support@CrushLivePoker.comBart HansonCopyright 2026Up your game!Bart HansonBart Hansonsupport@CrushLivePoker.comfalseensupport@CrushLivePoker.com2026-08-14T01:00:38-04:00Poker Strategy Articles by poker author Bart Hanson. Increase your win rate in live No Limit Hold'em cash games.https://dynamic-possum.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/rss/All-CLP-Podcasts.png?w=3000&h=3000&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1648344769&s=67bc2a9f0e8e85a88bb95b7058596841https://crushlivepoker.com/https://crushlivepoker.com/articleshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/clp-list-of-termshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/clp-list-of-termsWed, 16 Jul 2025 14:45:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/clp-list-of-terms15-25-35 ‘15-25-35’ is a simple rule that allows you to quickly calculate the implied odds you’ll need in order for a call to be profitable, based on your opponent’s bet sizing and effective stack depth. These numbers refer to the amount you need to have in your effective stack in order to realize your implied odds profitably. It’s worth noting that this is more of an old school type of calculation, and only accounts for the odds of hitting a strong hand on the flop. 15x refers to low and medium pocket pairs. You should have at least 15x your opponent’s betsize left in your effective stack to profitably setmine on the flop. 25x refers to suited connectors like 76s, and 35x refers to gapped suited connectors like 97s. Example 1: Your opponent raises to $20, and you have pocket threes. You would want to have an effective stack of at least $300 (15x) in order to get the correct implied odds to call. Example 2: Your opponent raises to $20, and you have 76s. You would want to have an effective stack of at least $500 (25x) in order to get the correct implied odds to call. Action Killers ‘Action killers’ are cards that may come on the turn or the river that will typically slow down or ‘kill’ future action. Typically action killers will bring in flush draws, straight draws, or pair the board. Example: After a flop of A:d: 9:s: 7:s:, the turn comes the 8s, bringing in any flopped flush draws, as well as a gutshot straight draw. Attacking Limped Pots Because a lot of players at low-mid stakes limp often with weaker holdings, we can attack them aggressively postflop, since oftentimes limping is an indicator that your opponent(s) will be wary of playing a larger pot postflop. Even if your opponent makes a hand and bets, they may be wary of playing a larger pot postflop since their limping range will make weaker hands than their openraising range. This leaves room to attack aggressively with bets and raises, even with your weaker backdoor draws. Your attacks will be most effective when the top card on the flop is likely to change, like a jack high or ten high flop, where your opponent’s flopped top pairs can easily become 2nd pair on the turn or the river. Example: Several players limp preflop, and you check the big blind with J:c: 9:c:. The flop comes T:c: 3:h: 2:d:. One of the preflop limpers bets, and you checkraise with your backdoor straight and flush draws. Attacking The Field Bettor ‘Attacking the field bettor’ references a situation where the preflop raiser checks, and someone bets into them on the flop. A lot of times at low-mid stakes the preflop raiser’s checking range is weaker than it should be, since they will likely play face-up and check mainly weak hands on the flop. The best time to attack the field bettor is typically when the top pair is likely to change on the turn or river, like on a nine high or ten high flop. Bet/Fold ‘Bet/folding’ is one of the primary principles of Crush Live Poker, and refers to a situation where you bet for value with a medium strength hand, planning to fold to a raise. This strategy allows us to get thin value from calling stations at low stakes, but confidently fold to a raise, since our opponents won’t be attacking aggressively enough and are likely to have a strong hand when raising. This is one of the most powerful techniques in live poker, since many players will call down with a wide range of weaker holdings, and are unlikely to raise unless they have a very strong hand. Bet Pacing ‘Bet pacing’ refers to how fast your opponent bets on a given street. In live poker you can pick up on timing tells, based on how quick your opponent is to make the decision to bet. For instance, if the river is a card that changes the ‘nuts,’ like a flush card or board pair, and your opponent bets very quickly, it could indicate that they have not taken into account that the board has changed, and are likely to not have improved. When your opponent bets so quickly without much thought on these dynamic runouts, you can often bluff catch, since they should have taken more time to consider the board change. Backraise A backraise occurs when someone reraises a raise after just calling an initial bet. For example, let's say Player 1 bets, Player 2 calls, Player 3 raises, then Player 2 reraises. Player 2 has backraised, since they called Player 1’s bet, then reraised after getting 3-bet by Player 3. Typically backraises occur preflop, where a player flats an open with a big hand, then decides on 4-betting after seeing further action in the form of a 3-bet. Blockers This term likely first originated in Pot Limit Omaha, and refers to specific cards held by a player that prevent another player from having a certain hand. For example, if the board is Q:h: J:h: 3:h: and you hold the A:h:, you have a blocker to the nut flush, making it impossible for any other player to currently have the nuts. Beyond blocking the nuts, holding certain cards can make it less likely your opponents have straights, sets and other strong combinations. Board Texture Commonly used to describe how connected or disconnected a given board is, board texture is an incredibly important factor when it comes to decision making at the poker table. For example, a J:s: 7:h: 2:d: flop would be a dry texture, as opposed to an incredibly wet board such as K:h: Q:h: J:h:. As a general rule, you’ll want to be c-bet bluffing less on wet textures, where your opponent is more likely to have flopped a strong hand. Another thing to consider with board textures is the likelihood that a board will change on the turn or river. If a board has quite a few low cards, like 9:h: 3:d: 3:s:, it can actually be pretty dynamic on later streets, since it’s likely that an overcard may come on the turn or river. A:s: 7:h: 2:d: is more static than this board, since top pair won’t change on later streets. C-bet Bluffing Matrix The c-bet bluffing matrix is a method used to figure out whether or not you should c-bet as a bluff as the initial raiser. This is a method that is unique to Crush Live Poker, and contains a number of different factors and variables that you want to look for when considering c-bet bluffing. These factors include the number of players in the hand, your hand's equity, board texture, position, stack sizes, relative hand strength, image and other factors. The matrix helps you to rank these variables on a 1-10 scale to determine your best course of action. Check 100 This term simply refers to situations where you’ll want to check your entire range, or 100% of your holdings as the preflop raiser. Usually this will come into play when the flop heavily favors your opponents range. When flops are very good for your opponents range, and not so good for yours, it can often be wise to slow down and check with even your strongest holdings, to protect your range and prevent your opponents from running over you. An example of this would be when you raise UTG with a tight range, BB defends with a wider range, and the flop comes out something like 6:s: 7:s: 8:h:. This board typicall favors the BB much more than the UTG opener, and you may want to check as often as 100% of the time in this scenario, depending on how tight your opening range is preflop. As a general rule, we don't recommend checking 100 against weak passive players but it can be a useful strategy when your opponent is capable of recognizing when board favors them and may apply a lot of pressure with check raises or multiple large barrels to put you in a tough spot. Chip Spiking This is a method taught on Crush Live Poker where the aim is to allow your opponent to easily see the size of the pot by using large denomination chips when betting. For example, if you wanted to bet $85, you might use one black $100 chip and get change back, as opposed to betting with a stack of red $5 chips. Chip spiking can be a powerful tool due to the fact that most live players aren’t keeping track of the pot size, and when you do have a value hand and want to get paid on the river, you’re making it easier for your opponents to see the amount in the middle that is available for them to win. Cold Call This term can be interchanged with a simple “call,” but normally is used to refer to a situation where you have a hand that can potentially be considered for a raise, but you decide to just call. It can also be used to describe a situation where you raise preflop and an opponent calls with further action pending. Combo Bet A combo bet refers to a very rare instance in Texas Hold’em where you place a bet that gets a player to fold a better hand but call with a worse hand. Combo bets commonly refer to turn scenarios multiway where a player takes an aggressive action that can get better hands such as top pair to fold, but can get calls from strong draws that are currently behind. Combo Draw One of the strongest types of draws, a combo draw is a hand that is drawing to multiple different hands, such as a straight and a flush. For example, if you have 6:h: 5:h: and the board is J:h: 3:d: 7:h:, you have a combo draw, since multiple cards can come that will give you either a straight or a flush. Configuration Configuration refers to everyone's position at the table, after putting money into the pot. For example, a tight configuration would be a scenario where UTG raises and UTG+1 calls. A loose configuration would look more like BTN open raising and BB calling. In tighter configurations ranges are much more narrow and stronger preflop, and in loose configurations ranges are typically wider and weaker. Delayed C-bet A delayed c-bet is when the initial raiser waits until a later street to continue betting, as opposed to firing out a c-bet on the flop. Typically for this to occur, the flop will check thru, and then action will check to the initial raiser again on the turn. Delayed Double Barrel This refers to a situation where the initial raiser bets the flop, checks the turn, then fires a bet again on the river. Normally a delayed double barrel references a situation where you don’t barrel a traditionally good card for your range on the turn, because you want to see how your opponent reacts on the river. Depolarization The opposite of polarization, depolarization refers to a situation where you’re betting with a combination of weak, medium and strong holdings. A polarized strategy is when betting with complete bluffs and very strong hands. Especially on the river, many players are only betting with a polarized range, meaning they likely either have a very strong hand or a bluff. Incorporating a more depolarized betting strategy can be very useful in certain scenarios, since you’re keeping your range wide and taking the same action with a variety of strong, medium and weak holdings. It will be harder for your opponents to bluff catch against a depolarized betting strategy, since they could be up against a medium strength hand that you’re betting for thin value. This term can be used somewhat interchangeably with the term “merged” when describing betting strategies. Dink and dunk Dink and dunk refers to a small bet. Typically used when betting for value on the smaller side, or betting small for protection. A small bet in proportion to the pot when trying to extract value. Donk Bet or Donking Out A donk bet (also known as leading out or donking out) is a bet from an out of position player who has chosen to take the betting lead instead of checking to the aggressor from the previous street. Example: BTN raises to $15, the BB calls. Flop: T:h: 8:h: 6:h: BB bets $20. This can be represented as “BB donks for $20” or “BB donk bets $20”. Dry flush draw A dry flush draw is a flush draw that has no other obvious outs besides hitting the flush. This typically means there is no overcard that can come that will give you top pair, and no straight draw that can improve your hand. An exception would be if you have a flush draw with an overcard, but your opponent’s actions and aggression indicate that your hand needs more than just hitting top pair to improve to the winner. Example: The flop is K:c: Q:c: 9:d: and we have 4:c: 5:c:. We have a dry flush draw, because there are no immediate outs for our hand besides hitting our flush. Dynamic The term dynamic is used to indicate when a given board has a lot of connecting and “nut-changing” cards, meaning the turn or the river can drastically change the board. Dynamic boards are the opposite of static boards, or boards where not much can change on the turn or the river. Typically on dynamic boards the “nuts” on the flop will not be the “nuts” on the river, given how likely it is that the best possible hand will change. As a side note, trip queens is the worst possible “nutted” hand that you can hold on any 5 cards by the river. Trip jacks will never be the true “nuts” once all five cards are out, meaning any board that is jack-high or below has a more dynamic element to it. Static board example: A:d: 7:h: 2:c: Dynamic board example: K:c: Q:c: 9:d: Effective stack The effective stack is the smallest stack still holding cards in the hand. If we have $1,500 and our opponent has $1,000, the effective stack is $1,000. We can only win what our opponent has in their stack, making it the effective stack. Equity Equity usually refers to the pure odds that your hand has to win the pot. If you have pocket aces and your opponent has pocket kings, you have about 82% equity, while your opponent only has about 18%. EV EV is shorthand for Expected Value. EV can be used somewhat interchangeably with Equity and can be expressed in a dollar amount ($EV). For example, you have a hand that has 33% equity, and your opponent goes all in for $400 to win a $1,000 pot. This means you have to call $400 to win a pot of $1,400 ($1,000 pot + $400 bet). If we multiply our equity (33%) times the pot ($1,400) we get $462, meaning that is the most amount of money we could call and still be breaking even. Since our opponent only bet $400, we’re getting the right price with our equity to call, and our call will make $62 in the long run. This means that our chip equity or chip EV is $62. Euro Euro is a joking term to refer to an out-of-country professional player. Most normally it’s a derogatory description. Bart will use this term to describe anyone who isn’t from USA, Canada or Asia, sometimes jokingly including professional players from Australia or South America in his “Euro” tag. “This Euro backpack guy keeps 3-betting everyone.” Fifth Street Chicken Fifth Street Chicken refers to calling a bet on the turn planning to fold the river if unimproved. When playing fifth street chicken, you’re basically playing a game of chicken with your opponent. If your hand doesn’t improve you can fold the river, but given your call on the turn your opponent may think you’ll call a river bet and shut down. Usually when playing fifth street chicken your hand should have equity to improve, and if you do improve you’ll likely be inclined to check-call a river bet instead of check-folding. Fold Equity Fold equity is the chance that your opponent will fold if you bet. If you’re semi-bluffing with a draw, and you think you’ve got no fold equity, it would be a bad idea to semi-bluff since you’re almost always getting it in bad. However, if you think there’s a good chance your opponent will fold, that fold equity is an additional factor allowing you to bluff. Fold equity is one of the driving factors behind an aggressive play style, because there’s always a chance that your opponents will fold to your bets, giving you fold equity as well as the raw equity your hand has. Getting a price Getting a price refers to getting the correct pot odds to call. Example: I’m in the big blind facing a $15 raise and five callers. I’m getting a great price to call and see a flop!” Going North Going north is when a player adds on chips to their stack above the table cap. For example, if the table cap is $1,000, adding a $500 chip to your $700 stack would be going north of the table cap. Casinos vary in terms of enforcement of the table cap, so someone might ask “how easy is it to go north at this casino?” In an uncapped game you can always go north and add chips, though of course you can never do it in the middle of a hand. Going South Going south is when a player takes chips off the table in a live poker game. For instance, if you buy in for $200, run it up to $1,000, then take $500 off your stack and put it in your pocket, you’re going south. This is not allowed in most casinos and card rooms, and looked down upon pretty much everywhere (an exception being Short Deck games). GTO GTO (or Game Theory Optimal) is the balanced solver approach to poker, focused on being unexploitable with its actions. GTO is often misused due to not factoring in our opponent’s real life tendencies, which will often be far different than GTO theory. You can run hands through a GTO sim, but you have to make sure that your inputs are set correctly (node locking), or the output that you get will not reflect the most profitable strategy. The most common situation in small stakes games where an exploitable strategy will beat a GTO strategy is betting more often on all flop textures. While GTO might dictate a lot of checks on certain boards, we can exploit our opponents who will play “fit or fold” on the flop by turning up our aggression. Hand Reading Hand reading is the skill of narrowing down an opponent's range and figuring out what your opponent holds. Good hand readers use information such as bet sizing and preflop configuration to narrow down ranges and put opponents on likely hands. Have to walk that one off You’ll likely “have to walk that one off” if you face a bad beat or you make a bad fold. Maybe you folded pocket kings and the guy showed a bluff, or you got it in good and your opponent got lucky. You may literally need to stand up from the table and take a quick break, in order to collect your thoughts and get back into the game. Indifferent Being “indifferent” is a situation where the EV of a certain play like calling or folding is 0. Your decision doesn’t win or lose any chips, no matter your action. In Game Theory Optimal (GTO) play, the goal of your opponent is to make you indifferent between calling or folding, making their strategy unexploitable. If you were to play strictly GTO you would make your opponent indifferent on every single action, because your opponent can never make an exploit that will gain any chips. Jam or jamming Jamming means going all in for your remaining chips. Node locking Node locking means changing the optimal pre-set ranges in a solver to reflect the tendencies of your opponent(s) in a specific situation. This can be used when analyzing hands off the table to find a more realistic and helpful solution and see what you could have done differently. Your opponent’s actions will likely be far different from GTO, so node locking can allow you to find more practical solutions. Live node locking Live node locking refers to changing an opponent’s range in a live hand without the use of a solver. Maybe on a certain board we know that the solver likes to raise a lot of flush draws, but we think our opponent will be more inclined to call with most of those hands. We will “node lock” his range to eliminate those raises, and adjust our strategy based on that assumption. For example, you open UTG and UTG+1 is a loose passive player who calls 30%+ of hands but will likely only 3-bet aces and kings. We can live node-lock this player’s range in the moment and eliminate most hands from his 3-bet range that a solver would have. Merge Merge is a term that references a wider variety of hands that take a certain action. A merged betting range is a range of hands that includes heavy value hands, weaker value hands, semi-bluffs and air, while a polarized betting range is more of a “nuts or nothing” range of hands. Merge is another term for depolarization, meaning that you’ll take a hand that is neither very strong or very weak and betting with it, along with many other hands in your range. Multi-way responsibility Multi-way responsibility refers to a situation with more than 2 opponents, where you have less of a responsibility to continue with marginal holdings in order to meet MDF (minimum defense frequency). When you’re heads up there will be times when you have to make some uncomfortable calls to avoid being exploited, but when you’re multiway, having additional opponents in the hand takes some of that responsibility off your shoulders. Because there is someone else in the pot, your responsibility to continue goes down, because you have to account for the other player(s) in the hand. In general you’ll play much tighter multiway than heads up because of this multi-way responsibility factor. Multi-way Theory In general, betting on the smaller side in multi-way pots is “correct” since your opponents should be calling down tighter. Next to act for example, really should not be calling bets over 30% pot with other players behind if they do not have at least top pair+ or a draw. Negative equity slowplay Negative equity slowplay is a situation where you slowplay a strong hand, but the only action you’ll get is if the turn or the river helps your opponent’s hand. Example: You have A:c: K:d: on K:h: K:c: 8:d:, and your opponent holds 3:d: 3:h:. You decide to check and slowplay your hand, and your opponent checks it back. With this specific scenario you’ve gotten into a negative equity slowplay scenario, where the only action you’ll likely get on the turn is if your opponent hits a 3 and makes a full house to beat your hand. This is an older-school term used to describe situations where players would slowplay hands on the flop then never fold on future streets, when they were only getting action from hands that outdrew them on the turn or the river. OMC OMC, or “Old Man Coffee” is a term used to tag an extremely tight passive player who seems to just be sipping his coffee waiting to pick up aces. When this player 3-bets or raises, you’re just going to know they always have the nuts. A lot of times when these players get a big hand preflop you can get a lot of money from them postflop, since they have a hard time letting go of top pair and overpair hands postflop. Out to lunch/ out to left field etc. When someone is “out to lunch” or “out of left field” it means they’ve shown up in a situation with a hand they should really never have in that situation, either due to preflop or postflop actions. Piece of cheese Piece of cheese is used to describe a bad preflop hand. “Someone 3-bet preflop and you had eight-six offsuit, are you really gonna call with that piece of cheese?” Pot odds Pot odds is a mathematical term referring to the odds you’re getting to call. For example, if someone bets $100 into a $100 pot, you have to call $100 to win a $200 pot, meaning you’re getting 2 to 1 on a call. Your pot odds would be 2 to 1, meaning you need to be winning at least 33% of the time in order to call. Punt (spew) A punt or a spew is a really bad play that costs them a lot of money. “I punted off $2,000 when my opponent was never folding.” Raise/Fold for Value Similar to bet folding for value this tactic involves raising with a hand you believe is strong, but being ready to fold if faced with a re-raise. It's especially effective against players who play predictably and aren't prone to bluffing. Mastering raise-folding for value is a critical skill that can significantly enhance your win rate. Range Betting In certain situations, particularly in three-bet pots, you'll encounter board textures that make it profitable to continuation bet with all the hands in your range. For example, on an A72 rainbow board, betting about one-third of the pot with your entire range can be an effective strategy. Reg This term is short for regular players who frequently play, as opposed to casual, recreational players. 'Regs' can range from skilled to less proficient players, but they're characterized by their regular presence at the tables. Reverse Block Bet This small bet relative to the pot size is made to provoke a raise from an opponent. For instance, betting $100 into a $1000 pot on the river is a typical reverse block bet, aimed at inducing a raise rather than just blocking. Normally we talk about it from out of position but the reverse block bet can be used both in or out of position. Reverse Implied Odds This concept deals with the likelihood of completing your draw but still losing the hand. For example, if you hold a King-high flush draw against an opponent's Ace-high flush draw, the reverse implied odds consider the potential loss if both players complete their flushes. Reverse Pot Odds This refers to the odds your opponent gets after you make a bet, often relevant in all-in situations on the river. For example, if the pot is $1000 and the effective stacks are $200, betting all-in can give your opponent high reverse pot odds, allowing you to make thin value bets. Our opponent would be getting incredible pot odds making it difficult to fold even marginal holdings. In the example above, the pot odds they would be getting are 6 to 1. Raise First In (RFI) Refers to when you raise your hand and you were the first person in the pot. If it gets folded to us, and we were to raise that would be an RFI. Sometimes when you're looking at a pre flop chart or when someone's trying to figure out if you want to play a hand from a certain situation, they might say you should RFI that hand, which means you should raise it. This is a statistic often seen in online poker HUDs or live streams. Run It Twice In high-stakes or all-in situations, players may agree to deal the remaining cards twice, effectively splitting the pot into separate parts. This approach reduces variance, with each run representing a portion of the pot. Runnig it twice can be for either the entire board, the turn and river, or just the river depending on when the all in occurred. Same Bet This term usually refers to a situation where a player, often out of position, check-raises the flop and then bets the same amount (or very close to the same amount) on the next street. It usually suggests their hand is not very strong. Showdown Monkey Refers to a very common player type in live poker who frequently checks back on the river when they could make a value bet. These players often avoid betting the river to not reopen the betting, especially when they have the last action. Sizing Tells These are clues about an opponent's hand strength based on their bet size. For instance, a small bet on a scare card can often indicate a lack of a strong hand. Solver A computational tool used to find game theory optimal (GTO) solutions in poker. While helpful, solvers often provide answers that are more defensive focused than practical for maximizing profits, especially in live games where exploiting opponents' tendencies can be more effective at winning the most money. Spaz Factor This term refers to the likelihood of an opponent making erratic or unpredictable plays. It's often used in low-stakes games to describe the randomness in an opponent's actions that don't follow logical patterns. Stack a Donk A strategy aimed at maximizing value against weaker players. It involves playing strong hands very fast, like check-raising the pre-flop raiser and then betting full pot, especially when you have a hand that is two pair or better. Typically this line targets opponents likely holding at least top pair who have a hard time folding. Static Boards The term static is used to indicate a board that is unlikely to change much on the turn or the river. This is the opposite of a dynamic board, where many turns and rivers can come that will change the board. Static boards are typically rainbow, meaning flushes are unlikely or impossible to come. These boards will also be fairly disconnected, meaning straights are less likely. Top pair hands are much more valuable on static boards than dynamic boards, because there are less draws that have good equity. Static board example: A:d: 7:h: 2:c: Dynamic board example: K:c: Q:c: 9:d: Somewhat Disconnected When the board does not have a straight present and there are not many logical 2 pair type holdings. Q:d: 7:s: 2:h: or J:d: 7:s: 2:h: are pretty good examples. Structuring Refers to the strategy of making continuation bets based on if backdoor equity improves or not. For example, if the board was 9:c: 4:c: 2:h: and you had A:h: 5:h:, you continuation bet, and someone called. If the turn was the 7:h:, and they checked, and you would double barrel since you picked up additional equity. If the turn had been a 7:s: then you would not bet again. Structuring appropriately inherently works as a frequency control to ensure you are not over bluffing. Stiff Ace This describes when a player holds the Ace of a suit on a flushing board, that could dominate another flush. So if the board was 5:h: 6:h: 7:h:, and someone had A:h: Q:d: and they played the hand very aggressively they would be making a play at the pot with the stiff ace of hearts. Stop and Go This tactic involves a player check-calling on the flop, then leading out with a bet on the turn. It is often used when defending from the blinds against a preflop raiser, or when playing with a short stack and waiting for a favorable turn card to bet all-in. Tapping the Glass Typically stated something like “hey don’t tap the glass” meaning don't talk poker strategy to recreational or bad players because you want to avoid them possibly feeling uncomfortable and leaving the table or becoming self conscious to the point where they actually start to play better. The term comes from the fact that these players are fish and you want a fish to keep doing fishy things. You don't want to startle or scare them off like a child tapping the glass of a fish bowl. Tabling a Hand The act of tabling a hand means physically turning your hand face up and laying the cards down on the table. Players that correctly table their hand have the right to the pot if they are the winner even if the dealer pushes the pot to the wrong player. In a casino setting it is the duty of the other players to rectify a dealer mistake if the hand has been properly tabled. That includes speaking up to the right the wrong, even if one is not involved with the hand. Top Pair Dynamic A top pair dynamic board is a board where top pair is likely to change on the turn or the river. An example of a top pair dynamic board would be 8:d: 3:d: 2:h: or T:h: 8:d: 3:c:, while a top pair static board would look more like A:d: 2:h: 5:c: or K:c: 4:d: 5:c:. Top pair dynamic is different from a pure dynamic board. For example, a board like A:h: Q:h: J:c: is extremely dynamic, but it is top pair static. Value Own This occurs when a player makes a value bet with a hand that is not the strongest hand. It's a natural part of maximizing your winrate in medium to low stakes games. If you don't value own yourself a fair amount of the time, then that indicates you are likely checking behind too often and leaving a good amount of value on the table. Weak players do not value own themselves enough in position which makes it much easier to bluff catch against them when they uncharacteristically bet a river that they generally would tend to check back with a made hand. Variable Turn Sizing Refers to betting 1/3 pot in position when you are the preflop caller and get checked to from the preflop raiser on a blank turn. The bet size handcuffs the preflop raiser since you can vary using this sizing with some strong hands, floats and bluffs. Way Ahead, Way Behind This situation describes a scenario where a player's bet or raise will likely only ever be called by a hand that is better than theirs. A good example is when the old man coffee makes a huge bet with an overpair on a low board. Since the bet is massive they will only be called if someone flopped a set and everything else weaker than their hand will fold. VIP (Very Important Person) Slang for a big whale or fish who donates significantly to the game's action. VIPs are your best customers since they lose a lot of money per hour and should be treated with great respect at the table. VPIP (Voluntarily Put In Pot) This is a statistical measure expressed as a percentage, indicating how often a player chooses to play their hand before the flop. A high VPIP, like over 30% in a full ring game, suggests a very loose player, whereas a low VPIP indicates a tighter playing style. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/breaking-down-value-hand-readinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/breaking-down-value-hand-readingWed, 16 Jul 2025 14:44:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/breaking-down-value-hand-readingBreaking Down Value Hand Reading with 3 Hand Examples The ability to read hands effectively can make a big difference between winning and losing over the long run. In this article Bart dissects several hands that highlight the importance of hand reading and making thin value bets. Sometimes, a well-timed value bet can make a massive difference, but understanding when to check back or push forward requires a deep dive into hand reading strategies. In this article, we’ll review 3 hands from podcast #626: Breaking Down Value Hand Reading, to analyze key hand reading decision points and determine how to maximize value. This podcast included 8 in depth hand reviews so be sure to check out the podcast to study this topic further. Understanding Thin Value Betting Thin value betting refers to making a value bet with a hand that isn't the nuts but is still ahead of a significant portion of your opponent’s range. It’s a skill that separates the average players from the great ones. For example, there will be scenarios where second pair is good enough for a thin value bet. However, in another situation, checking back with the second nuts is the better play. The difference? Understanding your opponent’s range, their tendencies, and how they perceive your range. Hand #1: Ace-Eight of Hearts vs. a Young Opponent Preflop Action: Stacks: $830 effectiveGame: $5/$10 NLHE with a straddleVillain: A young player who recognized Bart, potentially indicating an understanding of modern poker strategy.Action: Villain opens from the lowjack to $30.Bart: Calls on the button with A♥8♥ (a speculative but playable hand in position).Straddler: Calls.Pot: $90, going three ways to the flop. Flop: 6♥ 2♥ 2♦ Straddle: Checks.Villain (Preflop Raiser): Checks.Bart: Bets $55 with nut flush draw and two overcards.Straddle: Folds.Villain: Check-raises to $150. Analysis: Villain's check-raise is unexpected, indicating possible overpairs, trip deuces, or an aggressive bluff with high cards.Bart's decision: Call or jam?If Villain is bluffing, calling keeps his range wider.If Villain has an overpair, Bart still has about 40% equity with his flush draw.A jam applies pressure on weak overpairs and bluffs. Final Decision: Bart jams all-in for $830 total.Villain thinks for 30 seconds and finally calls.Turn: 5♥ (Bart makes his flush)River: Q♦Villain shows: Q♠Q♣ for a rivered full house.Bart loses the hand but discusses the equity-driven aggression behind his shove. Hand #2: Maximizing Fold Equity with a Chop Bet Preflop Action: Stacks: $800 effectiveGame: $2/$5 NLHEVillain: A passive, straightforward player.Action: Bart raises A♣8♣ from lowjack to $20.Big Blind (Villain): Calls. Flop: 9♠ 8♥ 6♣ Villain: Checks.Bart: Bets $15 (small value bet).Villain: Calls. Turn: 5♠ (Brings a straight possibility) Villain: Checks.Bart: Checks back (pot control). River: 7♠ (Straight on board: 9-8-6-5-7) Villain: Checks. Key Decision: Since both players are playing the board, Bart bets $100 into $70, representing a better hand. Villain folds.Lesson: When a straight or flush is on board, overbetting can force folds from players who are just playing the board, as they are getting terrible odds to call. Hand #3: Facing a Small Donk Bet in a Three-Bet Pot Preflop Action: Stacks: $1000 effectiveGame: $2/$5 NLHEVillain: Raises to $15 from the cutoff.Bart: 3-bets to $50 from the button with A♠Q♣.Villain Calls.Pot: $100 Flop: A♦ 8♥ 5♣ Villain: Leads (donks) for $70. Analysis: Leading into a three-bet pot is unusual.Likely hands: Ace-X hands, sets (8-8, 5-5), or a weak bluff.Decision: Bart calls, keeping weaker hands in. Turn: K♦ Villain: Bets $75 (small sizing).Bart: Calls again, suspecting a weak ace (A-J, A-T). River: K♣ Villain: Bets $100 into $390 (tiny bet).Bart: Raises to $325 for thin value.Villain: folds immediately. Lesson: Small river bets often indicate a weak hand—a thin value raise can be used to extract max value. Final Takeaways Understand when to go for thin value.If your opponent is likely to call with worse, bet!If they might only call with better, check back.Leverage fold equity when chopping.If the board has a straight or flush and your opponent is playing the board, a large bet can force a fold.Pay attention to bet sizing patterns.Donk leads are often polarized (very strong or very weak).Small river bets often indicate weakness, making thin value raises profitable.Use hand reading to determine optimal aggression.If an opponent is unlikely to have the nuts, consider bluffing.If they are capping their range, thin value bets become mandatory. Conclusion The ability to analyze board texture, opponent tendencies, and bet sizing can transform your poker game. Do you consistently value bet thinly? If not, you are leaving money on the table. Start incorporating these concepts today! FAQs What is a thin value bet?A bet made with a marginally strong hand that’s ahead of your opponent’s calling range.When should I go for a thin value raise?When an opponent bets small on the river and you likely have the best hand.How do I know if my opponent is bluffing with a donk bet?If they bet small into a three-bet pot on an Ace-high board, they likely have a weak ace.Why is betting into a chop effective?Because your opponent is getting a terrible price to call.Should I always raise when my opponent makes a tiny river bet?Not always, but it's often profitable against weaker players who don’t bet their monsters properly. Hopefully this article helped you gain a basic understanding of hand reading. The original podcast that this article is based on included 8 in depth hand examples. If you’d like to dive deeper, check out the full podcast here: #626: Breaking Down Value Hand Reading Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/finding-overbets-in-live-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/finding-overbets-in-live-gamesSun, 24 Sep 2023 13:30:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/finding-overbets-in-live-gamesOverbetting in live poker can be an incredibly powerful tool when used correctly. However, with great power comes great responsibility. We have to make sure that we’re not just falling victim to fancy play syndrome, or making these bets without any kind of strategy to back them up. Here we’ll look at some benefits and downsides of overbetting, before getting down to the nitty gritty of when and why to overbet. Benefits of Overbetting: There are some clear reasons we might decide to overbet in a given situation, whether it be to force our opponents out of the hand with a bluff or to get value with a very strong hand. Increase fold equity Often when our opponents call a small c-bet from us on the flop, they’ll be calling a wide range of hands, everything from small pairs to random gutshot straight draws. Utilizing an overbet sizing on the turn or river forces them to take a stand, and can eliminate a lot of weaker hands that still have decent equity against us. Make up for lost value When we bet small on the flop with our best hands, we often find ourselves on the turn in a pot that is much smaller than we’d like it to be. If we think our opponent is likely to have a decent hand that we’re currently beating, it can make sense to charge them a premium and go for max value with an overbet on the turn or river. Exploit our opponents As pots grow bigger, bad players make bigger mistakes. We can use overbets as an exploit to build pots versus weaker opponents. We can also gain value with our premiums when opponents call top pair too much, increase fold equity when we think our opponents fold too much, and generally exploit unaware opponents with larger sizings to get the result we want. Downsides of Overbetting: The problem with overbets is they’re often used by players who don’t have a sound reason for why they are overbetting. We want to overbet for the right reasons, and not fall victim to fancy play syndrome. There are certainly downsides to using overbets, so let's take a look at a few. Force players to play better With early street overbets we can sometimes accidentally force our opponent to play better than they normally would. With big bets we give certain hands in our opponent’s range an easy decision, allowing them to “play perfectly” against our bet. Hand reading becomes tricky Some live players will never raise an overbet even when holding the nuts, so when players call your overbet it sometimes doesn’t cap their range. This keeps their range fairly wide in situations where you’re planning to bet/fold, since they may just call 100% of their continuing range, basically eliminating your ability to use a bet/fold strategy. Adding more variance Using overbets adds a ton of variance to our game. If we’re not picking the right spots to do so we could be making larger errors ourselves, and we are massively increasing the variance of our sessions overall. This is why it is crucial that we understand when and why to use overbets before firing away with them in our sessions. When to Overbet: Now that we understand the benefits and downsides of overbets, let’s get into some common situations where you might want to use overbets. When looking for situations to overbet, we will rarely find instances where an overbet makes sense on the flop, typically we’ll be looking to find overbets on the turn or the river. However, there are instances when even a flop overbet could make sense. (Check out the full podcast here for a complete breakdown of flop, turn and river overbets!) Looking at GTO solutions, the solver likes to implement roughly the following overbet percentages when betting: Flop: 10% OverbetTurn: 15-20% OverbetRiver: 25% Overbet One of the main reasons we see the percentage of overbetting go up on each subsequent street is due to the fact that there is so much equity to be realized on earlier streets. When trying to use overbets versus opponents who we think might overfold or overcall, there is a complexity to using overbets on earlier streets, because of the equity they may still have to realize. Overbets are most common in single raised pots, because the stack-to-pot ratio is a massive influence when it comes to overbetting. In general, the higher the stack-to-pot ratio, the more overbetting we should be doing. Let’s look at a couple of situations where we might want to overbet, both when in position and out of position. In Position Overbetting: One of the most common scenarios for overbetting in position occurs when we raise from the Hijack or later, and face a Big Blind or Straddle defend. When players cap their ranges preflop out of position we can typically put a ton of pressure on them postflop when we have the nut advantage. Overbetting makes the most sense when you’ve got the nut advantage and your opponent’s range is capped, so a late position open versus a defend from the blinds can be a great situation to attack. Another scenario that warrants an overbet could be when isolating from the Cutoff or Button over a single limper. Again, we’re attacking a range that is capped, on boards that are favorable for our stronger range. Out of Position Overbetting: The two main scenarios where we will be overbetting when out of position occur when we either open from Middle Position+ and get called a loose passive player on the Button, or when we raise the Big Blind or Straddle and get called by a limper. The reasons for overbetting here remain the same, we can exploit limpers and loose passive players by attacking their capped ranges on boards that favor our range. The general takeaway with overbetting is to look out for situations where players self-cap their ranges preflop, and use overbets as an exploit when you have the nut advantage postflop. You can put a ton of pressure on your opponents with this strategy, putting pressure on their good hands and forcing weaker holdings out of the pot. Hopefully this article helped you gain a basic understanding of how to think about overbetting. If you’d like to learn more, including full breakdowns of overbetting strategies on the flop, turn and river, check out the full podcast, Episode 554: On Live Overbetting in 2023. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/when-to-defend-the-buttonhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/when-to-defend-the-buttonSun, 10 Sep 2023 13:35:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/when-to-defend-the-buttonWhen it comes to defending the Button, many players (especially at low stakes) get a few key things very wrong. In this article we’ll look at when it makes sense to call on the Button, and why you should probably be doing it more often. Let’s dive in and look at a few baseline rules for defending your Button in live low stakes games. 1. Play More Hands on the Button Most players under-VPIP on the Button, and over-VPIP in the Big Blind. We are actually allowed to call more hands on the Button than in the Big Blind, because of the positional advantage we will have postflop. Standard solver preflop charts won’t reflect this typically, due to the price you’re getting to defend your Big Blind versus a 2.5x-3x open. However, versus a standard open to $15 in a $1/$2 game, you can probably guess why defending our $2 Big Blind becomes less important than playing in position for a $30+ pot on the flop. Say you have a hand like 8:c: 6:c:. Would you rather defend this hand on the Button, or from the Big Blind? Out of position our hand will be hard to realize equity with, and we’ve just paid 5-7 additional blinds to see a flop out of position. Wouldn’t you rather put in just one additional blind preflop to play this hand in last position postflop, knowing you can sometimes win the pot without even making a good hand? The power of position is massive in this game, and with live low stakes raises so large, defending our Big Blind becomes less prevalent, and position is king. Hands like K:c: 2:c:, A:d: J:c:, 6:s: 5:s: and other hands can all be good candidates to call preflop on the Button. We can also consider flatting some of our more nutted hands, even up to A:d: K:c:, given how often we will dominate our opponent’s weaker Ax and Kx opens. 2. Be Aggressive (Even After Being Passive) Just because you enter a pot passively with a call, doesn’t mean that you have to play the entire pot passively. People often don’t have postflop raises on the Button when they should, especially in single raised pots. Look to take advantage of opponent’s fit or fold postflop tendencies at low stakes games, and raise in position with a variety of nutted hands and strong draws, especially on more connected boards that favor your range as the preflop caller. An interesting situation will arise when we play a double flat on the Button, meaning we flat the initial raise, get 3-bet by one of the blinds, and flat again to see the flop. Most poker players will keep playing passively postflop if they’ve already shown passivity preflop. When we make this double flat play we are kind of doubling down on a passive preflop line, but it doesn’t necessarily need to stay that way. Passive play isn’t a bad thing in all situations, and sometimes it can be played very effectively. However, regardless of whether we’ve been passive or aggressive preflop, we always will want some ability to mix things up and be aggressive postflop. When we flat preflop we keep the stack to pot ratio (SPR) large, and allow for our opponents to make more mistakes deep stacked. Why would we not want to seize the advantage in position and take aggressive actions against players who will make deepstack mistakes? 3. Understand the Player-Types on Your Left If you have a good idea of how the players to your left play, it can make a huge difference in your Button flatting strategy. For instance, if you have an incredibly tight nit to your direct left, when you’re in the Cutoff you basically have the Button, since this player will often overfold preflop, giving you last position. For the most part you won’t see much squeezing from the blinds at low stakes, but you’ll want to tighten up your Button flatting range if you’re facing a significant amount of aggression from the players to your left. Base your Button flatting range off of the tendencies of the players to your left, and always leave room for adjustments during your session. Hopefully this article helped you gain a basic understanding of how to think about your Button flatting strategy. If you’d like to learn more, check out the full breakdown in CLP Podcast Episode #553: Defending The Button. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/breaking-down-when-to-check-raise-post-flophttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/breaking-down-when-to-check-raise-post-flopSun, 03 Sep 2023 13:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/breaking-down-when-to-check-raise-post-flopPostflop Check-raising If you play low stakes cash games, getting tricky with turn and river check-raises can sometimes be a disaster. This is due to the fact that most players at low stakes will tend to be super nitty, often just showing down the river with hands that should bet. However, there are definitely still situations where a check-raise line makes a lot of sense. Today we’ll dive into two examples demonstrating when you should look to check-raise, and when it might make more sense to bet or raise for value yourself. We’re playing $1/$3, with $150 effective stacks. 7 players limp, Hero checks in the Big Blind with 2:c: 2:s:. The flop is A:h: 2:h: 6:d: ($24). Hero bets $10, only the Hijack calls. The turn is the 4:s:, making the board A:h: 2:h: 6:d: 4:s: ($44). Hero bets $15, Hijack raises to $40, Hero calls. This is a spot where getting sneaky and just calling the turn is a bad idea. If our plan is to call turn planning to check-raise the river, we’re giving our opponent too good an opportunity to make a nitty check back with two pair combos and Ax holdings. Players at low stakes are notorious for being “showdown monkeys” and checking back hands on the river that definitely should be going for value. On the turn when we get raised, the Hijack is telling us they have a hand that wants to get stacks in when they raise with so little behind. With just $150 effective stacks preflop, our opponent’s turn raise screams strength, and we won’t be generating too many folds on the turn by jamming. Why would we not want to maximize our value on the turn by getting it in, when cards can come that kill our action or weaken our hand on the river? There is an old school theorem at low stakes that whenever someone raises postflop, they’re usually going to go with their hand regardless of how much we raise them. In this case it makes a ton of sense for us to ship all the chips in on the turn, to make sure we’re not getting nitty river check-backs from our opponents. If we have a strong hand, and our opponent wants all the chips in the middle, why would we not give them that opportunity right now? Let’s look at another example. We’re playing $2/$5, with $1k effective stacks. 4 players limp, Hero checks in the bb with Q:d 5:d. The flop is 8:d: 6:c: 5:c: ($25). Action checks around. The turn is the Q:s, making the board 8:d: 6:c: 5:c: Q:s: ($25). Hero leads out for $15, Cutoff raises to $40, Hero calls. Heads up to a river Q:h:, making the board 8:d: 6:c: 5:c: Q:s: Q:h: ($105). Take a second to think about it, should our Hero lead out first with queens full, or try to check-raise the river for value? Let’s take a moment to think about what our opponent’s range could consist of. Most sets that our opponent could have would usually bet the flop, so the fact that flop checked through eliminates most of those hands. They could certainly have some Qx holdings that raised on the turn trying to take the betting lead and just showdown on the river. They could also have plenty of bluffs such as club draws, straight draws with a 7, or possibly a very nutted hand such as 97 that trapped the flop. Given this assigned range that mainly consists of either rivered trips or air, going for a check-raise here makes a lot of sense. Our opponent’s bluffs will be incentivised to try to steal the pot, and our opponent’s value range is mainly trip queens or better, meaning we will almost certainly generate a value bet once we check. When you’re calling the turn with a hand like our’s that is more vulnerable and wants to check-evaluate on the river, you’re playing what we call a “5th street chicken” strategy. Your hand is obviously too strong to fold the turn, but the board is pretty connected, and you’ll just want to check the river and see what your opponent does (check-evaluate). As a general rule, when you’re playing “5th street chicken,” and you improve to a very nutted hand, you’ll generally want to go for a check-raise. Your opponent will likely have a strong range of value hands that will continue on the river, and all their bluffs will be incentivized to bet. All poker theories like this have exceptions, but we can usually make the decision to check-raise or bet by looking at our opponent’s value range. If their range consists mainly of two pair holdings, we may want to bet out ourselves to avoid nitty check- backs. If their range is more like our most recent example and includes mainly trips or better holdings, we can safely employ a check-raise strategy, since usually opponents will choose to bet trips for value once checked to. Hopefully this article helped you gain a basic understanding of how to think about check-raising decisions. If you’d like to learn more, check out the full breakdown in CLP Podcast Episode #549: Breaking Down Post Flop Check Raising.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/tips-for-mastering-limped-potshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/tips-for-mastering-limped-potsSat, 22 Jul 2023 12:30:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/tips-for-mastering-limped-potsIf you’re a live poker player, you’ve likely played your fair share of limped pots along the way. Limp pots are a staple of low-mid stakes live poker, and you’ll often see 3-5 players openlimp preflop before it’s even your turn to act. In this article we’ll break down how to attack limped pots from the blinds, and discuss when you should overlimp in late position, after several players limp before you. Limped Pots From the Blinds Small Blind and Big Blind strategy in a limped pot will be different depending on the structure of the game ($2/$5 vs $5/$5 for example), so let’s look at a game type where the Small Blind is a lesser amount than the Big Blind. When completing from the Small Blind, you’ve got to consider the rake structure of the game you’re playing first. If you’re playing in a high rake or drop structure, you may be getting worse odds to complete the Small Blind than it looks like, since the casino will take a portion of the pot once you see the flop. However, if you’re playing somewhere with no rake, it can make more sense to complete the Small Blind and see a flop. The number one question you should ask yourself when completing the Small Blind is this: “Would I overlimp on the Button with this hand, given the same pot odds?” For some reason, many players are eager to defend their Small Blind with a hand like 93s, but when dealt the same hand on the Button they fold preflop. Facing multiple limps you’re of course getting great odds to continue, but position is a key factor in realizing your equity postflop. The range which you overlimp on the Button should be as wide or wider than the range you complete the Small Blind with, since both will have similar pot odds to call preflop with 2 or more limpers, and your position will allow you to realize much more of your equity than being out of position postflop. Playing limped pots postflop from the blinds is a much different scenario than calling a raise in the blinds, so we have to adjust our actions accordingly. If you have a weak top pair hand in the Big Blind, like 94s on 923r, your hand is very vulnerable and needs protection, so you might choose to lead out for value. This flop is top pair dynamic, meaning the turn can easily come a high card, changing the top pair, so we need to protect our equity and fold out some of the overcards in our opponent’s ranges. If the flop is more draw heavy and dynamic, we’ll want to charge draws with our value hands, especially if the top pair is static, like a king high or ace high board. Ace high boards are a bit trickier, since many players over limp with random Ax combos, so it’s important to have some check-calls with our lower Ax combos in the blinds to protect our range and avoid value-owning ourselves. In general however, we want to charge draws on dynamic boards with our top pairs and get value from worse holdings. Now, when we’re facing 4+ limpers in an extreme multiway spot out of position, we’ll want to check a lot of our top pairs with weak kickers, and plan to evaluate based on the action. For example, if we have 94o on 9-8-3 two tone, facing a bet from early position and two calls, we can comfortably fold our hand and move on. However, if we have the same hand facing a CO bet, we can call and evaluate turn. Instead of having a predetermined action such as check-call or check-fold, we can check-evaluate a lot of times in the blinds and wait for our opponents to give us more information. For example, if Under the Gun leads out into 4 players left to act, it’s a much stronger action than the Button taking a stab at the pot after 4 players check to them. Overlimping in Late Position Facing just one limper, you can basically play the same raising range you normally play from the Cutoff and Button, adding 1 big blind to your raise size. Once you get two or more limpers involved, you’ll want to tighten your raising range to mirror your early position opening range. However, this tight Under the Gun open range leaves out a lot of hands out that have great playability in position, such as small pocket pairs, suited connectors, and suited gappers. Once 2 or more players limp to you, you can definitely over limp in late position with these kinds of combos profitably. When playing postflop in a limped pot, position is key. Let’s say we overlimp T:c: 8:c: on the Button, and the flop comes 8:d: 4:d: 3:s:, giving us top pair on a flush draw and wheel draw board. In these situations, raising for value and protection can be a great idea, and can sometimes have a combo effect of getting better hands to fold and worse hands to call. For example, let’s say the Hijack bets, the Cutoff calls, and we raise T:c: 8:c: on 8:d: 4:d: 3:s:. The Big Blind could have a hand like J8 or Q8 that may just fold facing all this action, and we could get flush draws and hands like 87s that bet the flop to call our raise. In general, the more draw heavy the board is, and the more vulnerable your top pair is, the more flop raising you can do. If you’re on the Button and hit a monster hand, you’ll also want to raise for value facing a bet. Of course slowplaying sometimes can make sense depending on the bettor and the texture of the flop, but in general you’ll want to raise your nutted combos and build the pot. If the board is very dry and you’re facing a late position flop bet, you could consider slowplaying your nutted hands on occasion. However, when you’re facing a bet and a call, you’re going to mainly be looking to build the pot by raising the flop, especially if the board is draw heavy. Make your adjustments based on the types of opponent’s you’re facing, and always look for key indicators such as the position of the player betting and how dynamic the board is when deciding between slowplaying and raising your heavy value combos. If you’d like to learn more and dive deeper into strategy for limped pots, check out the full breakdown in CLP Podcast Episode 548: Mastering Limped Pots. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-bet-matrixhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-bet-matrixSun, 16 Jul 2023 12:30:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-bet-matrixSo you c-bet the flop and get called, should you double barrel? The turn is a critical card for the preflop aggressor, as a double barrel can make the pot much larger, while a check can slow action down and keep the pot smaller. Here we’re going to run through several considerations for turn barreling. Try working through this thought process into your next turn barrel spot! 1. How Multiway Was the Flop? When you face one caller and go to the flop heads up, there’s not much information to be gained when you c-bet and your opponent calls. However, in multiway flop configurations you can gain a ton of insight by observing the actions your opponents took on the flop. Say for example, we c-bet from the Hijack and the Button calls with players left to act behind. We can safely assume that this range is pretty strong, and that the Button will have a lot of value hands that could call a turn barrel. This is because players typically call much tighter with players left to act than if they’re closing the action. If we c-bet from the Hijack, the Button calls, and then the Big Blind calls, we can assume that the Button’s range is much stronger than the Big Blind’s, who can safely call and see a turn card closing the action. Think carefully about what actions your opponents took preflop and on the flop, and make your assumptions of their ranges before barreling. Let’s look at an example. You raise in the Hijack with A:d: A:h:, and the Button and Big Blind call. The flop is K:s: 4:d: 2:c:. You c-bet, and the Button calls. The Button’s range is likely to be very top pair heavy on this dry, top pair static board, meaning that you can extract a lot of value by betting big on the turn. If the Big Blind had called instead, we would be more worried about lower cards on the turn that might improve the Big Blind’s hand, since their calling range will be wider closing the action. We can also assume that if the Button calls, the Big Blind can call a similarly wide range closing the action, while the Button is going to still be heavily weighted towards Kx combos. 2. Does the Turn Change the Board? Is the turn card connected or disconnected to the flop? Did it bring in any straights or flushes? Could your opponent have improved to two pair? These are all questions you’ll want to ask yourself before firing off your double barrel. Connectivity of the board is incredibly important, and will dictate a lot of your decisions on the turn. For example, let’s say you’ve got K:h: K:s: on Td 9d 3s, in a multiway pot with two callers on the flop. On an offsuit 8 or 9 turn, you’re going to want to proceed cautiously, since both of your opponents could have made straights and two pair combos after floating the flop. It might be wise to check pocket kings on a turn like this, to protect against getting raised and pot control. If the turn is disconnected, like an offsuit 2, we can safely double barrel and let our opponents tell us if they’ve got a monster. Bet-folding is an underused strategy, especially at low stakes, and we’re going to want to get value from top pair hands, but over-fold versus big turn raises when playing lower stakes. 3. Who has the Range Advantage and Nut Advantage? As the preflop aggressor, high disconnected turn cards will give us a decent range advantage, allowing us to double barrel more liberally. Lower cards will give our opponents the range advantage more often than not, since they’ll be continuing with a wider range when cold calling and defending the blinds. For example if we’re Under the Gun facing a Big Blind defend, on a board of 8-7-3-6, the Big Blind has the range advantage since they’ll be defending a lot of hands that connect with this board. On that same board of 8-7-3-6, the Big Blind is likely to have the nut advantage as well, meaning they’re likely to have more nutted combos than us. They can have 87, 86, 87, T9, and all the sets, while we will have fewer of these combos when raising Under the Gun. We don’t have to always check turn when the range or nut advantage shifts to our opponent, but we do need to bet smaller and protect our checking range with some good hands, especially when out of position. However, if after the same 8-7-3 flop the turn came an offsuit K (8-7-3-K), as the preflop aggressor we can double barrel more liberally, since that card gives us the range advantage. Hopefully this article helped you gain a basic understanding of how to think about turn decisions. If you’d like to learn more, check out the full breakdown in CLP Podcast Episode 546: A Turn Bet Matrix. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-extremely-multiway-from-out-of-positionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-extremely-multiway-from-out-of-positionSun, 25 Jun 2023 15:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-extremely-multiway-from-out-of-positionMany poker players have a reasonable amount of concern when it comes to playing extreme multiway pots, and will oftentimes make incorrect decisions just to avoid these spots. Especially when out of position facing 4 or more callers preflop, these situations can be very tricky to navigate. In this article, we’ll go over some useful strategies that will give you more confidence in these spots, and allow you to extract more money from your opponents. Chances are you’ll find yourself out of position in an extreme multiway pot more than a couple times during a live poker session. The main reason for this is live players love to call preflop trying to hit a hand, resulting in overcalls from wide ranges, and less 3-betting overall. Often we can raise from early position and see half the table come along for a flop. An extreme multiway scenario could also occur if early position raises, half the table calls, and we defend in the blinds. Early Position Raise Sizing The first thing to consider when opening in early position is your preflop raise size. Say your standard open size is $20 in a $2/$5 game, but you’re consistently getting calls from 4 or more opponents. With this configuration, it might be time to bump your raise size to $30 or more. You’ll still likely get 3-4 callers preflop, but the pot will be bigger and you’ll have less players in the hand, which is always a good result. In poker, we want the pot to be as big as possible when we have good hands, regardless of how many players come along preflop. Betting $30 and getting 3 callers creates about the same pot size as betting $20 and getting 5 callers, while creating an easier situation to navigate postflop. Watch carefully for how often extreme multiway pots are occurring at your table, and adjust your preflop raise size accordingly. Checkraising As the preflop aggressor it may be tempting to c-bet often, even when playing extreme multiway spots. The problem is, you have very little fold equity on the flop when c-betting into 4+ opponents, so it doesn’t really make sense to lead out and bet your weaker draws and backdoors. Instead try checking the flop with more of your range, and look for spots to check-raise when you want to semi-bluff. Check-raising is a powerful tool multiway, and will typically generate more fold equity than c-betting. When check-raising, it’s important to look at the configuration of the table and take into account who the initial bet comes from. If you check and the player to your left leads out into 4 players, it’s much stronger of a bet than if action checks to the Button and they lead out in position. So, your check-raises are likely to have more fold equity versus a Button bet than an UTG1 bet. The best flops to check-raise bluff are boards that are top pair dynamic, meaning the turn or river is likely to change the top pair. For example, 9:h: 5:d: 3:s: is top pair dynamic, while K:h: 5:d: 3:s: is top pair static. We want to check-raise bluff more on top pair dynamic boards because we can face calls from weak top pair hands that may not want to play a larger pot once downgraded to second pair, meaning more fold equity for us on future streets. We’ll also want to mix in some value check-raises with vulnerable value hands like top pair or weaker overpairs on these top pair dynamic boards, since there are a lot of overcards that can downgrade our hand to second pair. C-betting When we do choose to c-bet, we should mainly do it with hands that want to build a pot and see the turn. Because we have so little fold equity when c-betting into multiple opponents, we want to do so with strong value hands that want to face calls and raises. Similar to our preflop raise strategy, we want to build a pot and bet an amount that weaker hands will still call, even though GTO dictates a smaller sizing multiway. Look to exploit your opponents with your c-bet size, and make the pot as big as possible going to the turn. Take a second to consider this example. You raise 8:s: 9:s: in early position and get 4 callers. The flop is 5:h: 6:h: 7:d:, giving you the nuts. Would a c-bet or a check-raise make more sense here? If you answered c-bet, you’re correct! This is a spot where a c-bet will generate very little fold equity, and we would love to face calls and raises moving forward. We want to build a pot and charge our opponent’s two pairs, sets and flush draws. Check-raising generates more fold equity and looks far stronger, meaning we likely will get less money in the pot with the nuts, and miss out on quite a bit of value. Now, let's say we raise K:d: K:h: in early position, get 4 callers, and the flop is 5:h: 6:h: 7:d:. Would we want to c-bet, check-call, or check-raise? Pocket kings is obviously a value hand on this flop, and while we might want to c-bet when facing 1-2 opponents, an extreme multiway scenario makes things trickier. Say we c-bet and face a raise on this board, how many hands are we actually beating? Our hand certainly won’t get too many calls from worse hands by check-raising, so check-call is the correct decision here. In summary, when playing out of position with 4 or more opponents, you’ll want to c-bet the flop with strong hands that can face calls and raises, and look to check-raise bluff when you want to gain fold equity and narrow the field. Check-raise bluff more on top pair dynamic boards, especially when facing a late position bet which can be weaker and more vulnerable than an early position bet. Check-raise for value with vulnerable hands that want to deny equity, and look to check-call with some of your strong value hands to protect your range. Hopefully this article helped you gain a basic understanding of how to play in extreme multiway scenarios. If you’d like to learn more, check out the full breakdown in CLP Podcast Episode 545: Playing From Out of Position Extremely Multiway.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/considerations-before-playing-draws-aggressivelyhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/considerations-before-playing-draws-aggressivelySun, 04 Jun 2023 12:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/considerations-before-playing-draws-aggressivelyThings to Consider Before Playing Your Draws Aggressively It can be difficult to know when to pull the trigger on a big bluff with a drawing hand. There are so many types of draws, from 15-out combo draws to 4-out gutshots, and understanding when and why to bluff with these hands can take a lifetime of practice to master. Fortunately, in this article we’ve narrowed it down to 2 simple things that you should consider first when deciding whether or not to barrel with a drawing hand. Types of Draws and Outs: There are many different types of draws, so first let's look at a couple of the basic ones. For a full list of possible draws, check out the show notes from CLP Podcast Episode 543: All About Draws. 14-Out Pair + Flush Draw Hands: Example: K:h:J:h: on a board of A:h: Q:h: J:d:. These draws are incredibly powerful, since you have so many opportunities to improve your hand on the turn or river. They can be played aggressively in certain scenarios, but sometimes you’ll have such a strong hand already that it might be better to slow down. If you turn up the aggression with a top pair and a flush draw, you may fold out too many hands that you’re dominating. 9-Out Flush Draw Hands: Example: 8:s: 7:s: on a board of K:s: 4:s: 2:d:. Having a dry 9-out flush draw isn’t usually an automatic reason to play your hand aggressively, unless the board is more connected and favors your range. However, in multiway pots you may want to play a low flush draw aggressively, in the hopes of folding out some higher flush draws that are dominating your hand. 4-Out Gutshot Draw Hands: Example: A:h: Q:s: on a board of J:h: T:s: 4:d:. These pure gutshots aren’t the best hands to play aggressively unless you have some kind of backdoor flush draw, or if the board absolutely crushes your range and you can represent a ton of hands. Things to Consider Before Betting a Draw: As a general rule, the more outs you have, the more frequently you should play your draw aggressively. Now this isn’t always the case, and you have to look at each specific situation, but generally the more outs you have, the more aggressive you can be. For example, If you have a 15-out draw, as default you can play it very aggressively in almost any situation. You’ll have great equity against almost any hand, even if your opponent flopped a set. Now, let’s look at 2 things that you should consider before betting a draw. Think of Your Opponent’s Preflop Action and Position Before deciding to bet or raise with a draw, you’ve got to get a clear idea of your opponent’s range. You have to understand which boards you can attack and which ones you should be more passive on, before you just start betting willy-nilly. Did your opponent raise from Under the Gun, or the Button? Did they raise to a big sizing, or small? Is your opponent a passive nit, or a super aggressive whale? Build out an idea of their range and understand how it connects with the board before attacking. Understand the Flop Distribution All flops aren’t created equal, and the boards that you can attack with your draws are the ones that are most connected and contain the most amount of possible 2 pairs, straights and sets for your range. You want to actually be able to represent good hands, and the more good hands you have in your range the more you can bluff aggressively with your draws. A good example of a flop you could attack would be three consecutive cards where you’re VPIPing all the two pairs and straights. For example, you defend in the Big Blind and the flop is 8:h: 7:h: 6:c:. You can represent all the two pairs, straights and sets, and can play very aggressively with your draws, check-raising and barreling versus your opponent. Compare this flop to T:c: 2:d: 3:s:, what viable two pairs or straights can you have? This would be a board that you should attack much less aggressively. Hopefully this article helped you gain a basic understanding of how to attack with your draws. If you’d like to learn more about how to play your draws, check out the full breakdown in CLP Podcast Episode 543: All About Draws. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/responding-to-donkshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/responding-to-donksSun, 28 May 2023 12:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/responding-to-donksThe infamous “donk bet” is one of the more confusing actions at the poker table, but you’re likely to encounter them fairly often in live poker. A “donk bet” refers to when a player who was not the preflop aggressor bets on the flop, turn or river, before the preflop aggressor has had a chance to act. This is an unusual action, because typically in poker it’s commonplace to check to the aggressor to see what action they will take. Here we’ll go over both small donk bets and large donk bets, and give you a few tips on how to react to them as the preflop aggressor. Let’s dive in. Small Donk Bets: Small donk bets are typically ½ pot or less, and will typically signify that your opponent has a weaker top pair type of hand, or some sort of a draw. It could also signify a stronger middle pair in certain situations, but in general your opponent is not likely to have a monster hand when they donk bet for this sizing. These bets are usually meant to set a low price to see another card, or get to a cheap showdown. We should get excited when we see these kinds of bets, because it often gives us a ton of information as to the strength of our opponent’s hand. For example, if we know that our opponent usually has a weaker made hand or draw when donk betting, we can easily exploit them with aggressive actions on future streets. Here’s an example hand with a small flop donk bet and how we take control of the hand. 1/3 $300 effective. Hero in HJ with A:c:K:d: opens to $15. Both blinds call. Flop ($45) K:h:9:c:5:h: SB checks. BB donk bets for $15. Hero raises to $45. SB folds. BB calls. Turn ($135) 4:d: BB checks. Hero bets $75. BB calls. River ($285) 3:s: BB checks. Hero $100 (to leave some behind SS EXPLOIT #19) BB tank calls with KJo. Large Donk Bets: Large donk bets are vastly different from smaller ones, because they can actually be pretty value heavy. Large donk sizings can typically range from ⅔ pot to massive overbets. Your opponent is much more likely to have a strong hand when they donk for a larger amount, since they’re clearly not trying to set a cheap price for themselves. They could have just checked and seen what the preflop aggressor wanted to do, but instead they’ve decided to lead out for a large size immediately, putting the aggressor to the test. The strength of a large donk bet cannot be underestimated, and we need to react accordingly when choosing our defending range. Your opponent can definitely still have some draws in their donking range, but they’ll typically be very strong combo draws with a lot of equity. It’s especially strong when you see a large donk bet into a multiway pot, and you’ll want to be very careful when continuing versus this action. When we see a large donk bet we should typically just call with our entire continuing range, outside of a few exceptions. This is because the donk bettor will have to play fairly face up on the turn, and we’ll get an extra street of information that will allow us to respond almost perfectly. One final note on large donk bets is that they can be classified as small donk bets in certain live poker situations, when it’s a single raised pot and there isn’t too much money in the middle. Even if a player leads out for ¾ pot on the flop, if it’s only a $30 donk bet into a pot of $40 at a $2/$5 game, it can still be a weak donk bet that just used a normal sizing for the game. Many players don’t think about the size of the pot, and just bet an amount that seems small or large to them. If you’d like to learn more about how to respond to donk bets, check out CLP Podcast Episode #534 On Donk Betting. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/fundamentals-of-c-betting-as-the-preflop-raiserhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/fundamentals-of-c-betting-as-the-preflop-raiserSun, 21 May 2023 12:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/fundamentals-of-c-betting-as-the-preflop-raiser4 Fundamentals to C-betting As The Preflop Raiser So you’ve raised preflop and gotten one or more callers, now what? Understanding when and why you c-bet as the preflop raiser is one of the most important skills to master in live poker. These common spots can have a big impact on your win rate so it’s important to have a c-bet game plan. Today we’re going to go over four fundamentals that should give you a good understanding of how c-betting works heads up and multiway. C-bet Bluff Less When Heads-Up When you’re heads up with your opponent, you should c-bet bluff less with any hands that have showdown value. Especially when you have good non-paired hands like K:h: Q:d: on A:s: J:d: 3:c:, you want to do more checking back than when multiway. You’ll sometimes be ahead with these non-paired hands, and you can improve to good pairs or nutted hands on future streets. You also don’t have to worry about protecting your hand as much, since you’re only facing one opponent. As a general rule, you should be c-bet bluffing less when heads-up than when multiway, especially when your hand has a good amount of showdown value. Structure Your C-bet Bluffs Carefully When Multiway When c-betting into two or more opponents, you have to understand that your perceived range is much stronger. When you do c-bet, you’re leveraging this perceived strength versus everyone but the last player to act. This means that your fold equity will be higher versus each individual player, because you’re showing more strength by c-betting into multiple opponents. While you’ll naturally take down less pots on the flop when multiway than heads up, your fold equity versus a specific player will be higher when multiway than when heads up. With this information, we can sometimes fire into multiple opponents with c-bet bluffing hands that we may have just checked heads up. It’s important to remember here that we should choose bluffing hands that can improve on a variety of turn cards, since we likely will have to double barrel in order to win the pot. C-bet Thinner For Value When Heads Up You are allowed to c-bet much thinner for value when heads up than when you are facing multiple opponents, because your hand’s equity is greater versus one opponent than versus two or three. For example, if you have Q:h: Q:s: in the Cutoff on a board of K:h: 6:s: 5:c:, you could easily c-bet for value versus one opponent, while versus 2-3 you might decide to check back and see a turn card. As a general rule, the more players you’re c-betting into, the stronger of a hand you need to have to bet for value. Protection C-bet More Frequently Multiway When facing multiple opponents, we need to deny equity and fold out overcards more when we think we’re usually best on the flop. For example, let’s say we have 9:c: 9:d: on J:d: 2:h: 3:h:. Against one opponent we might not need a ton of protection, but versus three opponents, many bad cards could ruin our equity on the turn. Typically the smaller the pair you have, the more extreme your protection betting should be. Let’s say you have 4:c: 4:d: on J:s: 2:c: 2:s:, facing 3 opponents. How many good turn cards are there for you? If we check the flop, we’re almost never going to be happy about the turn, and can even get bluffed off the winning hand after not showing aggression on the flop. Here, c-betting and folding out multiple opponent’s overcards is a pretty good outcome. If you’d like to listen to Bart’s full breakdown on structuring c-bets in single raised pots, check out CLP Podcast #527 Cbet Structuring in Single Raised Pots Part 1. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/table-selection-strategies-finding-the-best-live-cash-game-table-to-maximize-your-winningshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/table-selection-strategies-finding-the-best-live-cash-game-table-to-maximize-your-winningsSun, 14 May 2023 11:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/table-selection-strategies-finding-the-best-live-cash-game-table-to-maximize-your-winningsWhen you first arrive at a new table, you're first task should be to assess if you've got a good table or not. Table selection is an important factor that can improve the likelyhood of a profitable session. There are many variables to consider here, including how long you’re playing, which tables have the longest list, and if you should even consider trying to switch tables, so let's take a deeper look at these variables. First, you’ve got to have an idea of how long you want to play. Typically you shouldn’t be doing a lot of table hopping if you’re only planning on playing for a few hours. Obviously if you sit down at a table and don’t see a lot of weak players, you should do your due diligence and try to get on the list for a better table. However, it’s important to remember that things are always changing. People will leave your table, and other players (good or bad) will fill those seats. If you see an unbelievable line up at another table, but there are 3-4 players on the list ahead of you, you’ve got to understand that the dynamic of that table might completely change by the time you get a seat. Try to pick a table that’s decent to begin with, then stick there for a while and start getting reads on players. If you’re planning on playing for 10+ hours you can definitely try to cherry pick a little more, but in general you should try to limit how often you’re switching tables and entering new dynamics. How To Choose Your Table: Here’s a question for you, would you rather sit down at a table with a bunch of losing players who have smaller stacks (50bb-100bb), or at a table that’s extremely deepstacked (100bb-500bb), but only has 1-2 losing players? You might think initially that you’d want to play at the deepstacked table, since there are better opportunities to win a massive pot against the bad players, but usually this would actually be the less profitable decision. You are usually more likely to win more at the table with the most bad players, not the table that is the deepest stacked. Now there are definitely exceptions to this rule, like if there are a couple of massive whales with huge stacks that are just giving money away. However, in general you’ll find that sitting down at the shorter stacked table with losing players will win you more money, even though play might be a little boring and you’ll mostly just be playing tight and waiting for good hands. The thing about most bad players is they really have no idea how the amount of big blinds they have in their stack affects their play. They’ll likely have a higher VPIP than they should, allowing you to play tight, solid ranges and extract money from their shorter stacks. When looking at a table, instead of just seeing which one has the biggest stacks, ask yourself what the combined winrates of everyone at the table could be. Obviously this is hard to quantify and will vary a ton, but if you are playing at your local casino and know a ton of the players, you can do this with some accuracy. Add all the perceived winrates of the players at the table together and average them. Say that you think 3 players are losing -5bb per hour, 3 are breakeven, and 3 are winning 3bb. The table would then have a combined average of losing -2bb/hour. Focus on finding the table with the worst average winrate, not necessarily the deepest game. One note to remember is that the table average can be affected by deeper stacks, as a bad player may only be losing -10bb/hour with a short stack, but could be losing up to -50bb per hour with a deepstack because they don’t know how to protect their stack, loosen up their range, and punt it all away. The main takeaway with table selection is to focus on finding the table with the worst average winrate between all players, instead of focusing on just finding the table with the worst player who has the biggest stack. Pick a table where you think you have an edge, and just stick with that table unless an insane table change opportunity presents itself. Over time you’ll fall into a rhythm, understand the dynamics of the table, and give yourself the best opportunity to win, as opposed to switching tables every hour and having to reset and re-tag all of your opponents. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/mastering-live-poker-image-and-tagging-strategieshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/mastering-live-poker-image-and-tagging-strategiesSun, 07 May 2023 11:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/mastering-live-poker-image-and-tagging-strategiesWhen it comes to live poker, your perceived image and your perception of your opponent’s image is everything. You have to be able to understand not only how to exploit your opponent’s tendencies, but also understand how your opponents perceive and try to exploit you. Here we’ll first talk about how to optimize and capitalize on your own image, then how to tag players and adjust versus them. Optimizing Your Image: In general, having a tight, winning image is the best image you can have at a live poker table. When people perceive you as a tight, competent player, you will find that you can take down far more pots before showdown. People will call you down less and believe your bluffs more, allowing you to scoop in the chips without showing down your hands as much. Players will mainly form this image of you when you are winning, have a big stack, or aren’t playing a lot of hands. Players typically over-fold at live tables when facing a player they perceive to be good. Don’t be afraid to be aggressive and bluff in correct spots when your perceived image is that you’re a good, aggressive player. If you are having a rough day and losing a lot, or if you’ve had a streak of good cards and seem to be playing a ton of hands, you have to understand that your image may be perceived as a wild, looser player. If you’re down a lot of money, people might think you’re on tilt and try to play a lot of pots with you. Or, if you’re running into a lot of good hands, your opponents might think you’re playing too loose. The general thinking is that if everyone else is beating you, players might think they’ll be able to steal some pots from you too. If you’re bound and determined to keep playing after losing a few buyins, you have to understand how your image will affect your opponent’s actions versus you. In spots where your image can be perceived as weaker or looser, you should bluff less and value bet as much as possible, since players will be far more likely to call you down. Bet thin for value, shut down with many of your bluffs, and understand that everyone will be more likely to want to play pots against you when you’re perceived as a looser player. One final note on your image is that you should often use it as the deciding factor when choosing between close spots. Instead of being lazy and flipping a coin between calling and folding in a certain spot, use your image to make your decision. If you think your image is strong, maybe bluff more often, as people will be less likely to challenge your aggression. If you think your image is weaker or looser, it might be time to value bet thin, and shut down with more of your bluffs. Use your image as a weapon and make your decisions based on how other players are likely to play against you. Exploiting Your Opponent’s Image and Tendencies Typically when you’re tagging players at the table and working to understand their tendencies, it’s good to steer away from just labeling players as “tight” or “loose” and moving on. First of all, whether a player is truly tight or loose takes a large sample size to determine, and this stat can change completely whether they are winning or losing in a session. A player who normally plays 30% VPIP may start playing 50% or higher when they’re losing, or could drop to 20% when they have a big stack and want to protect their chips. Also remember that a good Tight Aggressive Player (TAG) could get a big run of good hands, causing you to think that they’re really a Loose Aggressive Player (LAG). Another way you can perceive players is by looking at the amount of chips in front of them. If you’re in a $1k cap game and a player has $4k+ in front of them, you could perceive that they’ve been having a really hot session and may be a good player, or at least more aggressive. The same can be perceived of you of course, and it’s not always correct, but we want to be looking for any indicators that we can form our opinions based off of. You have to take everything with a grain of salt, and consider whether they could just have matched the stack at a different table to chip up to $4k, and could still be down for the session. This is why it’s important to spend enough time at the table to really start to understand the dynamics of players, and tag them correctly. Always be willing to question and correct your perceptions of players, as they will constantly be changing their perception of you.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/what-is-a-scare-cardhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/what-is-a-scare-cardTue, 25 Apr 2023 17:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/what-is-a-scare-cardWhat is a scare card? Understanding what cards are scare cards for you and what cards are blanks is one of the most important fundamental concepts to understand as a poker player. When analyzing your opponent’s range on the flop, you need to understand which cards are better for your hand and your range, and which cards are likely to hit your opponent’s range. Here we’ll look at an example hand and show how some “scare cards” can be misinterpreted, and how you should be adjusting based on your opponent’s range. In this situation, let’s start our analysis on the flop and try to think about what cards we’d like to see on the turn and the river, and which ones would be potential scare cards for us. Stakes: 5/10/25/50/100 (multiple straddles) Hero raises to $300 Under the Gun with A :s: A :h:, UTG+1, Cutoff, Button, Small Blind, and Straddle call. 6 ways to the flop ($1,800): A :c: J :d: 7 :h:. Hero bets $700, UTG+1, Small Blind, Straddle call. The first question you should ask on this flop is what hands can your opponents have that connect with this board. We have top set, so there will be very few top pairs available, but with 6 players in the hand someone could definitely have the case ace here. When 3 players call Hero’s flop bet, obviously all of them can’t have top pair, so what hands are they continuing with? On a rainbow board, the first drawing hands that come to mind should be the broadway gutshots like KQ and QT. This would immediately tell us that scare cards would include broadway cards, since they bring in the most likely draws. Interior gutshots like T8 or T9 are also possible, but are a little less likely to call off Hero’s flop bet into 5 opponents. It’s important to note that these drawing hands are more likely to be held by the players calling in later position, since UTG+1 would have to float with a gutshot with multiple opponents left to act. So, let’s say we’ll be happy to see any card below a 6, while any card above a 6 that doesn’t pair the board could be a scare card for us. 4 ways to the turn ($4,600): A:c: J:d: 7:h: T:d:. Hero bets $2k, UTG+1 calls. Here it is, one of the bigger scare cards for us. We still have top set, but any of our opponents who called could have floated the flop with KQ for sure. However, we still have a great hand and can improve to a full house when beat, so it’s still a spot we should bet. We can get calls from top pair, two pairs, worse sets, and flush draws, and need to keep building the pot and charging our opponents. When only the UTG+1 player calls, it’s a pretty good sign for us, and the Td starts to seem a little less scary. This is due to the fact that the UTG+1 player is probably the least likely out of all our opponents to be holding KQ. As noted previously, since he was next to act on the flop he would have had to call our flop bet with a gutshot, still with 4 players left to act. If he had been last to act, calling to see a turn with his gutshot would make a lot more sense, but most decent players will probably just be folding their naked gutshots in his shoes, with so many opponents left to act. So, when only UTG+1 continues, we’re less worried about this scare card, and mainly put him on top pairs, two pairs, and sets, all of which we beat. Let’s go to the river. Headsup to the River ($8,600): A:c: J:d: 7:h: T:d: 9:s: Hero checks, UTG+1 checks. Villain has A:d: K:d:. Now, this river is definitely not the scariest one, but it still does leave 4 to a straight on the board. Is it still a scare card, and should we be betting for value? Really the only combo that UTG+1 could have that hits a straight would be A:d: 8:d:, that hit top pair on the flop, turned the nut flush draw, then rivered a straight. If we had the Ad in our hand, it would be a pretty slam dunk value bet, but our opponent could still have floated the flop light with KQ, so there are combos that beat us for sure. A much scarier card would be the 9:d:, which would bring in the flush. As a general rule, when you block the nut flush you can value bet more liberally, since you block the nutted hand your opponent could have. However, if we face a river where the flush comes in, and we don’t have the nut flush blocker, we should be much more cautious. But what could our opponent have that would hit the river on a flush-completing card? UTG+1 can’t have a ton of straights, unless they called a gutshot light on the flop with multiple opponents left to act. However, if we change the river to the 9:d:, they could have several combinations of flush draws that get there on the river. Hands like A:d:7:d:, 8:d:7:d:, 7:d:6:d: are all possible, and K:d:Qd:: is also more possible, although that hand already made a straight and is beating us. The question is, if we bet this flush river, are we really ever getting called by hands that we beat? With the scary flush draw card coming in, our opponent is much more likely to fold top pair and two pair hands that we beat, and even find folds with sets on this connected runout. Considering the fact that the river was an offsuit card, even though there is 4 to a straight on the board, we really don’t have a ton of cause for concern, the card is simply not as scary as it looks given our opponent’s action on the flop. Except for a light call with KQ and 1 combo of A:d:8:d:, there’s not much our opponent could have that beats us. Being able to recognize when a “scare card” isn’t really that scary is an important skill to have, and here we may have missed some value by checking. On an offsuit 9, our opponent could still call our bet with worse sets, 2 pair and even some top pair holdings, perhaps putting us on a busted flush draw. However, a flush card would have changed the situation entirely, and been a much scarier card that we should shut down on. During your next session, try to judge the danger of “scare cards” by analyzing your opponent’s range and how the card hits it, not just by how connected the board looks. In the above example, although the board is pretty connected, the river card wasn’t as scary as it looked once we really thought about our opponent’s range. Understanding these situations is what will separate you from the field, so look over your hands and try to find spots where scare cards really matter, and where they might secretly be blanks. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/techniques-for-spotting-back-door-flushes-especially-in-3-bet-potshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/techniques-for-spotting-back-door-flushes-especially-in-3-bet-potsSun, 28 Nov 2021 12:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/techniques-for-spotting-back-door-flushes-especially-in-3-bet-potsWhen dealing with playing 3-bet pots a lot of players have difficulty with hand reading. Players are far more comfortable in single raised pots because the situations are more common. Even if you only get involved with a few 3-bet pots per session sometimes they make up the largest pots of the night. Let's take a look at the following example. Even though the following spot bizarre it was an actual hand that took place on the TCH Live stream here: How to Spot a Backdoor Flush (Poker Tip) $1/$3/$6 No Limit at Texas Card House UTG +2 raises to $30 with 8 :s: 4 :s:, HJ 3-bets to $100 with K :c: 3 :c:. SB cold calls with A :h: J :h:, UTG +2 calls. FLOP: K :h: 3 :h: 8 :d: ($309). HJ c-bets $200, SB calls, UTG +2 folds. TURN: K:d: ($709). HJ bets $300, SB calls. RIVER: 2 :d: ($1,300). SB leads for $550, HJ shoves for $1,300. Preflop Dynamics and Action: As you can see this game was extremely loose. UTG+2 raises with 8 :s: 4 :s:, gets 3-bet with K :c: 3 :c: from the HJ, and the SB cold calls. Typically, it’s not the best idea to cold call 3-bets because the initial raiser still has the opportunity to 4-bet. This becomes less of an issue if you know that the preflop raiser is very unlikely to 4-bet unless he has a hand like AA or KK (which can be common in live no limit), and in situations like this you can exploitatively flat 3-bets more often. If the SB is aware of how loose these players are playing, he should probably just be 4-betting the A :h: J :h: as it will almost always be a profitable decision given the game dynamics. Flop Analysis: The flop is K :h: 3 :h: 8 :d: ($309), giving SB the nut flush draw, UTG +2 middle pair, and HJ two pair. The action checks to the preflop 3-bettor (HJ), who c-bets a large, with 2/3 pot sizing. This is probably a little too big, especially holding a king. People will be less likely to continue given that he holds a king himself, and a smaller size could get more action from hands like 8 :s: 4 :s: for second pair. When HJ bets this size SB should really only be continuing when he has a king or the nut flush draw, given the fact that he’s in the worst position with UTG +2 left to act. This information is very important especially since there’s no straight draw on the board. Turn Analysis: The turn brings another king, making the board K :h: 3 :h: 8 :d: K :d: ($709). HJ and SB are still both very deep stacked with around $1,600 effective. This means that for HJ, to get all of the money in the middle with K :c: 3 :c:, needs to bet both turn and river. Since we put SB on a king, set or the nut flush draw on the flop, we know that he should have a full house that we beat, trip kings or a hand like the nut flush draw. So the HJ should absolutely bet again, which he does for $300 which sets him up nicely for a river all in. River Analysis: The river brings in the backdoor flush draw, giving us a board of K :h: 3 :h: 8 :d: K :d: 2:d:. At this point SB should just be giving up. HJ has a fair number of kings and his range is weighted towards value in general. Even if HJ somehow barreled the turn with a hand like QQ, is he really going to fold on the river when the front door flush draw bricks? This is definitely a spot where HJ is going to have a ton of value combos, and SB should just be giving up. But that doesn’t happen. SB leads out for $550, basically trying to represent a full house or a backdoor flush. Obviously HJ can just jam all in over this bet because he beats pretty much all of SB’s value combos, but there is a lot that we can learn here based on the board texture in this hand. The SB's bluff simply doesn’t make any sense since he cannot credibly represent the backdoor flush draw. When someone makes an aggressive action to represent a backdoor flush you must go back to the flop and look at the distribution of suits. Here, on the flop, we have K :h: 3 :h: 8 :d:, meaning that for someone to credibly have a backdoor flush draw they would have to have top pair with backdoor diamonds, K :d: x :d: He can’t have middle pair with backdoor diamonds because the eight is a diamond, and there are no straight draws that SB could have. When the turn brings the K :d:, this also means that the SB also cannot have top pair with the backdoor. Summary: When someone is trying to lead out and represent a flush on the river, remember to go back to the flop texture and properly understand the suit distribution. Thinking through these situations and narrowing your opponents' range is critical, since you won’t always have the nuts when you get led into on the river. If you enjoyed this breakdown and would like to listen to Bart dissect the hand in depth, you can head on over to the Crush Live Poker YouTube Channel and watch the full video, available by clicking on the link here. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-tight-multiway-is-a-winning-approachhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-tight-multiway-is-a-winning-approachSun, 17 Oct 2021 15:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-tight-multiway-is-a-winning-approachYou will often find yourself in multiway scenarios at the mid to low stakes levels of live No Limit Hold'em. When we’re up against multiple hands it can sometimes be difficult to navigate, post flop, especially for players that do not have a lot of experience. In this article we’ll look at a hand played by a Crush Live Poker member and see if he made the right decisions multiway with a medium strength holding. Before we dive into deeper analysis, let's take a quick look at how the hand played out.. Hand Breakdown: $2/$5 No Limit UTG raises to $20, Hero calls in the LJ with A :h: 9 :h: SB and BB call. The flop is 5 :c: 9 :s: 7 :s: ($80). UTG bets $60, Hero calls. SB and BB fold. The turn is the J :d: ($200). UTG bets $170, Hero calls. The river is the 5 :h: ($540). UTG shoves all in for $350 effective. Preflop Dynamics and Analysis: The game is described by our Hero as pretty splashy with lots of multiway pots and marginal preflop holdings. The Under the Gun (UTG) player (our Villain in this hand) had just sat down at the table, looked at his cards then raised to $20. Hero has A :h: 9 :h: in the (LJ) and calls. A 3-bet would work well here with a suited ace, and some players might opt to either 3-bet or fold this hand against an UTG open. Folding is the nitty option, but if you think you have an edge over the field (or at least the UTG opener) either a call or a 3-bet is acceptable. The blinds call as well and we’re off to see a four-way flop. Flop Analysis: Hero flops top pair, top kicker on 9 :s: 7 :s: 5 :c: ($80) and faces a large 3/4 pot c-bet from the UTG preflop raiser. This large c-bet really doesn’t really make any sense, as this board is bad for any standard UTG opening range. Assuming that this player isn’t aware of how his range should be continuing on this board, we can guess that this large c-bet is a pretty clear indication of strength. UTG can have all overpairs, some sets and nut/second nut flush draws and he’s really telegraphing his strength with an unorthodox c-bet sizing. Although we do have top pair, top kicker we have no backdoor draws to make a stronger hand on future streets, and any ten through king will turn our top pair into second pair. We also have to consider that Villain is betting 3/4 pot into 3 opponents, all of whom have strong ranges on this flop texture. When facing aggression in multiway scenarios we have to be very tight with our continuing range, because betting large into 3 opponents signals a lot of strength. Hero has a close decision here, and it’s hard to fault calling a c-bet with top pair, but in this specific scenario a fold might be a slightly better decision. Nevertheless, Hero makes the call and we’re off to see a turn card heads-up. Turn Analysis: The turn is the J :d: ($200) and UTG fires again for $170. This is a strange bet from Villain, he could have a hand like a K :s: T :s: that picked up additional equity, but he’s mainly weighted towards value given the fact that bet big into three players on the flop and is now betting almost full pot on the turn. When we’re facing aggression with a marginal made hand like second pair, we have to start thinking about what parts of our range we want to fold out. Our sets will obviously continue, as will any two pair (J9s) or straight combos (68s, T8s) we might have. We can have some straight draws and flush draws that have now hit a jack, so we can continue with those as well. This gives us a lot of hands to call with, we really don’t need to defend every 9x hand here to a near full pot turn bet. Given the fact that T9 and 98 make better calls than A9, Hero should probably be folding this turn. River Analysis: There is a common misconception that when you call the turn and the river is a brick you have to call a bet again, since the board texture hasn’t changed. The river is the 5 :h: ($540), which is a relative brick, and Villain shoves all in for $350 effective. The problem with this line of thinking what is that you aren’t considering all of the information available. You have to take the betting patterns into account as well--what is Villain representing here when he triple barrels? If you had prior information on the Villain that led you to believe he was polarized, you could make a hero call given the fact that you’re getting 3 to 1 and the flush draw bricked. His betting action doesn’t make a ton of sense with overpairs so we really just have to evaluate this river with the available information. What started as a hand that the Hero should have folded on the flop or turn has led to a very precarious situation. However, the Hero does end up making the call and the Villain turns over 8 :s: 8 :h: for the semi-bluff and Hero scoops the pot. Summary: While the Hero ended up being correct in this hand, the question remains whether he should have folded sooner, given the level of aggression the Villain showed multiway across multiple streets. We have better 9x holdings like 98 and T8 that can improve to a straight to call with here and A9 is simply not a strong to call these large bet sizes across to the river. You should tighten up your calling range multiway since the strength marginal value hands go way down when facing multiple opponents. Villain shouldn’t be betting 3/4 pot on the flop to begin with and doing so with three other opponents in the hand is a bold display of strength. Be cautious in multiway scenarios and remember that you don’t always have to call top pair just because it’s top pair. If you enjoyed this hand analysis and would like to listen to the full clip from the Call-In Show, you can check it out on the Crush Live Poker YouTube Channel by clicking on the link here. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/when-not-to-bet-in-pokerhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/when-not-to-bet-in-pokerWed, 22 Sep 2021 16:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/when-not-to-bet-in-pokerMany poker players (especially those who play tournaments) have had it drilled into them that aggressive poker is winning poker. While it’s true that aggression is very powerful, especially at lower stakes, what’s most important is knowing when you should be aggressive and why you are applying aggression. In today’s article we’ll be looking at a hand played by a loyal Crush Live Poker listener, who may have applied too much aggression on earlier streets without having a clear reason why. Let’s take a look at the hand, then we’ll break it down in depth: Hand Breakdown: $2/$5 No Limit, $2,450 effective stacks BTN straddles for $10, SB and BB are first to act and limp. Hero raises to $50 in the HJ with T :s: T :c:. CO, BTN and SB call, BB folds. The flop is 8 :c: 8 :h: J :s: ($210). Hero c-bets $75, BTN calls, CO and SB fold. The turn is the 3 :d: ($360). Hero bets $200, BTN calls. The river is the J :c: ($760). Hero checks, BTN bets $600. Preflop Dynamics and Analysis: Our Villain in this hand has straddled on the Button (BTN), meaning that action will begin with the Small Blind (SB) first. Villain is described by Hero as a younger male who has been on his phone most of the session and seems very disinterested in what is going on at the table, even throughout this hand. Most actions he takes in this hand and in previous ones are near instant, so that is important to keep in mind. Hero raises to $50 in the Hijack (HJ) with T :s: T :c:, over limps from SB and BB. Going a little bit bigger here would be okay given the straddle and the limpers, but overall it’s a decent raise size. The CO, BTN and SB all call and we go four ways to the flop. Flop Analysis: The flop is 8 :c: 8 :h: J :s: ($210) and Hero decides to c-bet $75, a little over 1/3 pot. Right off the bat you might be able to tell that this bet is problematic for a couple of reasons. First off, there is no flush draw on board and we block T9, the primary draw that we could potentially get value from. Secondly, we are multiway and up against three opponents, which means that we really have to tighten our value betting range and pocket tens is borderline too thin to bet for value here. While our hand can definitely benefit from some protection and equity denial, checking and waiting to see what your opponents do is going to be the best play here, most of the time. We can get some information as to where our opponents stand, and we avoid building a pot with a weaker hand that would prefer to get to showdown. Hero bets and only the BTN continues, sending us heads up to a turn. Turn Analysis: The turn is an offsuit three, making the board now 8 :c: 8 :h: J :s: 3 :d: ($360). Hero bets $200, an almost 2/3 pot bet. Just like on the flop, this bet just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Our Hero said that at the moment he just felt like he should keep applying aggression with a decent hand, but he didn’t have a very clear reason as to why he should want to be aggressive. A lot of times players have this overly aggressive mentality, and the Hero is by no means an outlier. Lots of players tend to get sucked into this mindset of just trying to take pots down by betting, defaulting almost mindlessly to aggression. If we break down what kind of hands Villain can have here, he probably either has a jack or an eight that Hero is crushed by, or he has a pocket pair lower than Hero’s that should probably just be folding to this turn bet. Unless Villain is a complete calling station, he won’t be continuing with many hands that Hero beats (we even block T9, the most likely draw he would continue), so betting here for this sizing is just simply a mistake. Villain snap calls the $200 instantly, and we’ve got a pretty inflated pot going to the river. River Analysis: The river double pairs the board with the jack of clubs, making it 8 :c: 8 :h: J :s: 3 :d: J :c: ($760). Finally, Hero slows down and checks, but it’s just a little too late. The player on the BTN looks up from his phone, grabs a pile of green chips and shoves them in the middle almost instantly, for a bet of around $600. Judging by previous action we can make some assumptions about Villain’s range here. With this snap bet he’s kind of polarizing his range already with his bet pacing, meaning that he likely has a jack or a bluff due to how fast he acted on a river that drastically changed the board texture. In addition to his pacing, it would seem that Villain would be pretty likely to raise trip eights for value on the turn, weighing his range heavily towards either a jack or a bluff. The primary bluffs in this spot are small pocket pairs that are now counterfeited. Hero did end up making the call almost instantly and got shown… pocket nines! Our caller scooped an almost $2,000 pot against all odds (and quite possibly against all logic), but in poker we can learn a ton from both our wins and our losses. Summary: While the Villain in this hand turned out to just be incredibly sticky on the turn with pocket nines, and then decided to snap bluff almost pot on the river, the fact remains that Hero really should not have been betting on the flop and turn. This hand is a prime example of why it’s important to really think about why you are betting and how your bets will affect your opponents' range. Luckily for our Hero everything worked out, but you must know why you’re doing what you’re doing, otherwise you’ll just end up firing away in the dark. If you enjoyed this breakdown and would like to listen to the full call-in show clip (with our Hero, a very funny and animated guy), you can watch it over on the Crush Live Poker YouTube channel by clicking on the link here.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/why-do-we-bet-in-nl-holdemhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/why-do-we-bet-in-nl-holdemSun, 18 Jul 2021 14:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/why-do-we-bet-in-nl-holdemTraditionally in poker the first step in deciding whether or not to place a bet is deciding the reason behind your bet. Are you bluffing in an attempt to make your opponent fold? Are you value betting trying to entice a call? Or are you betting to try and protect your hand from a scary runout? While this simplistic way of thinking is still a good launchpad for beginning players to learn, in today’s day and age betting strategies aren’t quite as black and white as they used to be. What once was a game of bluffing or value betting has evolved into a game of equity and ranges. Let’s dive in. First, it’s important to understand that blanket terms like bluffing and value betting only apply on the river, after all the cards are out. Prior to the river, no matter what your hand is, it probably has some percentage of equity (unless you are drawing dead). Let's take a look at a simple preflop example: The UTG player raises with 5 :s: 5 :h:, and you decide to 3-bet on the BTN with A :d: K :h:. Are you 3-betting for value, or as a bluff? Your opponent is technically the favorite preflop with a pair of fives, however your hand has better equity against his entire range of hands, dominating hands like AQ and AJ that he might also open preflop. However, you really can’t say if you are value betting or bluffing since we haven’t even seen the flop. Instead of 3-betting because you want to bluff or want to raise for value, you should 3-bet because you have an equity advantage versus his entire range. Now let’s look at an exaggerated flop example: The UTG player has 5 :d: 5 :h:, and you have K :s: Q :s:. The flop is J :s: T :s: 3 :d:. Do you have a bluffing hand or a value hand? This is where things get a little tricky. If we were to showdown right now on the flop with no more cards to come, our opponent would win with a pair of fives. This means that by traditional standards our opponent has the made hand and we want to try and bluff him out of the pot with our draw. However, in this exaggerated example we are already way ahead of our opponent if we look at our hand in terms of equity to improve by the river. In this example K :s: Q :s: has 71% equity and our opponent’s 5 :d: 5 :h: has just 28%. So, are we value betting or are we bluffing when we bet? You can hopefully see by now that by categorizing all of our bets as value bets or bluffs, we can’t really break down the situation accurately. What we should do is start thinking in terms of our hand’s equity versus our opponent’s range. Let’s look at one final example: You have K :s: K :h:, and your opponent has a range of 22+,A2s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs, AQo+ (pictured below). The flop is A♣ T♠ 2♥. What do you think your hand’s equity is versus this range? Even though our opponent has a ton of hands holding an ace in their range, we still have a slight equity advantage (53.68% versus our opponent’s 46.32%). This doesn’t necessarily tell us whether we should bet or check this board, but it does help us understand that we are still doing okay in terms of equity. The way we think about poker is constantly evolving, and we have to be willing to adapt in order to maintain a positive win rate in today’s games. Getting used to thinking about betting in terms of equity will sharpen your understanding of range advantage, as well as how your hand’s equity holds up versus your opponents' range. You can start by using free tools like Equilab to breakdown hands and see how your holdings' equity stacks versus your opponents'. This will help you start to find potential leaks in your game and will help you gain a sharper understanding in your overall approach to No Limit cash games. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/how-to-calculate-your-equity-vs-a-range-in-your-headhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/how-to-calculate-your-equity-vs-a-range-in-your-headSun, 20 Jun 2021 15:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/how-to-calculate-your-equity-vs-a-range-in-your-headPoker math is almost never fun for most players, but it can be extremely helpful in close situations where the default play isn’t obvious. Being able to calculate simple odds and equity in game will give you a massive edge over your opponents. In today’s article we’ll break down a simple math equation that will tell you roughly how much equity you have against your opponent’s range, and we’ll look at some practical ways to simplify calculation in game. First let’s look at a hand example, then we’ll break down the math: Hero has K :s: Q :s: in the Small Blind, is the preflop raiser, and is heads up versus the Big Blind. The flop is Q :h: 6 :h: 6 :d: ($85). Hero bets $25, Villain jams all in for $150. Should our Hero make the call? There are a few steps we’ll have to take to break down this situation. First, we have to assign a range of hands for Villain before we can calculate our hand’s equity against it and compare it to the pot odds offered. Assign Villain a Range Given the preflop action in this hand we can basically assume that Villain can’t have AA, KK or AQ, because he probably would have 3-bet with them preflop. If you think that Villain can make this play with a worse hand like QJ this becomes a pretty obvious call, but in this example let's assume that Villain either has a hand that beats us or a bluff. This leaves us with basically two possibilities, either Villain has a 6 for trips or he has a flush draw. Obviously it’s going to be near impossible to figure out exactly how often our exact Villain can be bluffing or value betting. In order to have any hope of calculating this problem in real time you’ll have to make some broad assumptions. Let’s say for the sake of simplicity that Villain can have 10 combos of trips and 10 combos of flush draws here. Now that we have made our approximation, we have to figure out our equity versus both Villain’s trips combos and his flush draws. Calculate Equity Versus Value and Bluffs Now that we’ve decided Villain can have 10 combos of trip sixes and 10 combos of flush draws, we need to find our hand’s equity versus each of these possibilities. Let’s start with the value combos. Our hand is K :s: Q :s: which gives us two pair, kings and sixes on a board of Q :h: 6 :h: 6 :d: . If Villain has trip sixes we basically have just two outs to improve, since a queen on the turn or river would give us the better full house. We can quickly calculate our approximate equity by multiplying our outs by 2 for each street, then adding them together. (Outs) x (2) x (Streets remaining) = Approx. Equity (2) x (2) x (2) = ~8% We could still hit running kings of course, so we’ll throw in an extra 2% or so to make things simple. This gives us approximately 10% equity against Villain’s trips. Now for the combos of bluffs, let’s say that Villain has the nut flush draw. We can use the same simple formula that we just used to calculate how much equity his flush draw + overcard has. There are 9 remaining flush cards that will give him a flush, and three remaining aces that will give him a better two pair. This means there are 12 total outs for Villain. Let’s do the same simple calculation. (Outs) x (2) x (Streets remaining) = Approx. Equity (12) x (2) x (2) = ~48% We can probably assume that Villain won’t always have the nut flush draw, so let's subtract a couple percent for the times that he doesn’t have an additional 3 outs to an ace. If we say Villain has around 45%, that means we have around 55% equity when Villain has a flush draw. To make our math a bit more simple, let's just round up and say we have 60% equity against Villain’s bluffs. Average Your Equity The rest is pretty simple. We average our equity against value and bluffs first, then we convert it to pot odds. If Villain has 10 combos of value and 10 combos of bluffs, that means that half the time we have 10% equity and half the time we have 60%. This averages out to about 35% equity against Villain’s range. Now that we have our equity, we just have to calculate the pot odds to see if we’re being offered the right price to call. Going back to the hand history at the beginning, we can see that we’re being offered a price of $125 to win a total pot of $385 ($260 pot + Hero’s $125 call). To calculate your pot odds, simply divide the size of the call by the size of the pot, then multiply by 100. (Size of Call) / (Total Pot) x 100 = Equity required to call ($125) / ($385) x 100 = 32% We have 35% equity and we only need 32%, so… Should our Hero make the call? Yes! Summary and Final Thoughts: Being able to make these calculations quickly in game will take some time and practice. Hopefully this break down helped you to simplify and organize your process so that you’ll be ready the next time you’re facing a big all in. Remember that you should first assign your opponent a range then find your equity versus his value and bluffs, before comparing it to the pot odds being offered. It’s important to remember that you can make your decision a lot quicker and easier if you know that your opponent can be value betting with worse. In this example we didn’t allow our opponent to have any value combos that we beat, but if you think they could have a hand like QJ or JT and shove, our decision becomes extremely easy and we can snap call. If we are still priced in when we’re beat by all of his value, we are obviously crushing him if he is value betting worse. If you enjoyed this breakdown and would like to listen to Bart go over this process with a Crush Live Poker caller you can check out the video on the Crush Live Poker YouTube Channel by clicking on the link here. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dealing-with-suspected-collusion-at-the-tablehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dealing-with-suspected-collusion-at-the-tableSun, 16 May 2021 17:56:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dealing-with-suspected-collusion-at-the-tableIf you’ve seen the movie ‘Rounders” you’ll likely remember the scene where Mike McDermott and his sidekick Worm attempt to cheat a group of police officers at a private poker home game. It's difficult to blame the police officers for being angry after catching the duo in the act. Collusion is difficult to pinpoint at the poker table, and it can take many forms. Sometimes it’s unintentional soft playing or players just don’t understand the rules of the game--but in other situations it's straight up cheating. Dealing with suspected collusion can be a tricky task, so here are a few simple steps to take when you feel like something fishy is up at the tables. Step 1: Do They Know What They’re Doing? When you suspect there may be some soft playing or some other form of collusion at the table, the first question you want to ask yourself is if the players involved even know what they’re doing. Are they regulars, should they be familiar with the rules of the game? Are they new to live poker and maybe just ignorant of proper behavior? Is it a husband and wife situation, where they perhaps just naturally want to avoid putting money in against each other? Answering these questions first will allow you to approach the situation in as non-confrontational manner. Tensions often run high at the poker table and sometimes avoiding conflict will increase your chances of reaching a quick and easy resolution. Step 2: Ask The Dealer If you are in the hand and you think that the suspected collusion affect you directly, it’s your right to pause action and notify the dealer at any point during play. If you are completely removed from the hand taking place, it may be best to wait until the end of the hand at least (unless someone is very obviously and intentionally breaking the rules), since you don’t want to accidentally influence the action. If the dealer addresses what happened or issues a warning, that’s great and you can let the situation be. If they don’t address the situation, call the floor over and explain what happened. Lastly if you are dealing with a case of blatant soft-playing you can move on to step three and use this anti-collusion poker rule to gain a better understanding of the situation. Step 3: Ask To See The Cards If you suspect two players are purposely betting other people out of the pot, soft playing each other, or otherwise trying to gain an advantage you can always ask to see their cards at showdown. Although this rule is mostly used improperly to try and gain an understanding of an opponent’s game, it is actually meant to help prevent collusion. If two players both didn’t have to show their hands at showdown, it would be easy for them to bet and raise very aggressively to get heads-up in a pot, just to check the action down and split the money after the game is over. This is why in a tournament all hands are flipped over when all-in. Ask to see the cards and if the action makes sense just move on. However, if something does not look right call the floor over again and explain this new information. Step 4: Talk To The Floor Away From The Tables If the dealer won’t do anything and the floor person rules against you, you only have a couple options left. You can either just cash out and never play with the players in question again, or you can try talking to a higher authority. Talking with the floor away from the table allows you to address the situation without being interrupted by irate players allowing you to have more time for a thorough explanation without offending anyone in the game. Let the floor know what you’ve seen and ask them to watch out for it in the future. At the very least they should be willing to listen to you and hopefully they will ask their dealers to keep a watchful eye on the situation. If they handle it professionally there’s no reason why you shouldn’t continue to play there, but in the worst-case scenario you can simply stop giving the room your business. Dealing with collusion can be tricky, and the situation will naturally be a bit tense (when was the last time you were happy when someone accused you of cheating?). Try and see the situation from the other player’s point of view first instead of just accusing someone of blatant cheating from the start. Hopefully going through these steps will help prevent any unnecessary conflict and will allow you to peacefully resolve most situations. In most cases the players in question are not intentionally colluding and there is some misunderstanding of the rules. With some clarification and reinforcement from a higher authority like the dealer or the floor the situation tends to resolve itself. If you’d like to listen to Bart’s recommendations for a specific case of reported collusion, where a player was faced with blatant soft playing that caused him to lose a massive PLO pot, you can check out his YouTube video by clicking on the link here. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/this-play-makes-the-most-money-in-live-pokerhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/this-play-makes-the-most-money-in-live-pokerSun, 18 Apr 2021 08:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/this-play-makes-the-most-money-in-live-pokerHave you ever found yourself holding a fairly strong hand on the river when first to act and can’t decide whether to bet for value or to check call? All too often players take the road of least resistance and just go for the check-call, win the pot, and pat themselves on the back. The truth of the matter is that these players are giving away money that is rightfully theirs by not betting for value in dicey river situations. Today we’ll check out a hand from a Crush Live Poker member who may not have applied enough aggression and missed out on some extra cash. Before we analyze the hand in depth, let’s take a brief look at the hand history: Hand Breakdown: $1/$2 No Limit, $300 effective stacks HJ opens to $10, Hero calls in the BB with Q :d: T :d:. The flop is A :d: 8 :d: J :c: ($20). HJ bets $5, Hero check-raises to $25, HJ calls. The turn is the 8 :c: ($70). Hero bets $30, HJ calls. The river is the K :c: ($130). Hero checks, HJ bets $35. Preflop Dynamics and Analysis: The Hijack (HJ) opener is described by our Hero as a pretty capable player, and his raise size is pretty standard and consistent every time he opens the action. With Q :d: T :d: in the BB calling seems like a completely reasonable play, there's no need to get out of line and 3-bet too much, especially in a seemingly tight $1/$2 game where a $10 raise only gets a single caller. Flop Analysis: The flop comes out A :d: 8 :d: J :c: ($20), giving Hero the second nut flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. HJ c-bets for a tiny $5 sizing, and Hero decides on a raise to $25. Raising this miniscule bet is definitely the correct decision with this hand, you simply cannot allow your opponents to just make tiny bets and realize the equity they have in the hand. While our hand happens to be a massive draw that makes for a great raise no matter what, we should look to exploit these small sizes and raise more hands in our range against them, so as to charge our opponents and not allow them to take the betting lead for such a small amount. HJ calls Hero’s raise on the flop, and we’re off to the turn. Turn Analysis: The turn pairs the board, making it A:d: 8 :d: J :c: 8 :c: ($70). This is one of the worst cards for Hero, since he can’t have either AA or JJ in his range. Hero can have AJ and can have a hand like A8s or J8s, but his total number of combinations have gone down from when he check-raised the flop. Nevertheless, Hero decides to lead this turn for $30, about a 1/2 pot sized bet. Hero stated (on the Call-In Show) that he bet here with the intention of not allowing Villain to check behind with an ace, because he didn’t know what he would do if his draw bricked and he couldn’t get Villain off of his hand with a single bet. This is an odd way to think about the situation, since Villain checking back an ace is not bad for us at all. If Villain is really playing that nitty and just trying to call down and get to showdown, we could just check the turn, let him check it back, and see a river card for free. If we hit our hand on the river we can bet big and try to get a call, if we brick we can just give up on the hand and move on. Betting just inflates the pot and this sizing will never get an ace to fold. Villain tanks for over a minute before calling, and we’re off to see one more card. River Analysis: The river is gin for our Hero, as he makes a broadway straight on A :d: 8 :d: J :c: 8 :c: K :c: ($130). While the backdoor flush does come in and the board is paired Hero’s hand still fairs to be best given the action of the hand. For some reason, however, the wetness of the board scares our Hero and he checks. This passive river decision is problematic for a couple reasons. First, Villain didn’t show strength on the flop. Typically, when players have a strong hand on the flop they look to either fastplay their hand because they’re scared of getting sucked out on, or they’ll slowplay and just check behind. Not many players bet a small amount and then call a raise with a very strong hand, so full house combos like AA and JJ are fairly unlikely. Secondly, Villain doesn’t have many backdoor flushes besides a few combos of Ax of clubs, and these hands are more likely to just call our river bet anyway, (especially at low stakes) instead of looking to raise us off our straight. If we somehow get raised after betting it sucks, because we can’t really fold if we bet $60 and our opponent shoves for around $100 more. However, if we think our opponent is mainly calling with aces in them then we really have no choice but to go for a bet here. Getting thin value in situations like this is what separates the big winners from the breakeven players as these spots will win you more money than almost any other situation in live poker. As played, Hero faces a small river bet from Villain and just calls. Villain is probably value betting AK or better here, which does contain a bunch of hands that we beat, but some of them may fold to a raise and we might only get called by better a significant amount of the time. Calling is probably the right decision once Villain bets. Hero does call and gets shown Villain’s 8 :h: 7 :h: for trip eights. Summary: Villain ended up having a hand that would have certainly called a large river bet from us but was content to bet a smaller amount given the opportunity. Even more disastrous for us is the fact that some players wouldn’t have even bet small on this river with trip eights, they would have been content to just check it back. You have to be able to pull the trigger in situations like this where your opponent can and will call you with worse, especially at low stakes where it's much less likely that players will raise your river bets with a non-nut holding or a bluff. In the long run knowing when to bet thinly for value on the river will increase your winrate by a lot of money as it’s one of the most important plays to study and work on implementing into your own game. If you enjoyed this article and would like to listen to Bart’s in depth analysis of the full hand you can check out the call on the Crush Live Poker YouTube Channel by clicking on the link hereCrush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/the-worst-play-at-the-low-stakeshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/the-worst-play-at-the-low-stakesSun, 21 Mar 2021 16:21:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/the-worst-play-at-the-low-stakesWhen playing in low stakes live games, getting maximum value with your strong hands is very important. Low stakes players for the most part tend to be too passive and nitty, meaning that if you want to win all of the money, you’ll probably need to start betting more yourself. In today’s article we’ll be taking an in-depth look at a hand clipped from the Crush Live Poker Call-In Show, where our Hero makes a questionable play on the river that could cost him a lot of money in the long run. Let’s start by looking at how the hand played out, then we’ll go street by street to see if our Hero could have played it any differently: Hand: $1/$3 No Limit, $800 effective stacks. MP limps for $3, Hero raises A:c: 6:c: in the CO to $25, BTN calls, BB calls, MP calls. The flop is 7:s: 5:s: 4:c: ($100). Action checks to Hero who c-bets $50. BTN calls, BB and MP fold. The turn is the A:h: ($200). Hero bets $75, BTN raises to $200, Hero calls. The river is the 6:h: ($600). Hero checks, BTN bets $325. Preflop Dynamics and Action: Our Hero describes this $1/$3 game as particularly juicy, with a lot of action to be had. Hero describes the player on the BTN in particular as “special,” and according to Hero is playing literally every hand preflop. The standard open in the game is around $15, but most pots that are opened to this amount result in almost a family pot going to the flop. Hero decides to raise bigger to $25 because of the limper, and still gets three callers despite the larger preflop sizing. Flop Action: Hero flops ace high with an open-ended straight draw and a backdoor flush draw on a flop of 7:s: 5:s: 4:c: ($100), and decides to c-bet for ½ pot. Only the “special” player on the BTN continues, BB and MP both fold. Bart notes that Hero’s c-bet is a bit questionable here. Usually at equilibrium (when working with solvers), multi-way pots are supposed to be bet for a very small sizing, and for the most part Hero’s range should be checking this board. Betting here would be better if Hero was in last position, but with BTN being a maniac and likely to continue, Bart prefers a check-call on this board. Nevertheless, getting heads up with a maniac can never be too bad, and Hero’s bet isn’t a terrible play, just perhaps not the best decision on this flop multiway. Turn Action: The turn is the A:h: ($200) and Hero bets again for $75 into a pot of $200. This sizing is great, since BTN probably has a very wide range and Hero is now likely ahead with top pair. Betting small here for value is the best play since BTN seems extremely sticky and will likely call with a lot of worse holdings. Hero’s hand is also probably strong enough to call a raise here on the turn, so there’s really no reason to not go ahead and bet for value. BTN raises pretty quickly to $200 ($125 to call). It’s difficult to really put BTN on a slowplayed hand on the flop, since there were two people left to act behind him and he just called in position. He could have the stone-cold nuts but with a flush draw out there and multiple opponents, raising the nuts would make more sense. BTN is most likely to have a hand like a straight draw or flush draw for his bluffs, or a hand like aces up (2 pair) or a top pair hand like ace-jack or ace-ten. However, at the end of the day, the sizing BTN raised to makes our Hero’s decision pretty easy. Hero only has to call an additional $125 to potentially win $475 (around 4 to 1 odds), certainly giving him the right price to continue with an open-ended straight draw and top pair. River Action: The river is the 6:h: ($600). Hero checks with around $525 left in his stack. BTN bets $325, and Hero has a decision to make. While checking the river with this hand against strong opponents is probably the best play, Bart questions whether a small lead from Hero might not be the better play against this particular player. We have a hand that can get value from BTN’s top pair holdings as well as his lower two pair holdings like A5 and A4, which might want to check-back river and showdown. Check-calling on the river in low stakes games is usually bad. When you check-call on the river you typically want one of two things to be true. First you have to believe that your opponent is capable of bluffing in a specific spot and second you want them to be able bet worse hand for value that they otherwise would have folded to a bet. In this scenario Villain hasn’t shown us that he’s capable of either of these options, which is pretty typical at low stakes (making check-calling the river a bad play most of the time). Leading out $150 for value is probably the best play against this Villain, who is likely to call with a lot of worse holdings that he would be more likely to check back with. However, in this instance Hero checks and BTN bets around ½ pot. Under normal circumstances against most opponents this is a classic “5th street chicken” spot. Hero has a medium strength value hand that’s definitely not the nuts, got raised on an earlier street, and now probably has to fold the river to a decent sized bet. However, since BTN is such a maniac, Hero’s decision becomes a lot closer. BTN’s bet is pretty polarized, he’s pretty much repping an 8 or nothing here. A8 and 68 are really the only combos of 8x that take this line, narrowing his value range to a select few combos. Given that we block both of these holdings with our A6, our particular hand makes for a really good bluff catcher here. Hero does make the call and ends up winning the pot versus BTN’s A:s: T:s: that he turned into a bluff. Summary: In hindsight, if you could somehow know that your opponent had A:s: T:s: on the river, and it was your action, would you choose to bet $150 for value or check? Obviously the Hero in this instance got max value because Villain made a weirdly polarizing, fishy bluff (it’s questionable if he even knew he was bluffing), but most players would probably just check back and showdown their top pair in the BTN’s position. Recognizing spots where you can get thin value is one of the keys to crushing the low stakes. Check-calling the river is simply the worst option more often than not. When you check-call the river with a medium strength value hand, most Villains at low stakes will likely be under-bluffing and will likely not go for thin value with many of the hands that you beat. When they do bet you’re usually up against a pretty value heavy range, most of which will probably beat your hand. If you enjoyed this breakdown and you’d like to listen to in-depth analysis of this hand, clipped from Bart’s call-in show, you can watch it on the Crush Live Poker YouTube Channel by clicking here. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/you-must-make-this-play-and-lose-to-be-a-winner-in-pokerhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/you-must-make-this-play-and-lose-to-be-a-winner-in-pokerTue, 05 Jan 2021 12:17:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/you-must-make-this-play-and-lose-to-be-a-winner-in-pokerMaximizing your profits is one of the most important aspects of live poker, but many newer players seem to struggle with capitalizing on even the easiest of value betting situations. All too often players will be a bit nervous on the river and just take the easy option, checking it back and showing down, to avoid the risk of value-owning themselves against a better hand. Today we’re going to talk about why it is so important to value bet, even when we may only have the best hand around 60% of the time.Let’s dive into it. The Concept of Value-Owning Yourself: One of the bigger fears newer players seem to have is the fear of value-owning themselves by betting for value into the stronger hand of their opponent. This fear doesn’t lack logic either, who wants to lose more money on the river when their opponent was willing to check it down? The problem is that you’re just thinking about how your hand could be beaten by better hands that your opponent could have, instead of looking at your opponent’s range as a whole. If you want to win a lot of money in no limit and you want to be an extremely good player who wins the maximum, you simply must value-own yourself sometimes. You need to make value bets even when your hand isn’t the nuts or the second nuts, and you just have to be okay with not always having the best hand when called. Think about it, if you only ever value bet when you have the literal nuts, how much money will you win long term? You’ll probably be a losing player, as you’ll be the ‘old man coffee’ at the table who telegraphs his hand every time he bets! The Timid Nature of Live Poker: The simple fact is, 80%-90% of live low stakes poker players aren’t value-owning themselves nearly enough. Stuck in timid mindsets revolving around just showing down and winning as many pots as possible, these players fail to realize that far too often they’re missing out on value with hands that are good enough to bet. If you are only making value bets when you have the best hand 90%+ of the time, you are missing a ton of value! You should be making value bets when your hand is good 60%-65% of the time against the range of hands that you think your opponent can call. If you are value betting when your hand is good 60% of the time, the simple fact is that long term you’ll be making much more money than the player who is only value betting when they’re good 90% of the time. Let’s take a look at an example and see if we should be going for thin value or checking it back. Example Hand Breakdown: Hero is on the Button and raised preflop, Villain called in the Big Blind. Hero bet the flop and Villain called, both players checked the turn, and now it’s Hero’s action on the river (Villain checked). Board: K:s: 6:d: 6:h: 2:d:. Hero has A:d: A:h:. test Let’s say that we’ve decided that Villain will call with any 6 and any king in his range. We’ve seen (for the sake of this example) that Villain is an extremely passive player and can have a ton of 6x in his range that didn’t raise the flop and checked all the way to the river, but he can also play the same way with his Kx combos. Let’s break down his range and count the combos. Villain can have approximately 60 combos of 6x (A6s-76s, 65s, 64s, A6o, K6o) Let’s say that we’ve decided that Villain will call with any 6 and any king in his range. We’ve seen (for the sake of this example) that Villain is an extremely passive player and can have a ton of 6x in his range that didn’t raise the flop and checked all the way to the river, but he can also play the same way with his Kx combos. Let’s break down his range and count the combos. Villain can have approximately 60 combos of 6x (A6s-76s, 65s, 64s, A6o, K6o) Villain can have approximately 110 combos of Kx (K2s-K5s, K7s-KQs, K7o-KQo) Should we value bet? If you input this hand into Power-Equilab you’ll see that Hero has around 76% equity against Villain’s range of hands. This means that around a fourth of the time (24%) you’ll end up value-owning yourself, but you’ll still be making money long term every time you bet, because you are betting with a clear equity advantage. Summary: Value betting for thin value can be a scary proposition, but it’s a skill that is an inherent part of becoming a winning poker player. If you’re too scared to bet when you may not have the best of it you’ll end up cheating yourself out of money that should have been yours. Especially at low stakes where players are very timid to bet top pair but will snap call you down with it, it’s vital to be able to get the maximum from them when you know they can call you with worse. If you enjoyed this article and would like to see another example where Bart ended up value-owning himself (correctly), you can watch an in-depth video on the topic by clicking on the link here.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bomb-pothttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bomb-potSun, 01 Apr 2018 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bomb-potDon’t Out Level yourself in a Bomb Pot! Watch bet sizing.One of the more interesting new aspects of No Limit Holdem is the appearance of what is called “bomb pots” in casino poker. Bomb Pots, were first introduced at the Peppermill in Reno, NV and is a high stakes way for a single person to pay the time collection for the entire table. Instead of players paying individually, in the past, a time pot would occur where the winner of the hand would pay the time for the table or the player seated in the position of the lowest card on the flop would pay the time. A bomb pot is just an extension of this communal way to pay time but involves playing poker. You can also play a bomb pot at any point and it does not have to be played just to pay the time. In a bomb pot, everyone “antes” or puts in a certain amount of money blind before the flop. In the $5-10 games that I usually play this can range from anywhere between $10 to $100. After the antes are posted the flop is put out and normal poker commences. This creates a situation where all the ranges are entirely “uncapped” from each position including nonsensical holdings like 72os from under the gun. Because anyone can have anything at anytime some people proceed with caution with hands like a flopped top pair, while others bet large amounts for protection especially on draw heavy boards with what they think is the best hand.I played an interesting spot at the Bicycle Casino last week in a bomb pot that sort of demonstrates this. The game was $5-$10 and the stacks were $4000 effective. We were playing bomb pots at every dealer change even though the game was not a time collection. In this particular bomb pot we were anteing $35 each (total pot $315) and I was dealt 6:c:4:c: in MP1. The flop came out J:h: 6:s: 6:d: giving me trips. The small blind checked and the big blind, a very nitty recreational player, bet out $100. The action was folded to me, I called and everyone else folded. Raising here with trips and a weak kicker would be a huge over play in my opinion, again, because all the ranges were entirely uncapped. In fact, the chances that someone holds trips on a paired flop with 18 random cards (9 handed table) is a little under 50%. This means that the player from out of position should be extremely strong when betting out on a paired board into the field to the point where value betting AJ might be a mistake from the big blind, especially if hands like KJ are going to fold from early position. So I decided to proceed with extreme caution. The turn brought out the 7:h: and this time the big blind bet out $100 again. This was a little bit strange to me, as usually bet sizing that is the same on a subsequent street indicates weakness from a recreational player. However, because people are so unfamiliar with bomb pots, I concluded that raising the turn would still be an overplay of my own hand strength so I called. The river fell the 8:h: and now the big blind checked. If you are familiar with my work over at my training site, CrushLivePoker.com you would know that I am the biggest “thin” value champion in the world. I constantly contend that getting value from your hands is the key to having a high winrate in live poker. However, I thought that this situation was different because it was a bomb pot. Due to the unfamiliar nature of bomb pots, I thought that the complexities of the hand trumped the smallish bet sizing on the flop and turn followed by the check on the river. It is also important to note that the kicker of my six did not play (I would chop with 62-65) and I would lose to any full house or any other higher six. I also thought that there was a strong possibility that the big blind might check a weakish six on the river, even one that beat my hand like 69, 6T or 6Q because he was uncomfortable with the situation. Finally and most importantly I thought the “configuration” of the hand was such that I looked extremely strong.When we talk about configuration we are referring to the positions of the players within a hand. Usually configuration refers to the ranges that a player has preflop, but in a bomb pot, every hand is played before the flop so the most important configuration considerations move to post flop. Because my opponent bet out in extremely early position (from the blinds) and I called from somewhat early position, the ranges should be very very strong. I am countering his strong range of leading into nine players by calling both on the flop AND on the turn, which should show extreme strength. So even if he was betting out with a hand as weak as say AJ or an overpair, my hand should really look like at least trips. So that would make it very hard for him to check call at the end of the hand. All these factors lead me to finally check back on the river and I won versus AA.I felt kind of dismayed after the hand, however, because I realized that I ignored the most transparent pattern of recreational hand strength, which is bet sizing. Would my opponent really have only bet $100 into $315 on the flop with trips, followed by the same bet into $515 on the turn? In retrospect, probably not. I think what really interfered with my bet sizing instincts was the fact that the board contained basically no draws and my perceived feeling of what his strength SHOULD be—of a flop lead out into the entire field. This is a common mistake that a lot of mid stakes, thinking players make. They put themselves into their opponents’ shoes and think about the way they would play a certain hand from a certain position. This is the definition of out leveling yourself, especially against recreational players. You cannot assume that your opponents are on the same thinking level as yourself and this can lead to costly mistakes as I feel it did for me here. In the end, with the pot being about $715 what I really should have done is bet maybe $200 to scoop up additional value from an overpair or a big jack. Betting over that amount, however, I feel would be an over representation of the strength of my hand and would lead to a probable situation of “value owning”, where I am value betting a hand for certain sizing that only better will call. