for learning and teaching poker theory and exploitation, with a particular emphasis on preflop. 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

and play reasonable ranges for that bet-size. The bigger the bet-size, the fewer hands you can play profitably. If you decide to open to 3bb, you are forced to play a tighter range than if you decide to open for a min-raise, otherwise you will lose money with the bottom of your range. The sweet spot for RFI bet-size seems to be somewhere between 2bb and 2.5bb from BN to UTG, and 2.5bb to 3.5bb in blind vs blind battles. I recommend min-raising when stack depths are in the rejam region (less than 25bb) for two main reasons: ♦ Raise-folding from a short stack is quite expensive and you don’t want to overcommit yourself. For example, if you raise to 3x from UTG with 10bb and the BB goes all-in, you will need to call 7bb to play for a 14.6bb pot. Getting better than 2-to-1 pot odds, you will be committed to call off with any two cards in your reasonable raising range. If you instead min-raised, you would have to call 8bb into a 13.6bb pot, getting 1.7-to-1 pot odds, which allows you to fold the worst hands in your range. ♦ One of the main weapons players have when facing open raises with shallow stacks is to rejam all-in and, against bigger raise sizings, the Villains will get a better price on their rejams. For example, if you are in the CO and open to 2.5x with a 20bb effective stack, the BB has to risk 19bb to win 5.125bb. This bet needs to work of the time. If instead you open to 2x, this bet needs to work Your 3-bet and squeeze sizings will vary according to the player’s position and stack depth as shown in Tables 43 and 44.

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 part of tournament play. With… Playing Limped Pots as the BB in MTTs Success as the BB in limped pots begins before the flop. The BB’s equilibrium strategy… The Absurd Game Theory of Chopped Boards A “chopped board” in poker is one where the community cards make up the best… Playing Limped Pots as the SB in MTTs MTT confrontations between the small blind and big blind force no-limit players into uncomfortable situations,… The Art of Learning Poker In his book The Art of Learning, chess and Push Hands champion Josh Waitzkin describes… Is Donk Betting for Donkeys? “Donk betting”, or betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor… Delayed C-Betting This is a companion 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:

choice in seats getting direct position on the spot is ideal picking up that Jesus seat and the more spots on a table the more those recreational players the more sub 100 big blind Stacks High vpip players the better position on all of them is best in a perfect world you have three of them lined up and you get positioned right after them that's ideal but we take what we can get worst case if you get on a good game but you can't get a good seat you can always move seats once you sit so don't worry about always being perfect it's better to be on a good table in a bad seat than to not be on a table at all and the one thing to consider when you're deciding if you want to try to move seats is if there's a lot of volume on the site if the wait list is long it's not worth getting up off the table because your seat is going to get taken if it's a time in the day or in the evening where there aren't a lot of players online and there are no people on the wait list then if a seat opens up that has better position you can consider leaving the table to reseat for the better position but always check if there's a wait list before you do that move because it is a bit of a gamble it is a bit of a Gambit and sometimes in doing so you can see your seat get scooped up and now you're sitting on the sidelines on the rail waiting to get back on that table remember it's better to have a sub-optimal seat in a good game than to wait for the perfect seat and end up in no game at all and likewise when you're starting your session it's better to get for me I would rather wait to get on good games to start my session I'd rather take 10 minutes doing game selection than just fire it up but for some people they prefer to get in the rhythm of playing so it's better to get on a couple tables if you can while you're going through game selection uh the one thing I think is important to mention is that just jumping on all the games that are available and not wait list in anything and not kind of organizing your tables and decide how many tables you want to play before is going to cost you in the long run because you won't be maximizing your expected value by just optimizing your table setup number of tables best tables and best positions anyway that's all I have to say on that topic for today I hope you enjoyed this video and I hope you learned a thing or two if you did please hit that like button to let me know that you found this content valuable and useful if you want to watch more videos like this check

position. Obviously, you’re betting into this untextured board on the flop. Given that you’ll continuation bet most of your misses, you’ll sure bet when you hit. If you get raised, stop and think about what your opponent could have. Would he raise with AA? 99? 33? Almost definitely not. Poker players are greedy bastards and there’s no way he’ll raise you out of the pot. A player holding such a monster will flat-call, and rightly so, to try to keep you on the hook. So the raise actually tells you that you probably have the better hand. Re-raise. Calling is a problem, because you’re out of position. Onthe turn, if you check after calling the raise on the flop, you probably won’t get a bet behind you and if you bet out on the turn, you won’t get playedwith unless you’re beat. So just re-raise on the flop. At least that gives your opponent a chance to lay down a better hand than yours. It’s not like AQ or AK has an easy call there. So play in a way that gives you some fold equity. Once you call the flop, you lose easy options for the turn, since you just gave your hand away. If you continuation bet the flop and get flat-called, which you often will, check on the turn. Why? See it from the other guy’s point of view. You knowthat if you were in position with a weaker hand like this and your opponent bet the turn, you’d mostly raise, right? So if you’re out of position, a bet on the turn opens you up to exactly the kind of play that you yourself would make. Don’t fall into the very trap you spring when you can. Remember, you don’t know if you’re way ahead or way behind. If you’re way ahead against a hand like AJ or worse, you don’t want to surrender apot that’s rightfully yours. But if you’re way behind, against a hand like AK or better, you don’t want to lose more than you have to. When you bet on the turn in this type of situation, you open yourself up to a big raise that could be a bluff or a better hand and you just don’t know. All you do know is that you bet the flop on a dry board and got called and now you’re facing a scary raise on the turn that’s almost always going to trigger a fold fromyou. So don’t invite that disaster. Keep the pot small when you’re out of position and in doubt. You don’t have to worry too much about projecting weakness. After all, you’re not folding if he bets. So you might as well just check the turn. If it’s checked back, bet the river. But if he bets for you, now it gets interesting. You can go for a check-raise. Remember, in position holding one pair against a player who checks to you on the turn, it’s really important that you check back and close the action down; you want to avoid

The aggregate EV of BN’s exploitative strategy (moving all-in with 100% hands) is: 1.2228 chips from a 15 chip pot, this being 8% of the pot (Hand Range 20). Counter Exploitation MES is calculated vs an opponent’s fixed strategy, but an adaptive opponent can modify their strategy to a new strategy that is in turn maximally exploitative vs your own MES, improving their expectation.

Hand Range 223: BN vs LJ 4-bet (40bb) • Call 50.3% / • Fold 49.7%

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 part of tournament play. With… Playing Limped Pots as the BB in MTTs Success as the BB in limped pots begins before the flop. The BB’s equilibrium strategy… The Absurd Game Theory of Chopped Boards A “chopped board” in poker is one where the community cards make up the best… Playing Limped Pots as the SB in MTTs MTT confrontations between the small blind and big blind force no-limit players into uncomfortable situations,… The Art of Learning Poker In his book The Art of Learning, chess and Push Hands champion Josh Waitzkin describes… Is Donk Betting for Donkeys? “Donk betting”, or betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor… Delayed C-Betting This is a companion 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

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 Analyze Turn Textures In Poker Master the art of turn analysis in poker. Understand how the turn card changes the… Principles of Turn Strategy Learn the principles of turn strategy in poker and discover what makes the turn unique.… Poker Strategies: Tournaments vs. Cash Games Tournament poker is not as different from cash game poker as people sometimes assume. Most… How Solvers Work A Game Theory Optimal solver is an algorithm that calculates the best possible poker strategy.… The Most Powerful Play in Poker The central strategic implication of stack depth is the question of how much equity a… When does ICM become significant in MTTs? The Independent Chip Model (ICM) was invented in 1987 by M. Malmuth and is one… How to Study GTO Solutions Tools like GTO Wizard and other solvers should not be used to memorize specific strategies.… Principles of GTO Game theory, or GTO (for Game Theoretically Optimal), is best understood not as a rigid… Interpreting Equity Distributions GTO Wizard’s range vs range equity distribution graphs are an excellent tool for visualizing which… What is Leverage in poker? Leverage refers to the risk of future betting. When you call a bet on the… Reasons for value betting in poker You’re probably accustomed to thinking of bets as either value or bluff. In this taxonomy,… The Science of Poker Performance Poker is a game of small edges and big swings. Every hand is an investment… What is Valor in poker? Can a poker hand be courageous? How does your ability to value bet future streets… Pot Geometry “Pot Geometry” refers to betting an equal fraction of the pot on each street, such… A Beginner’s Guide to Poker Combinatorics Combinatorics is a fancy term for evaluating the number of possible “combinations” (combos) of any… Stack-to-pot ratio Stack-to-pot ratio, or SPR, is a way of measuring how deep the effective stack is… Equity Realization In poker jargon, equity expresses how much of the pot a hand will win, on… Variance and Bankroll Management Variance and Bankroll Management. Vital Soft Skills for Every Poker Player. How to Become a GTO Wizard Welcome to the wonderful world of game theory optimal poker! This article will serve as… The Three Laws of Indifference Indifference in poker is one of the most misunderstood concepts. The word “indifference” means that… Poker subsets and abstractions An “abstraction” is a way 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

so in unbalanced ways, favoring “obvious” betting candidates such as vulnerable pairs. You can exploit these bets either by respecting their strength and folding your own weaker hands and/or by putting them to the test with shoves. More importantly, you can exploit their overly weak checks with frequent, small bets just as you would with small c-bets in an SRP. 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 Navigating Nasty Rivers Out of Position Playing out of position (OOP) is hard. It’s fundamentally disadvantageous to act on each street… Crack the Shell of Nut Draw Strategy Nut draws hold obvious appeal as betting and raising candidates. They benefit from fold equity,… 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 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

the first time i'd recommend or if you're new to the game i'd recommend these plays to exploit your opponents they're easy to implement limp jam 20 to 30 x or uh more from the small blind jam 14 to 22 xx more with big hands these players love to gamble and raise weak small donk leads frequently they're likely bluffs now if someone does do a weak small donk lead and then they call when you raise fairly quickly what is that guys a lot of the times that's a weak pair so if your hand on the turn you run into something that's a lot better than a lot of the weaker hairs on that board a lot of the weaker pairs on that board don't be afraid to charge them and get some money from them continuing we have pocket tens here now i think most of you are raising this so we'll skip past that part of the test and villain 19 calls you here now the board comes queen 10 4 villain 9 checks to you here here would you like to check or bet 10 seconds time is up if you did want to bet here how much did you want to bet the right idea here is to bet larger now we bet larger here and he folds how does that make you feel most people do not want to do large bets because it's more fun to show down our hands we feel superior when we get to show down a big hand doing a really big bet and everybody folds that doesn't feel great but you got to think of it within the term of percentages so let's say what does villain 19 likely continue with well micro six players if they flop a pair they pretty much always continue and when they miss the board they fold too much and this is a board where if you add a random aci you're not that excited about it because it's fairly coordinated but if this person has a queen or a 10 or even a four they're probably calling the first bat regardless of what you put out there so if you could bet many people would bet one third pot here 800 let's say you get called there 100 of the time which is not true okay so let's say you bet 800 there but you get called 100 of the time so your expectation is 800 but let's say if you bet 1575 you get called there 90 of the time 80 of the time it's still going to out earn the bet that succeeds 100 of the time on average it's just you're gonna have to deal with it when you fire your set pretty big and the person folds and then yeah the peanut gallery would always tell you oh man you fired too big you shouldn't have done that but what they don't see is now look i'm i i play against a lot of weak players that

How To Negotiate Final Table Deals Most people’s first introduction to the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is not from studying bubble play or endgame ranges; it is their first time making a big final table. This is when deal-making is proposed, and ICM is first introduced. Understanding ICM is particularly important when making final table deals , and making an error in this department can be very costly. Why Make A Deal At Final Tables? ICM was first introduced to poker to negotiate final table deals. It began life as the Mason-Harville Formula in 1987. David Harville created a model for making horse racing predictions in 1973, and Mason Malmuth adapted it for final table deals. The model would estimate how likely each remaining player was to finish in every position based on the percentage of chips they had. The chances of each player coming 1st was the percentage of total chips they held, but every other position was much more complex to calculate. Only much later in the modern poker era was ICM used to guide strategic decisions. There are lots of excellent reasons to deal at a final table, including: To save time by not playing the final table at all To guarantee a specific prize amount To guarantee you win the trophy To reduce variance The final reason is at the core of why most people deal. We make deals to reduce variance when we reach big final tables. There are opportunities in poker that don’t come around very often, like if you make a final table with many runners and/or you qualified via a satellite . You don’t know when you’ll make the next 5,000+ runner final table. If third place prize money would double your bankroll, get you out of makeup, allow you to move up stakes, pay for a house or otherwise change your life positively, there is no need to needlessly subject your current equity to variance. If you are happy with the prize, there is no such thing as a bad deal, but when you understand the mechanics of final table deals, you put yourself in a better position to negotiate for your own self-interest. Chip Chop Deals A Chip Chop deal simply takes the remaining prize pool and awards money to the players based on the percentage of chips they have . As you can imagine, a Chip Chop deal is usually the one proposed by the chip leader . Let’s look at an example to highlight this type of deal. Below is a final table of five players, their chips, and what their prize would be if they maintained the position they are currently in: There are two ways to potentially Chip Chop, the first one is literally just to take the remaining prize pool and split it between the players based on their chip stacks. There is $23,300 remaining in the prize pool. Chopping it up that way would look like this: You can probably spot the immediate issue with this type of deal. Not only has Bob managed to secure

the betting lead away from the previous street’s aggressor–on the flop is rarely… How Stack Sizes Change Your Range In this series, we have looked at factors that can influence ranges in otherwise identical… How to Leverage GTO Wizard’s EV Comparison Tool With the advent of solvers, some troubling new turns of phrase have entered the poker… Should You Ever Cold Call a 3-Bet? When there’s been a raise and re-raise before the 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

you invariably have to commit all your chips soon after registering. Players do not like having to come in at 20BBs where they cannot enjoy a big edge, and they certainly do not like the likelihood they will be all-in very quickly because of the low SPR. There is a frequency bias in place here. When you come in late at a shallow stack depth, you will be out of the tournament a lot in your first level of play. That doesn’t mean it is unprofitable; it is just the nature of tournaments and the fast pace of the endgame period. Indeed, you cannot exploit weak players as well with 20BBs as you could 100BBs, but there is an advantage in playing the shallower stack depth. It is much easier to play shallow stack depths because of the low SPR. If you make a pair you usually have to go with it, and you are less likely to get outplayed off a hand. If there are many good regulars in a tournament, they have less of an advantage over you, and if you play many tables, your decisions are easier. Generally speaking, you can play a wider range of hands with shallower stack depths. More hands become profitable because you have less tournament equity at risk, and any pot won is a big portion of your stack. Shortstacks generally experience less ICM pressure than mid-stacks (except on the bubble). This is a 10BB ChipEV opening range for the CO. This is a 7BB opening range from the same position. This is a 5BB range from the CO. As you can see, the range gets wider, not tighter, as CO’s stack shrinks . More hands become profitable the shallower the stack depth, because the money already in the middle of the pot is becoming a larger percentage of the CO’s stack. Winning the pot would add 25% to the CO’s stack in the first example, but it would add 50% in the final example. There is also more shoving as the stacks get shallower, which confirms what we have already said about shallow stacks being easier to play. This toy game example is not perfect or 100% replicable in every scenario, but it illustrates the broad point. Some deeper stack depths have wider ranges because more speculative hands like suited connectors become more profitable. These examples don’t factor in ICM either, which is significant at the end of late registration. Sometimes that can widen a range even further because the short-stacked player can leverage fold equity from the bigger stacks (a medium-stacked player is less inclined to call a short-stack shove because of the fear of a bigger stack waking up with something behind them). Another benefit of late registration is the boost it gives your hourly rate . If you can shave two hours off a tournament, that is going to be an immediate improvement to your hourly rate. This also means you can play more tournaments overall. As counterintuitive as it sounds, late registering for a tournament and busting right away

