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with shallower stacks. At 25bb , top pair raises a bit more often , and backdoor draws lose some of their upside , leading to a bit more folding from the weakest of those. The same heuristics work for more dynamic boards. With 60bb on 762tt , BB still continues with any pair, any two overcards, and nearly any two-card backdoor flush draw . Because they have more such hands on this flop, their continuing frequency is higher than on AJ6 r. Note that lower-ranked overcard hands like JT o are more profitable continues than A3 o and K5 o, which mix some folds despite their high card value and backdoor straight draws (these hands never fold when they have a diamond, even a small one). The unimproved Ace high is unlikely to get to showdown anyway, so it’s better to have cleaner outs in the form of two different overcards and backdoors to higher straights. The more dynamic board leads to more and bigger raising , with sets purely raising and two-pairs mostly raising. The bluffs are mostly straight and flush draws . The strategy looks very similar at shallower stacks, with the major change being more raising from strong top pairs . Here’s the strategy at 25bb . Only at the very shallowest stacks does the strategy start to look different. With 10bb , BB prefers to slowplay sets and two-pairs, with what little value raising they do coming from strong top pairs. Backdoor draws lose much of their value, so weaker spades like T4 s now either fold or raise as a bluff. Recap As the Big Blind, your key priority is to establish an effective preflop raising strategy to avoid entering the flop with a weak range of hands. It’s also crucial to avoid overreacting or making excessive adjustments based on the texture of the community cards. Your equity advantage, or lack thereof, should be built into the SB’s strategy so that you will not bet or call dramatically more or less often on any given flop. To the extent that you do play low card boards more aggressively, that has more to do with the importance of betting your strong but vulnerable pairs immediately – these hands should often slow down if the SB calls. 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

$10 call — plus the two pair's $10 call) nine times for a total of $1,080, and you will lose $10 once. Your net profit is $1,070. If you raise and the two pair folds, you will win all ten hands, which at $110 per hand comes to $1,100. You win $30 more than you would if you called and the two pair overcalled. If you raise and the two pair calls, you win $130 (the $110 already in the pot plus the two pair's $20 call of a double bet) nine times for a total of $1,170 and lose $20 once for a net profit of $ 1,150. You win $80 more than you do when you call and the two pair overcalls and $50 more than when you raise and your opponent folds. Taking the $1,100 profit as the norm (since both you and your opponent play correctly in that case), we can say you lose $30 over ten hands or $3 per hand when you play incorrectly and only call, and you win $50 over ten hands or $5 per hand when your opponent plays incorrectly and calls your raise. To repeat, when you raise to drive people out, you are actually raising to cut down their odds. If they fold, that's fine, but sometimes you have cut their odds to a point where you are rooting for them to call after you raise. In no-limit games you can control the odds you are giving your opponents by the amount you bet, and you frequently find yourself rooting for them to call your raise even though you would be rooting for them to fold if you had just called. Of course, it is correct just to call, as I did in the no-limit hold em hand of Chapter Three, when you know your opponent will fold if you raise but would make a mistake by overcalling if he 128 Chapter Thirteen knew what your cards were. You want to give your opponent every opportunity to make a mistake since that mistake is your gain even if he happens to get lucky and win an individual hand because of that mistake. In poker as in any game of skill with an element of chance, you cannot play results. That is, you cannot judge the value of a play because of the way it works out in a specific instance. In backgammon, for example, it's possible for a player to make a mistake or a series of mistakes that results in a hopeless position from which he can extricate himself only by rolling double six. The odds against rolling a double six are 35-to1. If the hapless player happens to roll that double six and go on to victory, you cannot say he played the game correctly, anymore than you can say a person who puts his money on number 20 on the roulette layout plays correctly when number 20 happens to come up. Both players were just very, very lucky. To summarize this section, when you raise to drive people

Hero call A river call that is considered to be very ambitious, often when the player making the call has a weak hand, and the player betting is capable of having many strong hands or draws that have completed.

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

with the… Dynamic Sizing Benchmarks Dynamic Sizing is a revolutionary new poker algorithm that automatically simplifies your strategy with the… Understanding The Impact Of Field Size On ICM In Poker When people talk about game selection in multi-table tournaments (MTTs), they invariably talk about the… Defending vs BB Check-Raise on Paired Flops This is a companion piece to Attacking Paired Flops from the BB; you will get… Mastering PKO Final Tables Final tables can be the most exciting and rewarding phase of a tournament, and being… Attacking Paired Flops From the BB Paired flops present unique challenges to both a preflop raiser and a BB caller. The… KK vs QQ vs JJ at WSOP Main Event With only fourteen players remaining in the 2023 WSOP Main Event and blinds of 400K/800K/800K,… Responding to BB Squeezes You open raise, someone calls, and the BB squeezes. How should you construct your strategy?… Crushing a Top HUNL Poker Bot In 2022, Philippe Beardsell and Marc-Antoine Provost, a team of Canadian programmers from Quebec, developed… GTO Wizard AI Explained We are excited to introduce GTO Wizard AI, formerly known as Ruse, the world’s best… GTO Wizard AI Benchmarks GTO Wizard has combined the power of artificial intelligence with traditional solving methods to bring… Table Management in PKOs Perhaps the most important strategic consideration in Progressive Knockout Tournaments (PKOs) is making sure you… Overcalling From the BB In poker, overcalling refers to calling a bet or raise after another player has also… Understanding Which Mistakes Cost You the Most Money I am fortunate enough to have worked for many years with the mental game coach… Overbetting The Flop in Cash Games Although most commonly analyzed on turns and rivers, flop overbetting can be a devastating weapon… Using New Skills at the Poker Table How many times has it happened to you that you make a mistake only to… Flatting Ace-X Hands Shortstacked Playing out of position is tricky, but it’s an essential 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

absolutely insane because almost every pots and all in pot likewise you'll sometimes see this number being very large because someone's doing oversized raises or you have someone who will call any size raise or just someone who's playing overly loose and overly splashy number three of the key factors is who is in the game now this is one that requires some work beforehand but it's some work that will pay dividends later and I'll show you on the next slide or a couple slides from now uh what that looks like and how it pays off but basically if you label the players on the table whether you're in the game or just observing then when you're going through the lobby you can see a preview of the table and it'll show you the colors of the players you have labeled my case if I see a baby blue or purple I want to get on that game whereas if I see a lot of the regular colors of green yellow red then I know it's just a reg Fest and not a game that's going to be at the top of my list if I'm choosing to say play four tables here because I would want to pick the best four finally we have the length of the wait list which can be a tell especially if it's very long because typically if there's a long wait list for a game there's a reason that people are choosing to line up for that game over another game the downside to this is if the waitlist is very long that probably by the time you get there the player that the game was built around will already be gone so it'll give you some information may be good for doing your labeling for you know future game selection and it's always worth putting your name on the list but often if that wait list is five six people the game is going to be no good by the time you get there okay so let's continue on how to select the best table this is information for when you don't have players labeled and you don't have any previous information but you want to kind of try to find some spots these are the in-game tells the best one best one hands down is stack size if you see someone who's playing with less than 100 big blinds they're probably going to be a recreational player often the players who have less than 100 big blinds are playing with all the money in their account on that table bot bankroll on table not practicing good game selection probably not going to be practicing great hand selection and is definitely there to gamble uh two number of tables someone is playing someone is only playing one game more likely to be a recreational unless they're on a wait list for another game uh and likewise if someone is playing four games six games eight games it's pretty clear that they are

Flatting this wide against min-opens is a more recent development in poker theory. Stronger players have begun to realise that in order to reduce their losses in the big blind, they shouldn't avoid calling out of position like it's the plague as was once thought to be the case, but should instead look to flat many more hands given the pot odds being offered. Calling is simply better than folding. One big mistake that weaker Regs make at the micro and small stakes online is to play far too much of a 3-bet or fold strategy BB vs BU, missing out on all of these profitable calls. As I say, these calls might not make money as far as the entire hand is concerned, but they're higher EV than folding from the point of decision where Hero faces the open. We can say that they make money from point of decision. When the BU opener reduces his sizing, he's actually laying Hero a better price to flat and a worse risk reward ratio to 3-bet bluff. Consequently the common urge to 3-bet more vs min opens is actually a strategic blunder. The Small Blind Contrary to the BB, life in the SB is far less pleasant. Paradoxically, Hero loses less money from this blind and can even come close to breaking even if he plays it very well. This is not because it's more profitable to defend hands in the SB, but because Hero is only surrendering half the amount the times he folds from this position. It is the very fact that he's surrendered less money to the pot by posting a blind that forces him to defend less. Now be careful here, Hero should have no irrational attachment to any of the dead money that came from his stack at the start of a hand - it's part of the pot and no longer his. The reason he should play tighter from the SB is that the pot odds he's being offered as a result of posting only half of a BB are worse and, therefore, less hands are profitable calls. As I mentioned earlier, this pot odds problem is only half the struggle in the SB. The other factor that renders calling much lower EV is that Hero is not closing the action by making the call as he is in the BB. Instead, he's often going to be squeezed or end up in three-way pots with the BB to act after him post-flop. His position is hopeless in these situations. Being squeezed forces Hero to forfeit all of his equity and fold a huge amount of a capped and wide calling range from the SB. The impact this has on the EV of an already marginal calling hand should not be underestimated - it's severe and calling that hand can quickly become -EV where the BB is squeezing regularly. If Hero is barely breaking even on a call when he sees the flop 100% of the time, only seeing the flop 85% of the time will throw him

Bet-sizes: full pot, 2/3-pot and 1/3-pot. In this experiment we get the same results as the [0-1] Toy Game predicts with Hero’s strongest hand AA using the biggest bet-size, KK using the second biggest bet-size and finally QQ using the smallest bet-size and balancing it out with 55, and 66 using all three-bet-sizes (the fraction of 55 in the range is not enough to make up all the bluffing frequency so a small portion of 66 is used to make up the difference). JJ-77 are always checked. The Villain’s response in this toy game is to always call AA against all bet-sizes, then add enough of all other hands to make IP bluffs indifferent to a bet or check. [0-1] Toy Game Example A However, this toy game has some limitations that real poker does not have. For example, in real poker, your opponents can raise your bets so, if you use the 1/3-pot bet-size, they will know you can only have QQ or 55 and use that information to attack your capped range by raising with a range that is polarized against that distribution, for example AA, KK and some bluffs. This will allow the Villains to pick up extra EV (Hand Range 337).

There are many factors that can render a calling range elastic or inelastic, but we'll start by looking at Fish in general. Like I said, Fish like pieces of the board. They especially love top pair, draws to good hands, and even second pair on the earlier streets and are not much more likely to fold these hands facing a moderate increase in bet size. Therefore, when my students worry about blowing Fish out of the pot and 'losing action' I reassure them with this notion. Let's look at the next figure to clarify the concept further: Figure 25 - Elasticity

Alpha (α) The minimum frequency your opponent needs to fold to a bet, in order to break even with a pure (0% equity) bluff. Alpha can be defined as risk/(risk + reward), where risk = amount bet or raised to win the pot, and reward = amount won when the opponent(s) fold(s). For example, if hero makes a half-pot bet, they are risking 0.5 pot to win 1 pot, so α = 0.5/(0.5 + 1) = 33%. Therefore, if the opponent folds more than ⅓ of the time, then hero has a profitable pure bluff with any two cards. Alpha (α) is inversely related to Minimum Defense Frequency (MDF), such that α = 1 - MDF

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

UNCERTAINTY TO MAKE YOUR DECISIONS EASIER FOR YOURSELF Reduce uncertainty. Make your decisions easier for yourself. You get this, right? Once you understand the problem poker presents, you realize that the problem is really hard. You’re playing chess against multiple opponents with part of the board blacked out. That’s hard! So every action you take at the table must be to make your decisions easier and directed at gathering information about what your opponents are holding. The moreinformation you have about your opponents’ hands, the less uncertainty you’ll have and the easier your decisions will be going forward. The more you can do this, the better off you’ll always be. Your Primary Goal is to Reduce Uncertainty Reducing uncertainty makes all our decisions easier by completing the information picture. Of course, there are two other ways to make your decisions easier. One, you can opt out of the decision-making process entirely by folding. If you fold, you have no more decisions to make during the hand. Two, you can also opt out of the decision-making process by putting all your chips in the pot. Once you’re all-in, you have no more decisions to make. We’ll discuss the all-in play later and when and how to apply that tool. For now, just recognize that of all the tools at your disposal, the all-in tool is something of a blunt instrument. You’ll want to use it sparingly. So our main goal is to try to reduce our uncertainty and make our decisions easier. At the same time, we also have a secondary goal: to make our opponents’ decisions in relation to us harder. If poker is a decision-making problem and if you can make better decisions than your opponents, you’ll end up with all the money. How do you make better decisions than your opponents? Not just by being smarter than they are (though presumably you are), but also bymaking your decisions easy and their decisions tough. How important is this? Is crucial important enough? Because if you think about one givenhand of hold ’em, in Vegas let’s say, where four raises per betting round are allowed, that makes five possible decision points on each betting round and four rounds of betting per hand. That sounds like 20 chances for you to make a slightly better decision than your opponents. Trust me, even if you’re only a slightly better decision-maker than your opponents, you’ll end up winning all the money in the world if you have 20 chances per hand to leverage that small decision-making edge. And if you become a much better decision maker than your opponents? The mind boggles. Viewed through a certain filter, poker is a bidding war. I set a price and you set a price back to me, then I set a price back to you, and every time we have this little pricing war where we each put bids out there, we give ourselves an opportunity to make a good decision or a poor one. Everytime we can force our opponents into a bad decision, we win. Iwant

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…

opponents, ask yourself who’s most likely to bet. Left is right. Right is wrong. TIP 21 Lots of money is lost in pots with at least three players when one of them raises from a middle seat on the last round of betting. Lower level professionals quite often make the mistake of raising with fairly strong, but not invincible, hands. You seldom want to raise with this secondary strength. By “secondary,” I mean that the hand is very powerful, but falls short of primary strength, which consists of hands that cannot be beat or, at least, are very nearly invincible. Aggressive players that are accustomed to dominating the game by getting maximum value through betting, typically raise much too liberally in this situation. The mistake costs them dearly, but they probably don’t even realize it. The problem with this middle raise is that hands with secondary strength usually make more money if you give a third player the chance to overcall. A raise will likely chase away that money and, if the first player is bluffing or has a hand too weak to call, that raise gains you nothing. By not raising, you 84 also protect yourself against losing more money with a second-best hand when you collide with the perfect hand. The solution: Seldom raise in the middle position on the last betting round. You can make an exception and raise if: (1) You have a weak hand and you think you’re being bluffed; or (2) Your hand is extremely strong. In the first case, you raise to eliminate the player waiting to act behind you, so you can beat the possible bluff. In the second case, you raise strictly because your hand is strong enough to withstand a reraise from anyone and you’ll beat the player behind you, if he calls a raise. Even in the second case, you might choose to just call. So seldom raise. TIP 22 While most top professionals understand this, some don’t. And the majority of second-tier professionals, along with most serious amateurs, don’t seem to understand it at all, based on the way they play in this situation. I’ll try to explain it as simply as I can, but you’ll need to work with me a little. The mistake happens mostly in limit games. Imagine this: You’re playing $200/$400 hold’em. Three of you have survived to see the river card and here comes the final round of betting. You’ll be last to act, and you’re holding A™ J™ with a board of J® 4™ K™ 9´ Q´. The pot is $3,100 and the first player bets, making it grow to $3,500. You examine the situation and estimate that you have roughly 1 chance in 6 of beating this bettor in a showdown. As you know, 1 chance in 6 means that the odds are 5 to 1 against you. That means, in order to break even on the call, the pot would need to be at least five times as large as your $400 call. Well, the pot in this case is already $3,500—much

it was the worst case he was - like three point - best case was like plus one point - ish and the median was like point four so based off of our assumptions you know we always want to be very conservative with our assumptions cuz we just really don't know and it would be this horrendous I would just be punting money on fire if I call here and ends up being the worst case scenario maybe this guy is shoving maybe even he shoves Kings to try to like trick me you know thinking he's weak who knows people do that so in review of this hand I called in real-time he had a squeen which is one of the hands I knew he would always probably be shoving so that I didn't really learn too much about his range and I hit a jack doubled up I doubled up in the hand and won it got lucky versus ace queen and then ended up busting like I don't know like four hundred and fiftieth or something like that but the key thing was here and here's something to point out - the villain showed me ace Queen I didn't really learn anything at all because I know he's shoving ace Queen I was pretty confident with that but if he would've shoved like turned over King Queen off then I learned a lot because King Queen off was one of those hands that turns ace jack into a very profitable call if I see him shoving Jack ten suited I learned something that makes a Jack a very profitable call if I see him shoving ace ten off if he shows ace ten off here then ace jack is a slam-dunk all so that's kind of the process here of how you want to go through these push fold spots Hold'em resources calculator really cool program to use and you can do this on reshubs so when someone raises you can see what shove hands you should go all-in with lots of stuff we have one more hammer we'll be using both on this next hand we're gonna be using both HRC and piosolver so this is probably gonna be this second hand we do we'll probably the last one this will take another 10 15 minutes and then we'll go into questions let's just do this okay the same so in this hand this is from the big 50 big 50 tournament that have like 30,000 people this is in day two already in the money of one of the flights I can't remember I played a lot of them so in this hand we have King six of diamonds the big blind and it folds to a really strong regular who has like half a million so like 50 big blinds he knows who I am he's a party poker sponsored European Pro that I know that plays well and he has been limping since I got down to like ten to 20 big blinds and

