Rampage – "The lowjack raises to $110. I'm going to make it five times more. I 3-bet to 550 bucks. Lowjack calls. We're going to see a flop, which is magical."
Jonathan Little – We are playing 20/40 No Limit Texas Holdem, about $11,000 deep. Rampage Poker is in the small blind with . The lowjack raises it up to $110. Rampage re-raises. He bumps it up 5x to $550.
You may ask, "Why so much, Rampage? Don't you want to get action?" And the answer is, when you're out of position playing very deep-stacked, your 3-bets need to be big. A lot of people think they should automatically make it three times the initial raise in any scenario, and that's definitely not true. From in position, that's often a pretty decent rule, but from out of position, you want to be re-raising larger, and you want to make it even larger and larger as stacks get deeper and deeper. Because you don't really want to get called with any of your hands that are not overly premium when you are out of position.
So Rampage does it right. He goes 550 bucks. His opponent calls. Let's go to the flop.
Flop Action
– "The run good is real. It's , rainbow flop.
How sick is this? Here I'm going to throw out a small bet, 300 bucks. I'm going to do this with all of my hands that miss, all of my good hands, all of my bad hands, for $300. Very, very small bet. My opponent makes the call."
Rampage has pretty much the nuts. Top trips, top kicker. The pot is $1,140. Rampage goes for the tiny bet of 300 bucks.
I think this is great. I think Rampage's strategy of betting small in the scenario makes a whole lot of sense because he doesn't really care what the opponent has. He really wants him in the pot. Now, it is worth noting if the opponent has a pocket pair, they do have two outs to crush Rampage's dreams. But if they have an unpaired hand or if they have a pocket pair that doesn't improve to a full house, they're going to be on the hook to potentially lose a decent amount of money. Also, if the opponent folds out a little bit too often, this small bet on the flop's going to print a ton of money with Rampage's bluffs.
So far I like this play. He hasn't punted it off. I cannot believe it. Rampage is the absolute master of giving his money away. So far, I hate to say it, but he's played this hand perfectly. Let's see if he can keep it up.
– "Here the turn comes the , bringing in a backdoor flush draw. And now I have a decision to make with how much I want to bet. And considering how I'm going to be betting basically every single hand for a small size on the flop, here I have more decisions, and I decided to go very, very large. And this time I make it $2,500, basically an overbet here.
I think this card is really dynamic. Obviously, I have a lot of really strong hands like , a , , all that stuff, and I also have a lot of draws and stuff that I would continue barreling with that can be bluffing."
Rampage decides to overbet the turn, $2,500. He mentions this board is very dynamic, meaning there are now lots of draws available, and he's right that the Ten of Hearts does bring in a lot of draws for hands like , , and , and backdoor flush draws with the . The problem though is that Rampage actually crushes those hands. So I think this is a spot where Rampage probably doesn't want to bet so big. I realize that he wants to get action whenever he's against a and just load the money in. If opponent has something like , he just wants to load the money in because those hands are not going to fold. The problem though is that if the opponent has now he can just easily ditch it, or if they have that floated the flop, he can easily ditch it. You want to do everything you can in this spot to get value from your opponent's trash because the medium strength hands are going to call any decently big bet.
Now look, if you think if you bet something like 1,500, you're never going to get called by and maybe even a hand like a will make a nitty fold, which I don't think is going to happen, but maybe it will, then it does start to make more sense just to bet big so you really make sure you stack a King. But I think you're going to be able to stack a most of the time anyway. I don't know, look, if you think your opponent's going to be an insane calling station or something like that, then I don't mind the big bet and just getting your money in the pot. But I think when you start really blasting it like this on boards like this, your opponent's going to think you either have a , which they're drawing dead against, or some sort of high equity draw like a or , something like that, which you're fine with.
I do get that Rampage is known to be an absolute punter, which makes this play a better play for him than perhaps it does for nitty Jonathan Little, who always has the nuts. Don't forget everyone, Jonathan Little never bluffs. He always has the nuts, okay?
But with Rampage's image, if you look insane and people think you're insane and you actually are insane, this play does start to get a lot more merit. Because your opponents are going to more often put you on some nonsense like offsuit.
– "So with a really strong hand, I decided to overbet, and then we face a very interesting decision because my opponent raises me to $5,000. What? Oh boy.
Very interesting spot to say the least here facing a min-raise. And he's in position, and I look at his stack, it's about $11,000 behind. And I... I don't know what I want to do considering his raise here, which really blows up the size of this pot. It makes his $11,000 behind seem not a whole lot because he put in a third of a stack already.
I'm scared that I'm behind or , but outside of that, I do feel like I should just get it all in at this point. I could be wrong, but I'm not really sure. I think his raise is going to be super strong or just full of it, but my hand is super vulnerable to bad cards coming out like a flush or a straight or something. So I don't know what to do. I, I just go for it. I just go with my gut. I feel like this is right. I don't really know, but I go all in.
Now after he raises me, he doesn't snap call, so that's amazing. All right, you want to fade the snap call 'cause he doesn't have or a full house or something like that. But then he ends up folding. It doesn't take that much time to fold either. So I guess he was just completely full of it, unless he made a really sick fold with trips, which I don't think anyone's really capable of doing. At least I certainly am not capable of folding trips here. But let me know in the comments below, uh, what you think about this hand.
The opponent somehow, someway min-raises to 5,000 bucks with something like 5,000 bucks behind. Rampage just put all in thinking, all right, you probably got a , but then the opponent folds.
Before we leave today, I want to know what do you think the opponent was doing? What bluffs do you think make logical sense for them to have in their range? There may be no logic here, to be fair, but which bluffs do you think make the most sense for your opponent to min-raise a turn and then fold to a shove? Take a second, think about it.
When someone overbets the turn in a spot where they could easily have a whole lot of nut hands like this one, you really don't want to min-raise anything because you're raising into a range that should be very, very strong. So in GTO world, the opponent should call or fold with every hand in their range. Notice if they did have a straight flush draw or something like that, they're getting okay odds to call. I mean, it's not great odds, but they're going to have decent implied odds with a hand like , right?
So why or when would the opponent want to raise? Maybe if they have a hand like suited, , maybe a hand like even perhaps. These hands can justify raising because notice blocks and , which Rampage could easily have, which makes it more likely Rampage is bluffing. And if Rampage is bluffing, is he really just going to rip it in for $5,000 on top with nothing? That would be pretty optimistic. I mean, imagine Rampage had nothing here, he'd be in a pretty junky spot.
The problem though is that if you consider Rampage's logical hands, which again, Rampage doesn't live in logical world half the time, he's just trying to give his money away, but if he lived in logical world, he's going to have high equity draws like flush draws, a , or every once in a while some total trash. And the problem is that when you min-raise, the high equity draws are also not going to fold because now you're giving them amazing odds.
So I don't know what the opponent's doing this with. If I had to put them on a hand, I would put them on . That's what I'm doing. I'm sticking with it. That's it. I think makes some sense, maybe makes some sense, , maybe. I don't know though. Don't make this play.
Somehow, someway, Rampage didn't give all his money away.
Actually, you know, let's think about this. He actually did give his money away. You want to know why? Because his opponent had nothing. If his opponent had nothing, he should have tanked and then called like he has . Then you should check the river. The opponent's going to rip it all in. Rampage is going to call. He's win 5,000 bucks more.
Even when Rampage has the nuts, he finds a way to punt it off. Congrats.
Rampage Poker reflected on losing a million dollars in high-stakes cash games and announced his upcoming poker plans, including the Million Dollar Game.
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