Table 12: Comparing MinES EV and MES EV Of course, the MinES EV gain is not nearly as good as the MES EV gain (Table 12) but the extra $0.25 per hand, or $25/100 that MinES yields, is unexploitable and there is nothing Villain can do to prevent you from getting that edge unless he fixes his leak by internally reducing his value of X. MinES can be calculated using modern GTO solvers, and unlike MES you don’t need to know Villain’s entire strategy. All you need is to assume a specific leak, lock that leak in Villain’s strategy in the solver (allow Villain to play optimally everywhere else) and try to compensate for the observed leak later on. This way, the solver will produce an exploitative solution accounting for the leak but also for the best possible counter-adjustments that Villain can make. By doing so, you will yield a lower EV than MES while protecting yourself from counter-exploitation. Also, MinES adjustments are small and more difficult to spot by the Villain, so you can keep exploiting them far longer before they realize what you are doing if they are even capable of doing so. Finally, in the event Villain reverts to the real equilibrium, you must do so as well, otherwise you would start losing EV. The Two sub-types of MinES ♦ Reactive MinES: This type of exploitation adjusts your strategy only after you have observed the leak happen in the actual hand. For example, if you knew Villain overfolds to c-bets, you would c-bet with an equilibrium strategy and then adjust the turn and river

six combos each of those um I think a decent chunk of those are betting the turn um that was like 30 combos half of which I think bet the turn so like 15 combos of over pairs you were nine he's gonna have a ton of 9x right he's gonna have 12 combos of Ace nine 12 combos King Nine twelve commas Queen nine twelve combos of Jack nine half of which bet the turn so value range let's just say is River value range is around 80 to 100 combos come back here very very rough very very rough math so 80 to 100 combos of uh just call it 100 combos of value on the river we only have to be good one in three times when we make the call so he needs to come up with roughly 50 combos of Bluffs 60 combos of Bluffs for us to break even so let's let's look at all the possible uh Bluffs that he could could use here there's 16 combos of 10 Jack 16 combos of uh Queen 10 16 combos of King 10. 16 combos of King Queens 16 combos of King Jack 16 combos of Queen Jack he has I don't think he's turning asex into a bluff he has all those five six suited eight ten Suited Jack eight Queen eight King eight Suited four or five Suited so if we only have to be good here one in three times and he roughly has a hundred value combos that are betting this River um you know things are looking quite favorable for a call on this specific run out um you know I would hero call here much wider than GTO would suggest and then there are boards and situations uh where I would call much tighter than GTO suggests um so I think you can you know point being here is if you do the analysis and you look at all the different combinations of hands that he could get to this River in the spot especially if it's an aggressive cut off you can print a lot of money here by Hero calling quite wide like even any ace high whereas if the board is something like king queen Jack and he bet that bets you know you can start folding second pair or top pair to some opponents um because of the cut off what the cutoffs range looks like and his bet aggression um and the amount of possible Bluffs he could have on rivers on a board of king queen Jack versus nine nine seven seven so hopefully that all makes sense um the next slide so more combo uh counting the hijack races pre-flop we defend the big blind with Queen for uh Suited let's look at this Sim on this one this is a hydrax range pre-flop it's going to be 29 of hands or 400 combos as for Queen X that he's going to have he's going to be raising as wide as Queen six Suited

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EV. P1 EV: Where: C = probability of P2 calling P2 EV: Where: AA% = probability of P1 having AA QQ% = probability of P1 having QQ At equilibrium P1 must be indifferent to betting or checking with QQ: P2 should also be indifferent to calling or folding with KK and, as we proved before, P1 will always bet his AA, so:

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just too likely to chase the small blind away. 107 Doesn't this violate our principle of trying to play aces against just a single opponent? No, it doesn't. If the two opponents have very different stack sizes, you're not really facing two different players. As long as you win the large side pot against the big stack, you'll show a nice profit in the hand, regardless of how well you do in the main pot against the small stack. Action: You actually go all-in. The small blind folds, and the big blind calls for his last $80. The big blind turns over K♥K♠, and your aces hold up to win the pot. If the small blind had stayed around, he might have beaten you. But you need to accumulate chips sometime, and what better time to go up against a big stack than when you have aces? Hand 5-10 Situation: Halfway through a one-table satellite. Player D looks like a strong player. Player E has been wild. Your hand: Q♠Q♣ Action to you: You are first to act. Question: How much do you raise? Answer: You should certainly raise with Q♠Q♣ in first position. The only question is: How much? With aces or kings, a good raise is $120, twice the big blind. It's a significant bet, but not so large that it discourages action. You welcome action with hands that strong. With queens, it's a little different. Now you're not so eager for action. If players call you with ace-x or king-x and an ace or king flops, you're in big trouble. So you've got to cut down the number of drawing hands, and that means you're going to bet more with queens, to make the pot less interesting to anyone on a draw. You want to bet three to four times the big blind here - perhaps $180 to $220. Anyone who wants to get into the pot against your queens has to pay for the privilege. Action: You in fact raise to only $120. Players B and C fold. Player D raises to $180. Player E calls the $180. The blinds fold. Question: What do you do now? Answer: This is a great result for you, particularly with your small chip count. You should now move all-in for your last $760. You're a favorite against ace-king, and only aces and kings have you beaten. Against all other hands you're a huge favorite. Player E is very loose, so even an allin bet might get a call from his presumably weak hand. If Player D calls you, he'll show down a 108 strong hand. One last point - you're still in bad position versus the other two players. An all-in bet neutralizes your positional disadvantage. Action: You put in another $200, raising the other players $140. They both call you. The pot is now $1,050. Flop: 7♠3♠2♠ Question: What's your move now? Answer: Now it's clear to go all-in. The flop was good for you. If your opponents called with two high cards, they didn't get helped. Your Q♠ gives

declines to bet the flop and turn, BB still has a high checking frequency on most rivers. Once the flop comes AK8 , BB simply should not put too much money into the pot no matter what happens on later streets. Favorable action and runouts can improve their prospects at the margins, but their strategy always entails a lot of checking and folding. Less Favorable Flops Flops that do not favor the preflop raiser are uncommon, but they are also the flops the raiser checks most often. On 6 ♥ 5 ♦ 4 ♦ , for example, equity is split almost exactly 50-50 between the LJ and BB, with the BB enjoying the nuts advantage. Consequently, the LJ rarely continuation bets, and their checking range contains more weak hands simply because they have more weak hands on flops that do not connect well with their Broadway-heavy range. How BB plays the turn depends heavily on which card comes, far more so than on the static AK8 flop. When small cards turn, they enjoy a significant range advantage and can bet liberally , including with marginal pairs that benefit from denying equity to the many overcards in LJ’s range. When big cards turn, LJ’s equity improves and BB’s strategy looks more like it did on the AK8 board, betting a more polar range at a lower frequency : BB’s threshold for betting on, say, a 9s turn is much lower than for betting any turn on the AK8 board. They can bet any pair for value and protection , and they can bluff with no-pair , no-draw hands, which still have some equity when called thanks to their pair outs. Their checks are mostly Ace-high, which has some showdown value , rather than very weak hands, which are simply giving up. Conclusion The preflop action and the cards on the flop establish strong baselines for how much equity each player is likely to have. The actions each player takes and the cards that come on later streets do not reinvent the wheel; a player with a big equity advantage on the flop does not lose that advantage simply because of one bad turn card or a “weak” action like checking. A player with a big equity advantage on the flop simply holds many more strong hands than their opponent. A player with a big equity advantage on the flop simply holds many more strong hands than their opponent. That means they can and should spread those strong hands across their ranges, so that even though they are incentivized to bet their strongest hands, they still have plenty of reasonably strong hands to check. On flops where the equity is distributed more evenly, correct strategy on later streets depends more heavily on the action and finally community cards. A check from the preflop raiser is a condensing action, making nutty hands less likely for them. Thus, it is usually correct for their opponent to do some amount of polar betting on the next street with their newfound nuts advantage . Whether they also get

Hand Range 173: BB vs UTG (40bb) • 3-bet 5.8% / • Call 49.1% / • Fold 45%

many low equity hands in like nine deuce of spades has eleven percent equity nine six of Spades has fourteen percent you know six deuce of spades 13% ace five off all these ace five combos have like under thirty percent equity so the key point I'm trying to say is big blind has a lot of garbage in position doesn't have much garbage and that leads to that 61 percent range advantage that MP has that we referred to last week so what we're gonna do today is we're gonna look at four different turn cards so we have this King eight four board with two clubs and we're gonna look at four different turn cards so we're gonna look at a complete brick so the deuce of spades we're gonna look at a pair card and well first actually we're gonna look at the low flush completer so the three of clubs the high flush completer the ace of clubs we're gonna look at the pairing cards so when the like an eight comes and it pairs the board and we're gonna look at the straight completer there should be an R there the straight completer so the seven hearts when the gut shot straight draw guts there on the flop what we're gonna do on each card is talk about how the equities change in how range compositions change on each card and we'll be using the range Explorer on each card just to see how the range is the range compositions change and this will kind of also serve as a slight introduction on effective use of Payoh solver and how you can use it in kind of a non-technical way to learn these range compositions and equities and there will be some participation on each card before I show you the slide and before we look into it I'll be asking you how you think the equities are gonna change how the range compositions have changed so I want you guys when I ask that go ahead and pop your answers in the chat check your answers and if you're watching this on the replay you know pause before I could go onto the next side when I asked the question go ahead and pause it take a minute or two think about how you think the equities are gonna change and try to you know check your work see where you're wrong why you were wrong or if you got it right excuse me so flop plays pretty simple like it's a lot easier to find equities on the flop and then on the turn it gets it's a lot Messier so this might get a little complicated it might you know stick with it and the key part here is just still I know different turn cards affect the range interaction first though we're gonna do a quick you know we're gonna set up this flop the flop scenario so just so we know what the ranges are going into the turn so we need

or lost whether it be a showdown or upon a fold so unlike equity which focuses on the raw value of a hand eevee focuses on the relative value of each available action for a hand and takes into account all possible chance elements and future bets and folds going back to our example we see that although ace of spades seven of diamonds has much higher equity compared to jack of clubs ten of hearts this combo actually has significantly greater average ev because with both the backdoor flush draw and backdoor straight draw it has a better chance of realizing or even over realizing its equity since in addition to making a weak pair it has a chance to improve on many turn cards and make a very strong hand and win a bunch of chips on the number of rivers whereas ace of spades seven of diamonds has a much lower probability of making a very strong hand and even if it pairs its ace it will often be dominated and end up losing a lot of chips so although unlike equity ev is expressed in chips and not as a percentage and therefore it's more difficult to compare evs across different scenarios since ev tells us the average number of chips we should expect to win when taking an action when we make decisions at the felt we should always be striving to take the actions that we estimate have the highest ev making it the most important metric in poker and this brings us to the third concept for this video which is eb regret now you won't find evie regret defined in any literature on game theory or in any google search because it's a concept that we created to help simplify learning gto strategies the genesis of ev regret was born from the struggles that i personally went through to learn gto given poker's enormous complexity i knew that if i wanted to master gto i would have to learn it incrementally so i focused primarily on my biggest gaps in knowledge first which were the spots where there were major inconsistencies between the strategies that i thought were optimal and the strategies that were actually optimal as calculated by the solver and since ev is the most important metric in poker i used it as the primary measuring stick to assess the degree of this deviation if my strategies in a spot resulted in very large ev losses compared to gto i would pay special attention to the spot in an effort to understand why the solver was using a different strategy and then refine my logic accordingly however my strategies led to an error that resulted in a relatively small led loss i would typically focus much less attention on the spot because i knew there would be plenty of other areas that i could study and gain more ev which would be a much more efficient use of my time right often the strategies determined by the solver are the result of

you shouldn’t overlook. Limping and folding to a raise can play a role in your overall strategy

trying the more expensive check-raise bluff. It’s risky to be sure, but perhaps it’s also wiser as well. Because many players are much more likely to fold to a check-raise than to a mere bet. In fact, I (David) have sometimes seen players go for the check-raise bluff even in situations where they knew that a bet out bluffwould probably work.

