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Corey Eyring vs Charlie Carrel: How Do These Pros Play Hands?
GipsyTeam
22 March, 16:2123 March, 04:18
Marc "Hungry Horse" Goone is once again putting the regulars through their paces with pre-scripted hands. In this latest episode, he features a low-stakes live grinder and Charlie Carrel.
What separates a low-stakes grinder from a high-stakes crusher? Part two with a twist. I'm going to take two winning poker players—one who plays low stakes and one who plays nosebleed high stakes—and have them play the same five hands to see just how differently they think about poker. First, let's meet the players.
"Hi, I’m Corey Eyring. I mainly play $25 buy-ins, but I’ve played upwards of $100/$200 buy-ins, and I got cooked. Everyone thinks I’m bad at poker. I have a poker vlog, and I’m probably mainly known for gambling my net worth. Here to answer some questions about poker theory—let’s see if anyone cares."
"My name is Charlie Carrel, and I started playing poker 11 years ago. My story was that I turned $50 into millions of dollars. About five or six years ago, I retired, started my charity, and also started Elite University, which is my coaching site. I’ve coached people for thousands of hours, mostly for free, across all stakes—from absolute freerolls to the highest stakes that people can play. By the way, thank you very much for inviting me on—I’ve recently become a huge fan of your content."
For this experiment, I’m going to walk them through preflop so they both get to the flop in the exact same way. Then they will walk us through their thought process postflop. Now remember, I said there is a twist. For the first hand, they will have a one-minute shot clock for each decision. For the second hand, they will have 45 seconds. For the third hand, 30 seconds. Fourth hand, 20 seconds. And on the fifth and final hand, they will have only 10 seconds for every decision.
Marc "Hungry Horse" Goone conducted an interesting experiment – he played four hands with pre-prepared scenarios against low, mid and high stakes regulars to show the differences in their poker thinking.
Alright, so in this first hand we are playing $5/$10/$20 effective. Folds all the way around to us on the button—we’re going to open to $40—and the small blind (the Villain) is going to call. The small blind in this hand is a winning player—kind of an ABC pro. He is winning at $5/$10 but may fall into some of the same pitfalls that a lot of live pros fall into: maybe calling a little bit too much preflop, floating flops a little bit too wide, telegraphing their hand strength with their sizing just a little bit, and probably under-bluffing slightly on turns and rivers—especially when we take aggressive action.
We’re going heads-up to a flop which comes . At this point, the Villain checks it over to us—and one minute is on the clock. Ready? Set? Go.
Corey: "Okay, small blind’s going to be a lot tighter calling than the big blind. I think on a King-high board people don’t defend nearly as much as they should—especially on a monotone board where people just aren’t finding bluffs. So I think we can bet pretty liberally with our range—just generally betting small like 25% or 30%. For $85 you could even just get away with flicking in a quarter—and I think there’s going to be a lot of snap folds. I would probably just bet small and fold to aggression because people under-bluff in these spots."
The opponent calls.
Turn ($140):
The opponent checks.
"The majority of our range is going to want to check here—including hands that contain a club. If we bet here we are actually quite polar—even though we have top pair it falls into like the middling part of our range. We’re not trying to blow up the pot; we still beat all his King-X hands, 7-X hands, and middling pairs that called flop."
River ($140):
The opponent bets $85.
"Insanely hard to find bluffs here—I think he has zero pure bluffs in his range unless he turns King-X or 3-X into bluffs or something like 5-4 suited. I think what his range looks like when he bets here: flushes, Ace-X for value… betting King-X or 7-X doesn’t make much sense unless he’s trying something weird."
Charlie: "Something you really want to learn early about monotone boards is that you can use a lot of small sizes if you want to. That doesn’t mean you have to balance them—there’s a ton of hands that have just absolutely whiffed completely: Ace-Five of Spades where he’s got Deuces with no club or Queen-Jack of Hearts—there are millions of these hands! So pretty often when I’m bluffing I’ll go small; when I’m value betting I'll choose a different size sometimes against some people if I have to balance it."
The opponent calls.
Turn ($120):
The opponent checks.
"The two options that I can think of are dependent on how good my live reads are and how good my reads are on this player in general. If our reads are going to be pretty good, which is going to be pretty often against his player type and given that he telegraphs his hand strength, I think this is going to be the right person to do it against. We can check back thinking that he's probably going to bluff pretty big; he's probably going to choose a pretty big size, and then if he has a smaller club, he will end up betting pretty small. It's not super common for him to just turn up with like the Queen of Clubs; there aren't too many hands.
