i was just referring to the expectations that mers mentions in the 'leak plugging do you call too light oop' article. mers hasn't posted a chart where he estimates flatting exp oop for all hands. i was just saying that if you look at the exp of hands he does mention in that article, that you can probably expand from there and make some assumptions about other hands based on their postflop playability/characteristics.

One more thing of exp, does it changes with eff stack and how much?not particularly. the main things related to eff stx we need to keep in mind is just that the avg player's button opening frequency decreases quite a bit as stacks decrease. also, 3bet shoving becomes a lot better as stacks decrease as well.  

About jaming ss. I didnt fully understand your thoughtprocess when you said that our jam needs to work less often and that we need less FE the shorter we get, because we risk less to win the same amount. How does that work? i think this should be pretty clear if you mess around with the 3bet shove calculator. if villain is opening top 45% of hands 20bb deep and mr calling a 'standard' range, there are a good amount of weak hands that we can't 3bet shove vs those frequencies.if villain is opening the same 45% of hands 14bb deep though (and mr call same range), we can now jam atc and it's not even close.so we have the same amount of fold equity, but we are risking 6 less bb to win villains 2bb - so basically our hand just needs less overall equity against villains range for jamming to be correct.

- So when were comparing calling vs 3B shorter stack, how do estimate the flatting exp? this isn't something where i can give you a straightforward answer, it's very intuitive. if flatting K6o shows -.45 (expectation) vs a 55% opener, we would flat it 21bb deep bc it will tend to be better expectation than jamming (use the 3b shove calc to confirm)...3bet shoving shows ~ -.7 exp, and flatting shows -.45. as eff stx decrease, we just need to intuitively understand that as opening frequency decreases, our flatting expectation will decrease gradually as well. so if our flatting expectation is -.45 vs a 55% opener, then vs a 35% opener you can imagine it would be significantly worse...something like -.8 i'd guess.the best thing you can do for yourself is to just ask me about a lot of spots you think are close of whether its a flat or a 3b. read through the forum a ton, mers has talked in infinite situations about flatting oop and his estimation of expectations (not articles, but individual threads...specifically jhubs thread)also just forward questions to mers' thread and ask him what he thinks about flatting expectations. How much does the suit/connectiveness/flop exp/blocker impact?a ton. your overall equity vs range will tend to be 3-5% better when your hand is suited. so expectation of both flatting and 3bet shoving will be better. Lets say we haveJ9s - it much better then -0.58 but I dont know how much value to add to it? -0.35J9o -better then -0.58, -0.45?T7s - slightly better then -0.58, -0.50?T7o - right about -0.58?i'd imagine all of those hands are better than -.58 for sure. J9s likely being slightly +ev. J9o around 0ev. T7s right around 0ev maybe slightly worse. T7o probably -.35 or so. they are all hands that flop really well.

Edit: one more thing that Ive noticed is that good regs seems to fold alot when I DB my value/semibluff hands on semiwet boards that I dont expect them to CB wide. Have they come to unserstand that a DB there is strong so do you think its better to check and hope they CB it? i would only donk if i know they are checking back their air along with marginal sd value/draws that will likely continue vs a donkbet. there isn't much value in donkbetting if they are going to cbet most of their sd value/draws when checked to, it's not like you are giving up a ton of free equity when they check back their air. i think this is a key thing that people aren't getting with donkbetting. basically, if you donkbet on a wet board that villain doesnt cbet wide and he folds his air...what did you accomplish really? you only did better than checking to c/r when you start getting value from a decent amount of hands that call your donkbet that would have checked back if checked to.so if i start seeing villain check back flops instead of cbetting and showing down hands like:QX on JT8T7 on JT8AQ on JT8etcthen it's v likely a donkbet is going to fair better than a c/r, since their are clearly quite a bit of hands that villain will continue vs a donk with.cbet frequency is really important when considering donking, but so is the range that villain is cbetting. we won't always have enough info to know the range, so i'd go with pop tends (i think the pop tend is to cbet most marginal sd value still...tho i'd expect villain to check back some 8X hands on average prob)i wouldn't donk these boards as a standard for value.most importantly, donking this board as a bluff is really bad imo.if the avg villain is checking back most of his air, then we can lead pretty wide into a really weak checkback range on the turn profitably. when we donk, we are leading into an undefined range...we should check and let villain define his range by checking back, and just lead the turn a lot on average (some kind of equity tho).

