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routinely switching or adapting models to fit the player frequencies that I’m up against. Using GTO ranges as a base strategy is pretty much the only way to study. Also, if you know what the unexploitable frequencies are, it is much easier to identify when others are playing in a way that is open to exploitation. This book is very comprehensive and, with all of the mathematical equations, could even be intimidating to some. However, even if you skip the math, this book can be used as a reference guide for pre-flop raising and 3-bet ranges, push/fold charts and a glossary for nearly every poker term. As an advanced player, I found the flop chapters to be most instructive and I feel certain that there is no other book with this level of flop analysis. The use of equity buckets to visually describe equity distribution is a simple and effective way to find patterns without getting too lost in the minutiae. For those reading the book, I offer a few pieces of general advice. First, if you are averse to math or think it isn’t necessary to play good poker, you are both right and wrong. Sure, you can be a winning player without knowing the math behind a lot of the assumptions. However, if you truly want to master the game in a comprehensive way, I believe that math is necessary. Even if you hate math, you are indirectly doing math by trying to make winning plays. A strong foundation in math just means your EV estimations are more precise. Second, all of this work off the table might seem silly since we do not actually do math or consult charts at the table that often. However, the more time off the table you put in, the more you begin to see patterns so that, finally, after some experimentation, playing and hard work, all of the knowledge becomes part of your unconscious and instinctive understanding. Third, if you’re reading this, you’re probably putting off some of the more difficult sections of the book. Get back to work! Jon Van Fleet (Apestyles), July 2019 INTRODUCTION An Unspoken Truth

if that happens, you can play the hand fast and raise right there. If everyone checks to you, hope they’re trying to trick you into betting to check-raiseyou, your dream scenario. If anyone bets into you, make sure to raise, all-in if your chip stack warrants, and get all decisions done right there. Remember, if you get multiple callers to your bet rather than a check-raise, be aware that draws are probably out against you, so play all turn cards that complete the draws with great caution. Big Hand, Multi-Way, Out of Position, With or Without the Lead, Textured Board When you’re out of position on a hand like this, you’re looking to get in a check-raise, which is usually an action-ending play, and you’re certainlylooking to end action when the board is as ugly as A♠-T♣-9♠. If you have a really strong hand, you don’t mind getting your money in on the flop. If you aren’t the pre-flop raiser, you have a natural check; letting the action continue behind you is strategic and unsuspicious. When you’re the pre-flop raiser and the pot is multi-way, the check is also prettynatural. With three players to act behind you, you’re under no obligation to continuation bet. So you can naturally check in this spot as well. Frankly, there’s no reason to bet out here; getting flat-called behind, especially by multiple players, is a pretty big disaster. This brings up an interesting point. If you recall, when you have a strong hand like a set of 9s and the board is unthreatening, like A♠-9♣-3♦, betting out makes much more sense, whether you have the lead or not. It’s no big deal if you get called; nothing bad will happen to the board whenthe turn card hits. If you’re lucky, you get raised in the multi-way pot by someone who’s likely to be holding an ace. So leading into the field on dryboards makes the most sense. But when the board is textured, as we’ve just determined, the check to check-raise is conceptually correct; you’re looking to announce a big handand end action right there. You don’t want to risk betting out and getting flat-called in several spots, because that means trouble for you on the turn. You’d rather end the action right there. THERE’S NO SHAME IN WINNING POTS RIGHT NOW Before we move on, Iwant to make two points about big holdings on multi-way flops with textured and untextured boards, respectively. First, look how much more complex your decision-making is when you don’t fear the flop. This seems counterintuitive, but the many different paths toward extracting maximum value must all be considered. On textured flops, your goal is so powerfully clear—avoid disastrous decisionmaking—that it actually makes your post-flop choices much simpler. Mostly, you’re trying to get your money in on the flop by any means possible. Second, notice how awesomely random your behavior will appear to your opponents. on untextured boards, you bet out, whether you had the preflop lead or not. On textured boards, you check to check-raise, whether you had the pre-flop

many years with the mental game coach… Overbetting The Flop in Cash Games Although most commonly analyzed on turns and rivers, flop overbetting can be a devastating weapon… Using New Skills at the Poker Table How many times has it happened to you that you make a mistake only to… Flatting Ace-X Hands Shortstacked Playing out of position is tricky, but it’s an essential part of tournament play. With… Playing Limped Pots as the BB in MTTs Success as the BB in limped pots begins before the flop. The BB’s equilibrium strategy… The Absurd Game Theory of Chopped Boards A “chopped board” in poker is one where the community cards make up the best… Playing Limped Pots as the SB in MTTs MTT confrontations between the small blind and big blind force no-limit players into uncomfortable situations,… The Art of Learning Poker In his book The Art of Learning, chess and Push Hands champion Josh Waitzkin describes… Is Donk Betting for Donkeys? “Donk betting”, or betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor… Delayed C-Betting This is a companion piece to Probe Betting. It stands on its own, but understanding… Probe Betting As far as rules of thumb go in poker, “check to the raiser” is a… ICM and Blind Battles: The Big Blind This is a companion piece to this article on the SB’s strategy for blind vs… ICM and Blind Battles: The Small Blind ICM incentivizes more conservative play, which means that at stages of the tournament where risk… The Initial Bettor’s Advantage The mathematics of poker holds a little-known secret: the first bettor enjoys better bluffing odds… Mastering the Chiplead: The Scalpel and the Sledgehammer When you have a lot of chips at a final table or in another situation… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in Cash Games Our never-ending quest for money and fame leads us to the flop. We open the… How ICM Impacts Restealing From The Blinds When I first started working with preflop solves, one of the features I found most… The ICM Benefits of Late Registration in Poker Tournaments Why do so many professional poker players register late for tournaments when they clearly would… Flop Heuristics: OOP C-Betting in MTTs Playing against an in-position cold-caller is dramatically different–and dramatically more difficult–than playing against a caller… Counterintuitive Calls Solver outputs such as those provided by GTO Wizard are models of no-limit hold ‘em,… How To Negotiate Final Table Deals Most people’s first introduction to the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is not from studying bubble… How does ICM impact PKO strategy? If you have read The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments you already know why we… Understanding Blockers in Poker Often when looking through a solver’s meticulously crafted grid of deception, one of the following… Flop Heuristics: IP Cold-Caller in MTTs A Cold-call refers to the act of calling a preflop raise when you don’t close… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in MTTs In the world of poker, the flop is a crucial stage of the game that… Flop Heuristics for Defending the Blinds

and the threshold betting hand for the betting player is: In this case, the betting player’s threshold is 1/4, which means they are betting all better hands, so 3/4 of all hands. Since the defending player is getting 2-to-1 pot odds, 2/3 of the betting hands beat hc and the other 1/3 of hands, which lose to hc, are pure bluffs since they never win when called. For more complex situations where the checking hands have equity and players can raise, the equations are far more complex, and calculating the threshold hands by hand is not possible in most cases. For this reason, the best approach to study river abstract models with linear distributions is to replicate them in a GTO solver. In the next section, we will go over a couple of these examples, but I encourage the reader to test these and other situations in order to get proficient with the general strategies. Symmetric Range