like a video conference, and you’ll be able to focus on the players across the table from you and read them. I predict, through live video of each player replacing the icons in the seats, tells will be everywhere, and then full-scale psychological warfare will come to the online poker battlefield —and nothing will be missing. But for now, online poker sites—including doylesroom.com—depict players as icons. Sometimes those are cartoon characters, but Doyle’s Room uses your choice of symbols, including flags, scenery, and artistic words, like 49 TILT. Here are some of the icons you can choose to differentiate yourself from other players at the tables: Think of it as selecting one of those weird pieces to represent yourself at Monopoly as you roll the dice and prance around the board. Players think it’s kind of fun choosing their icon, but you’re not going to gain any tells staring at them. Well, maybe that’s not quite true. For instance, my guess is that players who choose an icon featuring the word TILT are actually fairly tight players, trying to deceive you. Are there other tells online? Indeed there are! Almost all of them center around the use of early action buttons. Those are one of the inventions that make online poker the fast-paced game it is. What are early action buttons? They are ingenious innovations that take advantage of the fact that you can secretly tell the software what your next action will be—before it’s your turn to act! Since your opponents are sitting in their own homes, possibly on the other side of the earth, they have no idea which button you’ve decided to push. Later, I’ll discuss specific tells associated with early action buttons. But, overall, you’re going to find yourself at a disadvantage online if you earn a lot of your real-world profit by reading your opponents. Reason #2: Can’t Spend the Money Immediately Part of the thrill of the poker I grew up with is that you can send your opponents home with their tails tucked between their legs, whimpering and whining, while you’re spending some of your freshly won money. Sadly, that thrill is gone from online poker. You can’t send opponents home whimpering, because they’re already home whimpering. And you can’t spend their money yet, because you can’t physically touch it. It’s there in your account, but if you want to spend it, you’ll have to request a cash-out and it will be several days before it arrives. Now, I’ll wager you’re thinking that that might be a good thing. I’m sure there are thousands of poker players who unwisely wasted big chunks of their bankrolls after a big win and wish they’d had to wait a few days to receive their winnings. It’s hard for most players to acquire the discipline needed to 50 hang on to a bankroll, and I think that playing online helps promote that necessary habit. But I’m listing this fact as a negative simply because I believe a grown-up poker player should be able to enjoy his winnings by stuffing

run, it does not pay off enough times if you only win 33% of the time at showdown. If there is a Flush Draw on the board that someone is drawing to one of your cards is counterfeited because it completes your opponents Flush. You may actually be drawing to three outs. So look at this long term view of probability; if you call three bets 21 times (63 bets) and you hit one (one win) time out of every seven (six losses). You paid out 63 bets but your hand really only won one time out of three or 33% of the time. When it did win we can say with implied odds you won back the money you lost the two out of three times an opponent showed down a better hand. At best, you will win nine bets but pay out 63 bets, losing 54 bets. One consideration though is how much a Gut-Shot might pay off or the implied odds. If you hold 7 4 and the board has 5 6 8 A and someone else had 2-Pair or a set; it is very hard for your opponent to put you on that hand. They will not suspect that you have a Straight with such an awkward unorganized board. This type of hand has better implied odds then say A 5 suited with a three Flush on the board. Most players will suspect you have the Flush and check/fold. If you can draw to this type of a Gut-Shot with good pot odds in no limit then you may be paid off very well at the showdown. In the above example, the K Jos has six over cards that can still win the hand and giving it more Pot Equity. A Probe Bet by the A 7os hand will not be as effective. Knowing your opponent and table profile can be the difference between winning this pot, losing a lot of money or mucking the hand. What would you do? Starting Hand/Win % Flop/Hand Type Win % Turn/Hand Type Win % AQs - 44.19% Top Pair 38.43% Top Pair 61.9% K9os - 25.58% 2nd Pair 11.74% 2nd Pair 7.14% 87s - 30.22% Flush Draw/3rd pair 49.83% Flush Draw/3rd Pair 30.95% Top Pair vs. the Flush Draw has the Top Pair slightly ahead by 7%. If a blank hits on the Turn, the Top Pair becomes a more dominant favorite. I see many players bet out for information and determine how to proceed after the flop. If a blank on the Turn, that does not seem to improve the typical draws (Flush or Straight), then become more aggressive because the Top Pair improves the chances of winning. Starting Hand/Win % Flop/Hand Type Win % Turn/Hand Type Win % AQs - 44.19% Ace high 34.77% Ace high 54.76% K9os - 25.58% King high 7.75% King high 4.76% 87s - 30.22% Flush Draw/GutShot 57.47% Flush Draw/GutShot 40.47% The two Flush and Gut-Shot are a considerable favorite against the over card draws on the flop. Once again, if a blank hits on

the gun shoving range though notice it's really weird looking we're re raising tiny again with the nuts plus some kingx suited Bluffs does anybody do this I don't know the best people in the the world do um it's hard to know these scenarios notice though jams with ASX suited let's say they do go all in and now this is going to show us what the cut off should call off with take a look at this so just make it clear the hijack makes it two big blinds or something like that the cut off Ray is small by the way you are going to be using smaller Reay sizes most of the time in a final table if you get jammed on and I just showed you the jamming range it's it's a it's a bunch of asex suited and middle pairs this is all you can call off with Aces Kings Queen Jacks TS Ace King and Ace Queen suited that seems incredibly tight right and you may look at this and say wow we're folding a ton of our range and yeah we are the problem is is that for the opponent it's just detrimental when they run into our the top of our range which lets us raise and then fold hands like pocket Ace Ace 10 suited Ace queen off suit that perhaps we would normally consider calling off okay let's go back to this let's presume under the gun men raises now let's say the cut off folds now the button with 15 big blinds this is pretty logical I think they're we mostly all in our fold because they have only 15 big blinds fine let's say they fold now small blind with 44 big blinds interesting spot for them notice they have to be quite tight they don't get a splash with any suited connected hands marginal big cards they just have to fold those also notice they're not even three betting with a lot of their best hands it would normally three bets kings queens Jacks Ace Queen suited Etc so again they have to play a lot tighter notice though some of the hands that really like to three bet in this scenario are a lot of the ax suited King X Suited Ace King off or acex offit and King X offit these hands heavily prefer well they prefer three betting more than they would if they were no payout implications so definitely keep that in mind also know suit a lot of marginal suit connected handers have to fold plus presume they fold now over to the big blind with 20 big blinds look at this wild chart you should know if you studied with no payout implications when you're playing at a final table I'm sorry when you're not playing at a final table and somebody raises you should be defending your big blind really really wide when you have 20 big blinds because because you can call flop a pair load your money in easy

of strange sizing um pretty good run out thin value that bet the turn Jax intends I don't think they go for three streets maybe they do versus a nine Aces and Kings sure do Ace Queen does available Bluffs would be there you go I guess Kings doesn't go for it either I think that off the table you just want to study and learn and grow as much as you can which looks different for different people but yeah that's that's kind of the process I mean once you have the skills and you're able to recognize that you have an edge then you want to move up if you can um here with the jacks I think okay we're gonna start out with the 70 percenter um I don't expect to get raised here that often we don't have the Jack of Spades but hence like um on the seven that doesn't really change very much and you know we're just going to be going for three streets of value here I don't expect to get raised like this will be a three bet happy day got a hand that can three bet and call a four bet um ace high we block Ace Queen um I think we're going to start out with half pot blocking like Ace King doesn't really do a ton because they don't really have Ace King um they can have like ace5 or ASA pocket a it's pocket fives it's like a pretty easy three bet and call Four bet hand this villain's short 24 hands at the table they've been through bet quite a bit already uh and this is you know kind of a good board and we're gonna start by betting a quarter pot don't really expect to get raised that often uh feelings tacit offend quite wide facing this bet so on the seven turn like now going three streets I don't think makes a lot of sense so I think like just checking makes some sense um the nine pairing not especially great the back door flush completing also not especially great um hope fill in checks basically there were quite a few different runouts that I would have preferred now it's just uh pretty much checking and quite the turn card for the villain there and we're just gonna defend like all the things here flopping top two on a board where villain just has a bunch of strong hands like really happy to just bet half pot and expect to get check raised quite often um I expect villain to continue quite often like it's just I would be quite shocked and surprised if villain just Chuck Folds um we're just gonna go for an overbed here on the turn again we have a limited amount of strong value hands and that just puts villains Bluff catchers in a quite a pickle but they got out of the pickle by simply mucking their hand the eights is going to be a three bets if nothing happens

THE CONCEPTS 177 usually reraise with your excellent hands (e.g., A♡K♣), call with many good hands (e.g., 3♡3♢or 9♠8♠), and fold the rest. But you occasionally also reraise as a bluff. When choosing the times you occasionally bluff, try to pick those times you have a fairly good hand, but one that you’d usually fold. For instance, say you’d generally call with K♠T♠, but fold K♠7♠. The latter hand is a good one to semi-bluffwith. It’s much better than a truly terrible hand like J♣3♢: If you happen to get action on your reraise, you’re more likely to get lucky and actually make a good hand with K♠7♠. Since you’d normally fold both K♠7♠and J♣3♢, you typically lose nothing by waiting for the better hand to make your randomizing bluffs. If you are in the blind in an unraised pot, however, things change signifi- cantly. For instance, say you are playing $5–$10 with $1,000 stacks. Five players limp to you in the big blind. Your preflop strategy dictates that you raise your excellent hands and check everything else.50 (These raises in multiway pots are usually large in size, and your opponents will infrequently flat-call them.) But, again, you occasionally also raise as a bluff. Now you are better offwaiting for your truly terrible hands, J♣3♢for example, than choosing a hand like K♠7♠. If you check, you get to see the flop for free, and with K♠7♠you might well flop a strong hand or draw. You could also flop something with J♣3♢, but it’s much less likely. Since your raises in this situation are usually either reraised or (more often) folded to, you are wasting the value of decent hands when you make this bal- ancing play. You should revert back to better hands for small reraises or when your opponents are more likely to just call.51 Concept No. 28: With strong hands, generally raise either a small, pot-building amount or a large, hand-defining amount. Don’t raise an amount in the middle that both tells your opponent that you have a good hand and offers them the right implied odds to try to beat you. Say you are playing a $5–$10 game with an $800 stack. Two good players limp in, and you have K♡K♣on the button. Raising to $30 or so would constitute a pot-building raise. The raise is small enough that your opponents will all tend to call it. You would raise that amount with a wide array of hands, hoping to build a pot with your positional advantage. So making the raise doesn’t give away the fact that you have an extraordinary hand. Raising to $120 would constitute a hand-defining raise. You’d usually make a raise that big only with good hands, and your opponents will know it. You’re unlikely to get action unless one of your opponents also happens to have an excellent hand. The size of the raise gives away the strength of your hand, but your oppo- nents can’t do anything with the information. Even if you always committed 50You also should make small pot-sweetener raises with

call the Jack given there are plenty of busted draws I could have like a sec suited right it's four suited like I mentioned I'd probably bet on the flop and probably give up on the turn and be sitting here with random Base Four of hearts and feel inclined to Bluff it so this is a pretty good spot to either check or bet big some people saying they want to half pot it I hate the idea of half potting like what are you trying to get caught by when you have pot like eight seven I mean eight seven may call but probably not pocket sevens may decide to call but probably not so I think if you're trying to get called by random hands like eight seven you probably want to go smaller but even then kings are not a hand that wants to go small on the spot because kings are almost always going to be the nuts here right because of what I just said and whenever the opponent does not bet the turn and then the river brings a total brick too we basically have the nuts and the nuts usually wants to go big we talked about this with the King five suited earlier same spot here nuts usually want to go big or check we do a big phone calls we win and they show me a queen that's a bummer it's a bummer because if I checked they would have bet then we could have gotten in the check raise I'm as you think your opponent has fewer and fewer Queens in the range you should be more inclined to bet River but in the spots there's no reason I think they have like squarely a queen I also usually like betting big in High Roller tournaments in general because the players are a little bit more call Happy on the river especially when random draws Miss and there are plenty of draws that or just junk cans I could have that could feel inclined to Bluff so I'm fine with that one pocket aces under the gun raises under the gun is a loose aggressive splashy player who I've already seen raise and then call a three bet with the queen Force Suited foreign 53 big blinds deep I think we have two options the obvious option is to re-raise GTO strategy is to erase if the opponent is going to call three best with the queen Force we should definitely re-raise so that's a good reason to re-raise but you see the reason to call there's a very clear reason to call here too well take a look at the two players you have to act on the button and the small blinds the button in the small blind both have almost no chips very very very very good shoving Stacks right and if they think under the gun is Raising with stuff like Queen 4 suited and I think I'm going to obviously widen my calling range to try

really good end so if you're gonna bet I'd be betting mm I'd be like betting in elem pot if there was a raise preflop like say someone raised calling you call big blind I definitely checked the flop looking to check raise because then one of the two players especially the preflop raiser is going to be inclined to bet but in a limp pot you're gonna be less inclined to face the bet because people are just gonna check it through so I like the flop bet but I would have bet 2,000 get called by the big blind which is not really the player you want to get called by you might trying to get called by the high Jack because big blind has all the sevens and obviously you lose to all the sevens that's that big white also has a lot of draws so on the turn oh just keep betting purely for value the thing is is whenever you have a seven in your hand if to realize it's very very unlikely for you to be against the seven because you bought essentially so you're way more likely being it's a draw or an eight so now that we're very likely meeting us to draw or an eight I think we can go something like three thousand on the turn three thousand doesn't give the draws great odds and it's probably not gonna fold let me just continue building the pop of their trips so twenty five hundred again Mike slightly bigger best sizes especially on coordinated boards where is a fourth all right well we have pretty much the nuts some people may look at this and say oh but we could be against eight seven in Queen seven and pocket queens and pocket eights like yeah you could but you're probably not and if you are you lose your money again don't get in the habit of making big folds unless your opponents are literally the weakest tightest knits who never ever ever ever Bluff and that's not what the label says so I'm not gonna pretend like that's the case or you know even people over value right some people look at age seven and think it's the nuts all right so we want to bet we're trying to get call by an eight I think we need to go small here we can't go too big because if we go too big what's gonna happen is our proponents see usually only gonna call us with a seven and we have no indication at all the opponent is a seven because a lot of people just raise sevens on the flop or the term so we really are trying to get call by a queen or an eight and most likely an eight right because if I would have had to call a flop with a queen so I think a small bet here is pretty nice because if we best small we will get call by eight which is good also we

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so okay let's just give him this and this is actually a pretty controlled raising range some guys get a little bit more out of line than this but okay this is opening this micro six players low six players if you check out of the big line and you guys are heads up and you just completed pre-flight a lot of them see bet 100 of the time just all the time there's just very little balance and that opens the door for one of very few bluffs you should be doing versus weaker players so this board came what was it five six eight rainbow five of clubs six of hearts and my memory isn't what it wants was eight of spades let's take a look so what you're going to notice here is no mate and is 62.45 percent of the time how do i know that because people like to raise with big cards not middle cards not low cards you'll notice this is what people like to raise with if this doesn't match with this they likely didn't hit if these hands do not match on the flop with these cards it is very likely they missed so what do i mean by that so what happened here if i can figure out how to operate a computer jeez come on man okay so we risked we risked 10 10.5 to win 21.7 so using our super high tech calculator here our bet as a complete bluff needs to work about 48 of the time meaning villain 48 here needs to defend with 52 of their hands they must call a raise with 52 of these hands that's going to be mighty difficult for him to do because let's just see how often he has any pair any draw and i mean a real draw like an open-ended stretcher well he only has that about 34.5 percent of the time he's breaking this board almost two-thirds of the time okay we'll throw in the gut shots all right give him some gut shots he wants to defend with he's still only defending 43 of the time which means he's def he's folding 57 percent of the time and by the way once he calls us we have a lot of equity because what's he going to call with mostly it's going to be his eights sixes and fives do a lot of those have a queen and king or queen in their hand no our outs are pretty clean they probably didn't raise with king five off or queen six suited even if he's a little wild those are those are pretty far out there on this one as you can see i mean it's not impossible it's just not as likely whereas if we check ray's bluff with an ace high it's really likely he has all the ace eights a6's ace five at least the suited combination so we do a bluff now here's the thing the whole reason we do this bluff is we

