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Live Money
Preflop and Postflop
True Hand Values,
Practically Optimal
Introduction (2011) When I first released "Easy Game",
it was with the aim to make things as simple as possible for both beginning and advanced players to grasp the concepts necessary to make money at poker
What I had thought was a comprehensive guide to all elements of poker now seems full of gaping holes
both through private coaching and public forums,
continually brought up questions both obvious and valid that are simply not covered in the first editions of the book
it is with this in mind that I have written more on a number of subjects previously covered,
as well as adding new content not originally discussed
While I will occasionally edit portions of pre-existing chapters (clarify language,
in general the original text will remain as unaltered as possible
I have added commentary on existing content—whenever I came across an idea that I now disagree with (or wish to clarify),
At the end of the chapter,
you can read my updated comments about that idea
Some of the chapters remain accurate and applicable to today’s games—those have been unaltered and left without comment
It’s important to note that this book is not math-centric
In wading through the math of poker,
you’ll find that concepts are either incredibly simple (the nut flush draw usually has around 50% equity) or incredibly complicated (my opponents range is divided into categories A,
Z depending on history,
then calculate my implied odds against that weighted range,
that math is so complex that it’s not reasonable to do it at the poker table
rather than dive too hard into mathematical proofs,
I’m interested in providing a conversational guide that describes those difficult math problems in easily understandable terms
but do expect intricate descriptions of difficult subjects
I have added new chapters where they are appropriate (or where a simple comment at the end of a chapter would be insufficient)
I don’t want to remove content—even content that is outdated or incorrect—because above all else,
I want to demonstrate the process of how I arrived at each new level of thought
you may be able to predict the next change in game dynamics,
the next play that seems "crazy" now but will be "standard" in six months
Certainly,
far more incredible 5/10 and 10/20 players run significantly below EV,
prevented by bad luck from staying at the top of their game
I took a pretty savage turn at high stakes that had me running hundreds of thousands of dollars under EV
I refuse to blame it all on variance—too many ideas that I accepted as "standard" I later came to discover were outdated
I'm quite sure that some truly elite players had come to those conclusions before I did,
and thus maintained a significant edge in the games we played
This Game Turns Out to Be Quite Difficult”
I took a lot of time away from poker and focused on living
Being a travel addict,
I eventually came back to poker,
and the intricacy and challenge of understanding poker continued to nag me even while I was doing other things
and quickly found myself learning,
It was at the exact moment that I felt on top of the game again that the news of Black Friday hit me
my students always guide the way to new theory discoveries
All of the new content in this edition of Easy Game comes from conversations I’ve had with students and friends as we set out together to solve the problem of poker
I’m hoping that the 3rd edition of Easy Game can be a guide to help you understand the puzzles for yourself—and take them even further than I have
the more we realize how much unknown territory there is still to discover
Let’s start exploring
Introduction (2009) There are a lot of books about poker,
particularly about the game that has become a modern phenomenon: No-Limit Texas Hold ’em
The legend Doyle Brunson described the game as “the Cadillac of poker” because the game’s structure allows for so much creativity
The ability to bet any amount at any time makes the game both attractive and dangerous—unlike Limit games,
where the wager is fixed and only a few bets can go in each round,
in No-Limit all it takes is one big mistake and suddenly you’re out of a stack of chips
It says,
that whoever makes the most (and biggest) mistakes loses,
and conversely whoever makes the fewest (and smallest) mistakes wins
and some great ones—ignore this concept and constantly make suboptimal plays
you’ll need to recognize some terminology
While we’ll discuss the important concepts in detail,
we can define some simple terms first: Flop Notation: a lower-case r implies a rainbow flop in which the suits are irrelevant (973r,
Similarly,
the same board may be written 973—this also implies that suits are irrelevant
though the specific suits are irrelevant
A lower-case o implies that the hand is offsuit (e
or the position first to act Cut-off means second from the button,
or late position bb’s refer to big blinds,
or making a bet after being a preflop aggressor
NL refers to No-Limit (NLHE meaning No-Limit Hold’Em)
the blinds are considered the first bet