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/configurationhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/configurationSun, 04 Mar 2018 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/configurationPay attention to preflop “configuration”. You can represent a very strong range when you open from the blinds vs a button straddle. In Los Angeles, where I play 99% of my cash game No Limit hours, some casinos allow a straddle on the button, known as a Mississippi straddle. Different rooms have different rules about where the action starts from with a Mississippi straddle but here the action moves from the left of the straddle. This means, if you are at a table where the button straddle is on, the small blind is first to act preflop creating even more of a positional disadvantage.I am not a huge fan of the button straddle is I feel that it forces the blinds to play correctly and fold out way too many hands. It sort of kills the action in NLHE and I much prefer tables where the straddle is from under the gun. But we must adapt to different rules and situations. With the small blind acting first versus a button straddle the small blind becomes almost the “super” under the gun. If you are only playing 15% of your hands from the UTG position a case could be made that you should play half of those hands when acting first from the small blind. If you think a player is opening with the right type of frequencies then when they raise out of the small blind first to act their range is very strong. I was able to use this concept to my advantage in a recent hand that I played at the Bicycle Casino. The game was $5-$10-$20 and on this particular hand the double straddle of $40 was on the button. The table was full and I looked down at J:s:T:s: from the small blind. First to act, I raised to $150, my standard opening raise in a double straddled pot. It should be mentioned that J:s:T:s: is probably the bottom of my range of opening from the small blind when first to act and I probably raise 99+ AQ+, and suited broadways with the exception of KTs and QTs. This is tighter than my normal opening range of 77+, AJ+ 89s+ and suited broadways from under the gun. MP1, who was a serious recreational player that played somewhat aggressively preflop called my raise and we took the flop headsup. The flop came out A:s: K:h: 5:c: giving me a gutshot straight draw and a backdoor flush draw. This board really hits a tight opening range from the “super” under the gun (sb). I think it is also important to note that when you are in the field, like the MP1 player, AK, especially offsuit, is absolutely NOT a mandatory three bet preflop. In fact, most of the preflop studying that I have done leads me to conclude that against an opening range of 7-8% that AKos should be flatted more than reraised. However, this particular villain was rather aggressive preflop and I thought that he WOULD three-bet with AK, along with AA and KK. So in reality the only strong hands that he could have with this flop would be a set of fives or A5s. I immediately recognized my range advantage and knew right off the bat that unless something changed on the board that I was going to be taking this hand for a three-barrel bluff. I started with a continuation bet on the flop of about half the pot, $150. The MP1 took a few seconds and called. The turn was a 6:s: giving me a backdoor flush draw and additional equity. I also noticed that the A on the flop was a spade making the nut flush draw with top pair impossible to have. This time, on the turn I decided to fire larger, $500. Now a case could be made that I could actually overbet this spot, say a bet of $1000 as it would put maximum pressure on my opponent. The theory behind that line is that if he called again I would give up on the river. The issue that I had, however, with overbetting here was that our effective stacks were rather short (100BBs) with the double straddle and I wanted to see how he reacted to a normal sized bet. I thought that he would raise off the turn most of the time with a set of 5s so if he did in fact just call his range would truly be “capped” if he was not balancing calling with some strong hands correctly. Again he thought about it for a few seconds and called. The river came out the J:d: giving me a pair. At this point some people would give up thinking that they now had a pair and some showdown value. But if we examine this spot more closely could this ever be the case? What type of hand does JT beat versus the MP1 after he calls the flop and turn bets? I mean we even lose to QJ (which he should never have BTW as we have the Js in our hand, making a backdoor flush draw impossible). What the J does, however, is make it more unlikely that the MP1 player has AJ for two pair as the board and our holding block half of the combinations. So I actually thought that this was a good card for us as our opponent was facing a very high, connected board and a preflop range that really smacks the hell out of it. With the pot being about $1640, I chose to fire a third barrel of $1400. Again, looking at the flop distribution of suits, it is very unlikely that our opponent could have KJ as we hold the Js in our hand (assuming he would only call a king on the turn that contained a backdoor flush draw). So in reality if he raises off a lot of his pocket 5s on the turn he really could have only some strong hands like A5s-A6s and some AJ by the river. This time my opponent tanked and tanked. He pulled out what looked like calling chips, fiddled with them for probably two to three minutes and finally said “I just can’t think of a hand that I can beat here” and folded A:h: T:h: face up allowing me to scoop over a thousand dollar pot. This situation just goes to show you the power of paying attention to your position preflop. Over at my training site CrushLivePoker we call this “configuration”. Whenever you are facing a tough decision on any street within a hand think about the configuration preflop. Where did my opponent open from? How many hands does he open from in that position? If there was a three-bet in the hand think about the three bettors position and how many hands he would reraise versus the openers’ position. An under the gun raise vs and under the gun+1 three bet will yield a much stronger range than a cutoff open and a button three bet. If we were under the gun and opened AJos it would be an easy fold to an under the gun +1 three bet but if we were in the cutoff and the button three bet us, against most people that are paying attention, AJos becomes a slam-dunk call given the pot odds. This really is one of the simplest concepts in poker but one that is very commonly over looked. Pay attention to configuration, as it will make you a much better player and hand reader. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/combo-bethttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/combo-betSun, 18 Feb 2018 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/combo-betBets can sometimes be made in multiway pots that get better to fold and weaker to call in the form of draws. As crazy as it sounds, there are unique situations that come up where you can make an aggressive move that gets a better hand to fold and a weaker hand (usually in the form of a draw) to call. When David Tuchman and I used to broadcast Live at the Bike in 2005-2006 we called this play a “combo bet”.I had a situation two weeks ago at the Hollywood Park Casino in Los Angeles that gave me the opportunity to pull this move. The game was $5-$10-$20 and a tight, nitty villain (V1) opened ($4000) to $65 from under the gun. The player to his direct left (V2) called with a short stack ($500). Two other players called, each with about $4000, and I completed the action in the straddle getting a good price with A:d: 9:h:. The flop came out 9:d: 2:h: 8:d: giving me top pair and the backdoor nut flush draw. I checked and V1 bet $175. Because this player was so tight I knew that he was not making a continuation bet on this texture with just air into four people. At a minimum I thought he had two over cards and a flush draw, but more likely held an overpair. The player to his left called and the other players in the field folded. Normally I would think that I was beaten here and would have just mucked. However I had something going with the properties of my hand. Because I had the ace of diamonds I knew that V1 could not have the nut flush draw, skewing him to having more value hands on the flop. I also knew that because V2 called, if I chose to raise it would look like I was almost never bluffing as the preflop raiser knew that V2 would be calling it off. And lastly I had a lot more strong value combinations in my range, completing from the straddle last to act then the preflop raiser. I would complete here with 98os giving me a full eighteen value combinations of sets and two pair. Because V1 was so nitty it was unlikely he would raise 22 from UTG only leaving him with sets of eights and one combo of a set of nines because I blocked a nine. So for those reasons I thought that this was a great spot to pull a combo raise to $600. I also realized that even if V1 called I could really but a ton of pressure on him by barreling diamonds off on the turn, as he most likely would be bluff catching me with an overpair. He thought about it for a while and with a pained look agonizingly folded. I am almost 100% certain he had a hand like TT-AA. V2 of course called, and we ended up chopping the pot as he had A:s:9:s: (which was probably the best hand that he could have). So if you ever get into a similar spot examine the properties of your hand. Does it block some of the set combinations that the preflop raiser could have? Can you represent two pair or greater from the position you called from preflop? Can you barrel future flush cards if your raise gets called on the flop? If the answer to these questions is yes, and especially if you have completed from one of the blinds where your range is wider, you may be able to successfully leverage this play to get a better hand to fold. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/checking-to-check-call-on-the-riverhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/checking-to-check-call-on-the-riverSun, 04 Feb 2018 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/checking-to-check-call-on-the-riverSometimes the run out is such that checking to check-call on the river is the right play.If you are familiar with a lot of the work that I do over at my training site CrushLivePoker.com you would know that I am not a big fan of check-calling the river in NL Holdem. Simply put, players, especially toward the lower stakes of live No Limit, do not bluff enough to make check calling profitable. There are of course exceptions to this and I played a hand at the Hollywood Park casino last week that demonstrates one of those exceptions.In this particular game we were playing $5-$10-$20 with $3000 effective stacks. The game was generally good and I had a winning image. It got folded to me and I decided to make a loose open with K:d: 4:d: from the cutoff to $65. The button, the big blind and the straddle called and we saw the flop four ways. The board came out K:h: 6:s: 3:c: giving me a weak top pair. The action got checked to me and I decided that because the board was not all that draw heavy that this was a good spot for me to check and get some future value from some weaker hands. This would be akin to me checking a hand like KJ as the under the gun raiser when several people called behind me in the field. If I were headsup versus the big blind or straddle on this board, I may have bet K4 for value. But versus three players I thought that it was a bit in between, so I checked. The button checked behind and we saw an 8:h: turn card. Again it was checked to me and this time, with the backdoor flush appearing I decided to bet $90 into the $260 pot. The button called and the blinds folded. The river brought on the J:d: bricking out all of the draws.Years ago, when I was less of a thoughtful player and when most of the money at the table was won from thin value I would have bet this card from up front close to 100%. I mean the whole reason why I checked back the flop was to make it seem like I did not have a king, so that I could get future value from worse hands. But now, as I have evolved as a player, I concentrate more on ranges, positional awareness and post flop action in order to determine what the best move would be. Here, when the button checked back the flop I thought that it was unlikely that he had a king. Players are known sometime to check a weak top pair in spots like this (like I did) but with me holding a king I though that this was less likely. So if we take most kings out of the buttons range moving to the turn what hands is he calling with on that 8h? There seems to be two obvious categories—a draw or some sort of medium strength bluff catcher like an eight or pockets sevens. If we bet at the end for value with our top pair the draws will just fold out as they missed, AND most likely the jack is bad for the medium strength bluff catchers as it is another overcard to second pair. So instead of trying to go for thin value, I thought that the best play was to check with the intention of check calling. If my opponent held a hand like KT, he would have taken me to value town if he had bet. But it ended up going check/check and I won versus 85os. Even though the results did not work out for me in the best way I still think that I made the right play. It appears like there was much more value in trying to pick off a missed bluff then expecting to get called by 85 when a jack falls at the end. If the river had been a different card, like maybe pairing the three it would have been better for me to bet and try to get hero called by a hand like an 8. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/high-only-hands-in-plo8https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/high-only-hands-in-plo8Sun, 24 Dec 2017 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/high-only-hands-in-plo8High only hands have very little value in deep stack PLO8 cash games. PLO8 played as a cash game is not a very common form of poker. Of all of the poker variants it perhaps has the LEAST variance and volatility making it hard for bad players to even win within a single session. However, recently PLO8 has been creeping into some big bet mixes. Also, Big O, the five-card variety of PLO8, is gaining more and more popularity and is commonly played up to $5-$10 at the WSOP. One of the biggest mistakes that I see being made in PLO8 cash games is players coming from a PLO high background playing straight high hands. I’m talking about hands like AKQJds, which in PLO is a super premium hand. However, in PLO8, where a low actually qualifies in 60% of all hands (three unpaired cards appearing lower than an eight) the types of boards that connect with these holdings do not get a lot of action. Take for example a board of 9:c: Q:s: K:h:. In PLO high this is an action board as players will have broadway cards in their hand. But in PLO8 players tend to have ace and wheel cards as their starting requirements so when you flop a straight with JT it is very rare that anyone will call large bets with the exception of if they have a set. So if no one will fight for these types of boards should we not play high hands since we know we can win when high cards come out? The problem with this thinking is that the low comes out 60% of the time and when it appears you are only going for half the pot. So you have the worst of both worlds. No action with no low appearing and only drawing for half the pot with a low present. On another note one of the easiest ways to tell if a player has experience playing a high low game is to see if they are playing middling cards. Hands like 789Tds are power run down in PLO high but are pure trash in PLO8. That is because if they make a nut straight there will be low on board, so most of the time they chop. If you make a straight with these middle hands with no low present the hand will be the bottom end of the straight. There is an exception to playing high hands and that is in PLO8 tournaments or when playing very short. In those cases it’s not terrible to get in bad aces or Kings (preferably with a qualifying low) or even a high rundown against a hand like A2xx but that’s only in extreme cases where you can get all the money in preflop and you can see all five cards. However, if you are just learning the game it is a very easy adjustment to play NO HIGH HANDS at all. You will not be giving up that much and will stay out of trouble. These types of hands in PLO8 will usually lead you to winning a small pot or losing a very large one. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/considering-backdoor-equityhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/considering-backdoor-equitySun, 10 Dec 2017 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/considering-backdoor-equityYou should consider backdoor equity when making a continuation bet bluff.A few years ago over at my training site, CrushLivePoker.com, I discussed a system that taught players when to continuation bet as a bluff, after being the preflop raiser. I called this system the “Cbet bluffing Matrix” and it involved a number of different factors that one should consider when making a cbet as a bluff. I want to further examine one of these factors, backdoor equity, as it is most likely the most important factor in today’s games. Cbetting with backdoor equity means that you should choose to continuation bet boards where you can turn additional equity leading to a profitable double barrel. For example if we have K:s: Q:s: on a board of on a 9:s: 8:h: 2:c: board we would make a bet with two overcards and a backdoor flush draw. If there was no spade on the flop, we would choose that particular board to check back. Another example would be J:h: T:h: on a K:h: 5:d: 2:s: board. Again with one of our flush cards on board and a backdoor straight draw, we would choose to bet--but with no heart on the flop we would choose to check. Examining the textures and breakdowns of these particular boards keeps us from bluffing too much. If we just blindly cbet boards that we think are good for our range as the preflop raiser, without any type of frequency selection, then we would definitely be over bluffing. A lot of players understand this concept but also do not choose the right types of cards to double barrel. If we have that K:s: Q:s: on 9:s: 8:h: 2:c: type of board we certainly are not blindly betting again on the turn if we are called on the flop. The types of cards that we are looking for on fourth street are spades that give us a backdoor flush draw, and usually an ace. If we had Q:s: J:s: instead of K:s: Q:s: we would also barrel a K as that would be an over card to top pair and also give us a gutshot straight draw. In most situations when we do bet the flop with backdoor equity we are looking for cards that give us extra equity OR that are scare cards to top pair preferably that do not connect with the board. On 982 a T and a J are overcards to top pair but you have to be cautious about double barreling them as they give a lot of hands that called us on the flop straight draws or two pair. Let us say we bet on 9:h: 8:s: 2:d: with K:h: Q:h: from the HJ as a continuation bet after both the blinds called our raise preflop. The player in the big blind then calls our flop bet. What is a reasonable range that he may have? Hands like 9T, 8T 67, JT and 78 are all reasonable, along with any pocket pair. You can see that if a ten comes on the turn it improves the overall range of the big blind and we should expect to get called again with a fairly high frequency. So even though we pick up a gutshot and it is an overcard to top pair, a T is not really the best turn card to barrel again, unless we are planning on triple barreling some run outs. I would most likely only choose the T:h: to bet again (1 out of 4 possible tens) and check the others. This keeps us balanced and prevents over bluffing. The same could be said for a J, 6, 7 or a 5. All of those cards connect with the big blinds check calling range. However we would continue to bet if we hit a queen or a king for value, and ace as a bluff. Sometimes we can barrel a disconnected low card like a 3 or 4 too. The interesting thing about the 3 and 4 falling is that it is unlikely that our opponents will fold the turn so we have to accurately gauge how often a triple barrel would work with different run outs. This is why suited hands in general are better to raise then unsuited hands. Not only do they give you an equity advantage but also a playability advantage. KQ suited is exceptionally better than KQ offsuit in the above example because we can pick up that extra equity and continue to double barrel bluff with the right frequencies. The next time you are considering betting the flop as a bluff really take a look at what cards can improve your hand on the turn. If there are not many (like no backdoor draws) you can put that particular hand and board combination in your checking range.. You can always bluff at the pot later if scare cards come or your opponent seems to be disinterested in the pot. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bet-sizing-patternshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bet-sizing-patternsSun, 26 Nov 2017 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bet-sizing-patternsBet sizing leads to proper hand reading. One of the advantages of playing a lot of hours is that you can pick up on common betting patterns from players that play occasionally. And one tell tale betting pattern that is tried and true is when a player bets the same amount or less on the turn compared to the flop. This is consistent with weakness. We can look at an example of this from a recent hand that I played at the Commerce Casino’s $5-$10 $1500 cap buy-in no limit game. My opponent in the hand was definitely a recreational player and was still steaming from a few bad beats that had happened from the round before. When he was not steaming he played relatively tight but after losing some hands he was showing down a very wide range. In this particular hand I was in the big blind and he was under the gun. First to act and with a $1000 stack he raised to $40. It got folded to me and I called in the big blind with ATos. The flop came down A:s: J:s: 6:c: giving me top pair. I checked, my opponent bet $50 and I called. Whenever you flop top pair of aces with a weakish kicker, defending from the big blind against an early position raiser can get dicey. That’s because if your opponent continues to show strength you can easily be beaten by AJ-AK, hands that almost everyone opens for a raise from early position. In these situations I typically pay close attention to the opponents’ turn bet sizing as many times that will reveal the strength of their hand. This bet-sizing concept is one of the many that is examined in my live training site, CrushLivePoker.com.The turn brought in a total blank, the 3 of hearts. I checked again and this time my opponent repeated his bet of $50. In my experience this is almost always a weak hand that is trying to make a bet in position on the turn so that it does not have to face a large river bet. With AT, I even considered check raising very small, which seems unorthodox, but thought better of it and decided that calling and then LEADING the river on a blank would be the best play. If the under the gun had a hand like KJ or a weak ace he would be often times confused by this bet and call because the front door spades bricked out. I call this line an “upfront bet”. This technique can be used when we have a medium strength hand and because of our opponents’ bet sizing, specifically on the turn, we think we have the best hand. We also feel that check raising will fold out a lot of these inferior hands but we do not want to check the river as our opponent will check behind with his showdown value. Ideally we gamble on a blank river coming and we come out and bet. You would be surprised how often this line will get paid off. This whole line of thinking is based upon the fact that our opponents’ bet on the turn is $50. If he had bet larger I may call one more time or just fold, but on this draw heavy of a board there was no way I thought that he had a hand like AK or AQ. Unfortunately for me, the river brought out the K:h:, far from a blank card. It was not the absolute worst card for me but I thought that if I bet now it would be optimistic to get called by weak middle pair hands like JT or QJ and it also brought in the QT straight draw. So I decided to check. Now my opponent bet out $250. This was really strange to me. I would have thought that if he was driving QT as a draw he would have bet a lot more on the turn. The same for AK. I could really only conclude that the river somehow helped his hand but that he did not have one of those two hands. I tanked for a few minutes and folded and my opponent showed me KK for a rivered set. This was a very unfortunate result because if the river was a blank I truly believe that I would have been called if I had bet. Remember, when an inexperienced player makes a bet that is the same size or less on the turn then they did on the flop their hand is usually weak. So if you get into situations where you have a draw on the turn you can pounce on their bet sizing weakness by raising them. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/facing-a-check-call-leadhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/facing-a-check-call-leadSun, 12 Nov 2017 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/facing-a-check-call-leadThe check call lead out on the turn can be attacked.A few weeks ago I played an interesting hand in a three-bet pot at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. The game was $5-$5 and had a maximum buy in of $1000. I was doing well for the session and sat with $2200.The villain in the hand had had a $5000 stack at one point but had lost a bunch of pots and now sat with just $1000. It was pretty obvious to me that he was a fairly recreational player as he had drastically overplayed hands when he sat deep. It was also obvious that he was a little flustered. I sat to his immediate left and in the hand in question it was folded to him in the cutoff and he made a standard open to $20. I looked down on the button at 5:h: 4:h: and decided to three-bet to $70. Against an early position raiser I may just flat or fold this hand but in this configuration I felt that this weaker holding would do better if played headsup. I also might get an immediate fold preflop. The blinds got out of the way and the villain called. The flop came down A:h: J:s: 9:s: and my opponent checked. Since this flop should hit my three betting range and also because a lot of players at this level do not pay attention to positions (the fact that I could be wider as I was on the button three-betting his cutoff open) I decided that a continuation bet of $80 was in order. I also had backdoor straight and flush draw and planned on double barreling cards that would improve my draw. My opponent called rather quickly and the turn brought in the 2:h: giving me a straight flush draw. Now, unexpectedly my opponent led out at me for $120. Since the deuce was rather irrelevant for the most part, with the exception of A2 suited, I figured the turn did not help him. I also thought that if he had flopped something big like a set of 9s or AJ, that he would have either check raised the flop or the turn, not take a check call, lead line. Also, my opponent called rather quickly preflop causing me to discount a lot of AK type hands, which might four-bet or at least take some time to think about what the proper action would be. To me, this lead out represented a lot of one pair ace type hands that were “betting for protection”. With the equity that I had in my hand (12 outs versus an ace) I decided that the best play was to shove all-in and put a ton of pressure on my opponent. “Damn”, he proclaimed immediately after I made the bet and visibly got uncomfortable. He took about one or two minutes and finally folded QQ showing it to the other side of the table.Besides the fact that this was a really ridiculous line with QQ--as he gets all hands worse to fold and only better to call--his line was consistent with a medium strength holding. The problem was that he left himself open to an aggressive semi-bluff that forced him to fold. If you are playing out of position against a good aggressive player, remember if you play the check-call, lead line on the turn with a medium strength hand you are opening yourself up to being punished. However, if you do this occasionally with some strong hands you can get someone like me to bluff the entire stack off thinking that you are weak. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/choosing-larger-river-sizinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/choosing-larger-river-sizingSun, 29 Oct 2017 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/choosing-larger-river-sizingYou can choose large sizing if you don’t think your opponent will fold top pair. Unlike the previous hand, the next day at the Commerce I got into a beautiful spot where I did not think that my opponent was going to fold top pair given the action-- but this time I had pure value. In this spot, with about $2000 effective, I raised from UTG1 with 9:h: 9:d: to $35. The small blind, another unknown player sitting with a large amount of chips called, as did the big blind. We saw a K:d: 7:d: 3:c: flop three handed. It got checked over to me and I decided to make a small protection/value bet of $50. A lot of players would check here as they think that 9:s: on K73 is a way ahead way behind spot, but I find that the thinnest value can be obtained through flop betting, as players will peel wide. Also I could be up against as many as four overcards to my nines between the two players, and there is value in getting hands like QJ or KJ to fold. The small blind called my flop bet pretty quickly and the big blind folded so we saw the turn headsup. Fortunately for me fourth street fell a beautiful 9:c: giving me second set and almost definitely the best hand. My opponent once again checked and this time I decided to go for larger sizing, $165, thinking that the small blind would continue to call down with a king. Again, he called rather quickly. The river brought out a total blank, the 2:c: and my opponent checked to me a final time. With the pot being about $530, I thought about the small blinds’ range. Obviously it did not make a difference if he had missed a flush draw as he would not call my final bet (with the exception of betting small to induce a check raise). It is also important to note that the card on the flop that was not a diamond was a three and the turn card was a nine, two type of pairs that most likely would not call a river bet. But of his made hand range he has a ton of kings! It was also good for me that the front door draw bricked out as it makes it more likely that my opponent would call down with a king thinking that I may have missed a draw. A lot of players approach this spot in the wrong way in my position. When they have a missed flush draw that has bet flop and turn, they barrel river. Say for example, instead of us having 99 we had Q:h: J:h:. We bet the flop with a flush draw and continued to barrel the turn when we picked up straight draw equity. We whiff the river and realize we have no showdown value. We should go for three barrels here right? Wrong! Actually the fact that we block the heart flush draw means that our opponent is less likely to have it and this supersedes the fact that we have no showdown value. Or to put it simply it means that the small blind is going to have more Kx. But you see this type of three-barrel all the time in live poker, and you see the bluffer get called down. However, for me this river was the best of both worlds holding 99. We did not block any of the kings that our opponent could have and we are not concerned with getting value from some of the flush draws that contain pairs. So I thought a large bet sizing had to be the best play here overbet the pot $575. My opponent took some time with it and finally called with KQ.Many players would have left money on the table here, not recognizing how often their opponent would have a king and call to a larger sizing. But, they may have ran a three-barrel bluff with a missed flush draw themselves. The moral of this story is you have to recognize when your opponent is going to fold or call given the action and if you have value you should go big if you think that they are going to call down. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-with-relative-positionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-with-relative-positionSun, 15 Oct 2017 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-with-relative-positionSometimes you can bluff because of relative positionA few weeks ago I played an interesting hand in the $5-10NL $1500 cap game at the Commerce Casino. It was late on a Friday night and the game was generally loose and good, and I had just moved to the table. The villain in this hand was in the big blind, but was totally unknown to me. During my first orbit at the table I decided to raise from UTG with 5 :h: 6 :h:, albeit a pretty light open to $35. Much to my dismay the hijack, button and big blind all called usually forcing me to make a hand in order to win the pot. I got one of the best flops for my hand, K:h: 3:s: 4:c:, giving me an open ended straight draw plus a backdoor flush draw. Unexpectedly the unknown villain in the big blind led out at the pot for $60. Because I had raised from UTG my range was pretty strong and I was a bit torn between raising to put pressure on the big blind or just calling. The problem was that the two players in position were decent and aware and I thought that they could put me in a tough spot if they realized that my flop raise was a bit unbalanced. I did not think that the blind was super strong, as players do not usually lead out with sets on such a dry board, but I decided to just call. Both the players behind me folded and we saw a 4:s: turn headsup. At this point I expect the big blind to check a lot with his kings, as I showed a lot of strength calling next to act on the flop. With two players behind me usually I am forced to fold pairs between 4s and queens leaving me with big kings, sets AA etc. If the big blind lead out on the flop with a hand like KT or KJ he is behind a lot when I call. But, my opponent continued to lead, this time for $130. It is also important to note that with the 4 pairing the combinations of flopped sets goes down from six combinations to four now, and most player might check the turn with a full house or quads. So I still thought that the big blind was sort of blindly betting with a king. Given the pot odds I was getting ($130 for $390) plus the hidden implied odds of hitting my straight, I concluded that this was a clear-cut call. Against a king I had eight outs out of forty-four unseen cards. That meant that I had 8/44 chance of hitting or 1/5.5. I would need to win at least 4.5 times his turn bet from the total pot to make the call profitable, or in this case $595. Facing the bet the pot was already $390, so I would only need to make an extra $205 to reach this goal. After my turn call this only represents 40% of the pot on the river, which is why I decided to continue on. Unfortunately for me, the river rolled off an off suit ten, leaving me with just six high. Now my opponent checked. Normally at this level, I am not in the business of trying to move players off of top pair, but I thought that this spot was just too good. You see, once I raised preflop from UTG, AND called the flop and turn bets my range was very strong. Usually I have a hand that is at least KTs and I thought that if I bet large it would be extremely difficult for the big blind to call with just a king. If I had held KQ or better and got to this river I would have had a clear value bet as I would not expect the big blind to check KT, which now runs into top two pair. So I used all of this information and decided to fire large, $550, almost the entire size of the pot. However, my opponent took about three seconds with his decision and called with K8os. The funny thing here, is, especially with the rainbow board, the only draw that I have that has missed is 56s specifically or four combinations. I have six combos of AA, 6 combos of AK, and six combos of KQ in my range. Occasionally I might also have one combo of a full house or quads that I may have played this way. My “range advantage” given my opponents line and this board run out was too favorable for me to not bluff here at the end especially with no showdown value. When I got called by K8, I temporarily felt a bit sheepish, but realized that my bet was highly profitable.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unique-main-event-situationshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unique-main-event-situationsSun, 23 Jul 2017 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unique-main-event-situationsUnique individual situations often arise in the Main Event. Top set in a 3 bet pot….Since the 2017 Main Event was played a few weeks ago I thought that it would be topical to cover an interesting hand from my journey this year. First of all the Main Event is a very special tournament. You have probably heard that before but it is the only event at the WSOP with two-hour levels throughout the entire tournament and where the average stack is typically over 75BBs. Also table draw is HUGE. Since there are typically 7000 players in the event you can be playing at a very soft table, sometimes against opponents that have only played poker a few times. Other times, you can be playing against all star, world-class players. And then there are other times where you see a combination of many player types all at the same table. For me, I had mediocre tables on Day 1 and then when I got knocked out on Day 2. If I was to rank my tables on a scale of one to ten then were both about a five. Not tough in the strict sense of the word but certainly not soft. Players weren’t giving it away. However on the first day I ended up knocking out a player that had satellited in to the championship and he made a pretty large mistake in a hand taking a strange line. We were in Level 3 of Day 1 and the blinds were $150-$300 with a $25 ante. I had built my stack up to $70k from $50k in the first few levels but my opponent in the hand started with only $25k. In the hand immediately before I had three bet out of the small blind and took the pot down without a flop. This particular hand started with the villain raising to $750 from the cutoff. I looked down at J:c: J:d: on the button and reraised to $2200. All folded back to the cutoff who called quickly. The flop came out J:h: 6:d: 7:s: giving me top set. The cutoff checked and I decided to bet slightly smaller than the preflop three bet, $2100. I thought that this small sizing would be called by a wide range of hands, most likely any pair and even AQ or AK. Much to my delight my opponent called. The turn brought out the 2:c: completing the rainbow. Now, totally unexpectedly, my opponent led for $4600. This was truly bizarre as in a three-bet pot you almost never see a check-call lead out unless, in a multiway pot, someone was waiting for a safe card and then bet for protection. At this point, I really thought that my opponent had a real hand as he was not the type to reverse float in a 3 bet pot (he was an obvious satellite winner that was playing in his first Main event on day 1). So my thought now was strictly about value. Many people would say that if I was only raising sets here for value that I would be inherently unbalanced. They absolutely would be correct. However I didn’t need to worry about being balanced versus this particular player who I would never see again in my life. It didn’t really matter that I might not raise KK-AA on the turn versus this action I was only concerned about extracting the maximum amount of value in this specific situation. Also, if you have read my last CardPlayer column that had to do with having the nuts on the turn in position and discussing whether or not to slowplay, you know that I think players commonly make a very large value mistake by just flatting the turn in these situations expecting to raise the river. The problem is they get checked to on the river, so flatting the turn accomplishes nothing. In this spot I was thinking the exact same thing. In fact I thought that the turn was a mandatory raise most importantly to build the size of the pot up and because I did not think in this particular situation my opponent was bluffing, nor would he continue on with a bluff on the river. However, I did not want to scare my opponent away and chose a very small sizing--$11k. My opponent again did not take much time with it and called. The river brought out the 8:s: and it looked like my opponent was going to pull a “block” type bet again, which of course I would have loved since it would have bloated the pot up even more leading me to what would be an obvious shove. But he ended up sort of pulling a fake bet move (which is usually a reverse tell to try to have the person in my spot not bet) and finally checked after about a minute. I calmly looked back at the board to try and figure out if there was anyway that I did not have the best hand. I quickly realized that the only straights that were possible were 45, 59 and 9T…and then noticed 9T and 59 were gutshots on the flop. And without the possibility of any flush draws either front door or back door appearing it would be impossible for him to arrive at the river with those hands. 45, which was open ended was a very very small possibility but the cutoff would have had to call a three bet preflop from out of position and then lead the turn AND call a raise followed by a check on the river. It was an easy conclusion that I had the best hand with top set close to 100% of the time. In a cash game I may have gone for absolute maximum value on the river. But here I had to really consider everything about this unique situation and the fact that I was playing against a first timer in the Main Event. The opponent had 15k left, and it was before the dinner break on Day 1. Most people do not want to go out so early on their first time. I did not want him to make any sort of Hero folds but I wanted him to feel like he was priced in on the river. I also thought that his hand was most likely not super strong (although it could be 67) given his line. So with the pot being over $30k, I decided to bet $10k, slightly less than my raise on the turn. This would leave the cutoff with over 15BBs, which is a workable stack in the Main Event and he would not have to be put to the test for all of his chips. After I put the $10k in the pot he quickly called and tabled QQ. I felt like this hand was a bit of a gift and it got me up to close to $100k in chips before the dinner break. However, I think other players, that try to play an “unexploitative” style may not have made the correct exploits in this hand by raising the turn with the nuts (only) and sizing down on the river. Unfortunately I made a big bluff that did not work after dinner on Day 1 and was knocked out of the Main event in the middle of day 2. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/i-must-have-the-best-handhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/i-must-have-the-best-handSun, 25 Jun 2017 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/i-must-have-the-best-hand4 bet pot hand reading reveals I must have the best handAbout two hours into my session at the Bicycle Casino, gathering hands for my “100 hands at $5-$5 series” I played a rare four bet pot preflop at $5-$5. The hand was strange due to my opponents’ very small three bet sizing out of the blind. We were paying five handed and I opened Ks Kd from UTG to $20. It got folded around to a guy in his fifties, totally unknown to me in the big blind sitting with $1000, which I covered. He three bet extremely small to $35. Immediately before this hand I had been somewhat active at the table so I was not sure if this was his counter to me being aggressive. Obviously I never thought that this sizing was AA preflop so I decided to put in a four bet to $110 for pure value, never expecting him to fold, and he did call.The flop came out A:c: 8:d: 3:d: which I was not happy about. I thought that his three-bet preflop might represent a hand like AJ-AK that he was getting a bit stubborn with so I felt that there was no reason for me to bet when he checked to me. The turn brought the J:c: putting out a backdoor club draw and he lead out for $75 into a $220 pot. This bet did not please me but I was getting about 4-1 in pot odds and did not feel that it was correct to just release then and there. It is also interesting to note that when you hold KK it is less likely that your opponent has AK and a lot of players will not call a four-bet from out of position with AQ or AJ. His line was almost more consistent with JJ, if it were not for the small three-bet sizing preflop.The river fell a very interesting card, the K:c: giving me second set and completing the backdoor club draw. My opponent now paused and bet $175. One of the things that comes from experience, and I have been playing NL cash for over ten years, is pausing and playing the hand back from the start. The most glaring thing that was evident in this hand was that it was almost impossible for my opponent to have a flush. It would be different if the ace on the flop was not a club, making A:c: X:c: possible. But here the ace of clubs was on the board. I also had already dismissed AA from my opponents’ range due to preflop and thought QT was extremely unlikely. So I put everything together and concluded that I must have the best hand.But it is not enough for me to arrive here with the best hand I have to go one step further and figure out the sizing on my obvious river raise to come. A couple of things crossed my mind. My opponent bet the turn AND the river which indicated a fair amount of strength. I thought that he might play JJ this way, AJ or AK. It was unlikely that at the 5-5 level someone would go for sizing like this with AQ, as they would be scared of KK and AK. Its also interesting to note that at a higher level a bet should not be made with AQ here either for the same reasons unless an opponent thinks I may have four bet bluffed preflop with Ax and would call down on this run out for two streets. Once I concluded that my opponents’ value range should be strong given his line (and the fact that we don’t care about his bluffing range as those hands will just fold) I thought my only play here was to move all-in. Unfortunately for me my opponent folded rather quickly and latter in the session I realized that he was very “splashy” and was most likely just bluffing versus my check back flop weakness. However that still does not make the all-in bad at the end if I thought that he would call with his entire value range, which I did. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/capitalizing-on-bet-sizing-mistakeshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/capitalizing-on-bet-sizing-mistakesSun, 04 Jun 2017 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/capitalizing-on-bet-sizing-mistakesSometime you can call with a draw because your opponent will make bet-sizing mistakes on future streets.Right before the WSOP this past summer I decided to play two long sessions of $5-$5 $1000 cap no limit to gather content for my series “100 hands of $5-$5” on CrushLivePoker.com. The hands were played across one weekend at the Hustler and Bicycle Casino. It has been a long time since I have put in full sessions at $5-$5NL and right before these sessions I had actually played two five hour $25-$50NL shows on Live at the Bike. The level of play was obviously hugely different from the higher levels that I am accustomed to and the games reminded me a lot of the old $5-10 NL game I used to play at Commerce in the late 2000s. Some of the largest mistakes that I saw during the weekend were bet sizing errors and the inability to fold hands. About an hour into my session on Sunday afternoon I got into a situation that demonstrated these types of blunders. The table was generally tight and surprisingly I was the youngest one playing, at 37 years old. I opened J:c: 9:c: from MP1 with seven other players dealt in. An older gentleman made it $50, with about an $800 stack from the button. I was not sure how to interpret this three bet as it was so small, but the price he gave me, even from out of position, was just too good to pass up and I made the call. The flop came out 5:c: 6:c: 4:s: giving me a flush draw. I checked and my opponent bet $75. Usually at these levels a three-bet preflop represents a hand like TT+ or AK but players will almost always continuation bet headsup. So I was not sure if he had AK or an overpair and I elected to call. Another pattern that is quite common at these levels is the fact that the strength of the three-bettor’s hand really reveals itself on blank turns. People just do not double barrel that much as a bluff and will bomb to protect overpairs. The turn brought in a 5:s:, pairing the board. This certainly was a blank and I would expect an overpair to continue betting. I checked once again and my opponent now bet $100. Again this bet was fairly peculiar is it was not very large in comparison to the pot size. However, I reasoned that this particular player might be making a sort of “reverse block bet” on the turn, that is betting so that he will not have to face a large bet on the river if he checked back. He could do this with hands like 99, TT or even QQ. So, knowing that it was unlikely that he just had AK I assumed that I was beat and examined the math. He bet $100 into a $250 pot so I had to call $100 to win $350 or 3.5-1 in pot odds. With a flush draw I only needed 4-1 in immediate pot odds and thought I would get paid something if I made my hand, so I called. I also recognized that one of my clubs might not be good if he had an overpair (giving him a full house) and that other clubs might bring in very scary boards like a 3:c: or an 8:c:. The river brought out the K:c: completing my flush. With the pot being $450 I bet $220 fully prepared to fold if I was raised. If my opponent raised he would almost always have kings full or the nut flush and there would be no way a call to his shove would be profitable given the pot odds. After I bet my opponent went into the tank, and I now knew that I had the best hand. After about two minutes he said “flush is good”, called and turned over A:c: A:d: and I scooped in a nice size pot.Even though he did get some value from me on the turn, his bet sizing and his payoff on the river clearly made the way that he played the hand unprofitable. There are a couple of other interesting things to note with the K:c: falling on the river. Although it was a “blank” club (not putting out a straight) I did not think it was necessarily the best club for me as if my opponent held 99-QQ he might be scared of the king. For that reason I actually decided to size down a bit on the river. Really good clubs for would have been a 9, T, J or 2 and I probably would have bet larger. Whenever you go for a flush draw on a paired board and you think your opponent has an overpair you do have to be hyper aware of the fact that you have reverse implied odds if you hit (losing more money when you make your draw). But at this $5-$5 level people are going to mostly play their hands straight forward and if you bet when the obvious draw completes and get raised you are almost always beaten. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/draw-on-a-double-paired-boardhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/draw-on-a-double-paired-boardSun, 28 May 2017 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/draw-on-a-double-paired-boardIf the situation lines up correctly sometimes you can call with a draw on a double paired board.On the surface calling with a draw on a doubled paired board seems like suicide especially if you do not have showdown value. But occasionally, if all things line up correctly, the situation may warrant it. I played a hand at the Commerce Casino last week that demonstrates such a scenario. Everyone at the table was at least $2000 deep and the game was $5-$10NL. A recreational, action player opened for a raise to $40 from UTG. I called in MP1 with 4:s: 5:s: and both the small blind and big blind called. The big blind was a recreational player, one of the better players in the entire player pool and is clearly a winning player. The flop came out 3:s: 3:h: 2:s: giving me an open ended straight flush draw. Both the blinds and the preflop raiser checked so I bet out $90 into a pot of about $160. The small blind quickly folded but the big blind called. The preflop raiser got out of the way and we were heads up and saw a 2:c: turn. Somewhat unexpectedly the BB now lead out for $105, under a one third pot sized bet. I was a little confused by this bet as I expected him to check his entire range on the turn, whether he had a three or a flush draw himself. He is a fairly tight player so it's very unlikely that he would call the flop with a hand like A2s. Upon first reaction I wanted to pounce on his bet and raise the turn but I did not think that that would be too believable. Then I thought over the situation more and it made sense that his action might be a sort of protection bet against draws with a hand like 55-TT. Facing this 1/3 pot size bet I was getting over 4-1 and only needed 20% equity to call. With a clean 15 out draw we have just over 30% equity. However in this particular case we have to worry about the reverse implied odds of the hand. Reverse implied odds refer to a situation where we call with a draw assuming implied odds but our draw, when made, does not give us the best hand and we lose more money if it completes. This would be the case if he held say 66 and a 6:h: came in on the river. So the situation was particularly close but I decided with the overlay in the pot and the fact that I had an extra two outs to a straight flush to continue on. The river brought in the K:s: completing my spade flush. He now checked and even though I am one of the thinnest value bettors in my player pool, felt that there was not any value in betting my small flush as I would not be called by worse. So I checked back the river and won at showdown versus 77. This hand reminds me a lot of PLO where we are getting odds to draw but there are little implied odds when we make our hand. Situations rarely come up in Holdem where we call with a draw not expecting to make extra money, but it can happen when you have a draw with more than 14 outs and you are facing less than a pot sized bet. It would have been interesting if my opponent had bet the river again, especially big, and a case could be made for folding. But this is not necessarily inconsistent logic on my part because a bet on the river would change the action. The turn bet ended up being so small that all things lined up correctly and it allowed me to make a profitable call on fourth street.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/consider-min-raising-the-turnhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/consider-min-raising-the-turnSun, 30 Apr 2017 07:19:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/consider-min-raising-the-turnSometime players will not continue with the betting lead on the river, so you should consider min raising the turn in position with a hand that you think is best. A lot of players, as the preflop raiser, like to slowplay a hand that they think is best on the turn if they are facing an opponent that has taken the betting lead. They figure that they will win more money by playing a hand this way waiting to get an extra bet on the river through a raise. The problem is that last bet in many cases does not come.Let us take a look at a few examples. Say we raise in position to $35 in a $5-$10 game with A:h: K:h: and we get it headsup versus the big blind. The flop comes out J:c: 7:h: 5:h: giving us the nut flush draw. Unexpectedly the player in the big blind now leads out for $50. Let us say that most of the time this bet represents a jack that the player will not fold, so we decide to just call. The turn is the 2:h: giving us the nut flush. The blind now bets $100. Many many times players will just call in this spot with the nuts figuring that they do not want their opponent to fold so that they can raise the river. The problem is the bet rarely comes on the river. Say the player in the big blind has a hand like a weak queen and is protecting against what he thinks is AK. He will bet the flop and turn and check the river. You may get a single call on fifth street but what if we were to min raise the turn? If we play the hand in the way it is described above we arrive at the river with a pot of $375. If it gets checked to us maybe we can bet $225 and win an $825 pot. However, if we raise the turn, even to just $225, then we arrive at a $625 river. Then maybe we can bet $350 and win a pot of $1325. The key here is to realize that a player who takes the betting lead from out of position into the preflop raiser in headsup pots often times will not continue with the lead on the river so just calling the turn accomplishes very little, especially if the opponent will call a small raise on the turn. Let us take a look at another hand where we don’t have the nuts but we think we have the best hand. In this spot we raise to $35 with AQ in position. Again we get it headsup vs the big blind and we see a flop of Q52r. The blind leads out for $50 and we just call. The turn is an 8, completing the rainbow. The blind now bets $75. We think we almost always have the best hand and don’t want to lose him so we call again. The river pairs the 8 and the blind checks. With $325 in the pot we decide to bet $175 and we get called by QJ.Can we make more money in this hand? Let us say as an alternative line instead of calling the turn he now raise it small to $160. The blind begrudgingly calls due to pot odds. Now, with the pot being $495, we bet $250 after being checked to in position. Instead of winning a pot of $675 we now win a pot of $995. This concept may seem simple but we can add a lot of extra value to our hands in this manner, so long as we keep our raise size small. The ultimate point is that we cannot always depend on our opponents to continue the lead throughout the hand if they are betting us and we were the preflop raiser. A lot of your opponents are betting to protect and intend to shut it down at the end. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/calling-next-to-act-multiwayhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/calling-next-to-act-multiwaySun, 16 Apr 2017 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/calling-next-to-act-multiwayIn a multiway pot the player that calls next to act usually has a draw or a strong hand, especially from out of position. Use this to your advantage.A few weeks ago I played a very interesting hand at the Bicycle Casino where I got absolutely “owned”. The situation brings up a unique spot in multiway pots where a player in the blind calls “next to act” on the flop. The game was $5-$10-$20 and the table was very good. I had a decent image and sat with about $4000. The villain in the hand was a recreational player that rarely slowplays and sat with a similar stack on the button. A player in Mp1 raised preflop to $80, the cutoff and button called and I completed for $60 more out of the big blind with 5:c: 7:c:. The flop came out Q:c: 9:s: 3:c: giving me a naked flush draw. I checked, the preflop raiser and cutoff checked and the button bet $200. In some cases I will attack the field bettor in this spot with a semi bluff but in this situation my draw was not strong so I elected to just call. Both the other players folded and we saw the Q:d: turn. At this point I checked intending to check-fold. If you have any experience in No Limit Holdem you realize that this is almost never going to be a profitable spot to call and if our opponent bets again he most likely has trips or a higher flush draw. We are also out of position and our hand is somewhat obvious if the front door draw completes making it less likely that we will get paid off. However, after I checked my opponent did not bet. I interpreted his check to mean that he had a draw or a pair and I never expected him to have trip queens that were not full. I ranged him on higher clubs, a nine or a hand like JT or KJ. If I blank came at the end I was going to bluff the river. But, the river brought a five, pairing my hand so I checked. My opponent then bombed $500. I thought that this was quite a polarizing bet, never expected this sizing with just a nine and figured he would show up with a missed draw or a full house--so I called. My opponent turned over Q:h:6:h: and raked in a good-sized pot. This hand got me thinking of similar situations when we bet last to act in a multiway pot and someone calls in the blind next to act. Usually in these hands the blind will have either top pair or a draw because he has to worry about the players behind him. So, if we have a hand like a weak top pair that turns trips what is our best play? Conventional thinking is to bet again to charge the draws. Trips in Holdem is a pretty strong hand and this bet almost is intuitively automatic. But when we examine the situation more in depth can we sometimes win more money or lose less by checking back the turn? Especially against an opponent that will interpret our turn check as weakness and will bluff the river (me in this case) checking makes a lot of sense. If the player in the blind has QJ+ or a draw, and will bet his missed draws when the board bricks out but will fold draws to a turn bet you can see how checking behind here is clearly the more profitable play. Now I would not check back strong hands like KQ+ in this situation all that often because I would want to get value from lesser queens but with a hand like QT and below we actually lose less money to a stronger hand by checking the turn and gain money from our opponent bluffing us. The downside to this play is that we give a free card to a draw, but the draws in this case are pretty transparent. We may even need to call the river when some of the draws complete if the opponent is capable of bluffing to represent the made draw. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/equity-against-opponents-rangehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/equity-against-opponents-rangeSun, 05 Mar 2017 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/equity-against-opponents-rangeThere is a huge difference between all in equity and equity against someone's range All-inSometimes when we are on a downswing we take a look at the large pots that we recently lost. It is easy for us to identify the spots where we got it in good and failed to win. These “bad beat” hands increase our variance and can definitely decrease our win rate but they are not the most telling sign of whether or not you are playing well. What we should actually be more interested in is trying to figure out our equity versus our opponents’ range in all in pots. This can be a difficult thing to evaluate in a live setting where you can't go back and look at hand histories.There was a hand a few weeks ago from the Commerce Casino $5-10 no limit game that demonstrated this concept. I started the hand was $1600 and the villain who was in the small blind had me covered. One player open limped from the cutoff and I raised to $45 with A:s: Q:s: in position. The small blind, a mid 50s Korean aggressive pro, three bet me to $245. Even though this was a large three bet I decided to call because I knew that the villain was capable of re raising light and I felt like my hand did well against his range of re stealing. The flop came out 8:s: 7:h: 6:s: giving me the nut flush draw with two overs. The small blind fired a huge continuation bet out of $500 and even though this bet size left little chance of him folding my draw was so large that shoving, even with just a hint of fold equity, had to be the right play. So I took about 15 seconds and moved all-in. When the small blind did not snap call me I knew I had made the right play. He ended up tanking for about five minutes asking me if I had a set of eights and finally called. The turn fell the 2:c: and the river brought the A:h:. I tabled my hand and said, “Ace”. He then proudly tabled A:d: K:d: and said, “Bigger Ace”. Now if we calculate the all in equity between A:d: K:d: of diamonds and A:s: Q:s: on this flop we see that A:d: K:d: is 48%. With the pot odds that he was given this is clearly the right call, right? Well, let's take a look at his equity versus my range.Let’s say I sometimes call preflop with a range of some 66-88, one 9Ts one 56s and pocket 9s. Let’s also include AK:s:, AQ:s:, AJ:s:, KQ:s: and JT:s:. If we run Poker Stove on that range vs his A:d: K:d: we find that is equity is only 18%. The fact that I ended up with the bottom of my range does not mean that his call was correct. In fact given the pot odds it was clearly wrong. The people that will make a call in this spot and lose will curse their fortune claiming that they run bad and got it in good. But, here as you can see, it doesn't necessarily matter what their opponent’s’ holding actually was it matters if your play was correct against their range. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/thin-value-in-3-bet-potshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/thin-value-in-3-bet-potsSun, 19 Feb 2017 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/thin-value-in-3-bet-potsSometimes you can go you can go for thin value in a 3 bet pot. We all know that if you want to maximize your win rate in live no limit holdem you have to be able to bet thinly for value. But this does not just apply to normal single raised pots. You must be willing to go for thin value in 3 bet pots as well. I had a hand that demonstrated this concept taken from a $5-10 no limit game from the Bicycle casino last week. The villain in the hand was fairly aggressive and likes to sit deep but he has trouble folding over pairs. In a seven handed game it got folded to me and I opened to $30 on the button with 9:h: T:s:, $1600 effective. The small blind folded and the villain three bet to $100. I decided to make a pretty optimistic preflop call due to sizing, stack depth and with position. The flop came out J:d: T:d: 9:c: giving me bottom two pair. Much to my surprise the villain did not come out and make a continuation bet. This struck me as odd because I would have figured he would bet hands like AK and AQ and some pure bluffs. So his check indicated to me some sort of medium strength hand like AT or AJ, or an overpair playing carefully. I fully expected him to check call, so I bet $130. He obliged and we saw a 6:d: turn. This was not the best card in the deck for me but not because I was scared of the flush but rather that his calling range would tighten up now that the flush completed. But I still thought that he would call with overpairs with a diamond in them, some overpairs without a diamond and a hand like AK with a diamond. So after he checked, once again, I fired out $290. He thought about it for about 20 seconds and called. The river brought a beautiful blank, the 3:h: and he checked for the third time. Now I had a decision to make. I knew that betting three times in position looked very strong and I wondered for a moment if I would get called by a worse hand. A fairly good player would be hard-pressed to call with just an over pair at the end on this run out, facing this action in a three bet pot but I knew that this particular player was similar to a lot of other live players in the fact that he likes to play off of the strength of his own hand and not his opponents' range. I thought he would still call with a hand like AA, KK, etc. So with the pot being just over $1000 I fired $605 for value. My opponent now took more time--about a minute and finally called. I tabled my hand and I was good. When I discussed his hand on my podcast over at CrushLivePoker.com some of my subscribers asked me what I would have done if the villain had check raised me on the river. If you have read my CardPlayer articles before you know that I am a big fan of betting for value and folding to raises, especially on the river. However, I don't always fold. In this particular example, I would've found it very very difficult to fold because of the action in the hand. There is no way that I would think such an aggressive player would check the flop after three betting from out of position with a flush draw and then continue to check call the turn and check the river when he made it. Taking that line would be pretty bad because most players in my position would be happy to check back the river at showdown. Because he could not depend on me to bet at the end if he did check raise I probably would have called it off thinking that he was turning the ace of diamonds into a bluff. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pair-and-a-flush-drawhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pair-and-a-flush-drawSun, 05 Feb 2017 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pair-and-a-flush-drawThink about what you want to accomplish when you flop a pair and a flush drawIt is interesting how different types of players take different lines with draws. Some guys play them incredibly fast, pounding money into the pot whenever they have at least nine outs. Others take a more passive route and just call until they make their hand. Just like anything in poker one size does not fit all. In these situations it really depends on the board texture, stack sizes, position, fold equity etc. to figure out the most profitable approach to playing a draw. One interesting scenario to examine where taking a passive or aggressive line may both be correct is specifically having a pair and a flush draw. In some situations you can really drive the hand for maximum fold equity especially if the board is raggedy and you do not think that a preflop raiser can take a lot of heat. In other situations, however, it may be perfectly correct to check and call as you may not have the fold equity needed to make an aggressive play profitable or more importantly you might be in a way ahead way behind scenario. I played in one of these situations a few days ago at the Commerce casino in Los Angeles. The game was $5-$10 and my opponent was playing extremely aggressively preflop but had little awareness postflop similar to a lot of out of town players that come through during the major tournament series, the LAPC. In this hand I called a solid player’s open from middle position in the small blind with K:c: Q:c:. to $40, $2000 effective. The villain in the hand was in the big blind and he reraised to $185. The original raiser quickly folded and I decided to call. This was something I rarely did in the past with a hand like K:c: Q:c: but I had noticed that the player in the big blind was incredibly wide in his preflop action and he did not play well post flop. I also thought I had decent immediate equity versus his three betting range.The flop came out pretty strong for me in the form of A:c: K:d: 5:c: giving me middle pair and a flush draw. Now, some of us might think that this is an absolute monster flop as we have fourteen outs to improve to better than one pair. A lot of guys would play for “stacks” here wanting to get all the money in on the flop. However, if we do an examination of this board texture is fastplaying this draw really the right play? I also want to mention the fact that I did not think that this particular villain was capable of folding top pair as I had seen him make some really poor calls earlier in the session. Let us examine all of the options. If he had nothing and we went for a check raise, he simply would have folded. If he had at least an ace he would definitely call our raise. If he had nothing we would have such a hammer lock on the hand we would not want him to fold. And if he actually had a legitimate hand like AK+ we may fair to get reriased on the flop. Following this logic I was happy to just call his $150 bet. The turn brought out the 3:h: giving me no help. I checked again and this time he bet larger, $375, which I called. The river fell an off suit 9:d: and at this point I hoped that would check giving up on a bluff. Unfortunately for me he did not oblige and bet $800. I decided to fold. He then triumphantly tabled AA for top set. I was pretty pleased that I realized that this was not the type of board to go crazy versus a three betting range with my pair and flush draw. If the board had come out 567:s::s: and I had had A:s:6:s:, especially against a single raise preflop I would have played a pair and a flush draw much more fast as the board would have favored to hit my range and would have put maximum pressure on an overpair. But here, as you can see, not all pair plus flush draws are equal. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-get-upset-over-correct-foldshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-get-upset-over-correct-foldsSun, 22 Jan 2017 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-get-upset-over-correct-foldsDon’t get upset if you make the right fold preflop and then happen to flop the nutsI was watching an old WSOP episode from 2005 the other night and saw Scott Lazar appear to fall apart after he folded A5os preflop from the blind. The board ended up coming out with three aces in it making him quads. He then burned off the rest of his chips with K9s and then QTos, all-in preflop. In his post bust out interview he said that the would be quads hand put him on tilt. I have always had the luxury of having decent mental game. I never get too upset over getting bad beats and I realize that I cannot control the way the cards come out. Last week I was playing in a $5-$10NL game and something happened that made me take a rare step back, away from the table. I was in a very good game and all of the stacks were fairly deep. There were a lot of loose players wildly putting chips in the pot and I was looking for an excuse to play hands against them in position. A solid player opened from UTG1 to $40 and a mid position player called. I looked down at A:d: 7:d: and also called from the button. This brought the small blind in and the big blind, one of the whales at the table, reraised to $300. The original raiser then folded, but the mid position player called, quite surprisingly. Even though the big blind was one of the guys I thought I could extract money from easily, I knew that his three betting range was extremely tight and figured him for QQ, KK or AA. Against that range it would be very difficult to make a lot of money with A:d: 7:d: so I folded. The flop came out K:d: 5:d: 2:d: and I was literally sick to my stomach. The big blind quickly bet out $600. The player in middle position then moved all-in and the big blind snap called! The board ran out 3:c: 9:c: and the hands were revealed as top set of kings for the big blind and a set of fives for the mid position player. “Damn!” I said to myself. I knew that if I had called the extra $240 that I would have just won over $4000 in the pot. I had to take a step away from the table but my disappointment was very short lived. I knew that my fold preflop fold was 100% correct to that sizing given my assumption about the big blind’s range. I do not know that the odds are of someone flopping top set vs a flopped flush, but they have to be very very small. With a hand like A:d: 7:d: I am trying to get into the pot cheaply and I am trying to usually make at least forty times the raise size in order to call for the implied odds value of the hand. Both of those conditions were not met so what difference did it make that I flopped the nuts?On that topic it always amazes me how people do not realize that poker has randomness as a part of the game, so that there can be a game. Chess is not a game that is gambled on for high stakes money because you literally can almost never win against someone that has superior skill. There is no element of luck involved. In poker, the bad players at least have to have a chance to win or we could not gamble on the game. That is why I find it very peculiar that some professional players get upset about the order of the cards possibly being compromised if something screwy happens with the deck. I had a friend of mine tell me about a recent hand that he played at the Hustler Casino in a tournament. To make a long story short he got a guy all-in with pocket fives versus AJ on a KT5A board for all of his chips. Apparently the dealer did not realize that the all-in action was on the turn and thought that the hand was over so he dropped the deck. When the players indicated that the river card had to be put out instead of picking up the deck and trying to reconstruct the cards in order he simply went into the card pile, burned a card and then revealed the river. Of course, the Q:d: fell and my buddy lost the hand. He ended up then calling over the floorman and protested that the deck was not in the correct order. No one at the table could confirm or deny that the cards that were taken where correct or incorrect so the floorman let the action stand which I think was the right decision as the objection did not happen before the river was revealed.If we take a step back and assume that nothing shady was going on and the dealer made an honest mistake, does it matter that the river may not have actually been the original river? I say of course not, so long as if a queen had not come out my friend would have won the hand. The cards are just a way to add randomness to the game. It makes no difference if someone were to decide to choose the river from the middle of the deck or the top of the deck (again so long as nothing shady was going on). So why do people get upset when they fold a close to playable hand that makes the nuts? Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-check-raise-for-valuehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-check-raise-for-valueSun, 08 Jan 2017 06:18:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-check-raise-for-valueA check raise for value on the river is a tricky play—use it wisely.Before I get into an interesting hand that I played at the Commerce $5-$10NL $500-$1500 buy in game I want all of you lower stakes players to understand that usually betting your very strong hand for value from out of position, when you have had the betting lead for the entire hand, is the right play. The players that you are typically up against check back far too much to get tricky with a strong value hand and it becomes a disaster if they do not bet in position when they would have called a large bet. However, for you mid to high stakes players, and even sometimes at the low stakes there are certain times when we can implement this technique of checking to go for a check raise.About two weeks ago, I played such a hand. We were seven handed and I raised A:c: 6:c: from UTG +1. A player who usually plays lower stakes called me from the button, about $3000 effective. He had moved up to playing $5-$10 this day because he was losing heavily at the $5-$5 game and was slightly tilted. He is a moody player and has played both overly aggressive and weak tight in the past. He was up about $1500 in the $5-$10 game since he had sat down.The flop came out A:s: 6:h: 7:d:, giving me top and bottom pair. I bet $45 into a pot of about $75, trying to encourage him to call with weaker holdings. He obliged rather quickly and we moved to the turn, which was the 4:s:. At this point I thought that he was not going to continue floating me with air, but if he had pieced off with a seven or a six, that he very well may have picked up a straight draw to go along with it. I also thought that he was never going to fold an ace on this street so I decided to go larger now, and bet $130. He took a bit of time with it and called again. Now the pot was $425 and the river fell the A:h:, giving me aces full of sixes. My initial impulse was to come out and bet large but I took a step back and analyzed the situation. No limit Holdem is all about playing off of your opponents’ range, it is less about playing off your own cards. I thought back to all of the streets and realized that he would arrive at the river with three types of hands.The first would be a weaker ace. One that I thought he would surely value bet at the end. You see, most other players would never make trips as top pair and check to their opponent so if he had a hand like AT or A9 he would not be scared and would bet with a high frequency. He was also a typical lower stakes player that was unable to fold hands that he thought were strong. So I seriously doubted that he would release if I check raised. So checking and having him bet say $250, only for me to raise to $750 would get me a lot more value then coming out and even betting as large as the size of the pot. The second category of hand that we could arrive at the river with was a bluff. A hand that was a straight draw on the flop that may have turned a flush draw or if he continued to be stubborn with an open ended full eight out draw from the flop. For the same reasons why I think that most of his opponents would bet an ace on the river, I think that he would now bluff a busted draw because he would so rarely see someone check a strong hand at the end. And the third hand that he may show up with on the river was a middling pair hand that picked up more outs on the turn. I was not really targeting this hand, as I knew this type of holding would not call a bet on the river.So to me, I thought that the obvious play was to check. I would get more value from an ace, in the best case scenario a slowplayed hand like a turned straight or set that now boated up for a full house or I could induce a bluff.Again, I want to stress to you lower stakes players to use this play very sparingly. I have actually seen players check back weak trip aces at the end versus a preflop raiser scared that they would be out kicked. These types of players are subconsciously patching their “leak” of not being able to bet and then fold so they check back strong hands so that they can GET TO SHOWDOWN. This type of river play is actually more powerful when a card like a T, J or Q pair as top pair at the end and we check trips with an ace kicker or a bottom’s full type of hand. Our opponents are way more likely to bet trips all of the time as they think that they may get looked up by AA-QQ. Unfortunately for me, in this particular scenario my opponent checked back rather quickly, and made it quite obvious that he did not have an ace. I am still happy with my 5th street play, however, as I think that I made the right decision. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/waiting-for-the-turn-to-semi-bluffhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/waiting-for-the-turn-to-semi-bluffSun, 25 Dec 2016 08:03:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/waiting-for-the-turn-to-semi-bluffSometimes a semi-bluff raise on the TURN adds much more fold equity than a raise on the FLOP.About ten years ago prolific 2+2er BalugaWhale put forth a poker theorem that stated, “You should strongly re-evaluate the strength of one-pair hands in the face of a raise on the turn.”If you have played any considerable time at the mid and low stakes of live No Limit Holdem you understand how accurate this theorem reflects the game today. Usually, if someone raises your bet on the turn especially if they just called the flop, they have stronger than a one pair hand. I can count the number of times on one hand that I have seen a player check-raise the turn as a bluff in the last year at $5-$10 and usually if they are bluffing they are doing so as a huge semi-bluff where they have decent equity (like a 15 out draw) with one card to come. Players usually fall into two different types when playing draws. Some players play big draws very aggressively on the flop putting their opponents to the test right away, and then barreling off. Others will play their hands more passively, not putting money into the pot until they make their hand. But very rarely will you run into someone that waits until the turn to make their semi-bluff, sort of as a delayed action, especially if they do not pick up additional equity in their draw. But, players at the mid stakes to low levels of live poker have not adjusted to the fact that pulling a delayed semi-bluff on the turn with a front door draw would add maximum fold equity. For example a player with either K:c: Q:c: or A:c: 6:c: calls a preflop raiser from in or out of position. The flop comes T:c: 6:s: 3:c: and the player with a draw calls a bet. The turn comes the 7:d: and the preflop raiser bets again. It is so rare now for you ever to see the drawing player raise the turn to represent 89 or 45. In fact, in real time, I would most likely range the turn raising player with a huge made hand that was slowplaying the flop, a made hand that the turn filled like 77, 89 or T7, or on the rare case a draw that has now picked up additional equity like J:c: 9:c:.Last week I wanted to test out delayed semi-bluffing and got into a good situation. An unknown, loose recreational player limped into the pot from the cutoff with about a $700 stack, I covered him and raised to $40 with 3:d: 4:d: from the button. All others folded and we saw a flop headsup of Q:d: J:d: 2:c:. Surprisingly, my opponent lead into me for $65. As a gut reaction I wanted to raise this “donk” lead but quickly realized that with the awkward stack sizes, if he did call my raise, I would be left with very little barreling ability on later streets to the point where my opponent might check raise me all-in on the turn if he decided to go with his hand. So I decided to just call.The turn brought a 6:s: giving me additional equity in my draw. My opponent now bet $105 and I quickly moved him all-in making it look like I was slowplaying the flop and or waiting for a safe card to go with a hand like AQ. My opponent tanked for several minutes and then finally folded a queen face up. The fact that I waited until the turn definitely added fold equity to my semi-bluff and I was able to properly leverage the short effective stack sizes by waiting to make my aggressive action. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raise-bluff-the-riverhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raise-bluff-the-riverSun, 11 Dec 2016 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raise-bluff-the-riverSometimes there are opportunities to check raise bluff the river especially if your opponent is not a thin value bettor. Last week I was playing in my typical $5-$10NL game at the Commerce Casino. It was a Friday night and it was obvious that my opponent in the hand we are going examine was a recreational player. Even though I had never seen him before I did notice that he limped in with very speculative hands from up front and he did not make value bets on the river when they were warranted. Similar to a lot of other recreational players it seemed like this opponent was very happy to check back even strong hands in position to take a showdown. We were playing seven handed and a player opened from the hijack with a $800 stack to $40. I was in the small blind and decided to call with J:s: T:s:. The Villain in the hand also called from the big blind with $1000 and we saw the flop three ways. The board came out K:c: 8:s: 6:c: totally missing me. I was entirely ready to check fold to a bet but the flop got checked through. The turn brought the Q:d: giving me an open ended straight draw. I figured that the preflop raiser would not slow play such a wet flop and as long as I could get through the big blind that this was a good opportunity for me to semi-bluff so I bet $75. Unfortunately, my plan did not work and the big blind called. The preflop raiser folded and we went on the river, which came out the 8:h:. Now even though I had absolutely no showdown value I did not think that this was a good spot to bluff. Because all of the draws bricked out I figured that the player in the big blind would call me with any pair thinking that I had missed a draw. So I decided to check, conceding the pot and fully expecting it to go check, check. However, after I checked my opponent now bet $125. I was particularly surprised by his action because I fully expected him to check back any medium strength hand like a queen or a weak king. I also thought that he would have raised the turn with two pair or better protecting against the draws so it was very difficult for him to have a strong hand unless he had trip eights. But the only way that he would have arrived at the river with trips rights is if he had had a flush draw. So versus a player that did not make thin value bets his bet on the river was inherently polarized. If you are familiar with my training material over at CrushLivePoker.com you might have heard me use the phrase “Fifth Street Chicken”. Fifth Street Chicken basically describes a situation where we call a raise on the turn with a strong but non-nut hand fully prepared to check-fold on the river if our opponent bets again, even if nothing changes. Many times the fact that our opponent bets again gives us the information we need in a large pot that we no longer have the best hand. However, sometimes we still win in these situations if our opponent was raising with a weaker hand on the turn and then checks back on the river. This particular hand however, was the exact opposite. I was expecting to lose if the action went check-check but if my opponent bet I could actually raise and take it away. So instead of checking with the intention of check-folding I was checking with the intention of check-raising. And I did not have to size my raise that large if all I was trying to do was to fold out ace highs. In fact, I chose a sizing of $270 and my opponent quickly folded. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/from-a-bluff-to-a-bluff-catcherhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/from-a-bluff-to-a-bluff-catcherSun, 13 Nov 2016 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/from-a-bluff-to-a-bluff-catcherSometimes a bluffing hand becomes a bluff catcher given the actionAbout a week ago I was in a very wild $5-10NL game at the Commerce Casino. Stacks were very deep, where the average was about $5000 and this was rare since the buy in is capped at $1500. I had a pretty good image and was up about $3500 for the session and sat with $5000. The game was wild with a lot of recreational players coming into almost every hand. There were a few of pros in the game but they were generally losing and on tilt. The villain in this hand was one of those pros. He sat with $4000 to start the hand but had to be down at least as much in the session. He was a younger, European kid that could not have been more than 25 years old. In the past I knew that he was a bit “three bet happy” preflop but thought that he played rather straightforward post flop. In this particular hand I was on the button and looked down at A:h: Q:s:. One recreational player with a $6000 stack limped in and a very tight reg raised to $35 in the cutoff. I decided to just flat as I wanted to keep the rec player in and thought that I dominated the preflop raiser. Low and behold the villain in the small blind took a peak at his cards and three bet to $200. The limper called as did the reg. At this point I seriously considered back raising to pick up the dead money but with this stack depth, my position and the control I thought that I had over the table I decided to call and play post flop.The board came out K:h: 6:h: 6:c: totally whiffing me. The villain came out and quickly bet $400 into the $800 pot. Both players in front of me folded and after a few second of thought I decided to call. I thought that there was a very good chance that I could still have the best hand if the sb was 3 betting preflop with Ax plus I had the A:h: in my hand giving some credibility to representing hearts if they came in and I thought that I needed to bluff.The turn brought the 3:d: and my opponent quickly checked. I checked back thinking that I was either ahead of him with my good ace high or that he was not going to fold out a better hand. The river came the T:h: completing the front door flush and without much though the villain checked again. At this point I was a bit torn. I knew that I could have the best hand a lot of the time but did not want to showdown ace high just in case my opponent had some stupid holding like A3, 66, a T etc. I thought that this card was such a good river for my flop call, check turn, bet river range that I could get almost everything from the villain to fold. So I decided to bet half pot, $800, giving myself a good price on my bluff. My opponent looked visibly pained and after about a minute or two looked seriously like he was going to fold. But then he took another minute—then another. I could see things working through his head. After about another three minutes of deliberation he quietly told the dealer all-in which was another $2600 on top. This was something that I was never expecting. It seemed so odd to me that my opponent would ever have what he was representing. Remember, I had the A:h: in my hand so this guy was trying to tell me the story that he had KK, TT or 66. None of these hands made sense to me based about the betting patterns of the hand and more importantly his pacing. If he had had TT he would have had to Cbet into 3 other people on a king high board and then check without much thought on the river. Even if he was the best poker actor in the world I found it hard to believe that he would do so with such pacing when he rivered what would be perceived as a nut hand. The same thing could be said for KK or quad 66s.The problem was, for me however, the strength of my hand, which now turned from a bluff to a bluff catcher. If this guy was doing some kamikaze play with a pair, say 77 or a T or even a K that he thought was not good-- I lose. And of course there was an outside chance he actually did have a strong hand, even though I thought it was unlikely. So as much as I thought that he was bluffing I concluded that my hand was not strong enough to bluff catch and finally folded. My opponent then triumphantly tabled ATos for a pair of Ts, apparently thinking that he was using his blocker as a fullhouse bluff. Little did he know that he had the best hand and that if I was considering calling him with AQ high that there was no way in the world that I was ever folding a flush or even a hand like KTs. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-check-raisehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-check-raiseSun, 30 Oct 2016 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-check-raiseA check raise for value on the river is a tricky play—use it wisely.Before I get into an interesting hand that I played at the Commerce $5-$10NL $500-$1500 buy in game I want all of you lower stakes players to understand that usually betting your very strong hand for value from out of position, when you have had the betting lead for the entire hand, is the right play. The players that you are typically up against check back far too much to get tricky with a strong value hand and it becomes a disaster if they do not bet in position when they would have called a large bet. However, for you mid to high stakes players, and even sometimes at the low stakes there are certain times when we can implement this technique of checking to go for a check raise.About two weeks ago, I played such a hand. We were seven handed and I raised A:c: 6:c: from UTG +1. A player who usually plays lower stakes called me from the button, about $3000 effective. He had moved up to playing $5-$10 this day because he was losing heavily at the $5-$5 game and was slightly tilted. He is a moody player and has played both overly aggressive and weak tight in the past. He was up about $1500 in the $5-$10 game since he had sat down.The flop came out A:s: 6:h: 7:d:, giving me top and bottom pair. I bet $45 into a pot of about $75, trying to encourage him to call with weaker holdings. He obliged rather quickly and we moved to the turn, which was the 4:s:. At this point I thought that he was not going to continue floating me with air, but if he had pieced off with a seven or a six, that he very well may have picked up a straight draw to go along with it. I also thought that he was never going to fold an ace on this street so I decided to go larger now, and bet $130. He took a bit of time with it and called again. Now the pot was $425 and the river fell the A:h:, giving me aces full of sixes. My initial impulse was to come out and bet large but I took a step back and analyzed the situation. No limit Holdem is all about playing off of your opponents’ range, it is less about playing off your own cards. I thought back to all of the streets and realized that he would arrive at the river with three types of hands.The first would be a weaker ace. One that I thought he would surely value bet at the end. You see, most other players would never make trips as top pair and check to their opponent so if he had a hand like AT or A9 he would not be scared and would bet with a high frequency. He was also a typical lower stakes player that was unable to fold hands that he thought were strong. So I seriously doubted that he would release if I check raised. So checking and having him bet say $250, only for me to raise to $750 would get me a lot more value then coming out and even betting as large as the size of the pot. The second category of hand that we could arrive at the river with was a bluff. A hand that was a straight draw on the flop that may have turned a flush draw or if he continued to be stubborn with an open ended full eight out draw from the flop. For the same reasons why I think that most of his opponents would bet an ace on the river, I think that he would now bluff a busted draw because he would so rarely see someone check a strong hand at the end. And the third hand that he may show up with on the river was a middling pair hand that picked up more outs on the turn. I was not really targeting this hand, as I knew this type of holding would not call a bet on the river.So to me, I thought that the obvious play was to check. I would get more value from an ace, in the best case scenario a slowplayed hand like a turned straight or set that now boated up for a full house or I could induce a bluff.Again, I want to stress to you lower stakes players to use this play very sparingly. I have actually seen players check back weak trip aces at the end versus a preflop raiser scared that they would be out kicked. These types of players are subconsciously patching their “leak” of not being able to bet and then fold so they check back strong hands so that they can GET TO SHOWDOWN. This type of river play is actually more powerful when a card like a T, J or Q pair as top pair at the end and we check trips with an ace kicker or a bottom’s full type of hand. Our opponents are way more likely to bet trips all of the time as they think that they may get looked up by AA-QQ. Unfortunately for me, in this particular scenario my opponent checked back rather quickly, and made it quite obvious that he did not have an ace. I am still happy with my 5th street play, however, as I think that I made the right decision. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/4-flush-boardshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/4-flush-boardsSun, 18 Sep 2016 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/4-flush-boards4 flush runouts in NL Holdem cause interesting “unique” un-bluffable scenariosOne of the more interesting and “absolute” situations in Holdem is boards that contain a four flush, that are unpaired. Unlike other runouts, it is easy for someone to hold the absolute nuts as it only requires a single card from the deck as opposed to a combination of two cards. Because of this it makes a particular situation “un-bluffable” by a player and should cause someone to only call a raise or reraise with the “nut” flush if there is any possibility of a straight flush.For the purpose of clarity when I mention “nut flush” in this article I am talking about the highest ranked flush, like an ace high flush, or a king high flush, when an ace is present on the board. Even though this technically might not be the “nut flush” if a straight flush is present that is how most people for the most part use the term. A few days ago I played a very interesting hand at the Bicycle Casino’s Legends of Poker Main event that demonstrates what I am talking about. With the blinds 250-500-75 I had about a 65k stack. It got folded around to me on the button and I raised A:s: 9:c: to1300. Both blinds, sitting each with about 25k, called. The flop came out K:s: Q:s: 7:s: and both players checked to me. In retrospect, I think that I should bet here a lot of the time as I rarely will get check raised unless somewhat flopped a flush. I think pocket kings and queens always rereaise preflop and with a decent frequency so does KQ. So unlike a board that comes out say 4:s: 5:s: 6:s: , where I might not get a lot of fold equity when I make a continuation bet, this board is actually rather ripe for it. This time, however, I decided to check back the flop and add a little bit of deception to my nut flush draw. The turn brought out the beautiful J:s: giving me the one card “nut flush”. Both players checked to me again and I decided to bet super tiny, $1200, to make it look like I was bluffing at the pot. Much to my surprise, both of my opponents called. The river rolled off a 5th spade and the final board looked like K:s: Q:s: 7:s: J:s: 6:s:. Now anyone with a spade lower than the 6:s: played the board. Both players checked to me again and this time I bet small again, $2200. Unbelievably the small blind thought about it and raised me to $8200!! The big blinded folded and the action was back to me. On this particular board there are two combinations of straight flushes, A:s: T:s: and 9:s: T:s:. Because I held the A:s: in my hand that combo was impossible so the only hand that I could lose to was the 9:s: T:s:. That however does not mean that I should rereaise this bet, however. You see, in this unique situation in Holdem where I could easily hold the one card nut with the A:s:, it is basically impossible that someone would ever raise for value with a worse hand, say the second nut T:s:, AND call a reraise. And that is the case simply because if the player with the T:s: does not have the A:s:, I can. In my exact position, my play of reraising his check raise, in essence, can never be a bluff in the absolute sense, because if I don’t hold at least the A:s: my opponent can. So no matter how unlikely it is for him to have 9:s: T:s: I absolutely cannot reraise his check raise as he will never call me with a worse hand. I ended up thinking for a bit, and said “well I don’t have the 9:s: in my hand, I just call”. He then sheepishly turned over 3:c: 3:s: to play the board. As you can see this is much different than any other board where people can have different strengths of full houses, quads, or higher flushes where they have to use both cards in their hand. This situation is the only one in holdem where it is easy for a player to have the absolute nuts, because they only have to hold one specific card. And because of the ease of this situation it is impossible for another player to reraise a raise as a bluff because they simply do not hold that card. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pot-controlhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pot-controlSun, 04 Sep 2016 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pot-controlThere are certain situations to pot control Pot control is really overrated in live low and mid-stakes no limit games. However, in the past, players used to wrongly implement the concept all of the time. I remember about six to eight years ago pot control was absolutely rampant in NL cash games. Commonly you would see players check back the turn with overpairs simply because they did not know what they were going to do if they were raised. This did not make a lot of logical sense, however, as the frequency of a check raise bluff, especially in three and four bet pots was extremely low. But people believed the old adage that you did not want to play a big pot with one pair. In reality the times to correctly pot control are rare and the game has evolved over the past few years where rarely will you see it implemented. However if you are up against an opponent that is capable of blowing you off of your hand with a draw or bluff and is also balanced enough to play big pots with strong hands occasionally you are forced to do things to manage the size of the pot.One such situation happened to me in the $5-10 NL game at the Commerce game last week. In this particular game starting stacks are capped at $1500 but often times players will get very deep. In this spot I was actually $4000 deep with the villain. And this particular villain has had a lot of experience playing larger games and tough competition and he recognizes that in order to win a big pot you must build a big pot. He is also capable of running large bluffs but plays very tight preflop. He has the ultimate “TAG” style. In this particular hand I opened to $35 Under the Gun with Q:c: Q:s:. The villain called in MP1 and we went heads up. The flop came out J:s: 7:d: 4:s: and I made a $50 continuation bet. My opponent called rather quickly. The turn brought the 3:d: putting out a backdoor flush draw. In most cases at this level I would simply bet again from out of position to continued to get value from a jack or a flush draw. I would revaluate the situation if I was raised. But against this particular opponent I knew that he was capable of not only raising the turn with a draw but also raising it with the actual nuts –56. He is ALSO good enough to turn some sort of hand that was marginal on the flop onto a bluff, knowing that he doesn’t have the best hand, like 67. This balanced range is extremely rare at this level but it forced me to check in order to manage the pot size. I simply could not call a big raise because I knew that my opponent would know exactly where I was at and would have position on the river. So, I decided to check. He bet $120, and I called. The river was the 3:s: and it completed the front door flush. I checked again and to my surprise my opponent quickly checked behind. I tabled my queens expecting to win and he turned over 5:d: 6:d: for the turned nuts with a flush draw!!I actually think that he made a mistake by not value betting the river, although I am not sure that I would have called with the QQ. However, you can see that I definitely would have been raised on the turn and would have been put in a difficult, precarious spot. So by checking I actually made the hand easier for me to get to a showdown. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/discussion-of-the-main-eventhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/discussion-of-the-main-eventSun, 07 Aug 2016 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/discussion-of-the-main-eventDiscussion of the Main Event at the 2016 WSOP Most of the time when I write this Crush Live Poker column I speak about strategy in cash games. However, in this issue, since I just got back from the WSOP, I want to discuss the Main Event and a few different tournament hands.The Main Event is a very special tournament as the moving average beyond Day 2 is usually at least 80 big blinds and the levels are two hours long. One of the more common mistakes that I see new players make in the tournament is to panic after they lose a few hands. This year players started with $50K in chips, which constituted a 5x stack. I overheard players after Day 1 complaining that they only had a starting stack going into Day 2 and that they were “going to have to get lucky” in order to advance. This could not have been further from the truth. What they did not realize was that the blinds in the first level of Day 2 were 300-600 and a $50k stack was over 80 big blinds—a deeper stack than all other tournaments at the WSOP (plus the two hour levels). One of the things that I tell my CLP students playing the Main Event for the first time is that in the Main Event there is a lot of luck in table draw. I have had some very good tables in past years with bad players and I have had some very bad tables in past years with tough players. I truly believe that the Main Event is all about managing these different situations and paying attention to your position. The tournament moves so slowly you can really play tight and hunker down when playing against good competition. And you must identify when you are at a table where it is easy to accumulate chips and pounce. Unfortunately for me, this summer, my table draw was pretty bad on day 1. It was not the worst that I have ever had but it was very difficult to accumulate chips. It seemed like every player was at least competent at the table and there was not any easy pots that were won. This was very frustrating as I saw around me what I thought to be a lot of soft tables filled with bad players. I also heard several stories on Twitter about players who were bought in by their boyfriends/girlfriends as a present, and were just dumping chips or guys that had never played poker before in their lives. In the past at tough tables I actually made it through Day 1 with a decent amount of chips. But this year this just was not the case. Day 1 went really bad and I had to go into Day 2 with 27K chips.However, I had played this event at least eight times before and knew that I was not desperate. In fact with the blinds starting at 300-600 I had over 40bbs. I did my research the evening before and was excited to find that my table was filled with almost entirely unknowns. These were guys that did not have more than say $30K in live tournament winnings according to their Hendon Mob indexes so I was very optimistic starting the day. However I ran into two hands that caused me a few problems. The first came from a MP1 raiser who only had about 17K in chips. He was a middle-aged guy, and with his stack I did not expect him to be opening that light. He raised to $1500 and it was folded to me in the big blind. I looked down at A:s: 8:s: and I called. The flop came out 9:s: 9:h: 8:h: and I checked. This situation really put me into a quandary. As a cash game player I am not use to raising to “protect my hand”. However in this case I felt extremely handcuffed when the preflop raiser bet only $1500 on the flop. You see at this point if I was to call the pot would be over $7k and my opponent would not have much money left. I was also extremely vulnerable to almost half of the deck in the form of overcards and if I had really thought about the situation I think a check raise to $4500 was in order, and then a fold if he reraised. Instead, I just called. The turn was the 7:s:, I checked again and this time my opponent moved all-in. This bet really put pressure on me and even though I could have had the best hand I just felt that my equity versus a range of overpairs or big semi bluffs was just not great so I folded. It seems like I actually saved chips by not check raising the flop but in retrospect I really do think that that is the right play no matter how foreign the idea is to me in a cash game. By losing this pot I dripped down to about $19k and then got involve with this next ridiculous spot. The hand itself is not all that complex because of the short effective stacks but I want you all to pretend that we were deep, and had over $75K effective to start the hand. In this spot the villain, a younger looking guy, limped in MP1 with about a 15K stack. It got folded around to me in the small blind and with the $100 antes and the dead money in the pot I was getting about 8 to 1 to complete the small blind. I looked down at J4os, and came close to not completing but thought the jack had enough high card value so I called. The big blind checked and we saw a flop of K:h: J:d: 7:c:. I checked, the big blind checked and the Mp1 limper also checked. The turn was the J:h: putting a backdoor flush draw on board and giving me trips. I bet $1100, the big blind folded and the MP1 called. At this point I thought that he could have hand a number of hands like a flush draw, maybe a king or to a lesser extent a jack. The only card I really did not want to see on the river was a heart. At the end the 4:d: rolled off giving me a full house. This time I bet $2200 and very quickly my opponent moved all-in. Obviously I snap called as I had jacks full of 4s and said “I hope you have 7s full” but instead heard that he had “jacks full” and my opponent tabled KJ.The reason why I think that this hand is so interesting however is I am not sure what I would have done if we did have 75K to start the hand. In a cash game this river is the definition of a 3 bet on the river, most likely to a large size and then a fold to an all-in. However, in a tournament I think that there are a lot of inexperienced players that might think that 77 would be the stone cold nuts and reraise back all-in. It seems crazy but I would not want to fold to one of these guys. But, if I would be wrong I would be out of the tournament. So in the case I think a call is more prudent even though I absolutely never expect my opponent to ever raise with a hand for value on the river and then fold to a reraise. And I am talking about with 77 or even a hand like AJ that he thought was slowplaying. I think if I did three bet the river in a tournament I would have to fold to a shove but it would be a disaster if I was forced to fold the best hand. It’s a very interesting dilemma and demonstrates how survival in a tournament is sometimes more important than extracting maximum value. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raises-to-overbetshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raises-to-overbetsSun, 15 May 2016 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raises-to-overbetsRaises to overbets are rarely bluffs If you have read my articles here before you know that I have strong opinions regarding late street raises, especially on the river. The simple fact of the matter is that these aggressive actions are almost never bluffs at the mid to low stakes of live No Limit holdem. People often ask me if I ever feel personally exploited at the table because I have made my feelings about bet folding for value so strong. These people wonder if I am actually getting bluffed a lot because of my idea that turn and river raises from your opponents are almost never bluffs. My response is simple. I do not fold all the time. The line that my opponent takes has to make sense in order for me to fold. I have certainly picked off some bluffs over the last few years on later streets because my opponents line does not tell a story.However, even when your opponents line does not seem all that viable you really have to take a step back if you face aggression versus a pot size or overbet that you make on a later street. I have a perfect example of this and it came from a $5/$10 NL game that I played a few days ago.The villain in the hand was a Middle Eastern, late 50s to early 60s recreational player. I had played with him a few times before and he certainly was not a high level thinker. He also had a bit of a tilting streak in him that made him sometimes do some whacky things. He sat with $1150 to start the hand and I had him covered. A very fishy older gentlemen with about an $800 stack limped in under the gun and I decided to isolation raise to $40 in the cutoff with K:s: 8:s:. The button three bet me to $80, almost a mini-raise. Everyone folded, including the limper and getting pot odds I decided to call.The flop came out Q:s: 6:c: 8:c: giving me middle pair. I checked, first to act and my opponent did not take long and checked behind. At this point with the preflop and flop action I thought that there was a very good chance that the button had AK, or possibly pocket nines or tens. The turn was the 4:s: giving me a flush draw now to go along with my pair. Here, I decided to bet small to target AK and lead for $100. The button thought about it for a moment and called. The river rolled off the K:h:, which I found extremely interesting as it gave me kings up. At this point I thought that it would be unlikely that the button would call another bet with TT or 99 so I really wanted to go for the gold and target AK. So with the pot being $380 I decided to overbet $450. The button thought for about 20 seconds and then announced “all-in”.This action on the river was absolutely shocking. When I went back, looked at the board and remember the action the hand just did not make any sense. I tried to think of the “monsters” that he might slowplay here. QQ as top set just wasn’t congruent. First of all, people usually don’t just min raise QQ preflop because they want to protect against over cards. And even if he did take that sizing it would be unlikely that he would check back the flop on such a wet board. But even if he were to check back the flop with top set he would then have to just call the turn, with two flush draws appearing and a straight draw. I thought that this was next to impossible. I went through all of the other hands he may have overplayed at the end like AA, KK, AK, KQ and none made any sense. Those hands would not check back the flop, call the turn AND raise all-in on the river.At the end the pot was laying me over 3.5-1 and I could not think of a hand that was logically played in this manner. However, sometimes you have to lean on your experience in spots like this and in the 10 years of playing and broadcasting professional poker I could not think of a single time where someone had bluff raised the river versus an overbet or overplayed a hand like those listed with this action. However, a lot of times if a hand makes no sense and I am getting pot odds I will just sort of close my eyes and call. And this is exactly what I did here. Unfortunately for me my opponent said “set” and tabled QQ. This leads to the main point of this tweet. Even If someone’s line does not make sense if you are dealing with raises to your overbets people seem to play “straight up” and their bluffing frequency is extremely low. In this case I probably should have leaned more on my live poker playing experience and the rarity of the situation as opposed to fall back on what was logical hand reading. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/you-may-be-overplaying-your-handhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/you-may-be-overplaying-your-handSun, 01 May 2016 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/you-may-be-overplaying-your-handIf you get worried after being called when making a bet for value you may be overplaying your handThere are two major reasons to bet in No Limit Holdem--to get called by a worse hand (value) and to get a better hand to fold (bluff). As simple as these concepts seem a lot of inexperienced players constantly put themselves in way ahead way behind situations do to their overaggressive action or their large bet sizing.I do a call-in show on my training site CrushLivePoker.com where listeners can discuss hands with me over the phone from their recent play. Many times the callers say something similar to “I bet big so that he knew I had something. Once I was called I knew I was beat”. This way have thinking is fundamentally flawed when choosing a correct bet sizing or action. You never want to bet or raise for information with regards to your opponents hand. You only want to get called by worse or get better to fold. If you make an action that does not achieve one of these two things chances are that particular action is not going to be the best play in that situation. I actually made a mistake similar to this in a recent hand that I played at the Commerce Casino’s $5-$10NL game last week. It was about 1am on a Saturday and the game was good. I had just moved over to the table and sat with $1400. The main villain in the hand had me covered and was a very good professional, someone that was capable of making big lay downs. A recreational loose player limped in under the gun and I raised to $40 from UTG1 with A:d: T:d:. Five players ended up calling including the villain in the cutoff. The flop came out A:s: T:h: 3:c: giving me top two pair.Obviously I was very happy with this flop as I thought I could get a lot of value from single paired aces so I bet $145. The villain in the cutoff called, which I was not thrilled about. This was not because I thought he had me beat but because I thought he would make the right decision in the rest of the hand and that I would be forced to play my hand rather “face up” because of the nature of the multiway field. It got folded back around to the limper, who started with $800, and he also called. This limper was a pretty poor player and because he was closing the flop action could have been calling rather wide. The turn brought in the 2:c: putting a backdoor flush draw out. The limper checked and this time I decided to bet $420. The villain called again, and at that point I knew that I had made a mistake. You see this villain was an extremely skilled player and I highly doubt that he would ever call my turn bet with a hand like AJ or AQ. His 3 betting percentage with AK is almost 100% versus me as well, so there really were not many worse hands that he could have called me with on the turn, with a third player in the pot that I beat for that bet sizing. Even though the pot had about $600 in it I really should have bet only about $250 as the limper only had $600 left in his stack. That way there the good player could possibly call again with just an ace. But when I bombed the turn, even with top two pair, at that moment I knew that the good player had a set or had made a straight. The action got back around to the limper who moved all-in for $600 total, not reopening the action (Commerce 100% rule). I, of course completed the bet, as did the villain in position. The river rolled off the beautiful A:c: and with about $750 left in my stack I moved all-in. The villain in the hand tanked forever and made an incredible laydown with 4:s: 5:s: saying that he thought at least one of us now either had backed into a flush or a full house. In fact, after the river the good player was in third place as the limper showed down 33. Usually I am good about choosing action and sizing that does not put me in a way ahead way behind situation but after the hand I realized how unnecessary the amount of the turn bet was, especially since the bad player I was targeting for value (limper) was short. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/equity-consideration-in-plohttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/equity-consideration-in-ploSun, 03 Apr 2016 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/equity-consideration-in-ploSometimes in PLO, even if you are ahead in equity vs top set with a monster draw it may be better to wait until the turn to get all of your money in and avoid the board pairing. To preface this section of this article, I have probably played 20 times more hours of live no limit holdem than I have of PLO. However, it seems that mid-stakes PLO is actually starting to become more popular and there are times when even good NL players should game select and choose a good PLO table over a bad NL game. My biggest gripe with live PLO, however, is that the game moves too slow. Especially if the table allows running the board more than once it seems like you get anywhere between 30-50% less hands per hour in PLO vs NL. That means that your $$ per hand must be considerably higher in PLO versus NL when comparing hourly rates.However, even in my limited experience, I still feel like I have a grasp over the game and overall the average recreational PLO player is much weaker than what is now the average NL recreational player. As a NL pro, I will certainly admit that PLO is much more complex than NL as you cannot just play a preflop starting chart at a certain number of big blinds from a given position to “break even”. As you transition from NL to PLO one of the first things that is glaringly obvious is that the variance is way higher than its two card counterpart. Even when you have the nuts on the flop, usually in the form of top set, you can certainly be a dog, and in most other cases you are only a slight favorite over a monster draw. One of the other things that is clear to an astute poker player is that most, non-advanced players in PLO, tend to play their hands “face up”, especially from out of position as new players quickly learn that it is basically suicide to slowplay and give away free cards. In PLO, the concept of denying your opponents the proper odds to call becomes paramount. This is much different than in NL. However, even with a big draw certain situations can become tricky. I played a hand last week at the Commerce casino that really demonstrates this concept. The game plays $5-$5 with a $500-$1500 buy-in with a mandatory “rock” straddle to the winner of each hand. In this particular hand I was the straddle under the gun and the player to my immediate left opened to $40. Three people called in the field and the big blind, who is the villain in this hand also called. I completed the action and called with A:h: 9:h: 8:h: 6:c: from the straddle. The flop game down T:h: 7:h: 3:c: giving me an absolute monster draw. The BB checked, and I bet $150 into the pre flop raiser as I new I was favored over basically every single hand. The pot got folded around to the villain the in the big blind who was a typical mid-stakes, face up, PLO player. We started the hand $2000 effective and he raised to $600. I immediately knew that he 100% hand pocket tens. At the time I did not know the exact equity but figured that I was a small favorite over top set. However, I knew that there was no way he would fold pocket tens so I decided just to call. Why?If I am a professional poker player am I not supposed to take any edge that comes my way? The answer to that question is yes, I am supposed to take this small edge but I can vastly increase my overall EV for the hand if I call and see a non board pairing turn, and call off again. You see if the board pairs, my equity goes down from about 52% to 0%, so why not wait and see if that happens?Again I am by no means an advanced PLO player, however, even if my opponent folds on a heart turn card to what amounts to a pot size all-in, (and we are not saying that he will always do this) the play here of waiting to increase your overall equity is more positive EV than the money lost from him check-folding. This is a concept I have read over many times in PLO books and here put to practice. The only time this would be the wrong play is if our opponent was capable of semi-bluffing worse draws and getting us off of the best hand on a board pairing turn or capable of raise-folding a hand for value on the flop, like middle or bottom set. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponent-must-be-on-a-drawhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponent-must-be-on-a-drawSun, 20 Mar 2016 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponent-must-be-on-a-drawWhen the pot is large and your opponent only calls a big bet or raise without much money behind there is a good chance he's on a draw. There are times, especially on the turn, where it becomes very obvious that your opponent must be on a draw. These situations normally occur when your opponent calls a big bet or raise without much money behind. Simple logic dictates that if he had a made hand that he would simply move all-in instead of just call. If you pay attention to spots like this you can pick up some great bluffing opportunities. I was involved with a hand last week at the Commerce Casino's $5-10NL game that was a great example of this concept. In retrospect I think I missed played the hand on earlier streets but was left with a river that I could not pass up in bluffing.The hand started out with a solid pro in the cutoff raising over the top of a loose limper to $45. A very splashy, aggressive recreational player called in the small blind and I looked down to see 5:h: 7:h: in the big blind with a $1900 stack. The small blind had me covered. I thought in this spot, as long as I could get through the original raiser that I could profitably three bet the hand to take it down a fair amount of the time. And even if the small blind called it would not be the end of the world so I reraised to $185. The limper folded, and unfortunately for me both the opener and the small blind called. The flop came out K:h: 6:d: 2:d: totally missing me. However, if I thought that the solid player in the cutoff may 4 bet AK with some frequency and does not call 3 bets with KQ, that king really shouldn't hit his range. And even if the small blind called me I could set up multiple barrels on turn cards that gave me additional equity or take a free card in position. Instead, in the heat of the moment, however, I thought that the prudent play would be to make a delayed continuation bet to see what the solid player did on the flop. If he bet I was just going to be done with it. However, the pot got checked around. The turn was the 8:h: giving me an open ended straight flush draw. The small blind led out for $375, and at this point I wanted to put maximum pressure on him. With about $1800 left in my stack I did not just want to move all-in as I thought that this would look too much like a draw. But I wanted to make it look like I was committing myself and protect against his draws. So I raised to $1200. The original raiser quickly folded behind but the small blind did something entirely unexpected. He thought for a long time, said "$1200"? And finally called!! At this point I just could not believe it. I mean I only had about $500 left in my stack and after his call the pot had over $3000 in it. If he thought I was on a draw and he had a king why would he not just move all-in right then and there? The only conclusion that I could make was that he must also be on a draw whether it was front door diamonds or back door hearts too, most likely with a pair or straight draw to go along it. The river rolled off a meaningless T:c:, and the SB quickly checked. Obviously with 7 high I had no showdown so with about $500 left in my stack I moved all-in to the $3000 pot. The math on this bluff, by the way is pretty easy to figure out. All you have to do is add your bet size to the pot and reduce the fraction. Here it would be $500/ $500+$3000 or 1/7. So as long as our bluff works 1 out of 7 times with this pot and bet sizing it is profitable. Anyway, the small blind cursed his luck, showed the nut flush diamond draw and quickly folded. The interesting thing about situations like this is that sometimes you may even share the same draw as your opponent and might not want it to come. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/ace-hi-at-showdownhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/ace-hi-at-showdownSun, 06 Mar 2016 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/ace-hi-at-showdownYou’d be surprised how often ace hi can be good at showdown when your opponents line is polarized. Hand from $10k LAPC Main Event. If you have read some of my other CardPlayer articles over the past few years you know that I am often a fan of flat calling in cash games with AK or AQ preflop and continuing on, especially heads up if you miss the flop. When you have underrepresented your hand as the preflop field caller you will often continue to have the best hand versus your opponent even if you miss. Boards that are generally good for continuation bet bluffing such as 923 or TT2 nowadays will often be used as multi barrel boards—that is to say that if overcards come and your opponent is bluffing they will continue to bluff fitting into your hand.The same type of thing can apply to tournaments but the situations can be more extreme. Playing against aggressive, good tournament players will often be difficult as rampant squeezing and three-bet bluffing is very common. A few weeks ago I played the following hand at the $10k LAPC ME.It was early on in the tournament, level 2 to be exact and we were pre ante. My table was difficult and I had a very good, aggressive player to my left. I could already tell that he was going to give me fits preflop and that I was going to have a hard time flat calling other players’ raises to due his high squeezing frequency. However, in the particular hand, I had the button, and he was in the small blind. With blinds of 75-150 and about a 29k effective stack the action was folded around to me and I raised to 425 with A:d: T:h:. The SB did not take too long and three bet me to 1100. The big blind quickly folded and the action was back to me. A lot of times with shorter effective stacks in a tournament this becomes a pretty easy four bet as a bluff or fold preflop. But with deeper stacks and having position I thought that I had some maneuverability, however. I also thought that AT was far the best hand preflop but knew that my opponent maybe capable of five bet bluffing me off of it so I decided to call. I also had a lot of confidence in my post flop ability and hand reading and was willing to continue on with just ace hi for multiple streets if I missed.The flop came out Q:s: 8:h: 2:c: and my opponent quickly fired 1200, a fairly standard sized continuation bet. I quickly thought that if my opponent held a hand like any pocket pair below a queen there was a very good chance that he would have checked for pot control or to induce a bluff. So his bet really represented a Q+ or no pair. And a lot of times a hand like AK will check and use that hand as a bluff catcher. Obviously my opponent could have had a hand like AQ but the ace in my hand cut down on some of the combinations of those. For those reasons I decided to call. The turn was interesting in that it paired the 8 and also put a backdoor club draw on board. This time my opponent chose a larger sizing (in relation to the pot size) and bet 2800. At this point I thought that this bet was incredibly polarizing (very strong or very weak). If he had followed up with a small continuation bet with a pair smaller than a queen on the flop there was no way that he was firing for this sizing on the turn. It was difficult, however, as I knew my opponent was a decent 10-20NL cash game player and was capable of continuing to bet for value with a hand like AA, KK or AQ. I was quick to check the suit of my ace however, to look and see if I blocked the nut flush draw. You see, if I did not block the nut flush draw there would be the possibility that he would continue to double barrel with clubs as a semi bluff. Since I did not have a club this helped me to call again and to play what I like to call “Fifth Street Chicken”.Fifth Street Chicken is a term that I made up for my training site CrushLivePoker.com and it refers to making it look like you are going to call on the river when nothing changes by calling a big bet on the turn. One of the things that I have noticed in tournaments is even with good, aggressive tourney pros, they realize that if the board does not significantly change (like an over card coming) their opponent will rarely fold. So this we can use to our advantage. We can call on the turn with a medium strength hand with the full intention of folding to further betting action on the river if the board does not change. That is because our opponent’s bluffing frequency decreases.So the river rolled off what appeared to be a harmless 3:h:. The SB took a long time and checked. Now, remember this was early on in level two of the LAPC and I had already committed 4000 to the hand--almost one sixth of my stack. This is such a different scenario than in a cash game where if you bluff and are wrong you can just rebuy and add to your stack. Also if I lose more with a bet I am at a much more of a disadvantage because I would physically have fewer chips. I was really torn though, because I did not want to lose to a random hand like A3 or some sort of small pair that was running a two street bluff and then gave up. Because the flop did not contain any type of draw within it in retrospect if I bet the river it is very very difficult for my opponent to check call with anything that is medium strength unless he thought I was playing a two street float to bluff the river (something rarely done) or turning an ace hi hand into a bluff (also something that is rarely done). I also thought that it would be very unfortunate if I lost to a hand like AK or AJ, but I ran through the hand backwards and realized that the frequency of those two hands betting over two streets is rather unlikely. Finally I decided to check back my AT and was good as my opponent tabled KJos.The river here is really close and a case can be made that it could be slightly more EV to bet as a bluff as opposed to check. If that is the case then betting in a cash game has to be the right play. However in a tournament, when your chips are so valuable we always don’t take the smallest of edges in order to preserve our stack. The point here, however, is that I had no difficulty going to showdown through calling multiple bets post flop with ace hi because I knew that there was a very good chance given the action that my hand was still best. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/play-a-hand-with-me-25-50-100https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/play-a-hand-with-me-25-50-100Sun, 07 Feb 2016 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/play-a-hand-with-me-25-50-100Play a hand with me; $25-$50-$100 vs JC Tran. Poker Night in America cash game. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to play on Poker Night in America’s cash game, from the Thunder Valley Casino outside of Sacramento. This is my second time playing on Poker Night but this game was surely going to play bigger than normal as Chamath Palihapitiya and Jason Calacanis were going to be in the game for at least part of the weekend. Normally Poker Night in America plays as a $25-$50 game, but this particular table was straddling at least $100 each hand and sometimes was straddling up to $400.Usually, I am not a big fan of “advertising” plays and in fact I think that “advertising” is commonly an excuse for bad play. The simple fact of the matter is that people do not pay attention enough in live poker where making plays that are very –EV for future metagame become + EV. Also a lot of players never adjust their strategy to different player types so playing a loose or tight style is irrelevant to them--when they have a hand that they do not want to fold. However, there certainly are some types of games where giving action will get you invited back to the game such as a home game. Also making plays, gambling and giving action is certainly good for television. There are many talkative personality types like Phil Hellmuth that are great for televised poker. Unfortunately for me I am not one to talk it up all that much at the poker table. I usually am rather quiet at a game so I thought that I actually needed to open my style up on the show to be a bit more entertaining. This, I figured, would make for a better show and get me invited back to be in what is almost always profitable, huge, live NL games, something that rarely exists in today’s casino poker world. So, I played some floats and some reverse floats, five bet bluffed K:h:9:h: one time and overall tried to wreak a bit of havoc on my opponents especially Phil Hellmuth. But there was a spot towards the end of Day 3 that let me get into a super interesting situation versus JC Tran. A lot of the fireworks had already gone on over the weekend. Both the big time venture capitalists had played on Saturday, and since there were several people still in the Poker Night in America tournament series, Sunday was played short handed. One of the new players coming into the game was long time tournament pro, JC Tran. Personally I had never played with JC in a cash game before and during one of the first hands of the day he told everyone that this was the first time that he had played NL cash in years. There were two things I quickly noticed about his style. Firstly he was the type that made a continuation bet after being the preflop raiser with almost 100% frequency. And second, which will come up in the hand we are about to analyze he never fired a third barrel as a bluff. JC started the game running incredibly well. He was probably up around $20k when we went to dinner break after the first four hours of the show. Me, on the other hand, I was just about break even, pretty much mirroring the entire weekend of my results. However, after about an hour after the dinner break JC started running badly. He probably had lost all of his winnings from the earlier session and it appeared that he started to make some more call downs and was wrong. However, even though he was playing a lot of hands he still was not firing three barrels as a bluff. Empirical evidence of this was a hand where he opened from the button and I called in the big blind with J:s: T:s:. David Baker called is the $100 straddle and we went to the flop three ways. The flop game out 9:s: 5:s: 2:c: giving me a flush draw. I checked, Baker checked, and much like JC had been doing the entire day he bet out $525 into $900. I made the call and Baker got out of the way. The turn was the T:h: giving me top pair to go along with my flush draw. I checked again, and this time JC bet $1200. This bet was a bit concerning for me because the T is not the best double barrel card as a bluff. It was possible that JC might have picked up some backdoor equity with a hand like KQ. But because I had a pair I felt like I did not need to semi-bluff, so I just called. The river was the 3:d: and I quickly checked. JC did not take too much time with it and checked behind, I tabled my hand and was good. The interesting part of this hand, however, is that if JC had fired another barrel, I very likely would have folded, as he was not caught bluffing a single time throughout the day. Of course he did not know that I was capable of folding a hand as strong as top pair, so obviously this worked to my advantage. If you are a subscriber to my live cash game training site, CrushLivePoker.com you know that I think the old poker adage of “You have to call the river if you called the turn and nothing changes” is total BS. In big bet poker the fact that your opponent bet again on the river is change enough for you to fold to a final bet if you think you are beat. And we can examine a game like NL 2-7, where most of the decisions are made based upon betting patterns, as evidence of this. So about three hours into the second part of Day 3 I had the opportunity to use all of the information that I had noticed about JC. In this spot, he was in the BB and the straddle was on to $100. I decided to open 56os from what effectively was the cutoff to $300, 5 handed. It got back around to him and he, only called. Obviously this was a very light open but as I explained before I had my reasons for doing this on Poker Night In America. So, headsup we saw the flop come down A:c: Q:c: Q:s:. JC checked, and I bet $375, thinking that this was a great spot to continuation bet bluff. Much to my surprise, JC then check raised to $800. If this had not been a televised game and I wanted to show a bit of action I very well may have just folded on the flop. However, here I looked at this as an opportunity. I was absolutely, 100% sure that JC would never check raise the flop with just an A. I also thought that this was a good board for him to stab at a bluff or make a semi bluff with a flush draw. Also, of course, he could have a Q. So in this case I certainly thought that his range was polarized. My actual hand did not really matter, although I would have preferred to have some equity. I thought that this became a good spot to “float” against a polarized range, especially versus someone that would not continue their bluff on the river. So, I called, basically with no chance to make the best hand. My plan on the turn was to evaluate, if he bet again, and possibly call to set up a river bluff if checked to. If JC fired a third barrel it would be a simple fold, as I would think that he must have a queen. The turn actually paired me up however, as it was the 5:h:, and JC fired $1400. In theory the turn was entirely inconsequential given my plan for the hand but in reality in the heat of the moment it made it easier to continue with my float with air so I called again. The river was super interesting in that the A:h: fell, counterfeiting my two pair. The final board read A:c: Q:c: Q:s: 5:d: A:h:. JC quickly checked giving me the green light to bluff and I bet a small amount, about $1800, causing him to quickly fold. Later I learned that he had J:c: T:c: for a huge combo draw.There was a very thin line here between looking like a genius and looking very stupid and I am glad that this time he did not have a queen. However I think that my logic was sound in the fact that if he was never going to bluff the river after I called flop and turn, then my calls become profitable if I can simply bet when checked to on 5th street to take down the pot. You can view this hand on Poker Night in America’s Twitch channel, from Thunder Valley and I will definitely be examining it on one of my training videos over at CrushLivePoker.com.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/poker-stove-in-your-headhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/poker-stove-in-your-headSun, 27 Dec 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/poker-stove-in-your-headPoker Stove in your headRecently, over the last few months at my live training site, CrushLivePoker.com, we have been dealing heavily with the math of combinations and quick ways that we can calculate our hand’s equity in your head. Fortunately for me, I have always had the luxury of being able to do simple arithmetic quickly. Often times people are intimidated by percentages not realizing that finding 30% of 150 is as simple as multiplying 15 by 3.PokerStove has been a very valuable tool over the last ten years as an aide in evaluating equity in ranges. But PokerStove is not a magical thing--all it does is take a weighted average of hands in a range—something that you can do in an approximate fashion if you understand combinations work and how to figure out averaging. Most importantly this math in our head is done in an approximate fashion using the rounding of numbers.Firstly, let us go over the simple formula of finding mean or an average. This is perhaps one of the simplest concepts in the math we use in poker. Average= (S/N) where S is the sum of the numbers in a set and N is the number of terms. So if we want to find the average of 50, 30 and 10 we simply add the numbers together (50+30+10=90) and divide by 3, the number of terms. In this case we get 30.Another element in this process of doing “Stove in our head” is learning the shortcut for equities of a hand based upon outs. Simply, if you are all-in on the flop (2 cards to be seen) you take the number of outs and multiple by 4. If you are all-in on the turn, (with one card to come) you multiple the outs by 2. So for example, if you are facing a hand that has 15 outs against you on the flop we simply multiply 15 by 4 to get 60%. That is your opponent’s equity versus our own hand. Let us say we are up against a set. We have two outs two improve our hand and our equity is 8%. So let us say that we are up against an all-in on the flop and we think that our opponent has either a 15 out draw or a set. That would mean against the 15 out draw we would have 40% equity and against the set we have 8%. So we can simply average the two, right, to get our equity needed? Wrong!! When we are evaluating a weighted average we must take into consideration the different amount of combinations a certain hand may have. I always had difficulty with this until I learned a very simple technique form one of my subscribers. Firstly let us start with the number of combinations of a single unpaired hand you can be dealt. There are four suits of each ranking so the total number of holdings whether it is AK or 23os is 4x4=16, 12 of which are unsuited and 4 are suited. I never had trouble with this concept but always was confused because of board considerations like trying to evaluate the combinations left of AK on an A87 board. But it really is not difficult. Because one of the aces is accounted for there are three aces left and four kings. All we need to do is multiply four times three and we get the correct answer, which is twelve. What if we held AK on an A87 board and we are trying to figure out how many other combos of AK there were? Well, now two aces remain and three kings for a total of 6 combinations. Let us say that we have AA and the board is J:d: T:h: 2:c:. How many combinations of JT are possible? Well, there would be 9 as there are three of each card left. However many times with ragged connected cards people only play them if they are suited, like say 67s. So in that case you have to look at the distribution of suits on the board. If the board is 6:c: 7:c: J:h: there are three combinations of 67 suited. If the board is rainbow then there are only two combinations of 67 suited. There are 6 combos of a way to be dealt a pair and if one card is on board 3 combinations of sets. So if you were trying to count the combinations of sets on a 973 board, for each set there are three combos so here we would be 9 combinations of sets. Let us look at a common situation. We hold an overpair and we get a lot of heat in the form of a check raise all-in on a board of J:c: 6:d: 7:c:. We think that our opponent has squarely a 15 out draw (60% equity) or a set (92% equity). How would we do this “stove in our head” situation? Firstly we need to count the combinations of each holding. On this particular board there are 3 15 out combinations in the form of 8:c:9:c:, 5:c:4:c: and 9:c:6:c:. There are 9 combos of sets. One of the things that can make it very easy for us when we are trying to do this quick math in our head is that we can reduce the combos. Here we have a 9 to 3 ratio of sets to draws so instead of evaluating 12 different terms we can actually reduce this down to 3 to 1 and evaluate 4 terms. This makes it much easier when doing the math in real time. SO here we would add (8+8+8+40)/4 = 16% equity. One of the things that people do not realize is that there are usually many more combinations of made hands than there are draws. In the previous example we did not even account for the three combos of 67 suited that our opponent had. But the point is if you want to do evaluate equity in an accurate way you have to understand this combinations work. Let’s take a look at another example. Lets say we have 7:s: 8:s: on a board of 8:h: 7:h: 2:c:. The action is such that we think we are up against a 15 out draw, a set or 2 pair.15 out draw ( 9:h:T:h:, 9:h: 6:h:, 5:h: 6:h:) = 50% w 3 combos 
2 pair (7:c: 8:c: and 7:d: 8:d:) =50% w 2 combos 