pot for you. Second, even if a blank hits on the turn, you now may be able to steal the pot. Your opponents are not going to suspect a bluff merely because you didn't bet on the flop, as they know you might have been trying for a check-raise. In fact, some of your opponents might feel smug Check-Raising 77 when you bet, since they "escaped your trap." (When you are bluffing in this situation, never show your hand.) However, remember that if you check a lot of hands on the flop, the free card that you give occasionally may cost you the pot. You also can check-raise semi-bluff. For example, suppose you have and the flop comes You bet and are raised, and you (correctly) call the raise. The next card is the Now the correct play is for you to check-raise. You want your opponent to fold, but with your straight-flush draw, you have a lot of outs even if you are called. 78 Part Two: Strategic Concepts Here is another example. Suppose you hold and the flop comes If any spade hits on fourth street, you can try for a check-raise. This is probably the right play whether or not you were raised on the flop. However, if your opponent is a "caller," it may be best to simply bet. There is another very important reason to check-raise. It may be the most important. It is the fact that in games of today's structure, the bet on the flop is often not large enough, when compared to the size of the pot, to make it incorrect for drawing hands (and this includes hands like middle pair) to call. This means that you should check-raise a fair amount of time in an attempt to cut down the odds for opponents to draw out on you when the pot is large. (If the pot is small you should be more inclined to bet your good hands, your draws, and your semi-bluffs.) A good guideline to follow is to consider check-raising if it is unlikely that an overcard can hurt you. That is, if you flop top pair and your top pair is aces, kings, or queens (and you have an overcard kicker with your queen), check-raising is often the correct play, especially if several players remain to act behind you. If your top pair is lower than queens, it is more dangerous to try for a check-raise, since a free card can easily beat you. Check-Raising 79 On the other hand, if you flop top pair in a large multiway pot, it still may be correct to check-raise, even if you are afraid of an overcard, especially if you are in an early position. This is because the pot is now so large that if you bet, you can expect a lot of callers anyway. Consequently, in an effort to thin the field, it may be necessary to risk the dreaded free card. Here's an example. You are in an early position and hold in a large multiway pot. The flop

risk in a given pot. Any time you are about to invest a significant percentage of your stack in a hand, make sure you take the time to ask yourself: (1) How much have I already invested in the hand and how big is the pot? (2) What hands, including draws, are out there that can/might beat me? (3) Am I willing to put the tournament on the line this hand? You should not feel any time pressure. Great players like Men “the Master” Nguyen have long known that it is important to reflect on the big decisions— and they take their time to do so. Make sure to think through your tournament chip position. If you have not already committed too much of your stack to the hand, and you think you may be beat—or even that you may be in a 50- 50 race situation—you have a decision to make. If you have the opportunity to make a bet at the pot, you may be able to take it down without a showdown. On the other hand, unless you’re trapping, if someone has bet into you, it is probably time to pass and wait for a better opportunity. Why jeopardize the chips when you are not leading the charge? The key is not to fall in love with a hand that you sense is a loser and throw away your shot at millions of dollars in prize money and a WPT title. Watching Phil Hellmuth play tournament poker is a remarkable experience. When he senses he is beat, he makes some huge laydowns, preserving his chances of staging a comeback. The exponential nature of betting in no-limit Texas hold’em makes such comebacks commonplace on the Tour. Step #3: Make a Plan and Play to Your Strengths Tournament poker has evolved significantly over the past few years. With all major events expanding to fields of hundreds or more players, participants are forced to adjust style and strategy, to adapt to the brave new world of televised poker. Young guns like Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, and Daniel Negraneau have developed a super-aggressive style that either takes them out quickly or allows them to gather chips early. Once they have chips, they tend to use them mercilessly as weapons against the smaller stacks at the table, forcing them to make near all-in decisions every time they play. 424 Players like Howard Lederer, Dewey Tomko, and Jennifer Harman Traniello have used a solid approach to great effect. They tend to choose their spots, waiting for strong hands and milking them for all they are worth. Once they get chips, they tend to mix it up a little more, but they also seem to hold on to the chips they win, building gradually to the final table. It is important for you to figure out what kind of player you think you are and to create a plan of attack for the tournament, from beginning to end. Step #4: See the Whole Tournament There are three basic phases of a tournament—all defined by how much

three again categorize your hand take a second think about it do we have a premium made hand a draw a marginal made hand or junk at this point we still have a pretty good draw if we get there on the river with a um with a king or an eight we're very happy if we get a jacker 10 we're happy enough so we're going to continue betting in this scenario so we do keep betting again you're going to want to use a relatively big size i'm not going to go to the river and discuss that yet we will be discussing river strategy later when we get to that part of this course but i do want to make it clear on the flop this is what we are definitely trying to hammer home here premium made hand draw marginal made hand or junk and when you have a draw with eight outs to the nuts this is a really good drawing hand to just bet so you want to be betting here using a relatively big size let's take a look at another scenario where we have queen 10 of spades we raise it up player on the button calls again flop comes queen nine two so in this situation we have what is a very clear made hand right top pairs of made hand the question is is this premium made hand or a marginal made hand and this hand is actually right on the cusp so for that reason you can either bet or check either play is fine always ask yourself what does my opponent do wrong let's say you know if you check the flop your opponent will bet the flop essentially every time which some people will if that's the case this is a great hand to check because we want to check and let our opponent bluff a lot however if your opponent is going to check behind with a lot of hands and they're not going to be bluffing all that often you'd rather just go ahead and bet this hand yourself so remember always adjust for what your opponent does incorrectly this time we do decide to bet we do use a relatively large size because remember we're betting slightly and frequently in this scenario if my hand was much worse like queen eight suited or a pair of jacks or ace nine i would definitely check by the way so we do bet the opponent calls on the turn we now have to ask well our opponent called our flop bit so they probably have something should we keep betting and um it's close but in this scenario i think checking is actually very fine and when we check this hand this has now been essentially downgraded from a premium made hand to a marginal made hand once you've been our opponent calls because when they call your flop bet they fold out all of their junk right if they did have a hand like eight seven they're

Defending Against Tiny 3-Bets Tournament poker is about precision. Cash games, where stacks typically run into the hundreds of… Heads up! Exploiting SB’s Preflop Mistakes Heads up (HU) tournament play presents unique challenges to the average player. Many tournament players,… C-Betting As the OOP Preflop Raiser Position is an extremely valuable advantage in poker. Most players would describe the comfort zone… Overchoice: Making Sense of Multiple Sizings Solver solutions with multiple bet sizes often involve a lot of mixing between those sizes,… River Refinements: When Your Opponent Won’t Check-Raise One of the biggest strategic differences between playing in versus out of position involves betting… Turn Barreling in 3-Bet Pots There are two articles on the GTO Wizard blog that make good prerequisites to this… The Right Way To Think About Protection Suppose Paul the Protector is in a 200bb cash game and opens A♠A♣ in the… The Importance of Board Coverage The first public version of the GTO Wizard announced AI upgrade already has some useful… How To Adjust When Villain Has No Bluffs “They always have it!” is a common, semi-joking expression in poker to describe the tendency… Adjusting on Later Streets After Exploiting Flop The key to exploiting opponents profitably is knowing when to stop. I’m not referring to… C-Betting IP vs Passive Poker Players A preflop raiser enjoys a significant range advantage over a BB caller, enabling them to… C-Betting Against ICM Preflop Ranges You raise from early position (EP) in a multi-table tournament and the BB calls. Both… The Art of Bluff Catching Bluff catching—calling a bet with a modest hand which you expect to win only if… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by IP On some flops, it is simply not possible for the preflop raiser to continuation bet… Is Limping Pimping? In a past Discord post, one of our members noted that an upside of implementing… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by OOP A preflop raiser who continuation bets too often is always a potential target for exploitation,… Preflop Button Mastery in PKOs Playing from the Button presents many unique opportunities in any tournament format, especially in PKOs.… The Worst Turn Card Greetings from GTO land. In today’s article, we will use the Turn Reports feature to… Navigating Range Disadvantage as the 3-Bettor Picture this: We’re playing a NL500 6-max cash game, and we’ve won a few pots,… Mastering Three-Bet Pots In Position in MTTs Playing in position against a three-better is a lesson in playing to your advantages. As… Mastering Three-Bet Pots Out of Position in MTTs Three-bet pots are scary. Playing out of position is scary. Put them together, and you’ve… The Greatest Final Table in Triton History Today, we’ll examine one of the most epic final table battles I’ve ever witnessed! Our… Mastering Thin Value Bets in Checked-Down Pots Valuing your hand appropriately—determining whether it’s strong enough to value bet or so weak you… Maximizing Value on Monotone Flops Monotone flops tend to provoke great anxiety among poker players. It’s easy to imagine that… How to Defend Against Turn Donk Bets Responding effectively to donk bets on

simplest terms, pot odds tell… Does your range affect your strategy? Advanced players will often tell you that your range affects your strategy. Visualizing implied odds Implied odds are the value you expect to gain over and above your raw equity.… ICM Basics As a tournament player, you may have heard about the concept of “ICM”, but what… What is Equity in Poker? The term “Equity” is ubiquitous throughout poker theory. Equity refers to your chances of winning… Range Morphology “Morphology” is the study of form or structure. You’ve probably heard terms thrown around such… What is Expected Value in Poker? Expected value (EV) is the most fundamental metric in poker. Every decision you make is… Why doesn’t my solution match GTO Wizard? So, you’ve got your own solutions to some spot, compared it to GTO Wizard, and… Understanding Nash Distance Understanding Nash Distance. One of the most common questions when studying with solvers is “Why… Combinatorics Poker Puzzle Today we have a special puzzle for you that will test your intuition as a… The 10 Most Important Concepts for New Poker Players The 10 Most Important Concepts for New Poker Players. Fundamentals are one of the most… What is GTO in Poker? The meaning of GTO in poker is Game Theory Optimal. Game theory is a study… What does GTO aim to achieve? So what exactly is a GTO strategy? What makes it “unexploitable”? What does it try…