a second bet is called a raise,
and the third bet would be called a 3-bet
4-betting,
5-betting,
OOP means “out of position”,
while IP refers to being “in position”
c/f means check-fold (to check with the intention of folding to a bet)
c/r means check-raise (to check with the intention of raising a bet) c/c means check-call (to check with the intention of calling a bet) To Lead or To Donk-Bet means to bet into the last aggressor (rather than checking) To Flat means to call a bet or raise
To Float means to call a flop bet with the intention of taking the pot away on a later street
A Wet Board means a strongly coordinated board in which cards have some combination of highness,
A Dry Board means an uncoordinated board in which cards lack highness,
EV means expected value,
as it can win a lot if it flops a set of 2’s)
Reverse Implied Odds refers to our ability to lose money once we’ve hit a hand (for example,
but low reverse implied odds when it flops a pair 30bb deep)
if I go all-in with KK and my opponent will only play AA,
my raise is “thin”—I still make money (+EV) but I’ll lose relatively often
VPIP is a statistical tool that measures looseness or tightness (Voluntarily Put money Into the Pot)
A VPIP over 30 generally implies looseness and a VPIP under 15 implies tightness (in full ring and six max games) 5
PFR is another statistical tool that indicates how widely somebody raises preflop (Pre-Flop Raise percentage)
an aggressive player’s PFR will be only a few percent below his VPIP (indicating that he raises most of his hands)
A passive player might have a large gap between his VPIP and PFR (something like 44/12 would indicate a loose passive opponent)
Mastery of this knowledge alone should be enough to earn you a significant hourly win-rate in online or live games
we will delve into advanced concepts that are the keystones to success at higher stakes
many small stakes players watch their high stakes heroes using advanced moves and playing in unorthodox styles
These smaller stakes players then try to mimic these plays without understanding the vital framework of knowledge that makes these moves profitable
if you skip straight to the second section,
it will probably cause you to lose money
Now that we’re ready to get underway,
just remember: getting good at poker is about learning and not winning
They’re quickly passed by players who are focused on learning and view winning as a nice side benefit
And indeed it is
Learning will occur one step at a time
Each chapter will outline an important poker concept—try to understand it before you move on to the next
Give them your time and focus— you’ll be a better player in no time
You’ve probably heard the saying,
“You don’t understand something until you can explain it to a two-year-old”
Knowing and using the right words is helpful in any nuanced debate,
but it’s even more helpful in the time-sensitive environment of a poker game
If you’re playing 8 tables,
you don’t have time to wade through a swamp of incomplete ideas,
reproductions of things you’ve seen in videos,
and irrelevant information en route to finding the right answer
To make that happen,
you need the path of least resistance to that answer
This is where language comes in
When your words are carefully chosen,
you avoid distractions and move smoothly from point A to point B to point C until you’ve found the answer you were looking for
Throughout this book,
I hope you’ll find this type of linguistic structure helpful on your quest to understand poker more fully
we have no idea what is happening around us
we’re usually limited to two very basic pieces of information: the cards in our hand and the cards on the board
Other pieces of information are completely lost to us: our opponents’ likely hand ranges,
The less information a player gathers and uses,
we’ll talk about the ways to both gather and use information—what to look for,
The purpose of the first section of this book is to outline basic game strategies and theories that should allow you to deal comfortably with weaker players and will prepare you for playing against tougher,
Each concept builds upon the one before it,
so Chapter One is the most important chapter in this section
Welcome to the world of aggressive,
Chapter One: The Reasons for Betting (2009) I hope you’re ready for this,
because we’re about to define our entire poker existence
It’s a single word: why
? Poor players never question their decisions
When I’m coaching students,
this is one of the first things I see that needs fixing
and I ask him why he’s betting
Common answers include: “I’m pretty sure I have the best hand,” “I’m gaining information to see where I’m at,” or “I’m betting to protect my hand
” The problem is that those aren’t reasons for betting
Things like information or protection may be side effects of betting,
So what are the reasons for betting
we’ll need to rely on these three (and only these three) reasons
It’s human nature to call too much
whether or not we hit our flush on the river
People are more inclined to make the mistake of calling too much than the mistake of folding too much