The other option is to bet small like $15 again on the turn, thinking he's going to call his King, but for this person, I'll check."
River ($120):
The opponent bets $75.
If I have a tight image, I can consider raising here. Given my image, I would pretty much always go for it. It's usually cool; when people are betting the size, they're only representing the Queen or Jack of Clubs. Maybe he's going to turn up with a bunch of bluffs on the river—something like sixes, no club, something along those lines—going for a raise. You can very likely get the range to fold depending on the player type, and this is where your intuition has to really kick in. Like, imagine he has got the Jack of Clubs; how much do you think that he will fold? Could be $400, could be $500, could be $600, could be $700. Only the intuition of reading the situation and reading the player can kick in. I think I'll go for something like $575.
Marc: Alright, so hand one: Corey elected to see bet relatively small here and he decided to check back on the turn when he made top pair. When the villain came out and bet a chunky size on this river, Corey just decided that the villain was under-bluffing here, so therefore he would fold, which seems like a pretty good play.
Charlie, on the other hand, elected to go with an even smaller cbet bet size here on the flop, just figuring that the villain's going to have so many hands that just have to snap fold even to a very tiny size. He also checked back the turn, and then on the river, he deduced just like Corey that the villain is under-bluffing here, but then he also figured out that because he bet so small on the flop, the villain would probably play pocket sevens, pocket threes—a good amount on the flop. Villain just never has pocket kings here, especially because he has an Ace in his hand; it's just very unlikely that the villain here ever has a full house. So Charlie elected to turn his hand into a bluff.
These are all real hands, by the way; these are hands that I played. I actually took a similar line to Charlie here; I raised slightly bigger on the river—I believe I made it $700 in-game. So villain actually flashed the Queen of Clubs and he folded the Queen-high flush. The difference between Corey and Charlie's play on this river—Corey found a good play, which is folding to a villain that is under-bluffing. Charlie actually considered all of the options here and found an even higher EV play to bluff raise on this river and get the villain to fold the Queen-high flush.
So after hand one, we'll keep track of results here, and this isn't going to be an end-all, be-all because we're just going to keep track of results against villain's exact hand and not against their range.
Corey, after hand one, is down $65 or 6.5 big blinds. Charlie, after hand one, is up $140 or 4 big blinds.
Alright, next hand here: this time we are playing $20/$40, 7,000 effective. So it's going to fold around to us on the button; we are going to open with 8-4 of Hearts to $110 with two recreational players in the blinds. The big blind, who is going to be the villain in the hand, is going to call. This player probably falls into a lot of pitfalls that trying recreational players fall into in today's live games. He's probably calling a little bit too much preflop, not three-betting nearly enough out of the big blind, floating too much on the flop, fast-playing his strong hands at slightly too high of a frequency, and he does have a fold button. He has seen that the player pool under-bluffs in many nodes, so when a lot of money goes in, he is capable of folding. And like most trying and recreational players, he is massively under-bluffing himself in almost every single node. So he is going to call.
We are going heads-up to a flop which is Ace-Queen-3 with a heart, and he is going to check it over to us. This time we have 45 seconds on the clock.
Corey: "On Ace-Queen-X boards, button versus big blind, we're actually a lot similar in range than I used to think. So I think a lot of people just bet small here. The strategy I think in theory should be overbet or check because we just show up with so many hands that are whiffs here. If we're going to choose this one to bet, then I think we should either bet like $300 or $325 or just check. I think... I just check."
Turn ($240):
The opponent bets $180.
"I mean, we have nothing but a gutshot; we still have Ace-X, we still have Queen-X, we still have flush draws. We're not always going to be betting these hands. I actually don't know what to do here; this is actually a blender spot. I think just against a player like this, fold."
Charlie: "The main thing that you want to be focusing on here is exploiting inelasticity. Imagine he's got an Ace; he's going to be calling $40, and he's going to be calling $300. If he's got clubs, it's the same kind of story. In these spots, you want to be value betting big and bluffing small. You play big pots with big hands and small pots with small hands; mathematically, it works out very nicely in your favor. We have the dream hand to be double barreling with on pretty much every single turn. So I'm going to be betting something around $50."
The opponent calls.
Turn ($340):
The opponent checks.
"My mama always used to tell me this one thing: Charles, never try and bluff a fish off top pair. I often thought, "You know, I see this as a challenge." Find a size that he folds almost everything. How much do we need to bet for him to fold his 10s? If he's folding his 10s, he's folding a ton of other things. So for that, I'm probably going to bet something around $885."
The opponent calls.
River ($2,110):
The opponent checks.