The first thing that might jump out at you here is that CO is a very fishy looking player who is quite likely to be continuing to this squeeze. This impacts Hero's decision in a major way. Essentially, post- flop will be far more profitable for Hero should he flat due to the frequent presence of this weaker player. This makes the EV of flatting any hand in Hero's range higher than it would be if he were just likely to be seeing the flop HU with the squeezer. This points to the second of the above two strategies being the correct one. Whether Hero has a nutted hand like AA/KK, a weaker frequent strength hands like KQs, or a hybrid implied odds/frequent strength hand like TT, calling seems best. When he has the nuts it will still be very possible to stack the Reg on many flops and Hero gets the added bonus of being able to take advantage of the Fish stacking off too lightly. Since Hero doesn't really want to 4-bet any of his range for value, having a 4-bet bluff range isn't going to be possible from a balance perspective. There is no incentive to start off madly unbalanced and only 4-bet weak hands unless Villain folds to a lot of 4-bets over a large sample. Having a 4-bet bluff range also isn't necessary from the point of view of meeting MDF for two reasons: Hero can flat a lot of his range since the CO boosts implied odds so much. If so much of Hero's opening range can be defended in this way, then the need to 4-bet bluff to meet MDF is diminished. CO's presence and tendency not to fold substantially relieves some of the burden of defence from Hero. Villain meeting his RFE on a light squeeze will depend not just on Hero folding but on CO folding too. This means that Hero does not have to defend enough of his own range to make Villain indifferent to adding light 3-bets to his range; the Fish mathematically helps out in this respect. Hero only has to make up the difference between how often the Fish folds and how often

must raise here. I'd recommend tossing in a significant raise of about the size of the pot, say $12,000 to $15,000. There are several reasons for making a good-sized raise here, some technical and some psychological. You have a legitimate hand. There's no harm in raising the pot when your cards are strong. 1. You're out of position. If you and Player F both stay in the pot, you'll be acting first on every subsequent betting round. That's a big disadvantage, so you should make at least some effort to finish the hand early. 2. You need to establish psychological dominance. You want players at the table to fear you, but if you can't get fear, at least get respect. As the big blind, this is your pot. Defend it. Show them 36 you can't be pushed around. 3. Player F is a tough player with a super-aggressive style. Such players are extremely dangerous. Because they can be playing any two cards, you won't be able to tell, after the flop comes, exactly where you stand. Right now, you know you have a good hand, so make a move. Against super-aggressive players you want to settle the hand quickly, win or lose. Action: You just call. The pot is now $ 14,850. Flop: 9♣6♥5♦ Question: What's your move? Answer: This was a bad flop for you. Was it a bad flop for your opponent? Against a player who will cheerfully play any two cards, who knows? It might have missed him, or he might now have one or two pair. The best way to handle this situation is just to make a bet and see what happens. Sometimes the bet will win the pot. Sometimes you'll get raised, and you can just throw your hand away. If you get called, you're still done with the hand unless you get very lucky on fourth street. You want to play in such a way that you get information about your opponent's hand at minimum cost. If you have to act first, betting out is the only way to get that information. If you check, and he then bets, what do you know? Not much, except that you put him in a situation where he has an almost mandatory bet no matter what he holds, and he then bets. Your dilemma illustrates why the raise before the flop was so important. You've missed the flop completely, and the argument for betting is still compelling. But if you had made the move before the flop, Player F would have thrown away a lot of hands which might now be winning. Action: You just check. Player F checks as well. The pot is still $14,850. An aggressive player checked when he could have bet. You should now be suspicious. Fourth Street: 8♣ Question: What do you do now? Answer: You still have nothing, and it's increasingly likely that something out there has hit Player F's hand. Since you just called before the flop and checked after the flop, your opponent is not going to believe that you

Hand Range 219: BN vs UTG 4-bet (25bb) • Call 59.3% / • Fold 40.7% Defending the BN (40bb)

nan

Some Preflop Heads-Up All-In Matchups You should be familiar with how a few hands play against one another heads- up and all-in before the flop. This is especially important knowledge if you play a lot of tournaments, since these scenarios come up over and over in tournament play. A♡A♠vs. K♢K♣ 81.25% | 18.75% When a pocket pair is pitted against a lower pair, the bigger pair is about a 4.5-to-1 favorite. 5♡5♠vs. A♣K♣ 51.78% | 48.22% When a pocket pair is pitted against two overcards, the hands are about even money against one another. The pair gains a slight advantage when the overcards are unsuited and unconnected. 5♡5♠vs. A♣2♠ 70.59% | 29.41% When a pocket pair is pitted against one overcard and an undercard, the pair is about a 2.5-to-1 favorite. 8♣8♢vs. 4♡3♣ 84.01% | 15.99% When a pocket pair is pitted against two undercards, the pair is about a 5.5-to-1 favorite. 8♣8♢vs. A♡8♡ 70.08% | 29.92% When a pocket pair is pitted against an overcard and a card of its rank, the pair is about a 2.5-to-1 favorite. 153

Diagram 51 Table 112: IP Metrics by Flop Texture Diagram 52 Monotone flops are the most c-bet but they also have the lowest EV for IP. On this texture, IP’s strong hand percentage diminishes by a large margin, while the BB’s strong hand percentage increases because a lot of hands that would be trash on other textures are now flushes and a lot of IP’s hands that would be strong on other textures reduce in equity. The BB’s weak hands percentage also increases, as many hands that would be complete trash on other textures now have some sort of flush draw. This range distribution creates a similar situation as on paired boards, with the BB having a polarized distribution, while IP is more depolarized. For this reason, using smaller bet-sizes is preferred as they will get a lot of folds from the BB’s hands that have terrible equity while not overcommitting with all of IP’s good, but not great hands.

Recall that how often we need our steal to work depends on what price we give ourselves on that steal; that's to say, how much we're risking compared to our potential gain should the steal be a success.

I first started working with preflop solves, one of the features I found most… The ICM Benefits of Late Registration in Poker Tournaments Why do so many professional poker players register late for tournaments when they clearly would… Flop Heuristics: OOP C-Betting in MTTs Playing against an in-position cold-caller is dramatically different–and dramatically more difficult–than playing against a caller… Counterintuitive Calls Solver outputs such as those provided by GTO Wizard are models of no-limit hold ‘em,… How To Negotiate Final Table Deals Most people’s first introduction to the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is not from studying bubble… How does ICM impact PKO strategy? If you have read The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments you already know why we… Understanding Blockers in Poker Often when looking through a solver’s meticulously crafted grid of deception, one of the following… Flop Heuristics: IP Cold-Caller in MTTs A Cold-call refers to the act of calling a preflop raise when you don’t close… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in MTTs In the world of poker, the flop is a crucial stage of the game that… Flop Heuristics for Defending the Blinds in MTTs The field of Game Theoretically Optimal poker is extensive, and thus, to simplify our strategy,… Multiway strategy in Progressive Knockout Tournaments Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments are much more complex than traditional MTTs. The fact that players… How To Calculate Raises In Poker One of the most frequently asked questions in poker is how to calculate the size… Principles of River Play The river offers the least complicated strategy of any betting street. With no further cards… Exploitative Dynamics GTO solutions are designed to be unexploitable, performing reasonably well no matter how your opponents… How ICM Impacts Postflop Strategy Most players understand how the Independent Chip Model (ICM) in poker impacts their strategy preflop,… 10 Tips for Multiway Pots in Poker While lots of work has been placed into research and explanation of heads-up pot strategy,… What is the Bubble Factor in poker tournaments? The Independent Chip Model (ICM) shows us the real money implications of tournament chip decisions.… The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments In poker, a PKO (Progressive Knockout) tournament is a type of tournament where a portion… How To 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

range Reveal solution Answer: D – Check our entire range Flop#2: 4 ♠ 3 ♥ 2 ♦ C-bet 100% of our range for ⅓ pot size C-bet 50% of our range for ⅓ pot size C-bet 25% of our range for full-pot size Check our entire range. Reveal solution Answer: D – Check our entire range Flop#3: K ♠ Q ♥ 6 ♦ C-bet 100% of our range for ⅓ pot size C-bet 100% of our range for ⅔ pot size C-bet 33% of our range for ⅔ pot size Check our entire range Reveal solution Answer: A – C-bet 100% of our range for ⅓ pot size Flop#4: K ♠ 4 ♥ 3 ♦ C-bet 100% of our range for ⅓ pot size C-bet 100% of our range for ⅔ pot size C-bet 33% of our range for full pot size Check our entire range Reveal solution Answer: B – C-bet 100% of our range for ⅔ pot size. Granted, it’s not perfectly accurate, but it does capture the essence of the solution. UTG chooses to c-bet ½ pot 40% of the time and ¾ pot size 35% of the time, with a tiny amount of overbetting, small betting, and checking. A solid strategy in-game would be to merge the ranges of the two most-used bet sizes and use a bet size that’s between them like 66%. Since these two sizes account for 75% of our combos, it’s good enough for us to simplify our strategy to a range-bet for a large sizing. If you got a perfect score, kudos to you! Let’s now find out if you chose the answers for the right reasons. If you did not get all four, there’s no need to worry since we will dive into the analysis. Vamos! Q96 rainbow At first glance, this looks like a decent flop for UTG. We improved with KQ and AQ , and our broadways have some sort of draw equity. Thus, we might expect UTG to c-bet quite often, which would certainly be the case if we were the preflop raiser (PFR) in position. Yet, the correct answer is actually for UTG to check their entire range . BTN holds an equity advantage of 53% and has a higher percentage of sets. With clear disadvantages in equity and strong hands, UTG has to be more conservative and try to limit the pot size while out of position. When facing a check, BTN will stab small about 40% of the time. UTG will not check-raise super aggressively, as we can see above, just 10% of the time. Even a hand like AQ o, top pair top kicker, will generally be played as a check-call most of the time with a small percentage of check-raising. Protecting the weaker parts of our range and bluff-catching becomes a larger priority than outright going for value with our good-but-not-great hands. The takeaway from this flop study is that we should prefer to take a more passive route and keep the pot small when out of position, even with hands that are ordinarily

call so we do bluff catch Zach we're going to get your answer this is results oriented thinking everybody so if we do see a heart draw here this won't be all the time but let's see and we did have a bluff so they were bluffing with the gutty so really weak really weak play like this person shouldn't be bluffing with his hand here and the reason why they shouldn't be bluffing with the gutty is because you're out of position against two players on this board where you're never getting anyone to fold Queen Jack Ace Jack Ace Queen Jack thine Queen nine uh heart draw 10x King X like look at all those hands I just listed that are never folding even eight nine that beat you is not folding to your bet eight nine bro is not folding so yes this is just a not a play that should happen if someone's playing accordingly so if you know that someone's this wide in ranges and this maniacal which is not a word but if you know that they are then you should be calling here with a pair of tens on the river absolutely so well played uh patar well played all right uh we got a 2.75 X from this guy who's been clowning around with the seven eight we got the Ace King suited what are we doing we're gonna three bet this so what kind of sizing look at here's here's where we where we were like normally we want to be three and a half 4X here when we're out of position but we're also deep we're also 50 big blinds plus deep here so think about what sizing that would be for you so yeah I think we need to be at least at least eight big blinds here eight or more at least eight or more see here's the other thing this person made it 2.75 X so we really could make it like 4X here and go like 12 Bigs like there's nothing wrong with us playing Big Pop poker here so I anywhere from like 8 to 12 bigs is cool with me and we click it back we of course the Min Rays Warrior he doesn't care what we think 5.5 gigs all right so anyway this isn't now now here's the thing this is the one good thing I will say about this this isn't bad when we have hands like this when we have like monsters that are suited that are going to be easy hands to play it's not that bad to invite someone to call you the problem is though is we lose out on the money we would make from this person calling a bigger three bet like let's say they're gonna call every three that we make they'll call nine bigs and they'll call 5.5 what we just missed out on three and a half big blinds here if we didn't make it nine so that's why I don't like small sizing

a bit of turn shoving when the 3-bettor is out of position . Here’s the BB vs UTG strategy with 40bb stacks : Average turn strategy for BB: 40bb. Pot control is trickier from out of position, giving you slightly more incentive to shove the turn, but only slightly more. The out of position player cannot guarantee a free river card by checking , nor will they have the option to check behind on unfavorable rivers . So, they have a bit more incentive to get all-in on the turn, but only a bit more. They have a substantial shoving range on just a few specific turns, all low cards that put a flush draw on the board. On these turns, they have some incentive to shove low flush draws , medium pairs , and AK without a flush draw (stronger flush draws prefer to induce additional action). None of these are pure shoves, either, because they are also good candidates for check-raising all-in. This has the same benefits of ending the action before the river but entices an extra stab from some of UTG’s weakest hands before blowing them off their equity : Medium Connected Flops Although these boards favor the 3-bettor much less than blank flops, their turn barreling frequencies are not much lower . This is because the 3-bettor has already accounted for the relative unfavorability of the flop with a lower continuation betting frequency . When they do bet the flop, it’s with a range calibrated to facilitate effective turn barreling. Here is BTN vs UTG with 40bb starting stacks on 8 ♦ 7 ♦ 6 ♣ : Average turn strategy for BTN: 40bb. Despite the coordinated board, BTN does very little big betting or shoving on the turn. When they do bet big, it’s almost exclusively on double flush draw boards , where rivers are most dynamic. Mostly they’re betting a geometric size, still treating their overpairs as the nuts and setting up river shoves. The exceptions are when a 9, Ten, or a diamond turns. These cards undermine BTN’s nuts advantage , compelling them to target a weaker part of UTG’s range with a smaller size. As is usually the case when betting geometrically, BTN’s barreling range on most turns is polar . That means they mostly aren’t betting modest pairs or draws that are in danger of getting raised. Rather, they bet strong made hands , low-equity draws (overcards, gutshots), and combo draws so strong they can call a raise: The major change with deeper stacks is larger bet sizes on the blankest turn cards to accommodate geometric growth of the pot. This is 100bb stacks, BTN vs UTG : Average turn strategy for BTN: 100bb (instead of 40bb). On turned overcards , favoring the 3-bettor , especially an offsuit King, they actually run out of bluffs and so barrel at smaller than geometric size, which also accommodates some thinner value/protection bets: Going back to 40bb starting stacks . We can see that, on this more dynamic board, the out of position (BB) 3-bettor mostly

Resteal A preflop 3-bet from late position or the blinds. The opening raise attempts to "steal" the pot, while the "resteal" attempts to take down the opener's raise preflop.

consistent checks are: Smaller offsuit overcards ( QJ o, JT o). A2 o and K2 o, which not only have a weak kicker but also lack the straight draw that A3 and K3 have. Their very worst pairs, especially if they also have a straight draw ( 33 mostly checks but 22 mostly bets) The nuts. BB mostly checks 85 , which blocks important continuing hands from UTG like 98 , 88 , and 87 , but mostly bets 53 . Slowplaying sets and two pairs is less desirable because they could easily lose action or even the entire pot to a scary turn card. Articulating these principles provides some insight into what exactly this donk bet accomplishes. Note that it’s a small bet, just 33% of the pot. The only other bet size included in this simulation is all in, which BB never uses, so we can’t say for sure the BB would never use, say, a 75% pot bet if given the option. But a small bet from out of position ought to result in UTG rarely folding, which means BB is mostly betting hands with good equity when called but which still benefit to some degree from denying equity . In other words, there are few airball bluffs in this range. A2 o and K2 o are among BB’s lowest equity hands, and those are pure checks. This betting range is mostly about thin value and protection . AT o and KT o are not simply bluffs. While they sometimes cause dominating hands like AJ o and KQ o to fold, they also get called by some hands they dominate, like QT s and K9 s. And they deny equity to QJ o, which would have not only 8 outs but also the benefit of position on later streets. By betting, these hands clean up their equity, setting them up to keep betting for value when they turn a T or to check and induce bluffs when they turn an A or K . The danger of betting so many medium-strength hands is that it incentivizes UTG to raise. Thus, BB balances these hands that hate to get raised with hands that do very well when raised. This includes not just the sets and straights but also the 75 , 65 , and 54 , which can shove to deny equity to UTG’s bluffs while maintaining robust equity even against the strong hands that call the shove. Most of BB’s betting range consists of hands that benefit from denying equity but also retain good equity and playability when called. Many of these hands are vulnerable to raises, so the nut hands and strong draws serve to make UTG indifferent to raising with many hands that would otherwise be good candidates. The danger of betting so many medium-strength hands is that it incentivizes UTG to raise. Deeper Stacks The shallower stacks make this play more feasible for BB. Getting raised holding T7 is not so scary with an SPR of 3. BB does not actually have more of the Best

your chance of winning. (You should be even more inclined to bet if you have a backdoor flush draw as well.) This is something that very few players are aware of. In other words, your bet adds some possible ways ofwinning because when you bet, hands like K+JV and K4T4 will fold. The general concept is that if an ace comes and you have the upper end of a gut shot you should usually bet to prevent over cards to your cards from coming, even though they are under cards to the top card, and to fold out someone who shares one of your cards but has a higher kicker. You must understand that there is a difference between winning a pot 11 percent of the time and 14 percent of the time. This may sound like no big deal, but it can often swing a fold to a play. 1 1 percent means an 8-to- 1 shot. 14 percent means a 6-to- 1 shot. Getting back to the above example, what's the chance that a ten or a nine will come in that spot? You have 6 chances twice which is about 25 percent, and if you bet out as we recommend you will win a decent proportion of those times when you make a pair, whereas before it wouldn't have won. You also have about a 15 percent chance to make your gut shot. So you go from as little as 15 percent to probably over 20 percent because you bet that T9 and knock out these type of hands. Similar advice applies for a pair (except small pocket pairs). If you are first, the pot is large, and you have a pair, you usually should bet it even if you knew that you were beat. You are not trying to win it right there. If the pot is big enough and you know that you are going to call anyway, you have to bet it. You do this not just because there is a slight chance that you might win if you bet, but also because betting gets out those hands that will cost you the pot a small percentage of the time when your hand improves. Remember, you were going to call anyway. This means a lot when the pot is big. The point is that when a lot of bets are in the center of the table you don't worry about saving bets. You do everything possible to maximize your chance of winning. Another Example As we have seen, as pots get bigger and bigger, all that matters is doing whatever is necessary to win, and that usually includes a diversity of plays. Sometimes it can get extreme. For instance, if the pot is really large, you might play a hand strangely and seemingly miss bets or raises. Suppose on the flop the player on your right bets, you have top pair, but you know that if you raise four or five players will come in behind you anyway. If the pot is very big you should

And finally we reach the bottom of the pile. Frequent strength is the only factor of the three that can render a hand ISOable on its own. This means that a hand like this one is almost never going to be good enough to isolate with either poor fold equity or bad position, but could qualify if both of these other factors are exceptional. For example, Hero has a +EV ISO with this holding where he is in position against one limper who has a propensity to limp and then fold to raises pre-flop or play very fit-or-fold post-flop and where there are no other active or aware players left to act behind.

