arronwilson reviews select turbo speed hands in PokerTracker 4 in this video. He discusses playing strong hands, specifically deciding between raising and calling in certain spots, bet sizings and when it might be appropriate to fold your strong hand.
Thanks for posting a turbo video.
Jt
+1
Great to see some more good quality turbo videos.
Hi,
I liked this video of yours, I'm currently trying to improve on the turbos at micro/low stakes and I've found some interesting ideas here.
One question though: although I like the idea of playing big hands rather passively in order to keep his bluffs in and let him 3-barrel and bluff-shove the river, is this profitable enough against those cases where he has junk hands and catches lucky turn/river cards and beats us? Is it worth the risk? I mean, everytime you try to slowplay an aggressive opponent only to see his river "bluff" actually a lucky two-pair with 85o beating your AA, doesn't that make you feel stupid for not raising the turn? Is there a statistical way to prove that slowplaying these types of situations is more profitable for the HUs?
In a MTT you often decide against slowplaying because it's your tournament like at risk, but in grinding HU SNGs it's all about +EV so I believe my question deserves an analyze.
Also the same thing about flatting the 3bet IP with AA preflop.
Thanks!
You can model this.
If villain is spazzy enough he will spew off enough chips that it is more EV to slowplay because all the additional chips he spews off will more than compensate you for the times he outdraws you.
Hi thanks for the positive feedback everyone.
I actually have another video coming out that will go into hands like this in more detail Bogdan but I will over some situations explaining my reasonings for flatting and raising. In hands were we get checkraised on dry flops, lets say K 7 2 rainbow and we have Ak, when we get checkraised by viliian he mostly polarises his hand to value or bluffs, so his bluffs vs us is close to dead, theres only 1 overcard and we have it which would make us 2pair, there is no draws that he can hit to outdraw us on the turn.
So his no pair type hands is actually in very bad shape vs us, thats why I would always flat and let him barrel off. Lets say hes raising for value with KQ and he hits a Queen on the turn, it doesnt matter if we just call or raise his checkraise on the flop because the money is always going in no matter how we play our hand because he isnt folding KQ to us when he reraise his checkraise but we will fold out his air hands, same thing if the turn is a blank card and we just flat his checkraise on the flop when he has KQ, he will commit himself on the turn and the money will go in then or on the river. But by flatting we have also given him the chance to continue with his bluffs which is the most important aspect of the way ahead way behind concept.
In the hand where i flatted AA to a 3bet shallow im very confident this in more plus EV than 4bet shoving at that stackdepth. Our villian is folding out all the hands he was 3bet bluffing which we totally dominate when we flat, with stacks this shallow and the pot so bloated if he catches any pair or draw hes going to commit all his chips and may even just barrel off with his air that hopes we arent strong enough to call. For every one buyin we lose playing AA this way im confident we win at least 4 or 5 which is extremely profitable in the long run.
Thanks for the explanations, they all make sense.
One other question though: in your example with AK and K72 rainbow, it makes perfectly sense to let him blow off his chips with the lower end of his polarized range.
However, against the same aggressive villain, how would you play AhKh on a flop like KsTc3s ? What' better: protecting the hand versus draws by raising or keeping the same reasoning as before?
On Ks 10c 3s flop I think villian is less likely to be c/r here as a bluff than on the K 7 2 rainbow. He should expect us to continue more here than the dry king high flop, which is why most regs are checkraising dry high card flops as they know there is less combo of hands you can continue with.
On Ks 10c 3s when we get c/r I think there is more combos of top pair and draws than bluffs, so here I would click it back giving him enough room to shove over top pair, flush draws and QJ, even a aggro reg will shove over gutshots if he believes your checkraise is polar enough for him to have fold equity when he jams.
The most important thing here is to make your reraise not too commited looking and make villian believe he has fold equity when he shoves over. Some players arent going to call an allin with a flush draw or straight draw deep but they are happy to shove over with it if they think they have fold equity.
