Peter Clarke – Welcome back to Hand of the Week. We have the villain from the hand joining us today. His name is Hugh.
Welcome to the channel villain.
Hugh – How you going? Good to meet you, we finally got to play a hand.
– Yeah, we've been at the same tables when I've been doing these morning recording footage sessions, and I don't think we played a hand yet. But today we actually played our first big pot together. You've always been really friendly, you've said hello, and then today you were like, "Hey, let's talk about this hand on YouTube," and I was like, "Yes!"
You are a 200NL cash reg on GGPoker. You also play much, much higher stakes live. Let's get right into the action.
You've got the on the button and you open up.
I'm actually just rolling in a little bit of three-bet with this hand. I don't love three-betting this hand against weaker regs and recreational players because they just over-defend and the rake is terrible. So I just like playing pure call with this against them. But against you, because you sound like you know what's going on, you've done Carrot Poker School, and you've been winning in this game, winning at high stakes live, I decided I would throw in a little bit of three-bet.
We got this flop and you did something shocking, unheard of for the GGPoker pool. You identified yourself as one of the coyotes of the pool and you went for an overbet. So talk us through this.
– I think a really good basic heuristic that a lot of people should have at least is those kinds of Nine-high boards, especially when it's like low-low-mid, I really like to start implementing the overbet. Obviously, overbet is really great to pile a whole bunch of money in. We are a little deeper as well, we are 150 big blinds. I would still do this at 100 big blinds. I think it's great, but I just want to get the money in if I have a good hand.
Obviously with , I'm happy with this because I'm blocking a lot of middle pairs. I have my gut shot with a lot of equity and a lot of the time you're just going to over-fold. I don't think many people are going to be floating with the six-sevens. I guess you'd have to at some frequency. A whole bunch of backdoor stuff, I don't think people are meeting that minimum defense frequency. You're just going to find a whole bunch of folds on this, and I was kind of expecting it to just fold, but evidently not since we're here.
– Yeah, I can't really fold the open-ender. Sorry, Hugh, not this one.
So I think that makes a lot of sense with 9-3-2 as well, just to point out for the viewers that because two pair combos are like non-existent, gives you like the biggest, most colossal nut advantage you could ever have. And then shoveling this money in, especially deep, and getting the SPR down as soon as possible makes a ton of sense. So I really like the strategy, and I don't think your hand is too good to bet here. I think it has a lot of utility as a bet. It makes me fold some bigger Ace-high just for starters, and then I agree that this is over-folded. I don't think people defend like Queen-10 of clubs here as often as they should, or something like that.
– Especially in the GG pool.
– Yep. So I kind of got the absolute dream here on the turn, which was the Ace of Hearts.
So let's talk about this then from both of our points of view. So I start off with check here. My 4-5 gets there on this card, but I don't think it's like... I don't think it's the worst card for my range, but I think it's not fantastic because I'm going to be folding way more Ace-high against the overbet than I would a smaller bet. So I think my range likes this a bit more on a one-pair sense when I've called smaller c-bet, not a bigger one. So we start with check.
You actually went for half pot here. Let's talk about your decision point before we come back to mine. What were your thoughts on the turn?
– Cool, so with the Ace on the turn, uh, from like a straight-up perspective, you know, Ace, big card, happy days, good for my range compared to your range, which is great. I also, though, do lose a lot of my advantage with my kind of overpairs. Well, they're not overpairs now, they're second pairs. So all the tens through the Kings. But obviously, there is still a lot of value I can get. You do have to be pretty much calling 9x at a complete frequency here, which once again, I do think people are going to be over-folding. A lot of other stuff you do need to be continuing with pretty obviously every single flush draw, all that kind of good stuff.
So I found half pot is generally a pretty good size. I would still do this probably for 100 big blinds deep. We are obviously 150 big blinds deep, keep in mind. I am expecting some raises here when I do this.
But just as a kind of cautionary, by the way, I would still be doing this half pot size with all of my 10 through Kings, specifically though the ones without a heart. If I do have the heart, I'm blocking a lot of the flush draws, and that's pretty much my main source of value. Well, not my main source of value, but that is a very good source of value to still be getting some bets in. But when you have that heart, obviously, it's blocking a whole bunch of the combos that are going to continue that you are still beating at that point in time.
, I still think I should be pretty much good here most of the time. But yeah, it's pretty much half pot, only size I would do. I didn't even roll for it. I pretty much play face-up in the GG pool. I don't really find a need to RNG until you're pretty much on the river.
– Yeah, sometimes I RNG just because I can't tell what's better, and I just don't want to put the decision fatigue on myself of arbitrarily like picking a line. But I totally agree that it's not in any way necessary from like a balance perspective.
Okay, so I love your thinking here. I mean, yeah, this polarizes my range, weakens my range, makes your value bets a bit thinner, but still, you have a lot of equity, and I usually whiff this card. So picking a smaller sizing, and I guess the position sizing just being like half pot as the smaller one rather than third pot, which is a bit redundant in position, makes a ton of sense.
I do think with 5-4 of Hearts, this will be a mix in GTO, but GTO is going to give the pool credit for bluffing enough on River and not being face-up with the turn sizing. Whereas I don't give the pool credit for that. You know, you as a human, but I think you're an exception. You're probably playing the spot really well, but a lot of people aren't. So I did go for raise here, all the time.
– So fair, yeah, I reckon pure 100% with all of your spades, diamonds, clubs. The raise sizing, I like the raise size. I honestly think you can go bigger just because we are deeper, but I don't hate either kind of a 50% pot or 100% pot. I think you bet 75% pot roughly, it looks like.
With hearts, I would mix just to add a few traps, but pure... like 100% agree with your thought process with the amount of bluffs that people are finding on the river. Do not think that's going to be anywhere near high enough for you to just, you know, check and pray that the money gets in on the river.