Therefore,
Reason #1 for betting will dominate our bets
Value-betting is,
and always will be the best way to make money
nearly everyone at the table will call absurdly often,
so Reason #2 for betting becomes more or less useless
At $5000nl,
nearly everyone at the table will be good enough to avoid paying off your value bets too often,
and thus reason #1 decreases in utility and reason #2 becomes more important
even regulars at high stakes games are more likely to make bad calls than bad folds as a general rule
So what about c-betting
? Let’s say we raised KQo on the button,
passive player who won’t fold ANY pair on the flop) calls us
The flop comes down A75r
He checks to us
This is a very standard bet
We can’t get called by any worse hands (QJ isn’t coming along for the ride)
we can’t bet as a bluff either as we have the best non-pair hand possible
whether his hand is better or worse,
and collecting the money in the pot
This is obviously a fair amount trickier than Reasons #1 or #2
What makes this mysterious third reason work
his six-outer still has a strong amount of equity to draw out
(One exception would be if the villain is likely to bluff AND our hand is strong enough to call a potential bluff
if we check behind on the flop,
villain is likely to check all of his air-type hands and bet all of his pair-or-better hands
villain is unlikely to bluff and our hand isn’t strong enough to be a bluff catcher,
extremely loose-aggressive player named Cole
Cole raised,
Cole obviously wasn’t raising all-in for value (hard to get called by nine-high)
as Cole is famously loose and aggressive—nobody folds anything good to Cole
there is a lot of dead money in the pot
Cole only needs the Button to fold a relatively small percentage of the time to make the shove correct
As games get more aggressive,
more people are bluffing and putting money in with weaker hands
That equates to the presence of more dead money in the pot
This is because people rarely get out of line and make plays without some kind of hand
In higher stakes,
you’ll need to capitalize on dead money if you want to turn a profit
let’s say we have the nut flush draw on a T♠8♠4♣K♣ board and we decide to bet the turn
we’re betting for Reason #2,
hoping for him to fold a hand like JT or A8
He may have a worse hand,
which we don’t want him to fold necessarily
the fact that there is money in the pot,
and we might get him to fold a hand like JT means that it’s not so bad for him to fold a worse hand
Betting again might be slightly too thin
However,
getting him to fold straight draws,
and random floats is good for us,
especially if we think he usually takes a free card with his draws if we check
In general,
dead money compensates for the “thinness” of either Reason #1 or Reason #2
villain calls us too often) when the pot is 50bb
However,
a bluff has more value because there’s more dead money to make
Similarly,
a thin value bet might be too thin with a small pot size,
but with a larger pot the dead money compensates
In this sense,
we’re always betting for Reason #1 or Reason #2,
but Reason #3 is always involved
we’re either raising as a bluff or for value,
but our raise is compensated by the dead money—dead money that we call “the blinds”
? Is this not a reason for betting
? The answer is no—protection is a consequence of betting
The fact that we’re charging draws and “protecting” is nice,
but it’s hardly the original motivation for our bet
but we’re hardly “protecting”
Most draws are either 50/50 with us or are a significant favorite (A♥J♥ comes to mind)
The moral of the story is that when we have a set of queens,
but it needs value first and foremost
our hand doesn’t really need protection because it’s not very strong
It seems pretty dumb to protect ourselves from A♥J♥ when A♥J♥ is a favorite over us
Instead,
we might bet 66 on the Q♥9♥3♣ board as a thin bluff (against hands like 77 or 88) or for thin value (against a hand like A♥4♥),
but mostly to collect dead money against a hand like A♣T♣ that will fold its 6-outer on the flop
? Let’s say we have QJ on a QT5r board against a very loose-passive player
We bet for value
we have the information that our hand is probably best and we can keep betting for value
we have the information that our hand is behind his range and we should fold
However,
the bet is still good even if that happens,
The real problem with betting for information occurs when someone bets a hand like KK on an A22 board
every time we’re called we’re behind,
so we lose some money (more on this later)
Every time he folds we were ahead
He plays perfectly
if he’s not making any mistakes,
we’re usually isolating ourselves with better hands and folding out worse hands
we’re making mistakes and our opponent isn’t
And that’s bad
let’s consider the KK on A22 example again
Let’s start with a two assumptions: 1) if we bet,
villain never calls with a worse hand,
it may still be correct to bet to collect dead money
Let’s say that villain holds a hand like 44
If he’s never bluffing when we check,
we’re simply giving him infinite odds to catch his 4
betting to make 44 fold there is a good thing,