Now more complexly we have the 5 combos of sets. 

88= 0% equity (1 combo)
77= 8% equity (1 combo)
22= 16% equity (3 combos)

(16+16+16+8+0) / 5 = 11%

Now because we have 5 combos at 50% and 5 combos at 11% we can reduce the ratio down to 1:1 and simply average the two to evaluate our equity--(50+11)/2= 30.5%.Lastly let’s look at a common preflop scenario, especially in NL tournaments. When evaluating your equity with a medium pocket pair, like 88 or 99, IF we assume Villain ONLY puts it in with QQ+and AK we have 18 combos of overpairs to our hand (our equity 18%) and 16 combos of AK (our equity 54%). We could treat this as a 1 to 1 ratio and simply average the two numbers (18+54) /2 = 36 to get our equity ---

OR 

if we wanted to give the Villain a more conservative range we could say he only shoves 12 of the 16 combos of AK. That means he has 18 combos of (18%) and 12 combos of (.54%). SO how do we evaluate that? We reduce the ratio down to {3(18) + 2(54)} / 5 = 32.4%

The key is to sum the equities and divide by the reduced combos. This gives us our average equity. This is all that Poker Stove does. Its not magic, it's nothing special. But its good plan to learn the approximate equities of opposing hands vs your own. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/paying-attention-to-short-stackshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/paying-attention-to-short-stacksSun, 13 Dec 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/paying-attention-to-short-stacksPay attention to short stacks that you think may move all-in preflop so that you can size your raises accordingly, allowing you to force other out of the hand. In most card rooms, including where I play in Los Angeles, they use the 100% rule when determining whether or not the betting can be reopened. What this basically means is that if I raise in a $5-10 to $40 (a $30 raise) and a short stack moves all in for $70 or more when the action gets back to me I can then reraise versus anyone else in the hand. If he moves in for any less than $70 he has not completed the full raise of $30 (from $40 to $70) and the action is not reopened. It is very important to pay attention to the stack sizes of the short stackers especially if you want to drive others out of the hand. Last week, the following hand went down at the Commerce $5-$10 game. The short stack was in the big blind and started the hand with $350. The action was folded to me and I raised on the button to $30 with AQos. The small blind, who I was $1000 effective with, reraised me to $60 and the big blind called. The action got back around to me and I had a sense that if I again reraised and the small blind called the big blind would just put the rest of his money in. So I calculated how much to reraise the $60 to, so if the SB called and the big blind moved all-in I could then reraise and drive the SB out of the hand. This number was exactly $200 (a $140 reraise). Sure enough the small blind called and the big blind put in the rest of his money, which was $290 (a $150 raise). This then opened the action back up and I was able to move all-in putting maximum pressure on the small blind. He tanked for a long time and finally folded TT face up. The board ran out rags and I won the main pot with ace high vs the big blind's KJ. The small blind was not to pleased. If I had not been hyperaware of the stack sizes and had raised it to $210 instead of $200 the action would have been shut down as the big blind's raise would not have been a full 100% of the previous raise and I would have lost the pot!!Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leaving-a-good-gamehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leaving-a-good-gameSun, 29 Nov 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leaving-a-good-gameIf you want to maximize your hours sometimes you have to leave a good game. Recently on my training site, CrushLivePoker.com I set myself up with a playing challenge. I wanted to see what it was like to play a continuous full time poker schedule as I had not played "full time" in years do to my business and poker media ventures. So I set out on Oct 1st of 2015 to play 450 hours of live poker by the end of the year. At the time that I write this article I am about 300 hours into the challenge with one month left. The goal was to report back on some things that I had experienced and to inform people about what it takes to treat poker as a full time job. Besides the fact that you have the ability to play more patiently when grinding a lot of hours and not having to force things I was surprised to realize that it was hard to keep a regular schedule if I was always staying around when the game was good. In fact if I did not keep to a regular schedule I found it much harder to reach my goal hours for the week. Basically what happened in the first few weeks of the challenge is that I would stay in a good game late into the night. Then I would either not sleep well, or wake up late causing me to miss the entire next day. And what I found was that missing those hours the next day, even if the game wasn't as good as the late night game, cost me money. Let us say that in your game, on average you can make $40 per hour. In a very good game you can make $80 and in a bad game (which are rare) you only make $20 per hour. One day you decide to play an extra three hours in a game that you figure you can beat for $70 per hour. However staying this extra time causes you to miss the entire next day. So you make $210 on average in these extra three hours. But you miss out on the $320 that you would have made the next day. Do you see how sometimes leaving a good game is actually worth it for the sake of keeping a playing schedule?Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/forced-to-play-straightforwardhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/forced-to-play-straightforwardSun, 15 Nov 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/forced-to-play-straightforwardWhen playing deep and the pot is small sometimes you are forced to play your hand straight forward Occasionally, you get into a situation where your action is so strong it is almost impossible for you to be bluffing. This especially is the case when you are the preflop raiser and make a raise in a pot where there is a ragged, one card straight on board. The following hand went down last week at the Commerce Casino $5-10 game. The Villain in the hand was a total unknown to me. He had just come from a broken game, late on a Saturday night, with about $6500. I had had a nice session and had built my stack up from $1500 to about $3800. It got folded around to me in the cutoff and I raised to $35 with 8:c: 9:c:. Everyone folded except the Villain in the big blind. The flop ran out 4:c: 5:s: 6:s: giving me a gutshot straight draw and a backdoor flush draw. Surprisingly the Villain led out at the pot for $50. This is rare, as usually people will check to the raiser heads up even on ragged boards. I decided to call given our stack depth, position and the ability for me to represent the front door flush draw or over cards. A case probably could be made for raising as a semi bluff but I decided to take the less aggressive route. The turn card came off a magical 7:h: giving me the absolute nuts. Again the big blind bet out at me, this time for $100. So with the board looking like 4567 with two spades you can see what I mean by basically having to announce the fact that I had at least an 8. If he had a set or two pair it was unlikely that he would have folded anyway and this deep I absolutely needed to get more money in the pot against just a bare 8. Sometimes you have to get lucky that your opponent has something along with you. Now if my opponent had been bluffing when I raise he is very likely to fold. So we might not get a final bluff bet out of him on the river. But that really does not matter. It would be a disaster if our opponent checks a scare card like a spade at the end with an 8, where he either calls or even worse folds. So even though we have almost a nil bluffing range when we raise the turn on a 4567 board we still have to raise with this type of stack depth. I ended up making it $450, and unfortunately he folded. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-the-riverhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-the-riverSun, 01 Nov 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-the-riverYou should have a very good reason to go for a check raise on the river. A lot of players don’t value bet thinly and will check behind If you are familiar with some of my previous articles and my training material over at CrushLivePoker.com you know that in general I think that going for check raises on the river, especially at $5-$5 and below, is a bad play. However, like slowplaying, I think there are certain times where we can implement the concept for additional profit.

The following hand took place on a Wednesday afternoon. For some reason that day, the games were off of the hook at the Commerce $5-$10 tables. I arrived at noon to start the second game and by 3PM there were five games going, with multiple "casual" players spread around.In the hand the Villain was an unknown, mid 40s Middle Eastern player. He appeared to be playing rather snug, and bought in fully for $1500. I had an above average image and sat with $2200. The villain had $1700. The Villain limped in UTG, and three players limped behind. I had A:c: 9:c: and decided to check my option in the BB. The flop came out J:c: 7:c: 5:h: giving me the nut flush draw. I came out and bet $35. Only the UTG player called. The turn was the 9:d: giving me a pair. At this point I did not think that my opponent would ever fold a jack here so I looked at this as a sort of way ahead way behind spot. I also did not want to get raised off of my draw on the turn so I checked. Without too much thought the Villain checked behind. The river brought out the 8:c: giving me the nut flush and also putting a one liner to a straight on the board.Now normally I would just come out and bet my hand for value, as I never want my opponent to check behind on this river. However there is a very important hand-reading clue that gives us information in this hand—the action on the turn. You see, if my opponent had a jack I really think that he would have bet when checked to. When he checks back on the turn I think that that skews his hand more towards flush draws and possibly pair plus straight draws like 9T. If I come out and bet the river with the nut flush, I believe that he will just call with all of those hands. However, if I check my hand he will certainly value bet and I can put in a check raise. Now a case can be made, if my opponent is good enough that he may fold a strong hand to a check-raise and we may win more money by just coming out and betting. However, I have found that in live play opponents like this value you bet so infrequently on the river that when they are facing a raise they find it very difficult to fold. It is similar to the older player types that have trouble folding AA or KK post flop. They play so few hands that they just cannot find the fold button in the proper scenario. Sure enough, when I checked the river, my opponent bet $75. I decided to go for a bit of gold and raised it to $400. My opponent thought for some time and finally called and flashed a T for a straight. I was very happy with the way that I played the hand as if I had just come out and bet the river surely he would have just called with his T. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/thin-value-rangehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/thin-value-rangeSun, 18 Oct 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/thin-value-rangeSometimes, no matter how thin your opponents’ value range is they just have itOccasionally you will run into situations where your opponent is not representing very much, especially with the line that he has taken. A lot of online players that transition to live poker make the mistake of calling down far too much when their opponent has a thin “value” range. What they do not understand is that no matter how few combinations of value hands someone might have, frequently, especially when the pot gets large, their bluffing frequency is close to 0%. This trumps the fact that they are not representing all that much. I can draw a perfect example of this from a hand that I played at the Commerce $5-$10 NL game last week. It was about 2am in the morning and I had worked my stack up to $2600. My image was a little above average. The game was a bit wild and crazy and we decided to have a round of "blind raises" to $20 from under the gun, as at the $5-$10 game straddles are not allowed. It got folded to me in the cutoff and I opened A:d: A:s: to $70. A late twenties player, who seemed to play a bit questionably (I had seen him call off huge portions of his stack with what appeared to be draws and then folded), called with $800 on the button and the guy in the blind raise spot, a late twenties nitty player who does not make a lot moves, also called. 
The flop came out K:h: 7:d: 6:c: and I bet $125 when it was checked to me. The button called quickly as did the UTG player. The Turn came the J:h: bringing in a backdoor flush draw. For hand reading purposes it is very important to notice that the K:h: is out on the flop. The pot was checked to me again and this time I bet $400. The button just called again, leaving himself with $200 and the UTG player over called. At this point I really thought that the button had some sort of draw that may have picked up hearts on the turn as he most likely would have shipped now if he had top pair. It appeared to me that the UTG player must have had something like KQ, KT, or AK to a lesser extent. As the board got more and more drawy I did not expect the UTG player to slowplay something like a set or KJ.The river brought out the 6:d: and the pot was checked to me again. Trying to target the K that I thought was in the UTG players’ hand I bet about half the pot, $900. The button, not surprisingly, quickly folded and the action came back around to the UTG player. He actually quickly asked me “how much do you have left?” Then he went into the tank for a bit looking like he was going to call. After about 30 seconds however, he announced all-in. This was a very unexpected action. In fact I was really shocked.Again, I never thought that the UTG player would have slowplayed something on an early street with the pot being this big and I did not think that he would check raise just a king at the end. It was also extremely unlikely that he would only call the turn with KJ to then check raise the river when the board paired and he could possibly lose to AA. So, in reality the only hand that he could have had here for value that was not overplayed or slowplayed was a 6. Now, how could he possibly have a 6? This is where attention to suit distribution becomes critical on a rainbow flop. It is possible that he might have had a hand like 5:h:6:h:, 6:h:7:h: etc that took one off on the flop then picked up backdoor hearts on the turn. With the pot being $4700, $1100 to call I certainly was getting some enticing pot odds. And my opponent had so few combos of 6s that get to the end I thought it was really difficult to fold. However, no matter how little combinations of value hands that he was representing—he just “has to have it” in this spot. Obviously if he knew I was capable of bet-folding AA at the end than a raise as a bluff would be profitable. But we are not computers and this type of play just does not happen at this level. Even though I knew my AA only beat a bluff, say 89, I stubbornly called down and was shown 6:h:3:h:.
Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/hand-reading-multiwayhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/hand-reading-multiwaySun, 11 Oct 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/hand-reading-multiwayMultiway action can sometimes make it easier to hand read. When you are playing against predictable opponents sometimes the nature of multiway pots makes their bets more honest. Let us review a hand that I played at the Commerce $5-10 NL game last week. Overall the game was very good and I was deep into the session. I had worked my stack up from the buy-in cap of $1500 to over $4000. Fortunately for me there were many many recreational players at the table whose style were extremely loose passive and they were also very deep--some having over $5000. It was about 1am when the following hand went down. I was in the big blind with 4:d: 5:d: and the pot preflop was folded around to the HJ, a young decent winning player who raised it to $35, with a $3500 stack. The button, a very tight, older gentlemen who had just coolered someone for a $4000 pot called on the button, $4500 deep and I decided to also call. Now I have preached here in this column and on my training site CrushLivePoker.com the dangers of playing suited connectors from out of position but being this deep and with what I thought was a good grasp on the players calling was better than three betting, I thought. The flop came out K:s: 3:s: 7:d: and I checked with my gutshot straight draw. The preflop raiser bet $70, and the button called quickly. Even though my draw was not all that powerful I thought that in this particular situation that the preflop raiser could very well have been cbetting as a bluff and might check the turn. I also thought that the button was so tight that he might check through with a king giving me a free card. Lastly with my overcall on the flop, I thought that in the right scenario I could represent front door spades. The turn brought in the 2:h: giving me now an open ended straight draw. I checked and now the preflop raiser also checked. At this point I knew that the preflop raiser was most likely bluffing on the flop, as there was no way he would check such a blank turn on a wet board with a strong value hand. At this point I was hoping for that check through that I talked about earlier from the button but instead he bet $175. However, because of this action I was almost 100% certain that the button had a king, only. Once he bets, especially with what live players perceive to be rather large sizing, he almost always has a value hand. This was also not the type of player to slow play a set on the flop with the possibility of draw out there as he would have been scared of the bad beat. So, I put everything together and realized that the preflop raiser most likely had nothing and was giving up and the button had the real hand. Not only did the additional equity allow me to call now but I really thought that this would be a great situation to represent the front door spade draw if it came as I was able to figure out that no one else also had a flush draw. So, with all of this information I decided to call. As predicted the preflop raiser quickly folded. The river brought in the 5:s: bricking out my draw, pairing my five but most importantly bringing in the front door spade draw. I thought that this was a great spot to bluff and fired out $450. The button did not think too long with it, flashed me a king and folded. Usually I am not in the business of running large bluffs against recreational players but the multiway nature of this pot and the bet into two people on the turn easily allowed me to deduce that the button had a king and that my line through the overcall on the flop and bomb bet on the river looked so much like a flush that it would be hard for the older man to call allowing me to win the pot. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/can-my-opponent-be-overplaying-somethinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/can-my-opponent-be-overplaying-somethingMon, 05 Oct 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/can-my-opponent-be-overplaying-somethingYou should always consider what your opponent may be overplaying when you get raised and hold a strong hand. 

One of the more interesting spots that you can get into when playing No Limit Holdem is when you have what you think is a strong hand, especially on the turn, facing a raise. I have trained myself in these situations to always firstly think when I may be scared of the nuts, "What other hand can my opponent be overplaying"? 

On one of CrushLivePoker.com's podcasts, Crush Live Call-ins, which streams live on the CrushLivePoker channel on Twitch, every Monday at 7:45PM ET, I had a caller discuss a hand in which he flopped bottom set out of the big blind. This was a $5-5 NL game with a $300-$500 buy in but the stacks in this particular hand were fairly deep. It got limped around three ways preflop and my student checked in the small blind with 4:h: 4:d:, $1200 deep. The BB, with $1400, decided to raise to $30, and all of the limpers called, over $1k effective. The hero in the hand also called and they all saw the pot four ways. The board came out 8:s: 5:d: 4:h: giving the hero in the hand bottom set. The hero checked, as did the BB and it got checked around. The turn was the K:d:, completing the rainbow. Now the hero came out and bet $75. The preflop raiser folded as did the player next to act and the second limper raised to $190. The action got back around to the hero and he was confused as to what to do.Even holding bottom set here, there are three specific hands that beat him—higher sets and a flopped straight. If I was in his position and got raised on the turn the first thing that would pop into my head would be “Can my opponent be overplaying something”? Here, we can assume a reasonable range preflop because of the limp and the call of $30 by the villain. The only hands that we are really ahead of here are kings up and AK, neither of which are likely. Remember, the villain in the hand limped then called so a hand like K8, or K6 suited is highly unlikely, and specifically with K8 the player most likely would have bet the flop when the preflop raiser checked to him. It is possible that he could have AK but again he was the second limper in the hand preflop and has to have at least some frequency of raising before the flop with that holding. So when you look at the possibilities of overplaying the only hand that could make sense is AK. More often than not the hero is beaten.But that is not to say that the hero cannot call the turn raise. Obviously we have equity with implied odds vs the most likely slowplayed hand on the flop, which is a straight. But to three-bet the turn to get it in would be a drastic overplay. So, the hero called. The river brought out a T and the hero checked once again. This time the villain in the hand absolutely bombed the river to the tune of $400. Even though that bet sizing only represents 75% of the pot, in live poker, and at this level the more absolute size of the bet is relevant—and here it is big. There just are not enough hands that our opponents would overplay here as there is almost no possibility that he would go for this sizing with AK at the end. He must have pocket 5s, pocket 8s or 67. In this spot we need to make a tough fold. Unfortunately for the hero he called down and was shown 67s.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turning-medium-strength-hands-into-bluffshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turning-medium-strength-hands-into-bluffsMon, 31 Aug 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turning-medium-strength-hands-into-bluffsMost players are incapable of turning medium strength hands into bluffs. Use this to your advantage when hand reading.If you have read some of my columns in the past or have viewed my training material over at CrushLivePoker.com you know that I strongly believe that typical players do not bluff enough in live no limit. This allows us to have a very solid approach of consistently bet folding for value as our opponents call down far too much and will rarely raise us unless we are beat. Obviously every situation is different and occasionally you will run into players that will put you into difficult spots when they bluff. But one of the most reliable patterns you can pick up on is the fact that most players are incapable of recognizing that they should turn their medium strength hands into bluffs. And what I mean by medium strength hands is usually something like top pair that has showdown value. 

Let us take a look at a hand that a subscriber posted recently in the CrushLivePoker.com strategy forums. The game was $2-5 and the effective stacks were $1300. The history we have on the villain is that we have recently gotten the best of him in pots and he may be out to get us. From under the gun we raise to $20 with A:s: Q:s:. The villain calls to our immediate left and both of the blinds call. The flop comes out A:h: Q:d: :T:s giving us top two pair. It gets checked to us and we bet out $60. The villain calls and both the blinds fold. The turn is the 6:d: and we now bet $130. The villain calls again. The river is the 4:d:. What is the best play?
The player that posted this hand was not sure exactly what to do because he thought that his opponent might have made a backdoor flush. Of course this is certainly possible as A:d: X:d: makes sense. But, he could also have AK, AJ or any other ace little suited too. With the pot $460 we could easily bet about $250-300 to get looked up by one of these hands (or possibly larger) and never ever have to worry about folding if we are raised. You see, if a player has AJ, AK or say A6cc he has top pair. You will almost never see someone turn that hand into a bluff at the end by raising trying to represent the backdoor flush. Instead on occasion you may see a guy raise with J:c: 9:c: when they miss their straight draw, because they have no showdown value. But in this particular hand it is very unlikely that the villain would have a missed straight draw as his hand his way more ace heavy because of the flop action and his relative position, with two people left to act behind him. He also called a large turn bet. Because he has an ace so much and he will not bluff with top pair the pot is actually protected from being bluffed at making it a very trivial bet fold at the end. You cannot miss value here. In other articles I have talked about how check-calling the river in no limit is generally bad with a few exceptions and it would be a disaster here to check and have a hand like a single paired ace, which would call a bet, check back. In fact, you could easily make the case here that if you check only better than AQ would bet, making a call incorrect. But that doesn't mean that the right play is to check-fold. The correct play is to bet. Aces and other worse hands will call us, but will check back the river if we check. And only better hands will raise at the end, hands like A:d: X:d:, J:d: 9:d: or KJ making it an easy fold. 

The poster of course got scared at the end and checked the river to have his opponent check AKos behind him, pretty much the worst case scenario. There is literally a 0 percent chance that the villain would ever have turned AK into a bluff there. A few weeks ago I played an interesting hand in Poker Night In America that also proves this point. In this spot, however, the villain was Alec Torelli, a world class nosebleeds no limit player. The game was $25-$50 and Torelli with $10k effective stacks raised to $175. Thomas Connuli called next to act, as did Matt Glantz in the cutoff. I closed the action and just called with 8:c: 8:h: in the big blind. The flop came out 8:s: 6:s: 3:s: giving me top set. I decided to check, as did Torelli and Connuli and Glantz bet $450. I decided to just call not wanting to overplay my hand and Torelli over called. Immediately I thought this was a little bit peculiar as I figured Torelli would bet the nut flush draw most of the time. So I surmised that he might be playing a non spade over pair a little bit safe, had a hand like A:x: K:s: or A:x: Q:s: that he did not want to get raised off of or he was slow playing something big. The turn brought out the A:d: and I checked once again. This time Torelli and Glantz both checked. The river was the T:d: and with about $2100 in the pot I bet out $1200 for value. Torelli thought about it for a bit and raised to $4600. Glantz quickly folded and the action got back to me. 