Back-raise When a player calls, and then re-raises after another player has raised on the same street.

have 5 to 10 minutes for questions but there is something new coming to poker coaching comm Jonathan is launching poker coaching premium and poker coaching premiums gave me a new membership training site add-on to the poker coaching he's gonna have a new cash game master class on there there's gonna be over 70 classes covering everything from post flop special situations and every month he'll be out in a new class every month isn't me a new live training webinar so basically this webinar that I'm doing now and the ones I've done in the past are gonna become exclusive to the poker coaching premium members and there's any new quizzes that are only for the premium members then you also get instant access to everything that you already have on poker coaching so the hand quizzes webinars etc but a lot of these free webinars are now going to go to the premium site here's a little look at his dashboard and all the new classes he's gonna have and then in terms of my topics you know you're gonna get access to all the previous webinars I've done so these are the previous webinars I've done for Coach poker coaching you obviously have access to those those are available elsewhere but the key pointer is a lot of these webinars now we're going to become exclusive to the premium poker coaching subscription so you'll have access to all those webinars and that's gonna be coming towards the end of the month so take a look at that poker coaching com such premium as always if you want to try out your free trial if you're just coming down here from if you heard about this on Twitter or social media you want to start your free seven-day child check out poker Janome can sign up for a free 7-day trial right now and yeah let's give him some questions I know we covered some complicated stuff I hope you were able to digest that well let's but yeah let's get into your question so someone said earlier if you google if you go on YouTube you can just type into YouTube Jonathan little poker how do I take notes of the table and Jonathan has the on YouTube jonathan has the how he takes his notes at the table for his hands if you don't hear me talking it's cuz I'm going through some of the questions from the webinar first bruce says yeah he's using Jonathan's pushed fold shove app and it's a marginal call yep so we confirmed through HRC so that's a key thing here Bruce so you use the Jonathan's push shove app which is great and you're able to very very quickly identify that that ace-jack was a marginal call so that's great but now through HRC you can go in and do the fine details and figure out why it's a marginal call and you really need to dig deep into it to figure out why it is in order to understand

in this video i'll be going over a method to simplify learning and implementing gto strategies one of the most common ways people learn poker is through pattern recognition for example when we see a flop with all high cards we understand through experience that the pre-flop aggressor has an advantage on this board and should generally be doing a lot of seabedding however since there are almost an infinite number of different situations that exist in poker finding spots where all of the exact same variables repeat themselves as highly unlikely which makes pattern recognition difficult so to address this problem we can take a page from the world of artificial intelligence by using a technique known as bucketing bucketing is used by ai to group together hands of similar strength thereby reducing the number of variables that need to be contended with and simplifying the game for example on this king 73 two-tone board ace king of diamonds and ace-king of hearts are strategically identical as they have the exact same showdown strength and neither has a backdoor flush draw so attempting to individually reason about each of these combos separately doesn't add any value in reality most players likely bucket hands without even realizing it right when playing in real time most players primarily think in terms of how their category of hands should be playing instead of how their specific combo should be playing for example instead of thinking about how ace king of spades should be playing on this board most players will think about how their top pairs or top pairs with strong kicker should be played however unlike computers which can easily implement using thousands of buckets humans can manage far less which creates a dilemma since there's a trade-off between simplifying strategy by utilizing fewer buckets and maximizing ev so in practice the goal for each player as he progresses in his experience and learning should be to make his analysis more and more sophisticated and granular by gradually increasing the number of buckets he uses which in turn will increase the eb of his plays so let's take a look at an example to see how bucketing works in practice in this hand the lojack opened in a 6 max cash game in the small blind called the flop is king 10 7 rainbow and the small blind needs to decide whether he should bet or check in this case most experienced players would likely quickly check on this board without much thon in reality what these players are doing is that they're actually bucketing 100 of their hands together to be played the same way because they recognize the fact that they're out of position and at a significant range disadvantage and we can confirm that this highly abstracted simplified strategy is optimal by checking the range eb regret value which tells us how much the small blind would lose in expectation against the gto opponent if it chose to check 100 of its hands in its range which in this case

Or, put another way, the worse you can run. Consequently, you usually should prefer a poker game where your bankroll requirements when compared to the size of the game, are not too steep. There is no question that once you have achieved expert status, hold 'em offers an excellent relationship between the expectation and the standard deviation. The reasons for this are that the best hand holds up more often in hold 'em than in any other game, and that you have the advantage of being able to see your opponent's last card which is yours as well. This means that sometimes you can throw away a hand that you would have to call with in other forms of poker, or you might be able to get in an extra bet, whereas in other games you might be forced to check. Of course, hold 'em can still be very frustrating - especially when it seems as though your opponents are always making their two- or three-out hands. However, with the tremendous growth of hold 'em, along with what we have just stated, there is no question that anyone who becomes an expert at this game will do very well indeed. A Note on the English Neither one of us claim to be professional writers. professional poker players. Furthermore, the ideas and concepts presented in this book originally came from tape recorded conversations between the authors. These tape recordings were not necessarily formatted exactly the same way a book would be and the language was not always grammatically perfect. This is occasionally reflected in the wording of this text. But the purpose of this book is not to get an "A7' from our English teacher. Rather it is to show you how to make a lot of money in all but the toughest hold 'em games. So if we end a sentence with a preposition or use a few too many words or even introduce a new subject in a slightly inappropriate place, you can take solace from the fact that you can buy lots more books by Hemingway with the money we make you. The First Two Cards Introduction The one area of hold 'em play where many strict guidelines can be given is on the first two cards. This is because the number ofpossible combinations is not that great. However, this does not mean that every hand should be played the same way every time, or that playing the first two cards is easy. You occasionally should play a hand differently not only for the sake of variation, but also depending on whether the game is loose or tight, or passive or aggressive. Expert players must be fooled more often than poor ones. But even if poor players always have a good idea of exactly where you are, you will lose some of your edge. Also, how loose and passive the game is can make a significant difference. Some hands that are not usually profitable to play become significant money winners if your opponents are / non-aggressive. The opposite is also

Diagram 120 After OOP x/b/c the flop, both players’ equities will run very close on the average turn card (Diagram 119). In fact, OOP has higher EQ (51.65%), but under-realizes it, capturing only 48.6% of the pot, while IP, with 46.6% EQ, captures 51.4% of the pot. Similarly to the flop donk bet, on the turn OOP chooses to donk bet when IP does not have as many dominant strong hands in their range and, instead, has many weaker hands that will benefit from checking back the turn (Diagram 120).

Home game A game played in a private residence or location, typically at the home of one of the players who hosts the game. In many jurisdictions, home games are illegal if rake is being collected.

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

Hand Range 56: HJ vs LJ Open • 3-bet 8.1% / • Fold 91.8%

Hand Range 276: CO 25bb (2x vs BN All-in) • Call All-in 31.6% / • Fold 68.4%

written for Card Player magazine. He maintains an extensive site with many useful links. Included are links for: book reviews, tournament information, shopping for poker-related products, news, discussion groups, and articles by well known writers. Publishers Many of the publishers of books on poker maintain informative, interactive, and entertaining Web sites. Some of the major sites are: http://www.cardozapub.com-publishes over 100 titles on poker, gaming, bridge, backgammon, and chess. There are books appropriate for every level of play, from novice to advanced. htt~://www.con_ielco.com-publishes books, newsletters, software, and videos on poker and gambling-related products. Conjelco operates a large online store that sells products from other publishers at discounted prices. Check out their "Gamblers Corner" for free information and links. http:Nwww.twoplustwo.corn-publishes many of the most widely known and influential books on poker and on gambling in general. Their web site provides information on book titles and original essays by many of the authors. An online forum on poker topics is operated through their web site. Anyone with a valid e-mail address can register and participate in the discussions. 130 THE INTELLIGENT GUIDE TO TEXAS HOLD'EM POKER Statistical Information htt~s://~~~.v~kerr~~m.com/evstats-Note the "s" after the http. You can also access this site via http://www.vokerroom.com and click on statistics. This is an interactive page that allows you to explore how some of the decision factors affect actual game results. The statistics presented are updated regularly because they are based on real-money Internet play and not a computer simulation. Use the pull-down menus to select a starting hand, a position to play from, the number of players competing, and the monetary stakes. Click on view statistics and the expected dollar amount won (expressed in number of big bets) is displayed. An instructive site for learning the strength of various starting cards and how that strength varies with position and number of players. As of this writing only 44 of the 169 possible starting hands produce positive results for the players. All others have negative expectation, meaning players lose money. Some notable hands with negative expectations are 22,33,44, and any hand containing an Ace with an unsuited card below a 10. In other words, those hands have tended to lose money. 10. Places to Play Online Cardrooms The following information is current as of February, 2003. Be advised that the Internet is in constant change. Links to Web sites and game availability can and do change overnight. Check the companion Web site for this book-httv://ww.intelli~ent~oker.com-for updated information and for the most current access to online cardrooms. Online poker is a fast growing industry with many new cardrooms appearing during the past two years. The list that follows is a sampling of some of the major venues and their features. It is not meant to be comprehensive. One additional note for Mac users: while most online cardrooms require the user to download software that runs on a Windows platform, it is possible to simulate Windows on a Macintosh. A software package called Virtual PC@ made by Connectix at httu:// www.connectix.com, will simulate the Windows operating system on a Macintosh and allow

earlier decision points to increase the likelihood your opponent will end up in the situation where they are likely to make the mistake you intend to exploit . Their range has less equity. The board is highly dynamic, amplifying their positional disadvantage. Each of these factors makes it less likely the raiser will win the pot, which makes growing the pot less desirable for them. Medium card flops tend to tick both these boxes, pairing more of the cold caller’s range while making very few hands so strong that they can be confident of their strength without regard for the turn and river cards. A player who continuation bets too often on these boards will lose a fair bit even if you do nothing to exploit them, simply because they are putting too much money into pots relative to their chance of winning them. You can turn the screws by folding even less than you normally would—floating with any kind of equity is especially effective on such boards—and, if you suspect they are betting too many medium-strength hands, developing a raising range as well. It’s best to think of these raises in terms of thin value, protection, and semi-bluffs rather than as flat-out bluffs, which are generally not profitable unless you also suspect your opponent will fold too often. GTO Wizard the #1 App for Poker players Study any spot imaginable Practice by playing vs. GTO Analyze your hands with 1-click START CRUSHING NOW JOIN DISCORD Author Andrew Brokos Andrew Brokos has been a professional poker player, coach, and author for over 15 years. He co-hosts the Thinking Poker Podcast and is the author of the Play Optimal Poker books, among others. Latest article Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors It amazes me that, after nearly twenty years of playing no-limit hold ‘em professionally, I… How to Handle Loose-Passive Limpers Solver charts and presolved solutions do not offer much in the way of explicit guidance… Top 5 Mistakes in Spin & Gos As a Spin and Go poker coach, I regularly encounter common mistakes that players make,… An Introduction to Spin & Gos I was playing Tournaments for the first decade of my career. But after my first… Relationships and Poker In my more than 15 years of poker coaching, I’ve helped hundreds of clients improve… Do Multiple Sizes Matter? Should I work out the other tools or just stick to the crowbar? Solver results… The Science of Learning Applied to GTO Wizard The way we were taught to study in schools was flawed and has negatively impacted… Check-Raising a Single Pair In this article, I will address a question raised by Twitter/X user ’Matt Riley’, who… The Turn Probe Bet Imagine yourself defending as the BB caller vs BTN preflop raiser in a 100bb cash… When To Encourage Multiway Pots in PKOs I was recently shown this fascinating PKO hand from 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?

has to be more aggressive, and you need to push your good hands a little harder. But the overall play of the hands more closely resembles a serious tournament. Players bet their good hands, they fold their bad hands, and slow-playing and all-in moves are the exception rather than the rule. Single-Table Sit-and-Go Online Tournaments Another popular format on most online sites is the sit-and-go tournament. They run 24 hours a day and most of them start as soon as a table of ten is filled. Entry fees range from $1 to $100, which usually buys you $1,000 in tournament chips. Blinds start low but rise rapidly, about every ten hands or so, and the tournament pays the last three places. The proper strategy for these tournaments is a little different from the other online events. In the early rounds, the blinds are very small compared to the chip stacks around the table, so conservative play is a good idea. At the same time, you can observe the other players at the table and see what kind of cards they're playing. Some of the players will be rocks, while others will play any two suited or connected cards. In the first two or three rounds, most pots will be fiercely contested, so make sure you have a real hand when you get involved. By the time you reach the fourth or fifth round of play, several things have happened. 1. Two, three, or four players have been knocked out. 27 2. The blinds have increased to levels that represent 10 to 20 percent of the original stacks. 3. The remaining players who still have substantial chips don't want to jeopardize their chances of finishing in the money. You're now in prime stealing territory. Most pots won't be contested at this stage, so if the hand is checked to you, go for it. Just move in for the minimum raise with any two reasonable cards. Unless you have a real hand, fold on the few occasions when you are raised (which will represent a strong hand, not a bluff). You'll win far more hands than you lose. By the time the field is reduced to three or four players, the blinds will be so large that the game becomes a crap shoot. If you've done enough stealing on the previous few rounds, your big stack will make you the favorite. Otherwise, try to take the lead in the betting and hope for the best. Live Single-Table Satellites Satellite tournaments occur in conjunction with most major tournaments. A casino running a $10,000 buy-in major event might hold satellites with $1,000 entry fees, with the winner getting a seat to the main event. There will also be satellites for satellites - put up $100 to try to win your seat at the $1,000 satellite, and so on. These tournaments are very similar to the single-table online tournaments discussed above, with two exceptions: 1. The tournaments are live, so your powers of observation can come into play. 2. Only one winner is paid, so finishing second

House The casino, card room or entity that operates the poker game.