because we make him fold his equity share in a spot where he only puts money in the pot when he’s value betting
Obviously,
these two assumptions are never this concrete—sometimes we can bet KK for value on an A22 board against smaller pairs,
and sometimes our villain will bluff us like crazy if we check
we need to remain conscious of dead money as it applies to these types of situations
So now we have the three reasons
Any time you’re betting,
?” Once you realize that there are only three answers,
poker will suddenly make a lot more sense
Reason #2 and Reason #3 describe the same thing and should therefore be rolled into one new definition
Chapter Two: Killing Reason #3 (2011) Without a doubt,
understanding relative hand strength is the first challenge of an aspiring poker player
Knowing not to bluff when your opponent won’t fold any better hands is also important
I’ve always felt uncomfortable trying to explain Reason #3,
and eventually I boiled it down into a simple example
Here is the situation:
and while he’s thinking he accidentally shows me that he’s holding 88
I want him to fold a hand with better pot equity than me
let’s look at the counterpoint:
and while he’s thinking he accidentally shows me that he’s holding AQ
What do I want now
sometimes I want my opponent to fold the worst hand
This caused me to redefine reason #2 for betting: Reason #2: Bluffing means betting to make your opponent fold a hand incorrectly
Incorrectly means that if he could see your cards,
Sometimes folding incorrectly adheres to the classic version of Reason #2 (we have J9 and he has QJ and he folds preflop to our 3bet),
but other times it simply means he folded a hand he had odds to call with (our opponent folds 6♠7♠ on J♠T♠2♣3♦ to our 2nd barrel with AK)
it could mean our opponent folds a hand that they could have re-bluffed us with (we 3bet J9o and he folds 76s,
but if he had 4-bet we would have folded)
This is clearly a much broader vision of the concept of bluffing
Not only does this help us avoid making bets to “capitalize on dead money” which end up being incorrect as either a value-bet or a bluff,
but it gives us much greater license to consider bluffing in spots that we might previously have avoided
raising a J83 flop with 66 might have seemed bad (no worse calls,
but when we consider the various pieces of equity he’ll fold (not to mention the things he might fold on later streets—more on this in the chapter “Street Projection”) we might be able to start justifying aggression
When something takes too long to explain,
that means it’s probably too complicated to use in a time-sensitive environment
you should be able to explain it in 20 seconds worth of time—online,
that’s all the time you’ll get in the first place
everything is either a bluff or a value-bet
My mind is clearer,
Knowing how to quickly define value betting and bluffing is the first step to playing good,
Chapter Three: Preflop Hand Ranges and Postflop Equities (2009) and Addendum (2011) Preflop is undoubtedly the easiest street to play
Unlike postflop where situations become extremely complex and difficult,
preflop is easiest to deal with
Yet every student I’ve ever coached has begun with one major preflop leak—they’re not thinking about postflop
preflop is a vacuum in which we can raise K2o on the button because our hand is stronger than the range of the blinds
How about this: If preflop were a vacuum,
it would be profitable to raise 100% of your hands on the button
The dead money from when the blinds fold easily compensates for raising 72o
why don’t we raise 100% on the button
? Oh that’s right… 72o is terrible postflop
The difficulty most players have with making money without going to showdown stems from their inability to play a well-formulated preflop game that is cohesive with their overall postflop strategy
There is a gap between their preflop plan and their postflop plan
they’re not thinking about equity
Let’s explain
Our initial thought is to raise because our range is ahead of the blinds and we can collect dead money
So let’s say we raise and the big blind calls
The flop comes down 9♠7♦3♣
The blind checks,
The turn card is the 2♠
we’ll inevitably go to showdown with a weak hand and we’ll lose a decent pot
Seems pretty weak on our part
we could bet… but the turn card isn’t scary and he’s unlikely to fold anything he called the flop with
The real problem with the postflop spot starts all the way back preflop
We chose a hand with poor postflop equity and thus we walk into unprofitable spots—situations where there’s simply nothing we can do right
When I say this,
most people’s immediate reaction is to tell me that suited cards only make a flush a small percentage of the time
That’s true,
but let’s think about it in terms of equity:
We raise the button preflop,
The flop comes down 9♠7♠3♠
compared with about 50% with A♠6♣
how often do we really flop a flush anyway
? Agreed… let’s change the flop then—9♠7♠3♣
compared with about 15% on the right
Most importantly,
let’s consider a flop of 9♠7♦3♣
unlike A6o (where we have to choose between being weak or spewy) we can be appropriately aggressive with A6s