Besides the fact that people rarely raise as a bluff on the river the key to this hand was actually the off suit ace on the turn. You see, I just did not think that Torelli would turn a hand like AK with a spade into a bluff--exactly what we have been talking about in this article. If the turn was a blank and the river was a ten it is possible that he might have tried to raise as a bluff representing the fact that he had sandbagged the nuts. But with the ace coming on the turn he most likely would have ran into top pair so there would be no reason to raise. I also thought that the only way he could raise as a bluff is if he had at least the ace of spades blocker, because if he did not I could have the nut flush and the bluff would be suicide. Coupling the fact that I thought he would bet the A:s: with some frequency on the flop and that he would rarely, if ever, turn the A:s: into a bluff on the river made this a relatively easy laydown for me. In fact, when this hand appears on TV sometime in 2016, you will hear me ask him "are you turning the ace of spades into a bluff," as that basically was the only hand that I could beat at that point. Later on I learned from the live stream that Torelli indeed had flopped the nuts with A:s: 9:s: so I was very happy with the fact that I lost the absolute minimum in the hand. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unorthodox-ak-hands-from-poker-night-in-america-part-2https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unorthodox-ak-hands-from-poker-night-in-america-part-2Mon, 24 Aug 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unorthodox-ak-hands-from-poker-night-in-america-part-2A few weeks ago I embarked on an east coast poker trip to the Turning Stone Casino in upstate NY to play on Poker Night in America’s $25-$50NL cash game. During this trip I got into two very interesting spots with AK. The episode will come out on television sometime in 2016 but the full two-day live stream is up on Poker Night in America’s YouTube channel. I will be reviewing every hand that I played on the show in a six part video series titled “Turning Stone” over on CrushLivePoker.comIf you have read my articles here before you know that my normal cash game is the $5-10 $1500 cap at the Commerce Casino so playing a $25-$50NL game was on the larger side for me. If tradition held true most of the hands in the game would be held with a straddle making it $25-$50-$100. Not only is the game big but the players usually only buy in for at maximum $10k so the effective stacks are a little more shallow than I am used to. Some guys, especially those well versed in limit, only buy in for $5k, making the game mostly preflop.“You can value bet AK as the nut no pair”Later on in Day 2 I got into another very unusual spot with AK, strange enough that it left some very experienced players scratching their head when they watched it on the live stream. I had a fairly losing image at that point in the day as I was down about $7k and picked up A:c: K:c: in the cutoff. I raised to $175 with about a $9k stack and the button, a middle aged derivatives trader named Richard Anthony three bet me to $400. Everyone folded and I decided to just call partly for deception partly for the faith in my post flop ability. The board came out 8:s: 4:s: 4:h: exactly the type of board that I have talked about in previous articles where you have to continue on if you play AK slow. I checked, Anthony bet $400 and I quickly called. The turn was the 2:c: and the action quickly went check check. At this point I thought that my hand was good close to 100% of the time as I thought the button would bet again with an over pair. I was really rooting for a total blank ragged card to river so that I could make a thin value bet with AK to get called by a worse ace-hi. Unfortunately it was not the cleanest river as the 9:s: fell completing the front door spade draw. However I still decided to bet very tiny for value and led $300 into $1675. My small bet, however, was met with something I did not anticipate. Anthony thought for a bit and raised to $1200. This really surprised me, as I never expected to get raised but rather hero called. Anyway, I took some time with it, realized that the hand made very little sense unless my opponent rivered a flush and made the call with AK and was good. Some people thought that I made a “blocker bet” at the end of the hand but my intention was to clearly value bet and get called by worse. I was a little taken back by the fact that my opponent raised me but now in retrospect the small sizing at the end obviously induced him to bluff. The main point here is that you can certainly pick times to value bet AK no pair for value and get called by worse. The most common of these situations is flatting with AK preflop, calling a flop bet then betting the river after the turn is checked through on a wet board that bricks out.Again, both of these situations will be analyzed on my training site, with real video from the hands over at CrushLivePoker.com.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unorthodox-ak-hands-from-poker-night-in-america-part-1https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unorthodox-ak-hands-from-poker-night-in-america-part-1Mon, 17 Aug 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unorthodox-ak-hands-from-poker-night-in-america-part-1A few weeks ago I embarked on an east coast poker trip to the Turning Stone Casino in upstate NY to play on Poker Night in America’s $25-$50NL cash game. During this trip I got into two very interesting spots with AK. The episode will come out on television sometime in 2016 but the full two-day live stream is up on Poker Night in America’s YouTube channel. I will be reviewing every hand that I played on the show in a six part video series titled “Turning Stone” over on CrushLivePoker.comIf you have read my articles here before you know that my normal cash game is the $5-10 $1500 cap at the Commerce Casino so playing a $25-$50NL game was on the larger side for me. If tradition held true most of the hands in the game would be held with a straddle making it $25-$50-$100. Not only is the game big but the players usually only buy in for at maximum $10k so the effective stacks are a little more shallow than I am used to. Some guys, especially those well versed in limit, only buy in for $5k, making the game mostly preflop.“You can turn AK into a bluff after bluff catching if you think there is a chance your opponent made a pair”About twenty minutes into the second day of shooting I picked up my first playable hand, A:h: K:d:, on the button. Matt Glantz, with a $5k stack opened to $200 at $25-$50, Joe Mckeehen called with about $13k and Shaun Deeb called in the cutoff covering everyone. I started the hand with $10k and decided to three-bet small—only to $800---wanting Glantz to put in his stack of 50bbs. Unfortunately he folded, as did Mckeehen but Deeb called. Shaun and I have some recent history together when he knocked me out of the $10K PLHE tourney at the WSOP this year with AA vs KK preflop, a tourney he went on to win. I had never played with him before in cash but I am pretty sure he knew that this game was on the larger side for me and I knew it was on the smaller side for him. With the pot being $2075, the flop came out T:d: 8:s: 5:s: and surprisingly he led into me for $700. This is very unorthodox as you almost always see the OOP player in a three-bet pot check to the raiser. But I knew that Deeb did not play by any type of rote playbook. I also thought it would have been way too exploitable to just fold the flop as I still could have had the best hand against draws and some bluffs so I called. The turn brought out the J:c: and Deeb once again fired, this time for $1750 into $3475. The turn definitely was not the best card for me even though I picked up a gutshot broadway draw as the J could have easily paired him with a hand like QJ, J9 or J:s: X:s:. The decision was pretty close but I was getting 3-1 so I decided to call again, feeling that I may have the best hand still or was drawing with the proper equity. The river came a total blank, a 4:h: and Deeb took a long time and finally checked.This is where I had a decision to make. All along I thought that there was a decent chance that I may have had the best hand with AK and the 4 really did not change anything. There was the small possibility that he had a hand like A:s:4:s: that rivered a pair but I thought that he either had turned a J, had a hand like T:s: X:s: or had missed everything. The decision I had to make was whether or not AK had enough showdown value to check back or should I turn to bet to get him off of a pair. Against good completion that plays with me a lot at the Commerce if I called a lead, then called the turn and bet on the river when checked to in this situation I would very rarely be bluffing. My most probably holdings would be overpairs but I was not sure if Deeb knew that. This was a game flow issue and early on in this session I just got the feeling that Deeb might call me down with a pair putting me on busted spades. I finally decided to check my hand back after much deliberation and Deeb sheepishly turned over 4:d:2:d:, for absolutely nothing that rivered a pair. I am still not certain whether or not Deeb would have called a bet at the end with his pair of fours but it does go to show you that there are times that you can turn AK, as the nut no pair, into a bluff at the end when you were holding on thinking that it was the best hand. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/distractionshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/distractionsMon, 03 Aug 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/distractionsElectronics at the table can really hurt your poker gameBack in the beginning of 2012 I went on one of my worst down swings in my poker career. For what seemed like months I just could not put together a solid streak of winning sessions. I have always had the luxury of supplementing my income in other ways besides only playing poker but these other ventures do not allow me to play as many hours as other full time players. This means that over a period of months my results could be more extreme or variant as I may play less overall hours than others.In March of 2012 I decided that I was really going to bear down and play a full three months straight and really examine my play. One of the first things that I decided to do was to not use my smart phone at all at the table. I literally left it in my car and only went out to check it for emergencies every few hours when I took a break from the table. The difference in my game was absolutely amazing. I found that I was able to concentrate so much more and that I was no longer playing on autopilot. I was actively paying attention to the other players, watching showdowns and learning about my opponents’ tendencies constantly. I also noticed that most of my opponents were not paying attention because they were fooling around with their electronic devices.During this three-month period I had my best winning streak by far, ever. This was after playing professionally for almost seven years including the glory days of no limit back in 2005-2007. The fact that I put the phone down was a monumental change in my game. Flip forward about a year after that and I saw a few really good players whose games I respected a lot crumble because they were so addicted to playing open face Chinese poker on their iPads and iPhones at the table. Some guys literally never looked up from their devices unless they were involved with a hand and in some extreme situations would only look up when it was their turn to act! They lost so much information because they were so involved with playing OFC it was absolutely ridiculous.You have to be entirely honest with yourself and ask how much time are you spending fooling around with electronics at the table? How much better off would you be if you put all of the distractions away? I think a really good exercise would be to challenge yourself for a week and concentrate solely on the game. Compare that week’s results, your overall performance and how you think that you played during that hyper concentration period to the time before. If you feel like your performance was greatly enhanced it is time to put the electronics away. Poker is a game of incomplete information. And the best live players capitalize on ALL of the information that is available to them. That may include tells, people preloading their chips, certain nervous ticks, etc. When you are not paying attention, and specifically when you are distracted by electronics at the table you miss out on all of the nuisances that make you a great poker player. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/game-selection1https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/game-selection1Mon, 27 Jul 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/game-selection1Sometimes the second largest game in the room is the bestOne of the advantages of living in Los Angeles and playing poker is the bevy of games and casinos to choose from. The recreational player pool is absolutely massive and there is a long history of playing cards throughout the state. This has allowed for many casinos to thrive but one has really separated itself from the rest, the Commerce Casino. If you have never been to the Commerce you should really make it a point to take a trip at least once in your lifetime. For a poker player, it is the Mecca of all card rooms, a real site to see. The poker is laid out in two different areas, the “low section” and the “top section” or hotel area. This creates a very interesting dynamic for table selection amongst games especially in the no limit sections. You see, the $5-$10 $1500 cap no limit game, the game that I play 90% of the time, is in the low section and the $10-$20 uncapped game is in the hotel area. So it is not easy to hop in between the two. You literally have to walk about 100 yards from one side of the room to the other to check the other game out. This means that a lot of the good $10-$20 regulars never go down and play $5-$10. This creates a void of very strong players at $5-$10 and below. For some of these higher stakes regs they never move partly out of laziness and partly out of not wanting to be seen playing lower. But it creates a common situation where the second largest game in the room is one of the best.This also occurs at the $10-$20 game at the Commerce when they rarely open a bigger NL game, such as $20-$40. This concept is not unique to the Commerce as it applies to any casino. If your home town club spreads $5-$10 as its largest game then naturally some of the toughest players will be playing that game and the $2-$5 may be a really good place to make easy money. Obviously there are times when the biggest game in the room can and will be the most profitable but poker really is not about ego--it is about making the most amount of money with the least amount of resistance. And sometimes you will find that the perfect fit for that formula is the second biggest game in the room devoid of all of the good players battling it out against each other.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/split-pot-tournamentshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/split-pot-tournamentsMon, 13 Jul 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/split-pot-tournamentsIn split pot tournaments it is tough to get knocked out. Patience and not passing the big bet street without drawing both ways is key. It is absolutely amazing how long you can remain short stacked in a split pot tournament. A lot of people do not realize that it is tough to get knocked out when you are all-in and since split pot tournaments are either limit or pot limit there are no antes in the blind games. That means if you survive a round with one big bet you can go through an entire other round before getting it all-in.In both the $10k Omaha 8 or better and the $10k Stud 8 or better tournaments this summer I was down to one big bet with about forty people left. In both events only two tables cashed and I was able to work my short stack up to the average and make it to the end. Obviously it takes a lot of patience and discipline preflop to do this but also it takes discipline to not go past the flop or Fourth Street generally when you are not drawing to both sides of the pot. The chips are just too valuable in a split pot game to lose the extra bets. If I can play 4-5 orbits with six or seven big bets, if I make a bad call on fifth street in Stud 8 or better I could lose an additional two more bets for a total of three. That six to seven bets become three to four bets and suddenly if I do not win a pot I may be out in a couple of orbits. This is why split pot games, especially limit games, are really a different type of tournament than no limit games. I truly believe that the best approach to the game is more defensive and is about saving bets, as opposed to trying to power through and accumulate chips like you may in a NL holdem or PLO tournament. This is why you see some of the same names make it to the end of these split pot events year after year. A player that might not know what he is doing may run hot for a period of time during the tournament but usually the bad calls going for one side of the pot and the luck will run against him at some point. The players that tend to play slow and steady, that stay a within a few bets of the average but never put their chips in drawing bad tend to stick around and put themselves in a position to win the tournament. Let us take a look at a hand that I played from the $10k O8 with about fifty people left. I had six big bets, about half of the average and a player under the gun raised. MP2 called and I called with A:s:2:s:K:h:7:d:. Now, this hand in itself is strong enough to three bet as it has both high and low potential and backup low. In fact, in a cash game, especially if the player in the middle hadn’t called, I would three bet to isolate the raiser and drive the blinds out of the hand. However, this was a tournament, and like I said before, the name of the game is saving bets. I did not want to get into a spot where I totally whiffed the flop and was forced to call down light due to the size of the pot. Taking that line would burn up almost my entire stack. With this in mind I just called, which also brought in the big blind. The flop came out 8:s: 3:c: J:h:, the preflop raiser bet and the MP2 player called. I then called with AK high, a backdoor spade, and broadway straight draw and more importantly the nut low draw, as did the big blind. So the pot now had 6 big bets in it and I had committed 1.5 out of my stack of 6. The turn brought out 9:d:, completing the rainbow. The under the gun player bet out again and now the MP2 raised. So at this point the pot was nine big bets and it was two cold for me to call. This is where the math can get a little tricky in split pot games. Firstly I thought I was absolutely drawing dead for the high. The middle position player really should have a minimum of J9 for top two here and quite possibly QT for a straight. I had to call two cold and most likely a third bet on the river to win HALF of the pot. Let us say that if I did call the turn, the BB would fold and the UTG would call. On the turn I call two to win half of ten (nine plus the UTG’s overcall) and then on the river another one bet to win half of twelve total. More importantly if someone had A2 along with me for the nut low draw I could get quartered and call three big bets to win a quarter of twelve.There also could possibly be other variables in the hand such as the BB check raising the turn or the under the gun reraising. The point is that I thought at that time it was not worth an additional three big bets, which would total 4.5 of my 6 stack as if I was wrong it would be devastating for my tournament. I ended up making the fold and only the under the gun called. The river paired the eight and the UTG check called with aces and the MP2 player, of course, had the QT for the straight. I then was able to win the next pot I played in for a nice double up to get down deep in the tournament. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stack-leveraginghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stack-leveragingMon, 06 Jul 2015 09:36:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stack-leveragingIn NL tournaments forcing your opponent to risk total effective stacks through the last bet is powerfulBy the time you read this article, the 2015 WSOP will have concluded and hopefully I will still be in the main event waiting to come back to Las Vegas for the November 9. This year I played a full slate of tournaments (over 30) and was able to cash seven times. Even though I played a lot of mixed limit events long fielded NL tournaments still seem to be one of my strengths. In the Million Maker I was able to finish 27th and in a $1500NL with over 2,000 entrants 42nd.Every year I learn something new about tournaments through playing at the World Series. And this year I was able to fully understand how powerful a 20BB stack can be. Every good player knows that 20BBs use to be the old “golden zone” of reshipping. Someone would raise to 3-4x, and you could move all-in with 20BBs and pick up a ton of dead money without showdown. If a hand like AK called you, and you had reshipped with 68 suited, you still had ok equity making the play extremely profitable. However, the times of people opening to 3 or 4 times the big blind are long gone. Most people now open to the minimum when antes come into play. This means that reshipping 20BBs is risking far too much of your stack on a re-steal. In fact, sometimes, as little as 10BBs can be a reshipping stack with fold equity if the opener is at the bottom of their range. But the power of the 20BBs stack is still not to be ignored. It can be very powerful to have 20-25BBs, and facing a min open, basically make a small three bet forcing your opponent into making the last decision. Let us take a look at a hand that I played in a $1500NL tournament at the WSOP this year. We were down to about 80 people and I had 22BBs on the button. A younger, tighter player opened the pot to 2x from MP2 with about 38BBs. There weren’t that many short stacks behind him besides me so he did not have to worry about being shipped on all that often. I looked down at K:h: 5:h: on the button. As a cash game player my first instinct was to fold. K5 has very little value and there was no way we were deep enough for me to flat in position to try to hit my hand. However, using a hand with a king or ace in it as a three bet bluff can be very useful as your opponent is less likely to have aces, kings, AK or AQ—hands that they might auto stack off with preflop with these effective stacks. But instead of reshipping all-in and risking my 22BB stack to win about six big blinds, I decided to make it five big blinds. That way the pressure was back on my opponent to make the decision of whether or not I was bluffing. After a long time my opponent finally folding 88 face up and said “if you shipped I would have snap called”. After playing with this opponent for several more hours it was apparent that he was a recreational player and it is debatable whether or not he should have folded his 88 starting with 38BBs. However my play actually looked stronger to him than a reship (adding the most fold equity) and if he did wake up with a monster I would have easily folded to his four bet all-in and would have saved my tournament life. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-the-right-textureshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-the-right-texturesMon, 15 Jun 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-the-right-texturesStraightening ragged boards are some of the best to semi-bluff vs the preflop raiser.If you want to take your no limit game to the next level you have to start paying attention to board textures and the likelihood that they hit your opponents’ hand. It is also important to put your opponent on an accurate preflop calling range and figure out the number of combinations of hands that can beat you if you hold one pair as the preflop raiser.All boards are certainly not equal. For example let us take a look at Q27. If a player has a reasonable flat calling range preflop it is impossible for them to hold two pair. Also, if they are almost always going to three-bet AA, KK or QQ AND they are unlikely to raise the flop with just a queen then IF they do raise they are only representing a set of sevens or deuces for value.Conversely, let us take a look at a board of 789. In this case, if the opponent plays suited connectors, he could have flopped 78, 79, 89, JT or 56 many more hands that beat an overpair as compared to a disconnected flop. For this reason you really can drive draws that may not even be that strong against a competent player’s continuation bet. Let us say we have A5s on the above board and we know that our opponent has KK. We have seven outs with the bottom end of a gutshot with an overcard. Now this is not the best draw, especially multiway, but if we can get it headsup against the preflop raiser there are many many hands that we can have that beat one pair. Especially on two flush boards there are also many cards that can come that will scare one pair on the turn. Along with the six or the ace making our hand we could represent the front door flush draw as well as a jack making it look like we had an open ended straight draw with a ten. A five and a ten also put out one-liners to straights, which look awfully scary for an overpair. That’s over half of the deck that will make it very hard for our opponent to continue on.So the next time you want to make a play at the preflop raiser when you feel like they may have an overpair but you think you can get them to fold make sure that you have a lot of combinations of hands that beat one pair on the flop in your range and that you follow through with logical scare cards that come in on the turn. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raising-combo-drawshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raising-combo-drawsMon, 08 Jun 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raising-combo-drawsJust because you raise with a combo draw doesn’t always mean you will get the right price to call an all-in.One of the hands that I frequently drive as a strong semi-bluff when I am on a draw is middle or bottom pair and a flush draw. The reason why I like these as opposed to top pair and a flush draw is often times you will have more outs with them against the preflop raiser and if you do hit trips you are way more likely to continue to get paid off on a later street. With the top card pairing and you holding trips it can kill the action or worse you could still be beat. However, just because you raise with a pair and a flush draw—or any type of draw for that matter—does not mean that you always have to call off your stack for an all-in.In fact it can be a real disaster if you get into a situation in a multiway pot where you are up against a made hand and also a draw that dominates you. A few weeks ago I saw the following hand go down at the Commerce Casino’s $5-$10 game. The players in the hand were all about $1500 effective. The UTG had raised to $40 preflop and was called by the player in MP1, a young aggressive professional, and the button, an older super nitty player. The flop came down 8:s: 3:h: 4:s: and the UTG made a $100 continuation bet. The young player raised to $375 and surprisingly the button moved all-in for just under $1500. The UTG then took about 2-3 minutes, looked like he was deeply calculating something and finally called. Then, shockingly to me, the younger player also quickly called and the hands were revealed. The button (quite obviously) had a set of eights. The UTG had A:s: Q:s: and the MP1 player had 6:s:7:s:. The board ran out blank blank and the button dragged in a huge pot. A minute later the young player was telling his buddy next to him that once he raised with a combination draw there was no way that he could fold getting over 3-1. Do you see the flaw in this reasoning, however?First of all with 100% certainly the button had a set, and most likely top set due to how nitty he was. The UTG made it extremely obvious that he also had a flush draw and was not the type of player to raise from up front with small pocket pairs. So the younger player, even though he had a straight and flush draw, was likely to be dominated by the UTG and his only outs would have been a straight. In fact 6:s:7:s: has about 11% equity in the hand versus a set and a higher flush draw nowhere near the 24% that he need to call in pot odds.I am not immune to these types of mistakes and a few weeks ago I made a similar error but in a different situation. In this hand I was on the button with 6:c: 3:c: with a very good image. I had the table covered and a player opened from UTG+1 to $35 with a $1400 stack. The cutoff, who also had about $1400, called and I made a very loose call. The board came out A:c: 3:s: 2:c: giving me middle pair and a flush draw. The preflop raiser checked and the cutoff bet $85. I knew the cutoff’s style pretty well and was almost certain that he had an ace. If you have read my Cardplayer articles before you know that I like attacking field bettors after the preflop raiser checks as they are likely to only have one pair and may not want to play a giant pot. For this reason I decided to raise to $340. Much to my surprise the UTG now check raised to $950. The cutoff tanked for several minutes before folding. When the action got back to me I was a bit confused as to what the UTG was representing. I was almost certain that the CO had had an ace due to his flop sizing and tanking so that only left one combination of AA left. If he showed me AA there was no way that I could call as I was only getting about 1.6 to 1 from the pot (treating his check raise to $950 as an all-in) and I was about a 3-1 underdog. Finally however, I convinced myself that it was unlikely that he had a set and I moved all-in (same as a call). I was shocked when the UTG turned over 4:c:5:c: for a flopped straight with a flush draw and lost a big pot. If I had been doing my range analysis correctly I really should have made this fold. I do not think any player is playing AK as a check raise three-bet on the flop nor do I think someone is check raising a hand like K:c: Q:c:. These really were the only hands that I had the proper equity to call with given the pot odds even though I had a combination draw. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-your-opponents-rangehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-your-opponents-rangeMon, 01 Jun 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-your-opponents-rangeMost recreational players don't bet trips strongly on a non-draw heavy paired board. 

If you are looking to pick up some extra money at the poker table pay attention to non-draw heavy, paired boards—especially in limped pots. The simple fact of the matter is that most recreational players will not bet their trips hard when they feel like they have nothing to protect against. This creates a very profitable situation if you notice when someone bets trips on a paired board that does not contain draws. In this case there is a high probability that they do not have a strong hand and you can easily take the pot away from them on a later street. 

Let us take a look at a hand that I observed one of my students play in a $5-$5 $500 capped game at the Commerce Casino. Two people, including the under the gun player limped in, and my student over limped with J:d: T:d: on the button. Both blinds checked their option and they saw a flop of 7:d: 7:h: 2:c:. The blinds checked again, the under the gun checked and the mid position over limper bet out $20 into the $25 pot. My student called and everyone behind him folded. The turn brought the Q:s: and the upfront villain checked. My student bet $45 and quickly got a fold. 

This may seem like a trivial hand but my student was doing exactly what it takes to be a very good player in no limit--he was playing off the range of his opponent, not his own cards. He knew that most villains in this spot would check a seven on a disconnected board like this in order to "trap". He told me afterwards that he considered raising the flop but felt that because the trips were the top cards that he did not need to worry about someone over calling with a deuce. This was pretty sound thinking on his part. 

You see, if the board was something like 229r we could sometimes be concerned with a player over calling with a nine to a single bet or the betting villain not check folding top pair on the turn. In that case you could make the case for raising because it makes it very difficult for top pair in the blinds to call two cold or for the bettor to continue to a lot of heat. But on this type of board we can risk the same on our bluff through floating as opposed to bluff raising. 

Be hyperaware however, of players leading out for large amounts on these types of boards from UTG or UTG +1. A lot of times that indicates a big pocket pair that was trying to go for a limp reraise preflop like aces or kings---and good like trying to bluff them off of those hands even on a paired board. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/over-betting-the-turnhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/over-betting-the-turnMon, 25 May 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/over-betting-the-turnYou can sometimes over bet the turn to add maximum fold equity The act of over bet bluffing, especially on earlier streets before the river, is somewhat of a lost art. We often talk about situations where it can be correct to bet the turn as a bluff only if you continue on with your bluff on the river and other situations where continuing to bluff the river after your opponent called the turn would be considered spewy. But what if we could actually add max fold equity on the turn and sometimes force our opponent to shove or fold due to stack sizes? This line can actually risk less money in the long run than making standard bet sizes on the turn and the river and can achieve the same rate of success.Let us take a look at a hand I played at the Commerce Casino recently in the $5-10 no limit game. In this particular spot my opponent started with $1200 and I covered him. The villain in second position open for a raise to $35, MP2 called, I called on the button with 5:s: 6:s: and the big blind also called. The board came out K:c: 3:c: 4:d: giving me an open ended straight draw. Everyone checked to me and I decided to bet out $100. I thought that it was extremely unlikely that the preflop raiser would check a strong hand like top pair here due to the nature of the draw heavy board and the player to his left in middle position was also unlikely to hold a strong hand due to his checking. The only player whose hand strength was entirely unknown was the big blind (due to the fact that almost everyone automatically checks to the raiser, but he quickly folded to my bet, which was obviously a good thing for me. Unfortunately, the preflop raiser thought for a bit and called. The other opponent in middle position got out of the way. In this spot I think it is fairly easy to read my opponents' range. A lot of players will bet a king but will check medium strength showdown hands like a pair of nines and higher. Because the big blind did not call my flop bet and the other player showed no interest in the pot many players would continue on with a hand weaker than top pair. Knowing this, I had a decision to make if I bricked out on the turn. Should I 
1. Bet again and if called give up if the river does not improve me

2. Bet again and if called bluff the river if the river does not improve me

3. Check and take a free card. 

4. Over bet the turn forcing my opponent to either move all-in or foldFirstly I think that choosing option three would not be a great play because there is always going to be a fair amount of fold equity against flop check-callers that are just "one and done’ing" you.Option one has some merit because you very well might convince yourself that after your opponent calls two barrels that he is not going to fold on the river. This would likely be due to the fact that he puts us on a club draw and recognizes that so few people bet one pair for three big streets of value especially in large pots. We also may have incorrectly read his hand and he is actually pot controlling a hand like a king, which he does not intend to fold given our line. Option two also has some merit if you think an opponent is capable of calling the turn and then folding on the river when the board does not change. If you have read my material in other CardPlayer articles you know that I am actually a big fan of calling turn bets and then check folding rivers when the board does not change because the mere fact that our opponent has bet again IS change enough. I call this the concept of playing "fifth street chicken" on my live training site CrushLivePoker.com.
But this article is about option four. With the pot being $340 and our opponent having a little over $1000 left what if we were to bet $500 on a non-king turn? This would basically force our opponent into an all-in or fold situation given the pot size and his stack. Also, if you compare this bluffing spot to standard bet sizing in option two you can see that $500 here actually risks less than betting $200 on the turn, followed by $500 on the river--or if we get frisky an al- in on the river. This type of situation becomes somewhat more complex when you have a draw that has enough equity to call an all-in, however.But there can be other scenarios where both players are deep enough your opponent does not really have the option of an all-in. In these types of spots you do not have to worry about getting raised off of your draw as much and the same concept of maximum pressure due to over betting still applies. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/mixing-up-your-playhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/mixing-up-your-playMon, 11 May 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/mixing-up-your-playIt can be good sometimes to mix up your play against aware opponentsI think “mixing up your play” is one of the most overused and misplaced concepts in live poker. Below the $10-20 no limit level you certainly do not need to “mix up” your play to be a big winner. In fact, the smaller the game and the more restricted the buy in cap the more straightforward, solid fundamental play achieves the highest winrate.A lot of players try to get too FPS (fancy play syndrome) in many different spots and do not realize that actually playing their hands fast early on will often get the most value. People also do not realize that live players have a hard time folding what they perceive to be big hands because the pace of the game is so slow which should cause you to bluff less when you think your opponent is strong. At the end of the hand players bet an extremely polarized range on the river and their opponents rarely make the correct adjustments to this, going for things like check raises, not sensing when their opponent could be bluffing and not value betting thinly enough themselves. Even though most of the money that I make from playing poker comes from beating up on the bad players it can be nice to sometimes play against another player that is capable of folding hands, is capable of bluffing correctly, value betting thinly, etc. The situation can sometimes be challenging and can lead one to changing up a standard line and playing creative. That is exactly what happened in a recent $5-$10 hand that I played at the Commerce Casino last week. In this particular spot, a Commerce $10-$20 reg was sitting directly to my left. Often times there may only be two or three $10-$20 games running at one time and while someone is waiting they will come to the smaller side of the casino and play $5-$10. At this point in the session my image was very good, as I had built up from stack from $1500 to about $4000. The villain in the hand started with about $1900. I opened J:h: J:d: to $35 preflop UTG and the villain called UTG +1. We saw the flop headsup and the board came out A:c: J:s: 4:d: giving me middle set. Now in this situation against most of the players in the $5-$10 player pool I would just come out and bet and hope that my opponent would have an ace. I also would not think that my typical opponents would be good enough to try and bluff me on this board as checking this flop usually makes it look like I have some sort of medium show down strength hand like QQ-KK. However, I knew that this player was much more advanced. Not only did I think he might be capable of bluffing but I also knew that he would try to get max value with an ace so I decided to check. He quickly checked behind. The turn brought out the 5:d: bringing in a backdoor flush draw. This time I led for $50 and the villain quickly called. The river was a 4:c:, pairing the board. I thought that this was a very interesting card for a number of reasons. Firstly it bricked out all of the backdoor draws like diamonds or 67. And second and perhaps most importantly it made the jack play as the kicker for anyone with an ace in their hand. I thought that this would make it much more likely that this player would bet a weak ace that he may have checked back on the flop like A5, as he only would lose to AK or AQ and chops with everything other ace.The real key to our optimal river play is evaluating an accurate range through the action of the entire hand. After my opponent checks back the flop and calls the turn I think that his range consists of mostly weak aces, very few jacks (because I hold three of them) and backdoor draws. I find it rare that he would have any other weaker made hands than that range, because if he were a thinking player he would figure out that my hand is rarely a bluff when I check such a favorable board on the flop as a preflop raiser. Most people would bet their KQ, KT types of hands to take the pot down. So, if he had a hand like say pocket eights and he did call on the turn it is very rare that he would call a river bet. With a weak ace we already concluded that he would bet for value if checked to since we made our hand look like a jack, QQ-KK and with some of his backdoor draws with no showdown value he would bluff. So I think that it is pretty clear here that checking is the correct play. Against weaker competition, however, players that are not thinking anywhere near this level, I do not like to chance this spot and check because people check back medium strength hands too much, like an ace. Players also might call wider if they are inexperienced with the weaker parts of their made hand range, hands that certainty would not bet if checked to.So after pondering for quite a while, I checked. Much to my delight my opponent bet out $215 into what was a $175 pot. This was a slight overbet and I thought it was designed to be polarizing. It made no difference if he was bluffing with a draw, as he was not going to call anyway, so I needed to concentrate on him having an ace and select the right raise sizing. Having middle set here versus top pair is great as sometimes you will confuse your opponents as they block the type of hand that you are representing in top set. I also thought I had made my hand look super weak so when I suddenly woke up on the river it may look strange. So, I decided to check raise to $750. My opponent snap called and obviously I was good with my jacks full.This type of hand is really where I have stepped up my game over the last few years. Here, I tailored a line to a specific player and situation. In the past, I probably would have just went bet-bet-bet, which in most games is the correct way to play. But here I actually got made more by “mixing” it up and taking a non standard type of line that lead to me getting hundreds of dollars in additional value. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/combo-draws-multiwayhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/combo-draws-multiwayMon, 04 May 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/combo-draws-multiwayJust because you raise with a combo draw does not mean that you will necessarily get the right price to call off your stack vs your opponents’ range--especially in multi-way pots.Playing a draw correctly is often times one of the most misunderstood concepts in no limit holdem. Some times players fall into a check calling shell when they will not get paid off and others play their draws far too aggressively when they have no fold equity. Nowadays even the newest players to the game understand that having a hand with at least 12 outs usually contains decent equity versus one pair. That means that if you have even a hint of fold equity playing a big draw fast and strong can be profitable. However, just because you raise a combo draw does not mean that you have to call off the rest of your stack, especially when a pot involves multiple players.One of the worst situations that you can find yourself in holdem is when you get involved in spot versus someone with a made hand and someone who has a draw that dominates your own. That is a recipe for having extremely low equity almost to the point where you can be drawing dead. I saw the following hand happen at the Hollywood Park Casino last week in Los Angeles.The game was $5-$10 uncapped and the stacks were very deep. This game usually plays bigger than a game with a $1000 or $1500 stack but people do not necessarily know how to play any better deeper. In this particular hand everyone hand about $2500 and the under the gun raised to $45. Four people in the field called including the big blind. The flop came out T:s: 9:s: 2:c: and the preflop raiser made a continuation bet of $150. At this point I started to pay close attention because I knew that the preflop raiser must have had something that he perceived to be strong, most likely an overpair but at minimum a high flush draw. The next player to act to his immediate left raised his bet to $450. At this time I am going to reveal that his hand was 7:s: 8:s:, for the bottom end of an open-ended straight flush draw. Much to my amazement the next player moved all-in for $2400 and the player behind him snap shoved his $2500 stack into the middle. Then the action got back to the preflop raiser who tanked for a long time. It looked like he was trying to evaluate the size of the pot. Adding some numbers aloud softly he finally made the call. The player who started with the flop aggression instantly put the rest of his $2500 stack in and the hands were turned over. The preflop raiser had A:s: J:s:, the player to the left of the under the gun +1 had K:s: Q:s: and the player closing the action had a set of 9s. Now many of you probably think that this should be an insta-call from the straight flush draw getting over 3-1 on their money, right? But to take an important theory from PLO when you are in a multiway pot and you suspect that someone has a made hand AND also think that someone else can be drawing better than you you can be in huge trouble. In this case the 7:s: 8:s: hand had only about 13% equity in the hand. The player with K:s: Q:s: is even in worse shape than that. Because he is also up against a dominating draw but is not open ended his equity is less than 10%.Now obviously you cannot know exactly what your opponent’s hold but you have to take this type of thing into consideration when you get heat coming back over the top of a raise you make with a combo draw—especially when you specifically put someone on a set and another player on a better draw. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/weak-bet-sizing-tellshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/weak-bet-sizing-tellsMon, 27 Apr 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/weak-bet-sizing-tellsYou can really pin down the strength of someone’s hand through their bet sizing especially if they lead somewhat weak after making an aggressive play.Just like I have discussed in previous articles about three betting preflop, it is very important to recognize the bet sizing of your opponents as many times it will give away the strength of their hand. Many recreational player that have hands that are strong but can get drawn out on tend to size their bets a lot larger because they do not want the pain of a bad beat. So when you notice a player make an aggressive action at the pot and then follow up that action with a sizing that does not indicate a ton of strength, many times they are uncomfortable with their holding. The exception to this of course is when they deem their hand to be unbeatable now—like if they have made a full house.Let us take a look at a hand where I think I did not make the proper play recognizing strength followed by weak sizing--leading to lost value. I was under the gun +2 at the Commerce Casino’s $5-$10 $1500 cap game in Los Angeles, CA. The game was fairly good and the villain in the hand was a rather weak recreational player. I picked up two black kings and raised it to $35. It got folded around to the villain who had about the same stack that I did, $1700, and he called. The flop came out 9:s: 6:s: 6:h:. The villain checked and I decided to bet kind of small, $45, possibly to induce him to make a move with a draw or overplay some weaker made hand. He took a look at the board, went back to his chips and quickly made it $155. Again this could very easily have been a play with a flush draw or some other hand that he wanted to protect. It is of course possible that he may have flopped trips but I thought I could figure that out by what he did on later streets so I decided to call. You have to remember that when playing a deeper stack in no limit holdem you do not want to make a play that folds out all weaker hands and only allows better to continue on. The turn brought on the Q:h:, a total brick, unless of course he had the queen high flush draw. Much to my surprise the villain now bet out only $160, a fairly weak sizing in comparison to the pot AND his previous street’s bet. Usually, when someone follows up with a bet of the same size as their previous bet they are not all that strong. This is really where I think I messed the hand up. I was thinking that I wanted to “protect” my stack against a 6 and not wanting to get all weaker hands to fold, I decided to call again. The reason why I thought that this play was a mistake was the fact that I think if I had sized a raise to say $350, draws and other weaker hands might have called. His sizing was not at all consistent with him having trip 6s now, unless the queen filled him up which was super unlikely. The only reason to call instead of raise would be if I thought he would continue to bluff the river with spades or if I thought I could make my hand look like a spade draw myself and get an extra street of value at the end.The river came of the 2:c: and the big blind checked. I thought about it for a bit and finally bet $320. My opponent went into the tank for a few minutes, postured and then folded. His actions made me think that he may have had a weak hand hand like pocket sevens that he was protecting but figured that I had him beat after I had called his two bets earlier. Again, there are some reasons why calling the turn here might be superior to raising, but when we think it is unlikely that our opponent has trip 6s because of his bet sizing and we do not get the extra street of value on the river we have definitely lost money. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/checking-the-river-on-certain-run-outshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/checking-the-river-on-certain-run-outsMon, 20 Apr 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/checking-the-river-on-certain-run-outsIf you think your opponent has missed a draw sometimes checking the river when the highest card pairs can be a smart play from OOP.A few weeks ago I found myself out of position to a maniac. This guy came to the casino to gamble and did not care if he called a raise with 73s or three bet you preflop with J5os. He also had the tendency to bluff rivers when he missed his draws even in spots where it was obvious that he was going to get called. In this particular hand he had been winning a little bit and raised from MP2 to $40. I was in the big blind with 88, $1000 effective and called. The board came out K:c: 7:c: 6:h:. I checked to him and he made a $60 continuation bet. I called, thinking I could possibly have the best hand. The turn was the 8:h:, bringing a backdoor flush draw and giving me a set. Not wanting him to check through on the turn I decided to come out and bet $130, which he quickly called. At this point I thought that it was likely that he could have a draw because the board was so wet or a king. The river brought out the K:s: and I thought for a moment about the most optimal play. Not only did I think that he would bet trip kings at the end if checked to but I thought if I checked the king that that would give him the green light to bluff at his draw—since so many people would not check trips to him from out of position in this situation especially if they took a check-call lead turn line. So by not betting I induce him to bluff the king and I also do not lose value if he has a king since he will do the betting for me.Even though this opponent was extremely wild you can absolutely use this concept against more standard types of opponents. When the top card pairs in a limped pot or you have taken away the betting lead from the preflop raiser often times by checking at the end you show a lot of weakness. The one exception to this is when you are the preflop raiser and have shown a lot of strength. In that case checking the river when the top card pairs makes it look like you have an overpair and you are playing it cautiously but in actuality are ready to check call. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/small-pocket-pairs-out-of-positionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/small-pocket-pairs-out-of-positionMon, 13 Apr 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/small-pocket-pairs-out-of-positionAgainst good players small pocket pairs from OOP are rarely profitable. If you are the type of player that limps in with any small pocket pair no matter what the position or opens for a raise and calls a three bet if the effective stacks are deep enough you might want to start rethinking your preflop strategy especially against good players. In my normal game, which is $5-$10, I normally open any pocket pair that I will play when I am first into the pot. But in smaller games like $5-$5 where raises get many calls and you do not have the normal stack depth to barrel people off of hands I usually limp. I have always preached the rule of 15 times the raise size in order to profitably set mine. To put it simply this means that if someone raises to $20 you need to have at least $300 effective stacks in order to call. You do flop a set more often than this but this little equation tries to take into account the times when you flop a set and your opponent misses the flop or won’t give you action due to overcards to their pair.But I think, especially in today’s games where even recreational players will do some light three betting, against good players it is rarely profitable to play small pocket pairs headsup as a limp call or calling a three bet from out of position. In fact I have even heard some of the best no limit players talk about three betting or folding pocket pairs out of the blinds when a tough player opens from late position. The simple fact of the matter is usually you are going to miss and unless you are prepared to make a move at the pot you will lose. A lot of the time you will be forced to fold the best hand. And when you do hit your set your opponent may be so wide that he will not pay you off or he is skilled enough to get a way from his hand. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/maxamizing-value-when-you-back-into-a-handhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/maxamizing-value-when-you-back-into-a-handMon, 06 Apr 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/maxamizing-value-when-you-back-into-a-handOften times you should bet or raise large when you back into a hand that you perceive to be the nuts.We all know that backdoor draws are very profitable in no limit holdem. Especially if you have been the preflop raiser it can sometimes be difficult for your opponent to see when you make a strong, backdoor hand, especially after continuation betting the flop and then checking the turn. One of the best situations you can have happen to you is backing into a set that is lower than top pair on the river or backing into a straight. Backing into a flush is valuable too but most opponents will see a three flush on the board and if you raise their river bet large they may think twice about calling with a hand like top pair. However if you run into something else strong and they bet on the river you can really pound them and almost always expect them to call.This type of situation occurred to me recently while playing at the Commerce Casino’s $5-10 NL game. The action got folded to me on the button and I raised to $35 with 7:c: 7:d:. The small blind in the hand had been playing rather loose preflop but had been making some impressive thin value bets on rivers. He called, as well as the big blind. We all had about $1700 and saw a J:c: 2:d: 3:h: flop. The action got checked to me and I decided to make a protection/value bet of $55. The small blind called rather quickly and the big blind got out of the way. The turn was the 9:s:, completing the rainbow and the small blind checked once again. I thought that this spot was kind of close as I likely would not get a J to fold and did not want a hand like a smaller pocket pair, or ace hi to fold, especially if this opponent was capable of bluffing the river. You could certainly make the case for betting here sometimes but I decided to check. The river brought in the beautiful 7:h:, giving me a very hidden set and my opponent bet $165. I took a look at the board and analyzed the situation. There was literally no way that I could not have had the best hand as I thought that this player would definitely reraise with pocket jacks or pocket nines preflop. I also thought that if I raised the river large my hand would be confusing to my opponent as I would be representing an extremely thin range—maybe even just 77. I have seen other players make big sizing mistakes in similar situations to this only raising to maybe $375 to ensure a call. However, in this case, I thought that I should raise a very large amount and made it $600. My opponent thought for about 20-30 seconds and called with J:d: 9:h:. After he tabled the hand I had wished that I had moved all-in. There was no way I could have known that he had top two pair but I doubt seriously that he would have found a fold with any jack. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stack-size-considerations-when-bluffinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stack-size-considerations-when-bluffingMon, 30 Mar 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stack-size-considerations-when-bluffingIt's very important to notice the stack sizes of your opponents when considering CBET bluffingA few articles ago I talked about how important it is to notice the number of players in a hand when you are considering bluffing at the pot on the flop after being the preflop raiser. In fact number of players in the hand is probably the MOST important factor when considering cbet bluffing. However, there is one other variable that can actually trump number of players—noticing your opponents’ stack size. You see, when we make a cbet bluff and we get called we have other ways we can win the hand. We can bluff people out of the pot later on using scare cards or we can actually realize our equity and make the best hand. However, when you are up against an extreme short stack, say someone that has less than one or two pot sized bets left most of those ways of winning the pot are taken away if he decides to either fold or move all-in. In fact, I have even not continuation bet bluffed headsup against certain short stacks because I felt that I would get priced in to calling with two over cards.Usually where people miss out on this variable, however, is in multiway pots and not being zoned in to everything that is going on at the table. It is very easy to notice the two opponents that may be deeper in a hand, say over 100bbs, but hard to recognize that one of your other opponents is extremely short. Especially if you are called on the flop a lot of times people that have started with under 50bbs will have less than two pot sized bets left on the turn and will make their decision to go with it there. So when you are playing against short stacks and can only really play the first two streets your frequency of continuation bet bluffing should go down and conversely your frequency of value betting should increase due to the wide nature of a shorty “getting it in” with you.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/flopping-two-pair-out-of-the-blindshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/flopping-two-pair-out-of-the-blindsMon, 23 Mar 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/flopping-two-pair-out-of-the-blindsAgainst early position limpers you can play for big pots with a flopped 2 pair out of the blind on disconnected boardsOne of the most commonly misplayed hands in No Limit Holdem is flopping two pair out of the blinds. A lot of players get lost in these situations and will commonly put themselves in way ahead/way behind spots through their action or get scared when draws complete and do not properly maximize their value. In general, I am not a huge fan of check raising two pair out of the blind unless the top card is a high card like a king or an ace that will most likely continue to be top pair throughout the hand. You do not want to check raise a hand like T2 out of the blinds on a 2:c: T:h: 6:d: board as it gives a player that might bet a hand like T9 a very easy way out. Rather if you lead, often times a ten will call you on multiple streets. And there is nothing like winning a large pot when the action has been limped.But what about when we lead out with two pair and get raised? I think people get overly cautious with a hand like bottom two and try to follow the adage of not wanting to go broke in a limped pot. Now of course not all boards are alike. For example if we lead out with 34 on a 3:c: 4:c: 5:h: board we lose to many different hands all of which are in a limpers range. Two combinations of straights, two two-pair hands and of course all of the sets. Also if someone has a flush draw with a deuce or a six in it, an ace or a seven or a pair plus straight draw or flush draw we really are not that far ahead. However there are certain situations where we can deduce that we are almost always ahead with two-pair. Let us take a look at a hand that I played last week at the Commerce Casino’ $5-$10 game. The pot got limped around five ways and I looked down at 7:c: 3:d: from the big blind and checked. The board came out Q:c: 7:d: 3:c: giving me bottom two pair. Going with my contention that I did not want to blow someone off of a weak queen I decided to lead out at the pot for $40 into $50 expecting all queens and club draws to call. The under the gun player, who was a gentleman in his late thirties who started the hand with about $1100, raised to $170 and it got folded around back to me. This is where positional hand reading and combinatorics becomes really important. First of all I was not concerned about him having a set of sevens or a set of threes because of the blockers that I had in my own hand. And I've also found through my experience that if someone limps in with a big pocket pair intending to limp reraise and they do not get the opportunity to they vary rarely will raise top set on the flop. However, if they limp in with a big pocket pair that ends up being an overpair to the board they certainly will drive flops, especially draw heavy ones. So a hand like AA or KK definitely made sense. Also he easily could be overplaying something like AQ, which he is protecting so that he will not get drawn out on. 

But even though I was not super familiar with this player it is not too much of a jump to assume that he was not limping in with Q7s or Q3s from under the gun especially when I block a lot of those hands. The other type of holding he could have would be the nut flush draw or a pair and a flush draw. Some people certainly will play those hands fast. But I specifically looked back at my cards to find that I had the 7:c: in my hand so pair plus flush draw was impossible. I took in all of this information and determined that against this particular player in this position with the action and texture of the hand I had the near nuts. The only question now was how to extract the most value. 

To be honest, of all the hands that I mentioned I did not think that he would fold any of them. So I thought a reraise was definitely in order so that an action-killing card would not come on the turn. The stacks were a little awkward so I decided to actually put the hammer down and made it $600 looking like I was committing myself. The UTG did not take to long and shoved all-in and I ended up scooping a huge pot vs AA. 

The lesson that you should learn here is that when you flop two pair out of the blinds and get heat from an earlier position limper and the board is disconnected, making two pair impossible for an upfront limper than you almost always have the best hand and often times the early position player will have "top top" or a limped in big pocket pair. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turning-hands-with-showdown-value-into-bluffshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turning-hands-with-showdown-value-into-bluffsMon, 09 Mar 2015 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turning-hands-with-showdown-value-into-bluffsIf you can get someone to fold with a certain board run out it can be sometimes better to turn your hand into a bluff than check back with good showdown value. During one of my Crush Live Call-In shows that streams live on Twitch.tv at 4:45PM PT on Sundays a listener called in about the following hand. He had called a preflop raise of $20 in a $2-$5 no limit game with KTs, $1200 effective against a player that he thought was very likely to pay him off if he hit big. Two other players called behind him and they saw a K:c: T:s: 6:s: flop four ways. The preflop raiser bet out $90, which indicated to the caller that he was extremely strong. With top two pair he raised to $225 and both other players got out of the way. The turn brought out the 6:h: and the upfront preflop raiser checked. The caller got concerned that the preflop raiser might have a hand like AA and checked back. The river was the Q:s:, completing the front door flush and the preflop raiser checked once again. The player with KT, still scared of AA and now the possibility of his opponent having KQ or a flush was happy to check behind and see a showdown and dragged the pot in versus AK. I have several issues with the way that this hand was played by the player with KT and it brings up a good point about turning some made hands with showdown value into bluffs. First of all, I agree with the raise on the flop in order to build a pot up against a likely strong hand. Usually in this situation the preflop raiser has the nut flush draw as the bottom part of his range when he continuation bets such a large amount on a wet board into three people. We want to get value now and not have anything come that could possibly scare him away. In terms of made hands he could easily have AK, KQ, KJ or AA. When the turn pairs the 6 we only now lose to AA but by betting we would continue to get value from all of the other weaker kings and the nut flush draw. If I were in this players spot I would certainly bet again here and bet most rivers small for value. Many players lose too much value by checking back turns and cannot make up for the lost value when their opponents miss draws at the end. However, the reason why I think that this hand is so interesting has to do with what came at the end and the decision to check back the river. If I had checked back the turn and was faced with another check on the river I very well may have decided to turn my hand, which has a decent amount of showdown value into a bluff. The reason why is because when the third spade comes in at the river and we assume that our opponent would not check a flush to us his range consists of the made hands--AA, AK, KQ and KJ. Now, we lose to two of those hands in the form of AA and KQ and we beat KJ and AK. Is it better for us to just check back and sometimes lose against AA or KQ, if we think that we can get the player to fold with a bet? Of course not!! IF we think our opponent is capable of folding such a hand we should bluff in this spot.Now I caution you—most of the money that is won in live No Limit holdem is through value betting not bluffing. Recreational players are not in the business of driving to the casino to fold hands. But there are certain situations where you look so strong you can fold out someone’s entire range. Here by checking back the turn we represent either that we were on a spade draw that got there or we filled up and were slowplaying. The fact that we still had the best hand on the river is actually irrelevant. It would have been a disaster for us if our opponent had turned over KQ or AA and we would have lost the pot—if we think he would have folded to a large bet. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/fast-playing-the-flopped-nut-flushhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/fast-playing-the-flopped-nut-flushMon, 02 Mar 2015 08:16:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/fast-playing-the-flopped-nut-flushWhen you flop the nut flush deep fast playing can be the most deceptive line (concept revisited)One of the first articles that I ever wrote for CardPlayer came from early 2012 and it had to do with playing a flopped nut flush fast in order to maximize your value. Although this spot does not come up all that often it continues to be one of the most misplayed situations that I observe in No Limit cash games.There are number of reasons why fast playing the nut flush is a sound approach. Firstly, people tend to not mess around on monotone boards. I have discussed in previous articles how monotone boards can actually be good continuation bet bluffing boards because usually people do not call light. On a board like J:s: 8:s: 5:s: you usually will not see a player peel with a hand like 8:h: 7:h: whereas on a two flush or rainbow board you will often times see a player continue on with second pair especially if the flop gets checked through. So checking a made strong hand on a monotone board really does not get you anywhere. This may seem a bit counterintuitive as I am saying that players will fold second pair if you bet but in reality you are not going to get any more action out of them if you check. We are trying to value target strong hands like two pair, sets, top pair and draws and other flopped flushes. Secondly, and usually most importantly, whenever you suddenly wake up later on in a hand, whether that be on the turn or on the river, anyone with a non-nut holding on a monotone board instantly goes into a check-call shell and you may very well lose a ton of value. Let us take a look at a hand that I witnessed at the $5-10NL game at the Commerce Casino last week. Effective stacks were about $2300 and the under the gun raised to $40. Two people in the field called, as did the button. The flop came out T:h: 5:h: 9:h:. The preflop raiser bet out $90, both players in the middle folded and the button called. The turn brought the 2:c: and the preflop rasier bet $200. Once again the button called. The river was the J:s: and the under the gun now bet $400. Almost immediately the button raised to $875, which was quickly called by the preflop rasier. The hands were turned over and the button showed A:h: J:h: versus the under the gun’s K:h: Q:h:.This situation was an absolute catastrophe for the button. He flopped the nuts over the second nuts and did not get all of the money in. His call-call raise the river line appeared so strong that the preflop raiser only called scared of the nut flush. Now what if the button had instead raised the turn? Still many players would still only call with the second nut flush and fall into a check-call shell. If however, he had fast played the flop and raised the pre flop raiser’s bet he certainly would have been able to get all the money in and a lot of times would have faced a reraise from the out of position player. I have been observing and playing no limit for almost ten years and it never ceases to amaze me how frequent this type of thing happens, even with experienced players.Of course there is a third reason not to slowplay the nut flush because action-killing cards can come out such as a fourth suit or the board pairing. But the simple fact of the matter is that you are only really going to win a big pot on a monotone board when someone has a big hand along with you and the best way to play your hand the most deceptively and to guarantee that you get all of the money is by playing the hand fast, end of story. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/the-perils-of-slow-playinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/the-perils-of-slow-playingMon, 23 Feb 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/the-perils-of-slow-playingWaiting until a later street to raise a nut hand is not always the best lineA lot of players, especially at the lower levels, get overly excited when they flop a big hand and as a reflex always want to slowplay. Not only is slowplaying generally a bad idea because of lost value but also more importantly slowplaying can backfire if our opponent does not continue the betting lead, which is most of the reason why we would just call on the flop with a big hand. Also when we wait until the turn or the river to raise our hand looks very strong and the action actually may let our opponents off the hook.Let us take a look at an example from one of the podcasts on CrushLivePoker.com, “Crush Live Call-ins” which streams live on Twitch.tv/crushlivepoker every 4:45PM PT on Sundays. In this hand a caller named Frank said that he was UTG1 in a $1-2 game and flat called a raise of $7 with 55 from the UTG player. Two players to Frank’s right also called. The flop came out 6:c: 2:d: 5:h: giving Frank middle set. The preflop raiser led out into the field for $22 and Frank just called stating that he was not really scared of anything and that he wanted to allow the players behind to tag along. He did note that he thought the preflop raiser had something, however, as he never would have bet out so much on this type of board against three other players. Although, Frank went on to say, that the preflop raiser’s preflop sizing was sort of small and indicated to him that it would not be AA or KK, so most likely he would have a hand like 77-JJ given the total action. I think that Frank’s analysis is spot on if he has seen the UTG player raise larger with big hands. I seriously doubt that this guy would make a continuation bet with AQ in this spot so he does in fact most likely have something and it is pretty logical to conclude that it is an overpair. Since playing No Limit holdem is all about playing off of your opponents’ range, not your own, we should in fact be more concerned about what he has, not the fact that we have middle set. It is also very difficult to just call and “tag” along our opponents behind us with bad hands because the mere flat of that sized continuation bet is in fact VERY strong. We block a lot of the combinations of pair plus straight draws so the only real hands they could have behind us that might call are 64, A4, A3, etc. But more important here is the fact that we think the preflop raiser is strong. You see it would be an absolute disaster, if the preflop raiser is willing to call a raise and commit himself to the pot now, to just call and have something happen where we do not get all of his money by the end of the hand.Frank’s plan was to wait for the turn, then raise there. There are a couple of problems that I have with this logic. Number one is the fact that if we do put the preflop aggressor on 77-JJ there are many cards where he actually might shut it down and not bet again. Even though an ace, king or queen coming on the turn does not really change the nature of the hand I’ve seen tons of guys check when overcards come to their overpairs. So we have those overcards that might induce a check, both of the cards that bring in one liners (4 and 3) quite possibly a 6, which would pair the top card on board and maybe a 9 if the preflop raiser is scared of us having a straight draw with 78. That’s a full 26 cards that can kill our action and cause the preflop raiser to not continue with the betting lead. So this board is not really all that “safe” to flat. The other flaw in Frank’s logic is the fact that raising on the turn actually looks much more strong than raising on the flop. At the lower levels of no limit later street raises almost always are indicative of better than one pair hands. If we raise small on the flop there is almost no chance that this player would ever fold an overpair and with these stack sizes we can easily get all of the money in by the end of the hand. I think it would have been ideal to raise the flop to maybe $50-$55, which is just over a min raise. After he called the pot would then be about $130 and we would have $220 left in our stack. At that point we could bet about $75 on the turn leading to a half pot sized shove on the river. If we instead just flatted the bet on the flop and our opponent checked to us on the turn, now we are looking at having a pot of $72 with $260 left in our stack. This would cause us to have to bet almost full pot on each street in order to get the money in. And again it would be an absolute disaster if our preflop raiser bet-folded say a card on the turn like a 7-J.One of the other things that small flop raises can do is make you seem to be overplaying a weaker hand. We have all seen the situations before on the flop when a guy raises a $25 bet to $55 with 88 on a 652 flop to “protect” their hand. We can use this play to disguise the strength of our hand. In fact if I was in a spot with an overpair and got min raised on a raggedy dry board like say T72 I would never in a million years ever fold my hand because I would think that my opponent would be overplaying weaker. That is why I am such a strong advocate of the play. Inherently we are being more deceptive by actually playing our hand hard because so few people do it in the rest of the player pool. Lastly whenever I am sure that someone is not bluffing do to the action in a particular spot I see no real reason to slowplay, especially if they are not capable of laying down hands. You can make the case, however, of allowing your opponent to “continue” bluffing you. However most of the time when a continuation bet is made by the preflop raiser on a board that typically would not hit their range AND it is in to multiple opponents that usually indicates that they are not bluffing unless they are a complete maniac with no fundamental idea on how to play the game. These types of “LAGtard” maniacs are rare at the low levels of live no limit as usually people are bad players in the way of being much too loose passive. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leading-when-completing-draws-oophttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leading-when-completing-draws-oopMon, 16 Feb 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leading-when-completing-draws-oopIf a scare card comes in that makes your hand and your are OOP leading is usually a better line than checking One of the things that always baffles me about bad players is that they basically get the absolute minimum when they make their draws--especially if the draw completes on the turn. It is as if someone told these players that the best way to play no limit is by being deceptive and to check or to “trap”. Of course we know that this is rarely the best approach in maximizing your value in a cash game. It would be one thing if these players would make up for their lost value by betting larger on the river when the turn gets checked through, but this rarely if ever happens.If you watch a really common scenario at the mid stakes of live no limit you will see someone check-call the flop with some sort of draw. Then they will make the draw on the turn, and especially if the card is quite obvious or scary, like a third suit front door flush draw completing they will check and the player with the flop aggression will check behind.The amazing thing is that it is not like the flop bettor is going to fold all that often if the out of position player donk leads when he makes his draw--especially when the draw is a flush and the flop aggressor has a pair with one of the flush cards in his hand. And in a lot of cases if the preflop raiser has an overpair you are going to get turn and river value. So why check when the flush comes in?Another common example of these dumb plays is when an out of position player makes a straight when the board comes out as a one liner. Take a hand that I played at $10-$20 at the Commerce Casino a few weeks ago. After a single limper the cutoff made it $90 with about $3000 in his stack. I covered him and called in the big blind with A:s: J:s: and the limper folded. The flop came out T:h: 8:h: 7:s: and I checked. The cutoff now bet $130 and I decided to call with my gutshot straight draw, back door flush draw and overcard to the board. I also thought I could represent some scary cards like front door hearts, a jack or a six. The turn brought out one of the best cards in the world for me, the 9:s: giving me a jack high straight and the nut spade draw. This is exactly the situation that I see so many bad players misplay. It really can appear to my opponent that I could have a front door heart draw and because so few people ever lead when they make their straight on the turn I thought it was a great spot to bet. I also assumed that if I checked the preflop raiser would often check back and I would lose out on the possibility of getting two streets of value instead of one. I ended up betting small on the turn and followed through with a larger river bet, trying to make it look like I missed something, and won a nice size pot. Lastly and almost the most ridiculous are the players that call the flop and the turn with a draw only to check the river when they complete. It is dumbfounding to me when they sheepishly turn over their hands after their opponents check back at the end. Why call all that money when you are not going to bet when you make it? Even though it makes your hand easy to read if your opponent is going to not bet a vast majority of the time than you have to bet your hand yourself. It also demonstrates the fact that the value of draws are diminished when you are first to act in big bet games. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/using-preflop-ranges-to-hand-readhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/using-preflop-ranges-to-hand-readMon, 09 Feb 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/using-preflop-ranges-to-hand-readA lot of hand reading has to do with pegging your opponents preflop range—raised pot, position etc.Hand reading in no limit is a skill that gets shaped with experience. You can teach someone the fundamentals and tell them what typical actions and betting patterns mean but you cannot teach the innate ability to have “feel” especially as it relates to the strength of an opponents’ hand.One of the things that I say in my training material over at CrushLivePoker.com that is often overlooked in reading someone’s hand is probably the easiest to identify—the preflop action. If we know that someone is a tight player we can surmise a reasonable preflop range for them based upon position and we can then take that information to help us read their range later on.Let us take a look at a hand that I recently played at $5-10 last week. The villain in this particular spot was a young guy, played relatively tight and I knew he respected my game. In fact, I had even remembered making a training video about some situations that he been involved in on Live at The Bike in the last year and I knew that he played pretty snug. The action got around to me and with effective stacks of $1400 I opened to $30 with 8:s: 7:s: on the button. The villain was directly to my left and flat called in the small blind. The big blind folded and we saw a flop of A:c: 6:h: 9:h:. The small blind checked and I thought this was an excellent spot to make a semi bluff continuation bet as I was open ended and would have a fair amount of aces in my range so I went ahead and bet $45. The small blind thought for a while and called. This is where a lot of people would not use important preflop information when going through a hand reading process. At first, I thought that this was going to be an excellent place for me to fire multiple barrels, as I had decent equity and it would be logical to infer that my opponent did not hold a big ace because of the flat call preflop. Often times it is not the best approach to try and bluff someone off of top pair at these levels but knowing the history of this particular opponent leaned me toward that direction. Obviously the small blind could have held a flush draw or straight draw, nine or six as well. Or could he? If I was in his particular spot and I had a good player that I respected raise on the button it would be hard pressed for me to call with hands that contained many 9s or 6s in them except maybe A9 or A6 and possibly someone of the ungapped suited connectors, but even with those hands I would three bet them with some frequency. This is pretty valuable information is it really skews the small blind’s range to having an ace or flush draw. The turn was one of the worst cards in the deck for me, the A:h:, completing the flush and putting two aces on the board. I have talked before, here in this column about double barreling cards that may not be the best turn cards and how to determine when to make these unorthodox bets. Usually, I have said, that you should do so when you have equity--like a straight draw or flush draw. However, if I were saying that the small blind rarely has a 9 or a 6 and his range is skewed more towards aces and flush draws, than betting here on 4th street really would be a spew.Again, this is not anything advanced, it is just properly recognizing that a tight player is going to flat call tight out of the small blind, especially against a player that he respects and it allows me to logically reason and hand read in a more accurate fashion post flop. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-turnhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-turnMon, 02 Feb 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-turnYou can sometimes check raise the turn with overpairs to gain max value from field callerOne of the things that really separates the good from the truly great players in no limit holdem is the ability to maximize value. If you hand read well you may sometimes put in huge bets for value with hands as weak as second pair and fold hands as strong as the second nuts. Sometimes in pots that are small after the flop we have to do certain things that may be out of the box to build a pot up and maximize our value. One of the best examples of this is check raising out of the blinds on the flop or on the turn with a big hand like a set. Obviously you do not want your opponents to fold out weaker hands but sometimes you have to make a big raise to get more money in the pot. An often overlooked situation where you can use this type of line to increase the pot size is after being the preflop raiser in a single raised pot. Especially if you are headsup the pot really is not all that big and if you are trying to get max value you need to maneuver the turn in a different way than you may be accustomed to specifically when out of position. Let us take at a look at a hand I played last week in the Commerce Casino’s $5-10 game. My image was generally pretty good and with a $2000 stack I opened to $35 with K:c: K:d: from UTG. The cutoff, a recreational player that liked to make moves and was rich, called. The board came out Q:c: 7:d: 4:s: and I decided to make a $50 continuation bet. This player and I have played for years and we have history and the good thing about this particular spot was that he never believes that I ever have anything. He quickly called and we saw a 2:s: turn. Now in this case this particular opponent had an extremely wide calling range on the flop due to our history. He could have had anything from air to top pair of queens. I also thought that he was the type to bet the turn if he was “floating” or bet to protect with any pair putting me on a hand like ace high. So when that disconnected deuce appeared I thought it was a perfect opportunity to check raise and build a pot. Now obviously I am mostly targeting a queen, as it will be difficult for him to call with anything worse. But if he is not going to bluff the river all of that much and check behind with his medium strength hands I really wanted to go for gold. I thought that there was absolutely no way that he would ever bet then fold top pair so when he did bet $90 after I checked to him I decided to raise him to $230, which he quickly called. The river brought out another deuce which was a great card for me and I value bet $400. He thought for a few seconds and called and my KKs were good. This technique is especially effective when you hold a big ace like AK and an ace flops. In that situation when someone calls your flop continuation bet, especially if there is more than one player in the pot post flop, they are much more likely to have top pair then in the previous Q74 example where my opponent could have had a hand as weak as pocket threes. You also do not have to have an overpair to make this play but any hand that you feel can be best for value. Like I have made this play on a similar Q74 type of board with a hand as weak as KQ. It is much better though, to have an overpair, because combinations wise it is much more lucky that your opponent will have top pair to pay you off. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/tippinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/tippingMon, 26 Jan 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/tippingTipping is a necessary part of being a professional playerTipping in poker, whether it is to the dealers, floormen, cocktail waitresses, food servers etc, is one of the most widely debated topics amongst players that play poker for profit. Obviously if you tip a lot it can drastically effect your bottom line. However, if you tip too little you will be looked at as a scoundrel and may not receive the best rulings or have ease and mobility in table changing. People often ask me my position on tipping dealers, specifically. They think that there may not be a reason to tip dealers because the dealer has to do the same job no matter what the circumstance and that tipping would not make them perform any better or worse. Even if this assertion is correct dealing is a service industry just like the wait staff at a restaurant. Going in, as the customer, you know that these people make the majority of their money from tips as they are only paid a minimum wage and in some states a “tipping” minimum wage hourly can be a lot less than the regular minimum wage. However, those that play for profit definitely have to pay close attention to their bottom line. In reality you cannot afford to tip $25 or $50 every time you win a large pot like some recreational players. Also when you are playing a game with a flat drop like the games in California even tipping $1 in a very small pot can also considerably affect your winrate.Recently I recorded a podcast on my training site, CrushLivePoker.com, with regards to my approach to tipping. 90% of the time I am playing in a $5-10, $500-$1500 buy-in game where the drop is $5+$1+$1 on the river. Usually in pots of under $100 I tip one dollar 20-25% of the time. In pots over $100 I always tip at least one dollar. Then as the pot size goes up I may tip two dollars for pots over $500 up to a cap of five dollars for something over $5000. This is the way that I have always approached tipping and although there is not a right or wrong answer, I fully acknowledge that a dealer has not done any less work in the smaller pots or more in the larger ones.The main point that I made in the podcast, however, is that even if I might tip less than the average player (remember most do not play for profit) I try to make this up through kindness and treating the dealers nicely, never being abusive. One of the dumbest things that I see at the poker table day in and day out are those players that swear, berate, curse and throw things at the dealer because of a bad beat. It really is one of the most illogical things that one can do and you will never ever see me take out my frustration of “unluckiness” on a dealer. In fact, the only times that I ever get irritated with a dealer is when they are not controlling the game properly or they put the onus on a player to call something out that some other player is doing that clearly breaks the rules. That puts the player who may be following the rules in a weird spot because he is made out to be the bad guy. The simplest example of this in the games that I play is winning an all-in pot and the dealer not asking for the losing player to put his $1 chips into the pot (at $5-10, these play in $5 increments). That can make the “pro” out to look very cutthroat and lead to an unwelcoming environment. But past these two instances I very rarely ever get mad at dealers. And I am of the belief that a dealer would rather be tipped slightly less than average but be treated well than occasionally get large tips from players being frequently abusive. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-timing-tellshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-timing-tellsMon, 19 Jan 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-timing-tellsThe pace of your opponents turn call will often times give away the strength and value of his handOne of the most common situations that occurs in No Limit Holdem is after, with the betting lead, an opponent check calls your flop bet and then checks to you on the turn when a front door draw completes. A lot of people get lost in this situation and they check behind by default because they are scared of the draw or for pot control. But like another article that I wrote last year explained your opponent has a lot more top pair types of hands combination wise in their range than draws especially when the top card is high and you hold an overpair.Let us take a look at an example of a hand that I played a few weeks ago at $5-10NL in Los Angeles. The pot got folded around to me preflop and I looked down at A:c: A:d: in the cutoff. I opened to $35 and only the big blind called. The flop came out K:s: 5:d: 4:d: and the big blind checked. I made a continuation bet for value of $55 and the big blind quickly called. The turn brought the 8:d:, one of the most draw completing cards in the deck. The big blind checked again and I pondered my options. Should I check behind here, scared of a flush or a straight? Well, this idea is pretty illogical unless I was going to fold to a bet on the river, no matter what came, or value bet when checked to at the end. However, I still thought that I could get two streets of value from a king, especially with a diamond kicker, so I decided to bet again and carefully study my opponent. A lot of times a player will look back and check his cards when the third of a suit comes out to check to see if he has a flush draw. Other times you may not see a player check at all which to me is indicative of him having an actual made hand that he does not need to check, like in this case a straight or a flush. Other times of course people feign like they are checking their cards when they have the nuts so you have to pay close attention to this. In this case the player did check his cards and called again. The river brought a blank and he check called about a 2/3 pot size bet and I won a nice pot with my AA.Now anybody can win a decent size pot with an overpair versus a top pair type of hand but what about when you are bluffing? Should we be paying attention to the same type of things in the way that our opponent calls the turn? Absolutely! In another hand I played from that session I opened the pot on the button to $30 with A:h: Q:h: and the big blind called. The flop came out K:c: 9:d: 2:c: and the big blind checked. I thought that this was a pretty good board to make a continuation bet bluff of $45 and I was prepared to fire again on the turn due to the dynamics of the hand (button vs blind) headsup. In other situations I might only plan on firing one time on this board but I thought my opponent could be rather wide in this situation. The turn put out the 3:c: and my opponent checked once again. Now some people might think that I should shut down at this point. I cannot beat a king and now the flush draw came in. However, I thought this player might fold a nine if I bet again and I did not want to give him a free card with a gutshot broadway draw and a random club so I fired $115. This is a great example of watching the way in which my opponent calls the turn. If he paused, looked at his cards and thought for a while I would have thought that his “ranged was capped” at a K, with or without a flush draw. And if the river rolled off a disconnected non-club and I fired huge I thought it would really be difficult for him to call with a hand like KT. However, in this situation the player never looked back at his hand. He actually did not take too much time with it and called again. This should have really sent warning bells off in my head. The river rolled off the 6:s: and once again the big blind checked. Stupidly, not taking my own advice about accurately noticing turn calling tells, I thought that if I overbet bombed the river he would not call with a king. So I fired out $575, an over pot sized triple barrel bluff, something I rarely ever do at this level. My opponent paused for a moment and said “how much?” and quickly called. I knew before he even turned over his hand that he had a flush.I really blew it in this spot even if my assumption was correct that he would have folded a single paired king. I should have paid closer attention to the fact that he did not check back at his hand after the turn, usually indicating a hand like two pair plus, not needing to check to see if he hand a flush draw kicker with top pair. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/chopping-in-drop-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/chopping-in-drop-gamesMon, 12 Jan 2015 15:09:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/chopping-in-drop-gamesTweet Reversal--In drop games like in California you should chopOne of the first articles that I ever wrote for CardPlayer told people that they should not chop in big bet games. My argument was basically that players would get so rattled if you “played” that they would make very poor decisions after the flop. I gave an example of a player that stacked off to me with Q5os for three big streets on a queen high board against my overpair.Although my argument did have merit at the time, I am here to say that I have changed my mind on the topic, especially in drop games like we have in Southern California. Now if you are in a time game than I really see no reason to chop. The rake is not costing you any money so my original argument about headsup confrontation is very valid. However, it is the rake, and especially games that take a full drop after the flop, not a percentage, which has made me change my mind. In Los Angeles, in the $5-10 games that I play in, the drop is $5+$1 on the river +$1 for the bad beat jackpot--no matter how small the pot is. A lot of people are unfamiliar with this structure coming from places like Las Vegas where the money is collected as a “rake”, say 10% up to a $5 cap. In a raked game, depending on the structure, the decision to chop could go either way. The deeper the stacks the more unlikely it is that I will chop. But in a drop games you just cannot beat the casino. I mean would you play someone headsup for $7 per hand? I would think absolutely not. You probably would not be able to beat one of the biggest fish in the world with that type of money coming out of the pot, especially in a capped game. The other quirky thing about games in Los Angeles, however is that even when you do chop they still take a modified drop. I remember, ten years ago when I first started playing it was 50 cents. Now it is two dollars. But after even losing two dollars to the drop after chopping it still makes sense to chop when, if you just limp, as much as 20% of the pot will be taken.You can imagine that if I am advocating chopping the blinds in $5-10 games what you think I think about $5 blind games. A lot of the games here in Los Angeles are now $5-$5 so it doesn’t require you to complete any amount of money in the small blind if it gets folded to you. If both blind were headsup and checked their options, $6 of the $10 pot would be dropped! And if it got checked down to the river an additional $1--totaling 70% of the pot. That really is an incredible amount. Remember when you are dealing with flat drop games or heavily percentaged rake games the best idea is to chop. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/conditional-probabilityhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/conditional-probabilityMon, 05 Jan 2015 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/conditional-probabilityUnderstanding the concept of conditional probability is the key to late street hand reading and weighted combinatorics From Wikipedia--"In probability theory, a conditional probability measures the probability of an event given that (by assumption, presumption, assertion or evidence) another event has occurred."Conditional probability is a great way to describe the process of hand reading. When we hand read we are trying to give our opponent a range of hands based on an assertion or evidence (the action). For example, if we raise to 6x the big blind over a couple of limpers on the button and a tight player cold calls from the small blind we can discount a very large portion of hands from his range, different than if the pot was limped around. "If cold call $65 in the small blind, then--". So if the flop were to come out 357r we could easily discount the fact that this player flopped a straight because of this "if then” (raise and only call with a tight range) assertion. We can take this one step further as we have more evidence when we plug in the action post flop. If the small blind led out on the flop and was called by two people and then checked a 6 turn it is highly unlikely that he ever has a straight because he would not play 46 or 86 preflop for a raise and he would not lead on the flop with 44 AND check the turn when 44 made a straight. This conditional probability hand reading technique is not at all hard to master but people freeze in the moment all of the time and do not consider the previous street action when doing an accurate range analysis. Let us take a look at a hand that a subscriber of my site CrushLivePoker.com phoned in on my weekly call in podcast, Crush Live Call-Ins, free for anyone to listen to at 745PM ET every Sunday. This spot occured in a $3-$5 no limit game with effective stacks of about $900. My student was on the button and cold called a $20 raise from the UTG with A:d: 3:d:. The big blind also called and three ways they saw a flop of A:s: 7:h: 3:c:. The BB checked and the UTG made a continuation bet of $35. My student rightfully recognized that he needed to build a pot up with stacks this deep with two pair and raised it to $100 (actually smaller than I would have made it). The blind folded and the UTG player called. The turn brought out the K:d: completing the rainbow and now the UTG suddenly led out for $60. We both found this strange because usually if the preflop raiser was going to play a stop and go on a safe turn card it would be on a flop that contained some sort of draw. Of course with A73r the board is about as dry as it can get. I recommended to the caller to just flat with the A3 as to not overplay his hand and get all weaker single paired aces to fold and only better than his aces up to call. He indeed did flat and they saw a river of the A:c:. At this point the UTG villain now led out for $220 and the question became whether or not we should raise with A3 on the river. My student thought that it should be a raise-fold situation because of the value he could get from pocket Ks or pocket 7s. Although I agree that both of those hands would definitely call a raise at the end if we use conditional probability and weighted combinatorics to aid us in hand reading we can see that both of these hands are very unlikely. Let us first take a look at the possibility of the villain in the hand arriving with KK on the river. Here is the evidence followed by my assertions:A. Preflop the UTG raised to $20B. On the flop UTG bet $35 in to two opponents on an A73r boardC. UTG called a $100 raise from the button after cbetting. D. UTG makes a weak lead on the turn after hitting a very hidden set. So what are the chances of A, B, C and D happening all together? We can actually evaluate this by looking at the probability of each event individually through what if statements then multiplying them all together to get the total probability of the whole event. So for the sake of simplicity let us say that assertion A happens 100% (UTG opening KK to $20 preflop) and we can represent that by the number 1. For B what are the chances that the UTG cbets an A73r board with pocket KKs into 2 people? This is just an estimate but I do not think that that this will happen all that often. I give it about 30%, represented by .3.Now we look at C. What are the chances that after cbetting a dry board with KK he would call a $100 raise? This really is the most telling part of the hand. I'd optimistically give this 30%. Lastly, let us examine D. What are the odds that a player would lead out for a one-quarter pot sized bet after hitting a sneaky set on the turn? If the opponent called the flop raise he must have thought that the button was bluffing at least some of the time or would fire again with a value hand. I think he would check raise here far more often than he would weak lead. For simplicity sake again I will give the chance of this happening another 30%. So we have an equation of A at 1, B at .3 C at .3 and D at .3. If we multiply these numbers together we get .027 or 2.7% he gets to the river with KK. If we look at the total number of combinations of KK that there are on the turn, 3, we multiply them by 2.7% and get less than 1/10 of one combination. Now, let us do this exercise with AK. Let us express A as .9 B as .9 C as 1 and D as .3. So for this situation of A then B then C then D we get about .24 for 24% of the combinations. Since there are also 3 combinations of AK we can see that the villain showing up with that hand is about 9 times more likely or about .72 total combinations. Now let us run through 77. Let us say A is .5 B is .4 C is .8 and D is .2. If you multiply all of these probabilities out we get .032. Again there are three total combinations of 77 so we end up with just under one tenth of one combination. So for hands that we beat, KK and 77, we have about .2 combinations and for hands that we lose to about .72 combinations. If we need to be good over 50% of the time when called you can see here that raising clearly is not the right play.On the surface this process may seem complex but if you can practice the theory behind these concepts you will become a much better hand reader, which will lead you to superior decisions. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/charging-your-opponent-on-the-turnhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/charging-your-opponent-on-the-turnMon, 29 Dec 2014 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/charging-your-opponent-on-the-turnIf your opponent won’t bluff and you think he is betting a draw than it is best to raise him to avoid giving a reverse free cardIn order to be a great No Limit player you have to constantly make adjustments to your game accounting for the different changing variables. One of the biggest shifts that I have noticed in the last few years playing full time as a professional is the propensity for players to not bluff the river when it looks like they are going to get called. It used to be that your opponents were so inexperienced that they could not figure out that their opponent was absolutely going to call them down at the end and would continue on with a maniacal bluff. Now this just is not the case.This can definitely make the game a bit more complex when another player makes an aggressive action at the pot and you think that his range is either a made hand that beats you or a draw. It used to be that shoving over the top of that aggressive action could be a spewy play as you could wait to see if the river completed the draw and then call off at the end if all things missed. Now, players are recognizing that they have no fold equity in certain situations when all the draws miss and do not continue on with their bluffs. The inadvertent advantage of playing this way, however, is that they actually get the fold equity on an earlier street and only commit more money to the pot when you are beat (the draw completes or they had the best hand anyway). The proper counter to this then is to actually make your decision on that early street and if you think you have the best hand and stack sizes warrant it possibly raise all-in for value.The tricky spots really come into play when you do not hold all that strong of a hand in relation to the board like say less than top pair. Especially when someone donks out at you on the turn when some card changes the nuts people get concerned and sometimes only go into to call down as a form of “pot control”. Of course, in theory this approach is wrong if your opponent is not going to bluff the river on a missed draw and you are going to pay off anyway when every thing misses.Let us take a look at a pretty interesting spot that I played in from the Commerce Casino last week in a $5-10 $1500 cap game. The villain in this hand was a huge spot and liked to bluff a lot. However, whenever he put significant money in the pot he had the goods, kind of consistent with every other laggy player at $5-10. We started the hand $2000 effective and he opened UTG to $25, something that he was doing with about 40% of all of his hands. UTG+1 called and I decided to make it $150 with AQos for value since the guy was calling 100% of his opens to reraises. This was definitely a “special” type of player. The field player to my right also completed my raise and we saw the pot three handed to a flop of 6:c: 5:h: 2:d:. Both players checked to me and I decided to be out $280. Now usually I would only be betting for value against this player type but in this particular situation in a three bet, bloated pot I thought that it would be extremely difficult to get called down for two barrels especially if the turn card was a non-connecting overcard to the 6. Obviously it would be great for me to just win the $450 or so right there. Unfortunately my plan did not work out too well and the original raiser quickly called. The turn was the 5:d: bringing out a backdoor flush draw. Without hesitation the UTG player now lead out for $500. Instinctually, this bet did not make a whole lot of sense to me. If he did have a 5 or a full house, would he suddenly just lead out at the pot? I thought the answer was an emphatic no. I thought that it was much more likely that this guy had picked up a backdoor flush draw to go along with a straight draw or some sort of overcards that he called with on the flop. Usually when someone has a pair and a flush draw, like if he had flopped a 6 or a 2 in this case, they still will go into check call mode because they can beat “AK”. If I had had a hand like AA or KK in this spot with the pot being about $1500, facing a $500 bet and the villain only having $1000 left in his stack this would be an easy shove against this type of villain. But many times people with my hand will just fold “living to see another day”. But is my hand any different than AA or KK? If I make the assumption that he is not going to donk the turn with a pair plus flush draw all that often and I also do not think that he would check call lead with a hand like 88 or 99 (which by the way if I shoved there would have some fold equity against) than he MUST have some sort of combination draw, a hand that he will call my shove with. And, the most important aspect of this hand is the fact that if the river is a blank and he misses I did not think that he would bluff at the pot—since I looked like I was going to call him. So with that information in hand I decided to shove my AQ for value over the top of his turn lead wanting to avoid giving him the “free” card with his draw. After I moved all-in he immediately called and the river paired the 2. He then sheepishly turned over 9:d: 8:d: and I won over a $4000 pot with ace high.Some of the regulars at the table were of course flabbergasted by my play, as they could not possibly comprehend that AQ might be the best hand on the turn given the action. I was very pleased with the way I thought out the hand and because not only did I not give my opponent a freeroll against my stack but I gained the value of his call with his draw on the turn—value that I would not have been able to make up for on the river if he had missed.The moral of the story is that usually when you see a player make strange donk/block leads from out of position on the turn trying to represent board pairing cards you should often make a play that looks like it is protecting—even though really it is a play to get value from worse and to charge him for a likely draw that he may not bluff the river with. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/short-stackshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/short-stacksMon, 22 Dec 2014 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/short-stacksIn general the shorter the starting stacks the less the overall skill and the greater the variance. One of the things you have to realize about big bet poker is that the shorter the stacks are at the table the less skill there is involved to win especially in the short term. This can be very deceiving when you first start playing cash games or tournaments as in smaller cash games the buy-ins are usually heavily restricted and in smaller buy-in tournaments the blinds move up fast and you do not get many starting chips. Unfortunately, unless you are playing some of the bigger buy-in tournaments tournament play will always have a lot of luck involved with it and a ton of short-term variance. Especially in live play it can be extremely difficult to even know if someone is a +EV player in MTTs with the high rake and slow pace of play. I know a lot of big winning cash game players, and I include myself in this category, that have never made a major score in a live tournament and are most likely down in their careers overall. Does this mean that they are bad tournament players? Absolutely not. In fact I would take a lot of these players over other so called tournament super stars in deeper stacked structures and most of their lack of success comes from being on the bad side of variance and lack of volume.However, luckily for those who are trying to play poker for profit, cash games now have deeper stacked restricted buy-in structures even at the small stakes. I remember before 2008 where there were only uncapped no limit games, usually $5-10 and higher and then forty big blind capped games. There was absolutely nothing in between. At the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, which is where I play most of my poker, they had a huge gap between the uncapped $10-20 game and the next smallest game, which was a $400 max buy-in $5-10 structure. That’s right a $5-10, no limit game capped at a forty big blind buy-in. It was a pretty ludicrous setup and much like the game below that, which was a $2-$5, $200 cap buy-in, had huge variance. There were times in that game where I might go on twenty buy-in downswings doing almost nothing wrong. It is really tough to fold overpairs that shallow and it was not all that bad for your opponents to flop top pair or some sort of draw and just push you all-in.When the Commerce introduced the $500-$1500 buy-in $5-$10 game, a game I played full time from 2008-2010, I found that my variance drastically decreased. In fact, there were only two times during that period where I matched my largest downswing in the $400 game and I was buying in for three times as much!! My results support my contention that players that are skilled have more of an advantage in deeper stack play and thus their winrates will be increased. With a larger winrate your standard deviation decreases and you go through smaller (proportionally) downswings. Eventually, the Commerce eliminated the $400 game and instituted a $5-$5 $300-$500 cap game. Now even though the cap in this game is only 100BBs, the structure is far better than its 40BB predecessor and lends itself to the better players having more advantage over the weaker ones. This game is still not as good as a 200BB-capped game, which now you can find at several different casinos in Los Angeles at the $5 blind level. The reason why it is important to understand how stack size correlates to variance is because if you feel like you are a winning player you should try and work on your game so that you are comfortable sitting as deep as possible. That is usually where your largest winrate will be found. That is not to say that you cannot play a shorter stack profitably but with the slow pace and fewer hands in live poker you will find that playing deeper will usually equate to a higher hourly rate, which is how winning players judge their live performance. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/night-games-vs-day-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/night-games-vs-day-gamesMon, 15 Dec 2014 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/night-games-vs-day-gamesTowards the end of the night games get good because people are stuck and need to work in the morning. 2PM is different then 2AMMost people that have played live poker will agree that in general night games are of better overall quality than day games. This is due to a number of factors some of which include the average age of recreational opponents being younger at night, degree of alcohol inebriation being higher and what seems to be an overall gambling atmosphere that happens as the night turns into early morning.One of the biggest things I have noticed, however, amongst the pool of recreational players is that weekday evening play tends to be somewhat erratic. Now I am not saying that I would rather play on a Monday night as opposed to a Saturday just due to the lack of selection in games but I have found through my experience that recreational players that have to go to work the next day, eg. have some sort of deadline as to when they have to leave the casino, tend to “blow up” at the end of their session and may lose their entire stack on one dumb play. It is as if these players may not have gotten their proper gambling fix for the day and want to get into a huge confrontation and thus gamble. These are absolutely not the best times to bluff these types of players as they will look at the clock and make a big call off knowing that they have to leave. When you notice that someone is itching to go these are the times to really value bet more. No one wants to drive to the casino to fold and if nothing fulfilling has happened in their session they certainty do not want to be bluffed out or worse leave wondering if they got bluffed out of a pot. You see, it is the same type of thing with small business owners that play during the day but have to get back to their jobs at some point. If you watch closely towards the end of their playing time they will get antsy and tend to drive the action or try to get involved in a big pot. Unfortunately the rest of the daytime recreational players are usually older retirees that are not on the same time restriction. Also the need to leave at night is much stronger during the week for normal recreational players than during the day, which is why late night games during the week can be so good. Lastly you can really pound on opponents that play bad if they have been losing throughout their session. You have seen the type—the guys that only are at the casino late because they are “stuck”. Of course we know that they are going about it exactly the wrong way and extending their session with a bad image to chase their loses. Usually recreational players play very badly when they are behind in a session and you can easily pounce to exploit them. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-play1https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-play1Mon, 08 Dec 2014 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-play1Sometimes you can have the best hand almost always on the river but the right play is still to check-fold vs non bluffing non thin value betting competition. I host a live radio show on my training site CrushLivePoker.com at 4:45PM PT on Sundays. It's free to listen to live and many people call in about hand histories that they recently played. Even though poker is not a game in a vacuum I try to give them the best advice about situations that they bring up based upon my ten years of playing no limit cash games professionally. One of the more common questions that come up has to do with proper play on the river. I've talked about how much I dislike check calling on the river in this column before with two exceptions. The first and most obvious is checking to induce a bluff at the end. If you think your opponent has been on a draw and it has missed it is usually correct to let him try and buy the pot especially on a scare card. The second and rarer time to check call is to allow your opponent to "value own" themselves, that is bet a weaker hand for value than your holding when they would have otherwise folded to your value bet. Checking to have someone value own themselves is rarely the best play at the mid to low stakes levels because in general people do not value bet thinly enough. But what happens when you have a very strong hand at the end like an overpair but because you have shown such immense strength you do not think you can get called by a worse hand? You also do not think your opponent will be bluffing nor will he be value betting a worse hand. What is the play?Well if a worse hand cannot call you then betting cannot possibly be correct and we already said that check calling would be a mistake. So what combination of action does that leave? The answer can be confusing and sometimes quite perplexing--it is to check and fold. But how can we check fold at the end with such a strong hand? Looking deeper if our opponent is not bluffing and he will not call or make a bet with a worse hand then if he bets he must have us beat. The crazy part of this concept is that you can have a hand that you might think is best say 95% of the time and the proper play is still to check fold. But remember you are still going to win the pot 95% of the time if you are correct in your range analysis as the pot will simply go check check at the end. An important part of hands that happen in this matter have to do with the amount of strength that you show as the aggressor before you get to the river and it usually involves multiple players in the pot. Let us take look at a hand that I played from a few months ago at a live $5-10 game at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. I had a good, winning image and I was up several thousand dollars for the session. People were definitely trying to stay out of my way especially some of the medium skilled regulars. One weaker player limped in under the gun and I raised to $45 with K:s: K:c: to his immediately left. The player to my left with $3000 effective called, the button called, the big blind called and the limper called. The flop came out 9:h: 3:s: 2:c:. It got checked to me and I bet out $125 into the $225 pot. The villain to my left who was one of the medium strength regs called and the big blind also called. The turn brought in the 6:c: and once again it was checked to me. Even though 45 came in and I did not beat a set I felt like this was a classic bet-fold spot against non-bluffing predictable opponents so I fired $375. The villain to my left thought for a long time and finally called. The big blind got out of the way. At this point I was a little torn as to what the villain in the hand had. He could have been slowplaying something like 45 or a set but a lot of the time players will raise those hands for protection on the turn as the pot gets bigger and bigger. He also could have been stubbornly sticking around with a hand like 99-JJ. The other holding that I thought he would call two streets with was a hand that picked up backdoor clubs on the turn like an 8:c: X:c:, A:c: 4:c: or A:c: 5:c:. With that range in mind I was not really happy when the 9:c: fell on the river. Now, I continued to lose to a slow played monster, was behind a set of nines and a backdoor flush. I also and most importantly thought that it was going to be very hard to get called by TT or JJ betting into a pot that was already over $1200 because I had looked so strong by betting multiple streets into multiway action. There was also no way in the world that my opponent would bet for value with a worse hand than mine. So with those thoughts I decided that the proper play was to check with the intention of folding to a river bet. After I checked my opponent took a very long time with it almost to the point where someone called the clock on his decision and he finally checked the river back. At this point I thought I had the best hand nearly all of the time and tabled my kings. I was in utter shock when I saw that my opponent then tabled A:h: A:d:!!Even though I never would have thought that the player to my left could ever have that specific hand due to the preflop, flop and turn action, his check back on the river really fits into my analysis of the typical mid stakes player. If he's not bluffing on the river AND he is not betting a hand as strong as AA then when he does bet there would be no way that KK could be good. Sometimes because you do not want to give out free cards and lose value on the turn you can get into a situation where you cannot be called by medium strength hands on the river. Another common example of this happens when a card comes out at the end that hits your range hard as the preflop raiser, decreasing your opponents bluffing and calling frequency. This commonly occurs when we raise with a hand like QQ and the board comes out T23r. We make a standard continuation bet and get called. The turn comes a 9, we bet and get called again. The river runs out an ace. We do not think that our opponent will call us with a pocket pair or T now and he very easily could have made aces up or completed the straight draw with 45. So we go with the plan of checking to fold to a bet. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/a-lot-of-information-can-be-gained-from-your-own-handhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/a-lot-of-information-can-be-gained-from-your-own-handMon, 01 Dec 2014 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/a-lot-of-information-can-be-gained-from-your-own-handYou can learn a lot about someone else's hand by looking at your ownGreat no limit players are more concerned with what their opponent holds as opposed to their own hand. A lot of players, however, do not realize that there is a lot of information that can be gained from your own hand to help you put your opponent on an accurate range. A perfect example of this can be shown from a hand that I observed recently while playing a $5-10 uncapped game. The stacks were pretty deep in the hand with the two larger amounts being over $3000 and the smaller being about $1900. The hand started with one of the players with the larger stacks limping in under the gun. This guy was obviously a recreational player as he played almost half of all of his hands preflop. I also had seen him lose a mountain of money earlier when he could not get away from a flopped flush when it was pretty obvious that he did not have the best hand. A few people limped behind him and a relatively solid player with the other large stack raised to $60 from the cutoff. The small blind called as did the limpers making it a pot of $300 five ways. The board came out Q:h: 4:h: 7:h: and the action got checked to the preflop raiser. He confidently bet $225 and the small blind, a very solid, experienced professional raised to $700 with the $1900 stack. The under the gun player now snapped moved all-in. The action got back to the original raiser who took some time with it, asked to see the small blinds stack and finally called the all-in. The small blind followed suit and there was a massive pot. The board ran out blank blank and the hands were revealed. The small blind had a set of sevens, the under the gun had 9:h: 2:h: and the preflop raiser had J:h: T:h:. 
A friend of mine actually pulled me aside to talk about the hand and asked me if I would have called with just the jack high flush knowing that the small blind was very solid and that one of the two players could have had him beat. To be honest I was slightly taken aback by how quickly he called with the third nuts for that amount of money and facing that heat. However upon further analyzation I think that J:h: T:h: is an easy call in this spot and it does not have much to do with the pot odds. The key to this hand is noticing the exact cards contained within the preflop raiser's hand and accepting the fact that it is rare that players fast play a flopped nut flush. When we say that the small blind is a good experienced professional we can make some pretty accurate assumptions as to the hands that he will and will not play to a large raise from out of position. If I were to tell you that it was impossible for the small blind to have flopped a king high flush on this board can you figure out why? What exact hands might he call $60 preflop that contain a king high suit? KQ, KJ and KT are the only ones that are reasonable. Because the Q:h: is on the flop he cannot have KQ and most importantly because the preflop raiser has the J:h: and T:h: in his hand he cannot have KJ or KT. It is extremely unlikely that he is playing and smaller suited king so we can say with very high confidence that he cannot have a king high flush. Now, what about an ace high flush? Besides the fact that it is so rare for people to fast play the nut flush, even if this player did, we can look at the same type of card removal issues and examine his calling range preflop. With some frequency he is going to reraise A:h: K:h: preflop. He cannot have AQ, AJ or AT because of the board and preflop raiser’s hand so he would literally have to call with A rag suited of hearts AND fast play the flop. Those two things are possible but unlikely if both have to happen together. 