Turn Donk Bets Responding effectively to donk bets on the turn is tricky;, there’s no getting around that.… How and Why You Should Use Turn Donk Bets Donk betting–taking the betting lead away from the previous street’s aggressor–on the flop is rarely… How Stack Sizes Change Your Range In this series, we have looked at factors that can influence ranges in otherwise identical… How to Leverage GTO Wizard’s EV Comparison Tool With the advent of solvers, some troubling new turns of phrase have entered the poker… Should You Ever Cold Call a 3-Bet? When there’s been a raise and re-raise before the action is on you, you will… When ICM Breaks Down If you have read my previous GTO Wizard articles and my books, you’ll know I… When Is It Correct To Fold AA Preflop? One of the criticisms of ICM is that it is boring and robotic. In my… OOP C-betting vs Loose Cold-callers In a previous GTO Wizard article, I asserted that “Playing against an in-position cold-caller is… Short-Stacked Play in MTTs Playing a short stack well is an essential tournament skill. It is extremely rare to… When To Ladder in Tournaments In my last two articles, I wrote about the effect field size and payout structure… How Payout Structures Impact ICM Last time we discussed the ICM considerations in game selection, we looked at field size,… C-Betting IP in 3-Bet Pots When you three-bet before the flop and the original raiser calls from out of position,… C-Betting OOP in 3-Bet Pots Continuation betting from out of position can be a dicey proposition in single-raised pots. Cold… Dynamic Sizing: A GTO Breakthrough Dynamic Sizing is a revolutionary new poker algorithm that automatically simplifies your strategy with the… Dynamic Sizing Benchmarks Dynamic Sizing is a revolutionary new poker algorithm that automatically simplifies your strategy with the… Understanding The Impact Of Field Size On ICM In Poker When people talk about game selection in multi-table tournaments (MTTs), they invariably talk about the… Defending vs BB Check-Raise on Paired Flops This is a companion piece to Attacking Paired Flops from the BB; you will get… Mastering PKO Final Tables Final tables can be the most exciting and rewarding phase of a tournament, and being… Attacking Paired Flops From the BB Paired flops present unique challenges to both a preflop raiser and a BB caller. The… KK vs QQ vs JJ at WSOP Main Event With only fourteen players remaining in the 2023 WSOP Main Event and blinds of 400K/800K/800K,… Responding to BB Squeezes You open raise, someone calls, and the BB squeezes. How should you construct your strategy?… Crushing a Top HUNL Poker Bot In 2022, Philippe Beardsell and Marc-Antoine Provost, a team of Canadian programmers from Quebec, developed… GTO Wizard AI Explained We are excited to introduce GTO Wizard AI, formerly known as Ruse, the world’s best… GTO Wizard AI Benchmarks GTO Wizard has combined the power of artificial intelligence with traditional solving methods to bring… Table Management in PKOs Perhaps the most important strategic consideration in Progressive Knockout Tournaments (PKOs) is

Table 47: BN GTO Action Frequencies by Stack Depth (Limping not Allowed) In Table 47 we can see that the deeper the stack depth, the more hands the BN gets to play, starting with 38.9% total VPIP with 10bb up to 55.5% with 80bb, for a total increase of 16.6% in raising frequency. One of the main reasons for this massive increase is that deeper stacks favor the BN’s positional advantage. The best tool the blinds can use to decrease their positional disadvantage is to rejam all-in, which doesn’t offer a great risk/reward ratio with stacks deeper than 40bb, so it becomes increasingly difficult for the blinds to deny equity to the BN. Due to being guaranteed to be in position throughout the hand, the BN post-flop equity realization is the highest and it only increases further as stacks get deeper. By going all-in, the BN forsakes positional advantage and thus there is a massive reduction in the BN open pushing frequency as stacks get deeper, dropping to 3.5% at 20bb and 0% at 25bb. BN RFI Range at 15bb With 15bb, the BN splits their range almost 50/50 between going all-in and min-raising (Hand Range 112). There is still the same pattern as before with hands that have good equity against calling ranges but don’t have great post-flop playability being pushed (66-22, AJo-A2o, offsuit broadways and premium suited connectors).

flop with pocket aces, you would have to bet on the 7-2-2 flop because there’s just too much money in the pot to leave it laying out there. Now suppose the flop comes 7-2-2 in an unraised pot and everyone checks around to you. You might make a small stab at it, and if you get raised, you would probably throw it away. Or you might want to let one more card come off for free and see what happens. But remember that since every player has six hands, it’s very easy to hit gutshots or make a set with a small pair, so it’s extraordinarily dangerous to give free cards. To recap, unless you’re an extraordinarily aggressive player who raises all the time, you should not usually raise with aces before the flop. One could even make an argument that you should never raise before the flop with aces, because even if you’re a good player and your opponents can’t put you on aces, the fact that you put so much money in the pot forces you to defend your aces over very risky flops. 286 Put simply, a reraise with aces almost screams at your opponents, “I have aces!” And once you’ve told people that you have aces, bottom two pair and top and bottom pair look good to them, and any set looks like a monster on the flop. Almost as important, a hand that flops one pair with nine cards to make two pair looks pretty good to your opponents. For example, let’s say that I just call an opponent’s pre-flop reraise with 10-9-8-7 and the flop comes 7-5-2. I know that he has aces, but I figure that I have a pretty good hand. In order to beat him, I need to catch a 10, 9, or 8 to pick up a second pair, a 6 to make a gutshot straight, or a 7 to make trips. There are four sixes and two sevens, plus nine other cards—fifteen outs total —that I could catch to beat him, so I’m about even money to win. My opponent’s aces are vulnerable in this situation. Of course, if I didn’t know that he had aces and he bet on the 7-5-2 flop, I would be more careful. Any time you advertise that you have aces, unless you can get three quarters or more of your money in the pot, just call and wait to see what happens on the flop—even if you’re normally an extremely aggressive player. Playing a Drawing Hand Drawing hands are a big part of Omaha. You can turn monsters that are favorites over sets. It’s easy to turn nut flush draws, nut flush draws with a straight draw, or a wrap with a flush draw, all of which are dangerous hands for your opponents to draw against. If somebody bets into them, many players, including me, will raise with big draws such as a flush draw with a straight draw or maybe two pair with a flush draw. If you have a drawing hand and you’ve