About This Book by David Sklansky I have been reluctant all these years to write a no limit book, even one that dealt mainly with theory, because I know that theoreticians without other talents will still be underdogs to talented non-theoreticians, especially if stacks are large relative to the blinds. By that I mean that many no limit skills are not theoretical in nature, and they require you to observe and adjust well to your surroundings. I’m talking about skills like: 1. Reading hands and/or assigning probabilities to competing hands 2. Knowing when to “change gears” 3. Using deception 4. Making others play badly (through mannerisms, conversation, or strategy) 5. Playing hands in ways that set up extra profits in the future A “talented” player who is good at these skills, but who has a shaky theo- retical understanding of the game, can often easily beat a less talented player who has mastered the theory. Even if they sometimes make the wrong-sized bets or call with a draw when they shouldn’t, talented players will still get the best of it through superior hand reading and other skills. This fact made me reluctant to write the book because I like my books to be ones that you can “take to the bank.” I like you to be able to read my books, play a little bit, and be a favorite in the appropriate games almost immediately. But no limit hold ’em doesn’t work that way. No matter what I put in the book, I can’t make all my readers immediate winners because these talent skills play such an important role. I changed my mind about writing the book because of the resurgence of no limit poker. An added reason is that many games and tournament situations involve low stack-to-blind ratios where theoretical considerations are paramount. In any case, whether you are talented or not, your game will be improved by this book. Knowing this material will make talented players world class. If you 4

The Importance of Implied Odds Say you have $500 in a $2–$5 blind game. In middle position, you make it $20 to go with J♡J♢. Everyone folds to the big blind, who has you covered. He says, “raise.” As he goes to his stack to cut offenough chips for his raise, he accidentally shows you his hand (though he’s not aware that he did it): A♠A♣ Should you always fold? Or does that decision depend on how much he raises? Clearly if he raises all-in, $480 more, you should fold. You are roughly a 4.5-to-1 dog, while you would be getting barely more than even money (520- to-480) to call. But hopefully just as clearly, if he raises the minimum, $15, you should call like lightning. Why is that? Including his raise, the pot would be $55 (your $20 plus the big blind’s $35). So you are risking $15 to win $55. But that’s not all, for almost no matter what cards come, you can expect the player with aces to bet the flop. Say he will usually bet the size of the pot: $70. If you don’t flop a jack (or if you do, but he flops an ace also), you’ll fold. But if you flop a set and he doesn’t, you almost always win that $70, plus the $55 that was in the pot, plus even more. So really you are risking $15 to win at least $55 plus $70, or $125. That’s immediate odds of 125-to-15 or about 7.33-to-1. Since the odds of you flopping a jack without him flopping an ace are about 8-to-l against, calling shows an immediate profit if you can win an average of about $10 more than that over the course of the hand. In practice, you’ll win significantly more than $10 more on average. To fail to hit that mark, your opponent would essentially have to refuse to give any more action at all. That is, with A♠A♣on a J♣7♡2♢flop, he would have to give up immediately every time his flop bet is called or raised. If you meet someone who actually plays that weakly, you can steal almost every pot from them. In any event, while you’ll lose eight times out of nine when you don’t flop a set, you’ll make, on average, significantly more than eight times your $15 investment those times you do, so you have an easy call. So where did your opponent with the aces go wrong? He made the mistake that we’ll call “offering too high implied odds.” That is, he raised too little, so 24

♦ Low SPR (0-5): Hands that can flop made hands such as top pairs and overpairs do better in low SPR pots than speculative hands that tend have difficulty realizing their equity due to the lack of fold equity and lower implied odds. ♦ Medium SPR (6-11): The value of top pair type hands becomes demoted and the value of speculative hands increases. The equity realization of hands starts to revolve more around suitedness and connectedness than high card value. ♦ High SPR (11+): As stacks get deeper and deeper, more of a hand’s value comes from its potential to make the nuts (nuttiness). Hands such as sets, nut draws, high flushes and straights, that offer the possibility of coolering your opponent, increase in value. Single pair type hands will struggle to get to showdown in large pots unless they have some sort of backup equity. Range Morphology Hand ranges can be categorized according to their equity distribution vs the opponent’s range. Linear Range A linear range is composed of the highest equity hands without gaps in between. Here is an example (Hand Range 13). Polarized Range A polarized range consists of high equity value hands and low equity bluffing hands. A range is said to be perfectly polarized if it consists of only nuts and bluffs, with no hands in between. Here is an example (Hand Range 14).

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

because the K Js has 14 outs to improve to the best hand or a 51.2% considering outs. The Top Pair definitely wants to protect his hand by betting twice the pot and giving his opponent 3 to 2 odds. K J suited would be making the wrong play by calling that bet on the surface but the expected value of the hand is very high. I would think that if the third Flush card appears on the Turn the A 9 would slow down or even muck the hand. However, if the Jack appeared giving K Js 2-Pair, he could extract a good amount of money from the hand holding Top Pair. This is because the 2-Pair is not as evident as the Flush Draw so A 9 suited would continue to protect the Top Pair if there was no third Flush card on the Turn and even the River. The 2-Pair becomes an excellent trapping hand in this example. Many players do not realize that even though they have the second pair, the combined effect of their hand gives them more pot equity and they can try to force out the TPTK hand with a re-raise in No Limit Hold’em. One final note on this hand, the A 9, even though it is losing on the flop still ultimately has the winning hand if the drawing hand does not improve. Starting Hand/Win % Flop/Type of Hand Win % AKs- 72.73% Top Pair/kicker 86.93% AQos-22.97% Top Pair/2nd kick 11.74% Here is an example of one hand dominating another because the players are sharing the high card and the kicker determines the winner. The flop had an Ace in it to make both players Top Pair but the A Ks is a huge favorite and can only lose if a Queen falls on the Turn or River. It would be hard to throw away the second best hand here because it is so powerful pre-flop. You need to consider the type of opponent you are facing. If it is a solid player then the A Qos should realize that their opponent would not be defending a weak kicker. Starting Hand/Win % Flop/Type of Hand Win % Turn/Type of Hand Win % AA- 73.62% Top Pair 4.76% set of Aces 97.50% A6os- 5.92% Ace high 0 KK- 19.65% set of K’s 93.29% set of K’s 2.50% This hand is evident in regards to how lucky the Pocket Pair of Aces was on the Turn. Hitting one of your two outs is over a 12 to 1 dog. If there are no Straight or Flush possibilities on the board how could someone muck a set of Kings. I would think that all the money would be in the pot Pre-flop in No Limit Hold’em when these two large Pocket Pairs square off against each other. In this example all the money did get into the pot Pre-flop. Starting Hand/Win % JJ- 77.88% 86s- 21.80% Starting Hand/Win % Flop/Hand Type Win % Turn/Hand Type Win % KK- 78.77% Top Pair K’s 86.60% Kings 2.38% 88-

know all of the hands that I mentioned sets two pairs straights are going to be be able to bet three streets and you know shove big shoves on River on many run outs and you know if draws complete his semi Bluffs will get a bet very large uh on Rivers so whenever you have this you know tons of combos of value uh and in addition tons of tons of um draws High Equity draws that could have bet a very large you'll see a larger betting frequency on the Flop that's why you see so much of this you know random King jack off king queen off being it's that's such a high frequency it's jack off King 10 suited Queen tent Suited you know Queen nine suited all these hands get to bet because it's you know this range is backed up with uh with so much strength and you don't you just don't get that on on a say two all right thank you guys for viewing um I hope you guys uh have success at the tables

and probably would have laddered to the title. In this example, the min-cash and laddering was worth more to just one player, Shaun Deeb , in the final tournament. Deeb was playing a flatter payout structure than everyone else, though he didn’t realize it, because each ladder was worth so much more to him. Because of the error by the WSOP, he instead played like he was playing in a steeper payout structure. We see this effect when somebody has a bracelet bet at the series. There are some players, also, that simply value the bracelet more than the money, and are happy to bubble more often for a big stack. Finally, there are some players for whom the money is more important. Either they really need to lock up a mincash, or they really need the first prize money. The point is that, in real life, we can’t assume everyone is playing for the same payout structure as we are . We can’t assume they will make the big laydown in the flat payout structure because they might have made a prop bet that they will win the whole tournament, or coming third might get them out of makeup. We might also be able to exploit the player in the steep payout structure on the bubble because they qualified via a satellite and the mincash means so much more to them. Conclusion The ICM differences between flat and steep payout structures are in many ways parallel with the differences between small and large fields. Flat payouts are like small-field tournaments, there is less incentive to play for the win and more incentive to secure a money position. In both instances, the smaller payouts are a bigger proportion of the overall prize pool. Steep payout structures are like large field tournaments. More of the prize pool is in the final money positions, and the min-cashes are worth less, so there is more incentive to play an aggressive style of chip accumulation. This also means that late registering is more profitable in flatter payout structures. Like small fields, there is less variance in flat payout structures because you are more likely to walk away with a meaningful prize. However, the upside of these tournaments is capped. Steep payout structures, like large fields, have much more variance because there is more impetus to finish in the top 1% of the field. Steep payout structures are like large field tournaments. More of the prize pool is in the final money positions, and the min-cashes are worth less, so there is more incentive to play an aggressive style of chip accumulation. This also means that late registering is more profitable in flatter payout structures. Like small fields, there is less variance in flat payout structures because you are more likely to walk away with a meaningful prize. However, the upside of these tournaments is capped. Steep payout structures, like large fields, have much more variance because there is more impetus to finish in the top 1% of the field. The strategic differences between a normal payout

betting, the best high hand in the showdown wins the pot. Draw Lowball In standard lowball (also called California lowball) the best low hand is A,2,3,4,5, followed by A,2,3,4,6; then A,2,3,5,6; etc. Frequently the joker is used as a wild card. In deuce-to-seven lowball the best low hand is 2,3,4,5,7. Each player receives five cards face down. There is a round of betting, starting with the player to the dealer's left. Ordinarily the rules require that the player to the dealer's left bet blind. After that betting round, players may draw up to five cards. Following the draw, there is a final round of betting. Usually the rules of play require a 7 low or better to bet in order to win any money put into the pot after the draw. The lowest ranking hand in the showdown wins the pot. In standard lowball, straights and flushes are ignored. However, in deuce-to-seven lowball they count and therefore are not considered a low hand. In standard lowball the ace is a low card; in deuce-to-seven it is a high card. Another lowball variation makes A,2,3,4,6 the best low hand and counts straights and flushes as high hands. When I discuss lowball in this book, I am always referring to standard or California lowball. Razz Razz is seven-card stud lowball with A,2,3,4,5 the best hand. Straights and flushes are ignored. Two cards are dealt face down and one face up to each Player. Usually the high card on board (excluding the ace, which counts aslow)startsthe action. A fourth card is dealt face up, and 276 Appendix A there is a round of betting, beginning with the best two-card low on board. A fifth and sixth card are dealt face up with a round of betting after each, starting with the best low hand on board. A seventh and final card is dealt face down, followed by a final round of betting. In the showdown the best low hand wins. High-Low Split This name covers several popular forms of poker. The game may be five-card draw, five-card stud, or seven-card stud, and in the showdown the best low hand and the best high hand split the pot. Sometimes, however, the rules may require that players have to declare — either simultaneously or consecutively — whether they are going for high, for low, or for both. In five-card high-low split games the best low hand is always A,2,3,4,5, as in draw lowball. In seven stud games the best low hand is sometimes A,2,3,4,6, with straights and flushes counted as high. Aces always count both as low cards and high cards. (Hence, two aces may be a low pair as well as a high pair.) In stud high-low split games, the high hand on board usually starts each betting round. A variation of high-low split requires a player to have an 8 low or better to qualify for low. If no one has an 8 low or better, the best high hand wins the whole pot. A ppendix В Glossary of Poker Terms Action: The betting in

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 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

be in real contention you need four to eight times your original buy-in. 333 THE THIRD DAY Entering the third day, even if it is a four- or five-day tournament, I am about ready to start playing as I play in the cash games. I have to remind myself, “Don’t be afraid to go broke!” Perhaps I won’t play quite as loose as I play the cash games, but now I’m prepared to take races on other close gambles in what I think are favorable situations. Make no mistake about it, you have to be very, very lucky to win one of these major tournaments. It’s impossible to play the entire tournament and always be a prohibitive favorite when the money goes in. So you can see the parlay that is required to win a large tournament. The players that continue to play very tight sometimes go deep into the tournaments, but seldom win. When they arrive at the later tables, they are short-stacked and facing a huge ante and blinds. They are forced to race for their chips before they are ready, so they are decided underdogs to the big stacks, who can better control their destinies. You need to take control of your table if possible. You can’t help what is happening at the other tables. THE FINAL TABLE If you are lucky enough to make the final table, you need to evaluate your position. For example, if you have second-place chips and there are several short stacks, you might try to avoid any major confrontations until several players are eliminated. This depends on your financial situation and your desire to win the tournament. If you really need the money and you have a comfortable chip position, you can often assure yourself of a second or third place finish by playing carefully. That will result in a very nice payday in these ever-increasing large tournaments. However, if your main interest is to win the tournament, this is a prime situation to really play aggressively and try to get closer to the leader or even overtake him. The difference in fifth place and first place is so huge that most players are just trying to hang on and can be pushed around in most pots. My main objective has always been to win the tournament. Even before I was 334 financially secure, I always did what I thought was best to achieve my goal of winning first place. You need to think about these things before you start a tournament and decide what is best for you. So if you are lucky enough to get to the last table, you’ll be ready. WILD CARD There is one more thing you may need to consider. The ever-increasing number of weaker players entering the tournaments has added a new element in poker. I call it “two-card hold’em.” These weaker players know that they can’t compete with the better players and that they will get out-played in the latter stages of the hands, so they simply wait for two high cards or a wired

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Spotting and Using a Tell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 II Concepts and Weapons 162 Quick Comment 163 The Concepts 164 Conclusion 196 The Sklansky-Chubukov Rankings 197

This chapter examines how to defend vs 3-bets at equilibrium but, as mentioned throughout the book, the baseline ranges are meant to serve as only a guide. You should always be actively thinking about all the above variables when facing 3-bets in-game, and be able to adjust accordingly. Since it is impossible to include the ranges for all possible permutations of positions and stack depths in a single book, I will present some of the most important and typical situations. Because the ranges change in a linear fashion, make a point to study the trends and fill in the gaps for any missing strategies by extrapolating from the ones present in the text. Again, instead of trying to memorize fixed strategies, it is important to understand the following concepts: how the ranges are built, what type of hands are best used for raising, calling or folding and the reason why the solver chooses each type of hand to perform certain actions. By trying to understand why the solver chooses the decisions it makes, you will be able to make better decisions in-game, using theory to your advantage to maximize EV. Additionally, you should never worry about trying to execute the strategies perfectly. No human will be able to exploit you if you do some rounding or a few simplifications as long as the main ideas behind the strategies are applied correctly. Short Stack 2x Open Versus Rejam (10-25bb) The following tables demonstrate the action frequencies when facing a 3-bet in terms of your position (Table 80), Villain’s position (Table 81) and stack depth (Table 82). The Average Fold after you make a min-raise vs a rejam with short stacks (10-25bb) is 55.04% and the average call is 44.96%.

player that you've seen before. And of course, if you play online there are no physical tells to observe. The best you can do is to try and derive clues by seeing how long a player thinks to make a play, but this is easy to control and might simply represent internet delay times. All serious poker players try to minimize their tells, obviously. There are a couple of ways to go about this. One is the robotic approach: where your face becomes a mask and your voice a monotone, at least while the hand is being played. With some practice, this approach is accessible to most players. The other is the manic method, where you affect a whole bunch of tics, twitches, and expressions, and mix them up with a river of insane babble. The idea is to overwhelm your opponents with clues, so they can't sort out what's really going on. This approach can be effective, but for normal people it's hard to pull off. (If you've spent part of your life in an institution, this method may come naturally.) Betting Patterns Another, and more reliable, way of getting information about your opponents is by studying their betting patterns. How many pots do they enter? When they have a good hand, do they make strong bets or weak bets? How about when they have a weak hand? When you reraise them, do they tend to back off, or fight for the pot? Why do I think it's better to focus on betting patterns? It's pretty simple: No one has to twitch, but everyone has to bet! One could argue, in fact, that a player is nothing more than the sum of his betting patterns. And those patterns are lying right out there to be observed. Every time a player bets, he tells you something about how he plays poker. You have to watch those patterns, deduce what you can, and file the memory away for future use. A top player can, in the space of an hour or two, compile a pretty good book on a collection of strangers at a tournament table. Your job is to try and do the same. It's tough work at first, but with practice and experience it will get easier. Here's my best advice on the subject of betting patterns, starting with some special advice for beginners. 40 Some Rules of Thumb for Beginners If you're a true beginner, about to play in your very first no-limit hold ’em tournament, don't worry too much about observing the table. First-timers often arrive with the best of intentions for keeping track of the other players, only to find they're overwhelmed with the sheer amount of stuff going on around them - stacks, chips, cards, general hubbub. Just as you notice that the fellow under the gun has raised for the third hand in a row, the dealer is impatiently reminding you that it's your turn to bet. Real-life poker goes very fast, and you'll need a tournament or two just to get acclimated to the conditions

the board completely. All-In—When a player puts all of his remaining chips into the pot. Ante—A small amount of money each player at the table must put in the pot before the cards are dealt on each hand. This is in addition to the small blind and big blind in flop games. Antes are usually about one-tenth the size of the big blind. Baby—A card that’s very low in rank. Usually, a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Back Raise—To limp into a pot, then re-raise or three-bet a player who raises after your limp. Back Door—Any draw you hit that requires a card on the turn and the river of a hand to complete; when you pick up a draw on the turn, thencomplete it on the river. For example, if you have A♥T♥, the board is K♠-5♥3-♦, and you hit a 6♥ on the turn and a Q♥ on the river to make a flush, you’ve back-doored the flush. Bad Beat—Losing with a hand that’s a big mathematical favorite, usually because another player has played poorly. Belly Buster—See “inside-straight draw.” Big Blind—A bet that the player two seats clockwise from the button must put into the pot before any cards are dealt. Usually, twice the size of the small blind. Big Slick—A hand that has AK in the hole. Blank—A card hitting the board that’s unlikely to change who has the best hand or to help a player’s hand improve. For example, on a board likeA♣-K♣-9♥-8♥, if a 2♠ hits the river, it would be called a blank; it’s unlikely to improve anyone’s hand. Blind Escalation—in a tournament, the size of the small and big blinds goes up at regular intervals. The blind escalation refers to how quickly theyget higher, both in terms of the interval they go up and by how much. Blocking Bet—A bet made on the river in first position with a hand that’s marginal. The bettor bets an amount less than he thinks his opponent would bet in order to reduce the amount lost on the last betting round. Only done when the player is sure he’d call his opponent’s bet if he checksand the opponent bets. Also called a “defensive bet.” Bluff—To try to win a pot by betting with a hand that could not win at showdown. Betting to get other players to fold the best hand. Board—The up cards in a hand of poker. The community cards in hold ’em and Omaha or the face-up cards of a player’s hand in stud games. Boat—A full house. BottomPair—When you pair a card in your hand with the smallest-ranked card on the board. For example, if you have A♥8♥ and the board is KQ-8, you’ve flopped bottom pair. Breaking Order—The order in which players at starting tables are assigned to other tables in order to consolidate a multi-table tournament. Brick—A card dealt that doesn’t help your hand. Used when a player has a very big draw, with many outs, and misses. For example, you have Q♥T♥ vs. 66 and the board is J♥-K♥-2♣. A 2♦