We know that P1 should always bet with AA, but what about QQ? Let’s analyse. Pure Strategy A: P1 Bluffs QQ All the Time P2’s EV when P1 always bluffs his QQ: (P2 wins the pot half the time when P1 is bluffing and loses the pot half the time when P1 has AA) We already know that P2’s EV in this game should be $25, so the P2 strategy of bluffing with QQ all of the time is suboptimal because it gives P2 a higher payoff ($50) than his real expectation ($25). Pure Strategy B: P1 never bluffs QQ If P1 never bluffs with QQ, P2 has no reason to ever call with KK because he would always lose. In that case, P1 would bet his AA and never get called, and whenever he has QQ, the hand will get checked down and P2’s KK will win at showdown. With this strategy, P2’s EV is: Again, this line offers P2 a higher payoff than his real expectation. Player1 Solution We know that P2 will never bet KK, so the only way P1 can get value with AA is by betting, but if P1 never bluffs with QQ, calling with KK would be -EV, meaning P2 should always fold. If P1 always bluffs with QQ, P2’s call with KK would be +EV, meaning he should always call. We need to find P1’s optimal bluffing frequency so that P2 doesn’t make money calling with KK but, at the same time, doesn’t lose money. In other words, P1 needs to make P2 indifferent to calling or folding:

Nosebleeds A slang poker term that refers to very high stakes.

two aces or kings when there’s a flush draw on the flop. In that case, I wouldn’t be eager to get all my money in. A man with a flush draw could also have an overcard, such as an ace or king. If he did, it would make his hand almost as strong as my Q-Q, as opposed to two aces or two kings against only a flush draw, either of which would be about a 9 to 5 favorite. If you keep these differences in mind and make the right adjustments to your play, your approach with two queens on the flop, fourth, and fifth should be similar to your approach with aces or kings. In fact, you can play all pairs in the pocket in very much the same way, as you’ll see. Pairs Other Than Aces, Kings, and Queens I’m going to refer to all the pairs from jacks down to deuces as small pairs, except when I name a particular pair. However, it should be obvious that the bigger the pair, the more valuable it is. And that principle extends all the way down to the very small pairs. That is, a pair of fours is better than a pair of treys for the simple reason that when the flop is 4-3-2, if someone flopped three fours he’d be a huge favorite, about 22 to 1, over someone who flopped three treys. Furthermore, I mentally separate a pair of jacks, tens, or nines from the other 385 small pairs and play them a little stronger. I do it simply because they are bigger pairs, and it’s not unusual for three rags to fall. If that happens, you’ll have an overpair. But if you’ve got two fives or two sixes, it’s likely that the flop will have at least one overcard. And with an overcard out there, your hand is kind of dead, so you don’t want to get too much money involved. Again, the higher the pair, the better, but I play them all as if they are small pairs. Before the flop, with any of the small pairs except jacks, tens, and nines, I’d limp in. If somebody raised it from an early or middle position, I’d call it. I wouldn’t reraise. I’d almost always take a flop with any small pair, hoping to flop a set so I could break somebody. With a pair of jacks, tens, or nines, if somebody raised from an early position, I’d probably just call. But if it was raised from a middle or late position, I might reraise if I felt the raiser was weak. The reason I might do that is because the probability is good I’ll have an overpair on the flop. In that case, I’d play nines, tens, and jacks just like I’d play two queens. The same strategy would apply. However, I want to note a special exception I’d make in a very unusual situation. One of the reasons I like to play the small pairs from any position is because they give me an opportunity

These are AQ (12), AJ (12), and then ATs (3). That's the balanced strategy solved for. AT and above is a call and everything below is a fold. Hero is unexploitable. Bluffing for Villain is 0EV and so doing it too much or too little makes no difference to either player in this one hand (though it may hurt Villain long-term if Hero notices.) Final Disclaimer: most lower stakes populations, in the experience of myself and my students, do not triple barrel these high dry boards anywhere near enough to be balanced and so the best strategy in reality is likely to overfold our range. Maybe we can fold everything but AQ and that strategy will turn out to be higher long-term EV than the balanced one we just created. So often, our job as poker players is to maximise EV by finding the right spots to deviate from balance and to what extent. Let's consider a few of examples to round off the chapter. Compare the following two situations:

Hand Range 82: BB vs BN Open • 3-bet 13.4% / • Call 43.4% / • Fold 43.2%

a hand at least as good as that to play. You've got it, but just barely, so you should play, but you shouldn't get that excited about your hand yet. It's a nice hand, but not a great one. In limit poker, you would frequently fold ace-queen in this position. At no-limit, position is far more important than at limit, since it carries the possibility of winning someone's entire stack, rather than just a couple of bets. Your good position lets you call here. Action: You call. The button and the small blind fold, and the big blind calls $30. The pot is now $195. Flop: T♠T♥9♣ Action: The big blind checks, and Player A bets $100. What's your play? Answer: Fold. Here's an example of the sandwich effect in action. You've missed the flop, but his bet of half the pot could be a standard continuation bet. If you were the only two players in the pot, a call could be justified. But now there's still another player to act behind you, and that's too much. Don't be seduced by the fact that the big blind only checked. Sure, he might be weak, but players who flop a set usually check as well. You can't assume a player is out of the pot until he's really out of it. Action: You actually call, and the big blind folds. The pot is now $395. Fourth Street: J♣ Action: Player A checks. You have an open-ended straight draw, and think you might be able to steal the pot. Should you try to steal, and if you say "yes, " should you bet $200 or go all-in for $540? Answer: You shouldn't try to steal here, but it's not a hopeless play. A better approach would be just to take a free card, and see if you can make a hand. So far you've committed only $160, and if you can get out of the hand without investing any more, you still have a shot (albeit not a great one) at the tournament. A steal attempt could end up in your being knocked out right here. If you really wanted to steal, you should probably put in $200 instead of $540. If your opponent has nothing, either bet should chase him away. If he raises you all-in after you bet $200, you can decide then what you want to do. Going all-in simply robs you of some flexibility with no real upside. Action: You in fact go all-in, and Player A calls. He turns over J♦J♠, and you're dead to his full house. His check on fourth street was just a trap. There's one more technical point to note about this hand. If you had bet $200, your opponent would have had a choice with his lock hand - put you all-in right away, or call and hope to get the last $340 out of you on fifth street. The latter play looks more clever and sophisticated, but it's actually just an elementary blunder. With the board showing jack-ten-nine and two clubs, he should

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ADJUSTING TO LOOSE GAMES AND PLAYERS 124 Loosen Up If a loose player has entered the pot in front of you, then you should seek to play sort of like the dangerous player described earlier (although for a different reason). You too should play a lot of pots while the bets are still small, hoping to catch the advantage later in the hand and win big on the turn and river. For instance, say you are playing with at least relatively deep stacks (more than 100 times the big blind), and a loose player (passive or aggressive) limps in from early position. If everyone folds to you on or near the button, you can play a wide array of hands, including holdings as weak as: 2♣2♡, 9♣8♠, T♠7♠, A♣5♡. The better you play after the flop, the wider the range of hands you can play. Raise your better hands for value as well as sometimes the weak ones to balance. If the blinds are somewhat tough, raise a little more often to isolate the bad player. For example, say you are playing $1–$2 with $300 stacks, and a loose and passive player limps in. Everyone folds to you one offthe button with the J♣T♠. You should definitely play, and sometimes you should raise to about $8 or $10, particularly when the blinds play fairly well and are likely to fold. Your goal is to see the flop relatively cheaply (though not necessarily as cheaply as possible) and hope a profitable scenario arises after the flop. If the loose player raises preflop, particularly if the player is loose and ag- gressive (raising with a wide range of hands), you can call on the button with a similarly wide range of hands, though you should fold some of the weakest hands you would play against a limper. For example, you are playing $1–$2 with $300 stacks, and a loose and ag- gressive player makes it $10 to go. If you are on the button, you should consider calling with hands like Q♡T♡, K♠8♠, A♢J♣, and 5♢3♢. Big Preflop Pots for Big Pairs When you have a big pair before the flop, usually you should be happy to get all-in preflop against a weaker hand. If you have Q♡Q♠and your opponent will call an all-in bet with hands like 8♢8♣, A♣T♣, or J♠T♠, you should virtually always try to get the money in as soon as possible.35 With deep stacks against a tough player, however, you shouldn’t just move in with pocket queens. Why? Tough players usually won’t call you without at least pocket kings. For instance, you are playing $5–$10 with $3,000 stacks. A tough opponent opens for $30, and you reraise to $100. He reraises to $300. You would be daft to move in for $2,700 more. You’ll get called only by pocket aces (or maybe 35We say “virtually always” because it’s theoretically possible that you’d be better off waiting to see the flop (or even turn or river) before you get the money in. It’s really only theoretically possible, though; in practice,

it so you always call them really light and by balancing your range you make it much harder to play against you yeah and so i promise we talk a little bit about the golden ratio and this is what the golden ratio is so again it's based on the mathematics of we make a bet size we lay odds to our opponent and therefore there's a certain frequency uh at which they're supposed to call based on the odds they're getting and they have to win a certain percentage of the time so we balance our value to bluff ratio to ensure that we're just kind of meeting that exact mark yeah so example let's say we bet full pot lay our opponent two to one odds they need to show down a winner 33 of the time and therefore if we have two value hands and one bluff they're gonna win that one time we're bluffing and they're gonna lose the two two thirds of the time that we're value betting so we just hit that exact mark um if we that's half pot and lay them three to one they need to win a quarter of the time so we want to have the goods three quarters of the time and if we bet you know an eighth of the pot we want to have it ninety percent of the time so this is a chart that's worth knowing uh only thing to note on the value to bluff ratio is that um in the case of like two-thirds pot and a three-quarter pot one and a half x-pot and more i i rounded up the numbers two whole numbers because when you're choosing your combinations of hands you can't exactly you know have two and a third combos so to balance that out i just rounded up so we have whole numbers and you can just balance your combos accordingly so this is a really handy chart to have when designing your ranges with the bet sizes that you choose so this makes your opponent indifferent to calling with bluff catchers and whenever they fold you win the entire pot um so we we looked in the previous presentations about kind of the break even success rate for various bets and then this the golden ratio is how you can allocate your hands accordingly so that even when you do get called you're getting the best of it i hope that one if that makes sense main thing grab the chart save it it'll come in handy later and as you practice building ranges these things will click they'll make more and more sense now we talked about how to balance our ranges now when you don't need to balance your range is when you're playing against non-optimal opponents which is 99 of players and probably why ed miller's book was called poker's one percent not two or five percent so how to adjust first thing to do is categorize your opponents and their tendencies with it being

opponent. In these situations, as well as virtually all hold’em hands, the most difficult street to play is the turn. Hey, no one said this was going to be easy! If your opponent check-raises you on the flop, that’s a different story all together. In this case, your opponent most likely has better than you, but there are still a few hands you can beat. Depending on the opponent, you might be up against nothing more than a pair of deuces! Again, your decision on what to do here and on the turn depends on your read of your opponent and the situation. As a general rule, you should rarely try to isolate somebody who has raised or called from early position. Here’s why: unless you’re facing an extremely weak or wild player, you can assume that anyone entering a pot from such a dangerous position probably holds an extremely strong hand—and why would you want to isolate a hand like that? Against an early position raiser, the chances are just too good that your opponent has a big pair, making the odds of outdrawing him more than 4 to 1 against you. Even if it’s not a big pair, your opponent might still be holding A-K or A-Q, hands that he might be willing to go to the river with. This means that you are less likely to win the pot right on the flop when they miss. It’s also less likely that they are raising with suited connectors and such, hands you could move them off of on the flop. General Hand Selection Advice for Late Position 115 Your starting requirements in late position should be wide, to say the least! Play all of the premium hands, of course, all the hands I mentioned for middle position, and—in the right situations—some offsuited connectors. Here are some more guidelines and basic principals to consider when you are in late position: (1) If no one has entered the pot in front of you, you should raise, as there is a decent enough chance that no one will call the raise. (2) If there are several limpers in front of you and you are holding a weaker hand, you can go ahead and limp in. In fact, with hands like 10-9 or 9-8 suited, you might even want to raise from time to time—not because you think you have the best hand, but because it adds a little deception to your play and at little cost. With these types of drawing hands, playing larger pots with multiway action is going to be a profitable decision, not to mention the fact that your pre-flop raise might earn you a free card on the flop. This might give you an opportunity to pick up a draw on the turn if you didn’t already flop one. If you did flop a draw, you might be able to pick up a free card on the turn! Huh? Well let’s say you do flop a draw and bet it from last position. If you miss the draw on

common type of situation, which illustrates this necessity.

of bonus factor to make a call, for example, if Villain played fit-or-fold post-flop, Hero would win more than his fair share of pots compensating for the reverse implied odds and equity disadvantage. There is also the distinct possibility that a player behind will elect to squeeze and not even being able to see the flop will hurt us massively. We'll cover this idea in detail as the chapter progresses. Hero folds Now we're talking. These hands have 53%, 50% and 46% equity vs. Villain's range, but like I say, equity is far from the full story. KQs has 2% less than AJo, but the connectivity and suitedness of the former more than make up for this. Being able to flop strong draws more often will yield an advantage and compensate for some reverse implied odds. These hands can be called here given Villain's range is wide enough for them to be in good shape on a lot of flops. When we flop top pair, Villain can flop some weaker top pairs. If we tightened Villain's range to 6%, they'd quickly become folds again. Hero calls 3BB. If the last hands were in good enough shape to call here, then clearly these are too. The question becomes: should Hero 3-bet these for value instead? We'll deal with this fully in Chapter 10 but let's look at this question briefly as a prelude. Recall that the important factor here is whether we think Villain is continuing with enough worse hands for our 3-bet to be for value. If Villain is calling a wide range to 3-bets out of position then, yes, these hands will do better as value 3-bets. In most cases though, against a solid looking Reg opening from UTG, a 3-bet is likely to fold out too many of his weaker holdings and leave us in a situation where getting 4-bet is very uncomfortable and where our hand won't be doing so well should Villain continue. If Villain folds an average of 60% of his opening range to a 3-bet here, we will have only 47% equity with AKo and 50% with QQ when he continues. Against his opening range, however, these hands are doing very well with 58% and 67% equity respectively. The default play here is to call vs an UTG open from the average Reg, but notice that these hands