[IP, 8x on A82] Usually I CB 30 on these boards with air, and I should do it now aswell even when we have MP right, dont think I have to protect my hand. Though I would CB 40 if the board where suited or somewhat more connected. Agree?i would do 32 :) 32 = 40% pot. also, i think the avg player will tend to play back a little less at a wierd sizing like that. it's such a small difference, but thinking about it in terms of what % of pot you are betting is important - i thikn a lot of player bet these small sizes without really considering how the % of pot size that they bet really impacts anything. not so important here, but in general it is.but yes, looks good.[IP, 96o on KJ4ss] Do we CB here readless or does this hit his calling range to hard? I dont know what the average villain OBB caling range is, but if its 50% I think we can CB 30 to make him fold his air hands or is our hand to weak for that? Would you CB 30 if you had some EQ, lets say Ax/Qx? Also how much would you take sharkscope info into consideration. Lets say he is a winning reg, then this hits his range really well, because I think regs call OOP much tighter then they should. And If you saw that this villain was a huge fish, would that make you CB that board with no EQ readless? this does NOT hit the avg players range too hard. cbetting 40 into 80 needs to work 33%, so we just need 33% of his range to c/f flop (since we aren't barreling much).think about all the Q8, 97s, T8, Q6, 87o type hands. thats a ton! and the average player plays most of theseLets say he is a winning reg, then this hits his range really well, because I think regs call OOP much tighter then they should.i think this is very wrong. if villain is a winning reg, it's very likely he is playing more than enough hands oop to miss these board often enough for us to cbet. if he's not, it's going to be pretty hard for him to be a winning reg.i would just cbet t35 or something...doesnt really matter a ton imo. 

QJ: i like donking vs non-regs. good backdoor equity, strong parts of villains range + most fd will raise flop, flatting range should be pretty weak.I would hate to DB since many hands can float and then I dont know where Im at on turn, the same goes with CC and with CC he can barell me of many turn.this is definitely v bad thought process. you do know where you are at somewhat...typical flatting range will be pretty weak, so barreling on a bunch of turn cards is goign to be really good (esp since the flatting rnage is so wide, it's hard for us to be doing all that poorly really bc diff hands he can call flop with miss diff turn cards). i think this is a case of you "not knowing where you are at" bc you want to win the hand too often. yes, the turn is going to be an 8 and we are going to barrel off into 98/A8 sometimes. yes the turn is going to be a K and we barrel off into KQ. but we get lots of turn/river folds from other parts of his range. your bluffs dont have to work 100%.

J9: decent hand to donkbet. we aren't c/f against a cb, and c/c isn't all that great anyways (tho def better than folding). c/r can be good vs a wide cb range but the avg player doesnt cb enough. great backdoor equity, so i like a donkbet here a lot. plenty of good runouts for us to barrel, shouldnt be too many strong hands in villains flatting range on flop that can call off unimproved.78: chk/shv flop. decent equity + prob have some fe.TT: i think you see enough wierd shit like worse pairs etc and hands you mentioned to call. you only need ~33% equity to call, and you dominate anything you are ahead of. T8: your thought process looks good to me.