have the potential to flop monsters more rarely (blue) are not suitable for 3-betting for value and prefer to take the reasonable price offered by Villain's open to try to flop big and only then extract value. Inflating the pot pre-flop with 33 to flop a miserable underpair 87% of the time without much fold equity is not conducive to healthy EV . So this range is linear for reason one: lack of pre-flop fold equity; now on to the second reason to adopt a linear range. CO's HUD numbers are the same stats as we've been using so far in this chapter. BB's third (red) number is 3-Bet Preflop. More brown Xs. Life is rich when you get dealt a range and not just two rigid cards. Don't worry, we'll be going over some exact hand examples very soon. As 3-betting decisions should very rarely be made in a vacuum, the first stage of the process is figuring out what the right overall strategy looks like and only then deciding what to do with the exact two hole cards you happen to have in front of you. In this hand Hero would love to develop a polar strategy involving a lot of 3-bet bluffing since CO folds to a lot of 3-bets, but this is unadvisable, as it requires having a flatting range. As we saw in Section 6.3, it's not going to be easy to defend a flatting range from the SB with this active player in the BB who could be squeezing very frequently, at least not without doing something horrible like slowplaying our big pairs pre-flop. So as per the recommendation in that chapter, Hero reverts to 3- betting everything he's playing and this makes his strategy linear. Hero still has the liberty of choosing between a balanced (tighter) and exploitative (wider) range in

squeezing, but also results from capped ranges being less exploitable in multiway spots. Most squeeze strategies are very linear, and very top-heavy for this exact reason. Generally speaking, you need to play “more honestly” in multiway pots. Betting ranges become more linear multiway both pre and postflop. By “honestly”, I don’t mean there’s literally no deception, but a player’s actions should more closely reflect the value of their range multiway. If someone is betting too big, and too weak, they will rarely get the fold equity required for their bluffs, and their value range will quickly fall behind the tightened calling ranges of the defending players. Equity retention falls off a cliff, and they become extremely vulnerable to check-raises or counter-aggression. However, what’s more interesting are the checking ranges . Everyone’s checking range is generally weaker and more capped multiway. This is partly because betting ranges are more honest but also because there’s slightly less need for protection with multiple players sharing the burden of defense. In a sense, the other players are acting as a shield that prevents any individual from running your capped range over. This means that river ranges are often quite weak when action checks down . Even more so in practice, as players tend to value bet too thin multiway. For this reason, many MDA study groups promote aggressive bluffing in multiway spots when actions checks to the river. Conclusion The biggest challenge of betting in multiway pots is that players can defend much tighter without becoming exploitable, while at the same time, they are free to defend more often than needed if the betting range is too weak In summary Players share the responsibility of defense, leading to tighter calling ranges. Betting with air or range betting is not typically a viable strategy. Use smaller bet sizes due to decreased equity retention. Use stronger betting ranges, with stronger thresholds for value bets and bluffs. Place more value on implied odds, equity retention, and nut potential. Positional advantage becomes more valuable. Blockers are more significant as card removal effects interact with multiple ranges. It becomes harder to attack capped ranges with another player involved. Bets become more linear and check-downs become more capped. The GTO solution is no longer guaranteed to be unexploitable. GTO Wizard the #1 App for Poker players Study any spot imaginable Practice by playing vs. GTO Analyze your hands with 1-click START CRUSHING NOW JOIN DISCORD Author Tombos21 Tom is a long time poker theory enthusiast, GTO Wizard coach and YouTuber, and author of the Daily Dose of GTO. Latest article Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors It amazes me that, after nearly 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

good as the other positions. The BN has the highest win rate because that position gets to play the most hands profitably. Win rates decrease as the position moves away from the BN. Most players lose money when playing poker. That is a fact. You must be really good just to break even because you have to recover the -150bb/100 you lose to the blinds each round, as well as the rake the house takes. Depending on the stakes you play and the poker site, the rake will usually be between 5 and 10 big blinds per 100 hands. Poker tracking software can be used to find the exact amount paid in rake, as well as its effect on win rates. It is often the case, particularly in online micro stakes, that the rake is so high that even strong players cannot win, so my advice to all players is to look carefully at each site’s rake structure (as well as rake-back deals and VIP programs) before deciding where to play. Higher rake can never be good for the players because it only means that more money is being taken away from the tables and into the house’s pocket. Note that in ante games, players also need to be able to recover the antes. An ante of 12.5% the size of the BB is equivalent to -12.5bb/100. So, what can the players do to maximize their win rates and be able to beat the blinds and rake? Your overall win rate is the aggregate of the EVs of all hands you were dealt in all positions and the actions you took with them. So, the way to maximize your overall win rate is simply by always taking the highest EV action with each hand you are dealt at every decision point. EV can be expressed as a win rate in bb/100, and we know that the EV of folding is 0, so players should only play hands when the actions they can take have a non-negative win rate. Example 9-max MTT (12.5% ante), 20bb effective stack. Action folds to the SB who has four options. Go all-in for 20bb, raise to 2.5bb, limp or fold. We know that the EV of folding is always 0. Let’s take a look at the win rates of the four actions for various hands in this situation (Table 16). According to the table, the best action to take with AA is to raise 2.5bb, AJo should push 20bb, Q7s should limp and given all actions for 72o have a negative win rate, it should be folded. Your overall win rate in the SB when the action folds to you is 88bb/100 (Table 17). That is simply the aggregate EV of each one of the 1,326 possible hands. The hands with negative EV will be folded and have 0EV, and all other hands will have EV equal to the highest EV action. If you choose any action other than the highest EV for each hand vs a GTO opponent, your win rate in the spot can only

Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors It amazes me that, after nearly twenty years of playing no-limit hold ‘em professionally, I still haven’t mastered the most fundamental spots. I’ve made millions of preflop decisions about whether to contest the pot, whether to do so by raising, and how much to raise. I had reasonably good approximations but was constantly adjusting them based on experience and solver work. What I had was more a result of trial and error (and, if we’re being honest, groupthink) than a deep theoretical understanding of the drivers of preflop decisions . Why might one prefer a smaller or larger raise size? Does position matter? Does rake matter? I still can’t claim certainty on the subject, but poker is not about certainty. It’s about making the best decisions possible with the available information. So, when technology advances and is able to produce better information (e.g., preflop solutions), we have to integrate that in order to keep our decisions as good as they possibly can be. In this article, we will compare some solver results to better comprehend the effects of rake and position on preflop raise sizing. We will look primarily at solves for 200bb 6-max cash games , but many of the principles will generalize to other game formats : full ring games, tournaments, shallower stacks, etc. Equilibrium Responses My starting point for understanding solver strategies is always to look at the opponents’ equilibrium responses to a given action. This provides invaluable insight into what the action accomplishes. In Position The following charts show how the in position (IP) opponents respond to LJ’s raises of various sizes in both raked and unraked games: One thing that jumps out here is that rake makes an enormous difference . Facing a LJ raise, the HJ, CO, and BTN all VPIP 25%-35% fewer hands in the raked game. It is specifically calling that becomes less appealing because, in this rake structure, no rake is collected from pots that end before the flop. Thus, players actually 3-bet more often in the raked game, drawing those additional 3-bets from hands that would have called in the unraked game. They call much less often in the raked game, especially against the 2x raise size. The rake eviscerates the pot odds this small raise otherwise offers, making the alternatives of raising and folding relatively more attractive. Rake makes calling raises considerably less appealing, leading to much lower VPIPs and somewhat higher 3-betting frequencies in “no flop, no drop” games. Blinds Calling remains a significant component of the strategy from the Blinds in a raked game . This is especially true when facing a min-raise and/or when in the BB , which are the two cases where the calling odds are most appealing. That said, BB calls a min-raise in the raked game barely 60% as often as in the unraked game, so even in the best calling seat in the house, the difference is dramatic. BB’s calling frequency is also most affected by the raise size , which makes sense. All other players

Diagram 108 On 9♥8♥4♦, IP raises a 1/3-pot bet 19% of the time and never raises an OOP overbet on J♠6♥6♦ (Diagram 108). The reason is that, on 9♥8♥4♦, OOP’s betting frequency and bet-size are smaller than on J♠6♥6♦ because the polarization of the ranges is different in both cases. On 9♥8♥4♦, OOP’s betting range is more condensed and IP has more strong hands, allowing IP to have a raising range. On J♠6♥6♦, OOP’s range is more polarized and IP does not have that many strong hands compared to OOP. IP vs Check Table 128: Turn Decision Point Stats This line happens frequently, overall 14% of the time on 9♥8♥4♦ and 24% on J♠6♥6♦.

video covering that I also have a video on live preparation but the most important thing if I could recommend one thing yeah find out where the healthy food option is at the destination that you're going to and get there a day early if you can so you can stock up on healthy food clean water find out where the gym is where you can exercise find out places where you can chill out be quiet and get there early so that you can get comfortable walk around the casino or you know the neighborhood the area and just get comfortable so you feel safe and secure and you don't feel like uncertain about stuff the worst thing that can happen is not having food not having quality food not having a quality source of energy when you have to play a long tournament so the more you can know about the area the better probably do some Google research like I'm going to Reno for the first time for that run it up series I don't know anything about Reno so I'm gonna do some Google work figure out what's up maybe rent a car so that I can pick up groceries try to get a room on a lower floor so it's close to the elevators and therefore I could get more rest on break things like that and make sure you get a lot of sleep and make sure you're calm so I would advise doing your studying earlier rather than later don't cram right before you go there by the time you hop on the plane it's time to go the term it's time just chill out relax do what you do to get in the zone you know you can review hands if you want you can do quizzes if you want but don't try to learn new information right before you play trust that if you know enough if you knew enough to get there you know enough to get farther and that by staying calm staying relaxed focusing on your breathing focusing on just feeling good feeling happy feeling your best is what's gonna get you the best results and don't put too much pressure on yourself if the cards are in your favor if the stars align you play well you just might win that thing but if you're going in there being like I need to win and you tell your friends like yo I'm gonna win this tournament all it's not it puts a lot of pressure on yourself in something where you have a limited amount of control because luck is a factor and then that extra pressure leads to extra stress that can lead to judgement when making mistakes so they need some forgivable if you make a mistake and you're hard on yourself you create more tension and stress hormones and more mistakes and like you don't want that so just like chill out have fun relax make sure you're comfortable trust that you know what you need

the raise came from an early position. It becomes something to worry about, however, if there was no raise. Also consider how well your opponents play. As previously discussed, when good players have a big card they frequently raise or fold, depending on their kicker. This means that if there was no raise before the flop and the high card on the flop is a jack or less, it is more likely that someone has made top pair. However, if the high card on the flop is a queen or better, a bluff may be the best play, especially if you are against a small number of opponents. (The exception is when an ace flops and you are against a bad player who automatically will play any ace.) Also, if one (or more) 120 Part Three: Miscellaneous Topics of your opponents is "weak tight" -that is, he will release a hand that the board does not hit - then a bluff is even more appropriate. Playing When Two Suited Cards Flop If a two flush flops, you need to adjust your play from those times when three different suits hit. Basically, you should play your good hands more aggressively since there is a better chance that you will be called. You certainly don't want to give any free cards, especially against several opponents. Also, virtually never slowplay. If you slowplay and a third suited card comes on the turn, even if this card does not beat you, it could give an opponent a draw that, if completed, would win the pot. If your hand is mediocre but normally worth a bet, it is usually correct to check. The reason for this is that you might run into fancy raises or be outdrawn, even if you currently have the best hand. However, you should bet on fourth street if the flush card does not come and you believe there is a good chance that your hand is still best. Here's an example. You are in the blind and call a raise in a multiway pot with: 122 Part Three: Miscellaneous Topics The flop is: Since the pot is large, you should go for a check-raise to knock out hands like gut shots. (Note: Players with flush draws and open end straight draws will come anyway.) This idea is especially true if the before the flop raiser was in a late position.and you think that he will bet automatically. Ifhowever, the pot was small so that players with poor draws such as the gut-shot were getting incorrect odds, it might be right to lead on the flop and then try for a check-raise on fourth street. Playing When a Pair Flops Although it's a little-known fact, it is often profitable to bluff when a pair flops, especially if the flop does not include a straight or flush draw.7 When making this play you must also keep in mind that a good player will sometimes "play back" at you. That is he will think that it is likely for you to be making this bluff

Table 71: CO Action Frequencies (15bb) With 15bb, the CO has no flatting range because, unlike the BN, the CO has to worry about the BN calling or squeezing behind him. Splitting the CO’s range represents a higher risk so, with 15bb, the best way to approach this situation is to simply rejam the entire playable range, increasing from 8.3% vs UTG (rejamming 66+, AJo+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs) to 13.3% vs the HJ (adding A9s, A5s, ATo and KQo) (Hand Ranges 232-233).

when you have one of your best hands try to get money in the pot as the pre- Flop aggressor if you raise pre- floing somebody called and you flop a really good hand if they check bet and perhaps exploitatively use a larger size than normal not a humongous size but you know if you know that sometimes you want a bet pot that pot will your best stands even though it may not be the game theory optimal strategy whenever you are the pre-f Flop caller facing a bat say the cut off raises and you call on the button and you flop a good hand if they bet the Flop raise if you're in the big blind you check the Flop they bet raise put money in the pot with your best hands please the only time slow playing may make some sense is when all of the following are true first the boy board is extremely uncoordinated that's going to be a flop like Jack 62 pretty uncoordinated board next when your opponent can make many hands or can have many hands that could improve to the second best hand on the next card on Jack six2 your opponent could easily have a hand like Ace King Ace queen king queen that can make top pair spot where you know if you can beat those hands that's a good scenario to slow play a time you do not want to slow play is when the hands of your opponent can reasonably improve to beat you give an example say you raise Ace King before the Flop and the big blind calls the Flop comes whatever Ace something something if they check and you check it back what is going to improve that will also want to put in a ton of money on Ace 92 well it's going to be the straight draws like 54 53 43 if they improve you lose it's going to be pocket sixes when it spikes a six it's going to be 98 when it turns trips are two pair but it's not going to be handl like Queen Jack that makes a random Jack right that's a really bad spot to slow play next you also want to keep slow playing or you want to you want to be cons consider slow playing when your opponent will keep betting on many turs if you think your opponent's just going to blast a turn very frequently because that's how they operate it's a pretty good spot to slow play finally you want to slow play when you block many of the hands that are of high value that your opponent could have usually this is going to be when you have top set top three of a kind in particular because when you do have that hand it's really hard for your opponent to have anything consider on Jack 62 and if you have pocket Jacks it's really hard for your opponent to have anything that could potenti put a lot of money

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done with the hand and you get exactly what you would have gotten if you’d bet on the flop and he folded: zero. So against an opponent who has nothing and will see through your ruse, there’s simply no upside to checking behind. If he’s done with the hand, he’s done with it. I know what you’re thinking. Wouldn’t checking behind on the flop encourage a bluff on the turn? Sure, but how big a bluff? Probably somethinglike half our standard 1,000-chip pot, so 500. He bluffs, you raise, he folds, Merry Christmas. You won an extra 500 from an opponent who wanted to bluff. But suppose instead you’d bet 500 on the flop and your opponent decided to check-raise bluff. That happens, you know. You’re a lateposition raiser; you could be in there with Swiss cheese. So maybe he’s the guy who wants to punish you for your thieving ways. Ah, but look at the price of his bluff now. With 1,500 in the pot after you bet, he has to bet something like 2,000 total to bluff meaningfully. Nowhe’s committing four times as many chips as he would have with a lead-out bluff on the turn. So no net loss to the player who’s done with the hand, but a huge net gain for you against the player who wants to check-raise bluff. And even if he check-raise bluffs less frequently than he’d lead-out bluff on the turn (which he might not do, with such a weird check behind on the flop), you’ll still end up making money when he loses so many more chips on the check-raise bluff. Remember, this is a case where you want to get more money in the pot. It’s not going in there by magic, you know. It takes money to make money. In other words, TO GET MONEY IN THE POT, PUT MONEY IN THE POT Or look at it this way: We’re always happy when our opponents make mistakes, right? Why not give them the chance to make big ones? Setting aside the times when they have nothing, let’s think about the times when they have something. If you’re up against a hand like JJ, thecheck behind is disastrous, because you’re giving your opponent a free chance to hit his two-outer. Granted, he’s only a 4% shot to do so, but youjust laid him infinity-to-1 to try. Never give anyone infinity-to-1 odds. Maybe that’s as close to a rule as we’ll come, but I hope you see now bad it is. And if you bet 500 on the flop, do you think those pocket jacks are going away? Not on an A-9-3 board against someone who raises frequently inlate position. An opponent willing to randomly fold JJ on a dry board against a late-position raiser is not only bad, he is also rare. (So don’t be that guy.) You’ll get at least that 500 from the pocket jacks and you’re denying him a free shot at a kill card. Why not just check and embolden those pocket jacks to bet on the

