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$0.50/$1 Zoom No Limit Holdem
PokerStars
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
pleno1 (SB) ($128.62) 129bb
BB ($169.28) 169bb

Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 2 players) pleno1 is SB X X
pleno1 raises to $2, BB calls $1

Flop: 2♥ Q♦ 9♣ ($4, 2 players)
BB checks, pleno1 bets $2.50, BB calls $2.50

Turn: 5♠ ($9, 2 players)
BB checks, pleno1 bets $7, BB calls $7

River: K♥ ($23, 2 players)
BB checks, pleno1 bets $17, BB raises to $49.50, pleno1 ?

In this hand i chose to min raise pre flop, mixing in a different min raise, limp and 3x strategy.

I bet, bet, bet and get raised. What should our river calling range look like, whats the lightest we should jam for value and should we consider bluffing? We are 130bb deep at the start of the hand.

Let us know your thoughts on the hand and what you would do.

Hi There, why is BB 1st to act postflop?

I'm assuming this is just a weaktight error right?

Anyways assuming that ur betting and he is calling without the "BB Checks" i will go on and try my best!

Preflop:
Your range could be similar to a CO 6max range (30ish %) and BB range should literally be almost any 2 cards especially since he has position 130BB deep. His range might be slightly capped since QQ+ AK probably wants to get it in preflop especially in BvB.

Flop:

This board is pretty dry but hits ur range just fine (Qx, 9x, all broadways and ofc u could still be holding a monster like AA since you would have played it exactly the same. He's call basically means he has some kind of equity on this board. Its hard to know what hands he raises here for value or for a bluff and I have never played NL200 so I don't know if ppl are raising Ac2c/Ad2d here for example. So i assume these hands are still in his range (although less likely than something like J9o for example)

Turn:

Blanks, he calls down another street (and a pretty sizable bet) which for me now is the first sign of strength from BB since why are you barreling this card OOP if you have nothing?? I put him on a Set, Qx, J9, JT, (KJ maybe). Any weaker than this he is either folding or raising. 2 Pair is iffy since this board is dry so he might not raise and slowplay it. Also he might be scared to get pushed off his hand since if he raises and you reraise you guys are 130BB deep so he doesnt get it in here good all that often with 95 for example. So I would definitely not exclude 2 pair from his range.

River:

You barrel big again on the King. BB probably isnt putting you on any bluffs here since which draws missed? JT got there. KJ hit its K. After his reraise he could be doing 2 things. 1stly and most likely this is because he has a monster and is raising for value and has no problem getting 130bb in here. He could be doing this with KQ, K9, JT, a really slow played set but thats seems unlikely. I don't put him on AK since as previously stated he gets that in preflop.

Secondly he could be trying to bluff you off something like AQ but there are so few value hands in your range that you bet river big and fold to a reraise...

I say your calling range should consists of sets, and KQ and AK.
Raising range should be JT only, no bluffs!!

Sorry if the post was a bit long...PS just wanna say the bootcamp vids you made available to the gold members helped me tremendously. After watching the series on constructing ranges preflop and postflop I moved up to NL50 on Pokerstars and currently have a 8bb winrate over 30k hands!!! L2Win!! ♠_biggrin:

Originally posted by DecisionKing
Hi There, why is BB 1st to act postflop?

I'm assuming this is just a weaktight error right?

Because it's Heads Up....

Oh sorry! I forgot that Zoom now has headsup I thought it was just 6max and FR. Guess just take my post as SB vs BB in 6max or FR

Let's hear your thoughts guys?!

Unfortunately there is absolutely no information about BB, so it is hard to estimate if he is capable to turn made hand into a bluff.
I would assume that his range is more shifted to a value hands (K9, JT, KQ, Q9, 22, 55).
So against this range KQ has ~36% equity which is enough for call based on pot odds, 22 has ~58% (doesn't look good enough to raise), 55 has ~65%.

call: KQ, 22
all-in for value: 55, 99, QQ, KK, JT

By default I assume that BB is not able to raise/fold river with his value hands, thus bluffing doesn't make sense until we will have some stats/reads on the opponent.