Hand Range 320: UTG 40bb vs BN 3.25x 3-bet • All-in 24.3% / • Call 26.3% / • Fold 49.4%

get a showdown I want to see what he's doing he's got 4.7 BBC's limping uh there's no lymphs at 4.7 BBS so I really need to see what he's up to before and I can't believe he let I can't believe he let me win with King High and then like that's I don't don't ever let someone win with King High if you live five people lines uh he had a queen high but still you just see that range and I would fold because and then see instantly I changed him from being a reg to to an unknown if he's because my yellow is more like I'm not too sure so I put him as a very bit premature and I probably should have put him yellow um because uh it didn't know and so both those hundred regs didn't want to didn't want the smoke anymore and they decided to quit the hundreds so we had to start hunting for games again I think I pause it but we can wait till we get a game I just say okay so we get a game here we didn't miss nothing I'm not expecting to get 100 so I cover up the 100 expecting to get this 20 I think this 20 does pop off and um because I I remembered I'm supposed to be seeing 20s like why am I saying only hundreds and 50s Well yeah if I'd reread the message I would have also sat some some tens as well which would have been cool but at least this is kind of like more like the mistakes and it kind of can conclude our live grinds because we play a big range the last games we played the absolute micros and now we're playing mid mid steaks so yeah so there's no high stake anymore and um so here um this is a raise or a limp um a shallow effect I would raise it always like 15 and under and then a bit deeper I would um I just limp it it's it's not here not there EV is the same uh you can actually I I probably would mix it as well um I don't know who little pun is and that would be a big reason for limping it um because we would want to we've got insta insta position uh so money flows this way we're going to make Eevee on Lil punt given that he has a name like little punt probably just punting about a bit and yeah we want to I want to capitalize on that so now you see he's gone all in and like I still raise my good hands but I think limping here would even be good um but he's also going to be cautious because he's got a a recreational that I don't know if he knows or has notes on him um but we're going to we're both going to be very cautious against each other and it's going to be a

on Hold ’em: Expert Strategy for No-Limit Tournaments, Volume I: Strategic Play is that book. Organization No-limit hold ’em is such a big and complicated game that I couldn't squeeze all the information into just one book, so Harrington on Hold ’em is a two-volume set. In this first book, Volume I, I'll show you how to play in the beginning and middle stages of a no-limit hold ’em tournament. Part One serves as an introduction to the game as a whole. I'll show you why no-limit hold ’em is considered the "Cadillac of Poker," and what you need to consider when you try to evaluate a hand. I'll also take you inside a very interesting and complex hand from the final table of the 2003 World Series of Poker. You might have seen this hand on television; I'll show you what the players were really thinking. Part Two covers playing styles. If you watched some poker on television, you've heard players described as "conservative," "aggressive," "super-aggressive," and "willing to play any two cards!" In Part Two I'll show what these terms really mean and how to play in each style. Most important, I'll explain why you need to switch from style to style as the situation demands. 4 Part Three, "Reading the Table," explains how to observe the action and keep track of both physical tells and betting patterns. It also explains how to observe yourself, and why that's so important. Part Four, "Pot Odds and Hand Analysis," explains all the math you'll need to know to play nolimit hold ’em. (There is some, but fortunately there isn't a lot.) The chapter covers pot odds, expressed and implied odds, and analyzing hands in relation to the odds being offered. Part Five covers the whole topic of "Betting Before the Flop." I'll introduce a complete strategy for betting for value in pots that haven't been opened yet, and I'll also show you what hands you need to call or raise for value when the pot has been opened in front of you. Part Six, "Betting After the Flop," shows you how to think about your hand when the flop arrives. I'll show you a number of sample hands and compare them to various flops, explaining which flops are good, which are bad, and which are deceptively dangerous. Part Seven covers fourth and fifth street action, including getting extra money in the pot, playing against drawing hands, and betting (or not betting) on the end. In Volume II I'll talk about the tough issues involved in negotiating the later stages of a tournament. There you'll find discussions of moves and bluffs, zones and inflection points, the stack ratio and what it means for your play, changing your style, playing short tables, and handling heads-up play. Master the material in these two books, and you'll know how to win a no-limit hold ’em tournament. The rest is up to you. The Hands Much of the real value of these books lie in the sample hands, which are collected at the end of each chapter.

you know how the hand came about, however, your reasoning should change dramatically. The big blind has watched you steal four hands recently, and now you're on your way to stealing a fifth hand. No one else at the table has been standing up to you, so perhaps he's decided it's time to play sheriff. When a player thinks you're pushing the table around and wants to put a stop to it, he'll take any two reasonable cards and come over the top with them. Note as well that an oversized raise is more likely to indicate a hand that doesn't want a call. Players with made hands are more likely to want you in the pot against them. What does this mean? Simply that you can't assume any longer that his potential mix of hands consists of just high pairs and high cards. It's now a much broader group of hands, including low pairs, suited connectors, ace-x, and perhaps a few others. You're now either a small favorite or a large favorite against most of the hands he might show, and only an underdog against the high pairs. Because of the image you've created at the table, you're now compelled to call his bet. Example No. 4: Let's say for argument's sake that you decided to fold, rather than call, that bet. Now it's exactly one round later at the same table. Once again you're fifth to act. Between your loss in that hand and a round of blinds and antes, your chip stack is down to $20,000. The other players are in roughly the same positions as before. You have 46 A♠ Q♥ The first four players fold to you. You once again raise to $2,000. The three players in back of you fold, but the small blind, with $18,000 chips in his stack and a history of making aggressive raises and reraises, reraises you to $5,000. The big blind folds. What do you do? Discussion: Again, in the abstract this looks like a very strong bet. You raised triple the big blind, and a big reraise came from a player out of position. But now let's look at the table as the small blind sees it. He's seen you steal several pots over a short period of time. (Of course, he doesn't really know you stole them - you might have been betting with solid values. But it looks like you stole them, which is all that really matters.) A few turns ago, he saw you try to steal, then fold when the big blind came over the top. Now here you are again, probably trying to steal once more. What kind of hand might he have? Under these circumstances, he could hold almost anything. Your A♠Q♥ might even be the best hand right now! I don't think you should fold, and I wouldn't even call. Instead, I'd reraise! Since any significant reraise would commit at least half your chips to the pot, you should just go all-in and see what happens. Most of the time, your opponent will

flop percentage but then a large showdown pot? This might mean that the flop betting and on is very heavy so you would have to be good at analyzing a flop. It could also mean that there are loose players that take their hands too far after the flop. 8. Remember that swings in your bankroll are part of the game. You will not win every night and you will not win every week. Do not get disappointed by losing streaks. I have experienced long winning streaks only to have them end for weeks at a time. Every hand I played was second best regardless of the strength. I could have a Full House and someone would have drawn to a Straight Flush. I would have a Flush and someone would have Quads. It seems like someone is doing TO you. It makes you forget the times YOU were the one that was unbeatable, showing down every hand with an even better hand. Ride it out, play tighter and wait for the swing to be in your corner more often. The trick to swings is to play a solid game all of the time. Win more on your up swings than you lose on your downswings. Protect your bankroll on those downswings and push your bankroll when you are on an upswing. I hope some of these thoughts about poker will help you make better decisions before you join a table and while you are at the table. If you are like me, the real value of playing poker is in the amount of money you make and the feeling of leaving a session with a larger bankroll. At least that is what keeps me studying and working harder to become a better player. Bluffing and Betting Bluffing is an art form in high stakes games. You just do not decide you are going to bluff a hand on the River or the Turn. The better players can read bluffs like this. The higher you go into the poker hierarchy the harder it is bluff. That is the accepted wisdom. Bluffing is a skill that is difficult to master. Bluffing is something you plan on doing at the beginning of a hand, so you adjust your play from the go. Bluffing on the final card or the Turn and final card is not the way to go. Good players will realize something is wrong with the betting patterns and most will take advantage of this. Proper bluffing technique is an attitude you apply as you start the hand. In your mind, you say, “If I miss this flop, I will attempt to steal the pot”. Now this may sound easy, but it is not as easy as it sounds. Most players do not have the ability to realize when this type of bluffing can be utilized. Obviously, just because you say you will bluff the pot, does not mean you will always succeed. Realizing or learning when the opportunity is right will help you succeed at bluffing. People do not realize how