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 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

However, all but very tough players will generally call your raise after you have checked and they have put in an initial bet. They might grumble as they do it, but they'll do it. In limit games the decision to check-raise or come out betting can be determined by a precise formula. To simplify, we'll Heads-Up On The End 207 assume you know for sure you have the best hand. First, determine what percentage of times your opponent will call if you bet. That's one side of the equation. Next determine what percentage of times your opponent will bet if you check but then fold when you raise. Finally, determine what percentage of times your opponent will bet if you check and then call your raise. Now double this last percentage. If the sum of the last two percentages is greater than the first, it is correct to try a check-raise. This formula may sound overly complicated, but it really is not. Let's say you think there is a 70 percent chance your opponent will call if you bet. But you also think there is a 40 percent chance he will bet if you check and call your raise, thus rewarding you with a double bet; and perhaps there's another 10 percent chance he'll bet if you check but fold when you raise. Because you'll win two bets 40 percent of the times that you check, you double that figure to 80 and add the remaining 10 percent chance your opponent will bet and fold when you raise. That adds up to 90, and since 90 is greater than the 70 percent chance that your opponent will call your bet, it is right to checkraise. Another way of looking at the problem is in terms of expectation. Let's say you bet 100 times, and you check with the intention of raising 100 times. In the former case, you'll win 70 bets; in the latter you'll win 80 bets when your opponent bets and calls your raise and 10 more when he bets and folds, for a total of 0 bets. You win 20 bets more by check-raising, and so checkraising has greater expectation than betting out. Most players do not check-raise enough on the end. They'd rather go for the single bet in the hopes of getting called. However, it is worth taking a little chance of losing one bet if there is a good chance of gaining two bets. Since most players will automatically call a rais,e when you check-raise, you can simplify the above formula. In general, you should check with the intention of raising if you believe the chances of your opponent's betting when you check are at least half as good as the chance of hi s calling when you bet. Nor should you get discouraged if you 208 Chapter Twenty-one occasionally check and your opponent checks behind you. Checkraising is a long-run gamble like everything else in poker. If you know you should win two bets in a particular situation more than half as often as you

this guy doesn't know you from Adam and or this is just someone you don't play with every day or somebody you're running into in a tournament what you can do is bet like 1/3 pot because that bet needs to work 25% of the time but that means your opponent needs to defend 75% of the time that is very unlikely to happen the really good thing about a sideboards is there's no way for your opponent to have over cards so they usually just have the ACE or they don't have it and if they do have something like 10 9 there's no way for that to be over cards or anything so any bet will use fold them out unless of course they picked up like a gunshot and backdoor draw or something but the vast majority of a cold-calling range and the big blind is not going to have that two cards nine or higher should also receive a small bet so people tend to cold-call with high cards they don't call with medium cards they don't they don't really like low cards it's some medium cards and a lot of high cards so when you see a board with two cards that are nine or higher that tends to be a little bit covering the cold-calling range right so here's the thing on those boards let's say the board comes king/queen to a lot of the same things apply that apply on ace high boards the person has a really hard time having high cards the only high card there is an ace so there's not we don't have to worry about big combo drawers having to price them out the person usually has a king or a queen or they don't so again a very small bet will work if let's say the person cold-called you in middle position that might not be the best board to see that because that is all over the person's cold-calling range right you might want to back off there but in the big blind there's still enough like nine six suited x' and ten eight off suits in order to justify a small bet maybe not half pot uh three cards nine or below with no straight draw can handle any of the bets we saw today that is one of my favorite boards I like to sucker people in with that really small bat yet though like okay I don't know what you're doing call and then get them to fold on the term because that's just an extra 200 ships in my pocket and if you ratchet that up if you collect those throughout the day in a tournament that's going to add up to let's say nine big blinds at the end of a tournament that doesn't sound like much but everybody listening to this has likely come back from nine big blinds at some point in a tournament and made a really serious run of it if they didn't win the tournament so having that

5X andyou put too much pressure on yourself to win. So 2.5-5X the big blind is exactly where you want to be. One thing we haven’t talked specifically about is the notion of raising the minimum, just doubling the size of the blind. I hope you can already seewhy that’s a bad idea. Your raise is supposed to have a purpose and the minimum raise won’t drive out the riffraff or define your opponents’ hands. The big blind in particular loves your min-raise, because he’s getting at least 3.5-to-1 on his call, and even two undercards against two overcardsare only about a 2-to-1 underdog. Since most matchups will be in the 3-to-2 range, even if the blind is an underdog, he still has a profitable call; it’sautomatic. So when the big blind calls the min-raise, you learn basically nothing about his hand that you didn’t already know before you put the extrachips in the pot, because he should be calling with any two cards. It’s just not good poker to add chips to the pot and learn nothing about your opponent’s hand. That’s like zero return on your investment. Add another caller of your min-raise into the mix and now the big blind is getting 5.5-to-1. He gets to make a mathematically correct decision nomatter what his two cards are, and you never want to make it easy for your opponent to make a good decision. In this case, it’s a no-brainer. And just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. Your raise of 2X BB generally won’t make the people behind you particularly selective either. Small pocket pairs come in; so does JTs; so do weak aces; so do any two face cards. Now where are you? Lost in the hand. You have multiple players acting behind you and you know very little about any of their hands. You have to act first on every street without knowing your opponents’ range. In fact, your 2X raise generally does nothing more than a limp will in terms of forcing your opponents to be selective. So yes, when you raise to twice the big blind, you’re getting 5-to-2 on your money, which means you only have to win 28% of the time in order to be in profit and that’s okay for the math. But it’s not okay for the decision-making problems you’ll face later in the hand. Thus we have to strike a balance between math pressure and decision pressure. We need to pick the raise that puts the least amount of mathematical pressure on our hand, while still accomplishing the things raising is supposed to accomplish: GAIN INFORMATION, NARROW THE FIELD, TAKE THE LEAD You’ll need to put in a bet of at least 2.5X BB to accomplish these three goals. You can bet more and be more certain of doing the job, but the bigger your raise, the greater the math pressure you’re putting on yourself—the more often you have to win the hand to show profit. Three times thebig blind is a good place to start, but

range, including pocket pairs (99, 88, 77, 33, 22), strong Axo (AQo, AJo) and a small frequency of weak Axo (ATo, A5o, A4o). The SB also has a non-all-in re-raise to 2.75x that includes the strongest hands that are happy to stack off pre-flop, such as 55+, AT+, and KQs, and some bluffs with good blockers such as Axo and Kxo (Hand Ranges 104-105). Hand Range 104: SB vs BB 40bb (Limp vs 3.5x) • All-in 5.9% / • Raise 2.75x 6.4% / • Call 42% / • Fold 45.6%

-> ICM 25% cEV 95.5% -> ICM-FT (Final Table only) For example, this contestant: (cEV 25% -> ICM 75%) . Uses a Chip EV strategy until 25% of players are eliminated. Then they switch to an ICM strategy for the remaining 75% of the MTT. Each tournament contains an equal sample of each strategy profile. We’ll tabulate their results and see at what point switching to ICM has a significant impact on results . Experiment #1 – 200 Player Freezeout The Setup 200-player MTT Freezeout 15% of field paid Push/Fold BB = 1/7th average stack Six different types of strategies Every player knows and adjusts to each other’s strategies Sample Size: 500,000 Tournaments We’ve run a 200-player freezeout. It’s a push/fold tournament where the BB is normalized to 1/7th of the average tournament stack, (average stack = 7BB). This gets updated every time a player is eliminated. It’s a push/fold event, so we only simulate preflop strategies. Every player knows and adjusts to each other’s strategy. The Results The following graph displays the average return on investment for each strategy profile. As you can see, players who switch to ICM sooner average higher returns. We see a slight drop-off beginning between 50% of the field remaining and 37.5% of the field remaining. At this point the losses exceed statistical significance, indicating that this loss is not a result of variance. The result surprised us as it indicates ICM becomes a significant factor well before the bubble . Since 15% of the field is paid, the bubble occurs at 15% of players remaining. Yet we see the (cEV 75%/ICM 25%) losing significant value despite switching to ICM well ahead of the bubble. At the very bottom we see (cEV 95.5%/ICM 4.5%) losing 13% of their buy-in on average . This contestant type uses a Chip EV evaluation, trying to maximize chips, only switching to ICM on the final table. Detailed results Placements Let’s explore where exactly these edges are coming from. The following graph displays the cumulative ITM payouts for each strategy profile: We can see that the strategies which switch to ICM sooner are also cashing in the money a lot more often . This is the primary reason why ICM is winning more money overall. We can break this down further. The following chart displays how often each strategy achieves each placement: We can see that the (cEV 95.5%/ICM4.5%) on the right is busting a lot more often and placing less often. Recall that this strategy profile uses chip EV until the final table. Despite that, the cEV strategy places 1st more often than other strategies . This is actually exactly what we expect! ICM, (and other MTT equity models) predict that your probability of placing first is equivalent to your fraction of chips in the tournament. So a strategy that maximizes chips will place 1st more often, sacrificing ITM placements to do so . Proportional Change to Baseline Placements We can compare the placements above to a “baseline” probability. The following chart displays the proportional change to baseline placement probability.

2.5 CO The CO is where Hero starts to have some serious fun. It's also the second most profitable position on the table in the long-term. With three tight players behind us, we get the luxury of picking up the blinds uncontested 0.88 x 0.88 x 0.88 = 68% of the time. Although many tables will not be folding anywhere near this often, especially as most players adjust by 3-betting and flatting wider vs CO opens than vs earlier position raises; but even if the competition now defends an average of 15%, this still yields us a 61% success rate on a steal. The CO is the first of the official 'steal spots' as opening ranges generally widen considerably, and quite rightly too. For now, let's stick to our organised range construction routine and first consider the purpose of a CO open. Reasons to Open CO 1. For Value: From the CO, clear value opens are a smaller part of Hero's range than before, but they still exist. Hero can in fact open extra hands for this reason than he could UTG as he is now more likely to be called by weaker hands, but these value hands are now dwarfed by the weaker hands that Hero opens for the purpose of fold equity. 2. As a Semi-Steal: The additions made in the HJ range of course remain. These hands are to recap, ones that play pretty well but do require some fold equity pre-flop or post-flop to be profitable opens. 3. As a Steal: Opening as a steal does not necessarily justify opening hands as bad as 72o or J4o despite the fact that the primary purpose of the open is to grab fold equity. We don't want to become maniacs who very obviously open any two cards from the CO as such a strategy would soon get us killed in the long run even if it were profitable the first couple of times we used it. Steals are just weaker additions to our range than semi-steals were. In the CO we still have the BU to act in position to us as well as the two blinds and so we must keep some semblance of strength to our stealing hands. See Figure 10 for a recommended default opening range.

To convert 4.2:1 to a percentage, simply add the two numbers in the ratio (4.2 and 1) together and divide 100 by that number: Probability of Catching a Heart on the River (if Already on the Turn) A deck of cards contains 52 cards, and we know 6 of them, our 2 hole cards and the 4 cards on the flop and turn. That leaves 46 unknown cards, 9 of which will give us the best hand and 37 that will not, so the ratio of non-flush cards to flush cards is: 37:9 or 4.1:1. Using the same method as before to convert the ratio to a percentage we get:

two percent of the time so whatever it looks like yeah so what are we raising go back to all of our hands this is only diamonds I think trying to get off there we go Okay so we are raising with notice like pocket Eights kind of interesting with a diamond it's a small small raise for thin value right that makes some sense if I did have the 10 of diamonds like Ace 10. if you want to hover over that one Ace 10 you see with the 10 of diamonds does raise right so say I did raise here and we get jammed I think that's got to be a call right I don't think so some ace high exactly because I was I wasn't sure in the spot like does the blocker matter more or does the ace matter more you also want to think about his Bluffs right so when you have the Ten of diamonds you're blocking exactly one combo of a straight flush but he also there's only two yeah yeah that's true but what's he gonna have in his hand when he Bluffs yeah I guess I wasn't sure if you would rip it in in the spot with the ace of diamonds no no I mean with the Ten of diamonds right say he has the eight or the Ten of diamonds even though you're blocking the knots you're also blocking his potential Bluffs sure sure and so yeah it's not yeah yeah blocking f is Bluffs too so maybe it doesn't make a difference yeah maybe it's uh it's typically more important to like in this spot it's weird because there's only two values of combo but it's typically more important to block Bluffs or to unblock Bluffs rather go back to his raise all in size please his race his race uh all in look at look at his raising all in range so it does contain asex right yeah yeah so that therefore you'd much rather have the ace and actually this is a cool spot it sometimes happens on four flush boards where wait does see how you have eight six and does he not even have straight flushes here not much where'd they go so he would have played them differently at some point presumably eight six of diamonds plays about 25 size that's where they went so imagine that's 25 now because I want to keep those in keeps 25 we raised to let's say 136 which is probably roughly what I do then he wraps it in and now we need to see a face 10 calls no still okay yeah just just an equity thing I think this is where it gets kind of convoluted where there's a bunch of sizing options because I'm not even sure the opponents use all the sizing options Christopher probably does yeah of course she's super studied but a lot of people in the spot literally have like two best sizes you know yeah for sure it's much more

is my 90 of my job is game selection i like to play against weaker opposition a lot like your micro six opposition i can tell you when they flop pairs they have a hard time folding everybody says the same damn thing to me these people never fooled and then they'll flop a set on a board where people are calling you with king jack jack nine spade drugs ten nine ten eight jack kington ace ten queen eight suited queen nine off queen jack off queen 10 off king queen off uh ace four five four six four suit seven four suited that they're colony with all these hands and they go oh man these players never fooled quick bet one fourth pot get real cute the name of the game is taking other people's trips that's what you're here for you're not here to show down hands to show everybody how awesome you are you're here to make money and if that means once in a while you're cracking a couple of eggs to make an omelette so be it you want to put these big bets out here when on this board let's be honest guys calling with a high card is not fun because it's such a coordinated board your opponent's probably just gonna call you with the pairs and they're probably not folding regardless of what you put out there with their pairs because they can always justify to themselves like maybe he's got a draw so you gotta go for it and that brings us to another exploit i want you guys using with micro six players we'll go through all of these again before we wrap up today but right now when they flop pairs they can't fold so bet big and don't be worried if they fold they likely just missed the board and they were gonna fold anyway it shouldn't make you feel any kind of way when they flop pairs they can't fold so bet big so if you're on a flop where it's really unlikely anyone was gonna call you with high cards anyway bet bigger because it's mostly going to be the pairs that are going to continue and they're not that sensitive in regards to the bet size they just like to continue they like to get to showdowns it's fun it's like they're home games it's like a casino game continuing got the queen jack off suit here guys are sufficiently deep so you raise here villain two re-raises now villain 2 has been a little lively has been a little gung-ho all right what do you want to do here full color rays okay that's time we decide to call and the board comes seven nine ten and this player bets would you like to full color raise versus this aggressive player 10 seconds all right that's time if you did want to raise here what did you want to raise too go ahead and raise to ten thousand here because here's the deal you're willing