However, there are 6 total combinations of sets of fours and sevens. This is a far more likely holding than the nut flush for the small blind in my opinion. J:h: T:h: is far ahead if the range for the small blind. And because the under the gun is playing so many hands coupled with the fact that he obviously has no concept of hand strength in deep pots J:h: T:h: is for sure a call hereEarly street had reading coupled with card removal from noticing your own hand are powerful tools that great no limit players have mastered. It will take some practice but these concepts are not that difficult. Just make sure to pay attention to all of the action throughout the hand and realize that you can learn a lot of information about your opponents' hand through noticing your own. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/when-is-a-scare-card-a-scare-cardhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/when-is-a-scare-card-a-scare-cardMon, 24 Nov 2014 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/when-is-a-scare-card-a-scare-cardA lot of times when the top card pairs--especially when it's a rag--it really isn't a scare card.Last week at Commerce I was playing the $5-10 $1500 cap game and got into an interesting multiway spot. I opened to $35 with TT from UTG +1, the cutoff called and the both the small blind and the big blind called. The flop came out 6:c: 5:d: 4:s:. Even though I held an overpair this was not the best board for me as many turn cards could potentially cause me to not have the best holding. Also, if someone were to raise my bet on the flop it would be hard for me to continue as almost all two pair combinations are possible that would call a preflop raise as well as straights. Still, though, I thought a bet for value was definitely prudent and fired $100. The cutoff folded and both blinds called. The turn was the 6:h:, pairing the top card. The small blind checked again and this time the big blind bet out $300. Now on the surface the 6 looks like it could be a scary card as someone may have called my continuation bet with top pair. However if we analyze the hand a little more in depth and use early street hand reading we can deduce that he does not have many sixes in his range. In fact, if the player is reasonable and not clueless, the only 6 he could have is 76 or possible 36s. It would be very difficult for him to call with a hand like A6 after the preflop raiser continuation bet into so many people and someone to his right called. Any halfway experienced player would know that top pair as a six is rarely going to be good in that spot. Also, if this player had checked I think that a lot of people also make the mistake in checking back this board pairing card because they think it is a scare card. But in actuality, for the reasons that I just stated, it is very rare that a ragged top pair is in their range and all you are doing by not betting is giving them a free card to beat you. Because of the combination of these factors I thought it was a pretty easy turn call for me and a reevaluation on the river. After I called, the small blind folded behind me. The river brought the 9:d:. This is a situation that I often call on my training site CrushLivePoker.com fifth street chicken. Calling on the turn basically announces my hand as an overpair and you get into a situation of basically daring your opponent or "playing chicken" to bet at the end because it looks so much like you are going to call. Against some players who are not capable of pulling a large bluff amount on the river or just do not have the guts, if they fire big again I very well may fold. This breaks the whole adage of calling the river when nothing changes from the turn. The fact that your opponent bet again is change enough. In this particular situation I actually was unfamiliar with my opponent and very well may have called down because he has so few sixes in his range. However, he checked at the end after thinking about it for a long time. At this point I actually think that I made a mistake and bet $400. Even though after he checks I have the best hand probably 99 percent of the time my opponent rarely has a hand that can all a bet. If he has a bare seven he has missed and even with a hand like 75 or 88 it is very difficult for him to be good. I mean what can I possible have after cbetting the flop into three players and calling his turn bet? 
But the main thing that you should take away from this article is that when the top card pairs and it is small, especially on a draw heavy board AND someone has over called they rarely will just have top pair as that holding is not strong enough for them to call the flop. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-pricing-your-opponent-in-with-small-raiseshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-pricing-your-opponent-in-with-small-raisesMon, 17 Nov 2014 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-pricing-your-opponent-in-with-small-raisesIf you feel like your opponent is on a draw don’t make a small raise with awkward stacks to feel like you have to call on the river when it gets thereI got into a great spot last week in a Commerce $5-10 $1500 cap game because of a huge raise-sizing mistake my opponent made on the turn. Effective stacks were $1100 and an under the gun raiser opened the pot for $50. This guy was very tight and this normally indicated a very strong hand from early position. I was in MP1 and called with T:c: 8:c: as both the raiser and I had over $2000. The small blind, who is the villain in this hand, also called with the $1100. This guy was a middle-aged gentleman and was obviously a recreational player there to just blow off some steam. We took the flop three ways to a board of 9:s: 6:s: 2:c:. The small blind checked, the under the gun raiser thought for a bit and also checked and I thought that this was a good spot to take a stab at the pot. I knew that almost 100% of the time the UTG player would bet an overpair and deduced that he most likely had AK. I also knew that if I could get the small blind to fold his hand there was a very good chance that I would win the pot. I also thought that even if the small blind called, unless he was slowplaying something big, he would have a very difficult time calling future bets on the turn due to the good chance that he either had a draw or at best a nine. I bet out $110. The small blind thought for a bit and called and the preflop raiser folded. The turn brought in the J:d: giving me an open ended straight draw. With the pot being now being about $375, he checked and I bet $280. At this point he put on a bit of an act, fiddled with his chips and raised to $600 total. This left him with just under $350 left in his stack. These types of bet-sizing patterns from recreational players usually mean the same type of thing—a gigantic hand. If he was trying to make a move with a check raise semi bluff on the turn he would be much more likely to just go all-in to maximize his fold equity. Also, if he had a hand like J:s: X:s: he would either only call or “just go with it”. It would be extremely rare for him to min raise and leave money behind in his stack. This small turn raise usually represents at least J9 in this situation but most likely should be interpreted as a set. His sizing and his remaining stack opened the door for a great +ev situation for me. Because the pot was so big and he had so little left it would be almost impossible for him to fold the river no matter what appeared and he basically allowed me to take a free shot at the rest of his money. Let us take a look at the math. After his check raise the pot was $1255, $320 for me to call. But this is a great example of why draws can be powerful as I also had the implied odds of the money behind.In actuality, we can look at this situation as me calling $320 to win $1255+$350 for a total of $1605. Getting over 5-1 with my eight out draw I was priced into making the call just as long as I always thought I would get the rest of his stack, which I certainly did in this scenario. You see my opponent would be getting what I call extreme “reverse pot odds” at the end. After I made the call on the turn the pot would be $1575. If he checked and I moved him in for his last $350 the pot would lay him $1925 for $350 or almost 5.5-1. No recreational player is going to find a fold there with two pair or a set especially when my draw is somewhat hidden. This spot is actually one of the advantages in having a straight draw versus a flush draw because not only are the completing cards not that obvious but we do not have to worry about the board pairing, making our hand and losing. Sure enough the river came the Q:c: and my opponent open shoved into me. I quickly called and he was rather disgusted by my hand as he tabled a set of sixes. He could not believe how “lucky I had gotten” and “how bad I played”. I do not really blame the guy for being that upset. Most recreational players hate taking what they think to be bad beats and lot of them do not get their money in good in large pots that often. Of course, he did not get his money in a good even though it appeared to him as if I had made a bad call.There is another reason why I have a problem with his small raise size on the turn besides the fact that he priced me in with the implied odds of the situation. If I am betting say TT or A9 on the turn for value his sizing screams like he has a big hand even more so than if he had moved all-in. So why would he want me to fold out all of my weaker made hands and only continue with my draws? It is the approach to the game that a lot of recreational players take that is just flat out wrong. We do not flop big hands all that often in Holdem and sometimes players think that they want to “win some money” by playing their hands tricky. To winning NL players if you wait until a later street to make a small raise on a drawy board you look super strong. You are not doing yourself any favors by basically opening your hand face up. In these types of situation it is much better to play your hand fast for deception. Now obviously if he had raised check raised the flop I would have just folded and he would have only won my bet. However, even if he chose to wait until the turn to make his play, he should not made it look so obvious that he had a big hand and also he should calculate the situation correctly with regards to the pot and his awkward stack size. Whenever I talk about this topic with some of my private students or on my training material over at CrushLivePoker.com I usually say that if you are not going to be able to fold on the river because of bloated pot size than maximize your possible bet on an earlier street so that the player your playing against doesn’t get a freeroll on the rest of your stack. You also make the most money when they call. It would be a disaster for this guy, if deeper, to only make a small raise sizing if I actually had a draw that was big enough to call an all-in—like an open-ended straight draw and flush draw. In that spot he is not only giving me a cheaper price to crack him but if I miss he lost the value of the rest of the raise that I would have called. We all know that maximizing value is a huge part of being a great player in a no limit cash game. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-a-weak-move-on-a-pothttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-a-weak-move-on-a-potMon, 10 Nov 2014 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-a-weak-move-on-a-potSometimes you can "feel" when someone is making a move on a pot. It is like a sixth sense. Some inexperienced players take this too far and play too much off of their reads while dismissing some important information laid out in front of them.One of the biggest clues that you can observe in a certain situation is when you think that someone would NOT play a hand fast due to the lack of draws. Let is take a look at a hand that I played last week at the Seminole Hard Rock casino in Hollywood, FL. The game was $5-10 and I had just busted from the $10 million guarantee tournament. I did not know any of the players at this cash game table so I was forced to stereotype based upon looks. The gentlemen that I got involved with in this hand was in his mid fifties and I had listen to him talk with someone on the phone about his business. I made the conclusion that he was most likely a recreational player.In this hand he was in the small blind and I was in the big blind. The pot was raised from UTG +2 to $40, the small blind called and I called with QJos. We were all $2000 deep. The board came out 4:c: 4:s: T:h: and both of us in the blinds checked. The preflop raiser bet out $50 and the small blind immediately raised to $125. It looked to me like the cbetter's sizing was rather weak and even though I did not necessary think that the small blind was bluffing I dismissed the fact that he would fast play trips on such a dry board facing a weak bet. It was more likely that he had a ten or some sort of pocket pair like 7s. Identifying this situation I thought that this was a perfect opportunity for me to take this pot down with a bluff check raise three bet.I pondered if it would better for me just to call in between. Which play would look stronger--a raise or call? I decided to raise because I believe that players get scared of playing big pots with marginal holdings. I wanted to put the fear in him that more bets were coming and did not want to give him the opportunity to check call with a ten if I only called his flop check raise. I also thought that on the outside chance that the preflop raiser actually had an overpair he would be forced to fold now. So I decided to make it $375. The preflop raiser quickly folded and the the small blind thought for a bit, said "show me your four" and folded a ten face up. 

There was a another spot in a tournament last year where I made a similar play from out of position. This time the villain was on the button and raised a preflop raiser's continuation bet on a 9:c: 9:d: 2:h: board. I flat called the flop raise from the big blind with 8:s: T:s: and the preflop raiser folded. I thought that my call would be super scary to the button and sure enough he checked back a J:c: turn. On the river a K:s: came and I made a modest one third pot sized bet. The button grimaced, quickly folded and I knew that I had represented a 9 well.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/facing-river-block-betshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/facing-river-block-betsMon, 03 Nov 2014 06:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/facing-river-block-betsSometimes when you face a small bet on the river by your opponent you just know that he is not strong. A lot of bad players put out block bets on the river from out of position to name their price to make sure that they can showdown their hand. They do not want to get bluffed out of the pot so instead they bet an amount that they are comfortable calling.There are a number of reasons why block bets usually are not a good approach to scary rivers. First and for most if your opponent is going to bluff why would you prevent him from bluffing through block betting? I never really understood this line of thinking by low and sometimes midstakes players. Secondly, if you think your opponent has you beat because of his bet sizing and his hand looks like value then fold.There have been many times that I did not know quite what to do on the river until I saw how my opponent acted. Often times I hear players say "I didn't want him to bet too much because then I couldn't call." Do you see what is wrong with this line of thinking? It doesn't matter how much your opponent bets at the end it only matters if you think you have the best hand given the pot odds. Poker players that are thinking about folding because their hand is not a 200 dollar hand are not thinking about the game in the correct manner. You should not be examining your own hand strength in an absolute sense but whether or not you have the best holding. Sometimes I may fold top set on the river. Sometimes I might call with king high. But to say that I want to prevent my opponent from betting a lot is ludicrous and it stems from people always wanting to get to showdown.If you are good at hand reading you can really exploit block bets through bluff raising. Sometimes players will convince themselves to call anyway so be careful. This reminds me of a hand that I played at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open this week. We were in the early stages of the tournament and a player from under the gun raised to two and a half times the blind. I was in the cutoff with 9:s: T:s: and called and a very big fishy player also called in the small blind. The board ran out K:c: Q:c: 5:d:. The small blind checked and the preflop raiser made a standard continuation bet. A lot of the times I fold here but I thought that if I floated this board the preflop raiser would just check fold the turn so I called. Much to my dismay the small blind called as well. His range was extremely wide--a king, a queen, a flush draw or a straight draw were all in his possible holdings. The turn came the 2:d: and the small blind checked again. This time the preflop raiser also checked and this gave me the green light to stab at it and win a nice sized pot. I knew that the deuce did not change anything but also brought an additional draw to the board. I thought that if the preflop raiser had at least top pair he would almost certainly bet again to win the pot or get value from the draws. Unfortunately the stubborn small blind took some time with it and called again and the preflop raiser folded. I really thought that the small blind now either had a weak king or combination flush draw plus pair or straight draw. The river came the Q:d: for a final board reading K:c: Q:c: 5:d: 2:d: Q:d:.Now to some that may have looked like a scary card. But in reality I actually thought it was not that scary at all. There is no way that this guy was holding on with just a queen the whole time and the fact that the river was the Qd meant that he couldn't have a flopped middle pair that turned a flush draw. If I was certain that this guy wouldn't fold a king if it was checked to me I most likely would have under bluffed the river as my hand had no showdown value. However, surprisingly he came out and bet about 1/5 if the pot which was 1800. I just didn't believe that someone would bet so small when they made a backdoor flush and correctly sussed this out as a blocker bet with a king. I then had to determine if I thought he would fold a king as many players will block the river yet still call a raise even though the action is counter intuitive. But here I figured if I made it 15k which represented about half of his stack he would fold. He ended up taking a very long time with it and eventually dumped his hand.So you can see that his weak sizing at the end coupled with my ability to read his hand really created quite a profitable bluff raise situation.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/winners-tilthttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/winners-tiltMon, 27 Oct 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/winners-tiltLuckily for me I have never really had a problem with what people consider “normal” tilt. Very early on I realized that I could not control the cards that came out after I made my decisions and that even when I was a big favorite, usually there was still at least a 10-20% chance that I would lose in a particular spot. A lot of people don’t realize that AA loses to KK all-in preflop about 18% of the time. In fact when you win in an all-in situation and your opponent was not drawing dead you are actually running ABOVE expectation. Typically, these are the situations when people lose it mentally. They get a bad beat, they get angry, and the overall quality of their play drastically decreases. However, there are times where winning over long, extended periods of time also cause us to play not up to our best. I call this (and I am not the first) “winner’s tilt”. Why would we possibly tilt when we are winning you ask? Well it definitely is not the same tilt as players with steaming problems. But when we win we tend to get a little bit cocky and overconfident. We take chances because we feel invincible and we do not realize that we might actually just be on a variance heater. We also might be willing to put our money in with the worst of it because the loss might not hurt as much because we have won so much in the short term.In took me a long time to get out of this vicious cycle. I remember a few years ago looking back at my records it was almost to the point where I dreaded having extended heaters because I knew that it would be followed by a period of bad play and a downswing that was not necessarily attributed to variance. Now, I did not really “dread” the heaters but I realized that over other periods of extended time I had actually won more money when I did not have a crazy upswing. I realized that when I had more even, stable results I never had a downswing that was attributed to bad play. With recreational players I see this more as a short-term problem. It could even be as short a time as one session. Sometimes players win a lot or get lucky in the beginning of the day only to get recklessly aggressive and cocky later on. These players usually end up dumping the money that they first won and inevitably end up in the red. Add to the fact that if they have bad loser’s tilt the tilt now is compounded because they are even more upset that they are down because they were up so much earlier on. Now there is nothing wrong with being proud of yourself for good play and a solid session. And I have talked in other columns about how I think that these are the times that you should extend your sessions because of your likely good image at the table. But this good image does not give you the excuse to make sloppy, dumb, unprofitable plays and you must be weary that you do not fall into this common trap.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stealing-the-dead-moneyhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stealing-the-dead-moneyMon, 20 Oct 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stealing-the-dead-moneyWhenever someone comes to me for a general “game plan” of preflop strategy I often tell them that it is ok to limp in from the first few positions with hands like small pocket pairs. However, once, in a nine handed game, the first two players fold usually I tell my students that they should open raise or fold. The simple fact of the matter is the fold equity that they gain from opening instead of limping in this position against the dead money in the blinds usually makes a raise more +EV than a limp. This is certainly the case when players buy the button or post dead behind the button. In the former case you only have to get through one player in order to pick up the dead money in the blinds and in the latter and you are in the more lucrative position of being able to steal three separate blinds. So in these situations, especially versus players that post dead, I think that we should change our strategy and almost always open raise with a hand that we are going to play and being first in the pot. The extra money that we can win without seeing a flop makes it worth it. If you are paying close attention to what is going on around you can also exploit someone that you suspect is “stealing the dead money” just like a later position open raiser. I played a simple hand a few days ago where I was the button and a player to my right posted in front of me. The game was $5-10 $1500 cap and the action got folded to the hijack, an aware player. He opened the pot to $40. The player in the cutoff folded, along with giving up his $15 that he posted, and I decided to three-bet to $115 with K:h: 4:h: on the button. Both the blinds and the initial raiser folded allowing me to pick up a quick $70. Because I was paying attention to what was going on I knew that the raiser in the hijack had a wider opening range in this exact situation and my play needed to work only about 65% of the time for it to be profitable. I also knew that the player to my right respected me and I doubted that he would ever flat call my three-bet from out of position. If he took this situation one step further he may have considered four-bet bluffing me but normally the frequency of that happening in live poker at $5-$10 is rather low.I have the same attitude about preflop play when I am at the $75-$150 to $100-$200 Omaha 8 game that is becoming more and more popular at the World Series. There, any time someone scoops a pot after a flop they have to “kill “ the hand. That means that they have to put out an extra $100 blind and the stakes of the next hand are played at $100-$200. Because there is no monetary minimum for this kill about 50% of the hands are played at $100-$200 with this extra blind. Similar to the reason why I attack the extra blind in No Limit I will usually adjust my play and almost always open raise with a hand that I will play if the pot is killed and it has been folded to me. And I also think that there are a fair amount of hands in Omaha 8 in non-kill pots that you should limp in with—much more than in No Limit Holdem. Stealing the blinds in a limit game actually has much more value than in No Limit as the stakes are bigger and players are getting immediate odds especially in Omaha 8. In fact even if you took the best possible starting hand in O8, AA23 double suited, you would still rather have the big blind fold than have him call with a random hand. This is much different than Holdem where you certainly want the blinds to call when you have a premium holding like aces or kings.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-limped-potshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-limped-potsMon, 13 Oct 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-limped-potsMany times in limped pots if you play close attention to the action your opponents from out of position will play their hands “face up”. Many players will check a weak top pair out of the blinds in multiway pots but usually players that have over limped in the field, especially on draw heavy boards, will bet hands that they want to protect or to a lesser extent any pair if they are in late position. So many times in a multiway pot if the action has been checked to you you do not have to worry too much about the players to your right. If they have a hand strong enough to call they would have bet themselves. That leaves only the upfront players to get through. And on boards where top pair is likely to change that gives you a green light to steal the pot.Let us take a look at a hand that I played at $5-$10 at the Commerce Casino last week. The table was a typical loose passive live game and the stacks were somewhat deep. There were several “big” spots at the table, which caused me to limp in with some very speculative hands in position. In one hand, 4-5 people limped in in front of me and I over limped with T8os. The blinds checked and we saw the hand six ways to a flop of 9:h: 2:s: 5:c:. The action got checked around to me and I decided to bet $45. Now obviously I totally missed this flop but I thought that most people, if they were after the blinds would bet a 9 or a five. In fact, I surmised if I could get through the blinds I would definitely take it down. The small blind, who was next to act called and everyone else folded. I thought his range was a hand like a 9, A3, A4 or 34. It was unlikely that he was calling with anything weaker than top pair or a draw because of all of the player left to act behind him. The turn brought a K:d: and he checked again. This time I bet $125 and he folded 8:s:9:s: face up. This is a perfect example of using positional awareness and hand reading. The fact that I had basically no real equity on the flop besides the overcards did not matter. I knew that the people to my right were relatively weak because they hadn’t bet and that even if someone were check calling with a nine from up front that it would be difficult for him to call a lot of money later on. These simple concepts are often times ignored by fit or fold players. We can always make money from a donk overplaying their hand but there a spots like these that arise more commonly where there is free money to be won. So, you should play close attention to what is going on around you--especially in small pots that no one really cares about.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-preflop-limpershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-preflop-limpersMon, 06 Oct 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/attacking-preflop-limpersI remember 7-8 years ago when online training sites first came out that one of their most useful pieces of advice was attacking preflop limpers. When people limped in, whether it was a 6max or full ring game, usually they did not have a strong hand. Raising limpers showed an almost immediate profit especially when limpers who had big hands would limp reraise almost always preflop. And even if limpers did call someone’s isolation raise they would play so fit or fold post flop that raising them would be profitable with almost any two cards.It did not take too long for people to adjust to the fact that the game was riddled with constant isolation at 6max tables and from five years ago until now almost no one ever open limped. But players in the mid or low stakes live games did not get the memo. If you have read my articles here before or on CrushLivepoker.com you know how much I hate limp reraising with big hands for value. Usually players that have this move in their repertoire are scared to play post flop as they do not want their big hands to be broken or more simply to do not want to get a bad beat. But normally after several people have folded they will play big hands straightforward. So if you see a player limp in past the first few spots, as the first action, there is a very good chance that they do not have a strong hand. This could be a hand like a small pocket pair that they wish to set mine or a hand as weak as J9os. But the point is that if you raise them and take the betting lead, especially in position, it is almost always a profitable spot if their bluffing frequency post flop is not high—like in most low to mid stakes games. In fact, if you are comfortable firing multiple bluffing barrels playing off of turn changing top pair textures a large percentage of your winrate can be directly attributed to playing off of the fact that your opponents miss. And that really is the key to becoming a top player in no limit holdem. It is all about playing off of your opponents’ range and how the board effects it not your own. This is true for bluffing and correctly assessing a proper value bet sizing on a future street. Pay close attention to the strength patterns of those who limp in in front of you. If you are a tighter player you do not always have to sit around and wait for hands. You can force your opponents to make mistakes against you by folding too much.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-bets-from-strong-playershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-bets-from-strong-playersMon, 29 Sep 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-bets-from-strong-playersIf you have read some of my previous columns here you know that I usually say that lead outs, often called donk bets, into preflop raisers are usually a sign of weakness. In fact many times when a bad player leads out at the preflop raiser he is often semi bluffing with a draw or his range is "capped" at one pair. This is useful information to us because often times this causes the players' hand to be face up and on the right type of boards we can move them off of their holdings. However, if you see a player who you think is strong in your player pool lead into a multiway field that includes a preflop raiser chances are he is very strong. Good players usually know that the best way to win big pots is to build a pot and often times they will play their hand extremely straight forward to try and get the most amount of money in. Obviously this can also be done by check raising but a good, tight, player knows that if he check raises multiple people this really puts the heat on other players, especially the preflop raiser and might give them an excuse to fold. So sometimes the best way to maximize your value is to just bet your hand straight out--and many times other people will not believe the fact that you are very strong. Let us take a look at an example that I saw go down from a game I played last week at the Commerce Casino's $5-$10NL table. The game was relatively loose and good and there were several fishy players at the table. Two of these fishy players limped in from the first two positions and a relatively solid, tight reg raised to $50 from UTG+2. I then called on the button $3000 effective with J:d: A:d:, a very good player in the BB called and both limpers called. The board ran out J:c: 5:c: 3:d:. The big blind then led out for $200, the limpers folded and the preflop raiser called. The action came to me and I mucked my hand rather easily knowing that only the best of scenarios would have me ahead. Even if I had the best hand I realized that my opponents had a mountain of equity against me even if they had only big draws. The good player ended up betting nearly full pot on the turn and the river and won a monstrous hand with 55 against KK. Because the villain played his hand fast he won the most amount of money and I was able to release rather easily because I was paying attention.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/suited-connectors-in-the-blindshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/suited-connectors-in-the-blindsMon, 22 Sep 2014 10:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/suited-connectors-in-the-blindsWe have all learned that holdings like 8:c: 7:c: are supposedly better starting hands than K:h: T:c: in No Limit Holdem. And in a deep stack cash game usually this line of thinking is correct. Suited connectors have a lot of value because of the implied odds nature of their holdings and the fact that you can win big over a pre flop raisers strong starting hand. You can also drive powerful draws and put a lot of pressure on your opponents through semi bluffing if you have proper stack depth. Usually it is very difficult to win a big pot with an off suit broadway type hand versus another type of strong starting hand. However, what people do not realize is that most of the time when you flop well with a suited connector you flop a draw not a made hand like trips or two pair. And draws are very difficult to play out of position. This is where a lot of beginning and intermediate players get into trouble. They see a hand like 8:c: 7:c: in the big blind and think that they easily can call a raise because they are closing the action preflop and they are getting “odds to call” because they are already in for some portion of the raise. Even though this thinking is partially true it really does not make up for the positional disadvantage. Especially in smaller games, where fold equity is very limited against over pairs and top pair and also where the stacks are restricted and thus short, driving these types of draws through strong semi-bluff lines can be just throwing money away. Thus you are forced to just fall into a check-call shell and it can sometimes can become obvious what you have making it less likely that you will be paid off when you hit your draw. I know I am playing bad when I flop some sort of draw and realize that I have to play the hand rather passively because of my position or the effective stacks.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/you-dont-always-need-to-know-how-to-react-to-a-raisehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/you-dont-always-need-to-know-how-to-react-to-a-raiseMon, 15 Sep 2014 10:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/you-dont-always-need-to-know-how-to-react-to-a-raiseIf you are familiar with a lot of the training material over on my site CrushLivePoker.com you know that I think that there are a lot of old poker adages that are flat out wrong when it comes to No Limit. Having to call the river when the board does not change, only betting if your hand is strong enough to call a raise are just a few pieces of bad advice that I am still amazed that I hear spouted out from time to time by poker trainers, players and authors. I have done a lot of live commentary over the years especially at the WSOP and another one of these “bad adages” I often hear other pros say is that you should know what you are going to do beforehand if your opponent raises you in a given situation. I think that this is basically hogwash and I will explain why.During the WSOP Monster Stack this summer I got involved in a tough spot about seven levels into the tournament. In any other $1500 tourney this would not be all that early on but in the Monster Stack with such a slow structure only about 20% of the field had been knocked out. An older gentlemen had limped in at $200-$400 blinds with a $50 ante with about $20K effective under the gun and I made it $1200 to go on the button with A:d: Q:d:. A very loose aggressive player in the big blind called and the limper also called. The board came out Q:c: 3:c: T:s:. The blind checked and the limper lead out at the pot for $2k. For a number of reasons including the fact that I did not want to give the guy in the blind good odds to peel and the pot size was approaching half of my stack plus I thought the limper would call with worse queens and flush draws I decided to raise to $5K. The limper was a gentleman in his late 40s to early 50s and I could tell by the way that he physically handled his chips that he was not the most experienced player (later I found that he was actually quite new to poker). I have been playing professional for nearly ten years and have picked up on certain betting patterns and actions of novice players. I would say that when a player like this leads out at the pot that AQ is the best hand here about 95% of the time. Now that does not mean that raising is always the correct play as we do not want to get all hands weaker than our hands to fold and only better to continue on. It would be a disaster for him to fold 19/20 times and only continue 1/20 with a better hand. But I just did not think that this was the case in this situation especially with my rather small raise sizing. Why do I think that I am good here so often? It is just very rare that players like this lead out with a monster hand like a set of 3s or top two pair. Also when you look at the distribution of suits on the board and what I held in my hand there is only one combination of QT suited and three combinations of set of threes. Sets of queens and tens were unlikely as those hands most likely raise before the flop. So most likely the guy was leading with the nut flush draw, a combo draw or a weaker queen. Much to my surprise, however after the blind folded, the gentlemen thought for about 20 seconds and moved all-in! Now I definitely was not expecting that. Did I know what to do immediately? Definitely not. I went into the tank for a long time thinking about all of the possibilities and combinations. Some would say that I “should have known my decision before I made my raise”. But this of course is rubbish because I am going to be reraised so infrequently why would I waste the mental energy to think one step ahead about a situation that is so unlikely to happen?You only have a finite amount of memory in your brain--kind of like a computer--and I truly feel that you need to properly ration it. There are going to be many times when you raise someone, especially on later streets, that when you get raised back your opponents’ range is going to be extremely polarized which means that most of the time they are going to only call or fold. You don’t have to think about what you are going to do in advance to counter the very few times that they actually do come back over the top. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-force-the-issue-in-cash-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-force-the-issue-in-cash-gamesMon, 08 Sep 2014 10:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-force-the-issue-in-cash-gamesRight around the time of the poker boom several notable poker authors said that No Limit should be a “dead” game unless the players at the table were playing with invisible antes. At that time, during 2003-2004, there was so much money to be made in NL cash games even some of the more seasoned limit players switched over to catch the gold mine that was NL cash games. But if you really take a look at it closely there really should not be that much money won in No Limit if everyone would play optimally tight. In fact the game would be hard to beat with the rake if everyone played less than 20% of his or her preflop hands.Of course there is money to be made in poker because rarely this is the case at a table especially at the lower levels. Players are commonly playing 30-40% of their hands. And because there are no antes in No Limit cash games you can literally play less hands than your opponent, be patient and have such a beginning hand strength advantage over them that playing tighter can almost show an immediate profit. It is different of course in tournaments where the blinds escalate. There if you play super tight you will be at an inherent disadvantage because winning more chips gives you an advantage. In a cash game the size of your stack is irrelevant and sometimes it is more advantageous to be shorter stacked than a loose opponent. This is why some older players that may have less fundamentals and technical skill than their younger counterparts win more money in the long term. With age usually comes patience as well as more emotional self-control when things do not go their way. But the most important part of this conservative attribute is realizing that there is no need to force the issue in a cash game. And that is why you can win a lot of money versus a player that is tilting who is forcing the issue. If this tilter suddenly goes from playing 25% of his hands to 50% of his hands you are at a distinct advantage over him just based on hand strength. Add to that the propensity for his post flop bluffing frequency to increase and his random spaz factor to go through the roof and you have a very profitable situation. You can even go so far as to play slightly more hands against a tilter. Say you play 20% of hands when all things are normal. The guy who is losing goes from playing 25% of hands to 50% of hands. You could increase the amount of hands that you play to 30% and still have a huge hand strength edge over him going to the flop. Be careful, however. You need to know which types of hands to expand to. Implied odds holdings like 5:s: 8:s: have little value against someone who is opening super wide because the chances that you hit and he hits at the same time are very slim. However hands like ATos or KJos go up in value as you can have the best hand at showdown without even making a pair. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/limped-pots-play-off-of-your-opponents-rangehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/limped-pots-play-off-of-your-opponents-rangeMon, 01 Sep 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/limped-pots-play-off-of-your-opponents-rangeI have written several columns in the past in Card Player about the profitability of stealing limped pots through betting or raising. A lot of players really do keep to the old adage “don’t go broke in a limped pot” and simply will not put in a lot of money if the pot is unraised preflop with only one pair postflop. You can take advantage of this situation by bluffing good barrel over cards. That is why your own hand strength is almost irrelevant if you are running one of these limped pot bluffs. It does not matter if you have bottom pair, a gutshot or total air most of the reason why you are playing a bloated limp pot is to bluff your opponent off of his holding by using scare cards. Let us take a look a look at a hand that I played at the WSOP this summer. This was the one and only no limit cash session that I played at the Rio this year as usually I spend my time playing the $75-$150 Omaha Hi-Low game. This was a good, passive $5-$10 table and I had had a winning image. Two people limped in front of me and I decided to over limp with J:h: 9:h: on the button. The two blinds checked and the flop came out T:h: 6:c: 2:d:. All of the players checked to me and I thought that this was a great board to stab at the pot. Not only was it unlikely that anyone had a strong hand but I also had some backdoor flush and straight draw equity. I bet out $30 into $40 and only the big blind called. Now it is possible that the blind could have had a 6 and is calling me thinking I am stealing but a lot of players also check weak top pairs in limped pots out of the blinds. So as long as he was not slow playing a set I thought that it was going to be really hard for him to hold on to just a ten in a bloated pot. The turn was a K:c: giving me a gutshot straight draw. He checked and I fired ¾ pot. He took a little time and finally folded a ten ace up. Now the fact that I picked up a gutshot was irrelevant. I was entirely playing the hand based upon what I thought my opponent had not what I actually held. If the turn was a 6 or a ten those cards would be incredibly bad bluff cards for me as I would not expect him to fold top pair or if he now ran into trips. Being a great No Limit player is all about putting your opponent on a range, no matter the situation and acting accordingly—whether it is bluffing or correctly sizing a value bet. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/beware-of-players-check-calling-to-your-righthttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/beware-of-players-check-calling-to-your-rightMon, 18 Aug 2014 10:22:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/beware-of-players-check-calling-to-your-rightA lot of the skill of hand reading comes from rightly assigning an accurate range of your opponent based upon their position, bet sizing and action. Most of the time players will auto check to the preflop raiser after the flop so when someone check calls the preflop raiser little can be drawn from their action because the play is so common. However, after the preflop raiser has checked the action of the other players becomes extremely important when determining an accurate hand range. Let us say that the preflop raiser was under the gun in a four handed pot. On a Q:d: 4:d: 8:c: board he decided to check, and the two players to his left also checked. The last player to act bets and the preflop raiser and the player to his right both fold. Now, the player to the bettor’s immediate right calls. This should set off some alarms if you are the field bettor in position. Usually if this player’s hand was strong enough to check-call he really should be strong enough to bet in his position. Let us go over the possible holdings that he could have. If he had a strong hand like top pair, second to last to act on such a draw heavy board, he would almost always bet. The same thing could be said about a semi bluff type of hand like a flush draw. The only hand that might check call here would be something like 99 or an 8 but again almost closing the action I expect him to bet for value and or protection. It would be different if he was up front and had naturally checked to the preflop raiser.I would be very concerned here if I was the player to bet last to act in this situation. If I myself had a flush draw I would check back the turn with an extremely high frequency since combinations wise my opponent is less likely to have another flush draw and there is a high chance that he is slowplaying something. My spidey senses would also be up if I was betting a hand like QJ. You could bet-fold the turn for value and protection but there have been times where I have checked back the turn with this type of hand and even folded to a river bet when the draws brick out against the right type of non bluffing player. This sounds crazy to some but a check call from your immediate right in a multiway pot after the preflop raiser has shown a lack of interest is one of the strongest post flop cues you can observe in No Limit Holdem. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/seat-changing-in-nitty-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/seat-changing-in-nitty-gamesMon, 11 Aug 2014 10:14:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/seat-changing-in-nitty-gamesSometimes when a table is playing overly tight you have to make certain adjustments to increase your winrate. One of the easiest things that you can do is move to a steal position versus some of the tighter players at the table. Some guys will not defend their blinds unless they have a relatively strong hand. And when the test of the table is playing tight and the hands are constantly getting folded to you this situation can be like printing money. Even if the tighter player in the blind defends versus your preflop raise often times these types of opponents will play very fit or fold post flop. If you understand the good boards to bet and to continue bluffing on it really does not matter that they defend once and a while. It is a very profitable position to be in to have the betting lead and have position on a tight player. In a game like $5-$5 where a top winrate might be $40-$50 an hour stealing the blinds from tight players once an hour can increase your winrate by as much as 20-25%. The art of stealing from the last few positions is somewhat lost on live players. If you look at online statistics you will find that the big winners have a relatively high steal rate. And if you were to also tell these players that suddenly their opponents in the blind would almost never three bet bluff to counter their steals than their steal rates would go up to close to 100%. If you are paying attention to how the tight players respond to late position raises you can increase the rate in which that you steal and thus make more money at the table. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-be-scared-to-value-bet-the-riverhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-be-scared-to-value-bet-the-riverMon, 04 Aug 2014 11:53:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-be-scared-to-value-bet-the-riverIt amazes me how often players check strong hands back when last to act on the river in live no limit games. It is as if they are only interested in winning what is currently in the pot and do not care about the extra value that they can gain by making an additional bet.This showdown poker happens so much at the mid stakes because players are scared to “open” the betting round back up. They are not capable of folding if they get raised so to counter this leak they do not bet. They think to themselves “if I bet here and get raised, what would I do?”This type of thinking is highly illogical and inconsistent because when someone does raise on the river at the lower or mid stakes the frequency of bluffing is so small that they really do not have to worry too much about being moved off of the best hand. Because of this our value bets are almost like freerolls. Well, they are not really freerolls but we can certainly bet extremely thin if when we are called we are good just over 50% of the time. If your opponents ever had a river bluffing frequency we would not be able to value bet as thin because sometimes we would be forced to fold the best hand.Similar to increasing your steal frequency against tight players this type of thin value betting really separates the top winrates from the mediocre ones. You must train yourself to not be afraid to bet thinly at the end for value and fold to a raise. A lot of recreational player have trouble with this concept because they want to see the showdown and they do not want to even think about the possibility of being bluffed off of a hand. But if you can come to terms with the fact that people bluff very rarely on the river than you will start to see your overall game improve drastically. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/floating-vs-exploitable-playershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/floating-vs-exploitable-playersMon, 28 Jul 2014 10:58:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/floating-vs-exploitable-playersIn today's No Limit games even the most passive players tend to know that betting on good textured boards after raising preflop usually shows a long term profit. The simple fact of the matter is that with only two cards it is difficult for anyone to make a strong hand. When you continue with the betting lead you have a good chance to win because everyone has missed.This concept, however, is really only understood at the most basic of levels at the lower and mid stakes. Many times, especially with nittier opponents, players will only fire one bet as a bluff after being the preflop raiser. Often times this can easily be exploited by calling with a very weak hand on the flop--a concept that is called floating. If you pay close attention you will find that an opponent will almost never check the turn on a blank card, especially if the board is wet, when they have a hand. This all comes back to the idea of them not wanting to be drawn out on as most, tighter recreational players hate bad beats. Let us take a look at an example of a hand I witnessed a few weeks ago at $5-10 no limit. I actually came behind my friend to say hello and was able to sweat the following action. A very tight, older player opened under the gun for $45 and my friend called him heads up on the button with 6:d: 7:d: with about $2000 effective stacks. The board ran out K:s: 2:d: 5:s: and the UTG player bet out $50. Now obviously this is not a good flop for my friend. But recognizing the rather small bet sizing he decided to float and call. The turn was the 9:h: and now the preflop raiser checked. My buddy interpreted this as weakness knowing that his opponent would not check a king because of the front door flush draw. Sure enough his opponent folded rather quickly to his turn bluff. You can see that the actual holding in my friend’s hand was almost irrelevant. He did have some backdoor draws on the flop and if the villain did fire on the turn had a chance to pick up some equity. But the main point of this concept is that if you know that a player will only fire once and then check when he is bluffing than you can float him profitably with a wide range, sometimes with holdings that have entirely missed the flop. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-double-barreling1https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-double-barreling1Mon, 21 Jul 2014 15:26:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-double-barreling1As you become a more experienced No Limit Holdem player you realize that a great way to increase your winrate is to learn the right cards to double barrel bluff when you have the betting lead as the preflop raiser. Double barreling is a very complex concept but to simplify things most of the time if a disconnected, overcard comes to top pair on the turn it usually will help your own range more than your opponents’ flop calling range. Say, for example, the flop comes out 9:h: 2:d: 3:c: and we have isolation raised an early position limper with Q:s: J:s: on the button in a $5-$5 game. We make a bet on the flop and the limper calls. The turn is the K:s: and our opponent checks again. That K:s: does much better for our own range than our opponents’ and unless he has made kings up specifically it is going to be very difficult for him to call.However, there are some situations that bring about such good double barrel turn cards that we can actually wait and risk nothing on our bluffs—to see what our opponent does on the river. This is called a “delayed double barrel”. A great example of this is usually when flops come out with a low pair in them and an ace (the ultimate scare card) comes on the turn. Let us take a look at a hand that I played last week at the Commerce Casino in the $5-$10 $500-$1500 cap No Limit game. At this particular table the game was playing relatively loose and passive and it was a weekday afternoon. Three people had limped in front of me with medium sized stacks and I looked down at K:h: Q:h: from the cutoff. I decided to raise it up to $60. Two of the limpers called in front of me. The flop ran out 5:c: 5:s: 2:h: and both players checked. Now even though there is a strong chance that at least one of my opponents had limp called with a pocket pair I love firing multiple streets with these boards because it is very difficult for someone to play a big pot with a hand like 66 especially when multiple overcards come on the turn and on the river. I decided for this reason to bet a little bit larger to start to intimidate my opponents leading to larger sizing on future streets and put in $140. The first limper folded and the player to my right thought for a minute and called. The turn was the A:s: and he checked again. Now on the surface this looked like one of the best double barrel cards in the deck, which it was. However, I thought that on the off chance that my opponent was slow playing something like pocket deuces or a five I would find out about it on the river. Occasionally guys will also check-call paired boards like this with AJ, AQ or AK as well and he would be sure to bet those holdings also. So by checking back what looks like the perfect bluff card I actually risk nothing. And so long as I am confident that he is not the type to make a move at the pot I like the play. Obviously this is a player dependent situation but against this particular villain I knew that he was straightforward and that I did not have to worry about getting bluffed off the hand. The river was the 9:c: and the limper came out and fired $400. I commented that he must be strong and insta-folded. He showed me A:d: 5:d: for a turned full house. The beautiful part about this delayed double barrel is that if he had a hand like pocket sixes he would have simply check-folded the river. I would have been able to get away with risking absolutely nothing. This concept is similar to the same way we can delayed flop continuation bet boards that should really smack our raising range as the preflop raiser and wait to see what our opponent does on the turn. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/tournament-players-in-cash-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/tournament-players-in-cash-gamesWed, 16 Jul 2014 10:11:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/tournament-players-in-cash-gamesAs we find ourselves in the middle of the WSOP I figured that it would be a good time to discuss the adjustments that we should make playing against “tournament” players in a cash game. First of all whenever we get into this situation it is an absolute dream for winning ring game players. Most of the time players that play only tournaments are losing players in general. This is not ALWAYS true but in poker we usually have to deal with stereotypes and generalizations when dealing with unknowns. Nowadays it is almost impossible to beat live tournaments that are not ridiculously high buy-ins because of the cost of travel and the high tournament entry fees. So if you find someone spending most of their playing time concentrating on lower buy-in tournaments you can make the reasonable interference that they cannot beat cash games. Again, before you send in the scathing hate mail there can always be exceptions to the rule. But when you take a look at the necessary bankroll to win the same hourly in tournaments as say a $2-$5 cash game you realize that it needs to be exponentially larger. When you get tournament specialists into a cash game some of their leaks become very exposed. Because they are used to playing a shorter stacked style one of the main things that they have difficulty doing is folding overpairs and top pair with good kickers. You will see these players lose tons of money not recognizing when their hand is not good in certain situations. For experienced cash game players sitting deep against these guys is like a giant freeroll because all you have to do is wait to flop two pair or better against their big hands. Another big leak that these tourney guys have is bluffing too much and in the wrong spots. Because they are used to people fighting for chips in tournaments where the blinds escalate and you need to sometimes make moves to survive they always think that everyone else is bluffing. They do not properly adjust to the fact that a solid cash game player is rarely continuation betting into more than 3 people as a bluff. They just always think that when someone bets on ragged boards as the preflop raiser they have AK. When you combine these two things together and also add the fact that when you win a pot in a tournament and actually gain chips it gives you an inherent advantage you see why these players also play with a rampant style of over pot control. Most are not capable of folding their big hands and do not want to be put into a situation where they are faced with making a tough decision. They therefore miss critical streets of value with medium strength hands that more experienced cash game players would almost always take advantage of. And it is not just pot controlling earlier streets where this value is missed out. On the river they feel like they do not want to open the betting round up for the same reasons and will often times check back hands that should be almost mandatory value bets. So you can see as a cash game player you should always welcome “tournament” players into your ring games. Their mistakes are common, frequent and easy to exploit. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/blockers-in-your-hand-and-relative-hand-strenghthttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/blockers-in-your-hand-and-relative-hand-strenghtWed, 09 Jul 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/blockers-in-your-hand-and-relative-hand-strenghtLike most situations in no limit when determining whether or not to bluff catch you should be thinking more about your opponents’ range rather than your own. This will sometimes lead to spot where you make calls with weaker hands in terms of absolute strength due to the blockers in your hand and folds with hands that are stronger due to the lack of blockers. There is a perfect example of this concept from a hand I played once again from the Commerce's $5-$10 no limit table a few weeks ago. The villain in this particular hand was an opponent I had caught bluffing the previous week when I called his check raise on the turn with ace high and all-in on river. A few hands previously he had commented about that hand and I had an overall sense that he was trying to basically come after me specifically. This particular player plays about thirty five percent of his hands preflop. After he limped in UTG +1 I decided to raise in middle position with A:c: T:c: to $40. A tighter player to my direct left called in the cutoff, the big blind called and the villain limper called. The flop came out Q:d: T:c: 3:h:. Both the big blind and the limper checked and I decided to bet $90. This flop decision was close. With some frequency I will be checking this flop and with some I will be betting. The tipping point for me in this spot was that it was multiway, I wanted to buy myself position, I thought I could fold out some better tens and there was a case to be made for a little bit of equity protection. If the hand was specifically heads up with position I would be checking back the flop with a high frequency. Much to my dismay the tight player to my immediate left called, the big blind folded and the limper check raised to $350 with about $750 left in his stack. Obviously my immediate reaction was to fold. I was almost certain that the guy behind me had me beat unless he had KJ or J9 and usually players do not put this type of money in the pot at this level without some sort of hand. However, I took a moment and gauged the situation. Because the limper did not raise preflop, and to a lesser extent did not limp reraise after several players called I dismissed him having pocket queens or pocket tens. Also because I had a ten in my hand it was far less likely combinations wise that he held QT. I also did not think that on a rainbow board he would play pocket threes quite this fast as I thought his raise size was quite large. This also wasn't the type of player to check raise just a queen. So if he did not have a value hand that left KJ and to a much lesser extent J9 (from my experience players don't semi bluff bottom open enders). I felt like if I called his check raise it would make it almost impossible for the tight player to overcall with just a queen so if I wanted to continue on with the hand there was no need for me to reraise. Now let us pause for a moment and imagine that instead of A:c: T:c: as our holding we had KK. Obviously our absolute hand strength is stronger but do you see how bluff catching with KK would actually be worse against the range that we assign this villain's check raising action? Not only would he have fewer combinations of KJ hands but he would also have more combinations of QTs. And, by the way, I think that this type of sizing is more consistent with two pair than it is a set as players want to protect against bad beats. However, almost all of the time you will see players snap fold AT in this spot yet continue on with KK not considering their opponents' hands or their blockers. I ended up putting all this together and decided to call. My plan worked out nicely and the nitty guy folded behind me. The turn was an off suit deuce and the limper shoved in the rest of his money. At this point I had to continue to go with my read and I called. Unfortunately, this time I was dead wrong and my opponent tabled 33. This was definitely a very high variance play and some could make the case that it is not necessary at this level. However, it does prove an important point. The absolute strength of your own hand is not the most important factor when determining whether to call especially if an opponent is polarized and you block a lot of his value hands based upon the cards that you hold. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/breaking-preflop-math-ruleshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/breaking-preflop-math-rulesWed, 25 Jun 2014 12:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/breaking-preflop-math-rulesIf you have read some of my columns before or are familiar with my training material over on CrushLivePoker.com you know that I strongly believe that in most live, restricted buy-in, no limit holdem games most mathematical mistakes are made by calling with the wrong types of hands preflop. People do not realize that most of the time the effective stacks are not deep enough to call with implied odds types of hand like 86 suited. However, even in capped games, if you have a plan for the hand, especially with position, you can sometimes break these mathematical rules if you think there are other ways to win besides getting to showdown with the best of it. A few weeks ago I played such a spot at the $5-$10 $1500 capped no limit game at the Commerce Casino. The game was a little bit short handed and I found myself in the cutoff with A:h: 4h:. A couple of extremely tight players were in the blinds so I opened to $30 with $2100 effective stacks. The small blind three bet me large to $200. Now about 99 percent of the time this is either a fold or a four bet for me--weighted way more towards a fold. The reason why I would four bet with some frequency is that for some players this large sizing preflop represents a hand like nines or tens that does not want to see a flop and that will fold to another reraise. But for this particular player this sized reraise also represents the top parts of his value hands too as he does want to play out of position against me. He also does not have much of a three bet bluffing range. So why would I want to call $170 more against a probable tight range only $2100 effective with a hand like A4 suited? Because I was thinking that on certain boards I could bluff him out of the hand. I was also very familiar with this opponents playing style and new that he always pot controlled one pair type hands after the flop and that he would sometimes allow me to realize my equity on the river after giving a lot of free turns. So with this plan of action I decided to call. The flop came out J:s: 5:s: 3:h: give me a gutshot straight draw and a backdoor flush draw. I also had an over card to a hand like QQ or KK. Much to my delight my opponent bet out only $200. Against some players I would perceive this as weakness but against this particular player I read the situation as him not wanting to build a giant pot up with one pair. So the pot laid me about 3-1 as it was $600 for $200. If we count the ace and the backdoor flush draw as outs we have eight. If we also assume (and this can be a stretch but I thought with this particular player it would happen with a high frequency) that our opponent would check the turn we can look at our equity on the flop as if we are going to see two cards--similar to an all in. A short cut way of doing this is to multiply our number of outs by four giving us 32 percent equity. When he gives us 3-1 on the flop, and we see a free turn, we only need 25 percent equity, so I am getting the right price to hit even if I do not make any money later on in the hand. Obviously this "free turn card" is a pretty big assumption but I have played with this particular opponent for years. He is definitely a small to moderate winning player and has been a long time professional rounder. However, I know that he is adverse to high variance situations and that he likes to avoid good players. I also know that if a spade came in the turn and I bet-bet to the point of putting him all in on the river it would be extremely difficult for him to call. I ended up getting one of the best scenarios for me on fourth street. The turn was the 2h. He checked and I elected to bomb, betting $600. He did take too much time with it and check raised me all-in. Unfortunately the river brought out the 4s and I chopped the pot versus AA. The result really does not make any difference. The reason why I bring the hand up is because I think that I had a proper plan for the situation and in this unique scenario it was profitable for me to make what usually is an unprofitable preflop call. I will caution you, however. You should not make it a general game plan to try to bluff people off of big hands at the lower stakes of no limit. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-bet-sizing-for-valuehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-bet-sizing-for-valueWed, 18 Jun 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-bet-sizing-for-valueNo Limit really is a game about getting the most value when you have the best hand. Television and movies glamourize bluffing and live tells but in reality when you see a really good player play you should notice that they are dragging in enormous pots with their nutty hands because they know enough to build a pot. Bad players play trappy and win small pots with their big hands.In games where the stacks may be capped at 100 big blinds it is so critical to correctly size your previous street bets so that you can get in a large bet on the river. One of the most overlooked aspects of this concept is turn bet sizing. You should be paying hyper attention to the effective stacks during a hand and closely size your turn bet so that on the river you can leave about a half pot sized bet all in if possible. It amazes me how this simple concept is lost on many people. Let us say that on the turn in a $5-$5 game we have a hand which we are almost certain is best and we also think that our opponent will continue to call bets with worse. The pot is $500 and he has $700 left. It is our action in position. How much should we bet? If we want to leave him with about a half pot size bet to call on the river you can see that betting just over $200 on the turn will do the job. You do not have to blast him out of the pot and making this smaller turn bet leads him to believe that he is getting proper odds pot odds, which he is. But we don’t care about the pot odds that we are laying him if we do not think that he is on a draw. Say we have Ac Ad and the board is Kc 5h 2s 2d. We are very sure that he has a king. AA in this spot is basically a nut hand. We want to make it appear like we are giving him too good of a price to fold and then cause him to continue to lose more money by making a bad call on the river.The next time you are in a turn betting situation think about the fact that you want to leave your opponent with about a half pot sized bet on the river and size your bet correctly. Poker is sometimes like chess and when it comes to bet sizing in particular you must think ahead street by street. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pay-attention-to-who-is-winning-or-losing-around-youhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pay-attention-to-who-is-winning-or-losing-around-youWed, 11 Jun 2014 12:45:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pay-attention-to-who-is-winning-or-losing-around-youIn the current internet environment there is a load of poker training information. If someone wants to become a better player they can simply Google material and if they have the discipline they can use this information to become a winner. The math may seem a bit complex at first but in reality poker math is just simple arithmetic. If the math is easy and the winning information is readily available why is it that there are still a great deal of losing players? The simple answer is that people do not have the emotional control to play their best when they are losing.Poker is such a great game to gamble on because the effects of the outcomes of situations affect the quality of the play of individuals in the future. How often have you seen someone sit and play tight for hours and hours on end just to endure a bad beat like AA vs QQ preflop and then go off? It is like they think they have an absolute right to win the hand and if something goes against them all “bets are off”. The simple fact of the matter is you will rarely get it in more than a 90% favorite in any form of big bet poker when all of the money goes in. When you get it in as a 90% favorite that means that you will lose 10% of the time. It is how we handle that 10% that separates winning players from losing players.People that have been playing poker for years still struggle with this concept. They get angry when they take bad beats and they think that the world is against them. It then causes them top play poorly. But no single person takes any more bad beats than anyone else. It is how we handle bad beats that differentiate us from everyone else. You would think that this would be different at the higher levels but in reality it is not. I am still amazed at how badly some professionals play when they are losing. In fact, a good lineup at the higher stakes will sometimes entirely be dictated by who is winning and who is losing. And if this is the case at the higher levels you better make sure you are paying attention to the short term winners and losers at your level. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/number-of-players-in-cbet-bluffinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/number-of-players-in-cbet-bluffingWed, 04 Jun 2014 15:26:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/number-of-players-in-cbet-bluffingThere are a number of different variables that go into making a good continuation bet bluff spot. Even though, at the lower levels of no limit, most of your money is won through getting maximum value with the best hand, probably the most frequent situation that occurs in NL comes from being the preflop raiser and missing the board post flop. Because holdem is a game of two cards most people will actually not connect with the flop. The very good players know exactly which situations are good to continuation bet bluff and which boards they may be able to fire multiple barrels. I go over a number of these factors in the podcast titled "CBet Bluff Matrix" on CrushLivePoker.com but I want to briefly review what I think is the most important factor and probably simplest variable here--number of opponents in the hand. In general if you are new to continuation bet bluffing the more players in the hand the harder it will be to get through everyone with a bluff. The sweet spots for cbet bluffing are when the pot is heads up or you face two players. Once there are more than three players in the hand the sheer number of cards that your opponents hold lends itself to situation where a bluff will be unlikely to get through. Now this is not always the case as a lot of board textures are not the same. You also can sometimes look stronger when you bet into a multi way pot because it seems like to your opponents think that the pot is “protected”. If you have the guts to fire twice, especially into more than one opponent on the turn, you look even stronger. However, if you are entirely green to bluffing post flop do not forget that the most important factor in cbet bluffing is the simplest—number of players in the pot. If you find yourself commonly trying to bluff more than three people after the flop then you are probably doing something wrong Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/make-environment-welcoming-for-recreational-playershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/make-environment-welcoming-for-recreational-playersWed, 14 May 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/make-environment-welcoming-for-recreational-playersIf you are playing poker for profit, whether you are a professional or just a serious recreational player you must win money from the people that lose. These players are of weaker skill than you, usually have less patience and in general are just at the casino to gamble. They are playing to derive enjoyment from the game. You should treat these people like they are your customers because if there were no losing players there could be no winners. I never understand the professional players that are rule sticklers against the amateurs. It is just ridiculous to call string bets and pull other angles when the amateur player had no intention of gaining any advantage with said actions--but players do this kind of all of the time. We should all make these losing players as comfortable as possible at the table. Banter with them. Let them have fun. They are here to blow of steam, get away from their wives, etc. There is no reason to make the table an environment where people don't want to come back.This concept is a lost art on a lot of younger players especially those who started out on the Internet. These guys come in with their backpacks and hoodies, put on their headphones and don't interact with anyone. There is a very big social aspect to live poker and proper behavior should be learned just like proper poker skill. Why do you think that guys like Antonio Esfandiari get invited to some of the biggest, juiciest games in the world? It is because he is well liked and a lot of the huge whales want to play with him. He makes it so that the big donators have a good time while still quietly taking most of their money. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/profitable-neutral-ev-side-betshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/profitable-neutral-ev-side-betsWed, 07 May 2014 11:30:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/profitable-neutral-ev-side-betsDepending on where you play most rooms will have some sort of capped buy in on games at the 5-10NL level and below. This can be incredibly constricting especially when playing games where the buy in is restricted to 100BBs or less. The simple fact of the matter is that in these shorter stacked games especially in a full ring environment most of the time you have to make the best hand in order to win. This can become very tedious and boring especially if you are correctly not flat calling preflop raises with implied odds types of hands when the effective stacks are not deep. Certain rooms are strict and certain rooms are loose with their rules. Most fall somewhere in the middle when it comes to enforcing the cap strictly. One of the ways to get extra money on to the table while following the strict capped rules is through neutral EV gambling. Whether you make side bets on black or red flops or a basketball game that might be going on in the background if the other players don't complain and the casino allows it whether you win or lose the neutral ev wager does not matter as long as you continue to top off your stack if you lose. Usually the other players will not complain about what is going on as it adds a sense of gambling action to the game. I would certainly recommend oking this with the room and making sure that the other regs will not complain first, however. Anything to get extra money onto the table in capped games is going to be better for the more skilled player and a great way to do this is to make it look like you like to gamble. On a completely different note I will directly credit 2+2 legend and Crush Live Poker coach Limon with the following bits of wisdom. People bet with the hearts not their brains when it comes to politics. Back around the time of the 2008 election when Nate Silver's 538.com predicted Barack Obama's presidential campaign to win with over 90 percent certainty (due to complex county and district polling as it related to the electoral college) it was easy to bet staunch republicans even money at the table on the election. I saw it happen many times. It was kind of crazy because the same people would not give extra points betting on their home NFL team yet they were huge political gambling fish. This unbalanceness also existing in online sports books where you could wager on Obama and only lay 3-1. I have a feeling that a lot of the general public caught on to this "arbitrage" and it will not be as easy going into 2016. But keep your eye out for these lucrative political side bets that can make you extra money at the poker table especially as we approach the next general election. Remember our presidential election system is based upon a state by state winner take all electoral count not a direct popular vote. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/limited-time-to-playhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/limited-time-to-playWed, 23 Apr 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/limited-time-to-playThis may seem relatively obvious but a lot of us, even those playing poker primarily for profit, do not play full time. The longer you are around this game the more you realize that it is much healthier to diversify your time with other things and to play poker as a part time venture. I have had the opportunity to do a lot of private coaching and to start my own training site. I love the theory of poker and it keeps a good balance in my life plus prevents me from getting burnt out behind the table. Since running CrushLivePoker.com has become almost a full time job for me I have had to divvy my time up between my business ventures and playing. Nowadays I try to get in three sessions a week for a total of twenty to twenty five hours and my goal for each month is to play 100 hours. Many of you are in similar time restrictive situations. If you have the flexibility to pick the times of the week to play and you can find the best times to do so you can drastically increase your profitability. This is very similar to game selecting the best tables. The simple fact of the matter is there are better times of the day to play than others and better days to play than others. I personally take into account traffic patterns in Los Angeles, which is why I love to play on Sundays outside the football season. Sundays is literally the only day where traffic is light coming from where I live in the city towards the casino. And that extra forty-five minutes that I save is extra money in my pocket and less stress from sitting in traffic. The other times of the week that I go in are normally Friday and Saturday nights as expected although sometimes you will see me sneak in a morning session during the week if some of my scouts tell me that a game has been going over night. By the way this is another thing that players should actively work to improve upon—their game scouting abilities. You meet a lot of different people in the casino and it is relatively easy to start a tit for tat relationship and inform each other about what is going on in your local room so that you can plan out the best times to come in and play. When you have a limited schedule to put in sessions increasing your winrate by twenty to thirty percent based upon the quality of the games will quickly add up. Treat your poker playing like a business. It makes sense to do everything possible to add to your profitability. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/underbluff-sizing-is-importanthttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/underbluff-sizing-is-importantWed, 16 Apr 2014 10:23:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/underbluff-sizing-is-importantA lot of players at the mid stakes and lower levels of no limit do not spend time thinking about their bluff bet sizing. I have seen many players make ridiculously large bluffs when their opponent will basically not have anything or will almost always call. I often talk about players value betting rivers with only a polarized range—that is very strong or very weak. But there are also situations where players will have a polarized hand strength given the action.If a player is strong and will call down your bluff almost always or he is weak and will never call your bluff what do you think the best play is in terms of bet sizing? If you guessed small, you are correct and thus you can see the power of under bluffing. Now this concept can be a little bit confusing because people are not going to always have polarized hand strength on the river. You very well might be able to bluff someone off of an overpair if you raise flop, bomb turn and bomb river but what I want to discuss in this article are situations where your opponent has a big hand like two pair plus and will not fold or has a missed draw. I played a hand at the Commerce Casino last week that was a great example of this concept. The game was $5-$10 and effective stacks were $1000. I was in the cutoff and flat called the highjack’s raise of $40 with 4:c: 5:c:. Both the blinds called and the UTG limper, who was the villain in the hand, also called. The flop came out Q:d: 3:c: 6:c: giving me an open-ended straight flush draw. It got checked over to the preflop raiser who made a rather weak bet of $50. For my hand, this spot was about as good as it can get in terms of fold equity and I decided to raise to $215. Both the blinds folded and shockingly the UTG cold called. The preflop raiser got out of the way and we saw the 8:d: turn. The UTG and I had about $1000 left in the hand. I had played with this guy for many years and he wasn’t the type to limp in with AQ or KQ under the gun. If he did limp in with a random queen he also was not going to cold call a bet and a raise on that flop. I squarely put him on either slow playing a set, Q:c: X:c: or the nut flush draw. In reality I thought it was unlikely that I was going to get him off of any of those hands on the turn, with the exception of maybe the nut flush draw, so decided to check behind. Now some people might say that I was giving up on the pot but I did not want to basically be forced to call an all-in check raise with such a huge draw. Now comes the interesting part. The river was the Q:s:, he took some time and checked again. If I was playing at a higher level, I might very well think that a player could be checking an under boat to induce a bluff (and also not worry about missing value because a queen will bet the river anyway) or a queen here at the end. But most guys at $5-$10 really are not at that level and are doing many things—bet sizing, bluff frequency, call down frequency—based upon their own hand strength not playing off of their opponent’s range. However, the villain in this hand did have a history of being a little cagey and even though he is only a recreational player is definitely well experienced. I thought that there was maybe a 30% chance that he was checking to induce a bluff and a 70% chance that he had missed the nut flush draw. If I did not think that he would ever call with ace high here at the end--and that thought is reasonable because I do have queens that I may raise flop with versus the weak preflop raiser’s continuation bet--what should my sizing be? The pot is $630. I decided to bet $150 to get a really good price on my bluff. I wanted to make it enough where there was absolutely no chance that he would call with ace high and if he is trapping me with a queen or a boat no amount is going to make him fold anyway. He released his hand rather quickly and the dealer accidentally exposed his cards as A:c: T:c:. Could I have possibly gotten him off of his hand on the turn if I had continued to fire? Yes, but you can see that I actually risked less money by playing the hand in this manner, using my position and overall awareness of poker theory. Remember the nut flush draw is only a portion of his range. He could have easily had some of those bigger hands that I mentioned earlier. This is one of the most under thought situations in no limit games. Players never evaluate the sizing of their bluffs. The queen coming on the river here makes this situation really easy especially when someone is not advanced enough to recognize the situation and check a big hand. A more interesting spot would arise if say the river was entirely a blank and you were up against someone that would cold call your flop raise with just top pair. Now a larger sizing, if you think it actually would add more fold equity, could be prudent. In this situation your opponent’s hand strength is not polarized at the end. I definitely would hesitate to recommend bluffing blank rivers, however, if you checked back the turn. One of my favorite things to do, and I have mentioned it many times in these articles, is to raise on the flop with 45 without clubs, check back the turn and then rep the front door flush when it comes in. That makes a single paired hand awfully difficult to call.You can also underbluff the river when you are the preflop raiser and the board runs out in such a way that it is difficult for medium strength hands that may have check called on the flop to call down three streets. This happens a lot when there is a possibility that your opponent may have picked up a backdoor flush draw on the turn to go along with his pair or straight draw. That is why it is important to notice the distribution of the suits on the flop even on rainbow boards. Let us take a look at another example. Say we raise to $20 from the hijack in a $2-$5 game with K:s: J:s: playing $700 effective. Only the big blind calls us. The board runs out 9:h: 4:d: 2:c:. The big blind checks and we decide to fire out $30 knowing that it will be difficult for him to call multiple barrels if over cards come. He makes the call. The turn is the Q:h: bringing in a backdoor flush draw. He checks again, and we put out a second barrel of $80 representing the overcard and also picking up a gutshot straight draw. Our opponent thinks for a while and calls again. What type of range do you think that he could have here? Let us assume that he now folds all pairs 8 or below that have not picked up a draw. So A4, 45 that are not hearts are out as well as deuces that are not hearts. He could sometimes still be stubborn with a 9 but due to the flop suit distribution you can see that he cannot have 9:h: X:h:. He also may have straight draws that have picked up hearts on the turn like 5:h: 3:h:, 5:h: 6:h:, A:h: 3:h:, and A:h: 5:h:. The river is the A:c:. The pot is $260. What should be our sizing? Let us assume for a moment that we are never going to get him to fold A3 or A5 or any two pair. However, a small size will make it almost impossible for him to call with a 9 or a 4 or deuce that picked up hearts on the turn. I contend that you can get away with betting as little as $50-$75 here to pick up the pot. That would be a classic three-barrel underbluff line worked to perfection. If you were to take one thing away from this article remember there always should be a reason why you are bluffing a certain amount and it has way more to do with your opponents’ range rather than your own—just like most other aspects of big bet poker. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/cash-game-stakinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/cash-game-stakingWed, 09 Apr 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/cash-game-stakingOne of the more common non strategy based questions that I receive on twitter or via email has to do with cash game staking. Some people want to know the best way to go about getting staking while others, and I think more interestingly, ask if they should invest in a player and stake them in cash games. Staking in tournaments, although extremely difficult to profit from, can at least be easily tracked. You invest in a horse or set of horses and as long as you confirm that they actually buy in to the tournaments your staking results are basically public record. You have to deal with makeup and the chance that you might have to cut your losses at some point but the same can be said about cash games. Whenever there is money involved with anything there is always the chance that you will be cheated. Back in the infancy of online poker a lot of the young players thought that the game was pure because of the number of hands that were seen. They poopooed the older rounders when questions were raised as to possible cheating. The younger guys just thought that the older ones were not good enough to beat the games hence their hesitation to play in them. Now, of course, we know that cheating in different degrees has been rampant across many different sites. Towards the end of online offshore poker in the US it got to the point where most of the high stakes action was heads up. We should learn from these lessons as poker players and realize that it is extremely risky to back players in cash games where the results are not fully transparent. It only takes forty or fifty dollars a day to get ripped off for thousands over the course of a year. I only ever backed one player in my career in cash games and he was a very dear friend of mine who I trusted fully. I also knew that he was fully capable of beating the game but his financial situation and bankroll could not take the variance of 5-10NL due to his college tuition. I also knew that he did not have any gambling or drug leaks--something very important to evaluate when thinking of staking. My horse was easily able to build his own roll within six months and he went off on his own--kind of the way it is supposed to work. Of the stories that I have heard from others about cash staking however my result was by far in the minority. Long term friendships end and nasty disagreements arising from staking arrangements. Just like it is a tough racket to play poker professionally it is even tougher to stake for profit. The other thing you have to realize is that there usually is a reason as to why a winning, profitable player would need to be staked. A lot of times he is either not as profitable as he thinks or he has one of the above leaks. It takes a really special person, one that you know enough and fully trust and has a legitimate need to be cash game staked. Most of the time you would do a lot better by adding to your own bankroll and moving up or making more traditional outside investments. Be smart. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raising-turn-after-flop-gets-check-throughhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raising-turn-after-flop-gets-check-throughWed, 02 Apr 2014 10:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raising-turn-after-flop-gets-check-throughEven at the lower levels of no limit these days most players understand the concept of bluffing scare cards especially when they are the preflop raiser. I have seen old guys actually cbet AQ on king high boards knowing that it will be difficult for people to call them with anything but a king on a dry board. I've also started to see more experienced low level players fire a second barrel on the turn when over cards come in on ragged boards that should hit their preflop raising range. Along with this new sense of cbetting the right types of boards better players know which boards not to cbet. Say for example we raise with a hand like A:h: K:h: from early position and we get four people that call us. The flop comes out 5:s: 6:s: 7:c:. It would basically be suicide for us to cbet this type of texture with this many players. So often times, when you notice what good players do, they will check. Let us say that we are in position instead, with A:h: K:h:, and the same board comes out. It gets checked to us and we decide to check the flop back. If you are paying attention, most of the time you should realize that the preflop raiser will rarely have a pair in this spot. So, when the turn comes say an ace or a king and it is checked to him again, if he bets his range is normally capped at one pair and often times, when more shorthanded, he will be bluffing. So if we have some sort of big draw from out of position and we were planning on check raising the flop we can easily add a ton of fold equity by check raising the turn instead. Let us examine this situation again. The flop is 5:s: 6:s: 7:h:. The flop gets checked around. Now, the turn is the Ad and we expect the preflop raiser to bet this card or use it as a bluff. If we have a hand like 9:s: T:s: not only will we win more money by checking and letting him bluff but we will also give ourselves way more fold equity then coming out and betting and letting him just call. This is a very sophisticated play and only should be used against opponents who you think are capable of folding one pair type hands. However, turn raises are usually an indication of more strength than flop raises at the lower levels and some players who would not release one pair hands on the flop certainly will when facing a lot of heat on the turn. To add one other twist to this I actually advocate playing a little backwards and unbalanced after this scare card comes and you DID flop a big hand. I would much rather lead turn lead river for large bets to get maximum value then blow my opponent off of his one pair hand with a turn check raise. You would be amazed at how light someone will look you up on the river when all of the draws brick out. Because players are so inherently polarized in their river betting tendencies they will think that you are bluffing often. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/countering-floatinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/countering-floatingWed, 26 Mar 2014 07:00:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/countering-floatingEveryone knows how strongly I feel about a general game plan of bet folding at the mid stakes and low levels of live no limit. The simple fact of the matter is that people call down far too much and do not bluff enough, which is why we can continue to use this strategy over and over again for profit. But poker is a game of changing situations and variables and you must be able to adjust on the fly. The are some players, albeit rare, that will literally “float” you on the flop—that is call with any two cards to try and take it away on the turn. Profitable floats are usually done in the right types of situations, on boards that are wet and with some chance to improve to the best hand. Sometimes, if we are really in tuned to what is going on around us we can sense when someone is about to float or more simply planning to bluff us later on in the hand. It may have been that you have some history with a certain player or that you have observed that he likes to make plays on certain types of boards or situations. So, if this is the case, should we continue our style of bet folding? Remember, that general game plan assumes that our opponents do not bluff all that often at least not enough for us to call down raises and lots of pressure post flop. But if we increase our opponents’ bluffing frequency how do we adjust? Well it is not rocket science. We have two options. We can either bet call or we can check call. Let us take a look at an example that I played at the Commerce Casino last week at $5-$10. The player in position was a young hotshot, the type that really thinks he is a lot better than he actually is. It would not surprise me if he will be begging for a stake within the next few years. He is pretty well versed with me and has a pretty good understanding of the way I teach how to play. In this particular spot I was UTG and opened A:s: Q:s: to $35 with $1800 effective stacks. An older gentleman from MP2 called and the villain called on the button. The flop came out Q:h: 7:d: 9:h: and I made a $75 continuation bet. The older guy quickly folded and the hotshot kid paused and called. It is tough to put into words what I sensed from the way he put in his chips into the pot but our history over the last four months and the texture of the board made me instinctively think that he was going to try and make a move on me on certain turn cards. I think that he also thinks that I will continue to bet if I have something on blank turns because of the nature of the wet board. So if I check that would give him the green light to try and work his float. The turn came a pretty meaningless 2:d:. In a normal situation if I were playing in a vacuum against a total unknown I would bet this card 99.99% of the time. But, I was not playing in a vacuum and had these other factors to consider. At the time I thought that the best way for me to make money was to actually check and let him fire, which is what I did, and called his $150 bet. The river brought out an innocuous 3:c: and I decided to check once again. This time the villain bet $350, I instantly called and he sheepishly turned over Kc Tc. I was pretty happy with the way I adapted to the situation but wondered how I would play with certain scare cards that could have come on the turn. You see, if I had bet that 2:d: on the turn I do not think that he would have bluff raised me with a high frequency because I have shown a lot of strength by betting twice and the turn does not really help a drawing, non made flop hand. However let us say that the turn was a T:d:, what then? In this spot I think that bet calling against this villain very well might have been the best play. It certainly is higher variance and you may end up playing large pot with just one pair. The reason why I might not check there is because a lot of other people do. Whenever a draw comes in they fall into check-call mode for kind of a reverse pot control line. However you would rarely see them check a blank deuce because they want to protect their hand against a “bad beat”.Another reason why I may choose to bet this T is the fact that it does actually pair up my opponent a fair amount or give him additional equity in the hand. I want the value I get from a call on the turn and do not want to allow him to check back—something that he would not do if he had a gutshot and we checked that blank deuce.Now let us say that you do not having anything and you suspect that someone might be floating you or taking off light and that blank does come on the turn like in the above example but we have KT. We should bet a fair amount to get the guy off of his floats. For the same reason we check to induce a bluff here we bet because we look strong. This can be actually directly applicable to “one and done” continuation bet boards. The boards that I am talking about are usually disconnected, drawless, high card, low low boards like A 7 2 rainbow or K 8 3 rainbow. These are great boards to continuation bet bluff because it is difficult for your opponent to continue on unless they flopped top pair. When they call you, against most competition, you probably should shut it down, as they are likely to have at least that top pair. However, if you are up against a guy who you think may be floating you or a guy that likes to take off with any piece of the flop you actually should double barrel more. And even though it seems a little backwards if you had a hand like say KQ, you could actually consider checking the turn and inducing a bluff.The point of this article is that if you want to become a truly great no limit player you always have to be paying attention to your opponents and their tendencies. Use the information and make the proper adjustments. Also recognize that player do not always play the same all of the time. Some might play vastly different when they are winning versus when they are tilting and losing. Usually when they are on the losing side they tend to force the issue and make bad bluffs. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-laggy-full-ringhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-laggy-full-ringWed, 19 Mar 2014 14:11:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-laggy-full-ringWhen we talk about adjustments in NL holdem the looseness and tightness of your image is one of the first things that you should recognize about your own game. In theory, the more hands that you play the less likely that it is that your opponents will give you credit. If you do not play many hands you should be able to get away with more bluffing. Aggressive players should take note of this and value bet their hands thinly while tight players must recognize that, if their opponents are paying attention, they may only get action when other players are strong. Since holdem is only a two card game it becomes very advantageous if you can put yourself into a situation where you win the pot when both you and your opponents miss. Simple math dictates that most people will not connect with the flop very hard on most occasions. If you are a good LAG (loose aggressive) you can really run over a lot of weak tight opponents especially short handed. But how easy is it to maintain this LAG type image and play profitably in a full ring game? Are your opponents even aware of what is going on?I remember before the Moneymaker boom David Sklansky said that no limit was a dead game unless people were playing with invisible antes. The simple fact of the matter is the blinds are very small in comparison to stack depth and you can play so extremely tight in a full ring game that you can literally “best hand” people if they are playing too loose. At today’s tables, especially when you are playing with good “nits”, a lot of LAGs tend to force the issue because they feel like they want to get paid off when they actually make a big hand. If you are faced with decent players, however, and everyone is playing less than twenty-five percent of their hands LAGing it up and playing over forty can be a huge disadvantage. These players can literally wait to make the best hand against you and it does not cost them that much through the blinds. A while back, a friend of mine in a $5-$10 NL game opened 7:d: 3:d: UTG +1 at a tight, ten handed table. He ended up losing a fair amount of money trying to bluff into a set. When I asked him why he was opening such a weak hand from early position he said that he was trying to “maintain his LAGGY image”. In reality, however, he was putting himself at way too much of a disadvantage solely for the purpose of trying to be seen as a loose player. One of the things that I think people constantly overlook is that many players are not even paying that much attention to your style. You do not need to force the issue and play hands that will not be profitable in a given situation just because you want to get paid off later on. Most of your opponents are not correctly making adjustments anyway and if you look at a lot of the tighter players at the table, especially at the five dollar blind level, they are getting paid off with their big hands just as much as the looser guys. Do not sacrifice positional disadvantage and severely handicap yourself through weak hand strength just to set up future value that may very well be there later on anyway. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/embrace-variancehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/embrace-varianceWed, 12 Mar 2014 13:46:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/embrace-varianceVariance in poker, as we understand it, can be a very difficult concept to deal with. No matter how sound our emotions are when we lose a big pot, not matter what stakes we are playing at, it can be difficult to handle. But, if we did not have this element of luck involved with the game would we really have a game at all? As I understand it Stu Ungar was one of the greatest Gin Rummy players of all time. Because the game is based so much on mathematics and card removal it was very hard for him to lose. The purest example of a game with no variance is chess. If you played Gary Kasparov and you were not an international grandmaster, it would be next to impossible for you to win unless he made an uncharacteristically large blunder. There is basically no luck in the game. Knowing this would it ever be a good idea to wager on yourself against him?Poker is a great gambling game because there is just enough variance to give a player with less of a skill level a chance to win in the short term. If a bad player lost every single time he came into the casino would he ever come back? This is why certain forms of poker with short-term high variance like PLO are so popular with players that love to gamble. Even though they may lose over the long term the equities run so close in many situations that it is easy for them to win over a period of time. Games like PLO8 and to a lesser extend high stakes no limit have far less variance and make it almost impossible for bad players to win even inside of a single session. The thing that I find amazing is that a lot of players, including a fair amount of professionals, cannot handle negative variance. Sometimes it makes their future decisions much worse. If you get it all-in preflop in holdem with AA versus QQ you are about an 82 percent favorite to win. If you lose why does the result matter? If we flip coins for one thousand dollars and you get the best of it by winning twelve hundred to my eight hundred every flip would the fact that you lose in an individual trial anger you? What if you lost four or fives times in a row? The only thing that should matter is the fact that you are getting your money in with the best of it, which in this flipping proposition you clearly have. You cannot control the outcome of these of the trials so you should not concentrate on the results. A lot of the discomfort that comes form getting a bad beat draws from what mental game coach Jared Tendler calls "entitlement tilt". Because we are ahead and we make the right decision we think that we are entitled to win. But what many players do not realize is that if they always won when those conditions were met the bad players would never stand a chance. You are not entitled to win when you have 90% equity. You will just win over the long term nine out of ten times. You should not get angry at the fact that one of the times that you may lose could be now. Someone has to run on the bad side of variance and when we play short samples like we do in live poker we can run very bad for long stretches of time. It is how we deal with the variance that makes all of the difference. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unpaired-boards-lead-to-river-polarizationhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unpaired-boards-lead-to-river-polarizationWed, 05 Mar 2014 05:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unpaired-boards-lead-to-river-polarizationEven though thin value betting really is the key to increase your winrate in live NLHE games I am still amazed that people do it so infrequently at the lower stakes, especially in position. If you are familiar with my training material over on CrushLivePoker.com you may have seen or heard me use the term “showdown monkeys”. This term refers to the rampant trend of people checking behind on the river in position with hands that are strong enough to value bet. Why do people do this? I am fairly certain that it has something to do with them not wanting to open the betting back up. The funny thing, though, as I have talked about this in this column before, the frequency of check raise bluffing that goes on at the mid stakes is almost non existent. It certainly is nowhere near high enough to worry about us not betting and if we do get raised usually it is just an easy fold. The showdown prone nature of these games has allowed me to spot a very common pattern. Usually, if the board is not paired, people will not bet one pair at the end for value. This means that their river betting tendencies tend to be extremely polarized (very strong or very weak). I witnessed this hand go down in a $5-$5 NLHE game last week at the Bicycle Casino. Player A was on the button had raised over two limpers to $30. One of the limpers called and they went to the flop headsup. The board came out K:d: 8:d: 3:c: and the limper check called a bet. The turn was a 2:c: and the limper check called once again. The river was the J:s: and it went check check, Player A revealing A:d: K:c: in his hand. Now, obviously this should almost always be a mandatory value bet. The chances that you have the best hand are very high and you need to get value from a king with a weaker kicker. Not only that but if Player A’s opponent had made kings up on the river there is a high probability that he would lead because of the fact that so many people check back rivers. He needs to get the value for his hand. Later on in the same day I was observing a different table which Player A had gotten moved to. Almost identical to the hand with A:d: K:c: he was headsup once again, in position, driving the action of a hand. This time the final board read J:s: 5:h: 2:c: 8:d: 2:s:. However, now, Player A bet the river, was called and revealed K:c: K:d:. You see, people are always scared of their opponent holding two pair when the board is not paired but on paired boards any idiot can see that kings up is basically the nuts in this situation. It is important to pay attention to the betting tendencies, especially on rivers, of your opponents. Some players just will not bet a single paired hand at the end so this actually allows us to bluff catch a little more, if that player is capable of bluffing. I have made some big, big, calls in the past on rivers because I knew that my opponent was a “showdown monkey” and knew that he had to be extremely strong for him to be betting for value. Betting thinly not only gets you more value from the game but it actually forces your opponents to bluff catch you less. I cannot profitably call down for three streets on a board of T:d: 6:c: 2:c: 3:h: 8:s: with pocket 9:s: if my opponent is capable of thinly betting a hand like QT. This is why it is important to work on depolarizing you river-betting range so that you have some medium strength hands that you bet at the end. One other thing to note and look out for is how often players check back hands when the board comes out very scary. A ton of guys will absolutely not bet any hand that is not a straight if there is a four liner to a straight. A few days ago in a different $5-$5 game I saw a guy who was holding 88 check back the river on a board of 9:c: 8:s: 3:c: J:h: T:s:. It was pretty obvious, again, that if his opponent had had a queen he would have bet out into him on the river. So the only thing the guy really needed to be scared of was his opponent somehow holding a seven. AND the fact that most people in his position would not bet anything less than a straight on the river he actually will get called lighter because his opponent will think that he is either bluffing or “has it”, nothing in between. So make sure that you watch the regulars and other people that you commonly play a lot of hours with. Most of the time I guarantee you that a vast majority of them are extremely polarized on the river in their betting tendencies on unpaired boards. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/overplaying-your-hand-because-of-sizinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/overplaying-your-hand-because-of-sizingWed, 26 Feb 2014 05:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/overplaying-your-hand-because-of-sizingHave you ever had a sick feeling after you have made a bet or a raise? Like “uh oh I am not good here when this guy calls me.” One of the most simple but often misunderstood concepts in big bet poker is why we bet. To keep it very simple there are two main reasons-- 1. To get value from worse 2. To get better to fold (as a bluff). Any time you have a hand that is too in between and does not fit into either of these categories it is usually a mistake to bet. There is a third, less important reason to bet that tends to be more applicable in PLO and in NLHE tournaments, which is for equity protection, or “to take the pot down”. But usually in NLHE cash games we bet for value or as a bluff only.I will give you an example of what I am talking about. Let us say we are playing a $2-$5 NLHE game with $700 effective stacks. We get dealt Q:s: J:s: in the cutoff and open raise to $20. A very nitty, tight, older player flat calls in the small blind and we take the hand headsup. The flop comes out Q:c: 7:d: 3:s:. The blind checks, we bet $30 and he calls. The turn is the T:c:. The player in the small blind checks again. Let us say that we now bet $100 into the $100 pot. Do you think that this can be interpreted as an overplay? Why are we betting this amount on the turn? If we make the assumption that the player will not fold a queen and will also not call such a large bet with anything but a queen or better do you see how this situation is way ahead way behind? In fact, with our kicker it is basically impossible for us to be good if the small blind does have a queen because if he is playing a reasonable range his holding is going to be AQ, KQ or now QT. Now the player certainly could have been calling our flop continuation bet a little bit lighter with say a hand like 66 but he is not going to continue on after we basically bomb the turn. So we end up exactly in the situation that we wanted to avoid. Everything worse than our hand folds and only better continues on. The next time you are deciding whether or not to make a bet or raise and thinking about sizing make sure that, when you are not bluffing, you do not get worried when someone calls you. If the call is going to be scary then betting in that situation is probably not the best play. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/countering-blockish-betshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/countering-blockish-betsWed, 19 Feb 2014 07:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/countering-blockish-betsOne of the things that you will commonly see players do at the lower stakes of live no limit is block bet. If you have never heard of this term all it really refers to is betting an amount that may freeze your opponent helping you to get a cheaper street or a less expensive showdown. Normally players make this block bet because they do not want to check call a large amount so if their opponents fall into playing defensively it costs them less in the long run.Let us take a look at an example that I recently observed from a $2-$5 $1000 cap game. A younger, inexperienced player opened to $30 over one limper from the cutoff, an older gentleman called from the small blind and the limper folded. The effective stacks were $900. The board ran out J:s: 5:s: 3:h:. The small blind checked and the preflop raiser continuation bet $50. The older man called. The turn was a 9:c: and the small blind checked once again. The younger player now bet $115 and was quickly called. The pot now stood at $400 and the river brought out the 2:s:. The older man this time, however, came out and led for $40, one tenth of the pot. The kid in the cutoff thought for a while, looked dismayed and finally threw in the call. The small blind showed K:d: J:d: and the younger guy happily turned over A:c: A:h:. Even though the younger fellow was happy that he won the pot he actually fell into the trap of being basically “blocked” at the river. The 2:s: was a scary card and it seemed like the old man did not want to call a big bet and rightly surmised that he would not get raised by any hand but a big flush so decided to bet small.Even though it worked for the guy with KJ this time I really do hate block bets. When we look at the fundamental two reasons why we bet in poker---1. Value 2. Bluff—block betting does not fit into these categories. I never understand why I would want to block a player and prevent him from bluffing and I also have confidence in my hand reading ability that I can often times check fold on the river with a medium strength showdown hand when nothing changes. In fact, on this particular river if the small blind had checked the younger inexperienced player almost certainly would have checked as well. And if he did bet he would be fairly polarized at this level as I would rarely expect a large value bet from AA—even though a good player should probably make it. So if this guy did bet large he could be bluffing OR I would just give him credit for a big hand and fold. I think block betting came about because recreational players so desperately want to see a showdown. If you watch closely to these players they absolutely hate being bluffed out of pots when they have the best hand and do not want to be faced with tough decisions when they have what they deem to think is a strong holding. As you become more experienced in your own game block betting becomes really transparent. One of the things that you can use against the block bettor is the fact that they do want to see what you have, so, if you have a value hand, you can easily raise small and they will call you down. In the above example I would have probably raised to between $140-$200 goading a call from my opponent. On that same line of thinking we can do the exact opposite when we are bluffing. However, we must be extremely careful and pay attention to whom is doing the blocking. Some guys will not fold their hand no matter how much you make it. But let us say above we had A:h: K:h: and were trying to double barrel the guy off of a medium pair on the turn. The river, bringing that front door flush card, is very scary for a one pair hand like a jack and when he leads so weak we can immediately suss out what he is trying to do. If we raised his bet to say $350-$400 do you think he would call? I actually think that more money is lost at the table at the lower stakes from people that do not value raise block bets with hands that fair to be the best as opposed to running big bluffs against weak leads. This concept is not only reserved for river play but you see it a lot of times on the turn too—whether it is in or out of position. Say for example we raise from MP2 in a $5-$5 with $800 effective stacks to $20 with A:s: K:s: and both the blinds call. The board comes out K:h: 2:d: 3:h:. It gets checked to us and we bet $50. The small blind calls. The turn is the 9:h: and he leads out for $35. If he was a hand like 45ss here he actually has pulled an out of position block on us. You will not see this play made all that much on third flush cards, because the turn is so habitually check through at these levels, but I have certainly seen it happen when a card comes in that could hit a top pair’s kicker like in this hand say a jack or a queen. I have seen guys bet as little as $20 and freeze a hand like AK or AA. If you pay close attention you can also notice in position blocking bets on the turn as well. How is this possible and why do players do it? Well, instead of checking back their hand on the turn possibly forcing them to call a big river bet they bet small and take a free river showdown. The most common situation where this occurs is when a player has a weak top pair and is trying to protect against draws or had a small over pair on the flop that now faces a turn over card. And we, as the out of position player, can actually use the same bluff large and value raise small technique in these scenarios although I usually prefer a check call, river donk lead for value or a very small check raise on the turn. This situation usually comes up when I call with a broadway type of hand from the blinds and I am unsure whether I have the best hand or not until I evaluate my opponent’s turn bet sizing. Let us say that I call a mid position open raise to $25 with K:s: Q:c: in the big blind. The flop comes out Q:h: 2:c: 4:c:. I check call a $40 bet from my opponent. The turn is an 8:s:, I check and my opponent now bets out $50. I definitely interpret this bet as weak, and often times I will call again in order to bomb a non-clubbed river to make it look like I busted out on a flush draw. I also, in the past, have check-raised small when I have a really good handle on my opponent and think that he will call with a worse hand. And I have also check raised the turn very large with a club or straight draw knowing that my opponent is not all that strong due to his sizing getting him to fold a hand like JJ or TT.One final note on block betting and something that you can use against someone that you know reads this article. We can sometimes pull a reverse block bet from out of position, which has the main purpose of inducing a raise. Say we make a front door flush and decide to lead really weak versus our opponent. Sometimes, especially against better competition, they will not only raise you for value with a hand that they think is best but also bluff you thinking you are weak. The next time you have made a strong hand on the river you can think about reverse blocking as a viable option along with leading or going for a check raise. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-betting-in-stud-8-or-betterhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-betting-in-stud-8-or-betterWed, 12 Feb 2014 05:00:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-betting-in-stud-8-or-betterStud high low is one of my favorite poker games because it promotes players to tilt, and tilt badly. If you are a huge mental game fish I would highly suggest not playing the game as in no other form of poker does the structure require you to draw and basically stay in until the end--no matter how extreme the action--when you catch certain cards. For example, if you start with A:s: 2:s: 4:s: and then catch a 5:s: on fourth street you are staying until the end no matter how many bets you face or how much money is shoveled into the pot. You can imagine how crazy people get when they call an additional ten big bets on fourth, fifth and six streets to be only dealt the K:d:, Q:c: and 9:h:. I have literally seen people crunch and break the river card on multiple occasions. But besides the ability to keep it cool in hands after these types of situations occur, similar to no limit, great players have higher winrates because of thin value betting, specifically on seventh street. Stud 8 hands play out even more straight forward than straight stud hi hands because of the fact that for straight high opening hands it is rarely correct to semi bluff. A lot of the time you will end up chopping the pot and if your opponent catches a good card by fifth street you rarely have any fold equity no matter how strong your high board looks (because your opponent is going for low). This means that when a player raises with a K up with several other low cards behind him on third street there is a VERY good chance that he has split kings or a buried high pair. In stud high a player could be raising with a hand like K:h: 9:h: 3:h: if the king is the highest card on the board. That dynamic does not exist in stud hi low. So most of the time a high hand actually has what they are representing. What this means is that if you start low a high hand will often call you on the river, if he makes it that far, in order to try and chop the pot. This makes it an almost mandatory bet for us with two small pair on seventh if the high player does not have a pair on his board. Let us take a look at an example to make it clearer. We are the bring-in (low card) with the 2:c: and it gets folded around to a player with the Q:s: up who raises with several low cards behind him. The player is solid so there is about a ninety nine percent change that he has a high pair. It gets folded to us and we call with 2:c: 5:c: 6:d:. This is a fairly strong starting hand in Stud 8 but is a dog to split queens right now so we just call. On fourth street we catch the 5:d: to pair up and our opponent catches a T:c:. He checks (high acts first) which is almost always correct against our 25 board, we bet and he calls. On fifth street we catch a 8:h: and he catches a 6:c:. He checks, we bet and he calls. On 6th street he catches a 9:s: and we catch a bricked J:d:. He checks to us again and this time we decide to check it back knowing that we are a slight dog to a pair of queens. On 7th street our opponent checks to us (again the right play as we could raise him at the end with any low or high hand that fairs to beat him and he would be forced to pay off) and we look down to see the 2:h:. We have backed into two small pair with fives up. Our opponent is not showing a pair on his board and is very likely to have split queens. He will also pay us off with a pair of queens because it is so likely that we have a low and he wants to chop the pot. This value bet with two small pair is where the men are separated from the boys in stud hi-low. Yes, we could end up value owning yourself and lose to queens up but a bet here on the river is correct if we think when called we are good more than fifty percent of the time. For the reasons stated above our opponent is almost always calling us with just a pair of queens so this would be a profitable bet. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/constantly-max-out-your-buy-in-in-capped-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/constantly-max-out-your-buy-in-in-capped-gamesWed, 15 Jan 2014 14:22:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/constantly-max-out-your-buy-in-in-capped-gamesCapped no limit strategy is a very straight forward topic. Most of the time if you play extremely tight in a long handed format, bet thinly for value, know how to bet-fold and do not tilt you can be a winner in the game. The simple fact of the matter is, and I have examined this before, you really cannot call more than 4x preflop raises with implied odds types of hands (like suited connectors) when playing an effective stack of eighty big blinds or less (the average stack in these games). But there are also other live intangibles that will take your game to the next level and maybe increase your win-rate by as much as fifty percent. The great casino players do them and online guys struggle at it. The biggest and most important of these is the proper exploitation of image. Image, in a live format, is definitely a short term function of winning and losing not looseness or tightness. The simple fact of the matter is that people will stay away from you when they deem you to be "running hot" and will go after you when they think that you are unlucky. It is tough to make a hand in holdem so when you have a good image your continuation bets get through more often and you are able to bluff in more situations. Unfortunately when you are losing people never believe that you have anything. The proper adjustment that you must make is to play very tight and to go for straight value. The interesting thing that most people do not consider is that if you have a bad image you are actually able to make thinner value bets because people will call you with a wider range. Adversely, if you have a godlike aura sometimes you need to pull back the reigns on your very thin value bets because people tend to stay out of your way and you run the risk of value owning (value betting a worse hand) yourself. But, if we had a choice, we would still always want to have a good image. And in capped games one of the ways that we can artificially appear to be winning is by always topping our stack off. I use this technique constantly in the $5-10 $500-$1500 max buy in game at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. Whenever my stack goes below $1400 I am always adding one hundred dollar chips and getting it back up to $1500. I intentionally keep loose chips in my pocket for this purpose. Not only do I always have the max buy in where I am the deepest I can possibly be against recreational players but it almost always looks like I am at least even or winning. In fact I could have $4000 in front of me and easily be down for the day. I remember a few years ago I had two hands in the same orbit where I was at the losing end of set over set. I immediately was $3000 in the hole. I lost a few more small pots and suddenly I was stuck $4000 in the first hour but still always had $1500 in front of me. Things eventually turned around that session and about six hours in I had built my stack up to $5000. A buddy of mine (another winning professional) came by my table and mentioned that I must have been having a big day. He did not know that I was actually down $500 for the session. And my friend was a professional!! He knew how these things worked. Imagine what the recreational players thought of me that day. When you play in the same player pool over a long period of time this constant topping off also helps your long term image. When people always see you with a lot of chips they just always assume that win big all of the time. And even though that is not true it really helps your image on those days that it is obvious that you are losing. Those familiar players tend to still stay away from you because they think you are such a good player--related to the fact that you always have so many chips in front of you. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/watch-your-hand-selection-vs-short-stackershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/watch-your-hand-selection-vs-short-stackersWed, 01 Jan 2014 14:13:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/watch-your-hand-selection-vs-short-stackersThe simple fact of the matter is the shorter stacked you are the less skill that it takes to be successful in no limit. That is why it is recommended that new players play with a short stack when they are first getting accustomed to the game. Your decisions become a lot easier post flop mainly because you can not really flat call preflop with any implied odds types of hands AND your opponents, if they are playing correctly against you, cannot call you with any preflop implied odds types of hands. So you get into a scenario where with overpairs you really should not be up against flopped sets and two pair, and if you are it is really not all that bad to stack off against them because your opponents have made a huge math error preflop.These math errors are what I want to examine here--but from the deeper stacked players perspective. Most players in live games that play short stacked are usually weaker types of opponents as playing a deeper stack yields more of a winrate. In fact, I can count the number of times on one hand that I have seen a decent live short stacked player. It is different online when you can play thirty tables at a time. So knowing this, it is a lot of times human nature to try to get involved with these players because we think that they are such easy money. Now, they may be easy money but we are making a huge mistake by opening up our range against them when it is mathematically incorrect to do so. We cannot over come the mistakes we make preflop versus stacks of less than fifty big blinds even if we are the best in the world post flop.If you have read my articles here before you should be familiar with the rules of 15x, 25x, and 35x for flat calling preflop with pocket pairs, suited connectors and gapped suited connectors, respectively. Let us say a player with a $200 stack opens over a limper to $30 in a $2-$5 no limit game. We have position and think that the opener is a horrible player. Should we call with a hand like 7:h: 9:h: on the button? Even with our superior skill if we call with a hand like this we are actually handing the bad player money. No matter how good we think we are this is a mathematical mistake that we cannot overcome.Now some players think that they can call and “take it away” on some flops but you really have to ask yourself if the bad player is deep enough to float versus a continuation bet of say $40-$50. At that point he has already put in half of his stack in the hand. I am amazed that competent players do not pay more attention to these situations and it may partly have to do with their ego. But this is also why tournament poker can be so frustrating and has so much variance. The simple fact of the matter is we do not have a huge advantage against short stacks when preflop opening sizes are 3x or larger but we can easily control the optimal way to play against them by paying close attention to our preflop hand selection. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/big-draws-dont-always-mean-fold-equityhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/big-draws-dont-always-mean-fold-equityWed, 01 Jan 2014 13:58:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/big-draws-dont-always-mean-fold-equityThose of you who have played PLO know that sometimes in a multiway pot a non-nutty, two-way draw can be complete garbage. That is one of the costly mistakes that holdem players learn when transitioning to the new game. If you have 7:d: 8:d: K:c: A:c: and the board runs out 9:d: T:d: 2:s: and you are facing a bet and several aggressive actions in front of you a lot of times your hand is an easy fold as your draws are dominated. We do not think about this concept too much in holdem because most draws usually have decent equity especially heads up. However, there are certainly situations that warrant us to not play draws aggressively. Remember, the number one goal in semi-bluffing is fold equity--we want to win the pot right now. If there is not a reasonable chance that our opponent will lay their hand down then it is a pure spew to shovel chips in as an underdog. If you want to flip coins and pay sixty cents on the dollar every time you lose I'll fly you on a private jet out to Los Angeles so long as you bring all of your money. In holdem, there are certain actions that will dictate that we have no fold equity. Let us take a look at hand that I recently commentated on from Live at the Bike and that I used for my live training videos over at CrushLivePoker.com. It was a $5-5, $300-$1000 game on a Friday night. The game was typical loose passive where people were rarely raising post flop unless they had the goods. A player with a $600 stack opened UTG to $25 with A:c: K:c: and four players called in the field. The flop came J:c: T:c: 9:s: giving the preflop raiser a royal flush draw. He decided to continuation bet $85 and the UTG +2, who had him covered, raised to $250. It got folded back to the UTG who immediately moved in. UTG+2 snap called with 8:c: 7:c:, the board bricked out and he won a huge pot. Some of players at the table bemoaned the UTG's luck saying that there was nothing that he could do because he had a royal flush draw. But, are they correct?First of all we have to evaluate what it means to be raised on this flop. Let us put ourselves in the UTG’s shoes. We were the preflop raiser and continuation bet into four people on an extremely wet flop. Even a bad player should know that we must have something, usually at least top pair. Players are rarely ever going to overplay a hand like AJ on a board like this because we look so strong. Also, because we have the ace and the king of clubs, it is unlikely that our opponent has a draw as they would not raise a naked, under flush draw on this flop. Usually, then, we can deduce that our opponent has some sort of made hand, probably at worst two pair. And, more importantly, with these stacks sizes and our perceived range once our opponent raises us he will almost never fold. So, by definition, we have no fold equity. This hand starts to become a conditional philosophy problem kind of like logic class back in college. We know A therefore B or if X then Y. In this case if our opponent raises then we know he will not fold. If his range consists of two pair, sets and straights our equity is about forty one percent with A:c: K:c:. To raise all in to see two cards would be nothing but a spew. Now, depending on the stack sizes, we can certainly call the raise and many times call a bet on the turn especially knowing that our opponent has flopped something big and will most likely pay us off to some extent on the river. But to just close our eyes and shove is a big mistake because we forget the main point of semi bluffing—fold equity.Now sometimes we can have draws as big as 15 outs (open ended and flush draw). In these situations our draw has so much equity that it is almost never bad to play them aggressively. In the real world there is usually at least a hint of fold equity and when dealing with a hand where at worst our equity would be in the high forty-percentile range it is probably not bad to semi-bluff. However, there are certainly situations where you can be overly aggressive with them, especially when it is apparent that your opponent has a set. A fifteen out draw only has forty percent equity versus a set so we get back in the territory of spewness just like the twelve out draw above. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/due-to-combos-overpairs-should-value-bet-more-oftenhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/due-to-combos-overpairs-should-value-bet-more-oftenWed, 28 Aug 2013 16:28:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/due-to-combos-overpairs-should-value-bet-more-oftenAs long as we are on this combinatorics rant I wanted to bring up another scenario where people do not realize that they are more likely to hold the best hand at showdown. This spot involves us holding an overpair when a front door flush draw comes in on the river. Say we raise A:c: A:d: to $8 from UTG+1 in a $1-$2 game with $400 effective stacks. The player in the highjack is the only caller. The board comes out J:c: 2:c: 7:s:. We bet $15 and our opponent calls. The turn is the 3:h:. We fire $30 and the highjack comes along again. The river is the 4:c:. What should be our play here? Because we do not have a jack in our hand there are more combinations of jacks that our opponent can hold. Even though the river looks scary when we understand how this combo math works we can make adjustments. If, however, we held a hand like A:s: J:s: there is more of a chance that our opponent has made clubs as there are less combinations of jacks left. This concept can really be put into practical application when the pot involves multiple players. Say we use the above example but there are two players that called us preflop and we hold K:h: J:h:. Now, at the river, I would be very concerned that one of my opponents may very well have made a flush as there are only four jacks in the deck. On the other hand if I held KK I could quite reasonably bet for value because both opponents could still hold top pair. Combo work is very useful when trying to weight an opponent’s hand range especially at the river when a draw comes in. I have discussed this concept a lot in my training, however, often times it is misapplied. You see, we can also learn a lot about about our opponent’s hand range by the turn card. Let us say that in a $5-$5 game we raise to $20 from under the gun with Q:s: Q:c:. The button calls. The board comes out 8:h: 2:s: 4:h:. We continuation bet $30 and our opponent calls. The turn is the K:s:. Some players might get scared of this card but in reality the king is unlikely to improve our opponent’s hand unless he had the king high flush draw. The right play would be to bet here again to charge the draws. So, we bet out $70 and our opponent calls again. The river is the Q:h:. What is the correct play here?In previous articles I have mentioned that it is correct to value bet when we are good more than 50% of the time WHEN CALLED. On this river we are in a bit of a quandary. We now have a set, which in the absolute sense is a strong hand, but sometimes can be relatively weak given the action and board. Because our opponent continued to call the turn when a scary overcard hit his range is skewed away from one pair hands like an eight and leans more towards a draw. And even if he continued to hero call us with a hand less than a king on the turn if we bet again it is very unlikely that a worse hand will call unless he somehow flatted preflop with AK and called the flop. The correct play usually here would be to check and fold. So, you can see that in some scenarios a hand that is not that strong can dictate a value bet and other times a very strong hand should check and fold. Hand reading and combinatorics once grasped correctly will take your game to the next level. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-be-scared-of-two-pairhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-be-scared-of-two-pairWed, 14 Aug 2013 16:19:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-be-scared-of-two-pairIf you have read or listened to my training material in the past you know how important that I think it is to make thin value bets on the river. In fact at the mid to low stakes games this can comprise as much as seventy five percent of your winrate. One of the most common mistakes that recreational players make especially when the pot gets big, is getting scared. Certain cards may come and because they are incapable of betting for value then folding to a raise they just check to take a free showdown. This approach keeps them losers in the game overall. One of the situations that scares these players the most is when a card falls at the end that can make an opponent hold two pair. Let us take a look at an example. Say we raise under the gun with pocket kings to $20 in a $2-$5 game with $800 effective stacks. Both the cutoff and the button call. The flop comes out Q:d: 3:d: 2:c:. We bet out $45 into $65 and both players call. The turn is an 8:h: and we bet $125. This time only the cutoff calls. His range is a little stronger than the button's as he has to worry about the button behind him. Most likely he has some sort of queen. The river is the J:s:. A lot of weaker players would become scared of this card, as there is a chance now that the cutoff has made two pair with QJ. What they do not realize, however, is that it is less likely that this player holds QJ due to combinatorics. Combinatorics, although sometimes an intimidating word, is simply the study of mathematical combinations. When a card appears on the board there are less combinations of hands with that card that a player might have. So for example if the cutoff only calls with QJ suited to a raise he has four combinations total of QJ, one for each suit. Because the board is Q:d: 3:d: 2:c: J:c: he can no longer have Q:d: J:d: or Q:c: J:c: only Q:h: J:h: or Q:s: J:s:. So, before the river, he has three possible combinations of QJ suited--but after his total is cut by 33 percent. He is more likely to hold KQ suited as there are three combinations still remaining instead of the two of QJ. On a more advanced note people are more likely to call a raise with KQ suited as opposed to KQ off-suit so there actually is a much better chance of that holding. This is not to be confused with the river pairing the queen as our opponent has many Q:x: hands in his range although he may also have a busted flush draw. Again, however, basic hand reading reveals that he should have a stronger hand on the flop and the turn, skewed towards a queen because he his next to act after the preflop raiser and still has a player to worry about behind him. Most players also do not call the turn with naked flush draws so he would have to have a pair or a straight draw with the diamonds in order to continue on. Remember this article the next time a card comes where you think your opponent may have improved to two pair; chances are it is actually more likely that you have the best hand. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rake-considerations-in-small-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rake-considerations-in-small-gamesTue, 23 Jul 2013 15:31:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rake-considerations-in-small-gamesIt is very unfortunate nowadays in America that it is difficult to play online poker on reputable sites. Micro stakes online used to be a great way to practice and build a bankroll. You could multi-table, play a lot of hands and show a lot of profit. The rake structures in the small games online were nothing like their live counterparts. With most sites offering rakeback the rake at the lower levels would not proportionally affect your winrate as much when compared to no rakeback in live games. If you are not familiar with the way that most cardrooms work, most games have exactly the same rake no matter their size. So you could be playing a $2-$5 $200 max buy in game and the casino drops the same $5 that it does at $5-$10 no limit. This high drop makes it very difficult to beat, small, live games. In fact, I tell most of my students, at least in California, that playing poker for profit is really a race to the $5 blind level. The competition just is not that much tougher there and you are getting way more bang for your buck when it comes to paying the rake.The problem also with these smaller, capped restricted buy-in games is that the optimal style is normally a short stacked approach as often times the average stack has less than sixty big blinds. When you are dealing with raise sizes of more than four times the big blind as an open it is very difficult to profitably call with anything. Much tighter is better. The problem with this approach is that you rarely get experience playing after the flop, and when you do get into a pot most of the money is all-in by the turn. These games in no way prepare you for normal 100 or 200BB structures. Also, because the rake is such a large percentage of the overall pot tables like this make it almost impossible to achieve a large winrate. Even the best players at these levels would have trouble beating a $200 cap game for more than fifteen or twenty dollars per hour, and those are stellar results. Once you fully understand this you quickly realize that it is almost impossible to build up a bankroll especially if you are playing poker full time.You also can get into many bad habits playing severely capped buy-in games, as it is often optimal to play a trapping style, almost backwards. The lower cash levels almost remind me of tournaments. So low winrate, bad skill of your opponents, and forced optimal backwards play are all reasons that if you stay at the lower levels your game will be moving sideways not improving. The next time you are a little apprehensive about making the jump to the $5 blind level with a better buy-in structure remember the way the larger games are set up. The higher cap and lower percentage of rake lends itself to being a better fit for a player that wants to improve his game. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/evaluating-turn-double-barrelshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/evaluating-turn-double-barrelsFri, 19 Jul 2013 15:21:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/evaluating-turn-double-barrelsIf you are familiar with the concept of barreling you know that betting cards that come on later streets that change top pair can be very effective as a bluff. Sometimes, unless our opponent is slowplaying, villains often will have a pretty wide flop calling range to your continuation bets--especially on ragged boards. Say for example the flop is 9:c: 3:d: 2:s:. We had open raised on the button with J:h: Q:h: and both of the blinds called pre lop.If we cbet here, and this is a good board to do so, our opponents can be calling us with hands as weak as A2, A3, any pocket pair, a nine and sometimes even ace high. Knowing this, over cards like an ace or a king are very effective turn double barrel cards as they are likely to hit our range but to weaken a flop caller’s holding. If you are a good enough player to also value bet the turn when you hit your hand it becomes very difficult for players to bluff catch you. In the above example, however, if a competent player double barrels the turn does it necessarily mean that they have a strong hand? Obviously this question is player and situationally dependent but chances are the better the player the more frequently he will use this scare card as a bluff.A good player also knows which cards are not the best turns to bluff. Say, for example, we cbet 9:c: 6:s: 4:d: into two people on the flop and they both call. The turn brings in the 7:c:. This is obviously not the best card to continue a bluff, as it is likely to improve an opponent’s calling range. The 7:c: brings a backdoor flush draw and also gives a lot of hands pairs plus straight draws. The chances are slim that you will be able to bet through both people on the turn. Knowing this, what does it mean then if a competent player bets the turn on a coordinated, non-scare card? Usually, when this happens, we can infer that the preflop raiser has a strong hand—something like at least top pair--and is charging his opponents’ weaker holdings. Can we infer anything about say a K:h: coming on the turn? Probably not.Let us look at something else. Say you call a raise from an UTG+1 player in the small blind with Q:s: J:s:. The big blind also calls and you see the flop three ways. The board comes out J:h: 4:d: 5:d:. It gets checked to the preflop raiser and he cbets. We call, as does the big blind. The turn is the 6:h:. We check and the preflop rasier fires another large bet. What do you think about the preflop raiser’s hand strength now? And to make this point more clear let us say that instead of the 6:h: coming on the turn it was the K:s:. We check and the UTG+1 player double barrels. In which scenario is the preflop raiser more likely to have a strong hand? If you thought the first example you are right.However, I have witnessed a lot of inexperienced players not pick up on this concept and call the turn in example one but fold in example two. You see, sometimes a scare card really is not what it seems. Now, yes, the preflop raiser certainly could have hit a king on the turn or he could have been beating us the whole way but in example two at least there is a chance that he can be bluffing. In example one if the player is decent it is very unlikely that he is betting with no equity because he should realize that he should get called a lot wider. Pay attention to this situation and use it to your advantage.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-bets-on-ragged-boardshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-bets-on-ragged-boardsMon, 15 Jul 2013 14:01:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-bets-on-ragged-boardsIf you have been playing No Limit Holdem for at least a few years by now you should have noticed that bad players often play backwards. When they have strong hands they often will feign weakness and when they are weak or have medium strength holdings they will sometimes bet to "protect" against over cards. We can really use this knowledge to our advantage especially if we are the preflop raiser. 