His range is going to be very condensed here; actually, a lot of it is going to be the 3x and 5x of clubs—like a lot of it is going to be that. There's also going to be some sticky ASX, although I do think most of that's going to fold on the turn. Every now and again, Ace-Duce; every now and again, Ace-10; Ace-Jack can we get a range to fold? Apart from versus Ace-5, I think the answer is yeah. I think I go something like $4,300 and just assume we're going to get the range to fold, so $4,300.
Marc: We go $4,300; he is going to fold. Let me ask you this: if the reason you went $4,300 instead of all-in is because you just save a little bit of money against a hand like Ace-5, right?
Charlie: Yeah, I think people are going to probably fold either way, and then when he does have like either Ace-5 or slow-plays Ace-3 or somehow like fives with a club on the flop, we lose $2,000 less.
Marc: In the second hand here, Corey elected to play an overbet or check strategy on this board, which I kind of like. Like, I would probably play an overbet or check strategy on this board quite a lot as well—probably for different reasons. And Corey mentioned I wouldn't be playing an overbet-check strategy because it's theory or because it's good; I would be playing this strategy because I think villains are just going to have too much Ace-X calling from the big blind, and they're just probably not going to fast-play enough of their strong hands. Now, this board is a little bit more wet and dynamic than most Ace-high boards, so I may just deviate and bet my range here, figuring villain will raise off hands like Ace-3 or pocket threes or Ace-Queen.
But Corey elected to check back here, going to the turn. Villain came out and bet big on the turn; Corey's just got a naked gutshot, so he found a fold. Charlie, on the other hand, elected to see bet his range, chose a small size, which I like on this particular board. Villain did call. Charlie went with the double barrel here on the turn and chose a very big size—going over 2x pot on this turn—and villain called.
Going to the river, which was an Ace, Charlie figured at this point the only brick wall he really runs into on this river is a hand like Ace-5. Charlie figured that pocket threes would probably raise on the flop; Ace-Queen would raise on the flop or three-bet preflop. So the only hand he's really worried about running into that's going to call on this river is a hand like Ace-5. He figured on this river he could get the folds from hands like Ace-Jack, Ace-4, Ace-10, Ace-Duce that stuck around to the big bet on the turn. So he went for the big boy chunky overbet size here on this river and got villain to fold. Villain actually had Ace-Jack in this hand in-game.
I chose a slightly different strategy than Charlie. I actually decided to go very, very small. I went smaller on the turn, so I figured villain just had more Ace-X getting to the river. I was worried that villain may not fold Ace-X; worried that I may run into some brick walls like A5. I went 20% pot on this river to try to get villain just to fold his flush draws, his 3x of clubs, his 5x of clubs. And actually, villain just 3x'ed it on this river. I did not think a 3x raise was the size that villain would take with hands like full houses; thought he was just trying to go for thin value with a hand like Ace-Jack or Ace-10. So actually bet three-bet jammed on this river, and villain folded the Ace-Jack.
So on hand two, Corey lost about 2.75 big blinds, and Charlie won 26.5 big blinds. So after two hands, Corey is down about nine bigs; Charlie is up over 40 bigs so far.
Alright, next hand here, and we are playing $20/$40 again. This time it's going to fold around to a fish on the button who is going to open almost 9x here; he's going to open to $350. This player is kind of a typical live fish; he's going to be transparent with his sizing; he's going to be passive; he's going to be under-bluffing; he's probably going to be calling too much specifically on flops and turns; probably going to be fast-playing his value way too much. And it's going to be massively under-bluffing. Just so when he does open for this size, it's probably going to indicate strength, and it is going to fold to us here.
We are in the big blind with Ace-Queen of Clubs.
Obviously, against the range that opens 9x, this hand isn’t feeling good about three-betting. We can throw that option out the window. Maybe folding could just be an option, but we decide to call here. It’s a pretty good hand; hard to fold this one. We would probably just pitch it if we had Ace-Queen offsuit. So we are going to call.
The flop comes . We are going to check it over, and he is going to bet $600 into $720 on this flop.
Corey: Yeah, if we hit a Queen, are we good? If we hit an Ace, are we good? Are we going to get value from Jacks? Probably not. I don’t know. I don’t really like this. I would probably just fold this pre.
See, this is the problem with playing this hand. Now we’re stuck. We can’t fold now because we have top pair and a backdoor flush draw. Raising would be a punt because we’re just going to fold out hands like Jacks and Tens and get called by Aces and Kings. Yeah, this is why we’re in no man’s land. Not looking too good already. But when we call pre, we have to call flop. We’re going to call.