a free card here and such is the peril of out-of-position play and protecting yourself against creative bluffs is lessimportant than protecting against texture. If you bet out on the turn and get flat-called, you can again put your opponent on the weak end of the range or a flush draw making a bad call. Therefore, if the board busts on the river, you should check to induce a bluff from that range, which won’t call your river bet, but will often take a stab at the river if you check. If the flush completes on the river, take a read, either check-folding or defensive betting. Remember always that we’re talking about heads-up play here. Most people don’t take that into account when they bet out on the flop into thepre-flop raiser to protect against the texture. But in most heads-up situations whether you’re in or out of position, you’re looking at reduced texture. When texture is a factor, you don’t want to bet too big too early; unfortunately, you often give the flush draw the opportunity to see two cards at the right price. By check-calling on the flop, then betting on the turn when the board busts, you let the flush draw do bad math instead. And as we’ve seen, against hands like AK and AJ, you do much better with this line, both from a money and decision-making perspective. When you check-called the flop and the texture hits on the turn, completing to A♠-8♦-2♦-6♦, you’ll bet if you don’t have the high card in suit in your hand, because, again, it looks like you hit the draw. So now you bet the flush just like any other donkey who check-calls and bets when he hits his hand, at the same time protecting yourself fromallowing a free card to come off, getting some slightly better hands to lay down and discouraging monsters from getting too frisky with all that flushycolor on board. If you’re called when you bet a board like A♠-8♦-2♦-6♦, pay close attention to your opponent and see if he looks back at his hand when calling you. If he does, then calls, that’s generally telling you he either has one high card in suit to the board, or none. If he already had the flush, he’d know it and wouldn’t have to check his hand. Without a diamond, he’ll fold unless his hand is so big, like a set, that he has to call. But you know he doesn’t have a flush there. At the start of the hand, inattentive players (and they’re legion) don’t commit the suits of their hole cards to memory when their hole cards areunsuited, since they figure that the suits probably won’t matter. But now that three of a suit are on the board and your opponent doesn’t remember whether he holds a diamond or not, if he looks, calls, and a fourth diamond comes on the river, you can easily check-fold. If the river bricks, you canbet and take a stab at the pot, knowing he didn’t hit his redraw and

bluffs such as KJs, KTs, K9s, J9s while retaining good post-flop playability. This is the point where, for the first time, we see a 5-betting range include some non-premium hands as bluffs such as ATs and A5s. The reason for this is that the EP and the MP 4-bet ranges are too strong and too blocker heavy. The LP 4-bet ranges vs the blinds are less centered around blockers and this starts to improve the EV of jamming these blocker-type hands. ATs and A5s are the highest equity bluff hands against very strong ranges (Hand Range 73). Hand Range 72: SB vs CO Open • 3-bet 10.9% / • Fold 89.1%

used because they represent the widest and tightest ranges, while strategies from other positions will fall somewhere in between. The results show that the overall BB donk bet frequency is only 2% (for 1/4 and 2/3 bet-sizes) and the average IP c-betting frequency is 84%. The GTO simulations agree with the general consensus about donk betting not being widely used and c- bets being very common. However, if we look deeper into the data, there are some spots where the solver actually likes donk betting at a high frequency (Table 100). Table 100: BB and IP stats (20bb/30bb/40bb) On average, the highest frequency donk betting flop is 654r (67%), and one of the lowest donk betting flops is A76r (0.3%), Why is the BB betting frequency on A76r so low compared to 654r? If betting was clearly the highest EV option for any hand in the BB range, the solver would always do it. If betting is indifferent to checking, then the hand will be played as a mixed strategy. If a hand is never being bet, it is because betting is lower EV compared to checking. Returning to our EV equation: The EV of betting a hand depends on how often Villain folds, how often they raise, how often they call and the amount of equity Hero has when called. The stronger Villain’s range, the less they will fold, the more often they will raise and the less equity Hero will have when called. The GTO solver assumes play against a GTO opponent who knows your strategy and will call, raise and fold optimally against you. If IP’s range is so strong that they won’t be folding much vs a bet and, in contrast, will be able to raise a lot and call effectively, then betting becomes a lot less enticing than it would be against a weaker range distribution.

still have outs. Thus, at times, even in the face of a second barrel on the turn, you can go ahead and raise. I’d only do that against someone who’s likely to bet the turn with a weaker hand, such as an aggressive creative opponent who almost alwaystakes a second barrel on the turn. This is especially effective if he reads you as an ABC-type player and can now interpret your story as “strong all along, waiting to trap.” However, against non-creative players, who’d only bet again on the turn with a monster, you should stay away from this kind of play. What I most want you to take away from this discussion is how valuable it is to break your bluffs down into parts. You get more information with less risk and you tell a much more compelling story, absolutely consistent with your line of play for big hands. Also, by calling behind on the flop, you don’t reopen the betting to hyper-aggressive players looking to come over the top either with or without a hand. So take a breath and wait to bluff onthe turn. Often, the leader will check to you and you can take that beautiful half-pot opportunity to pick up the pot right there. But even if it’s bet into you a second time, you can still bluff-raise if the situation is right. If you get called, you know you’re facing a huge hand andyou’re done with trying. But note that you can actually get top pair or the bad end of two pair to lay down here, which you’re highly unlikely toaccomplish with a bluff-raise on the flop. Flop-Dependent Bluffs, In Position, Heads-Up Often, your bluffing opportunities are dictated by the texture of the flop itself, though the same principle of taking a breath still applies. Say you’re looking at a flop of J-J-2, the so-called “orphan flop” just looking to be adopted. Here again, most bluffers’ tendency is to raise the flop, trying to tell a story of three jacks right away. But is that really the story you’re telling? No. You’re telling your opponent that you don’t have a jack. If you did, you’d happily call along and try to extract extra value. The Greedy Bastard Rule, right? (Which is why, by the way, if you do have a jack, it can be great to raise on the flop against someone sophisticated enough to read you for weakness. It so confuses your more astute opponents that they will often try to re-bluff you there. Oops for them.) Look, the vast majority of players, when they get bet into on that J-J-2 flop, will flat-call with the jack in their hand. So the minute you flat-call, your opponent is on his guard. If he checks into you on the turn, you can now bet and convincingly represent the jack, which confirms his assumptionsabout your hand. But do bet. The reason you called on the flop, remember, was to set up the bluff on the turn. If you’re not following through on the turn, never call

How to Defend Against Turn Donk Bets Responding effectively to donk bets on the turn is tricky; there’s no getting around that. It’s one of the reasons why learning to use such bets yourself is so valuable. It requires an awareness of your own range and tests your opponent’s willingness to make stubborn , counterintuitive calls and raises. Know Thy Enemy To combat donk bets, you must first understand them. In particular, there are three key features of a well-implemented donk betting strategy to be aware of: Donk bets are typically small , 20% of the pot or so. You can’t afford to fold too much of your range, so you must be willing to call with relatively weak hands. It can be hard to intuit what a 14% chance of winning looks like, so studying and thinking mathematically is a must. A well-constructed donk betting range contains a variety of hands ; some that do not mind or even welcome a raise (low-equity bluffs and monster hands), and others that will be in a tough spot if raised (semi-bluffs and medium pairs). This is why both calling and raising are important components of your response. Most donk betting occurs in spots where your opponent could easily have a monster. This can make raising uncomfortable, so it’s important to recognize how many other, more modest hands they are also incentivized to bet. Responding to Donk Bets on Paired Turns For this scenario, we will take a 40bb UTG vs. BB single-raised pot as our example. After checking and calling a 33% pot continuation bet on a J ♠ 5 ♣ 3 ♦ flop, the BB bets 20% pot on a 3 ♥ turn. What heuristics can you discern from UTG’s response , shown below? UTG’s value-raising threshold is roughly KJ . In other words, they mostly call QJ and mostly raise KJ and better. Despite the risk of raising into trips, these hands are strong enough to shove most rivers for value if BB calls the turn raise. J9 and JT sometimes raise the turn as well, but this is partly about denying equity to overcards; they check behind blank rivers after raising. UTG rarely folds Ace-high or even King-high . The King-high hands will bluff rivers unimproved, betting if checked to or raising if BB donk bets small again, but Ace-high has enough showdown value to check behind or call a block bet Block bet A small bet made by the out of position player designed to prevent or “block” the opponent from betting themselves. Sometimes used to induce raises. . These unpaired hands are also the best candidates for bluff raising . The rank of your unpaired cards matters . KT is a better call than A6 because BB sometimes bets medium pocket pairs against which the T is an out, but the 6 is not. UTG slowplays full houses but purely raises A3 , their only trips. If you’ve coolered an opponent with lower trips, it’s not going to matter what you do. The reason to raise is to