THE CONCEPTS 173 outdrew you. If you think you’ll have trouble getting away from aces if they are beaten, then you should raise to protect yourself. But if you can play them well after the flop in a limped pot, occasionally “deep limping” with aces can be a solid weapon. Concept No. 21: Sometimes you can try for a deep check-raise with the nuts (or close to it). Similar to the deep limp with aces, you can some- times try a deep check-raise with the nuts (or close to it) after the flop in a limped pot. For instance, you flop a small set in a multiway pot, and several players check to you. You can sometimes check as well, hoping someone behind you bets and gets a call or two. Concept No. 22: Ace-king is a powerful “move-in” hand, and fre- quently moving in preflop is by far the best play with it. Ace-king has some peculiar properties that make it particularly well-suited to all-in moves preflop. Ace-king is the favorite against any non-pair hand, only a slight dog against all pairs through queens, a moderate dog against kings, and a huge dog . only against aces. Thus, the only hand it truly “fears” is pocket aces, and the fact that you hold one ace cuts the chances an opponent has pocket aces roughly in half. Also, ace-king doesn’t play particularly well out of position after the flop with deep stacks, especially in multiway pots. In a multiway pot, it’s almost a total loss if it misses the flop. And even if it spikes a pair, it can be a tricky hand to play correctly out of position against several players, any of whom could either have a solid draw or have flopped big. Because ace-king is unlikely to be in big trouble preflop, but often has limited value after the flop, it’s often best by far to make a big preflop reraise with it. For instance, say you are playing $2–$5 with $400 stacks. An early position player makes it $25, and three players call. You have A♡K♠in the big blind. There’s $105 in the pot, and you have $395 left. Your best play is likely to move in, all $395. You are betting $395 to win $105, so you are laying slightly less than 4-to-1. Most of the time, you’ll pick up the pot. The original raiser, especially if she’s somewhat aggressive, is a significant underdog to have pocket aces or kings. Each successive caller is even more unlikely to have either of those hands. Sometimes you’ll get called by a hand weaker than aces or kings, but that isn’t so bad. You’ll be, at worst, a small underdog, and the $100 in the pot will more than compensate you for taking slightly the worst of it for your stack. You’ll win the $100 in the pot (or your share of it if you get called) often enough to risk running into aces or kings. Against observant, thinking opponents, however, you might have a problem. The problem is that

Uncapped A range that includes the strongest hands. See: Capped.

This concept is easier to understand with an example. Example You are playing the WSOP ME and on the first hand of the first level with 50,000 chips at 75/150 (333bb deep) it is folded to the SB, a crazy guy, who goes all-in without looking at his cards. You are in the BB and look down to J8o. Would you call? J8o is ahead of a random hand, having 51.48% equity. Calling makes 10.9bb per hand, so is worth 1,090bb/100. Analyzing the spot from a cEV perspective, it should be an easy call because folding is 0bb EV. However, it should be obvious to most people that you cannot call off with J8o in this spot even if it is a +cEV play, but why is that? If you wait for a premium hand such as AA next time the crazy dude shoves, you will make +235bb per hand or 23,500bb/100. So, there is a lot of value in waiting for better spots. While this is clearly an extreme example and you have to figure out how often a better spot will come up, it serves the purpose of illustrating the EV of future hands. The EV of Gaining a Higher Payout This concept is straightforward. Avoiding losing all your chips in a tournament has the potential to gain you a higher payout because other players may get eliminated before you. So, there is value in folding and staying alive, hoping for other players to bust. This is quite different from cash games where the EV of folding is always 0. The main issue with these factors is that they are not easy to quantify. This is why mathematical models (algorithms) such as the Independent Chip Model (ICM) and Future Game Simulation (FGS) were developed. The Independent Chip Model (ICM) In a cash game if you double your starting stack, you double your money, but in a tournament, the number of chips and their monetary value are not directly correlated. Let’s see an example. Example You are playing a 10-person $10 buy-in SNG with a total prize pool of $100. Only the top three players will be paid, with first getting $50, second $30 and third $20. For simplicity, there is no rake. At the beginning of the SNG, each player is given 1,000 chips and they are worth $10. If you bust before getting into the money, you lose $10, and if you win the tournament, you end up with

get a check-raise in. Since there was an early position raiser, it’s likely he’ll bet this flop whether or not he has the ace. By check raising, you’ll be able to trap anyone who called on the flop. Of course, this is not the only way to play this hand, but it is certainly the best or the second-best way to go. Your other option would be to lead right into the pre-flop raiser, hoping that he raises you with a weaker ace, thus giving you the opportunity to make it three bets. What method you choose will once again depend on those variables we’ve discussed: table image, your opponents’ tendencies, history, and so on. Let’s move you to late position with this same hand and same flop, but this time, only you and an early position raiser remain. Holding A? K?, you decide to smooth call here, because you know your opponent is a tight player who only raises with premium hands. The flop comes A? 4? 9?, and your opponent bets into you. There is a chance he also has A-K or even A-A, but it’s more likely that he holds a hand like A-Q, A-J, or maybe K-K, Q-Q, or JJ. Since this is such a safe flop, smooth calling on the flop might just work. If your opponent bets the turn, you can go ahead and raise him now that the bet has doubled. What if he checks the turn? Well, there goes the raise-the-turn plan. This is another good illustration of the importance of aggressive play on the flops. Against most opponents, the raise the turn play will only work when your opponent actually flop an ace as well. If he doesn’t, he may be leery of your call on the flop and decide to shut down on the turn. So the raise-the-turn play has some merit, but I recommend using it simply as a variation play 125 against an opponent that may be getting a line on your play. Otherwise, you should play these flops in a straightforward manner. Dangerous Flops. A dangerous flop for top pair is one that puts your hand in jeopardy due to the presence of a straight or flush draw. Depending how high your top pair is, you have to consider the added risk of an overcard hitting the turn. Obviously, more flops are dangerous to a hand like 8-8 than to a hand like A-A. For this reason, if you are holding 8-8 or the like, it’s extremely important to narrow the field on the flop by playing aggressively, hoping your opponents won’t draw out to overcards. You should be aggressive with the A-A hand as well, but for different reasons. With A-A, your goal is to get more money in the pot. Let’s look at an example. You are on the button with the 8-10 of hearts. You limp in, as do two other players. The small blind also calls, making it a fiveway action pot. The flop comes 8? 4? 3?, and all check to you. You should

14 GTO River Strategies Setting up a River Abstract Model River Abstract Models Linear Distributions Practical Applications Final Word ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have met so many people throughout my life and poker career who have helped and guided me in some way that unfortunately, I won’t be able to acknowledge them all. First, I want to thank Alex Carr and his staking group Pocarr for giving me the opportunity to start playing online multi-table tournaments (MTTs). Pocarr started backing me when I couldn’t beat $11 MTTs and assisted me all the way up to playing $10,000 buy-in world championship events. They believed in me, offered me staking and gave me access to world-class coaching when I was no one, and that is something I’ll never forget. When I was playing $22 MTTs I was very fortunate to get a private coaching session with Jon Van Fleet. In that first session we connected immediately. At the time I was working on my first “GTO ranges”. Jon liked my ideas and invited me to listen in on his GTO study group, a group that included top tier players such as Stephen Chidwick and Elio Fox. At that time, they were studying Will Tipton’s Expert Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em, gathering weekly to go over the concepts in a time before GTO had gotten into the mainstream MTT realm and well before modern-day solvers existed. They made me part of the group despite the fact I was many levels below them, giving me the opportunity to thrive and realize my true potential and forever

off yeah so like that's something to point out here is like these suited connectors are dropping off now like in the cutoff in the hijack but these mix strategies to use a random number generator do you mentally make them more straightforward and more implementable um most of the time if a hand is like you know mixing like jack 9 suited what's going to depend here so this is in the hijack what's going to depend if you call here if you have really tight players behind you that don't squeeze then this probably becomes a full frequency call so you want to know who's left to act like how often they squeeze and you want to know um like who's on the button who's in the big blind how likely you're getting over called so it depends on the players behind you it's the three bet and the call percentage based on the other players i mean not really it's kind of based off of like how often you're gonna get squeezed and stuff if that's what you mean pseudo connectors come back in with bigger sacks right not really people flat suit connectors too much like if you go to here at like 80 big blinds you're still folding suited connectors i mean they come back in a little bit but you're still folding mostly they're all break even calls with 80 big blinds so two connectors not very good hands people not very good hands people you have a tip or trick for 66 33 raised call scenarios yes i kind of do oh we'll get into that in a few minutes let's cover this stuff first once you've gotten to know your v-pip what your range is v-piping it becomes things become a lot easier in all situations okay so we don't really need to worry about like low jack versus under the gun it's going to be like most your offseason comes out suited tens stay in no matter what every position suited suited like even under the gun one versus under the guns two to ten stay in so suita tens are always gonna be the pipped okay and then like most your offseason stuff is out here now the next queen off that's not the point of this notice now too most of your suited aces are out here people flat too much with suited aces okay so what is the best way of learning this it's grunting work you got to go in you got to realize just kind of make a sheet just like this this is what like this is how i memorize i look at all right what's my v-pip car like it's pretty easy now i see a pattern and the cutoff offsuit nines hijack offsuit tens low jack offsuit tens once you get to earlier positions like offsuit queens two to sixes suited seven suited eights like it's one pip up like it's just kind of it's all pattern it's easily memorizable because like you've seen i've

when folded too this is very different compared to 25 big blind play because now you can't raise and then fold to a shove because again you're getting pot odds that are too good against a wide range so you're gonna find either limp or you open shove and when you are shoving similar strategy right you're gonna be shoving the a sacks small pairs suited connected type hands and in this scenario because we're against only one player also some King X and queen X offsuit hands which are interesting right we do still a lot of we still do a lot of limping though because we want to be able to limp with all sorts of junk because we only have to put in half a big blind to try to win three so in order to strengthen our calling range as much as we can we again limp all of our best hands we're limping all these good strong suited hands and if we get shoved on we have an easy call right so this is going to be our small blind strategy obviously adjust your opponent's Tendencies you may find you can actually open shove super duper wide in this scenario if your opponents will fold far too often if there are pound applications and your opponent really doesn't want to go broke you should be shoving far wider than this recommends um you're gonna find that some players will shove over your limps far too often if that's the case let more good handling fewer junky hands right so always adjust to whatever your opponent does wrong basically a raise again follow the charts I cannot make it any more clear please follow the charts you can still have a calling range even 15 big blinds deep and that's going to be especially true against wider ranges and when you are in later actually when you're in all positions really but uh we'll take a look at the charts in just a second because look even though I have a lot of these charts memorized I I'm not 100 perfect on this stuff which is why you have to reference the charts reference the charts over and over until you roughly know what to do in these spots right um as your opponent's range is wider and wider shovel into the wider range you can call somewhat wide from the button if you feel inclined and you're also going to want to defend the big blind somewhat wide all right hijack versus Under the Gun notice you're only shoving no calls so an under the gun raises and you're in Middle position you should have no calling range 15 big lines deep and the reason for that is if you do call with the call it logical calling range so you can connect to taipans small pairs junkie High cards like king queen king Jack Ace 10. if you call those hands and get shoved known by someone you have to act you can't call the All

Final Table The last table remaining in a poker tournament. Often, people use the abbreviation FT to refer to it.

because there are more better aces in monsman's range than worse Aces and a queen's only calling two bets anyway so it makes sense for the John to play PAW control he river is a chop now we'll see if monsman goes for a large bet here he does and that's choppot he's the open here for welcoming Inferno King eight Suited pentatonic King 4 does have a tier two blocker um but not the best stack size for three betting being so deep so he's just gonna call with the King High both players flop and top pair Inferno could go either way here you can definitely bet for Value a lot of possible draws here straight draws flush draws worst pairs that can call sevens and fives he's got a strong enough kicker that he can get called by worst kings so he's gonna bet high frequency low sizing and Queen of Clubs bringing even more draws possible so that's one reason to lean towards betting if you're welcome Inferno you want to charge those draws you don't mind folding out a five and a seven if we do bet here probably going to be checking back the river because the kings that are continuing are starting to be more better Kings rather than worse Kings and welcome Inferno going for the really large sizing that is because of all the draws possible now he wants to get a lot more protection against the front door flush draw the back door flush draw the possible but unlikely open-ended straight draw and he wins this pot all right jonak with a playable hand Queen nine it folded Centaurus with a playable hand A7 and a welcome Inferno with a defendable hand King Ain't decides not to play and Centaurus straight plane is strong a pre-flop poker All In I believe I have the best hand welcome Inferno says no thanks see if he makes the same play here with Ace King on 22. I'm just gonna see an open shove or is this a strong enough hand that he's willing to invite a little bit of action give his opponents a chance to reshuff with Ace Queen Ace Jack king queen suited Ace 10 where you can call them dominating that's what he does and we may see some fireworks here monsman oh okay mom's been 18 bigs on the button into jonic with sevens that could be a flip but with welcome Inferno opening it's gonna be a shove for monsman off 18 and I don't think dejanik really needs to call with sevens um again there are some worst pairs that monsman's doing this with sixes fives maybe he's fours and threes and twos but there are also all the better pairs that monsman's doing this with eights nines tens Jacks Queens maybe Kings and Aces do some kind of a slow play and then they're all the hands that are flipping so jonnic not really crushing monsman's range there it's going to make the fold all right to

clearly very good for him. This preemptive exploitative adjustment is simply the best way to play against this general player type. Of course CO could turn out to be an avid 4-bet bluffer, but until he has further info, Hero should play vs. the average player with these stats - more often than not it will be the best approach. Against an unknown Villain, Hero would be advised to shove more of this 3-bet range to a 4-bet, or else 3-bet/fold less combos if he wants to be balanced vs. the population. The hands in this linear 3-bet range are chosen in terms of brute strength, playability and blockers. They are not necessarily the top X% of hands as far as raw equity goes when called, but are designed to be the top X% of hands in terms of being highest EV to 3-bet. Now onto some practice examples where we'll be emulating a faster thought process more feasible for in-game decisions. We'll first choose a rough strategy, as we've been doing in the last four hands, before deciding where the hand in front of us falls into that strategy.