Let us review a hand that I played at the Commerce Casino a few weeks ago. One bad, recreational player limped in Mp2, I raised K:h: Q:h: on the button to $45 and the big blind and the limper called. The flop came out
 9:h: 2:s: 4:c:. The big blind checked and now the Mp2 player lead out for 
$50. If we know that this bad player very rarely would ever have a set what is his most likely holding? It seemed to me that at most he could have a nine and he easily could be betting with a hand like A4 to "find out where he is at". Well, I let him know where he was at and raised it to $200. Both my opponents folded. 

This hand is a very good example of a spot where bluff raising the flop against a lead out that probably is not strong is extremely profitable. Against good opponents that can put pressure on you leading out to evaluate the strength of your hand is rarely a good play. In fact you can even get blown off of a hand as good as KJ on a jack high board if you are not willing to hold on. 

The beauty of making this bluff raise play on ragged boards, however, is that top pair will often change by the river and the relative strength of your opponents hand in comparison to the board will go way down. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/preflop-hand-selection-in-capped-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/preflop-hand-selection-in-capped-gamesThu, 11 Jul 2013 13:55:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/preflop-hand-selection-in-capped-gamesMany times I have talked about the importance of playing the correct hands preflop. Hand selection is often times overlooked by both good and bad players. The bad because they want to gamble and the good because they think that they have a large advantage post flop. 

The fact of the matter is, however, the shorter the effective stacks the more important hand selection becomes. In games with a spread 100 big blind maximum buy in the average stack is usually only about seventy to eighty big blinds. Unfortunately with these stack sizes it becomes extremely difficult to profitably flat call with implied odds types of hands when facing preflop raise sizes of more than 5x, something that is common at the lower levels. 

I have talked about the rule of fifteen times, twenty five times, thirty five times as it relates to pocket pairs, suited connectors, and gapped suited connectors in a previous column. You can visit my training website Seatopenpoker.net click on articles for a refresher. Every time you break these rules, that is call with a hand like 8:s: 7:s: when the stacks are not deep enough, you are losing money. And every time your opponent breaks those rules you are gaining money. 

Now there are times that you can call with speculative hands with the intention of taking away the pot later on but in general bluffing people off of strong holdings at these levels is not recommended. The next time you are on a downswing or you think you are playing bad analyze the hands that you are playing when someone else has raised the pot. Also if you are playing gapped and suited connecting hands from out of position solely based on the future value of hitting your hand you are making a big mistake. Position is everything in big bet poker and playing draws when first to act puts yourself at a big disadvantage throughout the rest of the hand. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/depolarizing-your-river-value-bet-rangehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/depolarizing-your-river-value-bet-rangeSun, 07 Jul 2013 13:42:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/depolarizing-your-river-value-bet-rangeIf you want to become an expert no limit hold player you should really work on depolarizing your river betting range. What does this mean? Most players have a polarized range on the river especially when the pot is large--that is they only bet bluffs or their very strong hands. Part of the reason why they do this is because they do not want to open themselves up to being raised--most are incapable of folding. They have subconsciously countered this flaw in their game (not being able to bet-fold for value) by simply not betting.I call this type of player a "showdown monkey". He loses tons of value at the end of the hand by checking behind so that he can get to showdown for free. The funny thing that he does not know is that when you get raised on the river, whether in or out of position, your opponent is bluffing so infrequently that you are almost never getting the correct pot odds to call. So he is scared of a bluff that basically never happens.As good players we know how important it is to make thin value bets in order to achieve a top winrate. When we bet hands that are not strong or weak on the river we are depolarizing our range. If we can effectively make this adjustment we become very difficult to play against and it is hard to catch us when we are bluffing.Let us take a look at an example. Say in a $5-$5 game with effective stacks of $800 an under the gun player raises to $25 and there are three callers including us, in position on the button. We hold K:c: J:c:. The flop comes out Q:c: 2:h: 3:c:. The UTG player bets out $80 into the pot. The two players fold in between and we call. The chances are the UTG is pretty strong as he has bet close to pot on somewhat of a wet board into three other players. His hand is most likely at least a queen or an overpair. The turn falls the 9:s: and he bets large again this time $200. We have picked up additional outs to a queen or an overpair as a ten brings us in a gutshot straight. We call again. The river falls the K:h: and now our opponent checks. The pot is $660 and he has $500 left. Should we bet? To answer this question we have to do some simple hand reading. It is obvious that our opponent has shown a good amount of strength by raising under the gun and betting close to pot on the flop and turn. He could have AA, KK, AQ, KQ or maybe QJ. Which of these hands though, check the river when a king falls? It is very unlikely that he checks KQ or KK. AA is close because again our opponents are showdown monkeys and do not want to be raised off of the best hand. So it is possibly that he has AA but I think that AQ or QJ is more likely. If we bet will he call? In this situation our hand looks so much like a flush draw I think he will definitely try and catch our bluff. Now what happens if we check the river behind? We lose the value bet amount that he would call with AQ and QJ and we also start to have a polarized river betting range something that we want to move away from. If we only have KQ or a busted flush draw he can profitable check call a decent sized bet, especially since he has a queen blocker to KQ. If we are good enough to bet any single paired king here, (running into the river with a flush draw) than he cannot profitably bluff catch us because we have other, medium strength hands in our range that he loses to--we are not only very strong or weak. Not only do we make extra money making these thin value bets but we make it much much harder for our opponents to play against us and it opens the door for us to bluff more against people who are paying attention.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/concentrating-on-most-common-spotshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/concentrating-on-most-common-spotsWed, 03 Jul 2013 13:38:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/concentrating-on-most-common-spotsNo matter how much information you take in about No Limit Holdem the game is still 90% about winning the most money with the best hand. The great players shovel money into the pot when they know that they are good. Getting maximum value is paramount if you want to be a successful player. Often times players come to me for private lessons and ask me the wrong questions. They want to learn about four and five bet bluffing ranges or exploiting some of the other winning players that frequent their games on a regular basis. Although learning about these things has merit I always tell them that they should be spending more of their mental energy on the more common situations that appear on a regular basis.One of the most overlooked spots that you really should be paying attention to is what your opponents’ flop and turn calling ranges are when you continuation bet. Some players will call the flop very wide and fold to further turn aggression where as others represent a much stronger hand when they put money into the pot. If you want to be a top-notch player you really need to pay attention to the most common situations even when you are not in the hand. Most of the money that is won and lost is through these fundamental situations. Once in a while you run a big bluff or make a hero call but the meat and potatoes of maximizing value is correctly evaluation your hand strength versus your opponent’s range. The next time you are thinking about “advanced” levels reaffirm to yourself that you have the most basic things down because that is where you should be spending most of your mental energy. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opening-trash-from-upfronthttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opening-trash-from-upfrontSat, 29 Jun 2013 13:33:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opening-trash-from-upfrontNo matter how good you are at No Limit Holdem the simple fact of the matter is that in a nine or ten handed setting in general you will need a good hand to win. This concept is sometimes lost on cocky, overconfident players. I remember right after Black Friday an influx of Internet players that dove into the mid to high stakes live poker scene. These players were very good and had better fundamentals than most of the live regulars but were accustomed to playing in a six max setting. These guys made it a point to LAG it up and play a lot of hands without regards to position. I observed their play very closely and noticed that they were getting absolutely killed versus weaker players when they opened a wide range from up front. Opening hands like 6:c: 4:c: or 8:s: T:s: is going to be a very tough proposition full ring—especially at the lower stakes. The value of these hands is getting paid off through deception but most of the time when you raise from up front you are forced to bluff with these holdings with very little showdown value.If you look at online, full ring statistics, the biggest winners played SUPER tight from up front. I cannot stress enough how important position is in big bet games. It is one thing to isolate a weak limper from the button but playing inferior hands at a positional disadvantage is an absolute losing proposition. One of the things that I battle with in my own game is playing at a variety of different stakes. Sometimes I am playing up to $10-$20 no limit and other days I am playing $5-$5. When I play higher I am very conscious of the tougher competition and play less hands. Sometimes at the lower stakes, however, I feel that my skill level is so superior I want to run over the table. The problem is, however, that so many people call raises. Preflop garbage hands become very difficult to play because there is little fold equity especially with the nature of smaller stacks in capped games.If you want to up your winrate tighten up from the first three spots. It is one of the easiest things to do but for some of us younger guys it sometimes takes discipline. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/knowing-when-to-complete-from-the-small-blindhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/knowing-when-to-complete-from-the-small-blindTue, 25 Jun 2013 13:29:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/knowing-when-to-complete-from-the-small-blindWe all know how enticing pot odds can be. And there isn’t a better example of “getting a great price” then when completing in the small blind after several people have limped in. Sometimes you can be getting as much as 10-1 in this spot and a lot of people feel like they are forced to complete especially when the big blind is the type of player that would not raise without a premium hand. However, I have seen a lot of people make mistakes in this particular situation.I remember a long time ago reading something from Phil Hellmuth discussing which hands he completes in the small blind in limit Holdem. He said that after several people have entered the pot for a limp, you should complete with any two suited cards. As much flack as Hellmuth gets for his cash game pointers I actually think that this good advice. When more than three people have come into the pot but have not raised I will complete with any two gapper such as 96 or Q9 or any two suited cards. I will fold everything else except for weak aces. The fact of the matter is that position is paramount in big bet games and when you complete from the small blind you are first to act for the rest of the hand. I cannot find good reasons to play hands like 93os and K6os, but I see people do it all the time. You actually have reverse implied odds when you hit top pair, especially when you are uncomfortable playing post flop. Often times I will see players lose a fair bit of money with hands that they should never have even completed with. I have commentated on Live at the Bike at the Bicycle Casino for over five years and it is amazing to me that guys will fall into a check call shell with a hand like 84os on a board of 8:s: 3:s: 6:c:. They have no idea where they are at and do not seem to realize that their equity against a field bettor’s hand is not good especially if there is a caller in between. The next time you are thinking about completing “any two“ in the small blind ask yourself “what do I really want to flop here”? If you cannot come up with a good answer there is nothing wrong with pitching your hand even if you think you are getting a good price.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-at-low-stakeshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-at-low-stakesFri, 21 Jun 2013 13:23:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-at-low-stakesOne of the biggest mistakes that I see people make at the lower levels is overplaying their draws. The primary reason why we semi-bluff (a bluff with a draw where we can improve) is to get our opponent to fold. If we are up against someone that we know has a strong hand in their own eyes, and that player has a history of not folding these types of holdings is this a spot for us to make a semi-bluff? We have all seen the “tight” player type, especially in $5 blind games. These guys come to the casino and a lot do not really pay attention to the game. They wait to play very strong hands preflop or pocket pairs. They are not in the business of folding their hands postflop because they play so few hands. Let us take a look at a spot that I saw go down last week. The game is $5-$5 and both opponents are $800 deep. A player in his mid 60s opens from under the gun to $25 and a young, decent player that plays a looser style makes the call from the button. The board runs out J:h: 7:d: 2:h:. The under the gun player continuation bets $50 into the pot and the young guy raises to $250. The older player calls rather quickly. The turn is the 3:s: and the old guy checks. The player in the field now bets $400 and the guy upfront quickly check raises all-in. The young guy calls and the river is the 5:c:. The young guy turns over Kh Qh and the older guy wins the pot with A:c: A:s:. The younger guy shakes his head in disgust and mutters something about how “he has a set there almost always and can’t believe how bad he runs.” Do you think that the young guy made a good play?I have talked extensively in past articles about how we can determine our opponent’s strength based about their bet sizing. This under the gun player was one of the tightest at the table and his raise from up front represents extreme strength. We also know that when he bets close to pot he almost always has something and since he is the type that would most likely limp or fold AJ he is usually going to have an overpair or two overcards and a flush draw. Since the younger guy had the king and the queen of hearts in his hand, the flush draw part of his range is basically impossible. His most likely holdings are AA, KK, QQ or JJ, and combination wise it is most likely that he holds AA because of the board and the younger guys hand. Is this a good spot to try and bluff a guy off of AA? No matter what the scenario it is normally never a good approach to bluff a recreational player off of AA. Higher-level players would also point out that the younger guy is representing a very thin value range because the board is disconnected. He can only have sets that beat AA because he would not be playing a hand like J7s for a raise. So, what if the board was something like 4:s: 5:h: 6:h: where the young guy could also have sets, two pair and straights? Would it be better for a semi-bluff here? Well, it really depends on your opponent and whether or not he is capable of folding an overpair. The fact of the matter is, against not-thinking players who are only considering their own hand strength, the board makes no difference. If they have an overpair they are not going to fold. The same can be said when it is obvious that your opponent holds a very strong hand post flop. It is absolute suicide to try and bluff a scare card, like a front door flush or a one liner to a straight, when these guys just are not going to fold. Of course you can use this knowledge against them when you actually make your hand and should absolutely bet larger to maximize your value. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/determining-continuation-bet-frequencyhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/determining-continuation-bet-frequencyMon, 17 Jun 2013 13:17:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/determining-continuation-bet-frequencyWhen determining whether or not to continuation bet as a bluff there are a number of different considerations. Image, board texture, number of players in the hand, etc. are all major factors in whether or not your bet will get through. However, one of the most important considerations is often times overlooked—how loose or tight do you play preflop?Most of the time, the proper style that you should be playing to achieve a maximum winrate at smaller stakes, full ring live games is TAG, that is tight preflop and aggressive post flop. When you are playing nine handed and especially ten handed playing over a certain number of hands will definitely lead to unprofitability. The fact of the matter is, no matter how good you are, opening 53os from under the gun is not going to be a winning play just based upon the sheer fact that you will always be taking way the worst of it versus the rest of the table.But, there are certainly differences between winning styles. If we were to say that you can be profitable in these games playing anywhere from 10% of your hands to 33% of your hands, depending on the dynamics of the table our approach to post flop play should be drastically different especially with the betting lead. If you pay attention to good LAGs, that is loose aggressive players, (people that play over 25% of hands) you will notice that they know when NOT to continuation bet. If a LAG opens the pot and three or more people call, most of the time LAGs should not be firing super wet, raggedy boards that they do not hit. The fact of the matter is even the most clueless of players will notice that they are playing and opening a lot of hands. Say for example, a LAG isolation raises with A:h: Q:h: two limpers and gets called by both and a guy in the blind. The board comes out 5:s: 6:s: 7:d:. It gets checked over to the LAG, because players at the lower levels always think that he will fire. What is his best play? He has almost no equity in this pot, all kinds of hands with draws will call him and he is commonly looked up lighter than others because he plays so many hands. A good LAG would check this board and be done with the hand unless he improves.One of the most pivotal strategy points that has been brought out about no limit in the last few years is when NOT to continuation bet. But let us turn this example around and say it is a TAG that opens from early position and gets called by three players. The same board appears--but instead of the TAG checking he bets. Why? He plays so few hands and he opened from up front that is range is super tight, that is it is usually going to be AQ+ or a high pair. Even though the flop is super wet his opponents are going to have a hard time calling with a hand like 65, scared that they are beat. You see, people will play nittier post flop against a good TAG but usually still fall into their loose passive patterns preflop. A hand like 5:c: 6:c: is too good for them to fold to a single raise no matter what the situation. There is a player that comes to mind at the Bike that plays a lot of $5-$5. He is a very good TAG and people realize that he does not play many hands. He will fire almost any board into three or less players because his range is so tight when he opens. So for him, betting AK on a 567 board still very well may show a profit whereas for a LAG making the same bet into multiple opponents is just burning money. If you are struggling with your continuation bet bluffs figure out how your player pool sees your style and adjust these post flop bets accordingly.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-tight-in-split-pot-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-tight-in-split-pot-gamesThu, 13 Jun 2013 13:13:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-tight-in-split-pot-gamesOne of the most basic fundamentals of playing split pot games is to go for scoop pots. And one of the ways that you can ensure that this will happen is playing premium hands that have nut draws. If you play too many hands you will often be going for the second or third nuts in one direction and in full ring games you will be punished. In fact, split pot games have the unique variable that the bad players get worse and worse the more long-handed the game is and get accidentally better the shorter the game becomes. You see, as the game gets shorter it becomes more correct to call down in pots that will be split. And we all now that bad players are usually poor because they call down too much and are incapable of folding. 

Especially in low ante games playing tighter is going to be a huge advantage in split pot games. The opposite is true with higher antes but in my experience because there is so much action in split pot games anyway you will rarely find a game that is structured this way. Unlike no limit holdem where playing inordinately tight can sometimes stunt your growth, playing super tight in split pot games can only keep you out of trouble. One of the things that will also improve the skill of your game is watching the players who play too many hands get into sticky spots. If you are playing as tight as I am advocating you certainly will have the time. Especially multiway, notice how many bets are lost by these loose guys going for lows such as A3 and A4 or seeing the river with non-nut flush draws. It may be a little boring but especially for people transitioning from no limit holdem take solace in the fact that you can easily have a leg up on more experienced competition by just playing tighter than them in a full ring setting.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-mistakes-on-later-streetshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-mistakes-on-later-streetsSun, 09 Jun 2013 13:08:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-mistakes-on-later-streetsBecause of the nature of shorter, restricted buy-in games most of the decisions within a hand are made preflop and on the flop . This means that players have much more experience playing these streets as opposed to later streets. That is why you see so many mistakes at the end of a hand that is not all-in particularly when it comes to value betting.Even bad players know now that they should not call a raise and a reraise with a hand like jack eight off suit. In fact, for most losing players that have played for a long period of time, one of the ways that they stop their bleeding is by playing tighter preflop. They get involved with fewer hands and thus make fewer mistakes per session. This does not mean, however, that they are not still making mistakes when they get involved with hands. Their play is still lousy and because they have less experience on later streets you can really exploit them. That is why I am a big proponent sometimes of not three betting marginal hands against weak players so that I can force them to make mistakes later on in the hand.Let us take a look at an example. Say a bad player in a $2-$5, game with a $300 stack raises to $20 from middle position. It gets folded to us and we have AQs on the button. Are we ahead of our opponents range? Probably. Does that mean that we should always three bet? No. I think a lot of younger players coming from the world of online six-max miss this point. Players have actually become better at folding trashy holdings preflop. They are still bad and call single raised pots with far too many hands, but when it comes to three bet pots they may very well fold AT, KQ or AJ to our reraise. Do we want that to happen? Of course not. We do not want to give our opponents the opportunity to make the correct decision now when we can force them make bad decisions later on—especially when they are incapable of folding a hand like top pair. These players also rarely fire more than one bullet as a continuation bet so we can sometimes call on the flop if we miss because we will rarely face a second bet and we can get to showdown with our ace high hand or pocket pair. In big bet poker the name of the game is forcing people out of their comfort zone. Because turn and river play happen so rarely in super capped games that is exactly where you want your opponents to have to make their decisions. You can learn more about some of the other intangibles that will allow you to crush capped games on my website SeatOpenPoker.net specifically the podcast “A Capped Game Strategy”.
Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/shot-takinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/shot-takingWed, 05 Jun 2013 13:04:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/shot-takingThere is a fine balance between "shot taking" and playing a game in which the monetary factor effects your decision making process. Some of the best players in the world have made most of their money by playing in big games that are good and also running well when playing in them. If you are going to shot take, however, you should have the confidence to not alter your style just because the game is big. This can be achieved a number of different ways including selling off pieces of yourself or setting a stop loss. If you find yourself playing differently than normal just because the size of the game is larger than you are probably doing something wrong. Now this is not to say that sometimes you are forced to play conservatively because maybe you have a limited about of buy-ins on your person. But if you find that you are regularly making different decisions that are not optimal the game may be too big. This is especially bad when you are actually not shot taking but rather just playing in a game on a regular basis that is above your bankroll.The other thing that people do not realize is that when you are selling pieces or taking staking you could actually make more money one step down if you were playing all on your own. It makes sense to play higher if the game is MUCH bigger and you need to reduce the variance. You can easily make money per hour in a game that is really good only playing for a total fractional of yourself. But where it does not make sense is selling pieces with no markup at say $10-$20 NL where you can beat up on a $5-$10 game and not sell any action. Why would I play for half of myself one level higher when I can play for all of myself at $5-$10? The game would have to be awfully good to do that and you would think that one’s bankroll would be able to take a couple of shots one step higher if you are properly bankrolled for the original level. So you have to find a balance between not giving up too much and playing totally on your own where the size of the game does not effect your play.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/the-ev-of-hapiness-is-underratedhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/the-ev-of-hapiness-is-underratedSat, 01 Jun 2013 13:01:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/the-ev-of-hapiness-is-underratedFiguring out an accurate hourly for a certain level of no limit game is one of the most common questions that I get almost on a daily basis. In theory, we would always want to play in the game that would give us the highest hourly just as long as we understand our bankroll limitations and our risk of ruin. However, we are not robots and there are other factors that go into game selection besides strict expected value. 

Playing in Southern California has definitely taught me this concept. I remember back in 2008 and 2009 right when the Commerce Casino introduced $5-$10 $1500 cap no limit the game was absolutely amazing. Before, they only had $2-$5 $200 cap and $5-10 $400 cap at the upper end of their restricted buy-in games. So suddenly, when they introduced this pseudo deep-stacked game it was a gold mine. Now, there big games, $10-$20 and $20-40 no limit, where still somewhat strong but nowhere near as good as this $5-$10 no limit game. It was very rare that the top winrate in the bigger games would be even fifty percent higher than the top winrates in the $5-$10 game and a few good players could make almost as much in $5-$10 as they could in $10-$20. Think of it--would you rather play in a game that affected your life day to day where there was tons of pressure or would it be better to make a smaller game regular for you that was enjoyable, stress-free and you could make almost the same amount of money? 
 Especially for professionals, consistency and quality of life is a major consideration. For me, one of my biggest problems has always been being motivated enough to play throughout a prolonged losing streak. Let us say that I can make 100 dollars per hour in a $10-$20 game and 75 dollars an hour at $5-$10. In the lower game I rarely feel stress and a big losing session is an anomaly. I have no problem putting in my 30 hours a week on a consistent basis. However, at $10-$20 I commonly go on 15 or 20000 dollar downswings and I only have the motivation to put in 25 hours per week. You can see that my actual overall amount of money won is only slightly more at $10-$20 do to the fact that I play less hours and my quality of life is a lot worse. People vastly underestimate happiness and mental piece of mind when they are playing full time for a living. You should strive to find the level that is the best fit for you—not based solely upon amount of money earned per hour.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/winrate-in-correlation-to-time-playedhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/winrate-in-correlation-to-time-playedTue, 28 May 2013 12:56:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/winrate-in-correlation-to-time-playedAn interesting quandary that comes about from playing a lot of small level live no limit is the fact that the smaller capped games are actually harder to beat than the larger ones. How can this be? It's pretty simple. The rake, especially in flat drop games, is so high in proportion to the average stack size and the blinds that you have to be very good in order to over come it. In fact, in some games, the drop is absolutely impossible to beat. There are a couple of entry level no limit structures in Southern California that are $1-$2 NL tables with an $80 or even $40 cap buy-in. These games drop as much sometimes as a normal $2-$5 game. 

And, by the way, your hourly in these types of games is definitely not constant. The main way that you earn a lot in these types of capped games is when the stacks get deep. And unfortunately in the tiny games with the high rake it is next to impossible to get deep as most of the money is getting dropped off of the table. The same concept applies at the higher stakes cap games but because you can start with larger stacks in proportion to the blinds--sometimes as much as 100 or 200 big blinds you definitely can get deep with other people. That is why if you want to be someone who is profitable in the cap games you have to be willing to put in long sessions to increase your winrate. David Chan, an instructor for my live cash-training site, Seatopenpoker.net drove this home to me. He cut his teeth and built his bankroll moving up from severely restricted capped games. The simple fact of the matter is you must get deep in these games to have a good winrate and in order to get deep most of the time you have to put in long sessions. So if you are thinking about an overall approach to playing these types of capped cash games plan on putting in a lot of time in each individual session and do not hit in and run.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/concentrate-on-beating-bad-playershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/concentrate-on-beating-bad-playersFri, 24 May 2013 12:53:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/concentrate-on-beating-bad-playersUnless you are planning on playing some of the toughest games in the world most of the money that you will win in poker comes from beating bad players. This is even true at the nosebleed levels as games rarely go nowadays without at least on giant spot at the table. 

Because of this, especially at the midstakes levels, you should really concentrate on being the best "fish fryer" that you possibly can be since that is where ninety percent of your money will come from. Work on optimizing your lines against these weak players and sucking up all of the money that is possible. Often times players concentrate on the wrong thing--that is they spend way too much time and mental energy paying attention to the other good players at the table. Why would I want to mix it up with someone else who is a big winning player when all of the dead money that we are fighting for comes from the other players? Those are the players that you should be paying attention to the most, as they are the ones that are paying the bills. 

This is especially true if you are playing $5 dollar big blind cap games and below. There usually will be only one or maybe two other good players at the table. The rest will be recreational players just waiting to give their money away. In these games it is a race to see who can extract that dead money first. Spend your time studying the bad players. What are their tendencies, what are their patterns? Do they give off any tells? Do they play in a different manner when they tilt? You will find that if you get really good at beating up on the bad players you will achieve a top win rate at your level.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leveraging-regulars-monetary-situationhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leveraging-regulars-monetary-situationMon, 20 May 2013 12:49:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leveraging-regulars-monetary-situationIf you have ever spent a lot of time at a live poker table you will quickly realize that a lot of players like to gossip. And one of the most common things that is gossiped about is the financial situation of other people. Who is backing who, who’s running good, bad, about to go broke, etc. etc. Just like some other intangibles in the live poker world we can actually use some of this information to our advantage. If you are playing professionally or at least as a serious recreational player for profit you will learn that even for some of the best players their monetary situation will dictate the way that they may play hands in certain situations. The sheer fact of the matter is if someone has a larger bankroll he may be more willing to leverage bluffs or make hero calls. This might not be the case for everyone but when someone is certainty short on their bankroll they tend to shy away from high variance situations. I mean, put yourself in the spot of a poker professional whose sole income comes from playing cards. This player has had a bad run over the last few months and has seen his bankroll diminish down and he barley has any living expenses saved up. Do you think that this player is going to wither under the pressure when facing a lot of heat? Most guys would especially if they have no means of borrowing money or cannot secure financial backing for the future. It may seem a little brutal but we should use this information to our advantage. You really need to look for any edge that can help you to maximize your advantage in poker (within the rules). If you know of someone that is low on cash you can represent a lot of things that come out on the board as your “short” opponents are actually playing quite a bit of scared money. One of my favorite things to do against these types of players is to get to their left, call them with a wide range preflop and on the flop and literally raise almost any turn. I’ve seen this move successfully made at $10-$20 and $5-$10. The higher the stakes the better and the more desperate your opponent is the more that it may work. One of the other very useful bluffs I see work is representing front door flush draws. You will almost never see a guy, even if he was a calling station in the past, check call a large bet on the river from up front when his bankroll is short. You will also see these players start to tighten up in their games and they are very easy to play when they are out of position especially when you are attacking their blinds. The less hands that they get involved with the greater the chance that their bleeding will stop they think. The next time you see a guy who has been on a consistent bad run play close attention to the way he changes his play and find a way to exploit his new found weakness. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/nlh-is-a-battle-for-stackshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/nlh-is-a-battle-for-stacksThu, 16 May 2013 10:57:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/nlh-is-a-battle-for-stacksOne of the most important things that has changed over the last ten years in no limit cash games is the capped buy-in nature of smaller tables. Before the Money Maker affect No Limit use to truly be no limit, that is no matter what the blinds where you could buy-in for any amount. However, a buy-in for more than one hundred big blinds was considered big and if you had two or three hundred big blinds you would have the table covered by a ton. Nowadays, in unrestricted buy-in games, two hundred big blind buy-ins are almost standard. When No Limit as a cash game first started developing seriously popularity after 2003, casinos realized that the best way to continue a steady rake and to make sure that players would not get annihilated was to institute capped, restricted buy-in structures. These games where way more restricted than what you see today. I remember at the Commerce Casino they had $2-$3 blind $100 buy-in, $2-$5 $200 buy-in and $5-$10 $400 buy-in. By today’s standards these rules were ridiculously short. And now, more than ever, we see the trend of the capped buy-in games becoming deeper and deeper. Currently, in a lot of areas, five-dollar big blind games allow you to buy in for $1000 and in some places even $1500. The minimum cap that you will see now is $500.So how do these new buy-in rules change the nature of the game? Well it is my contention that No Limit as a cash game is way more about stack depth than it is about blind size. At my home casino, The Bicycle Casino, in Los Angeles, I routinely will play in a $5-$5 $1000 cap game over the $5-$10 unrestricted buy-in game if I think that lineup and the stack sizes are right. If I know that I guy is not capable of folding an over pair in a certain spot would I rather play with him $2000 deep at $5-$5 or $700 deep at $5-$10? If he is not going to fold I want to get him in the game where he has the most money in front of him--not concentrate on the blind size. And commonly, nowadays, you see a lot of the fishier players buy in shorter in the bigger blinded games but deeper in a smaller blinded game. It may have to do with them thinking that they can run over the table, that the game looks smaller or perhaps, the most important factor, that they realize that they are playing against weaker competition at the “lower stakes”.The point is that now, as recreational players get better and better, game selection is more important. And you want to find the tables with deep money where people will make the most mistakes. That is often times at the lower levels. I remember back in 2008 when they changed the cap on the $5-$10 game at the Commerce from a $400 max buy-in to a $500-$1500 buy-in the tables where absolute gold mines. I could not believe that some of the so-called “live pros” would not step down from $10-$20 to play $5-$10 and it had a lot to do with their egos. During that period I played $5-$10 pretty much full time and was making more than most of the $10-$20 pros. Funny enough, it also had to do with the fact that the $5-$10 was in the “lower level” room and higher stakes players did not want to be seen playing at those stakes. What a joke that was and still is today. Poker is a game about trying to make the most amount of money not ego. And this also works for some of the higher stakes games as well. In my last trip to Vegas this summer I saw guys playing $10-$20 that in the past had played $50-$100. The thing is everybody at $10-$20 was sitting with over $6000 and these guys had a lot of experience playing deep. Why would they not sit at the smaller blinded game with weaker competition with the same amount of money in front of them? They were doing it right.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/changing-your-plan-on-actionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/changing-your-plan-on-actionSun, 12 May 2013 10:46:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/changing-your-plan-on-actionAfter busting the Main Event of the WSOP this year I was absolutely miserable. We all hear the stories of the bad beats and coolers that can occur during the most anticipated and prestigious tournament of the year, but let us be honest running AA into KK during the first level and losing does not happen to most of us and, it has never happened to me. Bad beats have never made me feel miserable about poker but my mistakes can certainty get me down on myself. And that is exactly what I think happened that sent me to my exit this year. You see, the Main Event is a very special tournament. If we are experienced cash game players, unless something happens that is very out of the ordinary I do not think that there is an excuse to get knocked out in day 1. And that is exactly what I told my students in my SeatOpenPoker.net pre Main Event meet up. And then I proceeded to get knocked out in Day 1. The reason why the Main Event is so special is because players are very deep and the structure is super slow, usually two hour levels. You literally do not have to force anything or get lucky early on like you do in a lot of other WSOP events. Also, when someone is experienced playing deep they know how to do things in the pot in order to not get knocked out or to not put yourself at risk. That is why this year was so disappointing because I put myself in a situation that did just that. We were in the last level of day 1 and I had a pretty tough table. One particular player was opening a ton and was playing extremely aggressive preflop. I heard him talking with another high stakes player about all of the large buy-in tournaments he had played that summer and I knew that he was at least a very experienced larger buy-in tourney pro. The blinds were $200-$400-$50 and I started the following hand with about $22k on the button. The villain, who was Russian, had $33k and opened for the minimum to $800 under the gun. It got folded around to me and I looked down at 6:c: 4:c: on the button. Now, even though this is a pretty hand and we were over 50bbs effective, this hand looks deceptively good. Any time you are calling with an implied odds type of hand like a suited connector or a pocket pair, you want your opponent to have a strong range when raising so that when you hit the flop you can get paid. People make the mistake and give these types of loose aggressive players way too much action with hands like these not realizing that when they do hit something they are not going to get paid off. Now I did realized this but made a plan for how to play the hand. I knew I could not just call based on the chance that I might hit big, I decided that I was going to bluff raise a lot of flops where I picked up some equity. This particular villain had also been continuation betting a ton, regardless of the board texture. After I called, the blinds folded and we went heads up. The flop came out J:c: 8:c: 4:h:. I almost jumped out of my seat. Next to flopping a flush or a straight, two pair or trips, this was about the biggest flop that was not fully made that I was going to see. My opponent thought for a while and bet $1100. This is wear my poker brain failed me. You see, I had it in my head so strongly that I was going to raise almost any flop that gave me at least a little equity that I did not consider that the best line might be just to call. I ended up raising to $3600 and the UTG player did not take to long and announced “All-In”. “Damn”, I thought to myself. I had gotten into the exact scenario that I told everyone else to avoid—flipping for my life during day one. Once I put in the raise I knew that there was no chance that I could possibly fold to a shove as I would be getting over 1.5-1 from the pot and would only need 40% equity to call. People talk about passing on small edges in events like these but I truly feel that no one is good enough to pass on those types of pot odds. The simple fact of the matter is that I would be about 50% against a jack or an overpair, a slight favorite versus a higher flush draw and would only be in bad shape against a set. So I doubled checked the math slowly at the table and reluctantly called. I felt sick to my stomach when my opponent tabled A:c: 8:d:. The matchup was still basically a flip, pretty much the same as if he had pocket kings. But the thing that made me ill was what I thought, at the time, an awful re-shove back against my raising range. In fact, if I am very rarely ever raising the flop and then folding 4:c: X:c: is literally the worst hand I can possibly have and because he has the A:c: in this hand I cannot have A:c: 4:c:. So basically that only leaves two combinations of hands with a 4:c: that I can have—6:c: 4:c: and 5:c: 4:c:. And a lot of people would not even play those hands against such a wide opener in that spot. The other ludicrous thing about the under the gun having the A:c: in his hand is the fact that I cannot have the nut flush draw. That leaves only other combo draws and made hands in my range. If I had a hand like 9:c: T:c: I would be over a 70% favorite to win the hand. My raise should have worked and I should have taken it down—that was what was so disappointing.However, after analyzing the hand again my biggest mistake was not just calling the flop. You see, when you flop a pair and a flush draw, as opposed to a straight draw and a flush draw, you have showdown value. On the J:c: 8:c: 4:h: board if my opponent had two unpaired over cards, say like A:h: K:h:, he is drawing extremely slim to improve—only two non clubbed aces and kings. If I do not have fold equity against a hand as weak as A8 then I do not have much fold equity with a semi bluff at all and I probably should have just called and tried to make my hand. It would be very, very rare that I would be bluffed off of the best hand whilst not improving. And the value in saving my stack and not getting into an all-in situation that could knock me out outweighs the tiny times I am bluffed off of the best hand.The most important point of the hand is that I did not recognize that things changed after the flop. I had it so entrenched in my head that I was going to bluff raise that I did not correctly adjust to the different scenario that occurred. And as bad as I thought that my opponents’ play was at the time I just finished explaining that I was planning on bluff raising a lot of flops so perhaps here he thought that I was bluff raising him. Again, if I were to tell him before he moved all-in that I was not raising and then folding than his shove would be awful against my range but the fact of the matter is that even though in this specific case I was not going to fold, on other flops I was going to raise and fold. So perhaps his play was not as bad as I first thought. Lesson learned though you need to identify and adapt to certain things that happen within a hand even if it forces you to change your plan.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/reading-complex-low-boards-in-omaha-8-revealedhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/reading-complex-low-boards-in-omaha-8-revealedWed, 08 May 2013 10:25:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/reading-complex-low-boards-in-omaha-8-revealedAlmost all of my previous CLPTT articles have been about live no limit cash and because I am writing this during the WSOP figured that I would include some split pot mixed game strategy here.One of the more complicated aspects of Omaha hi low is reading a qualifying low when there are four or more cards under eight on the board. Since O8 is a form of Omaha just like in PLO you must use exactly two cards from your hand and three from the board.The key to understanding the strength of the low hand is to realize that you are trying to have the lowest high card in your hand. So in Razz terms a 34 low beats and A5 because the 4 is lower than the 5. Simple but important. Ok, so now on to O8. Let us say for example that we have A2JJ on a flop of 853. We have the nut low-A2358. Now the turn comes and ace. Our low was become "counterfeit" but do we still have a qualifying low? Of course we do. We have what is called a "live" deuce. Live lows refer to one card unmatched cards that you hold in your hand while the other card pairs the board. There must be four or more unpaired cards on the board below an 8 in order to have a live low. Here our low continues to be A2358. However, now that the ace has come anyone holding two unpaired cards below an eight has a better low than us. 24 would be the nut low for a wheel, 26 would be the second nut low and 46 would be the third nut low. Remember, the low's strength are based upon the highest card in your hand.In the above example a live deuce is a very poor low as it is an eight low. However sometimes live low cards can be as strong as the second nut. A common situation when this occurs is when a board comes out with four cards lower than a six. Let us say that the board is 6423K. Obviously the nut low is a wheel with A5. What is the second nut low? The second best low here would be a live ace which means you could have A2, A3, A4 or A6. What about A7, is that a live ace? No because instead of playing A2346 as a low you would play A2347. This is usually where the most confusion comes in with live low cards. People think that if they have two cards that do not pair the board there low is automatically better than someone's one card "live low". As you can see here this is not the case. Confused yet?Let us take a look at some other board examples. Say the board runs out 6743K. Here the nut low is A2, the second but low is A5 and the the third but low is 25. The fourth would be a live ace, and the fifth would be a live deuce. If we had QQ62 in our hand would that beat a player who held A8KJ? Yes--as the player with A8 does not have a live ace he has an A8 for low which is not as good as our 23467 low. What about a live ace versus a 25? Well the 25 has a 23456 versus our A3467 low. The six is lower than the seven so we have a better low. We also by the way, have a six high straight. A good rule if thumb is that on eight high and seven high boards (meaning the highest low card) live lows are not strong hands but on six high boards they are. Let us take a look at another example. Say the board is A236K. What is the first and second nut low here? A wheel is always the nut low when there are three or more wheel cards on board so here the nut low is 45. And the second nut low is a live 4. So anyone who holds A4, 24, 34, or 64 holds the second best low hand. This is very useful knowledge when the river is checked to you. Two pair and a live four is an easy value bet, especially with aces up as it is very unlikely that someone is checking 45 to you. You can also bet fold the river in these spots as someone that raises almost always has a wheel.There is also an even more complex situation that can occur with reading the board for low and that is when all five cards come out below an eight unpaired. Say for example the board reads A2347. Anyone that holds a 5 in their hand with an A, 2, 3 or 4 has a wheel. What is the second nut low here? Well if the nut low is A2345, the second nut low would be A2346, right? And how do we form A2346 on this board? Is it with a live 6? Well let us take a look. If we hold A6, 26, 36 or 46, our low would be A2346 using two in our hand and three from the board. What about if we held KK56? In that case our low would be 56 not a live 6 and our complete hand would be A2356 for low and 34567 for high. We would have the third nut low (we don't beat a wheel or a live 6) but have the nut high. A great hand would be any wheel card plus 56 as then we would have a wheel for low and a seven high straight which in this hand would be nut nut. The fourth nut low here would be what we call "playing the board for low" which means that our low matches exactly what is on the board, which in this case is A2347. We accomplish this by basically having two or more pair on this board without a 5 or 6 in our hand. Say for example we hold A23K. Can we play two in our hand and three on the board for low? Yes. What is our low? It is A2347.Please don't let these concepts overwhelm you. With a little practice you will be reading low boards like an all star. And especially at the lower levels it will make you way ahead of your other opponents. You also should notice that having backup low is a big part of forming a good Omaha 8 hand. AK23 is a lot stronger than AK29 on a K56 board as now if an ace, deuce or 3 appears you still have the nut low and two pair. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-suited-aceshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-suited-acesSat, 04 May 2013 10:21:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-suited-acesIf you have read my previous columns you know that I think most of the money that is won and lost at the lower levels of live No Limit comes from players flat calling preflop with improper effective stacks (not deep enough to call). When we are determining whether or not to call with a hand like a suited connector or pocket pair we must go after the preflop raiser's effective stack not other players that have called the raise in front of us. If a player raises up front and two others call in between those two others are flat calling with similar hands to the type that we hold. How are we going to make a ton of money with 44 against a guy who has 89s? 

There is one exception to this rule however and that is with small suited aces. With small suited aces we actually should concern ourselves more with the people that have called the initial raise and watch their stack. We should avoid calling these aces heads up versus the preflop raiser as it is very difficult to win a big hand against an opener's range. However, when deep, we have the chance to over flush the people in between if they are calling with suited connectors. It gets even to the point where I may over call a raise from an upfront player who is relatively short just to get involved with those that have called in the middle. You also have the added value of flopping trips with the best kicker, straights and aces up.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/shortstack-tournament-playhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/shortstack-tournament-playTue, 30 Apr 2013 10:13:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/shortstack-tournament-playSince I am writing this article during the WSOP I figured I would make a foray into a tweet about live tournaments. I absolutely love the structures of the $1500s at the WSOP. You get just enough chips to play (average is usually 30-40BBs post ante) and giant prize pools. 

As a cash game player I feel like I have a gigantic advantage playing against most in the field post flop and since min raising has now become almost the standard open sizing you can actually get involved with hands and force people to play poker. Amazingly though most of the absolutely horrible mistakes that I have seen made actually have to do with people when they get short stacked. I was able to maneuver to 16th place out of a field of over 6300 players during the Million Maker at the WSOP so I saw a lot of all-in situations. I was also very short (under 12BBs) several times during the tournament and was able to work my stack back up without ever being behind in an all-in situation. Your ability to play under a 15BB stack in these types of tournaments is absolutely critical to your success. It may seem like a simple concept but if you have under 10BBs and someone raises in front of you you are basically calling off your chips by moving all-in as you rarely will have any fold equity. This means that against a reasonable opening range ace rag type holdings are really garbage as you are never going to be that far out and front and you have no chance to make the opener fold. It was stunning how many people did not understand this concept. Several times I would see guys with 10 BB stacks or less ship over the top of a raiser with a hand like A4os only to really hope that the opener would have a hand like KJ. And of course A4 is not that far ahead of KJ. Another common mistake was to see people basically call all-in or (move all in with less than 8 BBs) with so called "pretty hands" like J9s or 75s. These hands have very little value in a five card run out. I saw people play tight for hours and hours just to punt their stack off and make a huge mistake under 10BBs. 

The simple fact of the matter is it is easy to learn how to play the short stack and it is one of the most important skills to have if you want to be successful in tournaments.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-ak-after-flatting-preflophttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-ak-after-flatting-preflopFri, 26 Apr 2013 16:29:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-ak-after-flatting-preflopIf you are familiar with my training material on Seatopenpoker.net you know that I am sometimes a proponent of just flat calling preflop with AK in order to keep a lot of the weaker hands in the pot. Say, for example, an early position player raises with AJ and you three bet him with AK from the button. He folds his hand and we lose the value of getting him to commit money if we flop and ace. Sometimes we have to continue on on certain board textures however even when we do not flop a pair. When we flat with AK as a field caller and an ace flops I believe, on somewhat disconnected boards, we should fast play the flop just like when we flop a set. Say, we just call with AK against a mid position raiser in the cutoff. The board comes out A:d: 6:c: 3:c: and the preflop raiser makes a continuation bet. This is a perfect spot to play your hand just like you had a set of sixes or threes. The board is drawy and a lot of your opponents will not fold hands with an ace in it after they raise.The other key thing to playing AK for big pots after flatting preflop is to value bet every street. Raise flop, bet turn and bet river. You'll see some strange looks from other players at the table especially at the lower levels as they would never see anyone value bet so thinly with a top pair hand. But this does not matter. Value betting the best hand is one of the keys to increasing your win rate in No Limit cash games. And a disguised AK on an ace high board is very often going to be the best hand. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/seat-selectionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/seat-selectionMon, 22 Apr 2013 16:19:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/seat-selectionWe all know that selecting the correct table can be paramount to maximizing your winrate but have you ever thought about your seat selection in terms of money? Sometimes where you position yourself at the table is actually more important than the table itself. 

It's pretty obvious that it is easier to play against an aggressive player when in position (to his left). This is especially the case with deeper stacks where a skilled opponent can put you to the test with scare cards. This is even more true in game like PLO where the nuts can change on every street. However, there are other variables in the game that actually might make being to someone's right more beneficial. 

Let us say that someone is a habitual sleeper straddler or is opening a ton of hands. We have all seen these types before they are usually guys that are drinking or action fiends. In this case it can actually be beneficial to limp in with some premium and or medium strength hands in front of him to induce the raise and see what others will do behind him. It can also be very profitable to position yourself to the left of a loose opener and a habitual three-bet squeezer. You can literally print money by cold four betting. 

There are many examples of how certain seats will affect your winrate in different ways. If you pay attention to the many variables you will have a big advantage.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/inducing-with-a-drawhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/inducing-with-a-drawThu, 18 Apr 2013 15:59:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/inducing-with-a-drawThe concept of inducing involves making a bet or a raise that attempts to get your opponent to make an aggressive play that he otherwise would not. Expert players will size bets or raises in order to make their opponents "spazz" out when they know that they have the best hand. I have seen players, however, make the mistake of trying to induce with a draw; a hand that actually doesn't have any showdown value unless they hit.Let us take a look at an example of a hand I saw go down last week at the Bicycle Casino. With $1100 effective stacks a player in the hijack raised to $35 and the big blind, a player that defends wide and is aggressive, made the call. The board ran out 4:h: 6:h: 9:d:. The player in the big blind checked and the hijack continuation bet to $45. The big blind thought for a while and made it $130. The hijack, then, almost as a reflex made it $300. The big blind went in the tank for several minutes before pushing all-in for $765 more. The hijack instantly called. The board ran out 4:c: 2:s: and both players waited and shook their heads. Finally the big blind sheepishly turned over K:c: J:s: for king high. The hijack froze and finally mucked his had showing 7:h: 5:h:. Now, it is a pretty rare to see no pair no draw win an all in pot when the money goes in after the flop. But it was pretty obvious that the big blind thought the hijack was bluffing him with the small reraise over the top of the check raise and induced him to rebluff. However, this type of thing is exactly what you don’t want to have happen if you hold 5:h: 7:h:. It is an absolute disaster when semi-bluffing to make your hand look weak and induce action from another weak hand that would otherwise fold to normal betting. A better play for the hijack would have been to either three-bet the check raise larger--basically committing himself or, if deeper, to just call the check raise and raise the turn. The second option is a bit more dangerous and I would only suggest doing it if you have experience manipulating pots with deeper stacks. The point here is that you want to take the line that gives you the best chance of winning the pot without showdown if you are driving a draw. Getting fancy with the way that you play a hand can sometimes blow up in your face—like it did for the guy with seven hi. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/live-tellshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/live-tellsSun, 14 Apr 2013 15:44:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/live-tellsThe differences between online and live poker have been discussed at length especially over the past three or four years after Black Friday. In general, online games are tougher, more aggressive, and contain more fundamentally sound players. There are some people that can win live that would never be able to turn a profit online. These are so called live "live pros". How do they do it? They pay attention to small intangibles like observing how their opponents act and what they give away in certain situations. 
 Live tells, of course, are the signals that people give off when they are playing a hand. It can be trembling fingers or the way someone's eyes dart around when they look at their cards. I think that a lot of younger players dismiss these signals and pay more attention to betting patterns. Although these mathematical cues are very important if you can notice both you can add a ton to your live game. 

One of the most obviously tells that you can pick up on if you are a newbie to physical reading is the way someone holds and looks at their cards preflop. A lot of nitty players make it really obvious when they are going to fold and especially if they are to your left effectively make your position one closer to the button. So,
if you notice this you can open a wider range. David Chan, an accomplished Los Angeles "live pro", also mentioned while on my podcast, Seat Open Poker, that you can tell when a guy is going for a limp reraise when he goes to grab multiple chips from early position then only grabs one and casually limps. 

