"Give Them an Option to Do Something Stupid"
We will be playing some serious street poker. Let's get into the first hand in which we get dealt . We face a limp under the gun from a recreational player and a professional player who isolates the recreational. You would say, “Okay, three-bet,” straightforward, but I actually decided to flat call. The reason being that the recreational is very aggressive and has a shorter stack.
I think there is a very good chance that he will now come over the top, and then the professional will be stacking with a way lighter range than if we three-bet ourselves.
Also, with this SPR, I think it's fine to let him in with a hand like offsuit, have him flop top pair, and go broke.
All right, so villain unfortunately decided to call instead of reraising, which we would have liked to see. The flop is .
I think an easy check. The recreational checks, and we face a one-third bet.
I think we have two options here; raising is definitely fine, but my motto is always with recreationals: you want to give them an option in trying to do something stupid. Therefore, I decided to just call, and unfortunately, villain only decides to call.
Now the turn is where things become interesting from a strategy perspective. Should we continue our plan and give options to the recreational to let him do something stupid, or should we now take the lead in the hand? I think checking here is actually a pretty big mistake because this way the in-position professional will play "quote-unquote" perfectly. He is going to pot control with hands like and let this guy off the hook if he has a hand like pocket sevens with a diamond, for example. He will just be betting a hand range that's versus which aces are obviously not bluff catchers, but aces are at least not very happy.
Okay, and it's going to get checked around quite often. We'd miss a lot of value. So I actually decided to lead out myself, making sure that it doesn't get checked around and making sure to extract some value from the recreational player. We can actually argue sizing here; I think betting pot—like usually you don't really want to be betting too big when the diamond completes in a spot where both players can have a lot of flushes—so from a theoretical perspective, I kind of saw this and didn't even consider leading bigger. But I actually think in this situation betting pot is actually a fine strategy.
I think the recreational will now stack us with quite a lot of plus draw combo draws, etc., and I think the professional player is going to play quite honestly versus this bet. Now if he maybe calls and comes over the top, we're in quite a dicey spot; whereas if we just pot it and he calls, and the recreational for example comes over the top, I think we have a pretty easy fold. If he calls, we probably could block the river or check and reevaluate the situation.
So I think potting is better than blocking, but I think blocking is by far better than checking. The recreational shoves all-in now.
If the professional does anything, I think it's going to be quite close. Let's say he calls; I probably call one check-fold on the river; I think that's probably fine. If he comes over the top, I think we just have an easy fold. He does just fold, so we don't have a tough decision.
I think we now have a snap call obviously with our , and villain shows up—actually we run it twice—and villain shows up with . So this is actually a great example of a hand that we allowed in pre-flop and actually we allowed in on the flop as well. Obviously he was drawing pretty dead; now he did hit the best turn in the deck. Let's say we would have checked and it would have gone check-check because he did fold; most likely he was going to check right.
The river would have been a ; we would have checked and he would have bet—we would probably fold it—but the main point is now by leading the turn we force him to pay with a hand like this. So this is the moment guys to rate my hand: Is this pure wizardry or should we go back to the lab and study more so we prevent making this mistake in the future?
Overbet Called by Unexpected Cards
In the next hand: turning your value hand into a bluff. We have Ace-Queen offsuit in the small blind and decide to flat call.
You guessed it; there's a recreational player in the big blind. The flop comes . We could actually lead out here; I think if we had hands like or , leading is perfectly fine.
However, with , I think I prefer checking slightly more.
The recreational checks and now the professional checks as well.
The turn is a ; I think there's only one thing to do here which is to bet our hand with the recreational who is in the pot who's most likely going to overcall here. In theory, we might check our hand again but I think the recreational is going to overrate hands like , , .
Yeah, I think betting is perfectly fine. Also, sizing I think is perfectly fine.
He now decides to min-raise us on the turn, and it is up to us now. I'm not too thrilled about the situation, but I think folding is—I don't want to say out of the question because obviously and are the nuts. When recreationals make a min-raise like this, it's usually a bit on the stronger side. But given the random factor and the fact that we only need to be good 19% of the time, I think calling is fine and kind of reevaluating on the river, but most likely folding to a lot of action.
While he can have maybe a hand like two pair or maybe a hand like or , I can definitely see him playing this way some of the time as well. I do still think that a straight is definitely in his range as well.
So we call, and our river is the , which is pretty interesting.
His two pairs are now significantly decreased in value; it's unlikely that he's going to have a flush by the way he played his hand. If he had a flush draw, it could have been maybe one with the that he raised on the turn—like or something—but obviously that's reduced because we have the .