folds because the SB remains constrained not only by pot odds but also by the risk of the BB acting after them. Thus, SB’s VPIP does not change dramatically with open-raise size , especially not in a raked game: Even when opening from the BTN, most hands perform better as a smaller raise . The situation is not quite as bleak as from the LJ, where only KK + and AK s preferred the 3bb raise, but it is not a lot better. From the BTN, JJ +, AJ s+, AQ o+, and KQ s all have a higher EV when opening 3bb. EV Comparison BTN Open-Raise Sizings @100NL Rake 2 bb BTN open-raise 3 bb BTN open-raise However, there is another class of hands in BTN’s opening range that did not exist for LJ. These are very weak hands that perform better as a 3bb open than a 2bb open, hands like J4 s, T5 s, K7 o, and A2 o. BTN’s weakest hands prefer to trade a greater risk of a 3-bet for more fold equity, but their modest hands do not. One of the liabilities of a larger raise is that it gets 3-bet more often than a smaller one . That’s not a problem for BTN’s weakest opens, which perform badly even when called. It’s more of a problem for modest hands, which perform well when called but not when raised. BTN’s weakest hands prefer to trade a greater risk of a 3-bet for more fold equity, but their modest hands do not. This phenomenon is exclusive to the BTN . Even the CO does not have weak hands that prefer a bigger raise size. It is also exclusive to the raked game . In the unraked game, BTN opens more hands for 2bb than for 3bb, and only their strongest hands perform better in the 3bb strategy. When no rake is taken, they gain more from playing heads up in position against the BB and so gain less from preflop folds. Only the “no flop, no drop” rake structure incentivizes larger raises to steal the blinds, and even then, it is only on the BTN. Important Caveats To say that AA has an EV of 10.15bb when opened from the LJ for 3bb is to say that that is its equilibrium EV within the 3bb opening strategy. We can recognize that some hands have higher EVs within the 3bb opening strategy and others within the 2bb opening strategy. Still, it does not follow that you maximize your EV by opening 3bb with the hands that prefer that size and 2bb with the rest . Such a strategy would be exploitable and could yield lower EVs if your opponents responded appropriately. The purpose of looking at the EVs of individual hands within each strategy is only to provide insight into the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy in order to better understand the mechanics of preflop raise sizing . Equilibrium EVs may not reflect real-world conditions . For example, a big part of the reason to open small

a queen. Further suppose there were two suited cards on the flop, and when you bet, your opponent raised. This raise creates a problem for you. First, recognize that you can easily be beat. Your opponent could hold top pair with a better Being Beat on the River 113 kicker, an overpair, two pair, or a set. (The action before the flop should give an indication of what he might have.) However, your opponent also may be on a flush draw and is simply trying for a free card. In this situation, the correct play is to just call and see what the turn brings. If a flush card hits, it is now likely that you are beat, and you usually should check and fold.6 However, if a flush card does not hit, you may very well have the best hand and you do not want to give any free cards. Consequently, you should bet into your opponent again. (If you are raised again, usually fold. It is a rare player who would semi-bluff raise twice in a row.) 6 Against good players, the better play may be to come right out betting when the flush card appears. By doing this, you may get a better one-pair hand to fold. Furthermore, if you still have the best hand, you avoid getting bluffed out, as you probably would be if you check. If you get raised when you make this play, you generally should fold. More on the Semi-Bluff If you semi-bluff on the flop and are called, should you continue betting on fourth street? This depends on the situation. If you bet on the flop, a lot of players will call (perhaps with as little as one overcard) and then routinely throw their hands away for the next bet. This fact argues for betting again. However, if you always bet again, many of your opponents will pick up this pattern and will call or even raise you on fourth street. Consequently, you should give up on many of your semi-bluffs once the turn comes. Another thing to keep in mind about semi-bluffing is that you should play in such a manner that anyone who tries to keep you honest will make only a small profit. Being conscious of this will keep you from betting too often in situations where you will merely be giving your money away. Changing the subject slightly, suppose you flop an open-end straight draw and two flush cards are also on board. Is it correct to bet? Some "authorities" claim that this hand should be thrown away. They argue that you can make your hand and still lose the pot. However, they fail to understand that you can bet as a semibluff. You often would bet a small pair with an overcard kicker (especially if your kicker is an ace) that has only five outs if you are called. But when you bet an open-end straight draw in this spot and are called, you have either six or eight outs, depending on whether one of your opponents has

possible “combinations” (combos) of any… Stack-to-pot ratio Stack-to-pot ratio, or SPR, is a way of measuring how deep the effective stack is… Equity Realization In poker jargon, equity expresses how much of the pot a hand will win, on… Variance and Bankroll Management Variance and Bankroll Management. Vital Soft Skills for Every Poker Player. How to Become a GTO Wizard Welcome to the wonderful world of game theory optimal poker! This article will serve as… The Three Laws of Indifference Indifference in poker is one of the most misunderstood concepts. The word “indifference” means that… Poker subsets and abstractions An “abstraction” is a way 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…

Delayed C-Betting This is a companion piece to Probe Betting . It stands on its own, but understanding how to play these scenarios from both sides will enhance your overall understanding of the underlying concepts. A “delayed c-bet” means checking the flop as the preflop aggressor, then betting the turn. Many players believe that if they check the flop after raising pre-flop, they have “shown weakness” and must therefore respond stubbornly to any aggression on future streets. This belief is not baseless: by declining to bet, you have not allowed your opponent to fold their weak hands, so they will have plenty of bluffing candidates on later streets. An opponent who chose to bet all of them would in fact be bluffing too often, and stubbornly calling down would be the correct exploitative adjustment. By declining to bet, you have not allowed your opponent to fold their weak hands, so they will have plenty of bluffing candidates on later streets. They are not required to overbluff , however, and it is not correct for them to do so. On most turns, you should expect them to check fairly often, at which point you will be able to value bet more thinly than on the flop. If they do bet, you should rarely raise , as your flop check makes it unlikely you will hold a nutty hand. The opportunity to act with the benefit of this additional information is a big part of what incentivizes checking in the first place. We will examine two examples in greater detail: one where the pre-flop raiser enjoys a large equity advantage on the flop and one where the equity is evenly distributed . Both examples assume a single raised pot, LJ vs BB, in a 100bb cash game, but the general principles discussed here will apply in any situation where a player who had been the aggressor stops betting. A Favorable Flop On an A ♦ K ♥ 8 ♥ flop, LJ has 65% equity and many more of the nuttiest hands in their range. Consequently, they bet 90% of their range, but some hands do not gain terribly much from betting. LJ’s checking range consists of three types of hands: Robust , medium-strength hands like A2 , K6 , and JJ , which gain little from folds and do not perform well in large pots. Extremely weak hands with little hope of improving . LJ sometimes checks 7♠ 6 ♠ but never 7♥ 6♥ and rarely 7♦ 6♦ . This check is not “giving up” – LJ will bluff eventually. These hopeless airballs make just as much bluffing later, to represent a delayed value bet, as they would betting immediately. Monster hands with heavy blocking effects . On this board, that just means AA . Mostly, LJ wants to start betting their strong hands immediately to give themselves a chance to get three bets paid off. Because so much of BB’s range for calling three streets is A x, however, AA doesn’t give up anything by checking because it’s not likely to get three

Node Any specific decision point in a game - commonly used in reference to solvers and game trees.

Harrington on Hold ’em: Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Volume III: The Workbook by Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie features 50 full length problems in a quiz format designed to help sharpen your tournament strategy. Many of the problems are taken from actual tournaments and feature many of the best known players in the world. Getting Started in Hold ’em by Ed Miller is the best first book on hold ’em. It prepares a new student perfectly for more advanced texts. Covering the rules of the game, limit, no limit, and tournaments, it teaches all the fundamental concepts necessary to start winning right away. Small Stakes Hold ’em; Winning Big With Expert Play by Ed Miller, David Sklansky, and Mason Malmuth teaches you to win the maximum in today’s small stakes games. It covers theoretical topics such as implied odds and pot equity as well as strategic concepts such as protecting your hand, waiting for the turn, going for overcalls, and betting marginal hands for value. If your opponents play too many hands and go too far with them, this book is for you. The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky discusses theories and concepts applicable to nearly every variation of the game. The book includes chapters on deception, the bluff, raising, slowplaying, position, psychology, heads-up play, game theory, and implied odds. In many ways, this is the best book ever written on poker.

hello everyone I am Jonathan little and recently my students have been crushing it at the poker table at the World Series of Poker Joe foresman want a bracelet Ryan de pollo recently final tabled the Colossus at the World Series of Poker and the $25,000 by an Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open final table I was a stroll into the Hall going to play a tournament and someone who I did not know walked up to me and said that a month ago he joined poker coaching calm he was a good cash game player but had no success in tournaments and he studied up hard for a month he devoted his life to studying at poker coaching comm and then right off the bat he final tables of 25k they're crushing it I guess to be fair I don't feel like I'm crushing it but I'm crushing it - I'm on a tournament at Hard Rock so what I decided to do is every month I am going to hand pick one or two people to back in poker tournaments we started this one month ago and the first person we backed Mike we put him into a $600 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open tournament and heated up caching for 1370 dollars what we're doing is Michael send us back half of that and he keeps half of it so it's a very nice free roll for him so each month I am going to be hand picking one or two of you to play in live poker tournament to be considered there's a link below this video where poker coaching members can apply I'll go through them I'll take a look and I'll pick a person so one of the perks of this is that if I pick you you can send in hand histories from the tournament that you play for me to review and Mike was kind enough to send in a few spots that gave him a little bit of trouble so let's take a look at those hands and see if Mike can improve his play in any way here we have King 10 of Hearts in early position which is fine enough I'm raising King Center hearts and almost every scenario playing tutor big blinds deep it's perfectly fine to open it up and Mike gets a call from a tight aggressive player in third position and then a tight passive player in the low Jack seat pop comes ten nine four two diamonds so this is a situation where you want to generally be doing a decent amount of checking because 10 9 X should connect pretty well with the opponent's ranges and not so well with Mike's range so I think checking is fine that said we do have one of our better hands and is also quite vulnerable to being out drawn so I also don't mind betting so if we are going to bet given we're not betting here all that frequently we want to bet using a rather large

on boards that are highly favorable also you're going to find that when the board is Dynamic meaning there is a straight draw or a flush draw available but there is no straight available a straight or better available so for example Jack 8 2 on Jack 82 there is no straight therefore this is a spot where bigger bets are usually going to be used but on boards with a three straight like Jack H7 usually smaller bets are going to be used on a three flush board or on a pair board and those scenarios usually small bets are going to be used when you do decide to bet always always always always please please please consider who has the range and the nut Advantage because that's really really going to heavily impact your strategy so what we're going to do is we're going to look at some spots where the initial razor is favored we're gonna look at some spots where the pre-flop big blind caller is favored we're gonna look at some paired boards and a bunch of other spots let's get right to it let's discuss a 20 big blind post-flop scenario where the pre-flop razor is favored on the Flop the pre-flop razor when their favorite is usually going to be making a ton of bets sometimes with their entire range and the pre-flop collar is usually going to be doing a whole lot of folding especially when they are out of position because it's more difficult to realize your Equity from out of position compared to in position once the pre-flop better Bets with everything or close to everything and the opponent calls what does that mean that means the pre-flop razor has everything in the range but the caller only has their decent hands which makes a range a whole lot stronger once they get to the turn right so given the pre-operation has everything and the opponent has only good hands this forces on the turn that flop better to usually bat with only their best hands and their draws with a very strong polarized range and once they do bet with a very strong polarized range well now the Flop caller does a lot of folding again because against a good strong polarized range even like middle pair is not loving it on the river assuming you bet the turn you're again going to very polarized on the river and the turn caller does a lot of folding so let's take a look at a flop where it comes Ace Jack nine and in this situation we are looking at LoJack versus the big blind so the LoJack raises and the big blind calls this is the big line calling range all these hands in green here I'm going to explain to you how to use this program this is piosolver in the situation we see the pot might be tiny for you but it says 5 55. this means 5.5 big blinds okay so there's a two big blind raise big

before we try to spin it up, or play for 2nd when the chip leader is unstoppable. The outlier stack doesn’t even have to be involved in the current hand or be at your current table. It is quite often the case, for example, that a player with just an ante dictates the action on an adjacent satellite table. It’s not the most glamorous strategic adjustment you can make in poker, but playing tight when an outlier stack is at your table is the most profitable course of action. The flip side is that you get to play like it’s your last day on Earth when you are the one with the outlier stack. 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 Barry Carter Barry Carter has been a poker writer for 16 years. He is the co-author of six poker books, including The Mental Game of Poker , Endgame Poker Strategy: The ICM Book , and GTO Poker Simplified . Latest article Navigating Nasty Rivers Out of Position Playing out of position (OOP) is hard. It’s fundamentally disadvantageous to act on each street… Crack the Shell of Nut Draw Strategy Nut draws hold obvious appeal as betting and raising candidates. They benefit from fold equity,… 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 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