a set, or the blinds may have gotten one or 2-Pair. However, most of these possibilities are slim. As Bob Ciaffone says, it is hard to get a good hand; they just do not grow on trees. That is one of the tricks of playing after the flop; if your hand has more than one way to improve to the best hand then it was a good flop and you should become an aggressive poker player. If you have TPTK, or second Pair and there is no heavy betting, and you are in position (last or the cutoff), then you have the choice: A. checking/calling (which means that you don't reveal your hand strength), B. betting out for information, C. raising which over represents the strength of your hand (over betting the pot in big bet poker). In limit poker checking and calling is a strategy you should use if your hand is second best but can become best. You keep the pot small and have the chance to complete your hand cheaply. This way you do not invest that much into the hand. Say you have Top Pair with top kicker (TPTK) and a Gut-Shot straight draw. You think your opponent has flopped a set or 2-Pair. The pot odds may be correct to call but you do not want to be raising in this situation building a big pot. The larger pot will be more incentive for your opponent to stay in and draw out on your hand. Over betting the pot in No Limit Hold’em is a strategy meant to cut down on the number of opponents you are facing and represent a stronger hand than you may have. This is a risky maneuver and should only be attempted at a tight table with no calling stations in the hand. Here is another example that will take into consideration your hand against what your opponents may hold that can beat you. You hold the 9d Td and the flop comes Ad 8h Js. You have eight outs to get the win. This is a little more risky than the previous example because you will need to catch one of eight cards to make your Straight or a runner/runner of diamonds for a weak Flush. So now, pot odds really come into play. You only have one way to win this hand (excluding the backdoor Flush Draw which you might want to consider a half of an out); by hitting your open ended Straight draw and one of the hits could easily make your hand second best. Depending on how many people saw the flop, the more likely someone hit his or her Ace an even 2-Pair. If there is a bet then you have the option to just call or re-raise, depending on how many people are in the pot and the pot odds. You have a three to one shot that it will hit on either the Turn or the River. (The Flush Draw is more risky because you do not hold the nut Flush). Therefore, you do

wider as Stacks get or as the ranges you're against to get wider and wider also a Stacks is shallower and shallower you often see yourself shoving wider and wider too we'll discuss 15b blind play in a bit all right here we have big blind ranges versus a rays a blind versus Under the Gun now from the big blind this version is the big blind raises and everyone folds around to you we're not going to get into multi-way spots in this video because that becomes another whole gigantic topic we'll actually make a mastering the fundamentals of multi-way pots at some point in the future so big blind under the gun raises big blind calls you do a ton of calling because now we have to put in one big line to try to win a total of how much there to our two the small blind and the ante so it's put in one to win 5.5 we don't have to realize very much Equity at all so we get to call with a pretty wide range again in the tournament you may want to fold out some of the weaker hands that are in this offsuit junkie region I think that's fine notice though our shoving range is still pretty similar to when we were in the small blind where we're shoving middle pairs Ace King and Ace Queen a few suited connected type hands right and our small reason re-raising range not all land is just the nuts and some asex and King X blockers same thing right big blind versus hijack notice we do get to fend a little bit wider now because we are in the big blind closing action more shoves though a whole lot more shoves with the same type of hands pairs Ace X our Ace King Ace Queen Ace track type stuff connectors again three betting small with our nuts and some blocker Bluffs same thing big blind versus button lots more shoves now up to 11 of hands King seven King six and King five are are suited hands which like to rip it in which is fun they're almost like uh suited connectors butt blockers they're not really suited connectors I understand but notice though a whole lot of off suit Junkie a three bet not all ends with a lot of King X Kleenex Jack X and 10x this is something not very many people do when the button reads it's the two big lines very few people in the big blind are making it six or seven big lines with the Jack five offsuit they just don't do it and that results in their re-raising range being incredibly incredibly strong which is a problem because then you're super duper easy to play against you need to make send these Bluffs I realize they don't happen all that often and you know if you wanted to make this an implementable chart maybe you just three bet something like I don't know Queen three suited and Jack four

the hand so if you actually know that the whole table is gonna fall behind you and we'll talk more later on how you can achieve this you can open in early position and still have absolute position the important thing is who is left to act behind you and how are they likely to react to your open something also I popularized way back one is coining the term of the Money chip I would really like you to think about the dealer chip as the money chip the reason being because when you have that in front of you is when you are going to be making the most money you always have absolute position when you have the button provided that you play your hand and next we have relative position which is achieved by closing the action so preflop if there is a raise from under the gun 1 and middle position calls the big blind has dibs on relative position they have the opportunity to close the action something I realized while making this presentation though is we can we can pay for the right to gain relative position by limping in because if under the gun limps in and someone else raises late positions react the big blind has to react before under the gun acts also we can straddle to pick up relative position but it's something that we have to pay for and it's not as valuable as absolute position so in the absence of others having relative position is good but having absolute position is better and having both is best now as a reminder of how to get it to get absolute position play the button and to get relative position be the player closing the action the ways to not get relative position would be to be the first caller of an open because anyone else who over calls behind you is going to have relative position on you after the flop and how to not get absolute position is by playing hands from early position especially if the players behind you are loose active players like to call raises 3bet do things like that another way of understanding relative position is it's your position relative to the preflop aggressor so if you have a preflop aggressor who you expect to continuation bet on many boards by having relative position you get to see what everyone else does after that action before you make your action so yeah the the only way to lose absolute position is when you're on the button is to fold preflop which is why there are many strategies that you can implement to get position more few examples are limping on the button when you have aggressive three betters in the blinds so that you can call a raise and play the rest of the hand in position with a deep pot to stack ratio another example is raising to a smaller amount on the button with aggressive 3 betters so when they three bet you

than he will bet, a habit which is typical of the majority of players. 10 If your hand is worth a call, you should check and call when your opponent is one who will bet with more hands than he will call. As we shall see, this player is usually the type who may try to bluff after you have checked in first position. You should check and fold when you are not the favorite if called and when your opponent is one who will almost always bet only with a hand that beats yours. This player may call with a few hands worse than yours. However, since this type will only bet with a hand that clearly beats you, the bets you save by folding after he bets are greater than the few bets you might pick up by betting and getting called by his worse hands. The key factor in deciding whether to check-raise, bet, check and call, or check and fold in first position is, as we have seen, 10 See pages 213-214 for an exception to the rule. 210 Chapter Twenty-one which of the plays has the greatest positive expectation or the least negative expectation. Let's say that on a scale of 0 to 100 you have hand 80, a good hand but not a great hand. Your opponent could have anything from 0 to 100, with each hand equally likely. That would seem to make you a 4-to-1 favorite if you bet, but that's not at all the case. The question is, which hands will your opponent call with? If he will call only with hands 75 and upward, you are clearly an underdog if you bet — specifically a 4-to-1 underdog since you will lose to 20 of your opponent's hands and beat only five. We'll assume you know your opponent will call with hands 57 and upward. (We are, of course, being very hypothetical here since no player could know his opponent so precisely.) If your opponent will call with hands 57 and upward, that means that if you bet, you will win 23 times — when your opponent has hands 57-79 — and lose 20 times — when he has hands 81-100. Thus you are a 23-to-20 favorite when you bet. However, that does not mean the correct play is to bet. You still do not have enough information. You must also know what hands your opponent will bet if you check. Suppose your opponent will bet hands 62 and up if you check (which means you blow a bet if he has hands 57-61), but he will also bet with hands 0-10. That is, there are eleven hands your opponent will bluff with. Once again there are 20 hands you will lose to (hands 81- 100), but now, instead of 23, there are 29 hands you will beat — hands 0-10 and hands 62-79. Thus, if you check and call when your opponent bets, you are a 29-to-20 favorite to show down the best hand. Clearly it is better to play the last