If he did have a hand like , a straight came in and a flush came in, so that's obviously not great for him. So I actually decided to turn my hand into a bluff and donk bet with kind of the thought that on average, I think recreational players are a little bit afraid of flushes and I think we have enough money behind to put some pressure on him. It's a nice little overbet here, mainly trying to put a lot of pressure on the two pair region and maybe .
Now obviously if he has or if he already had , this is just throwing money on fire. It's very debatable whether you think this is a great play, so let me know what you think: Is this pure wizardry or should we go back to the lab? Are we just throwing money on fire? He did decide to call; he thought about it for a little while and showed up with .
Now obviously if he calls with , this is literally donating $369 to my opponent because we want him to fold these kinds of hands if we're going to be front jamming the river.
Maybe wrong candidate; recreational players—there are certain recreational players, definitely the more nitty ones—that are definitely capable of folding. I don't think I had much information on this recreational player; if he is just very crazy, I definitely don't think we should do this. But I felt like I kind of got sucked in on the turn and on the river; I couldn't really help myself.
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Clever Call or Bad Bluff?
Next hand: we raise it up with and face a three-bet from the button; we decide to call.
The flop is , and I decide to come out for a little donky donky.
Now, this board in general is going to favor the out-of-position player quite a lot because our range when we call a three-bet out of position is very pocket pair heavy— to for example—which are very incentivized to lead on this board. The button has more of an advantage on high card boards because he will have hands like offsuit, offsuit, offsuit—stuff that we on average will not have.
Now in a vacuum, I think is fine to check; let’s say —it’s probably a hand that would never lead—and then , I figured with the clubs and the board being pretty favorable for us, I decided to go for it. But I definitely wouldn't have hated checking; definitely one of the first non-made hands that I would consider checking.
Villain calls and we see a turn now. The turn is a ; I think this only improves our initial range advantage because now we've made a straight. now made a set, and now and turned extra equity. In-game, I figured that my strategy here would be to just continue betting my range, so that's kind of what I did.
I fired out another small bet just by putting a lot of pressure on the overcard region—like hands like , , suited—all that type of stuff.
Villain decides to call and we now see the river. The river is a . Obviously an or would have been range improving but there is a small chance that I could have had . I think if I did call pre-flop, I would probably always play it this way, so it's not a complete brick. Now we have to think about strategy.
I'm not really sure how this spot is going to look in theory, but luckily, chances are that my opponent will also know how the spot looks in theory. I figured in-game that we have , , maybe like suited, suited, suited, suited, , , , and maybe some suited. However, I think it's more likely to be in his range. I figured we just have a very good blocker in terms of the , blocking and , which I think are going to be the primary hands that he's going to be calling down.
So, I decided to just ship my stack in, leveraging the advantage that we have in nutted hands in our range and putting a bunch of pressure on his overpairs like , , , and .
I think it's very hard for us to be bluffing here if he thinks about it in terms of some equity hands or hands that make sense. Obviously, if we turned a flush draw—let's say we had —that would not really be the hand that I would ever bluff. So then I would need to show up with something completely bananas like this, and it's probably only suited hands that are going to be—let’s say in this case—three combos if I decided to do the Diamonds, Hearts, and the Clubs. Actually, for the Hearts, I would give up on the river, so two combos. It’s very hard for me to be significantly over-bluffing here.
Is this pure wizardry or do we need to go back to the lab?
Now villain decided to make the call pretty fast; if I recall correctly, he almost snap-called me with , which I think makes a lot of sense. He’s removing a lot of my value with a hand like suited or . You could argue maybe some suited, but like I said, I don't really think I would have that often in my range. He’s unblocking a lot of the bluffs, so I think actually his call is probably standard if you think about it from a preference point of view—this hand definitely seems better than a hand like .
So yeah, I think he played his hand very well; the question is did I?
(Almost) A Brilliant Call
Next hand, we have posted our blind.
I posted our blind accidentally—I might add—but luckily we are not the only ones because the recreational player also posted his blind.
He decided to check and I made a small raise to €30 to thin out the field a little bit and try to get heads-up with the recreational player. But then the big blind calls.
In general, I think it’s quite interesting; I think this is a spot where I'm just going to be super wide so I will be three-betting super wide as well if I'm in the big blind and the recreational now calls as well. The flop is ; villain checks and the recreational now leads out for €40. I think all options here are fine and debatable; obviously there's still someone left to act behind us that we have to take into consideration.
I decided to call; I think it's a bit on the loose side if someone is left to act and obviously we don't have a great hand.
If I had , I would definitely fold; if I had , I would probably call. So is somewhere in the middle; if he bet a little bit smaller, I would always call. The big blind did go out of the way which was probably our main concern.