We’ll talk about this more in the next chapter
Let’s consider AQo
However,
on the vast majority of flops we miss,
we are guaranteed six overcard outs
that’s enough equity to continue aggression
although not as significantly as suited or high cards
They do have advantages,
as straights are among the most disguised hands in poker,
but they have plenty of disadvantages as well
a straight draw’s outs may be tainted
or the nut flush draw which sits with 12
usually it’s a card that makes the board more coordinated and thus harder to stay aggressive on
but we probably won’t be able to stay aggressive on such a strong turn card for our opponent’s range (KQ comes to mind)
might occur if the board was even lower and less frightening—say we hold JT on a 964r board and the turn is an 8
we see that hands like A3s are extremely strong,
In fact,
A2s-A5s are generally stronger than A6s-A9s,
as the extra connecting card value usually more than compensates for the extra high card value (i
a six kicker isn’t much better than a 5 kicker,
but a straight or straight draw is a whole lot better than nothing)
despite having no high card value
despite having no suited value
Aggression comes with a lot of advantages: we win bigger pots with our strong hands,
we make our opponents fold the best hand,
we collect dead money constantly,
and it makes it difficult for our opponents to read our hand
Now that we know which cards put us in spots that let us stay aggressive,
we can start to consider common spots where we have equity and want to keep applying pressure
Its basic premise remains incredibly important—you should be thinking about the postflop implications of your preflop play
understanding which types of cards will give you equity is a vital step toward knowing what to do with that equity throughout the hand
this chapter is one of the most important in the entire book
there are a lot of statements that are easily argued against
I wrote this: “How about this: If preflop were a vacuum,
it would be profitable to raise 100% of your hands on the button
why don’t we raise 100% on the button
? Oh that’s right… 72o is terrible postflop
K2o isn’t too far behind
“So don’t put any more money in postflop unless you make quads
!” If opening 72o in a preflop vacuum is +EV,
and the only problem is that we’re losing money by c-bet bluffing or paying off with a pair of sevens,
then we should just open 72o and never c-bet or call any bets
It’s only moderately exaggerated to say that we should only put in money with quads—we’re making money from preflop only,
so we can leave our commitment there
if the flop is A22 we can feel fine value-betting
Many of my students worry tremendously about their red lines (showing the amount of money they win without a showdown)—a great way to make your red-line go up is to steal more blinds
get called by somebody with a tight range,
If you’re opening 72o,
they’ll have to loosen up a lot to make your preflop plays come anywhere near
Of course,
remember that in small stakes games you’re still going to make the bulk of your money from value-betting
This means your red line will go down (as your opponents call you more) but that your won-money-at-showdown will rise
Chapter Four: Aggression and the Turn (2009) Let’s put ourselves back with A♠6♠ on the 9♠7♦3♣Q♠ board
? The turn card is ideal for us in many ways
it gives us extra pot equity—we now have twelve outs as opposed to three (as with A6o)
the Queen is an uncoordinated overcard to the board,
giving us extra fold equity—the opponent is going to be more wary about continuing with a hand like 88
This combination of pot equity and fold equity is mandatory for us to stay aggressive on the turn
Here’s a little equation to (over)simplify things a little: POT EQUITY+FOLD EQUITY=AGGRESSION* Sometimes we’ll have so much pot equity that we won’t need much fold equity
that we have Q♥J♥ on a T♥9♥2♣4♦ board
We draw out so often on the river that we only need our opponent to fold a very low percentage of the time for a 2nd barrel to be profitable
let’s give ourselves 22 on an 843Ar board
Sometimes,
the Ace on the turn gives us so much fold equity that our lack of pot equity (2 outs) is compensated by the fact that the opponent folds an extremely high percentage of the time
but the turn card actually decreases our fold equity,
as it hits a lot of the opponent’s range
It’s the job of the poker player to weigh his own pot equity and fold equity to make these decisions in close spots
Once we’ve ascertained that we have a sufficient combination of pot equity and fold equity,
we can continue our aggression
Usually this just means that we continue betting,
as that would usually be our plan if we actually had a strong hand instead of our draw
However,
in some situations it is better to go for a check-raise on the turn
What sorts of factors favor a check-raise over a second barrel
It’s unlikely our opponent holds a strong hand
For example,
we can usually be certain he doesn’t have a really powerful hand (like 88,
or 87) as he would usually raise these hands