T7s: i'm not even sure if after c/r you can fold to a push, depending on your size you can be commited pretty easily.c/r seems awful to me vs the avg player bc they dont cbet a ton. if you knew villain cbet this board really wide, i'd c/r but only to c/r and get it in. i don't find myself in this spot often fwiw...too many players level themselves on AXX boards and stack off real light for this to be best imo.just c/c, realize equity, you will be able to call turn barrels a lot. villain will prob shut down turn a good amount and you will have somg ood river bluffing opportunities as well.Q8s: i think this is a little closer. it's a board the avg player has more air on than the AQXdd flop. also, you are ahead of a lot of flush draw combos that will stack off vs a c/r as well. so with all the fold equity vs the avg player, and less total value combos that do well vs us...i like a c/r. do you see the difference bt the 2 hands though? it's pretty significant imo.T8: if villain doesn't barrel us light much, we can def c/c and c/f turn. i wouldn't do that as a standard though, mainly bc we don't rep AX so it's a good barreling spot so we are at top of our range...if villain isnt a thinking player it doesnt change enough for me to fold...bad players just do dumb stuff. i'd need a reason to fold my hand. i'd c/c and c/shv dry turns (c/f J/Q/K fwiw).65: ya i like this. this is about as deep as i'd do this though. good to protect your equity this short, and its def a board we are getting stabbed on against quite a bit. nice hand.K9: ya, i think this is a board the avg villain cbets enough too - so that means i like a c/r. donkbetting can be good too. i'd do either, not c/f without a reason to do so.Q2s: considering his cb size, if i c/r i'd just chk/jam. i guess its close though...i dont know if i expect the avg player that opens this goofy size and cbets huge to have a bunch of hands that want to fold to a c/r tho? chk/shv looks ok to me but it's a wierd spot. not a spot in you are in much given the bet sizes so i wouldnt focus on it much. 

That´s the best explanation on donk betting vs check raising that I´ve come across, especially the part about defining their range. Thx hokie

will get to your thread next.

CB fold % chart:what are the numbers in green on the left column?looks good though.

CBET turn: i can actually sum this one up pretty quickly/easily. you are valuetowning yourself a lot. you are betting turns with really marginal value hands in a lot of these situations (89 on J 8 Xss X) for example. you are getting value from draws and maybe a few worse pairs, but the draws have good equity and aren't folding anyways. i'd check back a lot of the situations where you are vtowning yourself against better pairs and trying to get value from draws...call river leads on dry rivers - the draws weren't folding the turn anyways, so you play better overall this way by not vtowning yourself into worse pairs and then having villains draws improve 20-35% of the time and then you lose an even bigger pot on the river. just kind of minimizes the damage and works out better for you overall.your bluffs look fine. just make sure it's vs the right type players but they all look ok.

TURN c/r: there is usually a big, big difference in the strength of a c/mr over your 2 barrel and a chk/jam. the chk/jams will include enough combo draws and worse shit that is just protecting equity or whatever for you to be able to call in those situations. the c/mr on the other hand tends to be sooo strong and hardly ever contains combo draw/draw type stuff. i'd flat the AJ just bc you can improve river and maybe counterfeit his 2 pair or something too. i'd fold the other situations pretty confidently, esp the A8. it might feel bad at the time, but take my 2-3 years experience of not folding in this spot and forever seeing the nuts as a word of warning :)

 Against average villain could you give your bottom of your Tx/Jx/Qx/Kx - offsuit calling range OOP at 25bb/20bb/16bb/12bb so I can get some kind of feeling of what that range is and then ofcourse we adjust depedning on how tight/loose he is. Q4o, J5o, T6o the stack depth alone really has very little to do with what hands i choose to call with. the main reason i would tend to not flat Q4o or T6o type stuff 12bb deep vs a minraise is bc for most players thats with a pretty damn tight opening range - while 17,20,25 bb deep their opening range was a lot wider and these hands played well enough to be a call. Whats your bottom limping range <12bb. I told you about that winning reg, ranked #9 2011 $35-100, that limped 72o at 10bb, 83o at 6bb. Is it optimal to limp thoose you think? Under what conditions would you do that? And how would you get to that conclusion ingame and based on what samplesize?i would virtually never limp those. he is an idiot. maybe in some 1 in 1000 situation where villain is c/f a HUGE amount of flops it could be optimal, but i wouldn't worry about it.also, seriously...i know this is going to sound rude, but it's true...being ranked on the 35-100 leaderboard does not mean you are good at poker. it means you are good at beating fish. almost everyone on those type of leaderboards still have a ton of MAJOR theoretical leaks. i think skates, one of the most brutally honest poker coaches everrrr, summed it up best when he once wrote: "there are only a couple of good poker players in husngs, but there are a lot of good poker pros." this was a huge 'aha' moment for me. at first i just thought he was being an asshole, but when i really thought about it...he is basically saying that the vast majority of players that play poker for a living are pretty awful at poker, but they are just better than their opponents on average. they are very good at a lot of aspects that make up a good poker pro though: br management, tilt control, etci think that is still true today, but to a much lesser extent. (skates wrote this in ~2009)/possibly-perceived-as-wildly-egotistical-rant 