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 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

you’ve got $1,000 in the pot and he bets you $50,000 more, well, perhaps, you wouldn’t go for it and you’d throw your hand away. But if you’ve got $1,000 in the pot and he bets you $2,000 more—all your money, or all his money—then you’d surely pay it off. If you’re beat, you’re beat. That happens a lot, by the way. And it’s why hands like K-9 and J-7 are considered trash and shouldn’t be played in a normal ante ring game. Good Flop If I’ve caught good on the flop, I’ll already be committed to the pot, so I’ll bet on fourth street, as long as I am first or it is checked to me. But as always, there are exceptions. For example, if you flopped a diamond flush and another diamond came on fourth street, your hand would be almost ruined. All you’d have is a 7-high flush. At that point, you must check your hand and hope to show it down. If you can’t show it down, you’ve got to throw it away if there’s any kind of betting. Or, if you flopped a straight and the board pairs on fourth street, you could be in trouble. Usually, that shouldn’t stop you because if a man had flopped a set or two pair, he would’ve raised you. So if he made a full when the board paired, you’d have to pay him off. Another hazard. As you continue to use my system of play, you’ll discover the many advantages it has. The situation above is a good example. If the flop came 5- 4-3, giving me a straight, my opponent would’ve let me know on the flop whether or not he had a hand, such as two pair or trips. If he’s a good player he would, because he wouldn’t want another card to fall that might be one 401 card off of a straight. He knows if an ace, deuce, 6, or 7 comes on fourth, he’s going to have to give the pot up. He knows I’ll bet in that case, even if I don’t have the one card that’ll make the straight. For that reason, all good hold’em players do most of their gambling on the flop, not on fourth and fifth streets. Occasionally, you’ll see a big pot played after the turn, but in the majority of cases, all the money goes in on the flop. That’s why the flop is the most crucial point in the game. Earlier I stated that it’s quite inconceivable to me that anybody could get away from their hand if they flopped a set of trips in a raised pot. At that point, I was talking about a hidden set, a pair in the pocket and one on the board. It’s a different matter entirely when the pair is on the board and I have one of the matching cards in the hole. I’ve released a lot of sets in a situation like that. For example, say I have a 7-6 and the flop is 7-7-2. I bet

in the pot right and if they do have three of a kind like say they have pocket twos on Jack 62 you're going to play a big pot anyway right so that's a spot where maybe it makes sense to slow play long story short top set on uncoordinated board sure feel free to slow play anything else don't slow playay bet and get money in the pot tip number seven is to play cautiously in multi-way pots I cannot tell you how many times I have seen players flop top pair in a multi-way pot 100 big blinds deep then just plow their money in because top pair even with top kicker normally pretty good but not what you're playing against six other people and three of them want to put all their money in the pot you are going to be dead when a lot of players see the Flop someone is likely to have something and that becomes more and more and more true as more and more players see the Flop if it is not you well it's probably someone else this forces you to play extremely cautiously in multi-way pots across the board so from out of position you have to do a lot of checking very often you have to check every single hand in your rate as a general rule if the Flop comes three cards 10 or lower that are kind of connected and you were an early position Razer and a bunch of people called you you should be checking everything because that board should completely hit all of your opponent's ranges also you just don't need to Bluff all that often with low Equity hands in multi-way pots if you have just two overcards in a multi-way pot you probably don't want to be bluffing it whereas in a heads up pot sure go ahead and bet right so from out of position you have to do a lot of checking the only time you really get to be kind of aggressive in multi-weight pots as the initial better on the Flop is when everyone checks to you and you have a hand that's probably good but vulnerable there you should be betting very frequently this is going to be with hands like top pair or maybe even under pair like say someone raises someone calls someone calls you call with pocket Apes on the button and the Flop comes 963 and they all check to you this is a spot where making a bet is usually fine when you do bet in multi-way P usually want to use a relatively small size because you do not have much of a nut Advantage because no one can have much of a nut Advantage remember how we discussed that earlier if you have a big nut Advantage you bet big in general but no one really has a nut Advantage because all of your ranges are all on top of each other so be very very careful in multi-weight pots don't stack

The 10 Most Important Concepts for New Poker Players If you don’t understand some terms in this article, learn more about them in our Poker Glossary . 1. Mechanics of game theory Fundamentals are one of the most important points when starting out. While many old-school players learned by feel, this style of play rarely works outside of the softest games in today’s poker economy. Start by learning the mathematical fundamentals of game theory, such as pot odds , stack-to-pot ratio (SPR) , equity , expected value , Minimum Defense Frequency (MDF) , and equity realization . You don’t need to be a mathematician, and you don’t need to be calculating at the tables. But you do need a sense of how this game’s mechanics actually work to become successful. You need to understand what hand strength (relative to the board texture) is appropriate for what line you’re taking. Stacking off in a 20 SPR pot with top pair no kicker is seldom warranted. Folding a set just because a two-card straight is possible is almost never going to be correct in a low SPR situation. You need an idea of what is appropriate. How do you develop these senses? Well, start with thresholds! We have covered fundamental topics in the Daily dose of GTO in November. Read more here . 2. Thresholds One of the fastest ways to become a reasonably solid poker player is by studying thresholds. Which hand classes are reasonable to stack off with in this spot? What hands can reasonably raise for value? What hand classes need to continue vs. this bet? Beginners almost always misevaluate these thresholds, commonly by overvaluing medium-strength hands. So the next time you review a GTO solution, go out of your way to find these value and continuation thresholds. It’s much easier to learn a simple line in the sand than memorize entire ranges. 3. It’s not about your hand, it’s about how you play your entire range Common trap beginners fall into is obsessing over the frequencies of individual hands. The problem with this approach is that it’s simply impossible to memorize all frequencies for every spot . This is a wildly inefficient method of training. A much better approach involves taking a step back and looking at things holistically. Look at your entire range . You need to construct something that involves the correct amount of bluffs and value relative to your actions. Even if your frequencies are incorrect, it’s the overall construction of your range that actually matters. Check out our YouTube channel for examples of how to do this. 4. Winning the pot more often is not the same thing as maximizing EV The human mind tends to remember losses more strongly than wins. This often causes a bias, tempting people to try and win the pot immediately instead of making the highest EV play. Sometimes the best play involves taking a line that either wins a huge pot and more often than not loses a small pot. Let’s say we rolled a dice. If we roll a

strong player whose thinking makes sense. A weak player is a different story. Just as you can't put a weak player on a hand, you can't put him on a thought either. When a pair flops, a weak player might raise (after you bet) with a small pair in his hand, hoping to get a free card that would allow him to draw out on his opponent, who "obviously" has trips. Very sophisticated hold 'em can go even beyond this third level. For example, suppose two suited cards flop and there is a bet from an early position.~'A strong player, who thinks his opponent is probably on a flush draw (since this player likes to check-raise a lot when he has a legitimate hand), may now raise with bottom pair and then bet on fourth street. His opponent may realize this and try to check-raise with a flush draw on the turn. The initial raiser now may comprehend this possibility and call his opponent down. When the hand is over, assuming that the flush card does not come, his calls will look fantastic to some opponents, if he actually is against a flush draw. Conversely, if it turns out that the first bettor really has a hand, the calls will look like a "sucker play." 232 Part Seven: Other Skills At the expert level of hold 'em, the "skill" of trying to outwit your opponent sometimes can extend to so many levels that your judgment may begin to fail. However, in ordinary play against good players, you should think at least up to the third level. First, think about what your opponent has. Second, think about what your opponent thinks you have. And third, think about what your opponent thinks you think he has. Only when you are playing against weak players, who might not bother to think about what you have and who almost certainly don't think about what you think they have, does it not necessarily pay to go through such thought processes. Against all others, this is crucial to successful play, since deception is a big part of the game. Several other important ideas play major roles in the psychology of poker. To begin with, when an opponent bets on the end in a situation where he is sure that you are going to call, he is not bluffing. For example, suppose that you bet when all the cards are out and a player raises you. It is rare to find an opponent who is capable of raising on the end as a bluff. Similarly, if you raise when all the cards are out and your opponent reraises, you usually should fold, unless your hand can beat some ofthe legitimate hands with which he might be raising. (But beware of the player who knows you are capable of these folds.) However, folding in similar situations is not necessarily correct on fourth street. Tough players will raise on the turn if they hold a mediocre hand that has some potential to become a very strong hand. An example is middle

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every eight months but you know that's fine because you're playing for bigger money right all right bankroll requirements if you are not a professional even if you are a professional do you have a disposable income stream like money that is coming in consistently that you know you can reasonably lose and you'll like your life will be okay some people have this some people don't for the longest time in my poker career i had no other money and no other opportunities now i have a training site pokercoaching.com and i have books and all this stuff brings in a little bit of money here and there and that makes it to where i could potentially play a little bit bigger for example 50 000 buying tournaments are a little bit out of my budget but you know if i lose it's okay make content for a month you'll be good to go right but like if you have a job and you're making let's say you make i don't know a hundred thousand dollars per year 50 let's say 50 000 per year right you have a reasonable job making 50k per year if your expenses each year are like 20k or 30k because you're doing what i said and not spending a ton of money let's say you spend 20k per month i'm sorry 20k per year on expenses that means you have 30 000 of disposable income now obviously you should be investing some of this money right for retirement or you know in general but if you have let's say twenty thousand dollars per month or twenty thousand per year of disposable income but you can reasonably lose let's say twelve thousand dollars of it and you'll be fine right that is a thousand bucks per month they kind of have a disposable income and it's almost as if if you know you're going to play poker for let's say 50 buy-ins that gives you effectively 20 buy-ins per month every month you basically have like an unlimited bankroll to some extent at that point right because you're not going to play all that much you're going to clearly win some sometimes and if you have a thousand dollars per month to play with you don't you like you can start playing 50 tournaments immediately with a thousand dollars in your bankroll 20 buy-ins because you know you've already partitioned this money every month for the next 12 months let's say to figure out if you're any good at this game right so if you have disposable income then you don't really need to keep all that much money on hand because you're gonna con consistently make that money now obviously all jobs are not consistent i would recommend not losing 25 of your money each year or whatever it is playing uh any game any poker game but you don't have to be saying there were like 200 buy-ins or 300 buy-ins because you basically have that money coming to you in the future now

hand comes along for the ride and pays you for the privilege. I like to vary my bets in this situation between half the pot and the whole pot. If I've assessed the situation accurately, I'd make more money with the larger bet. But, as I've emphasized before, you need to pursue a balanced strategy so your opponents can't read you easily. Betting just half the pot blends in with the continuation bets and the probe bets (discussed below) and serves as a good way to disguise strength while still getting money in the pot. How strong a hand do I need to slowplay? Trips can be slowplayed, but I wouldn't slowplay any weaker hand except in unusual circumstances. You hate giving someone a free card that beats you, so I believe in just betting top pair or two pair. If you watch a lot of final-table action on television, you may get the impression that players always check a good hand after the flop. This isn't really the case. On television you're seeing people at the final table, where the field is small, the blinds are large, and many of the players are desperate to keep accumulating chips to stay in the game. Under these circumstances, it's very rare for a hand to be checked around after the flop. If you're the first to act, and you have a good hand, and you check, the second player will almost always bet to win the pot that's out there. He's aware that you may be checking a good hand, but he probably doesn't have time to wait around for a better situation. So in these circumstances, checking top pair with the idea of raising later is a high-percentage move. But early in the tournament, your opponents won't be so desperate to go after the pot, so betting out for value is generally more profitable. Continuation Bets A continuation bet is a bet made after the flop by the player who took the lead in betting before the flop. Its name derives from the fact that it continues the action begun on the previous round. It's a very important bet, which you'll find yourself both using and combating throughout a tournament. For a bet to qualify as a continuation bet, the following conditions must hold: 1. The player making the bet was the betting leader before the flop. 2. After the flop, no other bets have yet been made. 3. The player making the bet missed the flop. Under these circumstances, the pre-flop betting leader can consider making a continuation bet, even though the flop didn't help him. When you make a continuation bet, you're obviously hoping to pick up the pot right there. Although the flop missed you, your opponent doesn't know that yet. The flop may have missed him as well. Since you indicated strength before the flop, your opponent probably assumed you had a better hand than he did, and if he missed the flop and you now bet, it would be natural for 127 him to lay down his

is in many ways thescarier proposition, due to what you face after the flop when the board comes bad. Re-raising actually makes your life easier. So re-raise with a hand you would at minimum call with when you believe you’ll win at least 50% of the time. It’s not so scary when you actually understand why you’replaying that way. But you can’t always just re-raise with good hands. That makes you too transparent. Sometimes you have to re-raise with garbage, too. So let’slook at how holding garbage changes the math of the re-raise, thus impacting the circumstances under which you’ll do it. Let’s say you have pure air and no way you’d ever call. This means that you can’t count 600 calling chips as part of the pot. The choice is nowbetween putting zero chips in the pot or putting in a full-pot re-raise. Remember our 100/200 blind example? We’re talking about making it roughly2,100 chips in an appropriately sized bet. If you re-raise, you’re laying the entire 2,100 now for the chance to win 900 (the 300 in blinds plus theraiser’s 600), a bit more than 2.3-to-1. In order for that play to show profit, your opponent needs to lay down his hand more than 70% of the time. Wow. That means you’d better be making that play only in high-percentage situations, like when you’re against an opponent who calls a re-raise only with the nuts, or opens big withweak hands. Cuidado, as our Spanish-speaking friends say. It’s a mathematical fact that the bluff-re-raise play has to work a whole lot of the time to be profitable. So be selective, but don’t neglect trying it when those high-percentage situations emerge. And if you happen to get caught, it might not be bad for you anyway. You might be squirreling away some image equity for later. Deciding whether to call or re-raise with real hands is a balancing act. Interestingly, this choice is easier to make in tournaments than in cashgames, because tournament situations dictate a lot of players’ styles. In the early stages of tournaments, you generally want to just call; this is whenpeople playing loose are more likely to call your re-raise or even come over the top. Later, you can re-raise with that same hand; players are more likely to fold. And don’t forget, once antes are involved, your math pressure goes down, which means your re-raise has to work less frequently inorder to show profit. In cash games, you get off this fence simply by measuring the relative looseness of the game. The looser the game, the looser the opponent, themore likely you are to call and not re-raise. Also think about the player you’re up against. Believe me, plenty of players out there are frisky enough to raise, but can’t stand the heat of a re-raise. They fold like a map of France. Of course, if the raiser is super-tight, especially if he is raising from early position, you’re unlikely to re-raise him, because his raising range is sonarrow to begin with that you’re unlikely to have

Hand Range 211: BN vs CO (15bb) • All-in 14.3% / • Call 4.1% / • Fold 81.6%

the difference between this and Hand 136 below.

think that's a very conservative estimate because most guys lead any pair there and if he's leading any pair they're like many guys do after the flop the ghost check check you have 65% equity that doesn't even account for any Bluffs the other question I always want to ask my friends there when they call calling is fine but it puts you in a sticky situation I believe it's more profitable to raise especially versus basic competition or just low to mid stakes players if you're playing a $500 event in Vegas this will work really well $1,000 but if you were calling on that turn I always want to know what was your plan on the river a river 3:8 Queen King 9 diamond or spade was bad for you unless you're the best at staring at a guy and knowing if he has it you should raise here and get value while you can the vast majority of guys will just call with their drawers there if they raise again they they only have one card to come and they committed their 50 big line stack if they have a pair they'll convince themselves you have a draw and call to quote reevaluate on the river get your money now by the way if you're playing live and they check to you dark on the river that's usually not a draw draws want the option to lead the river if the guy leads the river it tends to be the joint he made his draw if he checks to you you have the option of firing again fourth in value - based on his turn call you still want this option if the river is a 10 or an ace that's why of the 5 close flop tricks you can use the first one is raised pairs on the turn to get money from weak leads alright guys let's do another one in this hand I'm gonna keep them coming fast today in this hand you raise 8 9 suited on the button you are playing a live $200 tournament in Vegas versus a nice guy in his mid 40s he calls out of the big blind this board comes out seven of Spades five of Spades four clubs he checks to you we bet the flop 300 into six thirty he calls pretty quickly and casually he shakes his wrist out after he puts in the call like his wrist is hurting the turn is the Queen of Hearts and he checks what would you like to do here so I'm gonna go into the chat see what people are thinking and gonna keep I'm gonna keep fire playing around with my clock here so we got a few people see we got a few people saying D few people saying be a lot of people saying hey we are all over the map here in the chat a few people are saying like I feel like he's gonna call again Douglas right says bet 1.5 X pot

SWAPPING MISTAKES 118 But poker is a strange bird. If, somehow, you were blessed tomorrow with the knowledge of the perfect strategy (and stripped of all other poker knowledge), then you’d do quite well. Playing your perfect strategy, you’d be guaranteed not to be a long-term loser, and, in today’s games with plenty of bad players, you’d likely win a mint. But you wouldn’t be the best player. At least you wouldn’t be if you defined “best player” as the one with the highest average win rate in three- or more- handed games. You’d be a big winner, in the top few percent of all players, but a number of other players would win even more. How can that be? How can someone play better than perfect? The trick is that we’ve defined the “perfect” strategy to be unbeatable. It’s designed so no one can get the best of you. It is, fundamentally, a defensive strategy. The biggest winners don’t play the perfect defense. They go on the attack, even if it means exposing a few vulnerabilities along the way. They know that it’s critical to understand the principles behind that unexploitable strategy, and that sometimes they’ll need to fall back on it (or something close to it) when their opponents launch a counterattack. But they’ll make the most money taking calculated risks to attack and exploit their opponents’ errors. The key to no limit hold ’em success isn’t to play perfectly. It’s to swap mistakes with your opponents. You trade small mistakes to your opponents if they will trade back big ones. What does swapping mistakes mean? Say you find yourself heads-up against a particularly pleasant opponent. His “strategy,” if you can call it that, is to call every bet. It doesn’t matter what he holds or how much you bet. If you bet, he’ll call. He’ll also never run out of money (and neither will you); if you bust him, he’s always got another buy-in ready. Obviously, anyone could beat this player. But to win the maximum from him, you have to adjust your play to take advantage of his peculiar calling habit. First, you’d purge bluffing from your strategy entirely. You shouldn’t bluff if you’re guaranteed to be called. You’d bet all your good hands on the river, never checking them as you occasionally would out of position against a better player. You’d even bet lots of weak hands you wouldn’t dream of betting against a normal player. Somewhat less obviously, you’d check every hand up to the river. Since you’re guaranteed a call, you gain no advantage from betting before all the cards are out (though with some very good hands, you could bet earlier and not give up anything because no card could come that would cause you not to bet).32 likely, as in tic-tac-toe, they’d draw game after game. 32Note that you gain nothing from betting early only because it’s no limit and because your opponent promises to call every bet. If the game were limit or pot limit, where you couldn’t necessarily bet everything on