We must go AI with any hand)

Originally posted by pleno1
$0.50/$1 Zoom No Limit Holdem
PokerStars
2 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
pleno1 (SB) ($128.62) 129bb
BB ($169.28) 169bb

First thing I would say - opponent has 170 bb in stack, it means he's a bit less probably a fish.

Originally posted by pleno1
Pre-Flop: ($1.50, 2 players) pleno1 is SB X X
pleno1 raises to $2, BB calls $1

First: it's Zoom HU and I know you're a strong player, so I expect you to open about 80%.

[22+, Jx+, T2s+, T5o+, 92s+, 96o+, 82s+, 86o+, 72s+, 75o+, 62s+, 64o+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s]

Second: opp defends passive, I expect him to defend about of 60% OOP with total 3-bet about of 15%. So his range is about of this:

[77-22, AQs, ATs-A2s, K2s+, Q4s+, J6s+, T7s-T6s, 96s, 75s-74s, 64s+, 54s, A9o-A2o, KJo-K2o, Q4o+, J7o+, T7o+, 97o+, 87o]

Originally posted by pleno1
Flop: 2♥ Q♦ 9♣ ($4, 2 players)
BB checks, pleno1 bets $2.50, BB calls $2.50

Turn: 5♠ ($9, 2 players)
BB checks, pleno1 bets $7, BB calls $7

River: K♥ ($23, 2 players)
BB checks, pleno1 bets $17, BB raises to $49.50, pleno1 ?

Sorry, I'll write more later, I have to go now and don't want just to delete what I've already written.

(edit: added next day)

I think that Hero had a confusing situation here (I think so because this hand is posted): he had KJ or KT, and he was barreling with a gutshot and an overcard. On the river he's hit his overcard, and 3rd barrel was for value from Q or 9, but he've suddenly got raised...

of course, he should fold his KJ/KT, I don't expect an unknown opponent to bluff here often enough for Hero to bluffcatch him with TP.

Great, keep it going guys, a new question every day remember..

Since it's HU so the ranges should be wider than 6max, but also it's HU zoom so according to this ranges should be tighter than normal HU. Since you are opening 2x he can defend more hands profitable. I think he don't have any sets on the flop exept for 22 unless he is passive. So QQ usually 3bet you pre and 99 are going to do the same because 1 You are opening wide from btn. 2 He must defend wider. So lets say you are opening 80% otb so he is defending more than 15% of his range with 3bet and in that range we have 99.

The flop: he could defend 1pair, 2 pairs, sets, Gutshots and OESD so his range should look like this 22,55+, JT, Qx, KJ and KT

The turn: Thats a blank card. If he is on the passive side so imo he should fold his KT,KJ type hands and rarely calls with JT. Still he can call with Qx, 9x and should raise all his other hands like sets and twopairs.

River: You bet big again and he would call with all 1pair type hands, and even some his 55 some % of the time. So his lowest 3bet here should look like straight with JT, two pair like K9 and some sets. KQ he should raise i think on the turn atleast because it could be some nasty rivers for him. Or he could 3bet pre.

So our calling range should look like 2pair and sets. We should jam with sets and straight most of the time. And I dont think we should bluff because he put already half of his stack and if we are bluffing we can only beat air, and if he is aggresive type he could have raised the flop or the turn.

i disagree with the assumption because he has 170 bb means its more unlikely he is a fish.
as far as he is at 100bb i dont make a assumption about his skills. below 100 bb its more likely he is a fish imo.

i never played a hand of zoom hu so maybe the game is totally different there but i assume not.
so river bluff raise are pretty rare which makes a bluff reraise bad and i would have no hands in my range i would bluff raise the river with since he is only raising value hands on the river he propably call a shove with.

i think zergisbetter ranges are pretty good.

Day 2

Exploitive vs GTO

Its the biggest discussion in poker right now, what do you thnk about GTO and at what stakes does it become relevant and why?

The higher are the stakes, the more important becomes knowledge of GTO's principles. Because skill of your opps raises as you go up the limits

At micro- and small stakes GTO is not relevant, because people there play bad enough to play exploitive against them. A man should notice "population leaks" and use them vs unknown opps. I mean the mistakes that you should expect an unknown opp to do.