David is also a habitual three bettor in live games and, unlike other aggressive math based players, leans on his ability to read his opponents when determining to 3 bet bluff. If you pay attention you will start to detect patterns not just with the preflop sizing amounts but the way someone physically enters the pot. If you get really good at this skill you can see how much extra money you can pick through squeezing when you detect that others are weak.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-betting-with-big-handshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-betting-with-big-handsWed, 10 Apr 2013 15:29:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-betting-with-big-handsFold equity, in its most simple form, refers to the chance that your opponent will fold. Usually we think of this term when we are bluffing and factor it in to a decision on how to play a hand. If we are bluffing we want to maximize our fold equity, as we want someone to release the best holding. But what if we know that we have the best hand? Do we want fold equity? Of course not. We want to find the line that will give us maximize value and not have our opponent fold. So the key is to find the way to bet and keep our opponent in the hand.When you flop monsters, because so many people check-raise the flop or turn, it can sometimes be better to “donk lead” out at the preflop raiser. The term donking comes from a time when people who led out at the pot very rarely had a strong hand so their bet was considered weak or “donkish”. Because, this is often times still the case, the best way to approach flopping a big hand is by leading. Let us take a look at an example. Say an under the gun player with A:s: T:s: raises to $25 in a $2-$5 game with $800 effective stacks. The button calls and we call in the big blind with pockets fours. The board rolls out A:d: J:c: 4:d:. We decide to check, the preflop raiser bets out $50, the button calls, and we check raise to $175. The preflop raiser hems and haws before finally folding and the button mucks 8:d: 9:d: face up. Is this the result that we wanted? Obviously the preflop raiser was concerned about his AT versus a cold call and a check raiser. At this level AT would rarely ever be good there. But what if we decided to take another line? Instead of check raising let us say that we lead out for $50. The under the gun player at this point figures there is a very good chance that he still has the best hand and calls. Now the button calls. Pot $225. The turn is a 2:c: and once again we bet, this time $125. The preflop raiser calls again and the button folds. Pot $475. The river pairs the deuce, non-diamond. We now bet $250. The preflop raiser tanks for a long time, convinces himself that we have a busted flush draw and makes the call. Do you see how much more money we make by taking a line that diminishes the chance that our opponent will fold?You would be amazed how often leading out wins the most money in hands like this as people would never believe that you would play a monster hand fast because they would not. In fact, I’ve seen guys win enormous pots by just coming out and leading for pot on each street. It often polarizes your range but what your opponents don’t realize is that if you fire the third barrel your hand is very skewed towards value holdings and not bluffs. I observed the following hand go down at a $5-$10 no limit game at the Bicycle Casino last week. A very tight player opened from early position to $55 with a stack of $2000 and the small blind, a very good player and a friend of mine, covered and called. The board came out Q:s: 2:c: 3:s:. My friend led out at the pot for $100 and the tight player called. The turn was the 3:c:. My friend led out again, this time for $300 and the tight player called. The river brought the 2:h:, double pairing the board. My friend led out for $1000. At this point I was very interested in the hand because I thought that this was a terrible spot for my friend to bluff with a hand like say A:s: 4:s: or 5:s: 6:s:. This tight guy had shown that he was calling down and I thought he was definitely going to call the river especially when the draws busted out. But because the board was double paired there were only two combinations of low sets. I also thought that there was a possibility that my buddy could have gotten tricky with pockets aces or pocket queens. Sure enough he rolled over 33 for quads. The tight player proudly pronounced that he thought it was quads or nothing and flipped over JJ into the muck. Now, on the surface this looks like this guy lost a ton of money with an underpair to the board—but in reality if my buddy is never playing a queen this way this is literally a busted draw or a monster. I am not getting on the guy for calling with JJ, but you can see how much money was made from the hand by my friend lead, lead, leading. One of the other things that you can learn from this hand is that by taking the initiative and betting out when strong, you do not give your opponent a chance to pot control his medium strength hands. Now, we are playing No Limit and you could always overbet a later street after one has been checked, but in reality this rarely ever happens. When is the last time you have seen someone bet $1000 into a $300 pot? And you are much more likely to get maximum value by betting pot sized amounts throughout the hand.If my friend had gone for a check-raise here, most likely the flop would have been checked back and he would have only made two streets—if the guy had even decided to call down after not putting much money in early on. The point is you do not want your opponent to fold in these situations when you are strong so make the best plays that keep him in the hand but also builds a pot. On the flip side of this, if you are trying to obtain maximum fold equity through a semi-bluff then lead, lead, leading is probably not the best plan, as you can see, because your opponent is likely to call down. Here, check-raising is a decent idea because it gives you the maximum amount of fold equity.One other quirk to this advice that I have noticed is that I would be more apt to donk all three streets with monsters on boards that contain a high card that hits the preflop raiser’s range and possibly check-raise ragged boards. There are several reasons for this. First off, a lot of players are just incapable of folding overpairs no matter what the situation is. If you flop a set of nines on a 9:c: 3:d: 2:s: board and your opponent will not fold KK to a check-raise, then check-raising is a better play as it will get more money in the pot. But betting out is better on ace or king high boards when it is likely that the villain has top pair, especially if he could have a hand like AT or KJ. This lends us to our second point--it looks scarier when we, as the preflop caller, check-raise these boards because it is supposed to hit the preflop raiser’s range, hard. We will get a lot more of the hero folds with top pair, medium strength kicker, hands that we want to bluff catch us for three streets and maximum value. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/isoing-with-trash-vs-bad-playershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/isoing-with-trash-vs-bad-playersSat, 06 Apr 2013 15:11:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/isoing-with-trash-vs-bad-playersOne of the most controversial strategy subjects of live No Limit is the concept of over limping. Is there a place for it and when should we do it? Some people think that if your hand is good enough to limp from late position than it is good enough to raise. Although being the aggressor is never a bad thing with superior position there are definitely times when over limping is a better choice. Usually this is the case in games where people are playing loose preflop from up front and the overall quality of players at the table is relatively weak.Let us say that four people have limped in in a $2-$5 blind game and you are on the button with 9:c: 7:c:. Let us also make the assumption that if you raise when one player calls everyone will call behind them. Is it better to bloat the pot up or just limp behind? The key here comes from your post flop ability to successfully build up a pot when you flop a big hand. This takes skill and experience and is not the easiest thing to do. However at the lower levels people have real trouble folding hands as weak as top pair, even in limped pots. If you find yourself in this situation then coming in cheaply from out back can be extremely profitable and less variant.Let the preflop mistakes of others give you confidence within your game!! Everybody hates it when they have a big hand cracked. You have been there before with pocket aces or kings and raise an amount that should never be called with a hand that is not paired. The board rolls out 3:c: 3:s: 4:d: and you see your stack vanish to a guy that called a huge three bet with 53s. Obviously it stings when we lose but there is another, positive way to look at this situation; one that should give you supreme confidence.Every time our opponent make preflop mistakes with their calling ranges we win money—lots of money—in the long run. In fact at the lower levels of No Limit most of the money that is won and lost comes from preflop play. The simple fact of the matter is that in restricted buy in games players are really deep enough to call three bet pots or large single pot raises with suited connectors or gapped suited connectors. Every time that they do you win money and they lose. It does not matter if they get lucky and beat you in a pot. You should come away with confidence in these situations. You are at a good table and the players around you are bad. What else can we ask for when table selecting?Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-small-pocket-pairs-from-early-positionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-small-pocket-pairs-from-early-positionTue, 02 Apr 2013 13:59:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-small-pocket-pairs-from-early-positionOne of the most common questions that I receive from students is “how do I play small pocket pairs from early position”. Like most everything in poker the answer is it depends. But in this situation the best course of action is actually quite complex. You see when you raise with a small pocket pair and get called in several spots if you do not flop a set you are usually forced to continuation bet bluff on the flop. You may very well have the best hand but it is usually very difficult to get called by worse. Let us take a look at an example. Say, in a $5-$5 game we raise with 33 under the gun and get two callers. The board comes out K:c: 7:d: 2:s:. When we bet is it possible to get called by a worse hand? Usually not, but does that mean that we should not bet? Of course not. This type of flop is what I like to call an A+ board texture. It is very difficult for anyone to continue on, especially against a reasonable under the gun raising range, with anything less than a king. If you are not comfortable bluffing good board textures than I’d highly suggest that you not raise in early position with small pocket pairs and under the right conditions you can even fold them. There are other boards that are favorable to these types of hands as well. Say the flop comes out 8:s: 2:c: 2:h:. We bet with 33 and get called. The turn is a K:d:. We bet again and our opponent folds 7:s: 8:s: face up. Much like raising with high cards we can use good turn cards to bluff people off of the best hand.Now, should we be raising and bluffing multiple streets versus a table that is extremely loose and call happy? Definitely not. Well what about limping then? Limping can be a viable strategy with small pocket pairs if the table dynamics are such that people play relatively passive preflop. And his is the type of table profile of your typical $5-$5 game or lower. Usually people are not punished for limping in from early position and up front limping will sometimes cause a cascade effect that will make others limp in the pot as well which is something that you definitely want to happen. The best case scenario is that you flop a set against someone else’s top pair—especially of they were to fold that hand preflop to a raise say with a hand like KJ or QT. As you move up to levels of $5-10 or higher where isolation raises becomes more rampant it can be very difficult to limp on from up front because you will be always facing a raise from out back. And against tougher competition it is very easy for good hand readers to realize that you have a pocket pair when you limp call. If you do not mix up your game post flop with bluffs I player can correctly bluff you out of the pot most times when you miss and fold their value hands when you do hit a set and suddenly come to life. One of the ways that you can counter this is by occasionally throwing in a limp reraise with a small pocket pair to dissuade players from habitually isolation raising your limps.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-who-like-to-losehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-who-like-to-loseFri, 29 Mar 2013 13:52:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-who-like-to-loseJust like most of the money at the higher levels are won and lost through players steaming there is a lot to say about the timing within a session when the recreational players dump the most. A lot of the guys that come to play poker have gambling problems. And a lot of people with those issues are addicted to losing. It has something to do with self-punishing behavior. You have to grapple with this when you are taking poker seriously in order to make profit because you have to beat these types of players. I justify winning from them because if these guys were not losing through poker they would be dropping their money at a table game or through sports gambling to a big conglomerate.When you identify this type of player you will see that the times that he wins he will sometimes sheepishly leave the table at the end of his session almost as if he is ashamed of the fact that he has won. He is so use to losing and projecting this upon his own persona that it is very rare that he ends up leaving the table without being stacked. These guys are looking to lose their money at the end of the session and you should pay careful attention to their playing patterns. Whether it is a small business owner that leaves at 4:00PM every day to get home to his wife for dinner or a guy that needs to leave to go to work in the morning there are definitely cues that will indicate when someone’s session is about to conclude. And if you watch these players in that final few rounds you will see that there gambling goes up and the skill level of their play goes remarkably down.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-be-a-rule-sticklerhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-be-a-rule-sticklerMon, 25 Mar 2013 13:45:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/dont-be-a-rule-sticklerOne of the most important skills in being a good, professional poker player, especially as the games toughen up, is making the recreational players feel comfortable. I have touched on this in the past but I really think that it is worth mentioning again. Recently, I have actually seen big donators to the game get up and leave when they do not want to play with certain players. This is part of the reason that there has been such a growth and influx of super high raked “home games” even in areas where poker is legal in casinos. Not only do the recreational players feel like they have more of a shot to win when playing with less pros proprietors can hand pick their lineups and only allow players that people actually like and make for a good game. Obviously the worst thing that you can do to a recreational player is berate them for their poor skill. It still amazes me that I see this from experienced guys from time to time. I mean, if poker did not have luck in it we would not have a game. There is going to be variance and that is what keeps the bad players coming back for more. But besides berating behavior the other major thing that I see time and time again from so called “bad” professionals is strictly enforcing mundane, inane rules against weaker players. I have talked in the past that sometimes I will knowingly allow a big fish to angle me –so long as it is not so over the top—because I know that the money is going to be coming back. Now I would not let a fellow pro do this but if it gives a bad player a little bit of satisfaction so be it. However, I would never angle anyone and most specifically a recreational player who is losing money. And that is really how I treat enforcing ridiculously strict interpretations of rules.But rules are the rules, you say. Well I disagree. We all know that some laws and rules in society are not enforced and do not hold the same weight as others. There are some crazy blue laws that are on the books—some about the size of your donkey and others prohibiting pockets in your pants. More practically we in the poker community are up in arms about federal resources being used to prosecute online poker sites and processors. Selective enforcement is something that definitely exists in our society and I think we should apply the same line of thinking at the poker table.It is pretty obvious that someone new to the game might not be familiar with all of the intricacies of live poker. Probably the biggest example of how this is taken advantage of is regulars calling string raises against beginning players. And these experience players certainty are angling as they are trying to achieve whatever advantage they can. Are the beginning players technically breaking the rules? Yes. Should we enforce that as players? No. If a regular or more experienced player does the same thing is it different? Yes. Again, it is very important for us as professionals to keep the new blood coming into poker. The best way to do this is to make newbies experiences enjoyable and make it seem like to these players that they at least have a chance. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-preflop-raise-sizinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-preflop-raise-sizingThu, 21 Mar 2013 13:32:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-preflop-raise-sizingOne of the easiest things that you can pick up about the strength of your opponents’ hand comes from his raise sizing preflop. Often times recreational players are totally unbalanced when it comes to this concept. In a $5-$5 game maybe they raise to $20 with a hand like AQ and $40 or more with a pair or very premium holding. This stems from them not wanting to get drawn out on with their made hands just like when they size there bets to protect against bad beats post flop. A lot of times you will see easy pickings when several people have limped in and a player makes a small raise over the top. Let us say, for example, in a $5-$10 game three people limp in and the highjack raises to $40. It is almost guaranteed that this is a pot sweetener raise with a pocket pair or some sort of suited connector. Nine times out of ten when you reraise you will take down the pot. You can also reverse this concept upon an aggressive player to your left. Let us say that you think someone will bounce on your small sizing, a few people limp in and you only make it $35 in the HJ with AA. With aggressive players next to act, especially in the blinds it is not uncommon that you will be squeezed.
Now, this is not to say that you should always keep your preflop raise size 100% consistent. Sometime changing up your amounts is definitely the best play given the situation. On super lose table I may raise twice as much as I normally would because players will call larger sizings. At a nittier table I might raise smaller so that I can get action from worse. Adapting to table dynamics is the reason to change preflop raise sizes not hand strength. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/consider-your-opponents-holdingshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/consider-your-opponents-holdingsSun, 17 Mar 2013 13:20:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/consider-your-opponents-holdingsFirst level poker players are only thinking about their own hand. If they hold four to a flush they are thinking about the chances of making their draw not evaluating what their opponents might be holding. The key to successfully value betting and bluffing is to play off the range of your opponents' hand not your own. You should get into a habit of constantly thinking to yourself "what does he have" during a hand. In reality your actual hand is less relevant than your opponents' especially when most people miss boards in Hold'em. Here is a hand that I played at $5-10 NL at the Bicycle Casino. A few people limped in in front of me and I raised from MP2 to $50 with T:c: T:d:. Everyone folded and it got back to the initial limpers who called. The flop came out 8:d: 6:d: 8:c:. Surprisingly, one of the limpers, an older, tighter player, led out at the pot for $150 and the guy to my right, who was awful, called. Everyone was $2500 deep. Instead of considering my own hand my mind started evaluating the other players' ranges. I was almost positive that the older gentleman did not have an 8 and would not lead with a flopped monster like 66. I was a concerned however, that he could have a hand like JJ or QQ that he had just limp called with. The guy in the middle was definitely more of a wild card. He could have had a 6, straight draw, flush draw or be slowplaying an 8. For these reasons I decided to just call with position to see what developed on the turn. Fourth street brought a beautiful T:s: and the old man fired $500. The guy in the middle was about to fold but painstakingly looked at the pot and called once again. Now, the pot was $1600 and my opponents both had about $1800 left in their stack. Usually in this spot I would make a small raise but the pot had been bloated up so much and the player in the middle was so bad I did not want either player to fold. At this point I was sure the guy in the middle had a flush or straight draw, not an 8. I was also fairly certain now that the older man had a hand he was trying to protect (although not an 8) and it would put him in an impossible spot if I raised. The river came out the 2:s: and with $2100 in the pot and $1800 left in his stack the upfront player checked. The middle guy also checked, and the action was on me.A lot of people in this spot make the mistake of bombing the river as an all-in because they basically have a nut hand. In fact our hand here is irrelevant. We know that we have the best holding but we have to extract the maximum amount of value from everyone else's hand. I thought that the old man squarely had JJ or QQ and wanted to try to get paid. The guy in the middle had become irrelevant because it was obvious to me that he had missed his draw. I decided to bet $675. The old man went into the tank for about a minute and finally called. The MP player quickly folded and I scooped a nice pot. In the above example there is a huge difference in what comes at the river. Let us say, for example a diamond comes completing the front door flush. If it was checked to me here I would most likely move all in or make a big bet as I would think that I would not get a call from the old man with JJ or QQ anyway but would want to maximize from the guy in the middle if he had caught his flush. Wouldn't he bet though, you ask? Not always as when the pot gets bigger and bigger people want to go to showdown more and more cheaply when they do not have the actual nuts. Let's say the river was a Q, K or A. These cards are more difficult to evaluate as I expect the player in the middle to call a big bet if his flush draw ran into top pair but it is tough to extract value from the older man with JJ.The thing to notice from the above example is that I am constantly thinking about my opponents' range not my own. The more that you can do this the better player that you will become. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bet-calling-against-good-opponentshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bet-calling-against-good-opponentsWed, 13 Mar 2013 13:05:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bet-calling-against-good-opponentsIf you have read some of my previous articles or have checked 
out my training material at Seatopenpoker.net you will know that I think that the bread and butter play of any great live player is bet-folding. When I first started playing poker seriously I remember reading somewhere that you should not bet if your hand could not stand a raise. This article was from 2003 or 2004 and I am pretty sure it was from a big named pro. Since I knew little about poker strategy back then I took this advice and checked down hands that now I would value bet in my sleep. What a bunch of rubbish that advice was. We all know that we can easily bet with what we think is the best hand versus straight forward players because they will call us with worse and raise us ONLY with better. This is why bet-folding is such an important concept. But, what if we are playing against opponents who know that we are capable of bet-folding? Most of the time we still should do nothing. Even if these players know what we are doing and could easily exploit our thin value bets they still are not capable of raising as a bluff. The tricky spots are when you get involved with good, thinking players which are definitely a rarity at the low and mid stakes levels. In these situations sometimes you actually have to bet and be willing to call a raise. Let us take a look at an example. Say in a $5-$5 No Limit game with $1000 effective stacks we raise over one limper to $25 with A:s: A:c:. The cutoff, a good, thinking player, calls us and the limper calls. The board comes out Q:s: 5:h: 2:s:. It gets checked to us and we bet $55. The cutoff calls and the limper folds. We surmise that the thinking player could have a queen, a flush draw or some sort of straight draw. It is unlikely that he is totally floating us with air. The turn is the 9:c:. We bet $120 and the cutoff calls again. Now the pot is $440. The river is the T:s:. We feel like we can get some value from a hand like KQ and decide to bet $200. The cutoff now pushes all in for $800 total. Against straight forward opposition this would be an easy fold as our opponent has a flush here almost always. But, it is intriguing that we do have the nut spade blocker in the A:s: in our hand. The pot is $1440, $600 for us to call. We are getting a little under 2.5-1 which means we need to be good just over 1 out of 3.5 times. If we have ever seen this guy make a raise bluff before this maybe a time where you might want to bet and call as he could be turning a queen into a bluff. The situation would be a little different if we had say A:d: Q:c: in our hand because of card removal. In that case our opponent actually is less likely to have a Q and more likely to have a flush. He also could have the nut flush as we no longer hold the stiff blocker. You really have to proceed with caution when heeding this tweet's advice. Most players just are not capable of adapting to different situations and usually when you face a river raise people have it.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/good-nitty-players-are-rarehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/good-nitty-players-are-rareSat, 09 Mar 2013 18:49:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/good-nitty-players-are-rareWe’ve all seen these types of players before. They show up to the casino early, grab a newspaper and drink a cup of coffee at the table. Usually they are older players that have much more patience than their younger brethren. They are not at the casino to make big laydowns because they do not play many hands. Their preflop statistics may be similar to an online full ring player except that they limp a ton of their hands.Now there is nothing wrong with playing a tighter style especially in full ring games. But if you want to be a consistent winner you sometimes have to find your fold button. These types of bad nits never do. These are the guys that you can set mine or call with suited connectors when deep enough because you can be rest assured that they are going to pay you off. To take a quote from the great Limon on 2+2 these players think that certain hands are “through tickets” and will rarely fold no matter what the action is in front of them.These are the guys that I want to play against and if you can find them in deeper staked $5 blind games they can be an absolute gold mine. There is a reason why players like this will never be much more than break even or slightly losing. So the next time you want to walk away from what you feel to be a nitty table, remember, if you have patience, all you have to do is wait to make a hand because these types of players just will not fold.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-towning-people-who-donkbethttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-towning-people-who-donkbetTue, 05 Mar 2013 18:51:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-towning-people-who-donkbetOften times, at the lower levels, players are not advanced enough to lead with big hands. And, if they do happen to lead with a monster, they are too scared of getting drawn out on, telegraphing their hand and making it easy for you to fold. When an opponent donk bets into you after you have raised preflop on a board where the high card hits your raising range normally they are leading with some sort of draw or top pair. If I have raised with a hand like A:x: Q:x: and an opponent donk leads into me on a high, two flush board more often then not this represents top pair or a flush draw. Therefore, if I feel like I am ahead of most aces I may raise the flop with a hand as thin as A:x: T:x: or A:x: J:x: as most players are not capable of bet-folding top pair. Those types of players who lead are not going to just toss their hands for a small raise. So not only do we build a bigger pot up against a weaker made hand but we also get value from the draws.Recently, there has been a great fear amongst better players of never making an action that gets weaker to fold and only better to continue on. While this approach to a hand is good people underestimate what their opponents will call with and overestimate what their opponents will fold. Let us look at an example. Say we raise in a $5-$5 game with $800 effective stacks to $20 with A:s: Q:s: . A field player in the middle calls and the big blind calls. The flop comes out Q:c: 5:d: 2:d: and the blind leads out for $35. Against better players it is sometimes best to flat here to protect your stack and disguise the strength of your hand. However, against your typical live opponent at $5-$5 if you bump it up to say $85 not only are you going to get a call from K:x: Q:x: or Q:x: J:x: but you do not price your opponent in behind you with a draw. This is even more true when there are several callers behind you. If you just flat a donk lead from the out of position player opponents behind can sometime get an incredible price to peel.Now, what happens if the player from out of position now three bets your raise? Since most players at this level do not play their draws fast in a lot of situations we can actually fold our hands. Are we turning our hands into a bluff then you may ask? No, we are raise-folding for value as we feel that we can definitely be called by worse–but once we get reraised we realize that our hand is no longer best.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raise-sizing-in-tight-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raise-sizing-in-tight-gamesFri, 01 Mar 2013 13:27:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raise-sizing-in-tight-gamesAs you get more comfortable playing post flop in No Limit Holdem cash games you start to realize that you do not mind people calling your raises when you hold strong hands. I actually want to see multiple callers when I raise with a hand like AA because I feel like I am going to make the right types of decisions after the flop. Often times you will see players raise their premium hands to some absurd amount preflop--like something like 10x--because they are scared to play after the flop and because they do not want to get a bad beat. If you find yourself falling into the category of this type of player you have to start to realize how much future value you are losing by blowing players with inferior holdings out of the pot. Why would I not want players to call me with hands like KJ or QT and then pay me off for three streets with top pair?
If you find yourself playing in a game that is tight, which usually happens in your typical weekday daytime lineups, how can we encourage people to call our value raises? The answer is simple—raise smaller preflop. Especially when opening from late position you want to encourage the blinds to call with weaker holdings.Let us take a look at an example. Say we hold KK in the cutoff, in a tight $2-$5 game. The action gets folded around to us and instead of making our standard four times raise we raise to $15. It gets folded through to the big blind who calls. The board comes out Q:d: 6:c: 2:h:. The big blind checks and we bet $20. The big blind quickly calls. The turn brings the 2:c: and your opponent checks again. This time we bet $45 and he calls. The river is the 4:d: and he checks again. We are pretty sure that he has a queen and we bet $120. We are snapped called by the big blind who tables Q:s: 8:s:. Even though this hand seems relatively easy to play it was set up by our small sizing preflop inducing the out of position player to make multiple mistakes post flop. We can use this same strategy if we notice that the table is tight and not many raises are being called. Instead of opening normal you can actually open smaller from up front to induce players to come in. You have to realize however, that this advice is extremely table dependent. Often times on weekend nights raises are called in multiple spots for as much as five or six times the big blind. Raising small preflop on those types of tables is just losing value. 
Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-frequency-in-small-gameshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-frequency-in-small-gamesMon, 25 Feb 2013 13:05:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-frequency-in-small-gamesOver the past eight years I’ve played in games as low as $1-$2 all the way up to $50-$100. Even at the higher stakes, with the exception of a few world-class players, people normally do not risk their entire stack running multi street bluffs. Occasionally, at the lower levels, if someone is short stacked they may put there entire stack in on the turn as a semi bluff but when they bet flop, turn and river with somewhat of a normal stack it is very rare that they are bluffing.Let us take a look at an example. Let us say in a $2-$5 game with effective stacks of $800 a mid position player raises to $25, gets three callers in the field and you call in the big blind with A:s: Q:s:. The flop comes out A:h: K:h: 3:c:. You check to the preflop raiser, he bets $75 and all fold to you. You figure that it is a little weak just to fold now as the preflop raiser could easily have a weaker or ace or be betting some sort of draw so you call. The turn brings the 4:c:. You check and the preflop raiser now bets $200. Again, you feel that you still maybe good here and expect to get a free showdown if your opponent has a one pair hand on the river, so you call again. The pot now has $670 in it. The river brings in the 7:s: and you check again. Your opponent now moves all-in for $500 giving you over 2-1 on a call. You think that this bet is very polarized—that is your opponent is either bluffing or has at least AK+. There is no value range in between. Should you call then?I see people get confused in this spot all the time. Just because our opponents’ bet is polarizing doesn’t mean that he bluffs as much as he has value hands. The simple fact of the matter is it looks like you have a hand when you call the flop and the turn and even the biggest idiot at $2-$5 rarely is going to try to bluff you when it looks like you are going to call down. This hand is going to be a monster a lot more than a bluff especially when he puts his entire stack in. People do not usually commit all of their money on a bluff. Now, of course there are some maniacs out there that may run this play but they are a lot less common than people think. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/finding-the-softest-game-by-sizehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/finding-the-softest-game-by-sizeThu, 21 Feb 2013 12:53:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/finding-the-softest-game-by-sizeThere are a lot of big egos in poker. If you listen in to some of the regulars in the higher no limit games you would think that they were in junior high school with the amount of gossip that is exchanged back in forth. Who’s broke, who’s running hot, who owes money, etc. etc. For some players it is always their goal to play in the biggest game regardless of the actual quality of the game.I remember back in 2008 the Commerce Casino opened $5-$10 no limit with a $1500 cap buy-in. They set the game down with the rest of the yellow ($5) chips games on the other side of the casino. The “high stakes games,” including $10-$20 no limit, were on the hotel side. This actual geographic difference in game location made certain people never play at $5-$10 because they did not want to be seen playing “low stakes” even though when that game first opened it was by far the best in the whole house. Most $10-$20 regulars passed on these games because it would have been a big blow to their ego. Instead, they would sit in some pretty bad $10-$20 tables and I had the fortune of lapping up some really easy money at $5-$10. This same type of thing happens at other casinos around the country. Let us say your local casino runs a $2-$5 as the normal highest game and sometimes will get $5-10 off of the ground if the right people are there at the same time. You are sitting in a pretty juicy $2-$5 game, one of four tables running. There are several people on the board for larger games, it is Saturday and the casino decides to open a brand new $5-10 table. You then see most of the best players from the $2-$5 including two of the strongest players from your game move over to $5-10 and now there are literally no good players left at $2-$5. The $5-$10 game is looking pretty so-so. Should you make the jump over to the bigger game just because you are comfortable playing at those sakes and you are properly rolled? The answer is a resounding no.Poker is a about maximizing profit not increasing your ego. But for so many of us, even professionals, we have a tough time grasping this concept. Usually, when a bigger game opens, this attracts some of the stronger regulars from the smaller levels making a tougher game. Obviously this is not always the case and you should try and play in the best game that is available. But when a flood of good players leave your game the smaller game is going to become much softer. Who cares what other people think anyway? You are going to be raking in more money at a good game one step down from a bad game one step up. I also think that this is especially true over the summer during the WSOP when all of the good players from around the country flock to Las Vegas. If you only play NL cash games and are not interested in playing in tournaments I think that this is a great time to stay local as the games will definitely be softer.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-the-turn-as-bluffhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-the-turn-as-bluffSun, 17 Feb 2013 12:43:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-the-turn-as-bluffIf you have read my past Cardplayer articles you know that I am not a big fan of slowplaying. In fact, I think it is one of the biggest mistakes that people make at the lower levels. However, because the practice is so widespread and rampant we can sometimes use this to our advantage.

A common line that you can take with a medium strength hand after being the preflop raiser is check-calling from out of position. Let us say for example that we raise with J:c: T:c: from mid position and the button calls. The board comes out QT3r. We decide to check call the flop, inducing bluffs and hiding the strength of our hand. If we decided to bet, depending on our opponent, it may be rare that worse would call us. The turn comes an off suit deuce and we check to the button who fires again. At this point we are pretty sure that he does have a better hand--either a Q or a T with a better kicker. We are not giving too much away by just check-folding. But what if we decide to raise and turn our hand into a bluff? Check-call check-raise lines from preflop raisers are super strong. In all of the years that I have commentated on Live at the Bike I have probably only seen this play once or twice as a bluff and normally with some gigantic two way draw that was picked up on the turn. 

If we put ourselves in the position of the field better, especially when we are moderately deep, it is very difficult to call with just a queen as the preflop raiser’s hand looks a ton like pocket tens. We also would be forced to fold out a hand like AT. Using this play can also be very useful when players continue to blindly bet top pair on the turn. You will find that you start to get reserve free cards if players notice that you have a check raise turn range after being the preflop raiser. I discuss his concept in depth in Episode 21 of my strategy podcast “Seat Open” at Seatopnepoker.net.


Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/berating-bad-playershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/berating-bad-playersWed, 13 Feb 2013 12:36:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/berating-bad-playersThis was the quote that Alan Kessler shared with me while playing in a 40-80 Omaha 8 or better game in Los Angeles. He had just berated a player during a $1100 O8 tournament a few hours before for opening KJ99ds from up front. Apparently Kessler scooped the hand but still felt it necessary to share his opinion. Then he realized he had made a mistake. 

Some of the biggest value in split pot events comes from people overplaying high only hands. Usually this comes from players that do not have a ton of experience playing in these types of special forms of poker. Why on earth then would you want to say something to a player that is obviously playing a hand in a non-optimal way?

At the higher stakes, usually $5-$10 and above, rarely do you hear players discussing strategy. But at the midstakes, especially at the five dollar blind level, you hear this kind of thing all of the time. It is like the person that is discussing the hand feels that they are smart by expressing their knowledge. I have said this many times before--poker is about making money not educating someone else. One of the few things that really ticks me off at the table is when some nit gets a bad beat and then proceeds to berate the fish. A lot of the times this drives the fish away. I've actually seen this from some world-class players as well. It is if they believe that they have the right to win every pot because they are intellectually superior. They do not seem to realize that the money that they win from poker is mostly from other people's bad mistakes not their superior play. The next time you feel like expressing something about someone’s lack of good play you should think twice and keep your mouth shut. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/flopping-trips-and-foldinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/flopping-trips-and-foldingSat, 09 Feb 2013 12:28:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/flopping-trips-and-foldingThe deeper that you play the more comfortable that you have to be with folding big hands. If you find yourself getting in huge amounts of money with flopped trips and bad kickers, especially in limped pots, you are going to be going broke quickly. This type of bad play is rampant in deep $5-$5 games and below.I saw the following hand go down at the Bicycle Casino last week where the cap is a $1000 buy-in. Six people limped in the pot and the blinds checked. The flop came out 8:c: 8:s: 2:h:. A good player led out for $30 under the gun, an early position player called and the cutoff raised to $125. Everyone folded and the under the gun player then reraised to $325. The ep released and the cutoff called. Both players had another $1200 behind. The turn was the 4:s: and now the UTG bet $400. The cutoff thought for a while and called. The river brought the K:c: and the UTG now shoved. The cutoff proclaimed, "I can't fold,” called and tabled 8:h: 5:h:. The small blind rolled over 22 and scooped a huge pot--over 300BBs. 

The fact that the cutoff player couldn't fold his trips was definitely not surprising to me. Even though he basically could not beat any possible 8 or a full house his poker thinking isn't much past the first level of "what do I have". Players like this haven't evolved to thinking about their hand versus their opponents range and thus cannot fold big hands. This is also why similar types will check strong hands on the river that they could bet-fold for value. They are not capable of laying down so they do not put themselves in a spot where they are put to a decision. 

You have to realize, especially when playing deep, trips with a bad kicker is unlikely to be good and is just a bluff catcher when facing certain action. In essence, the cutoff’s hand in the previous example is no different from having say 77. UTG either has him beat or he is bluffing trying to represent like he has an 8. The only difference is that combinatorically it is less likely that the UTG has an 8 when the cutoff has an 8 but with the given action it is almost impossible for the UTG to be bluffing. 

You also must realize that even in single raised pots, especially against another field caller (not the preflop raiser), that your trips may not be good. Now, it is extremely difficult to fold a hand like trips with an ace kicker but if you are finding yourself in a spot with A8 on an 88763 type of board facing a lot of heat certain situations dictate a release. You can learn more about these concepts through my live cash-training site Seatopenpoker.net. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bet-sizing-when-flopping-a-monsterhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bet-sizing-when-flopping-a-monsterTue, 05 Feb 2013 12:21:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bet-sizing-when-flopping-a-monsterMost of the money won in live no limit games is through maximizing value with the best hand. If you watch world-class players they are constantly dragging in huge pots with their nutty hands. An important skill that you should learn in order to improve your game is betting large with a big hand when you know that your opponent also has a strong, second best hand. One of the best examples of this is when you flop something big on an ace high, broadway board and the ace smacks your opponents’ range. Let us look at an example. Say in a $5-$5 game an under the gun player makes it $25, two people call and you close the action by calling with J:h: T:h: on the button. The board comes put A:s: K:h: Q:s: giving you the nut straight. The under the gun player comes out and bets $90 into the $100 pot. The action folds back around to you. Let us say that you and the under the gun raiser are $1300 effective. What should we be thinking here?
Obviously, yes we have flopped the nuts and that is a very exciting but what we should really be thinking about is what are opponent has. First, he raised to $25 under the gun, which usually represents a strong hand. Second and most importantly he has bet close to pot into three other people. Unless the guy is a total maniac he is not making a continuation bet here with something like 7:c: 6:c:. This board and his action absolutely smacks his range and even though a small portion of the time he may have AT or AJ (we have blockers to these hands as well) his most likely holdings are AK, AQ, AA, KK or QQ. His large bet sizing indicated that he is trying to protect against the draws and possibly get value from some second best hands. Knowing this what is out best play with these stack sizes? It is almost always to raise. No one at the $5-$5 level is going to fold AK on the flop and probably not even AQ so it is best to start building the pot up against his probable second best hand. Your opponent will most likely call the raise on the flop followed by a bet on the turn and depending on the board you have a good chance to stack him by the river. Even when you flop a hand as big as quads or a straight flush you should always be thinking about what your opponent has and if he is calling large flop bets you can be fairly certain that he has a large hand or large draw. Squeeze out the most value that you possibly can. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-check-raiseshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-check-raisesFri, 01 Feb 2013 12:10:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-check-raisesOne of the most common patterns that I see in low level, live no limit games, is turn check-raises being very strong. We, as players, commonly go through the same stages and styles of playing when we first learn the game. For some reason between $1-$2 and $5-$5 people almost never raise the turn on the come as a draw. I think that when players are very green to the game, say in the first few months of playing, they tend to play their hands relatively straightforward. They see that they have a strong hand so they bet it. The “trapping” level of sophistication is not in their game. They could not even consider waiting until the turn to raise with a set. However, as they gain more experience they start to learn that sometimes feigning weakness will allow one of their opponents to commit more money. This is where the $1-$2 to $5-5 levels come into play. Now, at this stage of their poker development they think that trapping is actually the BEST play. So you will seldom see someone fast play dry flops with sets because they think that the right play is to slowplay. We can use this common tendency against them and we should not be afraid to bet and fold the turn to a check-raise. One of the things I have also noticed, as I have played quite a bit of $5-$5 at the Bicycle Casino lately, is that players give out a crazy amount of free cards on the turn—whenever a draw comes in—and I think it is because they are scared of being check-raised. But why should we be scared of betting if we know that when our opponent check-raises he always has us beat AND he will just call with worse? Let us take a look at a few examples that I saw go down recently. $5-$5 NL, $700 effective stacks. Two players limp in from up front and a tighter gentlemen raises on the button to $30 with A:s: K:s:. Both the limpers call. The flop comes out K:d: 6:c: 7:c:. It gets checked to the preflop raiser who bets out $70. Both limpers call. The turn is the T:c: and it gets checked to the preflop raiser once again. What do you think that the right play is here? Obviously the T:c: is one of the worst cards in the deck for A:s: K:s: as it completes flush and straight draws. But can worse call us if we bet again? I would say definitely. Do we have to worry about folding our hand if we get check-raised? Certainty not against most straightforward completion that we encounter at $5-$5. However, I see 90% of the players at this level check back the turn. And the worse part is that if a blank comes on the river they will sometimes call off a large bet. You could sometimes make the case of checking back the turn to fold to a river bet but remember to fold--I would not call unless you have reason to think that someone is trying to bluff you. The only time I check back these types of turns is if I have some sort of redraw and do not want to get jammed off of my hand. Say for example, instead of us having A:s: K:s: we have A:c: K:s:. Here, we may want to check back so that we do not get blown off of our nut flush draw. However, if it gets checked to us on the river with a blank coming we should definitely value bet. Another example would be if we flopped a set--and more often than not top set. Let us say we raise with Q:d: Q:h: over two limpers in a $5-$5 game. The board comes out Q:c: 5:c: 6:d: and we continuation bet seventy percent of the pot. Both of our opponents call. The turn now comes a 9:c: and it is check to us again. In this example I would maintain that it is actually more likely that one of our opponents has a draw since we have three of the queens. Here, I might check the turn back to prevent getting raised and see if I can take a free card and fill up to the river. Whereas If I flopped middle set as the preflop raiser I may continue to bet the turn because it is so much more likely that someone is calling me down with top pair. You can check out a discussion of these concepts on the episode “Hands From A Capped Cash Game” on the Seat Open Podcast at SeatopenPoker.net. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pattern-recognitionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pattern-recognitionMon, 28 Jan 2013 11:53:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pattern-recognitionOne of the most important tool you can use to be a successful poker player is pattern recognition. This can apply to betting patterns, action patterns, live tells etc. In fact, when we think that we have picked up a live tell or read on someone we are actually identifying a previous pattern--one that we think that we can use to our advantage. Maybe someone's hands shakes when there very strong other times they talk when they are weak. These are all patterns we have drawn from past play. 

Weaker players, especially at the lower levels, find it difficult to break their patterns even if they are brought to their attention. I was dealing with a student of mine a few weeks ago that was having difficulty playing with a very big fish. Every time my student called the fish had the goods and every time that he folded the fish was bluffing him. But it only took me a few rounds to figure out that the fish only bluffed when he perceived his opponents to be weak. Whenever his opponents had shown strength in the pot--whether it had been by betting multiple streets or calling down a raise--he never bluffed. I informed my student of this and the next time they played together the following hand went down several weeks later. 

My client, we will call him Joe, was in the big blind and called this opponent's $20 raise from the small blind with T:s: 7:s: in a $5-$5 blind game $800 effective. The flop came out Q:d: 6:d: 7:h:. The small blind bet out $25 and Joe called. The turn came a T:c: giving my student two pair. The small blind checked and Joe bet $60 in position. The big blind thought for a while and then check-raised to $275. Now, this is a tough spot against an unknown that hasn't shown me that he drastically overplays hands. I think a lot of the time folding is not giving up too much. There are only a few two pair combinations that T7 beats and I think that those hands are way more likely to lead the turn, just like with AA, KK or AQ, than to go for a check raise on such a draw heavy board. However, this particular opponent had shown that he actually leads out on the turn with his nut hands, something that can be very rare at this level. So when he check-raised his hand is a draw a fair amount of the time. The beauty of this situation was that due to pattern recognition my student was able to call the turn with the plan of folding to a large bet on the river because of the fact that we had never seen this opponent bluff when he perceived the other player to be strong. So, Joe called the raise. The river was the 2:c: and the small blind checked. Joe checked behind quickly and the small blind tabled K:d: J:d: for a busted 15 out draw. If the small blind had known that Joe would have folded to further aggression than obviously the best play for him would have been to bluff the river. But, much like others in his spot, he never recognizes the pattern of his play. Poker is very similar to conditional philosophy if people are not adapting or balancing their play. If we know our opponent’s tendencies then we can find the correct solution. Another hand went down later in the session where the big fish raised preflop in position and my student called in the big blind with A:d: 6:d:. The flop came out A:c: 5:s: 9:d: and both players checked. The turn was the 5:c: and Joe bet out sixty percent of the pot. Surprisingly the preflop raiser made it 2.5x and Joe called. The river was an A:h: giving Joe aces full. What’s Joe’s best play here? Well, let us go over his opponent’s tendencies-- 1. He was very showdownish and would basically only bet nut hands with position on the river. 2. He was very call happy. 3. His bluffing frequency was described above. Versus another type of player who would always value bet a 5 and would bluff some of the time checking would be a fair option. However, against this opponent leading large should be far and away the best play. We would never want the guy to check behind the river with a 5, we know he is not going to bluff AND he will call down somewhat light. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/reverse-pot-oddshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/reverse-pot-oddsThu, 24 Jan 2013 09:51:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/reverse-pot-oddsOne the most simple yet misunderstood concepts about betting when last to act is that when you are called you have to be good more than 50% for the bet to be profitable. This does not mean that you have to be good more than 50%. When you are CALLED you have to be good more than 50% of the time and some situations dictate that your opponent will not call you will a lesser holding. These of course are the times not to bet when last to act. One of the other concepts that relates to this is how pot odds are determined for you and your opponent. Let us look at a pot of $100. We are last to act on the river and the action has been checked to us. We decide to bet $50. We are risking $50 to win how much? A lot of people get confused and say $100 or $150. They do not understand that the money in the pot actually is not included in this question as we could just check back the river and win the $100. We in fact are risking $50 to win $50, which is why when we bet we have to be good more than 50% of the time WHEN CALLED in order for the bet to be profitable. Look at last action on the river as betting into a dry side pot. Any money that you are risking is only getting 1:1 odds. On the flip side of this however, our opponent is getting pot odds when he determines whether or not to call. If we bet $50 into a $100 pot he is faced with a decision of a $50 call to win $150 or 3:1. He only needs to be good here 1 out of 4 or 25% of the time to make it a profitable call. So you, as the last position better, is only getting 1:1 on a bet on the river yet your opponent is getting full pot odds. Can you see how we can actually make some really thin bets when last to act because of the pot odds that our opponent will be laid?I played a hand at the Bicycle Casino last week that is a perfect example of this concept. We were playing $5-$10 with a mandatory $20 straddle when I picked up 88 from the highjack and raised to $80 with a $3000 stack. A very tight, Asian lady called me on the button with $2k, and a semi active, older but aware, live pro three-bet to $320 in the big blind covering me. At the time I was really on the fence as to what to do. I thought that it was such a good spot to three-bet light, because as long as the BB could get through me the lady is rarely ever calling headsup. I also knew that the live pro was capable of three-betting light but thought that if I four-bet got it in I would be doing really bad against his calling-off range. He would also fold out all of his bluffs. I thought, then with position, that my hand was too strong to fold and getting just over 12-1 on the reraise sizing (240 more to win $3000) decided to call. Surprisingly, the lady also called behind me. Pot $975. The flop came out Q:c: T:s: 8:h: and I was loving life. The BB thought for a while and bombed out $740. I noticed that the lady behind me had very little interest in the hand. Now, I am usually not an advocate of slowplaying or trapping in live cash games but sometimes when the SPR (stack to pot ratio) is low you do not really need to build a pot up with a raise to get all of the money in by the river. By calling, you sometimes can make your hand look weaker than it actually is and get people to continue on with lesser holdings. If I raise that particular board against a competent player--especially in a multiway spot--a lot of players would find a fold with KK or even AA. I did not want to give my opponent that opportunity so I decided to just call. The lady did fold behind me and the pot was now $2455 and I had a $1940 left in my stack. The turn was a 9, bringing a backdoor club draw and my opponent took a long time and checked. I decided that it was very, very difficult for me to get value from one pair hands on this board and decided to check it back and continue to make it look like I was holding on with just a queen. The 4:c: fell on the river completing a backdoor flush. The BB thought for a bit and bet $1400. Obviously, I was never folding as my hand was very under represented. I was slightly afraid of a backdoor flush but in reality unless he checked a straight on the turn there really only was A:c: K:c: as a combination or possibly A:c: X:c: if he was getting frisky with me preflop. The pot was $3855, $1400 for me to call. However, as I realized at the time, what if I was to shove? My opponent would be getting absurd pot odds--$5795, $540 to call. Over 10-1. I figured that even if he was making a very thin value bet with AA or KK trying to get looked up by AQ or KQ it would still be difficult for him to fold because he got himself so pot committed. I did ended up shoving, he called, and I was good. This is great example of how being short at the river was a huge advantage for me. If I had had say $3000 at the end facing a $1400 bet, I probably would not have shoved versus a good player because when I am called I would not be good more than 50% of the time. But here, because I am so short he MUST call with a wider range of hands because his price from the pot is so much better. However, I am still only getting 1:1 on the extra $540, like I was betting into a dry side pot. I could have just called, just like you can check behind on the river and go to showdown.This concept also teaches us a lesson in river valuebet sizing. Often times, but not always, the more money that goes into a pot the stronger the showdown hands will be. So you will get into situations on the river where bigger bets will only be called by perceived strong holdings. I played a hand at the Bike during the WSOPc that was a perfect example this. We were playing $5-$10 uncapped and there was a bad player that constantly kept open limping from late position. I was in a great spot as I was to his immediate left. In this particular hand he open limped from the cutoff and I raised to $40 with A:h: 9:h:. Everyone folded and he called. The flop came out T:h: 8:c: 3:h:. He checked and I bet $60, he quickly called. The turn was the 4:s:, he checked and I double barreled for $175. He called after a long time of deliberation. The river was the 9:s: and he checked once again. For most people this would be an automatic check back. It looks like this guy has a T or a busted draw and we have picked up a ton of showdown value against that range. However, what if we were able to bet an amount that when called we were still good more than 50%? Then valuebetting would be correct, right? Of course. I figured that the guy did have a fair amount of Ts in his range but also thought that he looked at me as an aggro kid and that he might call me down light with a hand like J9, A8, 87, etc. But I wanted to size my bet where he would definitely call with those hands and I wanted to avoid getting into a situation where he would only call with a T. I decided to bet $125 giving him pot odds of $685-$125 or 6.5-1. He called pretty quickly and I was good. You have to be careful, in these situations, however, with the amount that you bet. Let us say that when I bet over $300 he ONLY calls me with a T or better. Than betting that large amount is obviously not correct. River valuebet sizing is all about finding that sweet spot where when you are called you are good more than 50% of the time. And in a lot of situations this directly related to the pot odds that your opponents are getting laid. For a more in depth discussion of this you can check out the Seat Open Podcast episodes 11 and 12 “River Value Bet Sizing.” Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/game-selectionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/game-selectionSun, 20 Jan 2013 09:18:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/game-selectionI truly believe one of the key elements in becoming a great professional gambler is having balance in your life. I have never been one for playing very long sessions and think that after a certain amount of time at the table your sharpness goes down. I fine that I play my best poker usually only putting in 25-30 hours per week. Luckily for me I have built up some nice auxiliary income through commentating and poker training where I don’t have to worry about grinding for 200 hours a month to pay rent. I find that if I get on to a regular sleep, eating and workout schedule, my life is considerably happier than when I am stuck playing in long sessions. I also find that playing in smaller, less stressful games improves the quality of my life.Recently, during the WSOPC, I have been playing a very large PLO game at the Bicycle Casino. The blinds are $5-$5 but there are unlimited straddles of any amount from any position. The game plays more like a $20-$40 PLO where people commonly win and lose over five figures per session. I think that I am highly +EV in the game. Should I absolutely play it then?My normal game is a controlled style of no limit at $5-$10 and below. I feel like I am miles ahead of most of the other competition. It is rarely stressful and the variance is low. I do not have a chance to win five figures in one session like the PLO game. In that big game, however, even if I have a shot to win a ton of money in one night what about the times when the game is good, I am stuck, and it goes into the next day? I am supposed to stay around and continue playing--but what does that do to the rest of my life? If my winrate might be 30% in that game but I am going through four times the variance is the extra money (which by the way I may not ever see if I run below expectation and the game breaks within a few months) really worth the sacrifice of happiness in my life?As recently as a few months ago I would say “Yes it is! I am a professional poker player and have to take the most +EV situations”. But now this big PLO game has really taught me that playing poker for money over the long haul is a balance. I do not want to be in a job that I absolutely loathe no matter how much money I make. I think that happiness is a very important attribute in my life. The next time you take big shots in a game ask yourself “Will the loss hurt more than he happiness that I will gain from the win?” Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stack-to-pot-size-ratios-in-bloated-potshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stack-to-pot-size-ratios-in-bloated-potsWed, 16 Jan 2013 09:10:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/stack-to-pot-size-ratios-in-bloated-potsMost of the advice in the training material I produce relates to games with deeper stacks. My favorite level to play is $5-$10 uncapped no limit where you still get a fair amount of weak, recreational players and the game gets very juice when deep. However, I acknowledge that most of you wanting to improve your game normally play at capped games at or below the $5 big blind level. Usually, especially in southern California, where I am from, these games are heavily capped. In fact, the most common blind structure in $200 max buy in games in southern California is $2-$5. This commonly creates situations where, if the pot has been reraised preflop, players have effective stacks of less than one pot size bet. These spots create some difficult situations. They also create awkward hands where we become so pot committed after one bet that it is difficult for us to get away from a medium strength holding. Even though I am very rarely an advocate of slowplaying making trappy plays are sometimes best in these spots even with hands that are not monsters. Let us take a look at a hand I recently played at the Bike a few weeks ago. The game was $5-$5 and the effective stacks were $280. After one limper a recreational, loose, player raised to $35 and I looked down at A:h: K:h: immediately to his right from the cutoff. I three bet him to $80, everyone folded and he called. The flop came out K:d: 7:c: 2:h: and he checked. The pot had $170 in it and he had $200 left in his stack. At this point there was absolutely no chance I was ever getting away from my hand and figured that I would gain more value from him bluffing a later street or catch something that made him continue on so I checked the flop back. The turn was the 8:h:. He now bet $90. Obviously I could have put him all in right there. However, even though a backdoor flush draw appeared I still thought I was way ahead in the hand and wanted to give him a little bit more rope to hang himself if he was bluffing. I also thought that if he had a hand like say TT or JJ and the river bricked out he might call me thinking that I missed the heart draw. If I moved all-in now he may fold. I called once again. The river was the 5:s: and he now moved in for the last of his money. I called and he said, “Do you have a set?” I indicated that I did not and he tapped the table and showed A:s: Q:s:. Why did he think I had a set? It is because most other people in the player pool would not check a single paired hand, even on a board as dry as this, because they would not want a free card to come giving them a bad beat. Most, in this situation after checking the flop and just calling the turn would have three kings. I, however, realized that the optimal line in this hand was to check one street. I do not recommend this play to beginners but in reality when you have a top pair hand that is not very vulnerable with less than two pot size bets left that is a monster. One of the other common situations that arise is when you three or four bet a hand like AA from out of the blinds. Say player A raises to $20 at $5-$5, player B makes it $65 and you make it $145 out of the blinds with $500 effective stacks. Player B calls in position. The board comes out J:d: 2:c: 2:s:. You think that player B either has a pocket pair or a hand like AK or AQ. What is the best play here? Because it is so rare for others to check one pair hands after making an aggressive action preflop we can check and induce our opponent to commit his stack with a hand that he might fold to our continuation bet like, say TT. We also may induce him to bluff away his money with AK tricking him into thinking that we have the same hand. I have made truckloads of money noticing short, effective stack sizes in relation to the pot size and taking a tricky line. Another useful tip is to sometimes check back the turn in position when you know you can get all of the money in on the river. Say for example a player with $300 opens to $20, two people call, and you make it $85 with KK. All fold but the initial raiser. The board comes out Q:s: 4:c: 5:d:. He checks and you bet $75. He thinks about for a long time before finally calling. You think he squarely has a hand like 66-JJ. The turn is a 4:h:. The pot is $350 and he has $140 left in his stack. You decide to check back. The river is an 8:h: and he check once again. You now move all-in and he calls with 99. Now, I’m not necessarily saying that he would not have committed his money on the turn if you had bet but against tighter players you can actually play a bit tricky in order to maximize you value. Of course this play could backfire on you if an overcard comes to his pair on the river. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/checking-back-top-pairhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/checking-back-top-pairSat, 12 Jan 2013 15:40:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/checking-back-top-pairAs more of the money in poker has switched over to big bet games often times you will see limit players making the transition to No Limit. Usually you can spot these players because they buy in for the minimum and have absolutely no clue about correct bet sizing. The concept of way ahead way behind escapes them. They also constantly make bad decisions preflop as they do not understand the necessary stack depth needed to call with implied odds types of hands (suited connectors) AND they also under value certain hands that are strong in No Limit like small pocket pairs. Since checking top pair is almost always a crime in limit hold’em you can sometimes play hands backwards against these types of players in order to extract multiple streets of future value from their weak hands. Let us say, for example, you raise with Q:c: T:c: from the button to $20 in a $5-$5 game. A limit hold’em player, waiting for his $20-$40 game, calls from the big blind. This is another tell tail sign of a transitional player, by the way, defending his blinds way too often. The board runs out Q:s: 2:s: 6:d:. The blind checks and you decide to check behind. The turn is a 3:h:, he checks again and this time you bet out $30, he calls. The river is a 9:s:. He checks to you again and you bet $75. The blind reluctantly calls with A:h: 2:h: and you scoop a nice pot of almost forty-five big blinds. Why did this opponent, who knows nothing about you, decided to call you down so light? It is simple, because you checked the flop. Limit players cannot comprehend why someone would not bet with top pair especially on a draw heavy board and simply think that you are bluffing on later streets. I see this time and time again. They do not realize that you actually have won more money by checking back the flop because it has induced them to call you down light on the turn and on the river. This is one aspect of the game that takes a long time for an experienced limit player to understand. Because the betting structure is no limit we can actually make up for some lost value later on in the hand something that you rarely have the opportunity to do in limit. Now obviously you should not take this advice too far. When you are playing against someone with deeper stacks and you have a strong hand you must “spike” the pot so that you can bet larger later on to make the most amount of money. This is another concept that the inexperienced player has difficulty understanding. The deeper the stacks the less “trapping” should go on and the more betting for value should be done with the best hand. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-checking-after-agressive-actionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-checking-after-agressive-actionTue, 08 Jan 2013 15:27:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-checking-after-agressive-action

If you are a serious poker player you know how much of an advantage it is to have position especially in big bet games. Books like the original Super System taught us that when our opponents checked that they were weak and that the pot was ripe to be taken away. 

Through the years, however, people have started to understand the concept of way ahead way behind. They realize that if they three or four bet from out of the blinds with KK that it is going to be tough to be called by worse if they continuation bet an ace high board. So when the pot gets bloated by your opponent preflop and then they follow that action up by checking the flop that does not necessarily mean that they are going to check fold. In fact a lot of the time when a player makes an aggressive action and then checks he has every intention of check calling. 

The same can be said when a preflop raiser continuation bets the flop on a ragged board and then follows up with a check on the turn when a card comes that should hit their preflop raising range. Let us take a look at an example. Let us say that in a $5-$5 game with $1000 effective stacks we call a $25 raise with 9:h: 7:h: in position. We are heads-up and the board comes out 6:h: 5:s: 4:c:. Our opponent bets $40 and we call. The turn brings the K:s:. Our opponent now checks. What should we do? In order to evaluate our best action we have to put our opponent on a reasonable range. What types of hands would he bet this type of ragged flop with and then check the turn? If our opponent is any type it player he should have some sort of hand with reasonable showdown value. If he has no showdown value than he should almost always use this over card as a good double barrel-bluffing card. So the fact that he doesn't means that he must have something. I actually discuss this specific hand and delve deeper into this concept in my podcast Seat Open episode “My Mistakes”. Another common example of a player not intending to check fold is when they are the preflop raiser and a flop comes out unconnected with one high card. Let us say that we have called a raise with 4:h: 5:h:, with position and the preflop raiser checks a K:s: 7:h: 2:s: board. Is this the type of flop that we should try and steal? What do you think our opponent has? Well, if he had a hand like AQ, or AJ, he would most likely try to represent like he had something with the king on the flop. So when he checks it is much more likely that he has a hand with medium strength showdown value like QQ, or JJ. Just because he checks does not mean that he is going to fold. In fact I would almost guarantee in most cases that when a preflop raiser checks a board like this he has every intention of continuing on. What is different, however, is a board like AKQ. There you might want to take a stab at it after being checked to because you do not expect hands like AK or AQ to check and you most likely will get a hand like JJ, TT or any other pocket pair to fold.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/steaminghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/steamingFri, 04 Jan 2013 15:11:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/steamingOne of the most important elements in making successful short-term gambles is the ability to control one’s emotions when something does not go your way. The above tweet, which I took from a Barry Greenstein quote regarding tilting, cannot be more accurate. It is amazing to me how emotional most recreational poker players are especially when they receive a bad beat. These are the same type of people that would easily put down loads of money on a good investment and understand that risks that go into making short term gambles. They may back a business that they think will be successfully and shrug it off when they do not get good returns. However, if they get into an 82-18 situation all-in preflop and do not win they lose all emotional control.These types of players get incredibly angry and let this anger creep into their future decision-making. The simple fact of the matter is that if you want to be a successful poker player you must keep your emotions in check. Who would not want to take a gamble where you are taking far the best of it? If I flipped a coin and told you that if you win you would get paid four times as much as you would have to pay out if you lost you would take that bet all day right? How can anyone possibly get angry at that proposition? The funny thing is that it is usually people that are big favorites in a hand that when they lose, start to badly tilt. We as observant, good poker players, really have to pay attention to the short-term results that are constantly happening around us. People’s “tilt factor” can hugely influence they way that they play future hands. Usually if someone tilts badly, their bluffing frequency goes up and they tend to play more like a calling station. Hence we should call them down lighter and value bet against them thinner. If you are playing on a table of average to decent players sometimes the quality of the game has to do entirely with who is winning or losing. A good player that has a mean tilt streak can turn a below average game into a great game. I have seen some of the most skilled players in the world not be able to make it as professional gamblers because they play so awfully when they are on tilt. Obviously we want to be the recipients of this tilting money so it is very important to pay attention to what is going on at the table.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/taking-noteshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/taking-notesMon, 31 Dec 2012 14:58:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/taking-notesA few months ago I talked about not fooling around with electronics at the table. Using Twitter, Facebook, texting etc. can really put a hindrance on one’s game because you are missing a lot of what is going on at the table. I think that there is one exception to this rule, however, and it has to do with note taking on your phone. I use an Iphone and commonly will open the native notepad program. When I am trying to do an in depth review of myself I literally write down every hand that I play within a session. You can do this easily by numbering the hands and just indicating fold when you do not play or counting rounds where you start with yourself on the button. If you are using the rounds method you only have to indicate hands that you play in your notes and then add up the total hands by counting the rounds and multiplying by 8 (standard average players in a nine handed, raked game where usually at least one person is walking). Even if you only go so far as to list what you hold preflop when you play a hand this will at least give yourself the ability to evaluate your VPIP (percentage of hands played). This can go very far when you are trying to take some of the spewiness factor out of your game. In a full ring, nine handed table you really should be playing no more than 25% of your hands. The smaller the game and the shallower the restricted buy in cap the tighter that you should play. You can also draw from these preflop only notes what hands are –EV that you are playing and from what position. Say, for example, we see that we limp called in a 60BB cap game with A:d: 2:d:. This is obviously going to be a pretty big preflop error. We can reconcile all of these small mistakes preflop, add them up and see how much money that they have cost us throughout one session. I guarantee that if you are playing $1-$2 and had a $150 positive day but realized that you limp called off almost your entire profit that these notes will help you to play more correct in your next session. As you get more comfortable with the note taking you can start to construct full hands with action. Here is an example taken directly from my notes in a $5-$5 game last week at the Bike: UTG +2 I raise QJdd. 2 calls. OOP Q59ss. I bet $45 one call. 2c. I bet $95 call. Ts. I check bet $200 fold. As you can see the hand is pretty short and sweet and I do not write much. I also do not have the effective stack sizes here, as it wasn’t really important to the hand. I am lucky in the fact that I have a pretty good memory when given little bits of information. I tend to suspect that most of your memories work in the same way. I might come back from a session and only remember the details of three or four hands out of hundreds that I play but if I am given little bits of information about each hand, like what I hold preflop and the given action, I can remember every hand that I played almost perfectly. I am at a point now where I can basically look back at my notes and count up the amount of $$ mistakes that I make. I sometimes come out of a session review thinking that I should have been up hundreds or even thousands of dollars more without making some simple mistakes. This gives me motivation to play my A game the next time I am at the casino. For a more in depth discussion about note taking check out my podcast “Seat Open Podcast #5 Note Taking and Delayed 3-Bet Pots” over at Seatopenpoker.netCrush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-through-a-bad-imagehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-through-a-bad-imageThu, 27 Dec 2012 14:47:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/playing-through-a-bad-imageIf you have read any of my past Cardplayer articles you know how important I think short-term image should influence decision making within hands. When you are winning people naturally want to avoid you. You will be able to make more plays and have control over the table. This would not work if you were not seen as “lucky” or “on a hot streak”. This may sound pretty silly be it cannot be more true. Playing poker professionally or playing it part time for a profit is simply an arbitrage of how poorly other losing players understand the fundamentals of gambling. One of the biggest fallacies that goes hand and hand with superstition and luckiness is the concept of independence. If we flip a coin and I win five times in a row on the sixth time the odds remain exactly the same, 1-1 or 50%. Each trial is independent of one another and previous results do not influence future results. This is one of the simplest yet misunderstood concepts in gambling. It is hilarious to me that big time gamblers still use betting cards in games like Baccarat where the concept of independent trials holds true. There is no streak or trend that can be evaluated in these types of games. It does not matter if the bank side has been hit the previous one hundred times the next hand is still independent from the previous one. The same holds true in poker. I’ve watched thousands of hours of live poker on the show that I host, “Live at the Bike”. And just like superstition in other forms of gambling I can tell you with certainty that exists in poker as well. A guy will call your raise with a weak holding like Q8 off suit preflop because he sees you as unlucky. And if you are unlucky than someone will reap the benefits of the other side. On the other hand if you are running hot your opponents will stay away from you. How do we counter this then? When we have a losing or bad image we must tighten up more, bluff less, and value bet our hands to death. Say we raise with AA and our opponent calls us with Q8. If the flop comes out Q high it is likely that we will be able to get three streets of value from a player who views us as having a bad image. On the flip side of this it would be a disaster for us to try and bluff him off of top pair because he thinks that we are trying to drive the action and win some of the money back that we have dropped.A tighter style of play can be extremely frustrating while we are behind in a session because it is human nature that we want to push the action and chase some of our losses. This exactly why we must NOT play in this manner. Playing with a bad image should be very ABC and can be quite boring. But at least you know that you will be paid off in the long run.Now even though poker follows the rule of independent trials there are some other variables that you must take in to account that have to do with human nature. If someone has a bad image I am less likely to try to bluff them off of a hand because usually when guys are losing they are on some sort of tilt and are playing less than optimally. So they are less likely to fold in spots where if they were winning they might. But you can expect to be paid off big if you make a big hand versus their made hand. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-polarized-flop-raising-rangehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-polarized-flop-raising-rangeSun, 23 Dec 2012 14:28:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-polarized-flop-raising-rangePeople confuse the term polarization a lot even though it is a very simple concept. Simply put when someone is "polarized" they are either very strong or very weak. In practical terms this translates to them either holding a nut type hand or a bluff. Commonly I will hear someone say that their opponents' hand is polarized between something like top pair or a set. This is obviously a misuse of the term.Often times in the games today there are spots where people are commonly polarized. This happens a lot in raised pots, especially three bet pots where a player raises the preflop raiser's continuation bet. Let's take a look at an example. Player A in a $5-$10 game raises in middle position to $35. Player B reraises on the button to $105 with J:c: J:s: and $1500 effective stacks. It gets folded back to Player A who calls. The board runs out Q:h: 3:h: 8:d:. Player A checks and Player B puts out a continuation bet of $125. Player A now check raises him to $375. Player B thinks for a bit and disgustingly folds his hand bitter that he cannot beat the queen on the board. But is the queen really relevant in this situation?Usually decent players will not choose to check raise a hand as weak as AQ in a three bet pot from up front as they realize that this can commonly put them in a way ahead way behind situation. This creates a situation of polarization. Player A rarely has a medium strength hand in this spot. Usually he will have a very strong hand like a set or possibly a slow played AA or some sort of draw. So the fact that player B cant beat the Q on the board really does not matter. Player B must determine if Player A is strong or is bluffing as we have already established that it is highly unlikely that he holds a queen only. This concept is lost on a lot of midstakes players. They fail to realize how common it is that their opponents’ ranges are completely polarized. I always find it funny that certain types of players will fold top pair weak kicker because they have "kicker problems" not realizing that with their opponents given action the kicker in play is completely irrelevant. Check out my podcasts over at seatopenpoker.net episode “Depolarization” for further of discussion of this concept.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-double-barrelinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-double-barrelingWed, 19 Dec 2012 14:20:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-double-barrelingIn an earlier Cardplayer column I discussed the merits of sometimes delayed continuation betting against tighter players. To put it simply, delayed betting involves not bluffing your opponent the first opportunity that you have but rather checking and waiting to see what his reaction is on the next street. I also discussed in an earlier article about the strength of double barreling. When you bet twice you look very strong and your fold equity increases when you are bluffing.Put these two ideas together and you have the concept of delayed double barreling--the act of checking back the turn with the intention of bluffing the river. Using this move is a very powerful tool in three bet pots where the ranges usually must be fairly strong in order to get to showdown. Because pot control is also sometimes ramped in three bet pots we can also disguise our bluffs as made hands that have checked back on the turn. Let us take a look at an actual hand that a student of mine named Geoff played at a $2-$5 game in Las Vegas several months ago. The lineup that night was pretty soft and players were telegraphing their hand strengths by varying their raise sizes preflop. When they raised larger they were usually strong and a smaller raise meant little pairs or hands like KQ. In this particular hand the under the gun limped and the next player made it $15. Four people in between called. Geoff knew none of these flatters were particularly strong and thought that it was a really good spot to squeeze so he made it $100 with 7:d: 3:d: on the button. Everyone folded except the preflop raiser who started the hand with $800. The flop came out 9:d: 4:c: 2:s:. The under the gun checked and Geoff bet $120. The under the gun player paused for a moment and called. The turn came a K:c: and both players checked. The river was the Q:s: and the under the gun checked once again. Geoff now bet $275 to perfectly execute the delayed double barrel and his opponent quickly folded.Why was it better for Geoff to check the turn here as oppose to bet? Because much like delayed continuation betting Geoff could pick up the same amount of information by the way his opponent reacted to his check on the turn rather than risk money by betting. You see, if Geoff's opponent had a hand like 77 or 88 he would be likely to just fold the turn. However, especially with the additional over card that came on the river he would also fold to a fifth street bet as well, after the turn went check check. Geoff actually risked less money by not betting the turn because if his opponent bet the river he could have safely folded assuming that the under the gun was extremely strong (like with AK, AA or a flopped set). The moral of the story is that sometimes when a card or board comes that hits your range hard you actually can wait to see what your opponent does on the next street by checking and risking nothing.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-the-unbluffablehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-the-unbluffableSat, 15 Dec 2012 14:14:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-the-unbluffableOne of the biggest leaks in my poker game is giving my opponents way too much credit. Sometimes I put myself in their situation and try to make a play that would work against myself. Unfortunately, however, most players that I am trying to extract money from do not think about the game in the same way that I do. They are not thinking through hands at a high level and are commonly just playing off of the absolute value of what they hold not the relative value based upon the situation. You run into huge problems when you try to bluff players like this. A lot of people, especially if they are very tight preflop, do not like to fold hands post flop. Recreational players do not come to the casino to get bluffed off of strong hands. Knowing this, as a winning player, you must adjust correctly.The following are some common hand scenarios where a non-professional player has difficulty folding.1. Aces and other overpairs--You can extract so much money from people that cannot fold these types of hands. But this lack of folding is why it is so difficult to play suited connectors from out of position in capped no limit games. Usually when you flop well with these hands you flop some sort of draw and when you are up against someone who will not fold top pair or an overpair your semi bluff ability is taken away. That is why you should pound these types of players with value hands. 2. Obvious trips or a set---At the lower levels you should not be trying to bluff people off of trips or a set. People are just incapable of laying these types of hands down even if with the given action they are only just bluff catchers
3. A turned flush that faces a four flush on the river-- When you are fairly certain that a player had a flush on the turn but a fourth card of that suit comes out you should very rarely try to bluff. Your opponent might even call a bet with the weakest flush possible just to show the rest of the table his misfortune. Of course you should use this to your advantage when you happen to make a higher flush and bet big as you will often get paid off.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/preflop-mistakeshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/preflop-mistakesTue, 11 Dec 2012 14:05:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/preflop-mistakes

When No Limit first began to become popular around 2003, right around the time of the poker TV boom, some casino executives came up with an ingenious idea. Instead of having no limit games be truly no limit they figured that if they capped the buy in at the smaller levels that they would attract new blood. Their assumptions were correct. Players who were traditionally scared of big bet games (remember rounders where Matt Damon says "even pros avoid No Limit") now felt like they could sit in without the worry of losing too much money at one time. Since the casinos wanted to entice more people to play a smaller, restricted, buy in was a perfect fit. Hence the appearance of games like $100 and $200 max buy in tables with ridiculous blind structures such as $2-$3 or $2-$5. 

Unlike limit holdem, no limit has always been an implied odds game when deep. You want the ability to play hands that could win your opponents' stack when they make a second best hand. That is why small pocket pairs and suited connectors are so powerful. When you are playing short stacked no limit, though, like in these capped games or tournaments, the game plays with more showdowns. High unpaired cards go way up in value. 

Flipping forward almost ten years, however, people still don't correctly grasp this preflop strategy. I watch hundreds of hours of low level cash games with hole cards played on Live at the Bike and still most of the biggest leaks I see in peoples' games is preflop. 

I have mentioned in previous columns that there is a really simple math formula to help you plug these preflop leaks in capped cash games. Check out my podcast over on Seatopenpoker.net titled "Deuce Plays Premium 15-25-35". A quick application of simple math and stack sizes will drastically increase your winrate. Without getting into too much detail here simply put you can never correctly call a preflop raise heads up with less than forty or so big blinds if the raise size is more than four times the big blind. You really should not be limping or over limping much either. The shorter that you get the more it is correct to either raise, reraise or fold with almost of all of your holdings. Kind of, again, like limit holdem. It is such a simple concept and it does not take a world class player to be tight. But at these levels if you are not playing this way the games are almost impossible to beat especially with the rake. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/cbetting-draws-in-multiway-potshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/cbetting-draws-in-multiway-potsFri, 07 Dec 2012 13:40:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/cbetting-draws-in-multiway-potsOne of the things that you want to do to become a better poker player is to stop thinking of situations as "standard" or "automatic". Each scenario in a hand is different and taking some rote line like you are multitabling twenty eight tables of online poker is not "optimal". 

One of the standard lines that I commonly see players take is always continuation betting a draw after being the preflop raiser--no matter what the situation. Now it is generally good to be aggressive in holdem as most players do indeed miss the flop. But you have to examine the complexities of each continuation betting situation. 

Let us take a look at a few examples. Say three people limp in in front of you in a $5-$5 no limit game. You decide to raise to $35 on the button with K:d: Q:d:. The big blinds call as well as all of the limpers. Effective stacks are $800. The flop comes out 3:d: 4:d: 6:c:. Everyone checks to you. What is our best play here? Even though we have a flush draw and two over cards our over cards fair not to be any good against a reasonable check raising range. We also are not a favorite to be able to make a continuation bet and get through everyone and it would not be ideal to get raised off of our hand. I think this is one of the most overlooked spots in flop play. When the board comes out straightening facing heat and multiple opponents you must disregard your over cards as viable outs. Now, if you take the card in the above example with K:d: Q:d:, your flush draw is hidden and you will not get blown off of your hand. 

Let us look at another example from a hand I played a few weeks ago that does not involve a flush draw board. It was $5-$10 no limit at the Commerce Casino and once again I had KQ but this time of spades. Two people limped in front of me and I made it $50 from the button. Both of the blinds called and the limpers called. The flop came out J:d: T:s: 2:c: and it got checked to me. Now normally this is a pretty good flop for KQ--open ended to the nuts with two over cards. However, the same concept of bad over cards applies here. I do not want to bet and get check raised off of my hand and by checking the flop back I do disguise it somewhat. It got checked through. The turn was the 9:h:. It got checked to the guy to my right and he bet $150 with $1000 left in his stack. I then raised to $400, everyone folded and he called. River was 5:d:. He checked and I moved him in for $600. He did not take long and called with a set of deuces. The non bet really worked out for me on the flop. 

