An old student recently reminded me he had yet to cash in a video review he had paid for months ago, and asked if he could ask some questions instead. I said sure, and he allowed me to show it to you all. Enjoy!

1. I noticed from one of your recent videos that you stated ( I may be slightly off here) that Nash was a good guide for calling shoves when you have less than 8 BBs..however for anything more then it wasn't AS relevant. What are the reasons for this?

Just to be clear, 8bb isn't some magical number. NASH is an very good guide for what to call a shove with 4bb deep, and a rather poor guide for what to call a shove with 12bb deep, and it's a continuum, it doesn't just become a bad guide somewhere in the middle there. The biggest reason though is that 5bb deep, as long as your opponent's jamming range is pretty reasonable, there really isn't THAT big difference.

For example, let's say I have J5o for 5bb, and I can't remember if I'm supposed to call a shove or not. We need 40% equity. If our opponent is jamming the top 80% of hands, we have 42.8% equity. If our opponent is jamming with the top 55% of hands, we have 37.3% equity. Those are both pretty close. Jamming 55%-80% of hands 5bb deep is going to encapsulate a lot of villains 5bb deep, and it only becomes a big mistake either way once you get to the extremes of villains who are shoving ATC or less than half of the time. It's still extremely important to pick up on your opponent's tendencies and deviate from the chart accordingly, but if they are fairly normal, the chart is a great guide this short. On the other hand, let's take a hand like K5o 10bb deep. NASH says this is borderline, too. We need 45% equity. If our opponent is jamming as wide as NASH suggests, we can call. But if we're playing an opponent who is jamming a very reasonable range of the top 42% of hands (something like 22+,A2s+,K2s+,Q6s+,J7s+,T7s+,97s+,86s+,76s,A2o+,K5o+,Q8o+,J9o+), we're way off the mark, with just 40% equity. Remember, also, that at a deeper stack depth, that error is magnified even more. Missing the mark by 2% equity at 5bb is a -0.2bb/hand error. Missing the mark by 5% equity at 10bb deep is a -1.0bb/hand error, five times as bad.

In short, the deeper you are the more important your opponent's jamming range is.

2. I understand that you advocate flat calling raises from the big blind around 10-20 BBs with certain hands that dominate the persons SB minraising range (e.g KQ,K10,JQ etc). I understand the reasoning for this because obviously if you reship 18bbs for example he is going to fold a ton of Kx ans Qx that your dominating. However, don't you find yourself just check folding a lot of flops in this instance? Is the equity that you gain when the board comes K high and villain stacks off with K4 ( as an example), enough to counter all the times that you whiff the flop and are check folding? Also what are your thoughts on making a go and go with certain stack sizes? Especially against opponents who have shown a willingness to call a very high % of non all in 3bets??

10-20bb deep, I prefer 3betting KQ/KJ basically always. I think these are great hands to make non-allin 3bets with if you're deep enough that that makes sense (>16bb), you get flatted by a ton of dominated stuff and get a lot of extra value from hands that wouldn't call shoves. QJ I'm jamming over a minraise <15bb deep in general (obviously depends a lot on opponent's raising frequency) so I don't want you to get the wrong impression that these hands aren't 3betting hands. So yes, I think a go-and-go works fantastic with these hands. Hands like JT/QT I think are typically best to flat 15-20bb deep and that we'll have the best expectation there.

3. I know of a few high stakes husng Super turbo regs who do what I'd call slightly unorthodox early on in husngs and they tell me it's something that has worked well for them..for example making 3bets with air hands READLESS in the opening few hands against a random player. I also know of another who has a very good ROI over a large sample of games and he takes very unorthodox lines against randoms such as calling with an extremely wide preflop from the BB BB to check call flops with air to rep a later street, or check raising with a very high frequency on incredibly wet boards. Perhaps that is only something that works in higher stakes against regs/fish regs, who expect a fellow reg to play a particular way and not get ridiculously out of line, but what are your general thoughts on this, and without knowing too much about the game of the person I'm talking about, what would you attribute the reason for his success to be?

This is a tough one without more details. I don't think 3bet bluffing completely readless in the first couple hands is +EV, but I'm certainly not going to be dogmatic about it if there are proven results for someone else. I would be very curious for actual evidence, as I think it's easy to remember the times it works and say oh well and move on, still have plenty of chips left to play with when it doesn't. 3bet bluffing is absolutely necessary against nitty regfish who open a high percentage (as are some of the other plays mentioned), so with some basic general reads this can change.