and 55 for pairs and gutshot straight draws**
hands like A8 or 97 for weak pairs
hands like Q♣J♣ or K♣T♣ for flush draws,
and hands like AJ or KQ that called simply with the intention of taking the pot away on the turn
our opponent holds straight draws,
with the last category being considered more “pure floats” as they lack any pair or strong draw
The turn card comes a 2♦,
making the board 8♣7♣4♥2♦
he’s going to bet the vast majority of the time—simply because betting is the most likely way he’s going to win the pot
He’s likely to check his weak pairs and pair+draw hands behind,
as he’ll probably want to get to showdown with his weak pair
the vast majority of his range is very weak,
this becomes a good time for us to check-raise the turn as a semibluff,
our opponent will be tricky on the flop with a hand like 65 and just call the flop
the turn card will help our opponent in a disguised way
or 86 and decide to bet the turn and get the money in if we check-raise
To compensate for these possibilities,
we need to make sure we have some equity before making this move
K♦Q♥ probably wouldn’t be as good of an idea
his range generally doesn’t include monster hands like sets,
if our opponent calls on a dry board (let’s say 8♣6♦4♥) check-raising the turn gets significantly worse
a large portion of his turn-betting range now includes slow-played sets,
I’d almost certainly bet the turn again and plan on folding to a raise as opposed to check-raising
Evaluating pot equity is easy: we look at how many outs we have,
and through simple memorization,
we know that the nut flush draw usually has between 40 and 50 percent equity
A gutshot has about 18% equity on the flop
Pretty simple
What factors affect our fold equity
Player type
Against a bad player (whether bad-passive or bad-aggressive) our fold equity is greatly reduced,
simply because they won’t fold very much of anything
The response is easy—we have a wider value bet range,
but we can’t continue aggression with weak hands that rely on fold equity
is vital to understanding fold equity
but low cards and coordinating cards don’t
This is an obvious one
If there are more hands in play,
there are more cards that could’ve connected with the board,
and thus our fold equity goes down
but if we have a loose and bluffy history,
This is because our perceived hand range becomes either weaker or stronger
these reasons play against each other
but the player type is loose-passive and thus we shouldn’t continue our aggression
but the board will be dry and they’ll both be tight players,
so we’ll want to be aggressive
It’s the job of the poker player to balance these factors
you can think of Aggression as a constant—a magic number of combined PE and FE
if PE+FE don’t add up to the magic number,
then you can’t be aggressive
sometimes you may have so much FE that you really need 0 pot equity
Bluffing the river is the most obvious example of this—there is no more pot equity because you can’t draw out on a later street
you’re only dealing with fold equity
if your opponent has a lot of those pair-plus-gutshot hands in his range,
You’ll nearly always get a call on the turn and a fold on the river when they miss their draw
if he’s aggressive enough to bet the turn,
and he’ll fold to a check-raise,
it’s still better to check-raise
you may be able to get them to fold better hands given the strength of your line
Chapter Five: Bet Sizing and Thin Value (2009) Now we have a general idea of when and why to stay aggressive—pot equity and fold equity
? In No Limit Hold ’em we have a lot of options
there was a standard mantra for bet sizing
The accepted standard was to make a potsized bet on the flop,
between 2/3 and 3/4 pot on the turn,
and between 1/2 and 2/3 on the river
was that a smaller bet would be called more often than a larger bet
The classic “don’t want to scare him away” thinking
or fold based off two main considerations: 1) Their cards
they’ve got aces—even though they’re relatively unlikely to be ahead
but shuts down as soon as an A or K falls
if we bet $2 into a pot of $800,
if we bet $800 into a pot of $2,
nobody is going to call without the nuts
? Even if he is slightly less likely to call a $48 bet than a $35 bet,
the extra money we make when he does call the larger bet more than compensates for the additional times he calls the $35 bet
when we’re trying to get value,
our value bets will be less cut-and-dried
it’s very easy to bet for value
it’s likely we have the best hand,
and we may decide to bet for value
If we bet with JJ,
anything that calls us is worse so we can quite comfortably going for maximum value
some hands that would call our value bet are better (AJ,
there are very few hands that are worse that could potentially call a bet (T8,
if we bet large enough with T9 that our opponent is likely to fold hands like 88,
suddenly the bet becomes bad—we can’t get called by worse
we need to choose a bet size that makes us sure he is still likely to call with weaker hands
I might bet very small with T9 on that board—possibly as small as 1/5 pot
I might bet as small as 1/2 pot
This concept is called thin value