At high stakes (I didn't play there) there are no population leaks and you should try to play non-exploitable against regulars (including unknown ones). Agaist hobby-players you shouldn't try to play GTO - it's not so profitable.

And the last thing I would like to say about this: GTO's principles are relevant when you have a hard decision against a strong opponent. For example, if AQ is top of my range on river Q3279 (rainbow) after calling 3-bet PF and 2 barrels, I can't fold this hand, according to GTO.

Originally posted by aikira
i disagree with the assumption because he has 170 bb means its more unlikely he is a fish.
as far as he is at 100bb i dont make a assumption about his skills. below 100 bb its more likely he is a fish imo.

I say that if opp has 170bb, it makes a small bit less likely he's a fish, because if he were below 100bb, he would be much likely to be a fish.

I think GTO is quite an interesting subject, especially since nlhe isn't solved, and to my understanding at least it is only really known what is not optimal rather than what is.

I think that in order to know how to exploit someone, you must have a strong theoretical base. For example, how can you know how to exploit someone by 3betting wide unless you know what an optimal fold to 3bet is.

So I believe that a strong theoretical understanding is important, but mostly in order to exploit the weaknesses of opponents. A true GTO game would have everyone as a loser, because they would be breaking even pre rake. Obviously nobody is capable of this at the moment.

I wonder though, what exactly is meant by GTO. I know that we can work out that it is not optimal to fold to 9bb 3bets more than 67%, but in terms of actually finding an equilbrium...surely there must be multiple equilibria in a game as complicated as poker.

In terms of optimal defending, I think it is always relevant to know how, but at lower stakes it is knowing theoretically how wide you can defend so that you can then exploitatively fold/call.

GTO is some game theory concept that makes it impossible for opponent to play against you with +EV no matter what he does.
But if hero plays GTO that doesn't mean that he will win, cause if both players will play GTO they will both loose on rake.

First of all poker is a game with limited information. This means that ideally you should try to use any available information on your opponent to get an edge against him.
Even against unknown opponent you can already make some assumptions based on a limit he plays and his chip count.

GTO is relevant at any point. The problem is that nobody know how it really looks like (for deep stacks in poker a least), but great player can play close to GTO.

Ideally you should play GTO against unknown opponent and as soon as you noticed some leak in his game you should change your strategy to maximize your value.

For example:
We started playing "Rock-paper-scissors" against unknown. Everybody knows that Nash optimum here is "rock", "paper", "scissors" with probapility 33.3% (this is GTO). But soon we noticed that opponent plays "rock" - 50%, "paper" and "scissors" - 25%. In order to win we switch to 100% "paper" (Exploitive).

The same in poker, but way more complicated. In order to be the best you need to know how to play optimal (GTO) and how to adapt (Exploitive). So it is not "Exploitive vs GTO", it's "Exploitive and GTO".

I don't think that GTO is important in nl50 and lower. Because basically there are only few regs who can exploit you and there is ocean full of weak regs, recreationals and fishes. Still most of them playing their cards and time to time spazz outs. You can use some balanced range vs some opponents or even try them to fold overpair for 250bb shove and from GTO perspective that would be a fold, but usually ends up calling. So I think only from NL100 where reg to recreational, fish ratio is bigger then gto becomes more important.

It becomes relevant because better regs could exploit you easily and if you are similar to gto plays they could never know which hand you are playing right now so it's more difficult to read you.

some great posts! I'd love this specific debate to keep going so I'm going to leave the next question for a few more hours as i think the whole gto vs exploitive stuff is very relevant and perhaps the biggest leak for players at different stakes.

I think they're really more similar than people tend to think.
Exploitative play relies on understanding GTO.

GTO is relevant at the smallest of microstakes, nl2. Because acting on deviations from GTO is exploitive play. So if one poorly understands GTO, their exploitative adaptions to opponents will also be done poorly.

The only difference moving up stakes makes, is that the deviations from GTO become smaller, so one must understand GTO more deeply to see the deviations from GTO to make exploitative plays.

Our new high stakes coach Gabruchi will be doing a live seminar tonight at 8pm. The first questions we will answer will be the ones asked here in the thread and we will also ask him to ask a new question.