 Sharkscope. Do you think its good to look up the player before the match? Or at all? I think I might overadjust if I know something about villain. Sometimes I have old notes where it says he is bad. He has some really huge leaks that ive exploited, and then when i sharkscope him now I see that he is a reg. How do you go about it? Is it better not to sharcskope him before the match then?i think it's useful, as long as you don't drastically overadjust because of it. i think the HUGE majority of unknowns that you sharkscope should still be appraoched with the same readless strategy that i have been teaching you. there will be some cases where you search a player and hes a 6max reg or something like that, in which case i'd approach a bit differently.i think it's generally highly overrated. i don't sharkscope at the beginning of games fwiw - i think the amt of time/focus it requires doesn't make up for the value i get from it.And if i see that he is a fish i tend not to concentrate that well and just expect it to be easy money..not using sharkscope simply bc of this reason is just a band-aid for a bigger mental leak. you are going to find out he's a fish within the first few hands probably, and then you will lose focus...sharkscope just gets you thinking like that a little sooner.i'd focus on paying closer attn when playing fish though. sure, you beat them. congrats. they are retards! and you might even beat this one particular fish with a 15% roi. but what if i could beat that same fish with a 25% roi? that 10% roi difference is a heck of a lot of money. so basically, just bc you have a big edge on someone isn't reason enough to autopilot...you should always be striving for a bigger and bigger edge.Hows your thought process when analysing the sharkscope stats. Do you consider, games/oversample play, stakes, hot/cold, rating..change hot/cold to WLWLLLWW imo. wtf does 'cold' mean anyways. i'd much rather see LLLLLLWW then just see 'cold'...villain has lost 6 straight! pretty decent chance he's tilting.i do find myself going to sharkscope in a really marginal spot early on where if i see a few losses in a row or some reason to think villain is tilted that it would be enough to sway me one way or the other. i would pay attention to a combination of avg stake and roi. i would expect to have a MUCH harder time with a 0% roi villain over 4500 games with a $180 avg stake, as opposed to a 5% winner over 4500 games with a $45 avg stake (esp bc its likely the 0% villain had to play some regs) Whats the pros/cons of blocking my stats? Before I did it so they would see that I was a marginall winner, now I do it so they dont see that I have alright results and refuses to sit me. Better ig they see me bluff and think Im a total fish rather then knowing that Im amble to play my value hands the same way. the only reason i don't block my sharkscopes is for coaching credibility. i don't see any value in giving your opponents any additional info about you. so i'd definitely suggest blocking it.if you play well, regs will not sit you. it might take 2 or 3 games for them to see you play decent, but they will get off you fast. the huge majority of regs, whether they will admit it or not, really don't want to battle other regs and are super-insecure in reality.Whats the biggest difference when moving up to the $200/$300/$500? Dont we play fish there aswell? Are the games so much harder there? Im surprised that some coaches / well known regs have such pore results at the highstakes, 0.5-1% ROI on samples over 5000 games. the biggest difference is that regs fight harder for control of the lobbies. if you can keep other regs from sitting you by earning their respect (you will actually have to earn it, esp at 300/500), then the games aren't incredibly hard imo. the avg fish is definitely better than at lower stakes though, but still awful. another big difference between 500s and 50s for example is that you just don't see players casually tossing away a buyin bc they arent trying at the 500s like you do at the 50s. people fight harder for their buyin generally. 

can you remind me which questions it was that i missed earlier in the thread?