other end of the spectrum the short stack, UTG1 with 9BBs, has a low Bubble Factor between 1.28 and 1.4 depending on the opponent. Short stacks generally experience lower risk premium because they don’t have much tournament equity to start with. There is not much difference between the Bubble Factors, which makes sense because losing results in the same outcome each time, elimination. It is interesting to note, however, that the short stack’s Bubble Factor is lowest against the 2nd shortest stack, the CO with 13BBs. The Bubble Factor against them is 1.28. It is a minor difference but it is worth briefly exploring why this is. There is more upside to winning an all-in battle against the second shortest stack. If the CO loses this hand, they become a micro stack and are very close to elimination. UTG1 will have over 18BBs and, crucially, will likely be able to ladder to at least one more payout. Doubling up against the chip leader is not as beneficial by comparison. How does Bubble Factor affect strategy? The key lesson from Bubble Factor is how to develop an understanding of who to avoid and who to target for aggression at your table. Bubble Factor is most accurately used to calculate the equity required to call an all-in bet. You can apply it to post flop but it becomes very complicated. Rather than do that, use it as a measure for how scared your opponents should be of you and how scared you should be of them. This applies to your pre and postflop strategy. As a big stack the best players to bully are the medium stacks who have everything to lose and little to gain by tackling you. You should avoid the other big stacks, you need a very strong hand to take them on. You should also expect the short stacks to defend themselves more against you, because they need to take a stand soon. As a medium stack you should avoid the big stacks and the medium stacks, but target the shorter stacks a little. Perhaps most of all, you should recognize you are in the ‘ICM Coffin’ where none of your options are brilliant. A ‘laddering’ strategy is most important to a medium stack. Short stacks should play looser but also target other short stacks. You can exert some ICM pressure on the other short stacks and the upside of winning an all-in pot against them is greater. Conclusion It is not the best use of mental resources to try and calculate Bubble Factor on the fly at the tables or even away from them in your study. It is much easier and productive to explore the Bubble Factor feature on GTO Wizard to develop a solid understanding of what Bubble Factor is and what factors impact it. Key Takeaways Play around with Bubble Factor on GTO Wizard . Compare different stack size match-ups, different stages of the tournament and different payout structures. You will soon develop patterns about where to apply ICM pressure and when to adopt a survival

become easy 3-bets as ranges widen in later position. Calling is good vs the UTG raise as Hero can flop hands that regularly crush a lot of the top pair type hands that Villain can make with his range. Hero calls 3BB. Finally we have a hand good enough to still be in great shape even when Villain continues to our 3- bet. Our 3-bet is now happily for value with 83% and 70% equity when Villain continues. Hero raises to 8BB. Reason 2 - Implied Odds Let's recap. Having good implied odds equates to having a favourable ratio of money invested on one street to potential gain on the next should we make our hand. Let's remain in the domain of Hand 45 for now. The reason I've chosen to kick off our second reason for calling opens with these hands is that they're somewhat of a hybrid between this reason and the first one. We are able to call these hands in Hand 45 in part due to their ability to often flop well even against hands Villain value bets post-flop like worse overpairs on low boards, but these hands also carry with them a second bonus: implied odds - they can flop the mighty set! The more often we can make our super strong hand capable of claiming lots of Villain's stack, the better our implied odds are. Just how often do we flop a set with a pocket pair? Here's a nice opportunity for a math interlude! If you're up for the challenge go back to Chapter 4 to remind yourself of combined negative probability and try to manually calculate how often one of the three flop cards will be one of our two set cards, then read my answer below to check your work. Alternatively, if you're lazy, jump straight to the answer, but that's not the attitude of a true grinder! Of course you can just google the answer, but what I'm trying to do here is build up your logical poker mind. Problem solving is the secret to great poker and so I truly recommend you embrace any opportunity to develop your problem solving skills in a poker context.

a flush draw. Clearly, if it is correct to bet the small pair with the big kicker, it is also correct to bet the straight draw when two suited cards are present. This means that if you are against a small number of opponents, a bet is usually the correct strategy. If both you and a lone opponent check on the turn when a blank hits, indicating that you could be against a flush draw, you may be able to steal the pot if another blank falls on the river. This is especially true if you are known to occasionally check-raise on fourth street. More on the Serni-Bluff 11 5 Here's an example. Suppose you start with and the flop comes You usually should bet if no one else has yet bet and you do not have many opponents. A hand that gives you an inside straight draw with two overcards on the flop can be a strong hand. Notice that if you don't win the pot on the flop with a bet, you still may have as many as ten outs. In addition, if your overcards are high, they alone may be enough to win the pot once all the cards are out. (This can easily happen, as your opponent may be going for the bottom end of the straight.) Thus, play this hand strongly - especially against a small number of opponents - and be inclined to bet it a second time regardless of the fourth-street card. Getting a Free Card A related idea to that just discussed is when a bet on the flop is likely to get a free card. It so happens that against typical players, your bet will buy you this free card most of the time, providing that you are in a late position. That is, if you bet and are called, most players will tend to check to you on fourth street. However, you must worry about being check-raised, which is more a function of the opponents that you are up against than of the cards that appeared on the flop. In fact, some players are much more likely to check-raise than they are to bet out. Consequently, as we have stressed many times before, get to know your opponents and watch how they play even when you are out of the pot. Staying With a Draw Another idea that some so-called authorities have warned against is playing flush draws when a pair is on board. They argue that the probability of running into a full house is just too high to make this play profitable. Well, it certainly is true that you may run into a full house, but this doesn't mean that your hand can't be played. The main thing to consider is how much money is in the pot. In other words, the potshould be offering you somewhat better odds than if there were no pair showing. It is also very important to consider which pair and off-card are on the flop. For example, if the flop is someone already may

that all of your opponents will fold. 56 Part Two: Strategic Concepts Let's look at the small pair with an overcard kicker. Suppose you have the flop is and there are six people in the pot. It is still correct to bet against typical players. However, it would be different if you had and the flop came There is a good chance that other players would like this flop, as straight draws are now likely. Another example would be ifthe flop Semi-Bluffing 57 comes with two suited cards. Once again be less inclined to semibluff, especially against a lot of opponents, since a flush draw will surely play against you. Now suppose the flop is and you hold (giving you a "gut shot") against many opponents. This is another time when semi-bluffing is usually correct. However, if the flop comes and you hold the same 7+5+, it is probably best not to semi-bluff, because with a ten-high flop, it is easy for two overcards to call. However, with a queen-high flop, an opponent must have precisely AK to have two overcards. That is, in the second example, it is much harder to win by betting, thus making a semi-bluff incorrect. Here is a good rule to follow: If your hand is worth a call or even almost worth a call if you check, then it is better to bet if there 58 Part Two: Strategic Concepts is some chance that you can win the pot right there. Notice that we are not mentioning the fear of a raise on the flop, as the threat of a raise does not automatically stop us from semi-bluffing. This is because in today's structure, the bet on the flop is often very small when compared with the size of the pot. Of course, if you think there is a good possibility of being raised, then this is another matter. The criterion of having some chance of winning the pot immediately is diminished, and it would have been incorrect to semi-bluff to begin with. A secondary advantage to semi-bluffing is that when you do make your hand, your opponent often will misread it. Suppose in the gut-shot draw example, you have 7+5* and the flop is Q*6V3+. Now a four comes on the next card. Who would dream that you have made a straight? If it turns out that you happen to be up against another strong hand, such as a set of sixes, you might get almost unlimited action. A third advantage to semi-bluffing is that it keeps your opponents guessing. If you never bluff, you are simply giving away too much information. Players in this category are referred to as "weak tight." They are easy to make money against since you virtually always know exactly where they are, but they have a great deal of trouble figuring out what your hand is. Semi-bluffing is a good way to mix up your play so you can't be "read as easily. And finally, a fourth advantage of semi-bluffing, as we mentioned earlier, is that you may get

Having a raising range here is to inflate the pot to such a level that only stronger hands are naturally happy continuing and Villain has far more of these than we do. This renders having a raising range theoretically bad. 2. Urgency of Value As we saw back in Hand 59, the wet textures lead to a lot of possible action ruining turn cards while in Hand 58, the board was unlikely to deteriorate too quickly for our opponent's range. Wet textures, in general, increase the need to get value and get the pot growing on the earlier streets. When it's the case that value is most easily snatched early on in the hand, Hero is advised to have a raising range in order to ensure his value hands do not fail to earn as much as they should on average. This doesn't mean he shouldn't be balanced against Regs. Hero should choose the most suitable hands to bluff using factors in Figure 43 to balance with the hands he's forced to raise for value. That said, in the hand in question, there is no reason to suppose our value hands need to inflate the pot quickly. The board is unlikely to run out too badly for Villain, and indeed, Q, K and A turns can even be cards he chooses to bluff on. Urgency of value is very low in this hand. 3. Fish Behind It is usually undesirable to have a raising range with a Fish left to act behind. Raising value is bad as it can blow weaker made-hands out of the pot that are otherwise never dreaming of folding. Raising bluffs equates to putting money into the pot with bad equity and less fold equity given the fact it's multiway. Raising semi-bluffs is not ideal either as by letting the Fish call behind we gain implied odds, making our draws even more profitable calls than they would be already. There is no Fish behind in the hand in question, but this is no reason to raise in and of itself. It's just that if there were, we'd have another very strong reason to not have a raising range. 4. The Cost of Being Capped? The final disadvantage with raising sets and then some bluffs is that it would leave Hero's calling range very capped. KJ or possibly AJ would be about the best hand in that range. This could be a non-issue if we knew that Villain was passive and unlikely to exploit a capped range with aggression, but since we're in unknown waters, it's prudent for Hero to leave his sets and the best top pair hands firmly in his calling range to help protect his weaker calling hands and allow Hero to fold less of his range to later aggression. 5. Can Hero Represent Good Hands?

today I'm going to give you 10 gigantic incredibly important mandatory tips that you must fully understand if you want to have success at Cash games let's get right to it tip number one is to stop open limping if you open limp on a regular basis in cash games especially if they take a rake out of each pot you will lose okay simple as that an open limp just to be clear is whenever you are the first person to voluntarily put money in the pot so if they Guild the cards small blinds in there big blinds in there you're under the gun you're first to act if you match the big blind you're going to lose a poker okay stop doing that understand that many of your opponents are going going to do exactly that and that is why they are stuck at the small or medium Stakes games you simply cannot allow all the other players to see the flop for only one big blind they're not making a mistake they should call one big B blind very often at that point and play in position against you with anything decent also you let the big blind see the flop for free say they have the Jack four off suit if you raise they have to fold if you limp sometimes they make three of a kind or Jack high and that's good enough and that's not what you want to have happen so you need to raise also whenever you L you induce people behind you to raise because they're going to think that you have a somewhat weak range and if they think you have a somewhat weak range because they presume you would have raised with your best stands well they're going to raise you now you have to play out of position in a slightly larger pod than you would like to be in with what's probably not a very good hand also like I said by limping assuming everyone limps behind the casino is going to take a rake out of the pot you do not want to pay rake to the casino rake is not your friend less rake is better not more so make sure you do not limp instead simply raise whenever you're first to act in a live cash game and you want to raise raise is something like three or four big blinds I do not care if the standard raise in your game is to something like seven big blinds don't play poorly do not model your strategy after bad poker players who cannot move up from the small Sak games okay you need to model your strategy after good strong winning poker players and no good strong winning poker players open raising to seven big blinds before the Flop so raise first in tip number two is to raise with reasonable ranges players play nowhere near reasonable ranges at all so let me show you what I have right here we have two different sets

Hero’s range has to be even more polarized compared to the Villain for the bigger bet-sizes to become dominant. In Toy Game E, Hero’s strategy is to bet small on the turn with a high frequency, combining the polarized and depolarized portions of their range. This action is often referred to as range merging. The reason Hero chooses to bet a merged range instead of a polarized range is the Villain’s ability to bet the river. If Hero polarizes their betting range too much on the turn, choosing big bet-sizes with the top and bottom of their range, opting to check back middling hands such as TT-88, then Villain has the option to bet the river and attack Hero’s capped range and thus to increase expectation. By betting a merged range for a smaller bet-size on the turn, Hero gets to increase their betting frequency, minimizing the effect of checking back a weak capped range. Furthermore, after Villain has called the turn bet, Villain will mostly check to Hero who will then be able to check back middling strength hands, realizing their equity. If we increase Hero’s polarization advantage by shrinking the Villain’s range to JJ-77 (Toy Game F), Hero will be able to bet 100% of their range on the turn. The 30% bet-size remains the highest frequency bet-size, but the middling 60% bet-size starts to disappear, while the 90% bet- size frequency increases and Hero even starts tapping into the 120% overbet (Table 94). Table 94: Results of Toy Game F Conclusion The more polarized Hero’s range is compared to Villain’s range, the more they are incentivized to use bigger bet-sizes. If betting can happen across multiple streets, Hero is more likely to choose smaller bet-sizes on the early streets and choose to bet a merged range, waiting until future streets to start polarizing their betting range, unless they have a very substantial polarization advantage. In that case, their bet-size will approach the geometrical bet-size unless the SPR is very high because of the threat of the Villain’s range containing traps, which reduces the profitability of making large bets. For this reason, all-in bets are rarely used on early streets unless stacks are shallow. Bet-sizing Based on Runout We already know that you don’t need to split your range into different bet-sizes on the flop, but

to the left. The small blind may either bet or check (pass on making a bet). Because each player has the option of checking, it is possible for everyone to check after the flop, which will result in no additional money going into the pot. If a player checks and someone bets later on, the player who checked gets a turn to call the bet or even raise. Raising after checking is a play referred to as a check-raise. Once a bet is made, all players must at least call the bet to stay in the game, and raising is an option. To stay in the game, a player must call all bets and raises, which results in all remaining players contributing equally to the pot. Round 3-After the Turn: After betting on the flop, a fourth card (the turn) is exposed on the board. Play again starts with the small blind who either checks or bets. As play proceeds to the left, the increments for bets and raises are doubled. In a $2-4 game, bets are $4 after the turn card and raises are in increments of $4. Round 4-At the River: After the third round of betting, the fifth card (the river card) is exposed. There is a final round of betting at the same level as the turn card. If more than one player remains after the fourth round of betting, there is a showdown. The player with the highest-ranked hand wins the pot. RULES Betting Structure of $2- 4 Texas Hold'em Blinds: small - $1, big - $2. I Deal: receive two pocket cards. I Yes Flop: three community cards exposed. Act before a bet. Act after a bet. Turn: fourth community card exposed. Act before a bet. Act after a bet. River: fifth community card exposed. Act before a bet. Act after a bet. 14 THE INTELLIGENT GUIDE TO TEXAS HOLD'EM POKER Unique Features of Texas Hold'em Hold'em has a small number of starting hands. Only 169 unique starting hands exist since many of the initial two-card combinations are equivalent. All suits are considered equal, so hands such as A+ J4 and AV J+ are the same, and likewise, suited combinations such as A+ J+, A4 J4 are also equivalent hands. Hold'em is a fixed position game. Position refers to the order in which players act in a round of betting. During a Hold'em hand, your position does not change. The small blind always acts first, the big blind second, the player to the left of the big blind next, and so on. In stud games, position changes as the cards are dealt since the player with the highest exposed cards acts first. Position is important because in all forms of poker, it is advantageous to act last in a round of betting. Your position at the start of a hand of Hold'em stays the same for all four rounds of betting, conferring either a permanent advantage or disadvantage. In Hold'em, it is possible to have the nuts. The nuts is the highest possible hand that can

