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Isn’t that what all of our shows about? Kind of, but this time around we’re more explicit than usual. It’s just Nate and Andrew, talking about some specific, concrete, active (not just reading books or watching videos) ways to study poker. Plus we review bluffing and bluff-catching strategy in an illustrative example of one of the toughest spots in poker, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of slowplaying against a maniac.
Timestamps
0:30 hello and welcome
11:30 strategy
Strategy
Hand 1
2/5 game at the Aria. I have a stack of about 1400. Villain covers.
Villain raises from UTG+1 to 20, gets two callers. I have pocket aces in the BB. I raise to 85. Villain calls, callers fold.
Pot is now about $205. Flop 345 rainbow. Both players check.
Turn 2. I check, Villain bets $150, I call.
Pot is $505. River Q. I check, Villain bets $330.
Hand 2
$2/$5 live game. Villain has $500, Hero coves. Hero raises to $25 with AQss. Tilted guy re raises to $100. Hero calls.
Flop is Q74 two diamonds. There is $200 in the pot and he leads out for a pot sized $200 bet. Hero calls.
Turn is 7h. Villain shoves $200, Hero calls.
Still listening. About the blackjack guy, as primarily a tournament player, if I had his abilities to rote learn things then there are a few areas I would apply them. He could maybe learn full Nash tables. I’ve tried the shortcut of the power numbers table and I can’t even remember that so I found a shortcut even to power numbers which I pretty much can remember but brings in further inaccuracies. If he has the ability to just learn the raw Nash tables that would be a big help in tournaments.
Other than that, even learning by rote what checklists of things he has to remember to think about might help for example:
Preflop facing a raise: immediate pot odds, implied odds, villain range (position, tendencies), look left, …
I’ve just ended the list with “…” because undoubtedly that isn’t the full list, it’s all that occurs to me right now. If he can develop and memorise the full list he will have an advantage, though he needs to practice doing the actual thinking too.
Last week’s podcast and discussion in the comments has got me thinking more about blockers.
About the first strategy hand, can we say that if we are folding some wheels then wheels with AA are the best ones to fold because they block some of his aces that are trying to bluff us off a chops, putting relatively more 6s in his range than our other aces have to face?
I would look at it the opposite way, call with AA and fold all other A hands. On the assumption that he is bluffing some %, then he’s more likely to be bluffing when we have two A’s. The semi bluff with an A isn’t what we want to target, it’s the 6 or bluff hands.
This also helps in that if he’s anywhere close to balanced then we’ll be calling a smaller amount of the time (only 6 combos of AA, vs. 16 for just AK), which is much more likely to have our percentage closer to GTO.
Of course if he’s never bluffing then fold 100%.
I’m still not understanding why you guys aren’t using a solver when you talk about a spot that’s so easy (for a computer) to solve, like the river spot in Hand 1.
For example, you could quibble about ranges and bet sizes, but…..
http://gtorangebuilder.com/#share_scenarioHash=77c27764cc09327e564b8355a904bfe9/root_v=44.99991
Chalk it up to ignorance and laziness – I’m only now realizing that it’s free to solve river spots on GTORB. Thanks for the interesting results here. I haven’t had time to explore it fully, but just playing around with this spot that you set up, varying the bet size the Villain is allowed to use, and looking at how it changes his EV and betting strategy has been quite interesting.
What is the twitch stream you guys have mentioned a few times in the last few episodes? I keep telling myself to look him up but can never remember what his name is. Thanks. Love the podcast
Probably Carlos’? He’s at twitch.tv/carloswelch.
Thanks for listening!
On Love Letter – https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129622/love-letter
Is that the game you were talking about at the start of the show (6:00)? I would say this is a beautiful little game. It is not poker but it is certainly not a trivial memory game with face down cards. It has elements of bluffing, hand reading and evaluating relative hand strength.
I would recommend checking it out.
I have played a fair amount of Love Letter with my son (6 y.o.) and it works really well – it’s short, easy to get the grasp of, and as you say it involves some intresting strategic/deductive lessons.
The table changing maniac is leveraging the rules at MDL which allow you to go south when moving (with floor permission) to a new table at the same stake.
This is real good stuff, thanks guys!
I hope you don’t feel too much pressure on the guest front. Interviews can be entertaining and interesting, but you two are the absolute draw of the show!
I can’t speak for all listeners of course, but I’d be plenty satisfied with more episodes with this format.
whats the name of the app that lists all the las vegas tourneys?
poker shark? i could only find a playmoney game under that name.
Shark Clock! Thanks for asking.