So you dont think that their opening range changes alot from 25bb-20bb-16bb? i definitely think the avg villain's pfr slightly decreases as eff stx decrease, but not enough to start folding very many hands at the bottom of our calling range 25bb deep. if a player is opening 60% 25bb deep and 50% 16bb deep, we should really only be taking out just a couple of the weakest hands from the bottom of our range probably.as stacks decrease, 3bet shoving becomes better too but obviously depends on other factors than just eff stx.all i meant was that you need to consider a heck of a lot more than just "what are eff stx"....opening frequency pop tends, raise/call pop tends, etc etc etc. ranges:most of the off suit stuff in your flatting range looks good, but a lot of the suited hands (esp at 12bb) are probably going to be jams. i mean if the avg player is minraising 45-50% 16bb deep, it's not hard for a lot of these suited hands to be jams. we can talk about this more in session. theres no way you should be flatting hands like KTs and K9s vs a minraise 12bb deep as a standard though fwiw, way too strong and people actually mr/call worse anyways. - About limping <8bb.So you dont think we should have an limp-folding range under 8bb against averge villain? What conditions/sample would you need to start limping junk <8bb and whats the bottom of that limping range?i would never limp junk <8bb. limp gets jammed too much, we dont realize equity well w "junk hands" (i.e., hands that cant NASH), and villain is going to obv stack pretty damn light in a 2bb pot with 7bb remaining eff stx. this is just absolutely horrible and really shouldn't be a part of anyones game. the only situation i can think of where limping 6-8bb deep could be good is when you are playing a thinking player where you KNOW he thinks that your limp at that stack depth is big pairs and big pairs only, i think limping a junk hand can be good bc it will shut down their range a tonnnn and they will actually play way too fit or fold post. but seriously, thats such a specific situation.i would just forget about this tbh. the guy on the leaderboard that was doing this wasn't doing it profitably, he was just making money off fish by doing other stuff in his game well. - And this question about barelling: Do you barell regs/fish on paired boards, [J33.5.9] to get them of Ax/Kx and what sizes do you use on each street?ya, i think betting half pot there is pretty good. most people won't continue A/K high vs half pot bet and it doesn't need to work too often. 