BLUFF-SIZING 43 There was a raise and call before the flop. The pot was about $20,000 at this point. The flop came A♡K♠Q♣. The action went check-check. The turn was the T♣. Again, it went check-check. The river was the 7♠. Fowler now moved in — $190,000 into the $20,000 pot. Hofffolded, and Fowler proudly showed a bluff. While the play succeeded (and Fowler went on to win), Fowler’s bet-sizing was atrocious. Any jack made the nuts, so if Hoff“had it,” he wasn’t folding no matter how big the bet. And if Hoffdidn’t have a jack, then he would have folded to any reasonably-sized bet. Fowler risked $190,000 when he could have risked $15,000 or $20,000 and won just as often. Fowler got away with it, as Hoffhappened not to have a jack, and the details of this hand faded into obscurity. On the other hand, if Hoffhad turned up with a jack, this hand would be recounted today as one of the biggest blunders in WSOP history. Don’t repeat this error. A Little More About Getting the Job Done Perhaps this is obvious, but it’s worth saying anyway. The amount needed to get the job done is not always easy to figure out. Furthermore, it’s not necessarily linear either. That is, you can’t think of it like: “Well, $20 will get him to fold a pair of deuces. $25 will fold treys. $50 will fold sixes, and $100 will fold kings. $200 will fold two pair, and $500 will fold a straight.” Things don’t work that way at all. Finding the right amount is a psycho- logical problem more than anything else. “If I bet $X, what will he put me on, what will he view his pot and implied odds as, and will he see his pair of queens as profitable?” You have to get into your opponents’ heads and see your bets from their perspectives. Indeed, sometimes a smaller bet will be more likely to get the job done than a bigger one. Obviously, when that’s the case (or even if you suspect that’s the case) then a small bluffis almost certainly a better play than a big one — less risk and higher chance of success. There’s no formula to tell how much it will take to get the job done. You have to analyze each case separately. An Exception to the Basic Rule You may want to bet more than it takes to get the job done if you plan a follow-up bluffon the next betting round. That is, if you plan to bluffthe turn,

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Hand Range 115: BN 60bb • Raise 2.3x 54.4% / • Fold 45.5% BN RFI Range at 60bb With 60bb, the BN gets to widen their opening range even more (Hand Range 115). The BN 4- bet all-in frequency decreases because now the BN is deep enough to have a non-all-in 4-bet range. Additionally, the BN’s positional advantage increases, so at this stack depth, BN’s main defense against 3-bets is to flat-call in position at a high frequency (we will look at Defense vs 3- bet Strategies later in the book).

were allowed to register for it at that point. This is what the stacks and equities were before you registered . And this is what happens after you register . The prize pool has increased because an extra $100 has been paid in. The next notable thing is that your current equity is $110.90, which is an immediate 10.9% increase on the amount you bought in for. So by simply showing up at the last minute, you have earned $10.90. There are few opportunities in poker where you can add 10.9% to your win rate without doing anything . Notice also that, with the exception of the big stack, everyone else has seen their equity reduce slightly. Just as you have seen an equity boost for buying in late, the other players have been punished for showing up on time . We have chosen an SNG example because it is easy to simulate and present. The calculation gets very complex as you expand into multi-table tournaments. Still, you can make some broad assumptions about MTTs using this toy game example. What if the payout structure was flatter? In this example, we’ve changed the payout structure to include four prizes instead of three. With a flatter payout structure, we get a 22.35% boost to our equity before we play a hand. So our $100 buy-in is now worth $122.35! Let’s replicate the scenario above, but instead, let’s make this a satellite structure where the top four players get the same prize. What happens when we come in late to that? It’s an even bigger boost, we now have increased our equity by 29.76%. You will see this effect replicated whenever a payout structure is flat. The flatter the payout structure, the less incentive there is to go for the top prizes and the more incentive there is to prioritize min-cashing. Starting the tournament near the money bubble is much more valuable from an ICM perspective. What impact does field size have on the equation? Let’s now look at a scenario where it’s a regular MTT payout structure, but the tournament started with 27 players, and we are coming in with 10 players remaining. This is how things stand before you register late: And this is what happens when you buy-in as the 28th player: Now we have made $31.48 in equity before we even play a hand . In this example, we are more outgunned. We have more catching up to do with the rest of the field, but we gain more equity because we have parachuted into the late stages of a much bigger prize pool tournament. Broadly speaking, when you register late, ICM calculations reduce your chances of winning the tournament compared to registering on time. However, the calculations show you will win more money overall by cashing and laddering more often. Coming in at a shallow stack One of the biggest objections to late registering as a strategy is that you come in at a shallow stack depth below the average. There is less maneuverability with a shallow stack, and

Post A term used to describe a cash game situation where a player who has just joined a table chooses to post a big blind in their current position, to immediately be dealt into the game, and thus avoids having to wait until they are in the blinds.

for value, with the better hand, trying to extract extra chips from their opponent. Not until they get called, or even raised, do they realize theerror. Have you been there? Have you ever raised with what you thought was the best hand, only to get called and realize, with a sick feeling, that he must have you beat in order to call? Turns out your raise was a bluff and you didn’t even know it. Therefore, all I’m asking is that you think about the raise’s value and intent before you get to where your opponent calls and beats you. Seems like a low bar to jump over. Next, you have a strong hand and suspect your passive opponent is weak to medium-strength when he leads into you. What will you do here?Me, I’d go for a call-worthy raise, something in the area of two-thirds- or three-quarters-pot. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a crying call from this guy. What I knowI won’t get is a challenging re-raise. Passive players don’t do that. It’s totally safe to open the action against a passive player by raising with avulnerable holding. You never ever have to worry about folding the better hand and losing the whole pot. If he re-raises you, you’re beat. Period. By not raising, you risk losing only the value of the raise. You’re never protecting the pot. I just can’t stress this enough. Your opponents aren’t that hard to read. You might not know what hand they have right now, but you for sure know, if you’ve been paying attention, how they play poker. Simply categorizing them as passive or aggressive tells you whether the right move is to call or raise when you’re facing a bet on the river. Generally, the more aggressive the player, and the less you can call a big re-raise, the more likely you should be to just call it down, even when you think you have the best hand. Against the Timid Timmies, go ahead and raise. In Position, Passive Opponent, Medium-Strength Hand Now your hand is medium-strength and you suspect that your fawnish opponent is medium to strong. Against the aggressive opponent, you just call here, in part to discourage the pressure, but also because his range is wide enough to make calling profitable. But against the passiveopponent, you can actually fold. His passivity dictates that he’s betting the top of his range and your hand, by definition, only competes with thebottom of his range. Anyway, why bother contesting here? Passive players give you so many ways to beat them that you don’t have to worry about winning every pot. If he has the better hand and he’s telling you so, give him the pot. It’s cool. On top of that, you don’t need to call to discourage him from makingpressure bets on the river. Passive players don’t do that. No need to waste your money discouraging someone from doing something his nature won’t let him do anyhow. Just fold. But if your hand is medium-strength and you suspect your passive opponent is weak

ever folding the better hand here, so you can’t forfeit a pot that belongs in your stack. Thus, whenever you read your aggressive opponent for the weaker end, take a shot. If you bet half to three-quarters of the pot, you only have towin 33%-43% of the time to break even. Seems a reasonable mathematical proposition, doesn’t it? In Position, Passive Opponent Checks, Strong Hand Another easy one. If an uncreative player checks to you when your hand is strong, you have a free bet. With the nuts, you’d obviously bet against anyone. But even without the nuts, you can bet against a passive player who’ll never check-raise bluff you. It doesn’t matter whether your opponent has a strong hand (he’d probably bet out anyway, as opposed to checking) or is checking to actually give up. Your main decision here isn’t about whether to bet, but how strong or weak your opponent is. You’ll try to size your bet to one he’ll call and the stronger he is, the more he’ll be willing to pay. Just realize that an uncreative passive player will never make a read that if you bet big, you must be bluffing; this type of player does not make creative reads like that. So your river bets for value tend to be smaller against passive uncreative playerswho’ll call less anyway. The weaker you read your opponent, the smaller your bet should be in order to have a hope of getting paid off. In Position, Passive Opponent Checks, Medium-Strength Hand Now let’s give you medium strength and suspect that your passive opponent is on the stronger end of things. The board has scared him off of betting, but he has a hand you’re sure is strong enough to call. For example, let’s say you think he’s in the set or two-pair range. You also have two pair, but yours is vulnerable to the board. You might have J♥9♥ on a board made of A♦-J♣-9♠-2♣-3♣. Clearly, you have a good, but not a great, hand, as all aces-up hands and all flushes beat you. It would make sense for a passive player to check a strong hand here; the flush might scare him from betting. So now, if you’re checked to, it’s the classic situation where the passive player isn’t paying you with a hand worse than yours, but you really aren’t bluffing, since you have a hand that cancertainly win a showdown. So there’s no value to betting. Just take the free check here. Next, let’s say your passive opponent feels weak to medium-strong. When he checks, you should definitely bet, though small. You can bet for sure, because again, your passive opponent won’t check-raise you without the better hand, so opening the action isn’t a concern. Your opponent’s passiveness gives you a free straightforward bet for value. Knowing he’s on the weaker end of his range and that passive players are easilyspooked, a small bet is the only one you can make that’ll get paid off, so you might as well make it. If you’re up against a

best hand or a draw, am I bluffing? Am I in position or out of position? Is the pot heads-up or multi-way? Who took the lead pre-flop? How weak, tight, loose, or aggressive are my opponents? What’s my image? What’s the board texture? Texture, as I’m sure you know, has to do with how highly coordinated the cards on the board are with one another. A board that has straight and/or flush cards on it, like J♣-T♣-3♠, is considered highly textured, while a board where the cards don’t relate much to each other, like A♠-9♥-3♦, is considered untextured or dry. We’ll talk a lot about texture. You’ll see that your comparative hand strength is only half the picture. The other half is the board’s texture and once you understand the relationship between your hand and the board’s texture, you’ll have simple reliable lines of actionfor every hand you play. Of course, we also have to set a goal for the hand. For example, when you flop the best hand on a board that has no danger to it, your goal is toextract the most you can from your opponents. On a draw, your goal is to make the most money when you hit, but also lose the least when you miss. Sometimes your goal is to protect the hand. Sometimes it’s to minimize your decision-making problem. But you always have a goal. No moreflailing around betting “just because.” From here on in, you’ll always bet with purpose. And once you’ve set your goal for the hand, you have to figure out how to achieve it. What bets, raises, and calls can you make that will move youmost efficiently toward your goal and cause your opponents to make the most errors in your favor? If that seems like an awful lot to think about, it is. So we’ll break it all down into pieces and examine the pieces independently. Then we’ll put themback together and you’ll see something wonderful: that when you play all these situations conceptually correctly, they create a very confusing picture of you to your opponents. You’ll literally never have to stray from the most mathematically perfect and financially profitable line of play, because you’ll naturally appear to your opponents to be astoundingly confounding just by playing conceptually correct poker. All these lines of play give cover to one another. The correct play of your big hands camouflages the correct play of your draws, which in turndisguises the correct play of your bluffs. I hope you’ll take the time and do the hard work to understand the game-theory basis for all this. But even if you don’t, you’ll still emerge with aplaybook that lets you devastate most of your opponents most of the time. Let’s get to it, shall we? Chapter 9 Flopping Huge Big Hand, Heads-Up, In Position, With the Lead, Untextured Board We start our close examination of on-the-flop play by looking at what happens when you flop top two pair or better. For the purposes of this discussion, we don’t care whether you have top two pair,

this scenario and our calling range changes a little bit the offsuit junk goes down in value you notice we're calling all King X before and queen uh seven before now we're folding out these hands in this region so hands like Jack seven Queen five King two these are some of the hands that really lose their value multi-way all right one more spot here we are 20b blinds the big blind versus the cutoff Rays lots of jamming only a small bit of three betting with the nuts and blocker Bluffs again lots of calling though in the scenario because we're going to realize our Equity pretty well in this situation because we make a pair and then we get our money in what about for facing a button raise and a cut off call this is where it gets a little bit interesting you definitely want to make sure you're studying these scenarios and you'll see now every asex suited shoves fives and better shoves the best suited connected hand shops as well as some good Ace X off suit hands notice though again we start to lose some calls stuff like Jack seven King four King five Etc right these are hands that would normally all call notice like Jack three also calls heads up but now we are folding out lots of the offsuit stuff you may ask why do we not have any small free bets now it's because if we three bet small and they get jammed we're gonna be getting the correct odds to call off with basically everything when that's the case you don't want a three-man small you just want to rip it in okay so these are some common spots that you will inevitably encounter as more and more people see the flop you may opt to not even having a calling range you may opt to three bet everything you plan to play especially if the players yet to act are highly likely to free bats now I will say in most smaller medium six games that usually doesn't happen so much but you do have to be careful with the hands that are very likely to be dominated like if you're playing deep stacked cash games and uh you're in this scenario where let's say 80 big blinds deep you're on the button versus the Under the Gun rays and a hijack call and a low Jack call and a cut off call you should still be playing something like this maybe even a little bit tighter like these King x's and these junkier suited connectors are going to go way down in value and that's just because they're more and more likely to be highly dominated all right you have to avoid spots where you are highly likely to be dominated so again off suit hands go way down in value if there's a raise and a call and a call and a call and you have the king 10 off suit you should literally never even consider