Now you never want to fall into passive play. Still, when you are headsup or against only a few players betting as a semibluff is a strong option since most people do miss the flop. Do not get into bad habits of checking say A:s: Q:s: on a K:s: 7:s: 2:h: board. You want to represent boards that really smack a preflop raising range. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/allowing-opponents-to-valueown-themselveshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/allowing-opponents-to-valueown-themselvesMon, 03 Dec 2012 13:31:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/allowing-opponents-to-valueown-themselvesOccasionally bad players accidentally play in an optimal way. One of the things I have noticed over the past few years is the propensity for some weak competition to allow their good opponents to value own themselves. When I talk about valueowning I am referring to betting with the worst hand for value. I have discussed many times in previous articles about how important thin value betting is to increase your win rate. Simply put a value bet is + expected value on the river if when called you are good more than 50% of the time. The better the player the thinner the value better. So how do we counter this type of thin value betting? We allow our opponents value bet weaker hands. This advice is only applicable in hands against good, capable players. Taking a valueown line does not usually work against average or bad competition because those types of opponents do not value bet enough. I saw this interesting hand go down a few months ago in a $10-25 game. A good, solid pro raised under the gun to $100 and a fishy, recreational businessman called heads up in the big blind. The board ran out K45 rainbow. The businessman check called a $175 bet on the flop. The turn was a 9, completing the rainbow. The businessman again check called, this time a $375 bet. A 2 fell on the river. The businessman paused for a moment and checked once again. The young player thought for a while and finally bet $1000. The businessman snapped called. The pro tabled KJ and the businessman proudly turned over 5:s: 9:s: for two pair. Was this a good value bet by the young player? Of course. In reality this businessman had shown that he would call down any amount with top pair and sometimes made big calls with lesser holdings. If I were the preflop raiser I would expect him to usually have a weaker king here, figuring that I would have heard from two pair or a set earlier. Most of the time I would expect to be good when called. However, if the businessman, who had shown that he was not all that aggressive but more of a calling station, had check raised the turn, I would have almost immediately folded as would have the young pro. However, the businessman accidentally took the most optimal line. He did not announce any strength and because he was up against a thin value better ended up making the maximum amount from his hand. If you are a tighter player or you are up against competition constantly going for thin value you can see that allowing people to bet weaker hands for value can be a good game plan. Otherwise if you ever put pressure on the pot good competition will fold. Again it is very, very important to realize that this only applies to good players and for the most part you should play your hands rather straightforward at the lower levels. A detailed explanation of this concept can be found in my new podcast “The Seat Open Podcast” Hands from A Cash Game Volumes 1 and 2 at www.crushlivepoker.comCrush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-betshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-betsThu, 29 Nov 2012 13:11:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/donk-betsOne of the most awkward spots you can find yourself in in todays no limit games is an opponent who check calls your continuation bet on the flop and then donk leads the turn when something scary appears. There are many ways to interpret this line and there is no right answer as to exactly what it means. However, especially at the lower levels, players who check call then lead are usually not capable of bet three betting a draw. Therefore, by raising, not only do you freeze your opponent but you actually get extra value from their draws as well as getting to a free showdown at the river some of the time.Let’s look at an example. We are under the gun and raise to $20 in a $5-$5 no limit game with K:d: K:h:. Two players, both in the blinds, call with $800 effective stacks. The board runs out T:h: 7:s: 2:s:. It gets checked to us and we bet $40. The small blind calls and the big blind folds. The turn is the 9:h: and now our opponent leads out at us for $80. What is our play here? This can really be a tough spot when playing deep. We only have one pair and there are certainly straights and two pair combinations that beat us. However, there are a lot of draws and we still very well may have the best hand. We decide to just call. The river comes a 2:c: and our opponent checks. We think that we definitely have the best hand and bet $140 to try and get paid off by a ten. Our opponent hems and haws and talks about how lucky we are that he did not get there and folds 9:s: 6:s: face up. Obviously, he had an absolute monster on the turn--flush draw, gutshot and a pair. In fact, with one card to come against our red kings he had 17 outs. He would probably call any raise amount. So did we lose value?That is not an easy question to answer. When playing deep stacked no limit it is important to concentrate on protecting your stack rather than protecting your hand. And that is why you will see many players just call when their opponent shows strength--so that they do not expose there stack. However, if your opponents are not big semi bluffers you can counter this donk turn line by raise-folding some of your medium strength hands. So let us say that we raise his $80 bet to $250. If he three bet ships I would be fairly comfortable folding since his range for getting it all-in here has us killed even getting 3-1 on a call. In fact 9:s: 6:s: is one of the worst hands that we can be up against here. Normally we are going to be shown two pair, a set or a straight. If we just call and our opponent does not bluff the river, like he did not here, we actually have allowed him to name his price on the turn and sort of give him a reverse free card. Obviously you open yourself up to a world of hurt, however, if you start raise folding the best hand in these spots. However, it is so rare that anyone is going to raise the turn in position and then fold that I do not expect my opponent to ship back light after leading the turn because they don’t expect me to fold.Another time you can implement this raise turn line is when someone leads at you and the nuts are in your range. Let us say for example we raise with J:c: J:d: to $20 in late position in a $5-$5 game with $1500 stacks. The small blind, an aggressive, good player, calls. The board comes out Q:c: T:c: 3:d: and he checks. We think we have the best hand here a lot of the time because of the late position blind dynamic and we bet $30. Our opponent check raises us to $110. We think there is a very good chance that our opponent may be making a play at the pot and that it is unlikely that he would merely check raise with a queen so we call. Turn is 8:h:. He now bets $200. We raise to $550. Now usually you are not putting this type of money in with second pair to the board but I think that this is a good case where we can raise to take a free showdown at the river if unimproved. Our hand is an easy fold to a ship but we have blockers to the nuts and even if our opponent has a hand as strong as 33 he may just call. We also get a ton of value from draws and if we were planning on calling a blank river we have actually made it cheaper for ourselves. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/building-potshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/building-potsSun, 25 Nov 2012 12:21:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/building-potsWhenever I see a weak player get to showdown with a flopped monster it always amazes me how little they win from the pot. The fact of the matter is No Limit is all about winning the most amount of money that you possibly can with the best hand. Bad players think the best way to do this is to trap--good players know better. You have to build a big pot yourself to win a big pot. It is simple math—if you bet 75% of the pot on all three streets you will win a much larger pot than if you check the flop and then bet 75% of the pot on turn and river. You have to evaluate the texture of the board when calculating your flop sizing. Let us say for example that you raise UTG + 1 with 7:d: 7:s:, three people call and you see a flop of A:c: K:c: 7:h:. Not only is this board draw heavy but also when you flop middle or bottom set on high boards you should probably bet heavy against multiple opponents. People will give you action with top pair. This is different than having say 6:d: 6:s: on a 9:h: 2:d: 6:s: board. For the most part people are not going to put in a ton of three street money here with a hand like K:c: 9:c:. However, when people flop top pairs that are high, they are more likely to hold on because those top pairs usually remain top pair by the river. This is also why low boards like this are so prone to semi-bluffing especially against bettors that were not the pre flop raiser.So with this bottom set let us say that the pot is $60. We bet $40 and get called. The turn is a harmless card and we bet $110. We are called again. A brick falls on the river and we bet $300. Our opponent reluctantly calls with AQ. Our big bets were certainty set up by the fact that we bet big on the flop. If the flop was checked through we probably would have bet $40 on the turn and $110 on the river losing out on $300 worth of value. You can see how missing out on early street value leads to an exponential loss by the river. In capped games and in smaller buy in tournaments you can sometimes afford to miss one street because stacks can get all in by the river anyway. However, if you are playing in a typical game with 100BB stacks and the preflop sizing is less than 5x, you will need to bet every street in order to get all of the money in by the end of the hand. The deeper that you are the more that you have to bet on each street.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/straddlinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/straddlingWed, 21 Nov 2012 12:15:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/straddlingYou have been there before. The game is tight and almost dead. You look around for a table change but there is nothing better. Someone then suggests, “Let’s get a round of straddles going.” Seems like a good idea right? Wrong. I never understand people who think that straddling from under the gun will somehow help the game. Yes it creates more money in the form of an extra blind but people are not adding on to their stacks. I like to use my post flop skill when playing live no limit cash games. The shorter the effective stacks the less that we can lean on our skill and the more advantage shifts towards the weaker players (when is the last time you have seen a $300 tourney player consistently beat a $5 big blind game anyway). In fact my token response to someone who wants a round of straddles usually is “Sure if everyone adds on a few hundred dollars.”Now, I will say that if EVERYONE straddles this is more advantageous than if you alone decide to straddle. There are some advantages in forcing an extra blind versus players that do not know how to adjust. However, if it is just you doing the straddling how can we possible think that putting extra money in out of position can not be a disadvantage? To take it to another extreme if you are playing a loose passive game with deep stacks you might actually want to encourage a straddle because it just basically makes the game play with an extra blind. Be weary though of where the aggressive players are in the game, if any. Of course it is a totally different situation when dealing with a Mississippi straddle, which basically means that you can straddle from any position on the table. A button straddle is a huge advantage as you are forcing people to put more money in against you while out of position. I still do not like it, however for a number of reasons. Not only are you making the effective stacks smaller but also you are actually forcing the blinds and people in front of you to play tighter and thus it really kills the game. I have written articles in the past about how people make mistakes calling speculative hands in the blinds closing the action pre flop due to “pot odds”. When you straddle on the button you do not give the blinds the opportunity to make that mistake. The button straddle actually works in the exact opposite way of the under the gun straddle. If you are doing it yourself you have a big advantage but if everyone at the table is doing it it can really ruin the game.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-strategy-talk-at-tablehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-strategy-talk-at-tableSat, 17 Nov 2012 12:10:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-strategy-talk-at-tableIn order to consistently win money at poker your skill level has to be greater than your opponents. Sounds simple right? Wrong. Players forget to take into account travel to casino, tipping, food, etc. In fact your skill has to be vastly superior to other players in order to overcome these variables. And if you want to be a professional you have to be even better. It is no wonder why a vast majority of players that attempt to play for a living fail.If there were not consistently weak players no one could make a living playing poker. The fact of the matter is that recreational players drive the poker economy. If you were to only play with a bunch of professionals all the time almost no one would be able to beat the rake. As winning players it is our job then to make the recreational players feel comfortable.Over the last few years it is common that someone will recognize me while I play. I am generally pretty friendly and welcome the conversation. What I absolutely cannot stand, however, is people that try to discuss strategy with me at the table. And not benign strategy, advanced strategy. I am often amused when I play a small game or tournament and other players start talking about their hands. For the most part their analysis is pretty laughable. But these are not the types of discussions that I loathe. I am referring to the advanced talk that often will overcome younger players and that makes the table a less friendly environment. I would be happy to never hear the word range while playing again. I think it comes from the arrogance of some of the younger players where they think that they are better than everyone so they do not care if certain opponents are driven away by their bad behavior. These youngsters just do not get it. Poker is about creating a friendly environment where recreational players can have a fun time. These players can lose their money in any form of gambling, whether it be blackjack, baccarat, sports, etc., but we want them to gamble at the poker table. Driving out the easy money makes the game tougher overall so watch your mouth the next time that you are at the table.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/electronics-at-the-tablehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/electronics-at-the-tableTue, 13 Nov 2012 12:02:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/electronics-at-the-tableIt was in 2005 when I sent my first text at the poker table. Some lunatic girl of my past was complaining how I wasn't treating her right and I had stopped taking her phone calls because I was playing. Then she sent me a text. I had never texted before so I was intrigued. I sat there for the next hour and a half fiddling with my phone sending and reading messages. A little bit later I got involved in a $6000 pot with a player I had never seen before. He stacked me on a pretty bizarre hand. Some of the other regulars looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. ‘Didn’t you watch how that guy has been playing over the last hour”, they said. You would think that I would have learned my lesson right there. Flash forward to the summer of 2008 when I got my first smartphone. Now I could read emails and surf the web in real time. "How brilliant, I won’t be bored at the poker table,” I thought. Little did I know that this was going to be the beginning of one of the biggest leaks in my poker game. Recognizing betting patterns is one of the biggest parts of becoming a successful poker player. You should pay close attention to what is being shown down at your table, as this information will allow you to play better against your opponents in the future. Especially when dealing with unknowns, poker is a game of incomplete information. But there are different stages of this incomplete information. You can come to a new tournament table where you know no one and have no reads. Or you can be at a cash game where you are familiar with everyone and have been paying close attention. Where do you think that you will do better?I see a lot of regulars fool around on their phones because they think they are super familiar with all of their opponents. The problem with this is that our opponents do not play the same when they are winning or when they are losing. Recognizing who is on short-term tilt is absolutely paramount and can greatly increase your win rate. I have the advantage of doing commentary on Live at the Bike where I can actually see all of the players’ hole cards. Even after losing a small pot some players will call raises with total garbage like Q4s or J6os just because they got a small bad beat the hand before. You can see why paying attention to these spots is so important.Recently I was playing in a $2000 tournament at the Commerce casino and Gavin Griffin was at my table. I made a pretty suspect call off for all of my chips and was busted out. Later Gavin tweeted me to say that messing around with your phone is definitely -ev in tournaments (something I had been doing at the table). From that point on I made a pact to myself that I would no longer fool around with electronics while I played because they are too distracting. Treat your poker like any other job and pay attention.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-risks-early-in-sessionhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-risks-early-in-sessionFri, 09 Nov 2012 11:56:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-risks-early-in-sessionI am a huge believer in having a great image at the table. I have talked in past articles about how your hourly might be as much as two or three times higher than average with an outstanding image and you may be a break even or losing player with a horrible image. Image is not defined by looseness or tightness in live play it is a function of winning or losing. It is amazing how many people will stay out of your way when you are running “hot.” Subconsciously players will give you respect and you will be able to get away with winning a lot of pots without actually having it. On the flip side if your opponents have been noticing that you have been losing they will have a target on you. They will call you down with super marginal hands because they think that you are “unlucky.” In these spots you have to really tighten up and value bet other players to death.Knowing this information it is obviously a very good thing for us to start off our session with a winning image. One of the ways that I try to do this is to avoid taking big risks early on and trying to not get myself into marginal spots. I think that it is hard to play a session when you immediately start off from a hole. We are not robots and especially if you have any sort of tilt factor it lays poor groundwork for a good session.Now some people would say that if you win in these marginal spots you will instantly have a great image. This is partially true but if we are winning players and the table is good we can definitely find spots that may be less variant and more positive EV. Now do not misunderstand me I will take marginal edges in big pots if I am even slightly positive EV. However, I think the times to take those risks are later on in our sessions when we are more “into the groove”.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-bet-sizinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-bet-sizingMon, 05 Nov 2012 11:44:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turn-bet-sizingTypically, when you are playing smaller, live no limit games buy-ins are capped or are for a fixed amount. In southern California you can run into some really ridiculous structures sometimes restricting your buy-in to only forty big blinds. But even in more common one hundred big blind cap games, because live players tend to raise larger preflop and multiway action is common, you often will get into tough spots because the pots are inflated. Smaller stacked no limit is supposed to be easier than deeper stack play, right? Well, not in these all-in or fold situations. The problem arises when you have less than two pot size bets left and are value betting a hand where your opponent is likely to be on a draw. Sometimes if you do not bet big enough on the flop or turn you actually price your opponent in giving them the correct implied odds because you will always pay off a small river bet. Let us take a look at an example. Say in a $2-$5 game everyone has $300 stacks. We raise over three limpers with A:s: K:d: to $30 and two people call. The flop comes out K:c: 9:c: 6:s:. Everyone checks to us and we bet $70. One person calls. The pot is now $235 and we have $200 left. The turn is the 2:s: and our opponent checks to us. What is our proper sizing?This situation is extremely difficult because we always want to get value from worse (draws and weaker kings) but the pot size is awkward. What if we bet now, say $125? If our opponent once again check calls the pot will now be $485 and we will only have $75 left in our stacks. If he now shoves when a third club comes are we going to fold a $560 pot for $75? Probably not. In fact when we do not fold we actually give our opponent a great price on a draw because he knows we will pay off on the river. I make big calls on draws with one card to come for exactly this reason. Say our opponent had A:c: J:c:. If we bet that smaller amount on the turn he is calling $125 to win $360 immediately in the pot but also will be guaranteed to get the rest of our stack. So he is actually calling $125 to win $435. If he thinks that his ace may be good and that you are never going to fold when he hits he can call your bet.So how can we combat this? Unfortunately in these spots it is better for us just to move all-in—even if it may be over a pot size bet—if we are never going to fold to a river bet. We need to deny our opponents the extra money that he can make from our stack on the river. We also want to gain full value from his draw on the turn. It is really a disastrous scenario if we allow him to call a smaller amount on an earlier street when he would have called an all-in. By not betting all-in he saves his last bit of money and if he hits we pay him off. You can see why we do not want to get into this situation. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/slowplayinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/slowplayingThu, 01 Nov 2012 14:38:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/slowplayingI am going to preface this segment of this article by saying I HATE SLOWPLAYING. When David Tuchman and I first started broadcasting Live at The Bike back in 2005 we really did not know that much about no limit cash games. In fact, neither of us had played at the stakes that we were broadcasting. But we did give out one important piece of information that allowed players to drastically increase their winrates—fast play big hands. Back then people thought that no limit was a game of trapping. Most of the time the only no limit experience that these new players had was in shorter stacked tournaments. These players did not understand that in cash games the stacks are almost always deeper and that getting maximum value from your hand vastly out trumps trying to get someone to bluff at the pot. I have seen players take absolutely ridiculous lines trying to slowplay. One hand comes in mind from a few years ago during a $10-$20 no limit game in Los Angeles. Both players were $5000 deep. A few people limped in and this tighter Asian fellow made it $120 from the button. Only the big blind called who was somewhat of an action player. The flop came out Q:d: J:c: 3:s:. Both players checked. The turn was a T:h: and the big blind led out for $200. The button called. The river was the 3:h:. The action player now bet $400 and the button raised to $1000. The blind thought for a bit and called. The button showed pocket Qs and the blind tabled pocket Js. I could not believe it. If the button had breathed on the flop all of the money would have been in. What was the button trying to accomplish this deep by checking? It is one thing if you are up against an aggressive player and you want them to bluff at the pot but generally you will make a lot more by betting your hand and hoping that your opponent will A. call and catch up to a second best hand or B. make a move at the pot. Some would ask why we shouldn’t check a big hand to allow someone to catch up to a second best hand. I contend that it is better to bet because you will get more action if your opponent improves on a later street. Let us say that in the above hand our opponent had J9. The flop went check check and now the turn is a J instead of a T. Our opponent bets and we just call. On the river we raise his bet and he just calls fearing pocket queens. Now conversely, let us say that we bet the flop a little small and he calls thinking that his J might be good. Now on the turn he checks to us and we bet again. We have him. It is clear that this is a better way to get a lot of money committed. Now you can sometimes get into a situation where you slowplay and your opponent hits a smaller set on the turn or two pair but I still maintain that once you raise later on he will go into a check calling shell because your hand looks so strong. Specifically I would avoid checking middle set after being the preflop raiser especially if there is an A or K on the flop. In reality, what are you trying to have your opponent hit? It is much more profitable to build a pot up against top pair than allow another card to come off that makes your opponent some other hand. You also have to be careful of what I call the negative equity slowplay where you check a strong hand and the only action that you get from your opponent is from a card that comes that now beats you. I see this all the time when people check a hand like AK on an AA7 flop. They give their opponent a free card and suddenly they have lost a ton of money to pocket 3s when a three rolls off. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-semi-bluffinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-semi-bluffingSun, 28 Oct 2012 14:28:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-semi-bluffingThere was a phrase created from one of the online tracking databases a few years ago called the “Fuzz Rule”. The Fuzz Rule stated that whenever you were raised you needed a fairly strong hand to continue on. This applied to small stakes no limit cash games online. The creators of this rule had millions of hands from their databases as evidence. Normally, a “fairly strong hand” referred to better than one pair and the rule only applied to single raised pots. I think that we can take this rule and directly correlate it to small to mid stakes live poker, with one exception. Usually when someone raises the turn or the river they have better than a one pair hand but not always on the flop. You see, even back when Americans could easily play online poker fundamentally the play was tougher and more sound. People realized that the best way to win big pots was to build big pots and slowplaying was not as common. This meant that even on the flop a hand like K:h: K:d: on a board of 5:s: 7:s: 9:c: if raised was rarely good. The difference, however, in live play, is that people still have a tendency to “trap” with their big hands. Facing a raise on the flop one pair hands still may be good as lower level live players have a tendency to overplay certain hands. However, in these same games, if you are facing a raise on the turn or on river one pair is rarely good.So how can we use this information to our advantage when evaluating how to play draws? It still baffles me how many players misconstrue the concept of semi-bluffing. It is simple; making a play with a draw is basically a bluff. The number one reason to do so is to get your opponent to fold---or achieve what we call fold equity. Sometimes you get into a situation where you know your opponent will absolutely never fold to your raise—so why bluff then? You always want to put yourself in a spot where you have fold equity when making a play at the pot. If our opponents and we know then that most of the time one pair hands are no good on the turn after facing a raise where is our best spot to bluff? Now, of course many of our opponents do not think like us and may not be paying attention to anything in the game. However, I still feel like these weak players subconsciously pick up on certain things especially if they have played for some time. Even the worst players will figure out that top pair or even sometimes an overpair is often no good when they get raised on the turn and they may fold a hand that they would never fold on the flop. Let us take a look at an example. Say in a $5-$5 game with $800 effective stacks a player under the gun raises to $25, one person calls and we call with 5:s: 6:s: on the button. The flop comes out K:s: 3:c: 2:s: giving us a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. The under the gun player bets out $70, the player in the middle folds and we call. The turn is the 6:h:. Our opponent now leads into us for $175 and we raise to $500. The under the gun player hems and haws, says “you have 45 huh?” and finally folds A:d: K:d: face up. Even though the stacks are deep, against typical opponents at the lower stakes, it is rare that you are going to get them to fold AK on the flop. If you continue to fire the turn and even the river if the draws brick out players will get themselves emotionally involved in the pot, always think that you have a missed draw and will call. This is of course why we should play sets fast. But by taking this alternative line of waiting for the turn to raise we actually add maximum fold equity. Not only does this player remember from the past that one pair is rarely good when he gets raised on the turn but we can use cards that complete other draws (like 45) to make our hand look even stronger. There is a detailed discussion of this concept in my podcast Deuce Plays Premium titled called “Delayed Semi-Bluffing.”Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/flat-calling-preflop-with-ak-or-aqhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/flat-calling-preflop-with-ak-or-aqWed, 24 Oct 2012 14:16:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/flat-calling-preflop-with-ak-or-aqIf you have been playing no limit for a long period of time you probably noticed that the aggression level preflop even in smaller stakes games has increased exponentially over the past few years. This new style can be directly attributed to training sites that concentrated on teaching players how to beat six max no limit online. Some instructors got the preflop game down to a science. They discovered that if you three-bet a preflop raiser who had a certain percentage of hands that he opened from from certain positions you would show an immediate profit. This was especially true when this raiser never called your three-bet but rather reraised or folded. This led to a bevy of three-bet, four-bet and even five-bet bluffing. Well, the best way to attack this type of player was to three and four-bet with a polarized range—hands that you would go with facing a rearaise or hands that you would easily fold. There were also slightly weaker hands that people would commit with, hands that were strong and had blockers like AK, AQ and even AJ. Otherwise your three-betting range would include many more bluffs than value hands and an observant opponent could easily exploit you. These hands, especially AK, became almost a mandatory three-bet stack off in a six-max game.Unfortunately, many players who were familiar with this online style of aggression thought that this directly translated to live games. They did not realize that people in full ring setting limp with a lot of speculative hands and open a stronger range that they would online. They also had difficulty adjusting to the fact that people would still call a lot of three-bets even from out of position with awkward stacks. The sheer fact of the matter is that if you hold AK or AQ, in many smaller stakes live games, you do not want dominated hands that players may open with – say AJ or KQ--to fold to your three-bet. By calling with big unpaired hands you disguise the strength of your hand and allow those inferior holdings to tag along. Players at the lower stakes have a lot of trouble folding top pair and by just calling you give them the opportunity to make big mistakes postflop. If you feel comfortable playing big pots after the flop I contend that it is a good play to just call with these large types of unpaired hands so that you can extract value form your opponent’s’ dominated hands later on.With that being said if you do just flat with hands like AK or AQ you must be willing to continue on when you do not flop a pair. Say for example a mid-position player raises to $25 in a $5-$5 game with $1000 effective stacks. You decide to just call on the button with A:h: Q:d: and everyone else folds. The flop runs out 8:d: 2:s: 5:h: and the preflop aggressor bets $30. I would make the case here that more often then not, considering the pot odds, you should call. Not only do you have some equity against say TT or JJ, but also you have under represented your hand preflop that you may still have the best hand. Players at these stakes are often not capable of firing multiple barrels and you can easily do things post-flop that will allow you to go to showdown cheaply. Check out my podcast Deuce Plays Premium “Hands from a Cash Game Volume I and II’ for a further explanation of these concepts.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-flop-bet-sizinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-flop-bet-sizingSat, 20 Oct 2012 14:05:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-flop-bet-sizingOne of the easiest patterns to pick up when dealing with weaker, inexperienced players is bet sizing. More often than not when your opponent flops what he thinks is the best hand after being the preflop raiser he will bet bigger. This is especially true when the pot is multiway and the board is draw heavy. One of the worst things that can happen psychologically to recreation players is getting sucked out on. That is why you see a trend, at the lower levels, of betting to protect one’s hand instead of betting for value. These types of opponents want to drive out the draws because usually they are incapable of folding what they perceive to be big hands. Great players will keep their continuation betting amounts balanced so that it is possible that they have bluffs in their range. That is why you will notice these players betting the same amount--usually 1/2 to 2/3 pot size in almost every situation. You cannot draw anything from the strength of their hand through bet sizing. This is something that you should strive to replicate. Great players also realize the effective stacks within a hand. Three and four-bet situations bloat the size of the pot drastically. Say we start with effective stacks of $700 in a $5-$5 game. The under the gun raises to $25, one person calls, and the button makes it $90. We look down at A:d: A:c: and reraise to $220. It gets back to the button who now calls. The pot is $490 and we have $480 left in our stack. The money is going in no matter what the flop is our four bet made sure of that. Would it surprise you to realize that betting something super small or sometimes even checking the flop is close to optimal? Say the board runs out 9:c: 3:s: 3:d:. We can bet as little as $100 here and easily get the money in by the end of the hand even if we check the turn. Good players realize this and bet small in these situations to make it look like they are bluffing. Less observant players might come out and bet as much as $300 basically announcing the fact that they are committing themselves. It is easy to evaluate your hand against a large bettor in this situation because you can basically treat his flop bet as an all-in.Let us look at one more simple example in a single raise pot that will demonstrate hand strength based upon flop continuation bet sizing. A tight, early position, recreational player, opens to $15 with A:c: Q:c: in a $2-$3 no limit game with $400 effective stacks. Two players call. The flop comes out J:h: 4:s: 3:s:. The preflop raiser continuation bets to $20. What do we think the under the gun player has? Do we think that he is strong? Would he not bet larger on a board that is so draw heavy with a hand that he thinks is best? My contention is yes. His sizing is usually indicative of a hand that he is not super comfortable with. It could be 99 or TT and it also could be a hand like AK or AQ. The point here is that he almost never shows up with AA, KK or even AJ because he would have bet a lot larger to drive the draws out so that he will not get a “bad beat”. A better player would bet here to about $25-30 with almost his entire range. You would not be able to tell if he is continuation betting with nothing or if he has a real hand. The next time that you are at the table make it a special point to try and notice continuation bet sizing and what gets revealed at showdown. You will find that smaller continuation bets are usually indicative of weaker hands unless the player has flopped an absolute monster like top set. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/what-do-small-check-raises-meanhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/what-do-small-check-raises-meanTue, 16 Oct 2012 13:55:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/what-do-small-check-raises-meanWe have all been in the sticky situation of holding an overpair on the flop facing a raise. Is our opponent bluffing? Does he think he has the best hand but doesn't realize that we are actually strong? Answering these questions can be a daunting task especially at the lower levels where people do not necessarily understand hand strength. The point of this tweet is to make you realize that these decisions are usually the most difficult on the flop. The flop is where the highest rate of bluffing occurs and where people commonly overplay hands. It is very rare to see someone check raise the turn on a draw or over play a one pair holding. For some reason players are less scared when the board only contains three cards and are more likely to push marginal hands or think you have missed. We can combat this flop aggression by calling raises with the intention of seeing what our opponents will do on the next street. Say for example we continuation bet with KK on a Q53 rainbow board. Our opponent, who called us out of the big blind, check raises. We can easily call here with the intention of seeing what he does on the turn. Most of the time, if he slows down, we can bet for value. One of the more common lines you will see is a check raise followed by a small bet on the turn and a check on the river. This then becomes an easy bet for us with a value hand especially if a front door draw misses. Where you must gage strength, however, is when the raise comes on a later street like the turn or the river. Take the above example and say that our opponent check calls the flop and then check raises an off suit 8 turn. He is really representing a strong hand now and will almost never show up with a hand like KQ. He also will rarely wait until the turn to pull a check raise semi bluff with a hand like 34. You have to adjust, especially in smaller stakes capped games, to this common pattern. Let us say that we hold QQ and we raise from early position to $10 in a $1-2 no limit game. Three players call including the big blind. The board comes out 8:c: 8:d: 4:c:. It gets checked to us and we bet $25. Both players in position fold and the big blind check raises all in for $150. This is an easy call as the all in player could have a flush draw or be overplaying a hand like JJ. If we are deeper stacked we can call with position to see what our opponent does on the turn. Let's change this around now and say that the big blind calls our $25 bet and then check raises a 9:h: turn with $400 effective stacks. It is much more likely that he is strong as turn check raising as a semibluff is extremely uncommon at the lower levels. It is also very rare that a player would wait until the turn to make a big move with JJ or TT as he is more likely to just call you down. Check out my podcast Deuce Plays for further examination of this concept. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-playing-against-good-playershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-playing-against-good-playersFri, 12 Oct 2012 13:35:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/avoid-playing-against-good-playersFor winning players poker is like an arbitrage of a financial situation. Warren buffet once said "Price is what you pay; value is what you get.”I've written in previous articles how deep one needs to be to call with certain implied odds types of hands. Say for example we have $800 in a $5-$5 no limit game. An under the gun player raises to $25 and we have 5:c: 7:c: on the button. Using my formula we need to make thirty times the raise size from the total pot to make this a profitable call. But is this always correct? Our price is right but what about the value? If we are up against a tight player who will routinely stack off with one pair hands than this is a very desirable situation. But what if we are playing against a good, winning player? In poker, as long as you can beat your opponents by an amount that will also overcome the rake than you will end up ahead. But like any other set of short-term investments you need to be able to pick the best spots and have the ability to pass on bad ones. If you see another winning player at the table he has to be that much better than all of the weaker ones. You should try to find excuses not to play pots with him, especially from out of position, as there are much better situations that will cross your path. This is not to say that you cannot have profitable positions against good players but you have to realize that calling with implied odds types of hands against people who know where they are at and will not pay off is not a good investment. I constantly see good young players going out of their way to mix it up with each other. I guess that it is a macho thing but there should not be ego in poker. It is as if they have forgotten the main reason why we play---to win money. Now some players like the competitive nature of the game and could care less about their profits. I have no problem with this but for those who play to achieve the highest win rate you should try to get yourself into the best possible scenarios that will reap short-term gains. The easiest way to do this is not to call good players' raises preflop. If a tough opponent opens in late position who is capable of firing multiple barrels at the pot and will rarely pay you off when you hit big then you should routinely be folding hands like suited connectors or even small pocket pairs. The sheer fact of the matter is that in the long run if you run this situation a million times you will end up behind. Why would you want to put yourself in a long-term negative EV situation?Now the exact opposite of this is true when playing bad players especially deep with position. In these types if scenarios you want to give yourself excuses to get involved. Don't take this advice to the extreme, however. You are never going to be in a long-term positive situation if you are calling with hands like 94 suited out of the blind. Remember we play poker to win money not to beat good players. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/calling-to-often-from-the-blindshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/calling-to-often-from-the-blindsMon, 08 Oct 2012 13:27:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/calling-to-often-from-the-blindsIn capped games, a large percentage of your winrate is directly correlated to preflop hand selection. I cannot reiterate this enough. And one of the most common preflop mistakes low level players continuously make is defending way to wide out of the blinds—especially in multiway pots. It is almost unfathomable how having a little dead money in the pot can change the entire outlook of an otherwise tight player in the blind. Last week, a student went over a hand with me where an early position player raised to $20 at $5-$5 and three people called in the field. It got back to him in the big blind and this guy, who normally only plays less than twenty per cent of his hands, called with 9:c: 3:c:. I immediately stopped him and inquired as to why he would call with such a speculative hand. “I was priced in,” he said. Priced in? Really? Like that extra $5 you had in the pot should suddenly widen your preflop range to the top eighty percent of hands? Let us say we were on the button with the 9:c: 3:c: and the same set of circumstances occurred--early position player raises and three people call in between. Should we call on the button? Of course not!!! So why would we ever consider calling in the big blind? Some would argue that we are closing the action in the big blind and we know that the pot will not be reraised. That is true but that does not make up for the positional disadvantage we face post flop nor does it take into account that unless the blinds are squeeze happy it is very unlikely that the pot will be reraised anyway if we call on the button. And if we call we actually may induce the blinds to come in giving us an even better price. There are so many compelling reasons as to why this hand would be better to play from the button as opposed to the big blind. But we still are going to fold it preflop. It is total trash. Yet, because people have a small portion of money in the pot due to being in the blinds, they so often feel compelled to complete. The fact of the matter is that in big bet games position is unbelievably important. The more trouble spots you avoid from out of position, including the blinds, the more that your winrate will increase.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leveling-yourselfhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leveling-yourselfThu, 04 Oct 2012 13:10:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/leveling-yourselfOne of the biggest mistakes that any serious player can make is giving other players too much credit. The simple fact of the matter is that most poker players, especially recreational ones, are only playing the strength of their own hand and nothing else. They are not thinking about ranges, pot odds or what types of hands that they can represent. Most have them, when trying to determine whether to call or fold, are just wondering if we have “it” or not. And they might not even know what “it” is. They are definitely miles away from actually knowing what we hold.Obviously this is good for us as thinking players. We have a big advantage over these simple player types and can easily exploit them. However, I have seen many good players out level themselves into thinking that their opponents are capable of making sophisticated moves. Most of the time this involves making some incredibly stupid call downs because if they reversed the situation they think that it would be a good spot to bluff. They do not adjust to the fact that most of their opponents are not thinking at all. A great example of this is a hand that I saw happen at the Bicycle Casino last week. We were playing $5-$10 no limit and this eighty-five year old was at the table playing like it was January of 2004. I literally never saw this guy raise for the hour or so I had been at the table--like it was his job to check call every street. Effective stacks were about $2500 when he finally opened to $50 under the gun. This young, hoodie, headphone dude to my left three bet him to $165, everyone folded and the guy called. The flop came out J:d: T:d: 3:c:. The older guy checked and the kid bet $175. Without hesitation the guy called. The turn was the 6:d:. The old guy checked again and the kid now bet $500. Almost instantly, this Johnny Hughes (from 2+2) lookalike moved all-in for $2200. The kid thought about it for a long time and then finally flipped over J:s: 6:s: to get a read. I could not believe it was taking him so long to make a decision. When have you ever seen a guy who was over eighty years old check raise the turn all-in on the come? “Call,” the kid said. Of course, the man tabled A:d: K:d: and scooped over a five thousand dollar pot. A few orbits later the old man got up and left. One of the kid’s buddies came over and the two started to discuss the hand. Mr. Hoodie’s explanation for calling wasn’t that he thought that the man might be overplaying a hand like A:h: A:d: or K:h: K:d:--but rather that it was a good spot for the old man to bluff the flush because the kid rarely has suited cards in his range in a three bet pot. I literally spit out my coffee. Here was a guy who obviously did not study the game. He had enough trouble reading his own hand. He was not contemplating what other people held. How is he going to suddenly decide to reverse float in a three bet pot and bluff a front door flush draw? Are you kidding me? This concept may seem obvious but I see players make bad decisions based on giving their opponents too much credit all the time. I even will sometimes do it, although not to that extent, but it is one of the leaks in my game that I am trying to patch up. Sometimes, especially when I check back the flop as the pre flop raiser, I think that my opponent is very strong when they bet into me on a turn card that should hit my range. Like if the board is Q68 and I check back the flop with 99. I get concerned when my opponent suddenly leads out on a K turn and usually I will give up my hand. Lately, though, I have figured out that this is not always the case. My opponent, a lot of the time, is betting the turn merely because I checked backed the flop. They are not putting two and two together. The moral of this story is if you are a thinking player chances are your opponent is not. Do not base your decisions on what you would do putting yourself in your opponent’s position.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-bettinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-bettingSun, 30 Sep 2012 13:01:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-bettingThere is a simple equation to determine if a value bet on the river is profitable. When your bet is called, if you are good more than fifty percent of the time then we are in the green. This is only the case, though, when we are called. We could be making an improper value bets and not know because our opponent folds the river. Value betting in live low stakes no limit really is where ninety five per cent of the money is won and lost.If you want to become a good no limit player you must constantly “value own” yourself. What this means is that when you are betting for value a fair amount of the time when you are called you should lose. Why would we ever want to lose? Because if when getting called we are always winning we are leaving tons of value on the table. The best example of this is to look at the typical patterns of your average “showdown monkey”. When this type of player bets for value he always thinks he has what is close to the nuts in his eyes. When he is called he is good almost one hundred percent of the time. The times that he is good only seventy five or eighty per cent of the time he checks his hand back on the river and gets to showdown. Now let us look at a more thinking good player. He tries to get the thinnest value that is possible increasing his winrate. When he bets on the river for value he may be good only sixty or seventy percent of the time. His bets are profitable (over fifty percent) but are wrong more often. It is fairly common to see him bet, be called and have a worse hand for value than his opponent. This is the definition of value owning. However, unlike the other player that checks back his strong non nut hands, he is actually getting value from those hands where he is only good sixty or seventy percent of the time.A lot of people will counter my argument by saying that they do not value bet that much with medium strength hands in position because they do not want to open the betting back up in big bet poker. This can be a viable concern against aggressive players in a tournament when they know that they can put a lot of pressure on your for your tournament life and the bluffing frequency is higher. However like I have stated before, in cash games this dynamic just doesn’t exist. Usually when you are value betting you think that your opponent has some sort of worse hand—and most players will not be good enough to turn these worse hands (a hand like second pair or top pair weak kicker) into bluffs. One of the ways to improve your game is to start value owning yourself more. This is a technique to help you value bet more often. Remember, so long as you are good more than fifty percent of the time when called, your bet is profitable. You would like to get that number down as close to fifty as possible so you should be losing some of these showdowns!! If you are always winning when you value bet you are playing to close to Mr Showdown Monkey. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/evaluating-the-turnhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/evaluating-the-turnWed, 26 Sep 2012 14:42:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/evaluating-the-turnPoker is a game of incomplete information. The best players take the little information that is available to them and accurately decipher what probable hands that their opponent holds. There are several techniques that can help you to do this well and one of the most telling ones is through bet sizing. Normally, the bigger the bet the stronger the hand. Now, this is not always the case, especially in the rare instances that you find players who can overbet bluff, but in general, especially on wetish types of boards, players want to “protect” their big hands so that they do not get sucked out on.In an earlier column I wrote that minish types of raises on wet boards usually represent a top pair type of hand since if your opponent had a bigger hand, like two pair or a set, they would raise more so that you could not catch up. Even though this approach is fundamentally flawed it is one of the most common patterns I see in live poker. Taking this a step further if we are unsure as to the strength of our opponent’s hand we can actually get even more information by what he follows up with in his bet sizing on the turn. A lot of the time we will not be able to exactly pinpoint his strength by one action but combines with two actions we can usually paint an accurate picture of his range.I’ll give an example of a hand that I played at $10-20 no limit at the Commerce casino a few years ago. I was under the gun and had a weak amateur player directly to my left. We had effective stacks of $4000. I picked up two red queens and raised it to $80. The weak player called, as did another guy on the button. The flop came out pretty well for me J:d: 7:c: 2:h: and I led out for a $160 continuation bet. The weakish player immediately made it $400. The button then folded and the action was back to me. Unfortunately, because the board was dry and his raise size was neither small nor big I did not know at this point what he had. If the board was say J:c: 7:d: 5:c: and he had bumped it up to $350 I would lean towards him having a hand like KJ or AJ. But his action left me in the dark. I decided to call and see what he did on the next street. The turn brought the 4:c:, I checked and now he bet a $300. Not only was his sizing relatively small compared to the pot but it was actually less of an amount than the flop raise. Anytime you see a player follow up with a bet that is equal to or less than his previous street’s raise than his hand is usually not that strong. I squarely put him on AJ and decided to make an extremely thin check raise on the turn. I made it $650 and he called. The river was the 5:h: and I bet $800. My opponent did not take too long and called tabling AJ. Some of the other players at the table including the pros were stunned at how the hand played out. It is very rare that you would ever see anyone check raise the turn after being raised on the flop with a lone over pair in a deep stack cash game. However, I knew through this player’s betting patterns exactly his strength. Instead of checking behind in position on the turn and having to face a big bet on the river, this type of player actually named his price on the turn in an attempt to get a free showdown. It is actually not that bad a play if you are up against non perceptive opponents. I go into this concept in more detail in episode “Turn Sizing” of my podcast Deuce Plays Premium. Be careful though, even though when your opponent follows up with a small turn bet he is normally not that strong, this does not mean that he will necessarily fold and I would be hesitate to try to bluff him.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-the-pre-flop-raiser-with-drawshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-the-pre-flop-raiser-with-drawsSat, 22 Sep 2012 10:51:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-the-pre-flop-raiser-with-drawsI am never a fan of trying to bluff players off of over pairs at the lower levels. 95% of the money won and lost at live mid-stakes games and below is through value betting. However, if you find yourself in a situation where you think that it is profitable to semi bluff from out of position you have to continue to fire barrels on the right scare cards. This is why suited connectors and small suited aces are so difficult to limp-call a raise from up front. Most of the time when you flop good you are going to flop some sort of draw and draws are extremely difficult to play when first to act.Last week I was playing in a loose passive $5-10 no limit game at a small room in Los Angeles and decided to limp in with 8:s: 7:s: from under the gun. This is a play that I would not recommend usually but most of the table was sitting with at least $3000 stacks and there was not much preflop aggression. Much to my dismay one of the more solid players raised to $50 after the player to my left also limped and two people called in late position. I decided to take a flop since there were so many weak players in the hand and I also thought there was a chance that I could get the solid player off of the best hand. The board came out 9:s: 5:c: 2:s:. I checked, the limper checked and the solid player bet out $175. His bet is almost always a real hand here as this is not the situation or the type of board to make a continuation bet with nothing. The next player folded and the last, one of the weakest players at the table, thought for a long time and called. I was actually happy that this player got involved as I felt that if I now made an aggressive move at the pot the preflop raiser would have to worry about another player behind him. I am also showing additional strength because I am check raising multiple players. So, it got back to me and I check raised to $550. My draw here is decent and I am a little under fifty percent against an overpair. I would be forced to get it in against the preflop raiser if he was shorter but am doing really bad against a shove back range of a set or higher spades. I also, with my sizing, wanted to drive the weaker player out if he had a hand like say T:s: J:s:. It would also be harder for me to win the pot against two people on the turn. The preflop raiser tanked for about three minutes and finally called. Much to my delight the weaker guy got out of the way and folded. Turn A:h:. This is where most people freeze when they check raise with draws. A case can be made that when the pot gets this big betting another barrel is super scary and may show immediate profit. I do not necessarily agree with this logic but you should definitely be barreling certain cards—and I think an A or a K are two of the best. I bet $700 and the solid player painstakingly folded. We can almost certainly narrow our opponent’s range in this hand down to pocket aces through pockets jacks. If this type of “solid” player was uncertain about his QQ or KK on the flop the ace is almost certainly going to scare him. The funny thing is the ace really is not that much of a scare card—although many people do not realize this. If our probable range on the flop is either sets or draws the only thing that the ace does is possibly pair up the nut flush draw but it would be highly unlikely to see a player continue to bet huge on the turn once they make a weak top pair in a pot like this. You should also be willing to barrel as a bluff on the river when the board runs out scary. Say in the above example we were heads up and our opponent held JJ. He bets $75 in to a $100 pot on the flop and we make it $250. He calls. Turn is the Q:h:. We bet $300 and he calls. River is the A:c:. We bet $650. Even some of the more experienced players and good hand readers would have a tough time calling here with JJ. The most important thing to remember is that overcards to probable overpairs are indeed scary. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-playing-their-drawshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-playing-their-drawsSat, 15 Sep 2012 10:37:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/opponents-playing-their-drawsOne of the more common excuses I hear people use when explaining why they could not fold an overpair is that the board was “draw heavy’. These types of players are usually fooling themselves. The mere fact is that, especially at the lower levels, people do not play draws all that aggressively. Just because the flop contains a two suit does not mean that a player showing aggression against the preflop raiser has a flush draw. Let’s take a look at an example. We raise under the gun in a $5-5 no limit game with $500 effective stacks to $20 with Q:s: Q:c:. Two mid position players call. The flop comes out 2:h: 6:h: 4:c:. We bet $50, the next player folds and last to act raises to $200. This type of decision is really common in capped 100 big blind games. Players that transition from the internet will often convince themselves that the board is draw heavy and that their opponent can easily be making a semi bluff. They decide to go with the hand and are usually up against at least a fifteen out draw or are virtually drawing dead.What these young players do not realize is that typical live players do not usually push draws that are not monster draws. Where online in a six max game you might see a player raise the above board with 9:h: 8:h: you will not see that type of move with a “dry” flush draw in a normal live game. If we then can accurately deduce that our opponents’ range only consist of huge draws and made hands we then have to look at the amount of combinations of each that they can hold. Let’s say on that flop we give our opponent 5:h: 7:h:, A:h: 5:h:, A:h: 4:h:, 5:h: :4:h: and A:h: 3:h:. These draws all have at least 50% equity against our hand. Let’s also say that our opponent could have a set, top two or a flopped straight. There are three combinations of each set, 3:s:, 6:s:, and 4:s: for a total of nine. There are three combinations of 64 suited. There are also four combinations of 53 suited (hands that will call preflop). You can see that there are more than three times as many made hands as draws and those draws still have decent equity against us. The simple fact is that there will be many more combinations of made hands then draws, if said player is only pushing BIG draws (flush draw straight draws, pair plus flush draw etc).Lastly and probably most important some players will NEVER raise with draws. You have to pay attention to what is going around you at the table. Let’s say we raise to $20 in a $5-$5 game with the same stack sizes but this time with A:s: A:h:. One older player, who we know will never flat big hands pre flop, calls. We also know that this player plays passively post flop and never pushes his draws. The flop comes out T:c: 8:h: 6:c:. We bet out $35 and he raises to $165. What is the obvious play here? FOLD. There is really nothing that we can beat. If we were against a more aggressive type that might raise any flush draw or pair plus draw we may continue on to see what happens on the turn. But against this type of opponent we can be almost one hundred percent certain that we are up against a made hand.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/taking-small-edgeshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/taking-small-edgesSat, 08 Sep 2012 10:29:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/taking-small-edgesCash games, unlike tournaments, are about finding any advantage in a given situation, no matter how slight. In theory, if you have a .01 percent edge in a one million dollar pot you are giving up $100 if you do not take it. Of course bankroll considerations always are factors in these types of situations. However, if you are properly rolled for the games that you are playing and if you have good emotional control you should have no problem getting into spots that are close to neutral expected value. Much like the article I wrote about not running the cards more than once a few months ago as professionals we need to use any edge that we can get versus recreational players. One of the biggest things that professionals do better than non-professionals is tilt control. I would have no problem flipping for large sums of money if I knew that my opponent played badly if they got stuck. I have confidence in my ability to stay level headed even when I am down. Most non-professionals cannot do this. They start to play poor when losing and we gain even more of an advantage over them. One of the other reasons that you should take neutral EV situations if your bankroll can withstand them is because of image. If you have listened to any of my training material you will know that I strongly believe that live image has to do with winning or losing not looseness or tightness (check out my Deuce Plays free episode Image). When you are winning you can get away with a lot more at the table. People believe your bets, give you more respect and tend to stay out of your way. This is a really good thing in holdem when more often than not people do not connect with the flop. If you take a neutral EV situation and win a large pot knowing how to correctly leverage your image will give you a huge advantage over the table. It is almost a kin to having a big stack in a tournament. In fact, if you can correctly adjust to having a losing image (tightening up, bluffing less, and value betting more) than winning a big pot is way more influential than losing one. Because of this we want to get ourselves into situations when we can win big, so long as the EV is at least neutral. You can even make the case that you can take slightly the worst of it if your opponent is prone to badly tilting. The small percentage points that you give up in the actual hand can be more than made up by your opponents' future bad play. On the flip side of this argument if you are constantly getting into close to neutral EV situations and your roll is not large enough to withstand the variance there is a good chance of going broke or in mathematical terms what we call risk of ruin. Poker players traditionally underestimate their risk of ruin. This is why, when playing high enough, no matter how bad the opponent is if he has an unlimited source of money there is always a chance that he can break you. As the skill gap diminishes and the stakes get larger, especially in games where the EV runs a lot closer like PLO, this risk of ruin becomes a real possibility. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rarely-bet-to-protecthttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rarely-bet-to-protectSat, 01 Sep 2012 10:17:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rarely-bet-to-protectThere are primarily three reasons to bet in No limit holdem. The first and most important is betting for value. Especially at the lower levels this is where 95 percent of the money is won or lost. Secondly, we can bet to bluff someone off of a better hand. Lastly we can bet for protection. Betting to protect your equity in the pot is a much more common concept in PLO when equities run much closer even with one card to come. The concept still exists in holdem but it is usually misunderstood. At the lower levels you will see players commonly bet big with what they think is the best hand to "protect" against the draws. What they do not understand is that they want to in fact get value from a draw. Say for example we raise to $35 in a $5-$10 no limit game with A:d: K:d:. Only the big blind calls. The flop comes out 9:s: K:c: 3:s:. The big blind checks and we bet $85. Our opponent hems and haws and finally folds 6:s: 7:s: face up saying "that's too much to call on a flush draw." We happily take down the pot not realizing that we have made a critical mistake. We actually WANT the draw to call so long as we do not incorrectly pay off on future streets. It is pretty rare that we actually want to bet to protect our hand in no limit holdem. The situations are a lot more uncommon than people think. Usually we want to bet to protect when we have an unpaired ace high hand that we think is best and do not want to give off a free card to another unpaired hand that would not call a bet. Say for example we hold AJ on a 9337 board. We were the preflop raiser and we checked back the flop. Now our opponent has checked again on the turn and we are fairly certain that he does not have a pair. It would be bad for us to wrap behind again and have a hand like KT, which would fold right now, to catch up to a better hand. Another example of hand protection is when we think that our opponent is semi bluffing the turn but, if he misses, will not bluff the river and the pot is rather large. Take a board of 8:h: 3:d: 7:d: 2:h:. We hold KK and have now been check raised on the turn. Let's say we only have a pot sized bet left after we call the check raise. If we think that we have the best hand (which may not always be the case) we should probably just ship all-in especially if a hand like 45 will not bluff the river if missed. We are actually giving our opponent a free shot at our stack by not moving over the top of his check raise. Lastly, and probably the most misunderstood protection bet occurs when we hold a near nut hand that will only get action on a future street if we are beat. This commonly occurs when we flop trips with a very good kicker. Say for example we raise with A:h: K:h: on the button. The small blind calls and a limper calls. The flop comes out K:c: K:d: 8:s:. It gets checked to us and we decide to slow play since there are no draws on the flop. The turn comes the 2:d: and the small blind now leads out. The limper folds and we decide to raise. The small blind now reraises and we snap ship all-in. Our opponent beats us into the pot and much to our dismay tables 22. This scenario is less common at the higher levels nowadays but years ago when a lot of people played no limit poorly I used to see it all the time. They thought that their hand was so big on the flop that they didn't need to bet and did not realize that they in fact had to protect against these type of two out hands that would only give them action on future streets if they had them beat. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-most-important-concept-at-low-stakeshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-most-important-concept-at-low-stakesSat, 25 Aug 2012 13:44:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/value-most-important-concept-at-low-stakesWhenever I have a new student come to me for lessons they always want to talk about a big bluff that they ran or a big call that they made. I tell them all the same thing--live no limit is about value betting not making big plays. There is only a finite amount of time that one has to study the game away from the table. The best way to spend that time is to practice hand reading and work on maximizing your value against a second best hand. Figuring out an accurate range of your opponents' holding takes a lot of experience. But the time spent developing these specific skills will win you way more money in the long run as opposed to running elaborate bluffs or trying to figure out when your opponent is bluffing you. The next time you are at the table pay close attention to the amount of value that other players miss. You'll see that there is an incredible amount of money left on the table. There is also an incredible amount of extra money that can be won when you can accurately evaluate your opponents' hand and bet with proper sizing to get paid off by worse.I cover good ways to achieve thin value and work on these skills in Deuce Plays and Deuce Plays Premium episodes "Hands from a Cash Game."Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/betting-thinly-for-value-after-checking-back-flophttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/betting-thinly-for-value-after-checking-back-flopSat, 18 Aug 2012 13:34:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/betting-thinly-for-value-after-checking-back-flopWe've all had it happen to us--we raise with pocket kings, get a few callers and the board comes out with an ace. We dread our luck and proceed with the rest of the hand very cautiously. However, if you watch a really good no limit player you'll see that that he finds spots to get thin value in this situation. Usually, this means checking the flop and betting both the turn and the river, especially headsup. Take for example we raise to $20 UTG in a $5-5 game. It gets folded around to the BB who calls. The flop comes out A72 rainbow. The big blind checks and we decide to check back because it is very difficult to get called by a weaker hand unless there is some sort of crazy history. The turn is a queen, bringing a backdoor flush draw and our opponent checks again. This is a great spot for us to bet. Normally if the big blind checks here after we check back the flop he doesn't have an Ace. There are now several draws that we can get value from as well as a hand like QJ or QT. We bet a little smaller to induce those calls and make it $25. The big blind calls. The river is an off suit 7 and our opponent checks again. The pot is $90 and we bet $50. Our opponent tanks for a bit and calls with a Q and we win a nice little pot. You see amateur players miss these thin value spots all of the time. The key here was our check on the flop with a medium strength hand, allowing our opponent to make a weaker hand and extracting value from that hand. The same can be said when we flop second pair good kicker after being the preflop raiser. Let's say we have AJ and raise to $20 from middle position and both the blinds call us. The flop comes out KJ2r. It gets checked to us and we check it back. The turn is the 7:c: bringing a backdoor flush draw. It's checked to us again and we bet $40. The small blind calls. The river pairs the deuce and the small blind checks to us again. This a great spot to bet small and we bet $45. The sb thinks for a while and calls us with a J. It is amazing how light people will call down when you show weakness by checking the flop. On the flip side to this you have to be willing to call down much lighter after checking the flop especially when most opponents river betting ranges are completely polarized (big hand or a bluff). If in the above example with KK our opponent bet the turn, and when the draw bricked out bet the river we would seriously have to consider calling down as most players aren't capable of value betting a weak ace. The simple fact that you checked the flop makes your opponents bluffing frequency higher and we must adjust.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turning-counterfeited-hand-into-a-bluffhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turning-counterfeited-hand-into-a-bluffSat, 11 Aug 2012 13:24:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/turning-counterfeited-hand-into-a-bluffOne of the most frustrating things that can happen in big bet hold'em is having an opponents over pair in bad shape with two pair and then getting counterfeited on the river. It's extremely annoying especially when we expected to make a good amount of value on the river. For some reason though, even if players recognize that they are up against a probable better hand, they will just check and give up--not realizing that this very well might be a good spot to turn your hand into a bluff. In reality especially on non drawy boards bottom two that has become counterfeit has no showdown value at all. Let's look at the following example. Say a good, tight opener raises from early position to $40 in a $5-$10 No limit game and we call with 5:s: 4:s: with $2000 effective stacks. The board comes out T:c: 5:h: 4:d: and our opponent bets $75. We hope that this player he has an overpair so we start to build a pot up right away and make it $250. He calls rather quickly. The turn comes an 8:s:, he checks and we bet $375. Our opponent thinks for a long time and calls. The river is a horrifying T:d:. Our opponent checks and we check back our worthless two pair. He tables JJ and takes down a nice size pot. I'm never a huge fan of bluffing players off of overpairs at the lower levels but sometimes this can be a rare spot to do it in. Especially on a non draw heavy board where top pair has now paired its difficult for our opponent to put us on a hand that he beats. There were no real draws on this flop and now he can't even beat top pair, although if you think a little bit deeper, and we are a good player, it's really tough for us to have just trip Ts. However, in general recreational live players are bad hand readers and get scared of boards that actually don't make a lot of sense. Of course you can also be counterfeited by another card pairing besides top pair. Say, for example, instead of the T coming on the river an 8 paired. Now we have the same counterfeited, worthless two pair but our opponent maybe far less likely to fold a hand like KK, which has now made Ks up on the river. For this same reason if we actually flopped a set instead of bottom two we should absolutely bomb the river for value with our full house when checked to especially if we are almost certain that our opponent has an overpair.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/seat-changinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/seat-changingSat, 04 Aug 2012 13:17:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/seat-changingMany players get overly content when they are winning in a session. There maybe a lot of chips in front of you and sometimes it can be a pain to physically move. Do not fall into this trap. Do we not want to do things that will help us win more money? The minor inconvenience of moving can actually drastically increase your win rate. Sitting to certain players’ right can be a big advantage. In fact, I like to have weak, passive players to my right as opposed to the more wild, aggressive ones. Some people like it the other way around. But I look at it like if I have a fit or fold player to my right I can constantly isolate them and I will then be printing money by using my positional advantage against their weaknesses. I think that people spend too much time trying to get to the left of aggressive opponents and do not spend enough effort extracting money from weaker players that we can get ourselves position on. A big chunk of my win rate is from attacking these less skilled opponents at the table not mixing it up with the better, aggressive players. I think that this concept is lost on a lot of people. There are some opponents, though, that are so aggressive you want to be to their left because they make your life a living hell. This is especially the case against good, aggressive players in PLO. This is not a common occurrence, however, in the low to mid-stakes no-limit games. You really should concentrate on gaining position against the players that you think are the weakest at the table.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pot-control-is-overratedhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pot-control-is-overratedSat, 28 Jul 2012 13:09:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/pot-control-is-overratedI am not sure who came up with the term “pot control” but nowadays you hear it referenced much more in tournaments than in cash games. There was a time, however, where pot control was very trendy in ring games. I remember doing episodes of Live at the Bike back in 2006 where even good players would check back their overpairs on the turn because they did not want to play a big pot with one pair. The really interesting thing though was that the frequency of check-raise bluffs and semi-bluffs especially on the turn was quite low. By checking back all they were really doing was losing value from draws and giving free cards to opponents that had decent equity. The same thing can be said now especially at the lower levels. You really do not have to concern yourself with getting bluffed on the turn especially in three-bet pots. Most people are aware that your range consists of a significant amount of overpairs and strong hands after putting a lot of money in the pot and they are not going to try and get you off of those holdings without a big hand or draw themselves.I have written a lot about bet-folding and raise-folding the last few weeks in this column. If you can successfully bet for value and then fold when you face resistance than you are way out in front of most of the player pool at the $5 or $10 big blind level of live no-limit.Now of course, there are times when you can check back the turn for value with a strong hand thinking that maybe your opponent cannot call both a turn and a river bet. But this is not to say that you are “pot controlling.” In fact, there is nothing wrong with taking this concept entirely out of your game for low and midstakes no-limit holdem. The sheer fact of the matter is unless you are up against ridiculously good, aggressive players and you are super deep stacked there is rarely a need to pot control in no-limit cash games. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unknown-playershttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unknown-playersSat, 21 Jul 2012 14:28:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/unknown-playersWhenever I think about unknown players I am reminded of a hand that I played at the Commerce Casino about one year ago. The game was $5-$10 no-limit with a $1500 max buy-in. I had had a pretty good session and was up to $4000. The table next to us just broke and a new, young, Asian guy had just sat down with $5000. He appeared to play pretty tight for two orbits until we got mixed up in the following hand. I opened to $35 in mid position with 8:s: 9:s:, the button called and this guy reraised to $175 out of the big blind. Because I thought he was tight and we were deep I decided to call in position. The button folded and we were heads up. The flop came out Q:s: 9:c: 8:d: and the villain bet $250. Obviously I was ecstatic. This was exactly the situation that I wanted to be in as I thought that it was likely that he had aces or kings. Right away, as I do most of the time at this level, I decided to raise to $700 to build up a pot. To my shock the villain then instantly moved me all-in. In the old days of no-limit (more than five years ago) I would have snapped called here figuring that there was a good enough chance that my opponent was overvaluing a big overpair. However, as the game has evolved people are much less likely to push back with their overpairs after getting raised--although tighter guys still cannot fold them. But usually players will revert into a check-call shell. This guy was younger which can be interpreted in a number of different ways. Usually, I go with the assumption that younger players have better fundamentals than their nittier, older counterparts and are less likely to overplay their hands. I came to the conclusion that it was unlikely that this guy would push so much money in facing a flop raise and I gave him credit for QQ or some sort of light three-bet with JT. Much to my dismay after tanking for five minutes and folding he told me "good lay down" as he flipped up AA. One orbit later I observed this player limp in under the gun with J:h: 4:h:. I felt sick to my stomach as I realized that this guy was inexperienced. Poker is a game of incomplete information and you must tag unknowns as good or bad as quickly as possible. That little bit of information--the fact that the guy limped in with J4--would have made my decision in the crazy all-in hand totally different. Make sure that when new players come to the table that you pay attention to their first few hands. This will make big decisions a lot easier down the line.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rarely-check-call-the-riverhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rarely-check-call-the-riverWed, 04 Jul 2012 14:16:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rarely-check-call-the-riverOne of the biggest mistakes that I see at the lower stakes of no-limit is the check-call on the river. In an earlier article I talked about how important it is to raise-fold when playing deeper stacks. That concept stems from one of the most important in live no-limit—the bet-fold. Bet-folding refers to betting with a hand that you think is best and then folding to a raise. The mere fact, especially on the river, that your opponent raises, usually gives us enough information to know that our hand is no longer good. For some reason most recreational players are scared of bet-folding which is why you see so much check-calling. Rampant check-callers lose a ton of value especially on later streets. Let’s take a look at an example. We raise in early position with A:c: A:h: to $10 in a $1-$2 no-limit game with $300 effective stacks and the button calls. The board comes out K:c: 5:d: 2:c:. We bet out $20 and our opponent calls. Turn is a T:s:. We bet $50 and are called again. The river is the 7:c: completing the flush. What is the best play here? Most players at the $1-$2 level would check-call. However, if we look at the combinations of hands that would call both our big flop and turn bets we see that there is actually more of a chance that our opponent has top pair. If our opponent does have a hand like KQ or KJ and we check he will merely check back the river and we will win. However, if we make a small value bet, especially at this level, we are likely to get called. If our opponent was on a flush draw he will most likely raise the river and we can fold. The worst option is for us to check and then call a bet. Especially when the scare card comes it is so likely that your average player will check back one pair here. If in fact he does bet he most likely has one pair beaten. You can even make the case that the river is more of a check-fold then it is a check-call but checking is giving up way too much value. You really should be bet-folding most rivers when you have what appears to be the best hand unless the board runs out in a way where it is difficult to get called by worse. There are two reasons where you should check-call the river but they are normally misused. The first and most common is to induce a bluff. The best times we should do this are usually in spots where our hand is only medium strength and it is tough for us to get called by worse if we bet again. Let’s use the same example from above but change our hand from AA to K:d: J:d: and change the river to a 7:s:. We again bet both the flop and turn but on the river our hand basically loses to any other king that would call a preflop raise. There is not a lot of value in betting again because the flush draws will fold. However, we may want to consider check-calling if we think our opponent is capable of bluffing a flush draw. Again, we would never want to make this play with a hand like AA or AK because we lose all the value from those weaker kings on the river. It is also a common misconception that people will all of a sudden bluff big when they miss if you have shown strength throughout the entire hand. Say you raised preflop and then bet close to pot on the flop and turn into three people. You have basically announced that you have a pretty strong hand and even clueless players will realize that when you check on the river you are not going to fold especially in big pots where the draw misses. That is why we should concentrate on getting thin river value as the pots get big not catching bluffs. The second reason why you may want to check-call the river usually only applies in bigger, tougher games or against good players. Basically you check to get your opponents to “value-own” themselves. Value-owning refers to when a player bets a hand that they think is best for value and gets called by a better hand. Sometimes it is best to allow your opponents to value-own themselves because if you come out and bet the river they might fold. Here is an example of this—Let’s say a 70 year old tight guy raises to $50 from up front in a $5-$10 no-limit game with A:c: Q:c: and $1500 effective stacks. A young, skilled professional covers him and calls in position with K:d: Q:d:. The board comes out Q:s: 5:s: 2:h:. The 70 year old bets out $75 and the professional calls. The turn is the 9:h:. The old guy bets $100 and the professional calls once again. The river is the 3:h: and the old guy checks. The professional, wanting to make it look like he missed a flush draw, now bets big --$300 for value. The old guy calls and scoops the pot. If the old guy had actually come out and bet $300 on the river there is a good chance that the professional would have folded. Three bets from a tight upfront player is usually going to mean that KQ is no good. However, since the old guy checked he actually gets the professional to “value-own” himself making even more money. There is an in depth discussion about bet-folding and river play on my Deuce Plays podcast “Citizen James Part I and II.”Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/weak-draws-in-multiway-potshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/weak-draws-in-multiway-potsWed, 27 Jun 2012 14:10:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/weak-draws-in-multiway-potsIt is pretty rare that you find yourself drawing virtually dead when playing no-limit hold’em. Even if you get it in preflop with rags against aces usually you are going to have at least ten percent equity. Much like when people overvalue top pair and a flush draw, like I discussed in a previous article, a lot of inexperienced players do not recognize situations where they are likely to be up against a made hand and a dominating draw. If you find yourself in this situation you basically have a 0% chance to win the hand. These spots can sometimes be tricky to recognize as we may be getting some great pot odds in multiway pots.Let’s take a look at an example. Say an early position player with an $800 stack raises to $20 in a $2-$5 no-limit game. A mid position player calls with a $700 stack and we overcall covering both players with 8:d: 9:d:. The flop comes out big for us—Q:d: 9:s: 3:d:. The preflop raiser checks and the mid position player bets out $50. We decide to raise to $175 thinking that we can get the mid-position player off of a queen. The preflop raiser now check-raises to $500. The original better thinks for a while and calls. What kind of hands do we think that our two opponents have? Normally, the preflop raiser would bet out with AA or KK on this board not go for a check-raise. And, especially after this crazy action in front of him, check-raising with those types of hands would be a big overplay. In reality, he most likely has a monster like top set when he check-raises both a bet and a raise. His sizing suggests extreme strength and even though he did not push all-in we can treat his play as all-in as he is never going to fold. The mid-position player’s flat call after tanking would suggest some sort of big draw. He could have K:d: J:d:, K:d: T:d:, J:d: T:d: or A:d: X:d:. His flat and not reraise all-in skews his range towards one of these hands as he would probably choose to protect and shove if he had a hand like 33 or Q9. Even though we are getting incredible pot odds (over 2-1 with two cards two come) with our pair and flush draw we are most likely drawing dead. In fact the only way we could win here is if we made running quads or some sort of running straight flush.This is definitely a rare situation in hold’em but is something that you should be aware of. I have seen big pots won and lost when a third player in the hand is crushed by a bigger draw and is up against a made hand. You have to recognize these spots when they come up and do everything to avoid them. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raise-foldinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raise-foldingWed, 20 Jun 2012 14:01:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/raise-foldingOne of the most powerful tools of a world class no limit player is the raise-fold for value. Raise-folding refers to raising with what one thinks is the best hand but then folding when getting reraised. The reraise, especially on the river, is such a strong play by your opponent that you can almost always surmise that your hand is no good. Most players will not make this play because they have trouble laying down good hands. They do not want to open the betting back up and be faced with a tough decision. What these players do not realize is that the mere fact that their opponent has reraised the river usually means that he has a nut hand. The frequency of someone ever making a play as a bluff after getting raised on the river is basically zero. Second nut hands are usually great spots to make big raise-folds. Let's look at an example. In a $2-$5 no limit game with $1500 effective stacks we open in the cutoff to $20 with K:h: Q:h:. Everyone folds to the big blind who calls. The flop comes out big for us K:c: 5:h: 2:h:. Our opponent checks and we bet $30, he calls. Turn is a 9:d:. Our opponent checks, we bet $70 and he calls again. The river is the 7:h:. Our opponent bets out $150. Clearly the big blind is representing a flush. He called two big bets on the flop and turn and is now betting large when the draw has hit. What should we do?A lot of non-sophisticated opponents would only call fearing the ace high flush. They do not realize that they lose an incredible amount of value from smaller flushes by not raising. We should probably make it about $550 total and then if our opponent ships all in we can almost positively say that he has the nut flush and fold even getting over 2-1. You should also notice that we hold the third nut flush blocker with the Q:h: so it is unlikely that our opponent is overplaying a smaller flush. Of course, at the lower levels, you have to be aware of inexperienced players overvaluing their hands. 
Raise-folding for value is one of the intricacies of playing a deep stack well. In smaller capped games usually you will not have the maneuverability to raise and then fold to a reraise so you have to evaluate if you think that it is profitable to raise over the top of a bet knowing that you will not be able to later release.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/running-it-twicehttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/running-it-twiceWed, 13 Jun 2012 13:54:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/running-it-twiceRunning the cards more than once is a way to decrease the variance in a hand by chopping the pot into multiple, smaller pots. If you run the cards twice there are two pots, three times three pots and so on and so forth. No matter what anyone tells you running the board multiple times does not change the odds of the hand. There is no strategy behind it and it makes no difference what you hold. Running it more than once only decreases the variance. The more times that you run it the closer the result will come to the actual equity in the hand. Running cards multiple times came about from trying to keep games from breaking and keeping people in action. If a player went bust and there were not enough people to fill the table the game would sometimes die. Now, more and more casinos are allowing players to run it more than once and some players are trying to take advantage of the situation. Players commonly ask when deciding whether or not to make big calls all-in if the other player in the hand will run it more than once. This is an issue especially when you are trying to maximize your fold equity with a draw. Why would you want your opponent to know that you will run it more than once and not instill the fear that he could lose all of his chips? It also works the other way around when players try to push you around with their draws. If they know that you will run it more than once they are more likely to make an aggressive action because if they get called there is less of a chance that they will lose all of their chips. A second and probably more important reason that I don't like to run the cards is because I feel like I have better emotional control than most other players. If I lose a big pot I am way less likely to tilt compared to my opponents. As the skill level of players start to increase you'll find that a lot of money is won and lost when certain players tilt. You want to give those players the opportunity to lose their cool. One of the best ways to do this is to break them--not give them an opportunity to win back some of the pot.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/chopping-the-blindshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/chopping-the-blindsWed, 06 Jun 2012 13:44:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/chopping-the-blindsIf you have ever played in live cash games you know that there is a decision to be made when everyone folds to the small blind--"Do you chop?” For those of you that are unfamiliar with chopping basically this means that both blinds fold their hands and there is a reduced or no drop. This makes a lot of sense in smaller stakes drop games as a good percentage of the pot is taken when only two players remain. In a $1-$3 no limit game where the drop is $4+$1 eighty percent of the pot is dropped if limped when headsup. In deeper stacked games or games with a time collection it is in many cases +EV not to chop. The biggest reason I do it is because it really gets under my opponents’ skin. You would be amazed how angry people get when you tell them that you do not chop. They think to themselves "I'm going to get this guy" and it makes them play terribly throughout the entire hand. Let's look at an example of a hand that I played last week at the Bicycle Casino. It was $5-$10 no limit, uncapped, and I was in the big blind with K :s: K :c:. Action folded around to the small blind who immediately went to throw his cards in and take his money back. I stopped him and said "I don't chop." "You don't chop?", he replied perplexed. I could see the anger brewing in his face. He then threw in a $5 dollar chip to complete. I raised $35 more and he slammed his chips in for a call. The flop came out Q :s: 5 :d: 7 :d:. He checked and I bet $75, he called. The turn came the 2: h:. He checked again, I bet $200 and he snap called. At this point I thought that there was a really good chance that he had a queen and I was going to basically value bet any river. Fifth street fell a T :c:. I knew that he was pissed off and that my line looked like I was trying to put pressure on him. He checked again and I decided to bomb it and bet $700. He insta-called and tabled Q :c: 3 :c:. Later I learned that this particular player was extremely tight and never would have played Q3 suited in any situation. He was so frazzled however by the fact that I didn't chop that he lost over 100bbs with a garbage hand.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-from-blindshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-from-blindsWed, 30 May 2012 14:28:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/check-raising-from-blindsPeople at small stakes live no limit games fall into a lot of predictable patterns. One of the most common is the propensity for them to check-raise two pair out of the blinds in limped pots. There are a number of reasons why I believe this to be a weak play. We will use the following hand as an example. Say it gets limped around five ways and we check J4os in the big blind. The flop comes out J :s: 7 :c: 4 :s:. We check and the under-the-gun bets out $15 into $25. One player in the field calls. It gets back to us and we check-raise to $100. The under-the-gun better quickly folds and the cut off tanks for a bit shows KJ and also folds. Is what just happened really a good thing? We did win the pot and we avoided some difficult decisions later on if the draws had come in. However, we have gotten an opponent whom we could have extracted multiple streets of value to fold.I have mentioned the adage “way ahead way behind” in some of my previous columns. You never want, in no-limit holdem, to make such an aggressive action or bet where you get everything that is weaker than your hand to fold and only better to continue on. This is one of if not the MOST important concept in no-limit holdem and people make bets that break this rule all of the time. I go into a detailed explanation of this in my latest free episode of Deuce Plays titled “Deuce Plays Premium Why So Much?” By checking raising with two pair out of the blinds often time you will get weaker top pair types of hands to fold and only better hands to continue on. A better line would be to come out and bet from the blinds with these types of holdings and get a hand like KJ to call. You then build a pot up and can extract even more value from weaker on subsequent streets. Obviously, there are some hands that you can get value from by check-raising two pair like draws. However people at the lower levels seem to size their check-raises too large. They want to “protect” their hands from the draws instead of trying to extract value from them. You actually want the draws to call you so long as you do not pay them off later on in the hand if they complete.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-playhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-playWed, 23 May 2012 14:13:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/river-playWhoever came up with the phrase “if I called the turn and nothing changes I have to call the river” is not experienced in big bet poker. In fact, you can make some very tough folds on the river because you called a big bet on the turn. Most opponents, especially at the lower levels, are incapable of three barrel bluffing or value betting thin when the pot is large. Because of this we can often come to the conclusion that if our opponent bets big on the river after we call the turn he has a strong hand. Let us take an example--With effective stacks of $700 we raise from under-the-gun to $20 with A :d: A :c: in a $2-$5 no-limit game and get two callers. The board comes out J :c: 5 :d: 2 :s:. We bet $40 into $60 and the big blind check-raises us to $140. We call. Turn is the 6 :h:. The big blind bets out $200 and we call. River is the T :s:. The big blind moves all in for $360. The T on the river here is a pretty inconsequential card. Most likely if we are beat we were beat before the river. Why do we call the turn then? The answer is simple—to evaluate if we have the best hand and so that we can safely fold the river. Our turn call looks so strong and because we appear to be getting decent pot odds on the river we gain information about the strength of our opponents hand by the shear fact that he has bet once again--especially if it is all-in. We can use the same technique if we are playing a hand from out of position. Most low-level players love to go to showdown on the river with their medium strength hands especially as the pot gets big. Let us say we were out of position in the above example. We bet $40 first to act and are raised to $140 on the flop. We call. Our opponent keeps the pressure on us and we check call $200 on the turn. On the river we once again check, and our opponent checks back AJ. You see this type of play all of the time. Lower level players get scared when the pot gets big and are frightened that they may get raised off of their hand when they bet the river. For this reason they often go to showdown with hands that are worth value-betting. Because we have this information we can safely check fold a lot of rivers because we know that this type of opponent will only bet his monster hands and check back all of the holdings that we beat.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluff-catchinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluff-catchingWed, 16 May 2012 13:58:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluff-catchingThe nuts change street by street. Good poker players realize that sometimes their very strong hands may only beat a bluff with the given action. Weaker players do not know that their own hand strength is actually irrelevant in certain situations—your opponent either has what he is representing or he does not. Let us take a look at an example. Say in a $1-$2 game with effective stacks of $300 we raise with Q :h: Q :s: to $10 and three people call. The flop comes out very favorable for us—Q :c: 3 :s: 2 :c:. We bet out $30 and one person from out of position calls. The turn is a T :h:. Our opponent checks, we bet $70, and again he calls. The river is one of the absolute worst cards the deck a 6 :c:. Our opponent now open moves all-in for $190. So many times I hear inexperience players say in this situation, “I have a set I have to call” not realizing that their own hand strength does not matter. Their opponent either has a flush, straight or is bluffing. The fact that they have three queens is basically the same as having AQ or to a more extreme extent ace high if we think that our opponent either has a flush or a busted straight draw like A5. It is very difficult for lower level players to fathom this concept yet it comes up all of the time. In many cases your very strong hand has the equivalent hand strength of ace high given the action of the hand and with what your opponent is representing. They simply have it or they do not. Now, this is a very extreme example and sometimes a set may beat a lesser holding that your opponent may be value-betting but especially when the scare card comes on the river—and often it is a third suit—people shut down with anything less than a flush. If they are betting big they ether have the flush or are trying to represent it. The strength of your own hand is irrelevant and a second nut holding may become just a bluff catcher. Let us look at another example. We raise in position with K :h: Q :h: over one limper and get the pot heads up in a $2-$5 game with effective stacks of $500. The board runs out 9 :h: 2 :h: 3 :s: T :h:. We bet both the flop and turn and are called on both streets. The river comes a 4 :h: putting out four hearts on board. Our opponent now bets big into us on the river. We know that he is relatively passive and would not bet anything less than the king high flush. Even though we hold the second nuts our hand is basically the equivalent of holding no flush at all. He is either bluffing or has the nut flush. We know that he is not betting anything weaker for value.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/implied-oddshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/implied-oddsWed, 09 May 2012 13:39:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/implied-oddsOften times I will make really big calls with draws. In fact, I get a lot of weird looks after making a pot sized call on the turn and snap folding the river. People constantly underestimate the value of their draws especially when there is a good chance our opponent has a big hand. We actually want the players we are calling against to have the nuts—there is much more of a chance that we will get paid off. Many players at the lower levels do not realize that when a draw comes in their hand becomes a bluff catcher--no matter how strong their holding was on a previous street. You can check out the Deuce Plays episode “Bluff Catcher” for a further explanation of this concept and I will be expanding upon a bluff catching tweet in a later article. When evaluating whether or not to call with a draw we must calculate our implied odds—the money that we will make by a future bet on a later street. I use a basic formula to determine if I will call with a draw. I call it the “Forty Five Unseen Card Rule”. It is not exact but it is more precise than some other well known techniques. Simply put, I divide forty five by my number of outs. Say we have a flush draw on the turn (nine outs). We divide 45/9 giving us one chance in five. This means we must make 4 to 1 on our opponents’ turn bet size. Let’s look at the below example. We have 7 :c: 8 :c: and are out of position on the turn. The board reads A :c: K :c: 2 :h: 3 :s:. Our opponent bets $150 into a $200 pot and he has $800 left in his stack. We have nine outs and need to make 4 to 1 to call. We multiple $150 by four and get $600. On the turn we call $150 to win $350 immediately so if we hit we need to bet $250 ($600-$350) on the river to make our turn call profitable. Let’s look at a bigger draw—say we have 6 :h: 7 :h: on a Q :h: T :h: 4 :s: 3 :c: board. We now have twelve outs and divide 45/12 giving us a 1-in-3.75 chance of hitting or 2.75 to 1. If our opponent bets $200 into a $200 pot we must make $550 total (2.75 x $200) so when we hit bet at least $150 ($550-$400) on the river to make your turn call +EV. This process may look a little daunting at first but if you practice and can do simple addition and division it is a fairly fast and accurate way to precisely evaluate how much you have to bet on a future street to make the previous street’s call profitable. There is a detailed explanation of this math in Deuce Plays episode “Draws”. I also go into the concept of reverse implied odds (the chances of hitting your draw and NOT be good) and how the math effects those scenarios. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/preflop-mathhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/preflop-mathWed, 02 May 2012 13:19:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/preflop-mathOne of the simplest leaks to plug when playing small level no-limit cash games is calling with the wrong kind of hands preflop. Most of the time the games are not deep enough to make large preflop calls with speculative implied odds types of hands.There is an easy formula that can be referenced when evaluating whether to call or fold preflop. I call it the “Ten-Times Twenty-Times” rule and it also applies to gapped suited connectors. Basically the rule states that you must make ten times the raise size from the total pot when set mining, twenty-times the raise size when calling with suited connectors and thirty times the raise size from gapped suited connectors. The “total pot” references the amount won by the end of the hand—which is another way of saying your opponents’ effective stack. Let’s look at an example. Say we are playing a $1-$2 no-limit game where we have $300 and our opponent has us covered. He raises to $20 and we hold 44 in position. How do we determine if we can call? Just multiple the raise size ($20) by ten and the rule dictates that we need to make $200 from the total pot to call. Since the effective stack sizes are $300 we can call. The actual odds in flopping a set are about one out of 8.5. We use one out of ten to account for the times that we flop a set and our opponent misses or has a hand like KK on an ace high board. We can use the same math when dealing with suited connectors and gapped suited connectors. In the above example if our opponent raised to $20 we could not call with a hand like 5 :c: 6 :c: because if we multiple the raise size times twenty we end up with $400—but our effective stacks are only $300. The same could be said if he raised to $15 and we held 9 :h: 7 :h:. Here, we multiple the preflop raise size by thirty and realize that we are not deep enough to continue on.The math here is really simple and will immediately increase your win rate. The formula is only intended as a rough guide, however. Some have made the argument that to set mine we actually need fifteen or twenty times especially in tougher games where opponents will not stack off easily with overpairs. You should also adjust the numbers when calling opponents that have much looser opening ranges because it is more unlikely that they will not have a big hand when we flop a set.Be aware of playing suited connectors and gapped suited connectors from out of position. Even if you are getting the correct twenty or thirty times most of the time it is not going to be profitable to call heads up from out of position. You too frequently flop a draw with these types of hands and are at a big disadvantage when playing first to act. If I am playing against a really tough opponent from the blinds—especially if they have a wide opening range from late position—I may not call with small pocket pairs either. Too often I will get bluffed off of the best hand or hit my set and not win the ten times I am looking for. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/backdoor-flusheshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/backdoor-flushesWed, 25 Apr 2012 07:07:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/backdoor-flushesHand reading is a critical element in becoming a big winning player at no-limit holdem. One of the most confusing things for a beginner is to recognize the possibility of your opponent making a backdoor flush. Commonly this happens on dry, rainbow boards where our attention is taken away from the possibility of the board running out flushing. One of the important things to watch is which cards on a rainbow board are not the flush suit.Say we are playing in a $2-$5 game and we hold A :h: A :s: in the cutoff with effective stacks of $700. It gets folded to us and we raise to $20 on the button. The big blind calls. FLOP K :d: 7 :c: 2 :h:. BB checks, we bet $30 and he calls. TURN 5 :c:. BB checks, we bet $75 and he calls. River 3 :c:. BB checks, we bet $150 and he check raises all-in. It is extremely likely that our opponent holds K :c: X :c:. It is very important to notice that the top pair on the flop was not a club. Let’s change the flop to K :c: 7 :d: 2 :h:. It is now unlikely that your opponent has made a flush unless he is making a light peel with 7 :c: X :c:.We can use the same logic when the board contains a straight draw or a front door flush draw. Let’s say we hold K :c: K :h: on a Q :d: 2 :c: 3 :c: board. We bet and our opponent calls. Turn is an 8 :d:. We bet again and our opponent calls. River is a 7 :d: and our opponent now makes a gross over bet all-in from in front. Chances are our opponent has a hand like A :d: 5 :d:, A :d: 4 :d:, 5 :d: 6 :d: or 4 :d: 6 :d: not a busted club draw. Again, it is really important to notice which cards do not contain the backdoor flush on the flop and how light our opponents will call us early on in the hand. Some players will never peel with a 4 on a K :d: 4 :h: 2 :s: board where others will call with any piece of the flop. Of the looser players they may very well make a backdoor flush with 2 :d: X :d: or a gutshot like 5 :d: 6 :d:. I would not take this advice too far however, and start bluffing when backdoor draws appear. For the same reasons that we are good players and can recognize when we are beat most players at the lower levels are not as advanced and will not fold big hands to our bluffs. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/small-flop-rasieshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/small-flop-rasiesWed, 11 Apr 2012 19:44:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/small-flop-rasiesOne of the easier things to spot in live no-limit games is the predictability of hand strength through raise sizing. Small raises on the flop, especially on wet boards, are almost always indicative of top pairish types of hands. You can use this information to your advantage especially facing a small check raise on the flop in position. After you call and then face a small turn bet if the river is checked to you you can almost always bet top pair good kicker for value. A lot of the time, especially if the draw misses, you will get paid off. Let's look at an example:In a $2-$5 no-limit game with effective stacks of $800 we open raise to $20 in the cutoff with K:d: Q:d:. It gets folded to the big blind who is pretty loose and he calls. FLOP: K:c: 5:c: 4:s:. He checks and we bet $30. BB check raises to $70, we call. Turn 9:d:. BB bets $85, we call. River 7:d:. BB checks. What is our play here? A clear cut value-bet is in order and expect us to get looked up by a weak K a lot. This particular situation gets misplayed all the time by inexperienced recreational players. Once the pot gets big low stakes players like to go to showdown especially in position. They always fear getting check-raised on the river, when in fact the frequency of check-raise river bluffing is almost nonexistent. One of the most common betting patterns of live players is their sizing in these types of situations. If they flop big, like two pair plus, especially on wet boards, and choose not to slowplay they will raise big. Players like this, especially if they are tight, are always scared that they are going to get sucked out on so they bet to protect against the draws. The chance that the villain has a set of 5s or 2s in the above example is very small due to his sizing.Some would ask then why we would not reraise the flop or raise the turn if we think that we have the best hand? There is a simple answer to this question and it is a concept called “way ahead way behind.” You never want to put so much money in the pot or take such an aggressive line where everything that is weaker than your hand folds and only stronger continues on. If you reraise the flop or bomb over the top of a turn bet your hand looks incredibly strong – strong enough where top pair medium kicker may very well fold. By calling the flop and the turn, especially on wet boards, our hand looks like a draw and we can value bet the river to death. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-cbettinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-cbettingWed, 04 Apr 2012 19:35:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/delayed-cbettingA delayed continuation bet refers to the preflop raiser betting the turn after checking the flop. It is very difficult to make a hand in hold’em and a lot of times a bet on the flop will show an immediate positive expectation. But we can sometimes risk less by waiting until the turn to bet. Delayed continuation bets are useful tools against tight players who have a very low bluffing frequency. Instead of betting on the flop we can simply check and see what our opponent does on the turn. If they check again we can go ahead and bet and usually take the pot. This is especially useful on boards that should hit our preflop raising range very strongly. Let’s say we isolate a tight limper in a $5-$10 game to $40 with 5:c: 6:c:. We get it headsup and the flop comes out A:d: K:c: J:s:. The limper checks to us. What should we do? At first glance it looks like a great spot to make a bet. That board should hit us a lot and we probably can get the limper to fold everything but an A or maybe KQ. However, we know that if we check back the flop all of the hands that would have called our bet will bet the turn. The hands that would have folded to our flop continuation bet will still check. We can see then that actually checking back the flop and waiting for our opponent’s next move is the most optimal play. We can use delayed continuation betting out of position as well. Say we raise A:d: J:d: under the gun and a tight player calls on the button. The flop is K:c: 7:d: 7:s:. If we bet we will get everything but a K or 7 to fold but if we check our opponent will only bet a K or 7. The right play then is to check and if our opponent checks to bet any turn. Continuation betting is one of the most important aspects of increasing your winrate in no-limit hold’em. There is an entire episode of Deuce Plays Premium titled “Cbets” that covers this topic in depth. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/using-oversized-chipshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/using-oversized-chipsMon, 02 Apr 2012 19:31:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/using-oversized-chipsRecreational players do not keep close track of pot size. This becomes really evident when you see players make small bets in proportion to the pot especially on the river. In fact, in some games, a $500 bet into a $2000 pot represents a huge hand – not a ¼ pot size block bet as it would online. Part of the reason why players have so much trouble tracking pot size is due to the large amount of small denominational chips that are in play. In most of the southern California games at $5-$10 and below casinos use only $5 and $100 chips. This leads to gigantic clusters of yellow ($5 chips) in large pots. If players aren’t doing the math street by street it is virtually impossible to tell the exact size of the pot. People have trouble making good estimates when things are in clusters. We tend to see piles as big or small – just like the way people judge poker pots. Most of the money we make in lower level cash games comes from value betting, not bluffing. That means that when a good player gets involved in a big pot they usually have the best hand. In order to maximize your winrate you want to make the biggest bets possible that will be called by inferior holdings. This is where the technique of spiking the pot with large chips comes into play. If I make my bets with $100 chips it is much easier for my opponent to actually recognize the correct pot size. If, on the river, there are eight white ($100) chips and a small pile of yellow I can make a $700 bet and our opponent will recognize this as less than pot. If, however, I have been betting with small chips my opponent will only see a large pile and have no idea how my sizing correlates to the size of the pot.The best way to spike the pot is to do so early as you start to bet on the flop. If you want to bet $75 instead of doing so with $5 chips throw in one $100 chip and declare “seventy five.” The dealer will then give you back twenty-five in yellow. This leads to a bigger bet that you can make on the turn. Let’s say you now bet $150 with two white chips. Now, on the river, the pot has been spiked with at least three of your $100 chips and hopefully some of your opponents. You can now bomb away for value and the villain has a better idea of the size of the pot. You can actually be a little crafty and use the opposite of this technique when running a bluff. Use your smaller denomination chips on early streets so that betting less on later ones looks bigger. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rake-considerationshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rake-considerationsWed, 28 Mar 2012 19:28:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/rake-considerationsOne of the most common questions that I receive is about the beatablity of live low stakes no-limit games. In southern California, a $200 max buy-in game with $2-$5 blinds drops $5 after the flop and $1 for the bad beat jackpot. This is a flat drop, not a rake. Once the flop comes out the full drop is taken. Unlike other games with a "rake" (a percentage of the pot up to a maximum) a drop leads to a very high proportion of money being taken from small pots.Let's look at an example. In a $2-$5 no-limit game a player in middle position limps and the button over limps. The small blind completes and the big blind checks (Pot $20). Then, $6 is dropped -- thirty percent of the pot. This leads to a scenario where it is almost always unprofitable (with the exception of stacks being very deep) for the button to over limp the first player. The rake consideration in drop games like this is enormous. If you play at this level you should be consciously aware of staying out of these single limped pots unless you plan on attacking the limper.I have discussed on my podcast the likelihood of beating these types of games. Several listeners have said that they can beat the $200 cap games for a small hourly rate. If you move down to the $100 cap game, however, the drop is reduced only by one dollar. At 30 hands per hour with the bad beat jackpot the casino literally takes all of the money off of the table within six hours.Because of the drop structures in these small capped games it is very difficult to build a bankroll without some sort of auxiliary income. Without online poker it is almost impossible for a new player to learn the game while consistently turning a profit. It is imperative that you pay attention to the amount of money you are paying to the casino at the lower levels.Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/limp-reraisinghttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/limp-reraisingWed, 21 Mar 2012 19:23:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/limp-reraisingNo-limit is a game of maximizing value. The name of the game is getting your opponents to put in money with inferior hands. You do not want to get into situations where you are making such big bets that you are getting weaker to fold and only stronger to continue on. The best way to do this is usually by playing your hands straight forward especially preflop. One of the easiest ways to spot a weak player is to notice if he habitually limp reraises. Normally you lose more value than you gain. Although this technique can be useful while playing the short stack it is usually not implemented in the right way. Let's say that we are under the gun with AA and have a $1,200 stack in a $5-$10 game. The table is loose and raises routinely get three or four callers. We limp, a few others limp and the button raises to $65. It gets back to us and we make it $300. Everyone folds and we take down the pot. To some, this may seem like a victory. But what if we had just played our hand straight forward and opened to a normal size raise preflop? We then encourage the dominated holdings like KJ and QT to come in; hands that we can extract multiple streets of future value from. Players simply have trouble folding top pair especially at the lower levels. The reason why weak players limp reraise so much is because they are scared to play post-flop. They've taken some bad beats with AA and KK and don't know how to release when they are behind. They attempt to "protect their hand" with large bets not realizing that they are losing an incredible amount of value from weaker holdings. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/top-pair-and-a-flush-drawhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/top-pair-and-a-flush-drawTue, 13 Mar 2012 21:05:00 -0400https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/top-pair-and-a-flush-drawOne of the most overplayed hands in live no-limit is top pair and a flush draw. It's amazing that people will commit their entire stack not realizing that they may have very poor equity given the action throughout the hand. Let's look at a common example. In a $2-$5 game with effective stacks of $700, under the gun opens to $25 and three people call including the two blinds. The board comes out T:c: 9:d: 7:d: and it gets checked to the button. He has K:d: T:d: and bets $60. The small blind calls and the big blind check raises all-in for $700. What now? If we put ourselves in the button's spot our hand looks strong but we are actually doing very poorly versus the big blind's range. It seems like he is trying to protect a made hand and at worst we should expect him to show up with two pair -- but he likely has a flopped straight or a set. We are getting laid less than 1.5-1 from the pot and we should clearly fold given that range. Even though our equity is not bad versus two pair or the nut-flush draw we are far behind the rest of the hands that he may show up with. I often see players snap call in this situation. They do not realize that when you flop top pair and a flush draw your hand is not as strong as it seems especially with heavy action in front of you. In fact, top pair can basically be irrelevant against your opponent’s holding except for the fact that you block some full house redraws. It is also common to see players in this situation get it in virtually drawing dead against a made hand and a dominating draw. Change that above scenario to a three way pot where we are up against 9 :c: 9 :s: and A :d: Q :d: and we have close to zero percent equity. Especially against opponents that play their draws fast we must be weary of a raise and a reraise. Another thing that people do not quite understand is that top pair and a flush draw actually does weaker than middle or bottom pair and a flush draw versus a preflop raising range when the top pair is a high card. Say, for example, the board is K:c: 8:d: 2:d: and we hold K:d: Q:d:. It seems like we’ve flopped a strong hand, but if the pre flop raiser has AK we would rather hold something like 8:d: 7:d: on a K:d: 8:c: 2:d: board. You must be aware of this when pushing draws especially with ace, king or queen high flops. Those extra two outs add up to about eight percent equity with two cards to come. There is an in depth discussion of these scenarios in my podcast “Deuce Plays” episode “Draws”. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/session-lengthhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/session-lengthWed, 07 Mar 2012 16:52:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/session-lengthYou’ve probably heard it since the first day you started playing—you should leave the table when you get badly stuck. Most players do not heed this advice and continue to play after getting buried. We are all human and most of us do not play our best game when we are losing. However, there is another, more important reason to stop playing when down—image. Most of us, when we think of a player’s image, think in terms of looseness or tightness. In live play, though, it is much more important to think of image in terms of winning or losing. You would be amazed at what you can get away with when you are winning big. Opponents think to themselves “He’s hot, I want to stay away from him.” This allows us to maneuver more and take control of the table. On the flip side when players see us lose they tend to want to go after us. Our continuation bets never get through and we are called down with the most ridiculous holdings. Let’s say our hourly in a live $2-5 $500 cap game is $40 per hour. This rate is an average --total money won divided by total hours. It is not constant, however. Would it surprise you to learn that your hourly with a good image might be as much as $70-80 in the same games? Or that you might be a break even player with a losing image? I often see recreational players hit and running, leaving after they are quickly up. The only time you see these players playing long sessions is when they are stuck. They put in many more hours with a terrible image making it impossible for them to beat the game. Don’t fall into this pattern. Take advantage of your winning image. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-scare-cardshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-scare-cardsTue, 28 Feb 2012 16:49:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/bluffing-scare-cardsIt’s easy to spot a flush draw. As opponents become more skillful they recognize when flushes are a good part of your range and pay you off less. Normally you don’t see players making big calls with straight draws or middle pair but why not? If players are going to fold when the third suit comes out, can we not profitably represent flushes with our other draws? The answer is an emphatic yes. In fact, I actually prefer to draw to straights in NL cash games because I will bluff scary flush cards. Let’s say a player from early position raises, MP calls and you call with 7 :h: 8 :h:. The flop comes out 5:h: 6:c: K:c:. The early position player comes out and bets close to pot. He’s tight, and you know that he will almost always have at least a king if he bets in to multiple opponents. You also know that he is capable of laying down hands when the obvious draw comes in. You call. The turn is the J:d:. He comes out and bets big again. Your open ended straight draw is only 8 outs and with his sizing you are not getting the right price to call. However, what if you decide to use a club as a bluff? Now, your draw has increased to 15 outs and the cards that make your hand are hidden. If a club comes you can bluff at the pot. If a 4 or 9 come there is a very good chance that you will get value as it looks like you’ve busted a flush draw. It’s the best of both worlds actually. You can use the same approach making big calls with second or bottom pair. Say in the above example we hold 7 :s:6 :s:. We are pretty sure that the cbetter again has at least a king but we continue on planning to bluff the flush. On the turn, we call another big bet; skewing our range towards flush draws. On the river we have 14 good cards to win the hand—9 club outs to bluff and another 5 two pair or trip outs. The key here is that the outs that make our hand are hidden and the flush draw is very apparent.Beware, don’t get too fancy. For the same reason that this play works profitably I would not recommend going for flush draws and bluffing when straights come in. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.comhttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/fastplaying-flopped-flusheshttps://crushlivepoker.com/articles/fastplaying-flopped-flushesTue, 21 Feb 2012 16:43:00 -0500https://crushlivepoker.com/articles/fastplaying-flopped-flushesOne of the most commonly slowplayed hands in No Limit is the flopped nut flush. Regardless of position it is almost guaranteed that the flopped nut flush will check or only call when bet in to. This is a problem for a number of reasons in a deeper stacked cash game. As play has evolved and recreational players get better people do not stack off as lightly--especially on scary boards. The best way to get a lot of money in the pot these days is to do so early, when only three cards are out. For example, let’s say in a $1-2 NL game with effective stacks of $600 an early position player raises to $10, a mid position player calls, and we call with A:s: T:s: on the button. The flop comes out 5:s: 8:s: 9:s:. The pre flop raiser checks and MP bets $20. What is the best play here? To answer this question we must evaluate MP’s range. He could have a medium strength hand like A9 or T9 or he could have a stronger hand like a set, straight or smaller flush. Let’s say we decide to slowplay like 99% of the player pool. The pre flop raiser folds. Pot $70. Turn 2:h:. MP bets $50. We again decide to “trap” and just call. Pot $170. River 3:h:. MP bets $120, we raise to $300. MP snap calls and tables K:s: J:s:. Whoops!! Even though we managed to extract $370 we have made a disastrous blunder in deep stack NL--we failed to stack a very strong second best hand with our nut hand. This is one of the most common mistakes I see from players who are inexperienced playing deep. When you flop huge in deep stacked No Limit sometimes you are going to have to hope that your opponent also flopped big. We are not concerned with stringing along a hand like T9 here, a hand that will most likely fold to a raise on the turn or river. If we had played our nut flush fast there is absolutely no way that we do not stack MP especially in a lower level No Limit game. Most of the time our opponent will either get it in on the flop or possibly check raise the turn. By slowplaying, though, we take what looks like such a strong line, he falls into check call mode (whether we wake up on the turn or the river) and we fail to get all of his money. What if he had a straight, two pair or set? Again, if you wait until the turn or river to raise you announce that your hand is big and you may well let him off the hook. Another reason not to play the hand in this manner is that a scary card might appear on a future street—like a fourth spade—killing all of our action. Crush Live Poker articlessupport@CrushLivePoker.com