Hey guys, Yolan Cohen here. Today, I'm going to review Hungry Horse's video. I saw Charlie Carrel's doing a video on Marc Goone, and I thought that was a magnificent idea. I actually wanted to review the video, but it was a little too complicated with the sound. Anyway, let's get into the action.
For those who don't know, Marc is a live player doing a bankroll challenge at low stakes. He’s just crushing it in terms of views and obviously playing against very good players. So, let's see if we can find some valuable insights here.
Marc is playing here, trying to isolate and get it heads-up, playing a pot in position. The hijack quickly calls. This is a very good spot; obviously, it's out of range. But in live games, most people aren't going to 4-bet enough.
What happens is if you play against someone who is not 4-betting enough and 4-bets too tightly, this is a mandatory 3-bet. The solver we use—Monker Solver—for the pre-flop part is always going to choose the size of the 3-bet. I can even give you a simple size of the range when people don’t 4-bet enough. You need to even have hands like King-5 suited here or King-4. I would not consider 3-betting King-4, though, simply because the EV when I’m right can't be compensated by the EV I lose when I'm wrong.
So, I will actually not 3-bet as wide, even if the solver suggests doing it. If I'm wrong about my assumption that he’s under-4-betting, I’m losing massively. I’m not losing that much with such a loose hand.
The flop is complete. I will tend to size up a little bit because when I bet small, I think I will get raised a little bit more, and I also represent a bit more strength when I size up here on the flop.
Interesting logic here! I realize we’re way closer than we think, simply because there are going to be two scenarios that will happen most of the time: he’s either going to fold Eights, Nines, Tens or call, if he has 6s, 7s, or 5-4, he’s going to jam if you don't jam and call if you do.
I don’t think he has any Aces or Jacks, so basically we’re going to get called by Jacks, 7s, 6s, 5s, or 4s, which in total, if weighted out, represents 13 combinations. That’s a lot. We’re targeting Eights, Nines, Tens, which are 15 combinations.
The reason I’m not bluffing with Queen high in this spot is simply because if my opponent is calling on the turn and calling on the river because I’m being aggressive, he’s folding absolutely nothing. He might also have hands like 5-6, that’s true. Or even hands like Ace-5, maybe. But I assume that when he has too many hands in his range, he’ll always have pocket eights, pocket nines, and pocket tens in his range.
If he starts not folding those and calling everything else, my bluff is absolutely terrible. If I bet $500, I lose around $500. If he starts folding pocket eights, pocket tens, and pocket nines, I’m actually not winning that much in this spot simply because he’s always going to arrive with hands that are going to call me all the time.
So, the discrepancy here isn't extremely favorable simply because there aren't enough scenarios where you're going to win massively all the pot, and it can't compensate for the EV loss you incur when he's calling all the time with hands like pocket eights, nines, and pocket tens. Therefore, I don't think it's a good bluff, and I will anticipate this on the turn. I would play the turn here differently; my approach is actually quite simple and exploitable, something I do all the time.
I remember I played a hand, like NL 16k. I played a hand where, on the turn, I actually sized up and then jammed the river. He called, and he had the nuts. I learned a lot about this; sometimes, I realized that sizing down was actually the best option. When you start betting smaller in such spots—let’s say you bet smaller, around 15% of the pot—what's going to happen is he’ll often raise with hands like 5-4 or raise with the full air region. Alternatively, he might just call and lead afterward, calling with his weaker range and then folding against river bets.
The difference between my line with the smaller size and Marc's line is that, in my approach, he's more likely to raise with the nutted region. He can even raise hands like pocket tens or pocket nines. I don’t mind if he’s doing this because I know I’ll focus myself toward hands like Ace-5, pocket fours, pocket eights, and pocket nines, etc.
Of course, when I say "calculation," I didn’t account for all the combos. He can also have A6, pocket fives, or other combinations. But the logic is that we really need him to fold 100% of the time in order to have profitable bluffs, and I don’t think the EV we are winning here compensates when he’s actually calling due to thinking we’re aggressive and such.
So, I would actually consider betting small, letting him raise with a stronger region. I’d call the weak ones and continue bluffing aggressively, but only with this 50% size on the turn, which allows me to realize equity on the river.
Now, let’s move on to another hand. Here, Marc opens pocket fours from the lowjack. I’m against opening here, I think it’s not the best strategy. Having a limping strategy is probably, in my opinion, the highest EV strategy. The best value when you open comes mainly from having fold equity when you open your hands, like pocket fours or King-Nine suited, the EV in theory comes from having the potential to fold your opponents out, but in live games, it’s quite rare to see a walk. People are calling way more than they should, leading to a much lower amount of fold equity.
This situation increases benefits with some hands while it increases disadvantages with others. But the thing is, when you have aces and you get called four times, are you really that happy? Obviously, you’re going to win more money if the table has smaller opens and fewer calls, but you also have to play your aces passively. A lot of players will realize they can outplay you quite well.
Whereas when you start limping, you can actually start putting in more money against stronger hands that will isolate your limp. When you open and get 3-bet, you're typically facing a 100% range of the 3-bet. If you open, you have to be prepared for that.
So, you can actually start limping re-raising instead of just opening and 3-betting, and in this case, it doesn’t change much. Regardless of whether he’s isolating tightly or loosely, it doesn’t change much either. But when you have someone that isolates tight, you can benefit from that, because you can reopen the action when you limp.
From here, you need to design a limping range, a limp-calling range, and a limp-raising range depending on the situation and the size. I definitely prefer to put in more limps; I think it has a way higher EV than a raise here.
The isolation sizing on the button should be between 7x and 9x, and the big blind should consider a 7x. However, it’s not something that people will usually do; they often raise just 4 or 5 blinds. This increases the amount of value you can extract from your limping strategy, which is why I advise you to start building a limping strategy.