4. Pretty easy one, but with weak aces 13-15 Big Blinds deep what do you think is the most opitmal play preflop? Minraise calling or open shoving. ( Against your average Joe)

Openjam is going to be best versus pretty much everybody, in my opinion, until you get up past 15bb. Getting flatted when we minraise by hands that will play extremely well against our holding kills our expectation, and the added inducing value is really quite low with these hands.

5. Do you treat certain situations in a superturbo in exactly the same way you would in a regular husng? By this I mean do u let's say treat a 15BB effective stack situation in a superturbo EXACTLY the same as you would in a 15bb situation in a reg/turbo speed, or are there slight nuances/ unique types of strategy you implement that you wouldnt in a normal game?

For the most part, yes. People's tendencies in STs are often slightly different in certain ways than they are in reg speeds/turbos, just due to the population difference that play those games and the reason people join a superturbo, so a few of my “readless” assumptions change slightly, but it's not that big of a deal.

6. What are your thoughts of 3 bet folding with 20BB ..is this something you would ever do, are there any specific opponent types where you do this sort of thing?, and if so what has your success rate been with it?

3bet/folding 20bb deep is really useful against nitty regs who know to open a high percentage but overly want to try to get it in with the best hand. I wouldn't go too much shallower than 20bb, but my success rate has been very good against these types of opponents. If your opponent opens 80% but only continues against 30% of 3bets at this stack depth, it's very easy to see why this works out well. It definitely requires reads, though.

7. How much Longevity do you think HU Super turbos have?? I think personally at the moment they are the most profitable games although obviously the variance in them can be brutal, but do you think that there will become a time when the lobbies get clogged with regs akin to the way normal speeds are these days?

People have been predicting doom and gloom for superturbos since they came out, but about a year has past and they're still phenomenally profitable. Poker itself has it's own “drying up” problem, but predictions that superturbos will be dead within months have constantly turned out to be false, and I expect them to continue to be false at least for 2011.

8. Against your standard button minraising opening around 55-60% of buttons and cbetting around 70% of flops, what do you think is a decent calling range from the BB 10-13 BB's deep. What would a decent frequency be for 3betting all in/flat calling/folding? Are hands like 108o J9o 78s still good to flat here or is this a leak?

A couple of things here. First of all, we should be jamming every hand you mention if our opponent is actually minraising 55-60% of buttons. The truth is, though, this is actually a pretty rare tendency 10-13bb deep: Most people are not minraising this percentage at this stack depth. Around 12-13bb, you can flat those hands if your opponent is minraising a lower-but-not-too-low percentage, I think <11bb jamming or folding is going to be best for the most part.

9. How important is gameflow in terms of you adjusting your ranges? For example whereas it may be your standard to flat from the bb 25bbs deep with a2o a3o etc, would you rejam first,second hand to build up an aggressive image, and also because you get looked up so light first hand?

I think gameflow is important, but I think it's rarely correct in a superturbo to make a suboptimal play now in order to set up an optimal play later. I think jamming A2o/A3o over a minraise first hand is a suboptimal play, even if you do get looked up lighter first hand, and I don't think the image makes up for that difference. The biggest gameflow concern is how your opponent seems to be adapting to your frequencies - if you 3bet jam twice in a row and he starts limping once and folding a button, then you really have to adjust. There are some plays which I do think have some added gameflow benefit - openjamming 22-33 up to 25bb, for example, I think gets you viewed as more spewy/crazy, which can help, but that's also a play with very similar if not better expectation to minraising on its own.

10. What would you say are the most commonplace difference in population tendencies between players at the 50s,100s in comparison to random fish at higher stakes?

I honestly don't know, I won't make something up. It's been a long time since I've played the 50s or 100s. I don't think there are huge differences and it's a little hard to generalize.

11. If your playing someone who is 3betting you with a remarkebly high % preflop, would you still raise hands like A2-a6 to induce 3bet all ins from worse hands, around 12-14bbs deep or would u still say open shipping is optimal against these player types?

It all depends what their flatting range is. Even if they are 3betting a high percentage, if they're also flatting a lot of hands, I'd still openship. If they rarely flat there's no harm in minraise/calling.

12. When carddead against people with a very high sb raising frequency, and who call all in 3bets relativity light,...with around 10-16bbs what would your BLUFF range be for reshipping all in, and what other strategies can you implement against people who seem intent on steamrollering you into submission ( sorry if this question sounds a little vague)

It is a little vague (there's a world of difference between 10-16 bb), but if they're opening a wide range and calling a wide range, pretty much every Kx has to be shipped, all strong queens, etc. In terms of a bluff range...really connected suited lower stuff is still very likely going to be a jam but it's hard to get too much more specific than that.

Feel free to ask follow-ups of your own!