Turn ($1,920):
I think we actually consider leading this card. Checking is certainly standard, but against a fish, they’re not going to fold Aces and Kings. They’re probably not going to even fold Jacks or Tens on this card because they’re going to be like, "Oh, you’re leading a Queen? That makes no sense." They’re probably checking Aces and Kings. Against the fish, I actually kind of want to go like $1,200 here.
The opponent calls.
River ($4,320, effective stack $3,850):
When we take this line—leading turn—I think we have one option, which is to go all-in here. He’s going to be like, "Oh, he’s just bluffing with Jack-Ten, Ten-Nine, all our gutshots." We have to turn this into a bluff because now we need to find bluffs. Never bluff this spot? You don’t have to be balanced, especially against the whale. For this size pre, just fold all those hands pre. I don’t think he’s going to fold Aces or Kings; he might even hero-call with Jacks or Tens. We don’t want to check and give the option back. I’m all-in.
Charlie: So this is actually a really good spot for a speech play. What I would do here is make some kind of big gesture and be like, "Ah, man, I guess I have the call. Hope you’re not trapping me," something like that. Because I really don’t want him to double barrel, because I will fall to a turn bet. I think his range is going to be some Aces and Kings—a decent amount—and then it’s going to be like some random hands like Jack-Ten, Ace-King, Ace-Jack, Ace-Nine hands like this. So we have to call and hope he doesn’t double barrel the turn, because we’re probably folding unless we improve.
Turn ($1,920):
We need to think of a sizing again, assuming that his range is going to be Ace-King, pocket Jack, pocket Ten. He’s not going to be double barreling this turn in a million years. So we just lead a size that he’s still going to be calling with random Queen, Aces, Kings, Jacks, and Tens. You have to use your intuition. I don’t know what the guy looks like, but let’s just assume we can get all-in by the river if we go something like $1,300 and a call.
The opponent calls.
River ($4,520, effective stack $3,750):
Ah, so obviously we’re shoving, but the question is how do we shove. This is something where if you can increase the chances of him calling by 5% by doing something live, then your win rate is just going to be so much more in these big spots. You have to look nervous but can’t look like you’re intentionally looking nervous. So you do your best to stay for a bit, wait for the get-down, yeah, wait for the clock. I’m all-in.
Marc: Corey actually kind of wanted to fold preflop, which I could get on board with. I think that would be perfectly fine to fold here preflop. Queen-8-4, check-called on the flop, and then found the nice donk on the turn, just correctly deducing that villain would almost always check back if he had an overpair or even a hand like pocket Jack here. But those hands are just never folding. Then goes for the big boy jam here, figuring villain’s just not going to believe it, not going to be able to fold a hand like Kings or Aces. And villain did in fact call.
Charlie took almost the exact same line, just went a little bit bigger here on the turn to slightly reduce the SPR on the river, donked all-in on the river again, and villain did call. He showed that he had pocket kings here. Both players played this hand very, very well.
In hand three, both players won stacks here, up about $6020 each for 150.5 big blinds. Corey is up 141 big blinds, and Charlie is up 191 big blinds after three hands.
Next hand here: we’re playing $5/$10, 2.2k effective. It’s going to fold around to us on the button, and we’re going to open King-3 of Spades to $35. A fish in the small blind is going to call, and now a reg in the big blind is going to call.
The fish is just a typical loose passive kind of losing player at $5/$10. The reg in the big blind is kind of a tight ABC winner. I would say that when the pots are small, he’s bluffing at an appropriate amount, calling at an appropriate amount, folding at an appropriate amount. When the pots get really big, I would say he’s probably under-bluffing and over-folding like most live regs. He probably tends to fast-play his hands a little bit too much on early streets and under-bluff specifically on later streets.
So those are the notes on the reg and the fish. We are going to a flop which comes 9-9-2 with a couple of spades. It’s going to check around to us on the button here, and for this hand, the shot clock is at 20 seconds.
Corey: I think that board texture we can just get away with betting very small because both players are going to fold out a majority of their range against two opponents. I generally like to go half-pot; I’d probably just bet $50.
Small blind folds, big blind check-raises to $175.
On this board texture, it looks like we have nothing because we’re just going to open from the button and we have so many hands in our range that it looks like we missed this flop. So if he is going to check-raise, that means he can check-raise quite literally with hands like 8-7 or Jack-10—hands of that nature—so I’m going to call.
Turn ($455):
The opponent bets $300.
Against this size, I think we can actually consider folding. If he’s starting to under-bluff turns, then he’s actually really weighted towards value. I don’t know if he’s spazzing with hands like sixes or threes—probably fold.