Thanks again.
But how do you balance the clicking back? Are you really going to click back in these situations, facing a check-raise on a wet flop, with complete bluffs? Because if you're not, then your range is not polarized. If you do, then it's just for the sake of balance.
Oh and also very important: how do you play a medium strength hand on this flop (e.g. Kh8h)? If your answer is betting, how do you deal with checkraise? Same question for a dry flop.
I hope you don't mind me asking so many questions, I just want to have a clear idea of the big picture in this spot because it's a sitution that happens so often (catching top pair after PF raise IP and getting check-raised). So to recap the possible situations that require an analysis (all assume you cbet and get checkraised):
- TPTK on dry flop - DONE
- TPTK on wet flop - how to balance the clicking back?
- TP medium kicker on wet flop - what to do?
- TP medium kicker on dry flop - what to do?
Thanks in advance and good run in your grinding!
Hi Bogdan, dont worry about asking too many questions, Im here to answer any questions you have from my video.
Its hard to answer all the questions you asked without going too much into detail but Ill try to address them as simple as I can.
I think to make it easier for you, you should be thinking ahead on how your villian can react to your cbet and how you will respond on the flop and all future streets. So you should already know what your plan of action is no matter what decision your opp takes, whether he c/r you or just calls.
So for example the AK on a K 72 rainbow, we already know we are cbetting and flatting a checkraise because of the reasons i stated before in the earlier comments.
With AK on the wet board we were cbetting and clicking it back leaving enough room for villian to shove over.
Your question is how do I balance that and this is where people are making a mistake. You honestly dont need to worry about that. I dont know what stakes you are playing but unless its medium to high stakes and you are playing a reg you have tons of history on and know you will be battling a ton in the future, balancing your range is something you dont need to be concerned with. Balancing your range is a fancy term people like to use which is overated. Thats for high stakes guys that have history on each other and are battling each other day in day out and trying to outlevel each other. Most of the guys you will be playing will be unknowns and most of them you will only play once and never see them again. If you are thinking about balancing your range and not taking the most +ev line because you think your hand looks face up and has no bluffs in it you are simply passing up on chips and playing too fancy.
Most of the guys your playing too wont even be thinking about your range, they will just be playing their 2 cards in connection to the board. I know tons of regs that when they are in these postions you are talking about they almost always have it and they are still making money because the guys they are playing are unknowns and arent thinking about their ranges and how balanced or unbalanced it is.
Your last question reguarding flopping top pair with a weak kicker on a dry board. Like i said before already know what your going to do if he checkraisese you. If you dont feel comfortable cbetting and calling it off simply check it back and delay cbet or bluffcatch with top pair if he leads turn. If your playing a opp who folds a ton to cbets but has a high probe turn and river % you can check behind top pair and from his stats he will bet turn and river valuebetting your hand for you, this way you avoid getting into a tricky spot on the flop if he was planning on checkraising you and you let his aggresion value bet 2 streets for you.
Great insight and very well explained! Thank you.
I'm switching from micro to low stakes and I'm studying a lot (videos, books, forums), trying to put all pieces of information together.
Hi Arron
Great videos and really good explanation of your thought process. The example in the video is one of of holding a strong TP hand with little chance of being outdrawn but how would you play a more vulnerable TP hand, say A9 / K9 / Q9 on 932r?
I often find myself in these situations early on in a match whilst we are still deep and I am unsure whether a CR is the best play. I ususally check call the flop and re-evaluate but then find myself facing further aggression and not really knowing where I am in the hand.
Is it a better play to make the CR with a more vulnerable TP to take the hand down or am I losing value by not taking a check call line?
Hi Jonathan, glad you enjoyed the video.
In situations where you flop top pair and a good kicker you should have an idea of how many big blinds you are happy to c/r get it in and how many BBs you think is too deep to be c/r getting it in and just c/c.