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 tricky;, there’s no getting around that.… How and Why You Should Use Turn Donk Bets Donk betting–taking the betting lead away from the previous street’s aggressor–on the flop is rarely… How Stack Sizes Change Your Range In this series, we have looked at factors that can influence ranges in otherwise identical… How to Leverage GTO Wizard’s EV Comparison Tool With the advent of solvers, some troubling new turns of phrase have entered the poker… Should You Ever Cold Call a 3-Bet? When there’s been a raise and re-raise before the 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

CONTENTS iii Bet-Sizing 32 The Basic Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 When Your Opponent Could Have One of Several Draws . . . . . . . . 33 Don’t Bet Too Much . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 How Big Do You Want Their Mistake to Be? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Expectation and Multiple Possible Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Don’t Take Away Their Rope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Your Opponent Thinks He May Have the Best Hand . . . . . . . . . . 37 You Might Not Have the Best Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 The Hammer of Future Bets 40 Final Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Bluff-Sizing 42 The Basic Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 A Little More About Getting the Job Done . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 An Exception to the Basic Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 When Bigger BluffSizes Will Fold More Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Bluffing on the Turn and River 46 An Example of the Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Two Principles for Turn and River Bluffs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Save Enough on the Turn for a Credible River Bluff . . . . . . . 48 Bet as Much as You Can on the Turn While Still Retaining a Credible River Bluff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

part of Villain's range. In red is an estimate of all the suited hands that Villain flats pre-flop. Note that the very best and very worst suited hands have been excluded on the grounds that they are too good and too bad to flat the open with respectively. I've also removed any hands containing Jh as this would not be part of a polarised range on this board given the SDV of the hand. I've also removed any hands containing a 6 or a 2 as it's not possible to flop a flush draw with these given the 6h and 2h are on the flop. Now there are four combos of each suited hand in this range, but only one of each (hearts) is going to give Villain a flush draw. We said we'd use half of all the possible flopped flush draws for Villain's river bluffing range, which is fairly conservative given our two notes on this player. In total, there are 31 combos of flush draws in Villain's range. We'll therefore estimate that Villain has 15 bluff combos on the river. The results are staggering. If our estimates are not miles off, then Villain is only betting a better hand then Hero's 4 / 19 = 21% of the time. Since Hero beats all of Villain's bluffs he beats 15 /19 combos and can expect to have 79% equity vs this range. Hero only needs 30% equity to call and so after this analysis we see that Hero's decision isn't close. Hero calls 35BB. Balance Considerations Remember in Chapter 8 when we talked about whether to have a raising range or not on a certain flop? If Villain wants a balanced strategy in Hand 78 above, then it will be very difficult to correctly balance a river betting range between value and bluffs. He has just four value combos and so would need to bluff even less combos of his missed draws to be unexploitable to an overcalling strategy from Hero. To be balanced, Villain would need to make Hero indifferent to calling with a bluff catcher, which is to make it 0EV for Hero to call with a hand like the AJ he holds in Hand 78. This would require giving Hero exactly 30% equity and no more or less as this is Hero's RE due to Villain's sizing. To do

this is good enough to go big you can easily call the 10 or like pocket nines or an eight i really don't expect to get check raise very often we do get called good then somehow checked it down it may sound bad that i'm laughing but it's like it's kind of funny right i mean they should be going for value in these spots and they're just not putting money in the pot the opponents seem to just not want value i don't understand why if we had a gut shot or if we had a backboard flush draw here i'd probably bet but with no backboard flusher i think i'm happy enough just check folding here i raised got called by in position i think it's fine to check this hand with the nines i mean it's not not it's it's obviously vulnerable to being outdrawn but i think it's okay just like check fold it may seem a little bit weak but it's just so easy to be beating the spot if this guy calls the two dollar bet i'd probably call maybe i'm supposed to raise do i ever put in a raise here uh that'd be fun maybe i just do it no it's so easy to be beat that feels a little bit tight there's a chance i'm supposed to do something there it's easy to get distracted especially when you're trying to commentate that said commentating is good because it makes you think out what you're doing instead of just like autopiloting right a lot of people just mindlessly click buttons and if they instead talked out everything they're doing then they would not mess up nearly as often i'm gonna check back this flop if they checked me this is a spot where both players are gonna have a lot of nines and obviously the king i lose to the king so we'll just check it back we really just don't want to see a ace queen jack 10 on the turn if they check to me again i think we can probably go for a low value checking it back would be fine too like as your opponents are better you should be way more inclined to check the turn i think they did check very quickly which is always a little bit weird but i'm not going to read anything into that until we have a good reason to raise here we can three better call same guy who stacked me sometimes people will presume that you are on tilt if they stack you maybe they should maybe they shouldn't top pair no kicker is a good hand to check call with any lock the guy will bluff it off kind of rough whenever he starts off with a big bat but we're gonna be calling down with this one too check check turn check check river well check turn and if he checks back i will check the river and check call i want to do everything i can to

Flop is kind of unlikely to be the actual nuts by the river because the flush can come a straight can come whatever whereas on Jack 62 in that spot there are not a whole lot of logical draws available assuming assuming the opponent doesn't have a whole lot of gut shots so on Jack 62 you're going to be betting very small so both are Jack High boards but they're very very different next stack depth is also going to impact the size typically as Stacks get deeper you bet bigger because you want to have the ability to reasonably able to get in lots of chips by the river when you have a good hand if you feel inclined are shallower you typically can use much smaller sizes which is why you see in tournaments people betting one big blind a whole lot of the time um also uh when you are shallower stacked you don't really need to protect your stack and you don't need to be betting large such that you can't get all in by the river because the pots already big enough to where you can just bet like one big blind on the Flop five on the turn and then Jam River or something like that um the main exception to this is when you get really short you can go all in so here is a flowchart I made up we'll briefly walk through this this is something I definitely recommend you use on a regular basis frequency if you're in position with a strong range Advantage typically on boards like these these are boards that connect very well with the initial razor or at least you have a big range Advantage you're going to be betting frequently 60% of the time or more with a moderate Advantage such as on boards like these you're going be betting you know sometimes between 40 and 80% I know that's kind of a big spread and then with a weak Advantage like 975 you're going to be betting very infrequently from out of position turns out you very rarely have a strong Advantage because like I said the ranges line up on top of each other with a moderate Advantage you're going to be betting sometimes right and then with a weak Advantage you're going to be betting actually very infrequently like almost never sometimes which is kind of neat in terms of sizing do you have the range Advantage if the answer is no you Ty want to be betting large uh there are some exceptions to this as you get super deep stacked um we're mainly talking about 40ish to 80ish big blinds deep in a tournament today if you're 200 big blinds deep you actually be want to be betting smaller when in all scenarios where you lack the nut Advantage for the most part anyway talking about 40 big blinds today we got to talk about specific spots because poker's huge game okay range Advantage no bet large range Advantage yes do

you make a mistake only to… Flatting Ace-X Hands Shortstacked Playing out of position is tricky, but it’s an essential part of tournament play. With… Playing Limped Pots as the BB in MTTs Success as the BB in limped pots begins before the flop. The BB’s equilibrium strategy… The Absurd Game Theory of Chopped Boards A “chopped board” in poker is one where the community cards make up the best… Playing Limped Pots as the SB in MTTs MTT confrontations between the small blind and big blind force no-limit players into uncomfortable situations,… The Art of Learning Poker In his book The Art of Learning, chess and Push Hands champion Josh Waitzkin describes… Is Donk Betting for Donkeys? “Donk betting”, or betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor… Delayed C-Betting This is a companion 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

Hold’em Excellence” for perspectives on being a poker player and bankroll management. Let me give you some advice regarding the calculation of your hourly rate. Do not do it day by day or even every week. Keep records and do it at the end of the month. I always think a person should stay centered and balanced; if you are worrying about or trying to increase your hourly rate, then you will not be playing a solid game of poker. You are more concerned about the money than the game. The money is how players keep score but you have to concentrate on playing correctly without worrying about your money (unless you are short stacked in a tourney or bankroll). Remember, poker is a lifelong game and should be calculated in those terms. You make your profit from other player’s mistakes. Why the First Two Cards are Important Essentially this should help you see that any two cards can win, BUT the better cards will win on the flop and to the showdown more often. Flopping a good hand is hard enough. If you do flop one, you want it to be a strong hand. I have flopped 2-Pair of 5 2 in the blinds only to be hit by someone who has a better 2-Pair of face cards when the board Pairs and they were holding a larger Pocket Pair. It is very hard to lay it down that little 2-Pair on the flop, and you usually want to protect it with a big bet, but have the skill to lay it down if the board and if the betting indicates you could be beat. For example, if your starting hand was a 5 2 pre-flop where the flop was a 2 5 Q with two suited cards and someone also paired their Queens you are holding a troubled hand my poker reader. Your opponent with Top Pair will have nine outs on the River to beat your hand. In my example, the opponent got a second card for 2-Pair and their 2-Pair was better than mine was. Onto some numbers: A Pocket Pair Flopping: Four of a Kind .245 % - Full House .980 % Three of a Kind 10.77 % 2-Pair 16.16 % - 1-Pair 71.84 % Suited Connector AKs Flopping: Straight Flush .005 % - Four of a Kind .010 % Full House .092 % - Flush .837 % Straight .321 % - Three of a Kind 1.57 % 2-Pair 4.04 % - 1-Pair 40.40 % You see that flopping one pair will occur most often, especially if you already hold that Wired Pair. What do you want that pair to be, a pair of 5's or holding A Qs and having one of those pair up? Having a strong kicker is important and this is one of the two reasons. Because you are trying to flop at least Top Pair and if you flop 2-Pair then you have a real strong 2-Pair. Hand Occurs/Wins Hand Occurs/Wins High card 17.41%/0.00% Straight 4.62%/33.36% One Pair 43.83%/1.67% Flush 3.03%/46.88% 2-Pair

in poker is one where the community cards make up the best… Playing Limped Pots as the SB in MTTs MTT confrontations between the small blind and big blind force no-limit players into uncomfortable situations,… The Art of Learning Poker In his book The Art of Learning, chess and Push Hands champion Josh Waitzkin describes… Is Donk Betting for Donkeys? “Donk betting”, or betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor… Delayed C-Betting This is a companion 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

Check-Raising a Single Pair In this article, I will address a question raised by Twitter/X user ’Matt Riley’, who asks, “In what scenarios is it ok to check-raise one pair in cash games (100 bb deep)?” I believe the answer contains important insights into game theory and incentives that will be of interest to many others besides Matt. Thanks for sending in the question! And to any of our readers, if you or anybody you know has a burning poker strategy question that you want our authors to look into. Feel free to tweet @GTOWizard or pose your question in Discord . Without further ado, let’s dive in! When Not To Check-Raise a Single Pair To begin with, let’s establish why it is generally not optimal to check-raise one pair with 100bb effective stacks , whether you are playing a cash game or a tournament. Check-raising is an aggressive action that sets you on course to play a large pot. Check-raising is an aggressive action that sets you on course to play a large pot. There are two main reasons you’d want to take such an action: Your hand has the potential to win a large pot at showdown Your hand can benefit from fold equity These reasons are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, the best hands for check-raising often benefit to some degree from both factors. When you check-raise an open-ended straight draw , for instance, you are representing that you already have a hand that can win a large pot at showdown. Most of the raise’s profitability comes from your opponent’s folds. But if they do not fold, your hand has the potential to win a large pot at showdown by improving to a straight. Similarly, when you check-raise with two pair , you are mostly hoping to grow the pot against weaker hands you expect to beat at showdown. But you are also benefiting to some degree from fold equity, as you may drive backdoor draws and other hands with outdraw potential out of the pot. The higher the SPR, the stronger a hand you need to commit all your chips . This is the main reason why one pair hands check-raise more often in tournaments. The shallower stacks make it profitable to stack off with just one pair. With a low SPR , a good one pair satisfies both of the above conditions: Strong enough to get all-in Benefits from protection because of its vulnerability to live overcards and/or backdoor draws (so the value of fold equity is significant as well). With higher SPRs , one pair rarely satisfies these conditions. Only the best one pairs meet the first requirement but struggle with the second: Strong enough to risk a big portion of their stack to contest a big pot. But tend not to need much protection. For example, when you have Aces or top pair with an Ace kicker, overcards are not such a concern. Weaker pairs , on the other hand, find themselves in the inverse situation: They mostly lack the potential to contest a large pot.

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Hand Range 89: Stack Depths for BN Push

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this scenario if you just wanted to shop before fold everything I think it's reasonable small line versus button now we're shoving a lot of hands this is where the button is going to be raising pretty wide and they're gonna have a tough time defending against the shove so we in turn rip it all in with lots of hands any pair any Ace lots of strong suited hands lots of strong off suit hands notice though these suited connectors don't play let me see if I can find the same chart 25 big lines deep to show you the very very big differences in these strategies so sear this chart on Sear this see or this chart into your mind this is what you're supposed to do when we're playing 25 big blinds deep notice way less shoving more calls with hands that are kind of like suited and junky big cards right so these hands become unplayable small line versus buttons small blind versus hijack remember this chart small one versus hijack look at all these calls with suited connected hands so why would we be calling kind of wide in that spot but not even playing those hands really when we are slightly shallower stacked well it's because the big blind's gonna shove some and also because we're not getting the right implied odds to play those hands anymore so you're gonna find that studio connectors go way way way way way down in value in general as you get shorter and shorter stacked to the point that small blind versus button you don't even get to play eight seven Suited which is a bummer I want to play the 87 Suited all right 15 minute blinds big blind ranges versus a raise this is a spot where you're going to be defending very very wide because you're actually going to realize your Equity very well meaning when someone raises to two big lines and you call and you flop any pair or any draw you're just not folding you're getting your money in and because of that you can defend quite wide again if there are payout implications you should fold the hands at the bottom portion of the calling range so maybe you slice off all these hands and fold them instead just to avoid tough spots and to get rid of all these hands that are barely break even but you should be calling really really wide in the spot like with all suited hands notice the shoving range is going to be kind of consistent where against a tight range you should have a lot of pairs and strong a sex against wider ranges you shove all the pairs and weaker a sacks right plus some low asex suited and against the widest range are shoving almost any pair lots of asex and even some King X suited in there but a pretty wide calling range calling everything except the worst offsuit hands here we have blind versus blind ranges again definitely adjust whatever