Marc Goone: We go to a flop that comes pretty nice for us: Jack-4-3. Look at that sweet board! Now, the big blind leads out and donks for $50. At this point, when players donk heads-up, this usually indicates a weaker range, which is often just a bunch of bluffs. People say, "Well, when someone donks, they just have a weak top pair." No, they don’t. When someone donks heads-up, they can have a weak top pair, middle pair, a gutshot, or just air.
Most of the time, when they donk heads-up, they do not have a strong range.
I actually agree with that assessment 100%—it all adds up. When someone has the top pair, they should typically size up on their lead because their range is quite broad, and we have more chances to play against their bluff range.
Let me explain this with a simple analogy. If you play against a wide leading range, it has way more combos in it than a tight leading range. The tight leading range simply has fewer combos. A wide range has a significantly higher number of combinations, and the wide point is that a combo has way more combos than a tight leading range.
When we encounter a situation where he’s leading, we have a higher chance of being up against specific hands from that set compared to the tighter set. If we analyze the ranges as a weight against a set of ranges, we understand that we have more opportunities to play against a broad range.
If I were trying to bluff here, I would never do it because the big blind is just not folding; he’s likely to have very good hands here. So, I'm going to raise right now. I don’t need to go too big because he only starts with just under $600 effective. I’ll raise to $200.
I like this size because it allows the potential to get all the money in. I’d prefer to go slightly smaller simply because, as Marc said, we’ll stack off quite often due to his stack size.
I want to see the flop, and I don’t want him to fold anything. I think when I raise to this size, I could get more calls from gutshots, and I represent a weaker range when I raise at this sizing. If I raise to about $120, I think I’ll appear weaker, so I won’t let him fold the Jack. He might even raise, and I will just call against a raise of $200.
It’s very close because also when we do $130, for example, we take less money on bad runouts, and he may not give us any money on the turn anymore. So it’s quite close; in general, I prefer to increase the sizing here.
Now, all the action goes back around to the big blind, and he jams all in for $560. We snap it off, and the turn is a 5 of hearts. The river is a 10 of hearts, and we are good against Ace-Jack!
If he jams against your size, he’s likely to jam against a $200 raise, but if he chooses to raise against $120, he will always jam against it. If he jams a Jack against $200, he will also jam against $120, but I think he will jam way more against $120 than against $200 on average. This means that some profiles will raise regardless of the size, but others will raise more depending on the size.
I think he will raise more often with the smaller sizing. This obviously doesn’t mean you need to use a small sizing for this option, but I would prefer to include it in the opening range. Ace-Jack specifically doesn’t fit particularly well in the limping or raising line, but it will always depend on the table size and all the variables involved.
The opening size is critical when everyone's in position against us, so I think this board is likely to get bet at.
I'm just going to check and see what develops behind us. So, we check, the lowjack checks, and now the cutoff bets $40 into $105. At this point, I don’t have a strong enough hand to bet with just Jack high, so checking is the right move. The turn brings an Ace, pairing the top card and giving us trips. We check it over again.
Now, I will actually lead here, and let me explain why. When he bets $40 into $100, he is definitely not representing a Queen. I think he's raising pre-flop with Aces all the time, maybe two pair plus, and the sizing of $40 indicates a mindset that’s often mistaken by light players who think they have weak Aces in their range. However, that's not necessarily the case. He bets $40 exactly, and sometimes he’s just not going to have two pairs.
You’re often going to be up against weaker hands like Ax, which indicates a higher chance he’s checking back too much. I don’t expect him to bluff here at all, simply because we have too many Aces in our range. Therefore, even if he might try to bluff, I think betting is still a better option to extract value from an Ace. If he doesn’t end up bluffing, betting is way better than checking. So, considering everything, I will always lead here, and I would probably lead for something like $160, targeting an Ace.
This bet also gives us an opportunity against potential draws that wouldn’t give us any value unless they hit. So, I’m actually going to make this bet on the turn. I’m not really sure what to make of his turn size, though. I think he would probably not use this size with his heart draws; he may either go bigger or check back his heart draws. It’s questionable whether he’d stab a Queen on this flop into this many players, especially with the button behind him.
This leads us to two ways to play the spot when you face such a small bet on the turn. You can either play your hand as a check-call or check-raise, but you need to put the aggression in yourself. I would actually consider calling here, but I also like the idea of raising.
If I do check, I’m looking to get value from those weaker hands. I check-raise here, as I don’t think an Ace is folding. I check-raise to $235, and he’s likely to call. The river is now an 8 of hearts, bringing in the front door flush draw. At this point, I think we’ll be hard-pressed to extract value from a hand like A7.
What does our line look like when we check-call the flop and check-raise the turn? It looks like we might have a Ace King or a boat or something strong. Against a more recreational player, I might just block this river, thinking they won’t fold a hand like A7 suited or something like that. However, I’m not sure he’ll pay off when we raise.
I agree with the logic, but I disagree with the move. I think we need to differentiate between a block bet of around 30% and a 10% block bet. I believe he’s literally never folding an Ace. If he has A9 or A7, he can reason that we could have a weaker A6. Consequently, I would just bet small here, around $55 to $60. I expect to get called by all A6.
As Marc said, I think he has no heart combos. Maybe he has some A6 of hearts, and that’s actually possible. It makes more sense for him to bet A6 of hearts on the flop compared to A9 of spades. So, it's very close between check and block. Considering this, I think checking is okay, but we still have too many Aces in our value range, and people won’t bluff this spot much because they’re too scared of all the boats we could have. I would bet 10%.
So, I’ll just go for a small block bet, but we end up checking it back, and we actually chop with the exact same Ace Jack.