An exaggerated example is in a deep structured hu cash game is say k9 on a 239 flop we are c/r getting it in when we are shallow stacked and 200bbs we are just check calling because the times our oppenent is willing to get it in vs us we will usually be dominated. So getting it in with top pair shallow is never gona be bad and usually the right play but the deeper the effective stack sizes you get becomes less profitable because when our villian is willing to get it in vs us he should expect us to have at least top pair on dry boards so hes going to usually have that beat with overpairs and sets etc
So its still the same concept for husngs as our decisions is based on effective stack sizes. I think 25 bbs and under you can c/r here and get it in and deeper stacked say 50 - 75bbs you should just c/c. In between that I think should depend on your oppenents tendancies.
Vs passive players if you c/r them with TP they are unlikely to come back over the top of you with air and will just fold. Vs a passive opp when you just c/c they will just cbet then give up when called with their air hands, so on the turn when you get checked to you should have the best hand and can bet it to protect, vs the same type of opp when a overcard comes and they barrel the turn and river you can then justify folding. Vs aggro players that 3barrel you should be willing to bluffcatch here even on scarey turn cards because he will attack your range if he thinks its capped at middle pair etc when an overcard comes.
You shouldnt be checkraising to make the hand easier to play, you cant avoid tough spots, they are going to come up every now and again, but the more experience we get in these situations the more comfortable we will get playing these hands. Checkraising for informations is kind of outdated and sometimes players still get blown off the best hand by aggressive regs that think your checkraise is polarised so they click it back expecting your air to fold, or they realise you are capable of raising for information to make the hand easier to play and can fold to a reraise.
You dont define your hand as much with a c/c and you make yourself harder to play against and harder for your opp to put you on a range when your not just checkraising every time you flop top pair or better and check folding everytime you miss and check calling everytime you flop a draw or mid pair etc.
So to summarise when we c/r deep it should be really polar, our air hands and hands we are happy to get stacks in with and everything in between and even our monster hands like a set on a dry board we can even flat. This makes us harder to play against and your opp will have a tougher time putting you on ranges cause we define our hands less often.
The only way you could really exploit this strategy is to click back our c/r cause its full of monsters and air, but if we realise our opp is doing this we can adjust by starting to just c/c our monsters and let him barrel of vs what he thinks is a medium strength hand that is bluffcatching or we can even start to 4bet click it back or float with our air hands because he assumes it just folds to his flop 3bet, so on the turn he will just give up thinking we have a monster and we can take the pot away from him. Anytime you feel an opp is adjusting to your style you should readjust and he will be a few steps behind what he thinks you are doing but you dont need to think about this unless you guys are playing a lot vs each other or you think hes picking up reads on how you play.
je regarde avec intérêt mais là je viens de me prendre 3 jours de bads sur des micros j' ose pas monter tant que j' ai pas 100 buy in j' ai débuté le HU il y a 1 mois micro 0.50 1€ de temps en temps 20 (3 jouer 3 gagnés) et de temps en temps 5€ ou 3€. Mais je sors de ma ligne 100bb et ces jours de bad vs calling station m' a sapé le moral. Bon j' avais 70€ je tombée à 65 et là suis remonté à 68€ Il est vrai que dans ces cas là on aurait besoin d'une aide juste pour recadrer le moral. Vous avez une bonne réflexion et êtes très prudent.
I look with interest but there I have just taken myself 3 days of bads on micro and I not to rise as long as I ' have not 100 buy in I ' began the HU 1 month ago micro 0.50 1€ from time to time 20 (3 play 3 won) and from time to time 5€ or 3€. But I take out of my line 100bb and these days of bad vs calling station undermined the morale. Well I ' had 70€ I fallen in 65 and there went back to 68€ It is true that in these cases there we would need a just help to refocus the morale. You have a good reflection and are very careful.
If you want my skype I am ok lol
Hi thanks for the message but not exactly sure what you mean here. Something to do with not running to well in your games, google translator didnt do the best of jobs :) hope you get some of your buyins back and stay positive