I just think that this bet is full of s***, and raising straight away with is also a fine option.
Now he bets €40 again which kind of feels to me like he has a hand that was worth €40 on the flop and is now still worth €40 on the turn ( ) so his hand strength has gotten reduced. Hands that come up to me are , , pocket fours—a or something along those lines.
Obviously he could also just be full of s*** and just be betting a random King-high or random Ace-high—some or something like that. I think folding is out of the question; we only have to win 15.7% of the time so calling and bluffing river again while reevaluating if he shows a lot of strength means we can still fold.
I decided to now throw out a raise straight away, putting pressure on these low pairs.
If he has , you know it’s not an easy life for him; if he has he might call and we sometimes win versus that hand. Again, I think he's just taking control over the pot; he has shown weakness and this is kind of the point where I start to attack that.
Villain calls and now the river is an . Villain now donks out for half pot. Now we ranged him initially on something that was worth €40 right in a €175 pot; an is definitely an option. However, I do believe though that recreationals if they have an might size a little bit bigger or they might get tricky. You can obviously still have a some of the time. This is all very, very much possible.
However, I think it's just way more likely that on the turn he picked up a hand like and now decides to bluff that, or on the turn he was sticky with a hand like and now decides to bluff that. So, I decided to call. I guess raising is an option we could consider, but then we would be trying to bluff him off an eight, and as we learned earlier in this video, trying to bluff recreational players off two pair-plus type of holdings has not been very successful so far. Therefore, I decided to actually make the call.
Let me know what you guys think in the comments down below: How did we play this hand? Pure wizardry or should we go back to the lab? Villain now shows up indeed with a 6-8 that he turned into a bluff, but unfortunately for us, he also had the Ace to go with it, and therefore he owned us pretty hard.
He’s probably now laughing his head off thinking that we are the fish, and I guess we might be the fish.
Three Streets of Donk Bets
For the last hand of this review, we will be playing a three-bet pot in position: big blind versus small blind with . The flop comes and now my opponent decides to lead out.
Now, we just talked earlier about leading on these low boards; however, I think this is especially nice when we are the out-of-position caller in early position and cutoff situations. In blind versus blind though, the small blind caller will have more offsuit hands like offsuit or offsuit—hands like suited—which we might not always have in other positions. We have way more hands like offsuit, offsuit, offsuit.
So I think range versus range-wise, we're way less incentivized to lead in this scenario than if we were playing the scenario that I played earlier with .
Now some leading might still happen, but I think it's definitely reduced compared to other positions. I decided to raise; I think is probably the nuts here if we think about the overpairs. I don't think he has plus because he would probably always four-bet that. dominate in the best way possible and have backup against , , and in case we were beat. So I think if I want to raise a hand, it's probably .
Villain decides to call and the turn is a . Now he decides to lead out again; so we have one donk bet on the flop and another donk bet on the turn—shoutout to this guy! This guy is paying attention! He now leads very small though; it's basically 10%.
Usually at some point when they go this small, I just kind of think: “Okay, what would I do if he checked?” Well, probably is just good enough for a bet.
I think if he had something like , , or , there are good chances that he would have come over the top on the flop. So I think this bet is more likely from his range; it’s a bit more weighted towards suited or suited flush draws. Sure he could have a four like —definitely an option—or maybe he has sometimes. But I do think that hand should probably just stack straight away on the flop.
I decided to throw out another raise; I'm still pretty happy with my hand.
Sizing-wise, we could have maybe just ripped our stacks away—€800 and €600—definitely think the SPR is small enough. There are a lot of bad rivers for our hand: any overcard obviously, a heart or a four would not be great. So in hindsight, I might have liked to see myself jam the turn here but I raised a little bit smaller; obviously now we prize him in with a flush draw.
So yeah, I think I would have liked to see myself jam in hindsight but I didn’t; instead I raised smaller. Villain now calls and the river is a . Talking about some serious street poker! He decided that now was the opportunity for him to donk bet all three streets; he just went for it!
Now the doesn’t change anything in terms of equities; this is not an equity-improving card for him. You could say that he now made some boats but a set is just worth so much money already on the turn that I don't really see him playing a set this way that often. So I thought in-game it was way more likely he had something like suited or a busted flush draw.
Now obviously we don't beat any value hands; there is some small chance that he has like but if he has then good for him! So I decided to look him up thinking that if he had a better hand than me it would have been very likely that on the flop it would have gone in or on the turn it would have gone in—and I don't really see how the has helped him—so I decided to make the call.
Let me know what you guys think of this hand: pure wizardry or do we need to go back to the lab? Villain showed up with of hearts—triple donk bet bluff river! Shoutout to this guy; got to give respect where respect is due.