Questions from yesterdays session. Playing your range. Still cant fully grasp it. The example we talked about. [Q84.A.2] Lets say we have 8x OOP. We know that that turn card is good for him to barell so his range from flop to turn hasnt changed anything right? And then on river if he jams he can have both value and air, so how do you determine which he has? Do you think its more weighted to air since he should VB with Qx/Ax, or maybe he jams river quick and that gives you some assumtions etc? I feel like that example was a bit to wide/standard to understand.just bc it's a good card for someone to barrel in your view, doesn't mean that they view it the same way. so you need a specific read or pop tend that they will view the A that way. you can eliminate JJ and lower pocket pairs, 8X, and 4X from a turn barreling range bc they will check back usually. so assuming this IS a villain that views this as a good bluff card and will continue with his full range, then you need to consider:what % was he raising pre? if he's raising 45% of buttons, he has a heck of a lot more value than someone raising 80%what % was he cbetting and what type of hands is he cbetting? if he is only cbetting 50% of the time, he probably has a lot less air in his range. if he's checking back a polarized range (A high would be in this range), he has very little value in his turn barreling range most likely. THESE ARE NOT RULES, just potential situations that can occur with specific villains. so the hands that villain can have in his range when barreling the turn are effected by his frequencies and ranges on previous streeets. when faced with a river barrel, you need to consider his ranges and frequencies on previous streets, and then figure out how often you need to be right on your call. let's say you need to be right 31% to call a river bet:this simply means that you need to beat 31% of his range. so if you estimate that half of villains range is bluffs, it's a call. if villains range is 90% value, it's a fold...even tho you know for sure that you are getting bluffed sometimes, it just doens't matter. all that i mean by "playing your range, and not your individual hand", is this:from villains perspective, if he thinks cbetting the turn with all of his air and QX+ value is maxEV vs you, then his range is (air, QX, KK, AX). it does not matter if he happens to have J9 air, KK, or A2...his range is his range and when he decides what the maxEV range is to barrel the turn then he is essentially barreling all of these hands at the same time. you build a range in each spot by making the maxEV play with each individual hand. each individual hand that is going to make the same play (i.e., each hand that is going to cbet for example) falls into the same range. this is your range, and when you cbet one hand in your range then you are essentially cbetting all hands in that same range. so if your range in a spot is extremely narrow (QT, QJ, KQ, for example...just for simplicity sake), you decided that playing each of these hands the same was maxEV for each hand individually, but they are all taking the same action so it is your range. when you bet your range, what difference does it make whether you have QT or KQ? the reason it's important to understand this, is to better understand when and how your ranges are exploitable or unexploitable.a lot of players will say, "ya, he hero called and was right, but i have value in that spot too." that is not good enough of an explanation! if villain needed to be right on his call 35%, but you have 80% bluffs in your betting range in that spot...his call pwned you. yes, you had value, but not nearly enough.starting to think about playing your range and not your hand doesn't mean you should start playing individual hands all that differently (esp if you were already playing the hands maxEV in the first place). it's just a better way to think about poker, and a much easier way to understand when you are being exploitable and how to adjust when someone starts exploiting you.email me if it still isn't making sense.  How is that above hand compared to [QQ3.7.5] And we have Ax/Kx, then on that turn his range should narrow but at the same time we know that a reg might 3barell us since we rep Ax/Kx pretty much. So still doesnt understand how thinking about ranges applies? his range is his range. if it's too many bluffs, it's too many bluffs (call off light).Or even better [AJ3.2] When we cc this flop we´re turning our hand face up. Hows your thoughtprocess of ranges when he CBT since he wouldnt barell 3x/2x so then his hand is almost only value. his range is his range. if it's only value, it's only value. make your decision according to that (be a huge nit). And about calling 3B jams ligheter. Do we stard calling jams lighter without SD or only if we seen him jam light? If we seen him jam J3s 20bb, what Ax do we start calling jams with. Because we cant start calling jams with A2o right? Since we are crushed against his Ax hands and flipping against his other range, but at the same time we have cardremoval with Ax. when villain raises at 20bb deep for example: you minraise pre and get jammed, you have to call 18bb into a pot of 40bb after called. you need 45% to call jam. plug in an approximate value range for villain combining population tendancies and any frequencies or information you have on villain so far. compare your hand to that range, if it has >45% equity, call. if A2o has >45%, call.there are no rules in poker. there will be times when mr/calling A2o 25bb deep is correct. there will be times when mr/folding 72o 9bb deep is correct - extreme examples where you need very very specific info, but my point is that yes, we have general strategies but we have to still know how and when to adapt extremely far away from our general play.

"The flop texture also determines what you can represent from out of position. In more advanced games around 12-18bb deep, check/raising dry jack-high and ten-high boards can be extremely profitable, because thinking opponents generally c-bet these flops with a wide range, and then when you check/raise, it's very easy for you to represent connected Jx/Tx type hands, which are prime flatting hands that short." Could you give some example on what hands you would cr with (how much EQ)?If the board is T54, would you cr with 98/Jx/Qx/Kx?ya, stuff like that.  How big cr-size would you do if we were 15bb deep, we call OOP, and villain CB 60? Cr to 120-135? c/r to t130 and shut down turns unimproved (you are not c/r bc barrelign turns is +ev at this stack depth)And if villain jams over our cr, are we commited to call?you know how to do the math on this! i know you do. Is it a big difference in your descicion to call if we have K4 or K9 on that board?12bb deep i would chk/shv T54 board with K4 facing a cbet to protect equity. 18bb deep i would c/c. i'd much rather choose hands with equity but no sd value to c/r bluff. i wouldn't be c/r bluffing 12bb deep very much fwiw. like i completely agree that it can be fine if villain is cbetting wide enough (i would c/mr 12 deep prob), but i think its going to be way better in terms of pop tends + stack depth in the 14-18 range. I know its all more complex but would like to get a grasp of your thought process. 

thanks for participating in the program. i enjoyed working with you. thanks for being so involved. i know i missed a couple questions...we can review them during a session soon if you want.you have read-only access for another 4 weeksgl