Charlie: You can actually bet really small here hoping somebody’s going to raise because if they raise as a bluff you win this pot pretty often—like pretty often. That being said, we are going to be double-barreling; we want them to call their Ace highs on the flop. So we have two choices: we either bet $40 or we bet $20. I bet $20 because I want to double-barrel against Ace-high.
Small blind folds, big blind check-raises to $70.
Generally when he goes this small, I don’t think he’s going to be too weighted towards 9x, but I think he’ll telegraph his hands with his sizing on the turn pretty often. He’s going to have some pocket pairs; he’s going to have old Deuce-X; and he’s going to have a few bluffs with backdoors that people feel like they have to do. So obviously calling but always thinking about his range.
Turn ($245):
The opponent bets $170.
Alright, so I was hoping that he was going to go small so we could pounce on that—make him fold sevens or something like sixes or fives—something like that. He’s now relatively credibly repping a nine; that being said, I don’t think he’s going to triple off if he is bluffing too often. So I’m actually going to go for a snap call here on the turn to make it look more like I have something like Aces or maybe a tricky nine myself. We are going to call.
River ($585):
The opponent bets $250.
Alright, so here’s what I do—I mean—I guess I’m all-in; that’s what I do.
So it really feels like he has a nine; I don’t think that somebody chooses this size as a bluff—it just doesn’t feel very natural to go small on the river as a bluff. There’s no other value hand that will go this size; if he has even a straight, he’ll end up going bigger; if he has a boat, he’ll go bigger. People hate calling all-ins especially when they think they’re uncapped—you get in these weird spots sometimes where somebody thinks they’re uncapped but they’re not because they’ve done something to telegraph their hand strength—so you get to really pounce on what should be an uncapped range but happens to be capped range.
Marc: So we move all-in; he’s going to tank and tank and tank—finally folds!
Alright—hand four here—and Corey chose to c-bet the flop, got check-raised and called; then when villain chose a big size on the paired board with King-high flush draw Corey elected to fold here. Charlie also c-bet the flop but chose a much smaller size multi-way which gave him more stack depth even when check-raised later in the hand.
When villain barreled the turn with this deep of stacks behind to a smaller bet, Charlie elected to call, going to the river, which was a king. When villain came out and bet $250 on this river, Charlie astutely pointed out that when villains choose this size, they get a little bit more greedy when they have a hand like pocket deuces, Queen-nine, or King-nine. They’re just targeting the top of range here when they have those types of hands.
This type of bet felt like it was trying to get called by exactly the type of hand that Charlie had. So Charlie deduced that yes, he had the king blocker in his hand, but it didn’t really matter. Blockers don’t matter when villains are face-up with their range because villains will just choose a bigger size here when they have a full house. Charlie elected to go all-in here and pointed out something I thought was really interesting: regs in this spot in the big blind will just say, “Well, you know I’ve got pocket deuces and Queen-nine and King-nine to call here, so I’ll wait for a better spot to call,” but actually they don’t have those hands because those hands rarely choose this size on the river.
Charlie figured all that out in a very limited amount of time, went all-in on this river, and got villain to fold. I chose the same line as Charlie here, although I did go a little bit bigger on the flop. Villain did not show, but because he tanked on the river and then folded, I am assuming that he folded a nine.
After four hands, Corey is up about 120 big blinds, and Charlie is up 247 big blinds—really pulling into the lead here.
Marc Goone: "Final results here after hand five, part three: Corey is up about $13,763, good for 323 big blinds. Charlie is up about $14,200 for 409 big blinds. The cash results are a little bit misleading; if you look at the big blind results, Charlie won about 85 more big blinds across seven hands, which is pretty significant."
"My biggest takeaway here isn’t the results—it’s the thought process. I’m always trying to prioritize process over results. After listening to these hands, first of all, I just want to give props to Corey because I thought Corey played really, really well, especially for a self-described low-stakes player.
Charlie is a world-class high-stakes crusher and coach—it’s not going to be a fair comparison—but I thought Corey really held his own here and did a great job overall. To me, the biggest difference between how these two players thought about hands was that Corey kind of came up with a decision and then came up with reasons to support his decision, whereas Charlie walked through more scenarios. He considered this path, considered that path, and then decided which path to go down before trying to justify his decision.
To me, that was the biggest difference in thought process I saw between these two players. Hopefully, you guys enjoyed this video and found it illuminating to see the difference between a low-stakes grinder and a high-stakes crusher. Hope this turns you into one of the biggest boys possible. Thank you guys as always—have a gentle day!"
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