Thin Value Betting means making a bet to be called by worse hands,
accepting that better hands will also call the bet and understanding that the value obtained from worse hands will be more than the money lost to better hands
The “thinner” your bet (i
the more better hands and the fewer worse hands that will call),
the smaller your bet size should generally be
Sometimes,
a bet will be so thin that you’ll need to make your bet very small—possibly as small as 1/5 pot at times
you may settle for half-pot as a thin value bet
The idea is to retain the very worst end of his range—hands that are weak enough that they will actually be affected by our bet size
we usually have to reduce our bet size
Sometimes you won’t have a choice as to your bet size in thin spots,
I can recall one hand I played
I had a very wild image and had been 3-betting a lot preflop
because I thought that with my image he could call me with worse hands and that he didn’t have too many aces in his range for calling my 3-bet preflop (as he’d 4-bet with AK)
He called,
which led me to believe that I was probably ahead—I expected him to raise with an ace to try and stack me if I had a hand like KK,
The turn card was a blank,
and now I had a decision to make
If I bet for value,
it would commit my stack as I had only a pot-sized bet left
If I checked,
I realized my bet was thin—he could certainly have an A sometimes,
I was called by 99 and won a big pot
I accept that sometimes in that spot I will be called by AT,
or other hands that have me beat
I have reason to believe that the value I gain from worse hands is enough to compensate
Other times,
good opponents will be able to tell that you are value betting thinly and will respond aggressively once they perceive your weakness
and I called in the big blind with KQo
The flop came down K98r
I checked,
and I made a somewhat thin check-raise for value
I was pretty sure he could call me with a worse hand
and I put him on a range of pair hands (anything from AA,
and the somewhat unlikely KK),
as I’d expect him to bet all those on the turn for value
I felt his most likely hands were JT or QT that picked up a pair on the turn
The river was a 2,
and I decided to go for thin value
I realized that my hand was perceived to be weak and that my opponent was very capable of applying pressure and being aggressive
I was relatively confident in my read,
so I called and stacked his JT
somebody asked me if I had bet small to induce a raise
the more money we’re going to make in the long run
Understanding how to change your value bet sizes depending on the “thinness” of your bet will help you get the maximum amount of value with your entire range
Chapter Six: Player Identification and Basic Hand-Reading (2009) A lot of players make hand-reading out to be far more difficult than it really is
They trouble themselves over extensive weighted range analysis,
and complex expected value calculations
hand-reading is much simpler than that
I tell my students to focus on one simple question: Is he aggressive or passive
hand-reading is a piece of cake
he has an extremely strong hand
handreading does become more difficult
We’ll talk about that in the advanced section
But first,
how do we determine whether or not someone is aggressive or passive
? To the average online player,
this question seems simple to answer
The world of online poker has become dominated by statistical analysis programs,
hand history recorders and replayers,
you can find out everything from broad,
easily used stats like preflop looseness,
to extremely specific statistics—fold to river check-raise percentage,
Worthless is a little bit too strong of a word,
but in my opinion most statistics are extremely unimportant
sometimes eight tables at a time,
without using any kind of statistical readout program
? How do I know how people play
? Am I not at a huge disadvantage
it means that there are things you can look for which will tell you quickly and easily whether or not someone at your table is aggressive or passive
and they’re not a proshortstacker,
Limping
Minraising
this is generally an indicator of a passive player who finally has something worth playing—especially when he minraises postflop
a lot of passive players will minraise a wide range preflop and then play passively postflop
3-betting
If somebody sitting on your left has 3-bet you often and consistently,
and especially if they’ve made the 3bet unusually small or unusually large,
A lot of players make decisions with the rationale that their opponent is “bad”
While he may be “bad”,
“bad” isn’t a sufficiently accurate descriptor to be useful to us in many cases
I’m constantly seeing players bet QQ on a 8763 board and stacking off when a passive player raises them all in
” There are only three types of players: 1) Bad-Passive
This type of player calls all the time and only raises with an extremely strong hand
but they sometimes make raises or bets at times that are inconsistent with any kind of strong holding
I raise preflop,
and a bad-aggressive player calls in the BB
and he leads into me for a pot sized bet
as he’d most likely go for a check-raise