– I think like if I knew who you were and stuff now, when we fight again in the future, which I'm sure we will, you know, I'll probably call the heart combo pure and then just like raise the other ones just as a way of like having a human decent strategy in the spot where I can still have 5-4 sometimes. But yeah, I think for all intents and purposes against global population, you've just got to fast play here. You just do not want to slow play when there's still a lot of pot building to do and you're out of position in spots where villain's turn size has just dropped a bit. That's just a very good rule for those of you watching playing lower stakes.
Okay, so you're very far up your range here in terms of defendability. You have a bluff catcher with redraw. Whenever you have that kind of hand, you're not really going to be able to fold unless you're ready to make like the hero exploit massive over-fold kind of thing.
– Especially to a capable player like you.
– Yeah, that works in my favor when I have it, and it really works against me when I don't have it. 'Cause sometimes I get called and I'm like, "Why, why would you call that hand?" It's like, "Oh, this guy's just seen some YouTube video of me like showing off some fancy play syndrome bluff." So it makes sense.
Okay, so yeah, we go on to the river then, which is the . Not the river I want to see, but at SPR approximately one, I think we're still happy to jam. A lot of your bet-call range is Ax, still two pair stuff like that, Ace-9, etc. I don't think there's anything to be doing here with the 5-4 other than jam.
And now let's talk about your thought process here. How did you consider whether to call with this catcher?
– All right, so at first, when I was calling the turn bet, I was pretty much preparing myself to have to make a big call on the river. Like, you're not, most people at least are not going to be, you know, raising 150 big blinds deep on the turn to just be checking back at the river unless they are some psychopath, which there are some valid reasons to be doing that. But with this kind of setup, and especially knowing you from your videos at least, I yeah, kind of already knew. So I at least got the shock factor out of the way.
And then it just kind of came down to a thought process of cool, what hands would be bluffing, what hands do I beat, any hands not really, what hands are the best call with, and it's just kind of working from a reverse tier list. So not having hearts is pretty cool. I don't really think it matters too much in the long run, but at least from a, you know, most people are like, "Oh, I have hearts, I don't want to bluff" standpoint. You are going to have to bluff a whole bunch of hearts on this river.
I got a question as well for you. Do you split your sizing on this river? Do you ever have like a bet 35% for your Ace-3, A-9 stuff like that, or are you just pure jamming or checking?
– It's a really good question. I think the latter. I actually thought about this in-game because it's not Rush and Cash. I actually have the luxury of like a 30-second time bank here or something. So I was like, would I ever play any block here or would I just be jamming? And I just thought that it's too unlikely that I raised the turn with many of the hands that are actually too thin to now jam on the river here. Like I think my turn raising range for value is basically sets and 5-4, and the sets are now boats, and 5-4 is not too thin. So I figured I just wouldn't bother with anything other than jam here.
If I did have A-9, it's highly likely I'm just calling the turn, but if I did raise the turn, I think I would just check that and allow you to bluff all of your, however wide you want to go in that spot with missed hearts or whatever.
– Well, it's great now knowing that. So use that against you next time. But anyway, yeah, when it comes to just like defense and like what hands do I actually have, like I'm not ever going to have, you know, a full house every single time. I mean, what, I could have quads, one combo. I could have maybe threes, maybe nines, maybe Aces. But like, I'm going to have to start reaching down, and I'm not saying this is a slam dunk pure call. I actually did roll, and I rolled exactly 50/50 for this.
If we were 100 big blinds deep, since it was a slightly bigger than 50% pot, I was genuinely considering jamming here as well as a kind of semi-bluff. As a lot of, you know, your hearts, you're just not getting your money's worth from there. A lot of like three-fours or like up and downs. But like your five-sixers, a lot of your gut shots that do bluff like your six-fours, just denying a whole bunch of equity there as well.
Which was where pretty much the bluff region on your river comes from. And that's where it led to for my river decision. I was like, cool, I know that you're a good enough player, you're going to have a lot of 6-5, 6-4s, even like 3-4, 3-5 suited if you play that. And obviously those heart combos are coming down. Not to give you credit, I'm not sure, but I know a lot of people would be scared of jamming just a naked 2 here. And I don't think a lot of people would be having all of those raises of like , even like , stuff like that, and then jamming on river for value.
So I kind of cut down some of the value, and then it kind of just became alright, cool, well I have an Ace, I blocked 4-5. I do think I need to pretty much call a lot of like Ace-Jack, Ace-10 here anyway, but I would personally prefer Ace-4. I don't think you're doing this with A-3 or Ace-9, so it's pretty much just Ace is good or Ace isn't good.
Yeah, sent it to the RNG Gods, rolled low, snapped the call, and saw the bad news.
– Yeah, no, I think I think you played the hand really well actually. When I saw at the time I was kind of like, "Huh, I'm not sure about that." But given that like, you know who I am and all of that, I mean normally against this pool we make some nitty folds in this river and we might fold our pristine bluff catchers like this. But yeah, like when it's like thinking reg against thinking reg, I think this is a hand that probably just has to make it into your river defense range unless you're just way over-folding your range.
So themes for today: flop overbet strategies when villain can't be making a lot of two pair, especially on low boards. Looking to downsize on turns that polarize and uncap the flop defender, as you did very well here. Not folding the most pristine bluff catchers with redraw on the turn like Ace-4 that block value, amazing stuff. And then realizing on the river that your calls have to come from somewhere.
I think this hand from my point of view plays itself. From your point of view, far from it, and I think you did a good job of navigating. Let's get you back on, do a full-length video, go over some of your hands, something like that very soon. This was fun. Thank you for coming on Hand of the Week.
– Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