to call. This looks like a strong play, but remember that you’re basically bluffing and your best outcome is that they all go home. So folding might not be so bad either. If a player bets into you on the turn and you’re next to act, you’d play the hand like you’re heads-up. Let’s say player A bets and B and C fold to you on the turn. Now you’re heads-up, so you can play your heads-up lines, adjusting for how strong you read your opponent. Tend toward a raise if the turn is untextured, representing a big hand, unless you read A as strong, in which case folding is your best option. If the turn completes the possible flush, fold or raise without the high diamond against player A, leaning strongly toward fold, since player A was willing to bet into multiple players when the flush card hit. Call or raise with the high card in suit on the three-suited board, depending on how willingyou read player A to fold a small flush to a raise (you know he can’t have the nuts). If players A and B check and C bets, you can again play it just like heads-up, with a lean toward isolating with a raise in all cases. Player Cdoesn’t have to be nearly as strong as A to bet the turn; he’s only betting into one player, not three. If the turn card is a brick to the texture, you can raise and knock out A and B, important in case they have flush draws. If the flush hits when C bets, he’s more likely to be just representing the flush than player A, who’ll more likely actually have the flush. So again, unless you had a strong read on him, you’d tend to raise no matter whichAQ you had, high diamond or not, and represent the flush. As an aside, sizing your bet on the flop has some unique aspects in multi-way pots with texture on board. The presence of draws and multiplecallers has a ripple effect on pot odds. It turns out that the right amount to bet is around three-quarters pot, the top end of your normal betting range. Let’s see why. Say there’s 1,000 in the pot and it’s checked to you on the flop. You really want to punish the flush draws, so you bet the whole pot. If you bet 1,000, you’re giving 2-to-1 odds to the first caller (2,000 in the pot for him to call 1,000) and obviously, that’s not right for a draw with one card to come. If he calls, the second caller is now getting 3-to-1 on his money (3,000 in the pot for him to call 1,000), and likewise, that’s not right for a flush, again assuming you’ll deny him a free card on the turn (which you will, right?). It’s not until you get all the way to the fourth caller that you deliver theright price, 1,000 to win 4,000, or 4-to-1. So betting the pot forces at least two opponents to make bad

lead or not. But in both cases you have a big hand. Howconfusing is it to your opponents that sometimes you check and sometimes you bet when you’re sitting huge? Lucky for you, most of your opponents won’t factor in the texture when trying to analyze your action. Time and again, then, we see how mixing it up, trying to look confusing by inserting variation in your play, makes no sense. You can appear random just by playing the right way. Since the correct lines of play vary so much, from leading light to check-raising all-in, you’re likely to sowconfusion among your inattentive opponents, which is to say most of them. This is why you don’t ever have to think in terms of arbitrarily mixing up your play. Just do the right thing, the right math, game-theoretical, goalsetting, and decision-making thing, and your opponents’ heads will naturally explode. Okay, ready to play some draws? Chapter 13 Quick on the Draws Big Draws For the purpose of this discussion, we’re awarding you a tasty hand like A♠K♠ and a board of 8♥-4♠-3♠. This is, by definition, a big draw, because you’re drawing to the nut flush, plus the three aces and three kings in the deck are also likely to be good if you hit one of them. So you have15 outs to wind up with either certainly or probably the best hand—if you don’t have it already. To see how big this draw is, consider the best hands you might be up against. If you’re facing pocket queens, all your outs are good and you’re a 54% favorite to win this pot. Against pocket kings, you lose your three king outs, but you’re still almost even money. Obviously, against aces, a set, or two pair, you have only the flush draw, which makes you a 2-to-1 underdog with two to come, somewhat less against the hands with redraws to a full house, but in any case that’s a worst-case scenario. To be either a favorite or, at worst, a 2-to-1 underdog is a pretty sweet position to be in. As before, your first job is to set your goals for the hand. If you like, you can include winning with ace high as part of your goal set, but that’s just abonus. The main question is, where does this hand’s strength lie? The answer: It lies in the fact that you can win more than one way, either bymaking the flush or making top-pair top-kicker. However, and this is a really important concept, it’s not just that you have the six extra outs to top pair; those extra outs aren’t enough to make youa favorite unless you have two cards to come. With one card to come, a hand with 15 outs is not a favorite. It’s actually only 30% to hit. If your bestcase scenario is 30%, that’s not such a big hand anymore, is it? No, the power of this hand lies not just in having all those outs, but in having twochances to hit. Once you get that concept

chances of the two pair improving to a full house are 9-to-1 against. In other words, the player behind you will improve to the best hand one out of ten times on average. With absolutely nothing, the player to your right bets $10 in an attempt to steal that big pot. You know this player will fold instantly if you raise, and you are fairly sure the player behind you will fold too. However, if you just call the $10, the player behind you will also call. Consequently, you may win $120 plus perhaps another bet at the end if you call, whereas if you raise you'll most likely have to make do with the $110 already in the pot. Should you call or raise? The answer, of course, is you should raise, but let's look at the problem logically. The opponent with two pair is a 9-to-1 underdog. If you call, there is $120 in the pot. He would be getting 12-to-l from the pot for his call when the odds against his making the best hand are only 9-to-1. Therefore, if you call and he calls behind you, he is making the correct play, the play with positive expectation. He will lose $10 in nine hands out of ten on average, for a total loss of $90, but he will win $120 in one hand out of ten for a net profit of $30. He gains on the play, and according to the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, any time your opponent gains, you are costing yourself money. On the other hand, when you raise, making it $20 for the two pair to call, you are cutting that player's pot odds from $120-to- $10, or 12-to-l, to $130-to-$20, or 6 1 /2-to-1. Since the two pair is a 9-to-1 underdog and is now getting only 61 /2-to-1 from the pot, you have made it correct for the two pair to fold. If he plays correctly and does fold, you do better, as we shall see presently, than if you had played incorrectly and allowed him sufficient odds for a call. However, if the two pair plays incorrectly and calls after you raise, you do best of all, because when an opponent makes a mistake, you gain. What your raise did was to reduce correct odds for a call into incorrect odds for a call. The curious effect of this turnabout is that although you raised to drive the two pair out, you are rooting for him to call after you raise. Raising 127 To prove this point, let's see what happens over ten average handsif: 1.You call, and the two pair calls behind you. 2.You raise, and the two pair folds. 3.You raise, and the two pair calls your raise. If you call and the two pair calls, you will win nine out of ten hands. Assuming you check after the draw and don't pay your opponent off the one time he makes a full house, you will win $120 (the $110 already in the pot — not counting your own

today we will be talking about small blind versus big blind tournament play it's gonna be mostly a pre-flop video I will have some discussion about how to play flops but I figure in these short amount of times when we only have about 30 minutes of content pre-flop is the easiest and quickest way to shore up some leaks and as I've said before in the past getting a solid pre-flop fundamental studying of knowledge of a situation is what's going to help you set up yourself for better flop play better turn play if you have a problem like you realize oh I don't have any strong hands on the turn or I'm over folding turns or Rivers it's most likely because you're screwing up on the Flop or pre-flop earlier on and that's where your mistake comes in is earlier streets not the current street that you're on so today's webinar came from a student I asked on Twitter it's just how I'm unsure how to play pre-flop when it is folded to me in the small blind should I be raising should I be limping how do I construct ranges when it's folded to me in the small blind what adjustments do I make on different stack sizes and as always all examples will assume a one big blind Annie so as always all these examples are going to assume a one big blind ante because we play 95 of the tournament with ents so I'm not going to bother looking at the non-andy stuff non-annies you're going to be obviously playing much tighter and so you can kind of make your own adjustments from there and we'll be focusing a lot on the small blind play and we'll talk a little bit about big blind but that's a whole other topic so first things first when you're in the small blind you're in the worst position at the table the big blind isn't the worst position the small blind is the worst position you're forced to put money into the pot only a half a big blind compared to one big blind and the big blind but you're now out of position to everyone at the table and when you call and play a hand you're given a really good price to the big blind so you're most likely playing multi-way pots out of position to multiple people so it is the worst position at the table playing wide ranges at a very large spr is very difficult spr again from our previous one is stack to pot ratio and the wire to the ranges are the larger the spr is the more the big line gets to screw with you and it's fun when you're the big blind and it sucks when you're the small blind because you get up get punished and if you're the big blind you get to do the punishing so optimal strategies change dependent on a few variables the most important two that we'll focus on is one who is the

The Importance of Board Coverage The first public version of the GTO Wizard announced AI upgrade already has some useful features to explore. In particular, I think the first iteration of this product can show us the importance of board coverage in poker. All the postflop ranges you have seen on GTO Wizard so far are designed with board coverage in mind. What we mean by “board coverage” is making sure all of our ranges, whether they are opening, defending, or 3-betting, can potentially hit any board type. We want to be able to hit an A ♥ A ♦ K ♣ flop, a J ♥ 9 ♣ 8 ♦ flop, or a 6 ♣ 4 ♥ 2 ♣ with the same range. If we miss (or even hit) too often, we leave ourselves open to exploitation. One of the best features of GTO Wizard AI is the ability to change the preflop ranges for postflop play. With this new feature, we can see the importance of board coverage in poker, by demonstrating what happens when a range has an imbalance in its interaction with the board. How Important Is Board Coverage? Let’s jump into an example to highlight what we mean. This is a presolved spot from the Solutions library. It is 40bb UTG vs BB, single-raised pot and this is the UTG opening range : UTG has a tight linear Linear A range construction that consists of the top-down strongest hands. A linear range might contain nutted to medium strength hands, or value to thin value. range of just 19.1% of hands, but despite being tight it does technically cover the whole board. This range crushes high boards, but it has plenty in the middle too, including possible straights. It can also potentially hit a low board. It can make every set because it has all the pocket pairs and it can flop a wheel Wheel A low straight made with the cards A2345 . Also commonly referred to as a wheel straight. thanks to the presence of low suited Ace-x hands. This is the BB response to the open : BB’s calling range obviously covers much more of the low and middling flops, it is especially going to hit more low boards than UTG will. This range has much better board coverage, but it is so wide that it is going to miss most boards, most of the time. This is a capped Capped A range without many very strong hands, relative to the board. See uncapped. range, in that it doesn’t have any of the premium preflop hands. Let’s examine a 652 r flop. This is a good board for the BB. We know they have all the sets, all the two pairs, all the pairs, the straights, and lots of good combo draws. However, the BB also misses this board frequently. UTG does not have as many nutted hands, but they have a lot of strong hands. They have all the overpairs, they have sets, they have 78 s for an open-ended straight draw with a backdoor

further cards… Exploitative Dynamics GTO solutions are designed to be unexploitable, performing reasonably well no matter how your opponents… How ICM Impacts Postflop Strategy Most players understand how the Independent Chip Model (ICM) in poker impacts their strategy preflop,… 10 Tips for Multiway Pots in Poker While lots of work has been placed into research and explanation of heads-up pot strategy,… What is the Bubble Factor in poker tournaments? The Independent Chip Model (ICM) shows us the real money implications of tournament chip decisions.… The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments In poker, a PKO (Progressive Knockout) tournament is a type of tournament where a portion… How To Analyze Turn Textures In Poker Master the art of turn analysis in poker. Understand how the turn card changes the… Principles of Turn Strategy Learn the principles of turn strategy in poker and discover what makes the turn unique.… Poker Strategies: Tournaments vs. Cash Games Tournament poker is not as different from cash game poker as people sometimes assume. Most… How Solvers Work A Game Theory Optimal solver is an algorithm that calculates the best possible poker strategy.… The Most Powerful Play in Poker The central strategic implication of stack depth is the question of how much equity a… When does ICM become significant in MTTs? The Independent Chip Model (ICM) was invented in 1987 by M. Malmuth and is one… How to Study GTO Solutions Tools like GTO Wizard and other solvers should not be used to memorize specific strategies.… Principles of GTO Game theory, or GTO (for Game Theoretically Optimal), is best understood not as a rigid… Interpreting Equity Distributions GTO Wizard’s range vs range equity distribution graphs are an excellent tool for visualizing which… What is Leverage in poker? Leverage refers to the risk of future betting. When you call a bet on the… Reasons for value betting in poker You’re probably accustomed to thinking of bets as either value or bluff. In this taxonomy,… The Science of Poker Performance Poker is a game of small edges and big swings. Every hand is an investment… What is Valor in poker? Can a poker hand be courageous? How does your ability to value bet future streets… Pot Geometry “Pot Geometry” refers to betting an equal fraction of the pot on each street, such… A Beginner’s Guide to Poker Combinatorics Combinatorics is a fancy term for evaluating the number of possible “combinations” (combos) of any… Stack-to-pot ratio Stack-to-pot ratio, or SPR, is a way of measuring how deep the effective stack is… Equity Realization In poker jargon, equity expresses how much of the pot a hand will win, on… Variance and Bankroll Management Variance and Bankroll Management. Vital Soft Skills for Every Poker Player. How to Become a GTO Wizard Welcome to the wonderful world of game theory optimal poker! This article will serve as… The Three Laws of Indifference Indifference in poker is one of the most misunderstood concepts. The word “indifference” means that… Poker subsets and abstractions An “abstraction” is a way to simplify the game of poker. This game is so…

THE SKILLS FOR SUCCESS 12 out and conclude, “She’s probably either got a terrific hand, or she’s bluffing. It’s unlikely that she’s got a fairly good or a so-so hand.” Finally, the hand reading skill requires that you be able to use the insight into your opponents’ possible holdings to formulate your strategy. It does you no good to know which hands are likely and which hands aren’t if you can’t translate that knowledge into the right play. The translation process relies upon logical reasoning, and it too is a valuable skill. Manipulating Opponents into Playing Badly This skill is similar to, but separate from, winning the battle of mistakes. Your opponents’ states of mind will shape their thought processes. If they’ve been winning a lot, they might be more prone to play one style. If they’ve been losing, they might play another. You can make certain noteworthy plays (or just pay attention to the plays you’ve made “naturally”) and take advantage of your opponents’ reactions to them. They also might play one way or another if someone (you) at the table is talking to them, flirting with them, taunting them, or arguing with them. Manipulating your opponents means behaving in a way that gets them to play the way you want them to play. Put them on tilt. Put them at ease. Get them drunk. Make them feel sorry for you. Make them fear you. From Skills to Success These are some of the most critical skills for no limit success. There are other important ones as well, but mastering these will give you a big edge in most games. The remainder of the book will offer insights to help you hone these skills. We take a bottom-up approach to teaching. We don’t say, “Here’s how to manipulate the pot size in fifty different situations,” or “Let’s learn about all the different stack sizes.” Instead, we offer a series of concepts and examples, each of which is designed to clarify your thinking in one or more of these areas. We usually aren’t going to tell you what to do. We’re going to expose you to some ideas and show you some examples. We’re not telling you, “This is how you should play in this situation.” We’re saying, “Here’s something to consider as you make your decisions.” If you are reading a section, and you feel like you don’t “get it,” refer back to this section. Think about the big picture. If you want to be a great no limit player, you want to master these skills. Think about how the concept you’re struggling with relates to the skills. Now that you know what it takes to be a good no limit player, let’s get started.

betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor… Delayed C-Betting This is a companion piece to Probe Betting. It stands on its own, but understanding… Probe Betting As far as rules of thumb go in poker, “check to the raiser” is a… ICM and Blind Battles: The Big Blind This is a companion piece to this article on the SB’s strategy for blind vs… ICM and Blind Battles: The Small Blind ICM incentivizes more conservative play, which means that at stages of the tournament where risk… The Initial Bettor’s Advantage The mathematics of poker holds a little-known secret: the first bettor enjoys better bluffing odds… Mastering the Chiplead: The Scalpel and the Sledgehammer When you have a lot of chips at a final table or in another situation… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in Cash Games Our never-ending quest for money and fame leads us to the flop. We open the… How ICM Impacts Restealing From The Blinds When I first started working with preflop solves, one of the features I found most… The ICM Benefits of Late Registration in Poker Tournaments Why do so many professional poker players register late for tournaments when they clearly would… Flop Heuristics: OOP C-Betting in MTTs Playing against an in-position cold-caller is dramatically different–and dramatically more difficult–than playing against a caller… Counterintuitive Calls Solver outputs such as those provided by GTO Wizard are models of no-limit hold ‘em,… How To Negotiate Final Table Deals Most people’s first introduction to the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is not from studying bubble… How does ICM impact PKO strategy? If you have read The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments you already know why we… Understanding Blockers in Poker Often when looking through a solver’s meticulously crafted grid of deception, one of the following… Flop Heuristics: IP Cold-Caller in MTTs A Cold-call refers to the act of calling a preflop raise when you don’t close… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in MTTs In the world of poker, the flop is a crucial stage of the game that… Flop Heuristics for Defending the Blinds in MTTs The field of Game Theoretically Optimal poker is extensive, and thus, to simplify our strategy,… Multiway strategy in Progressive Knockout Tournaments Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments are much more complex than traditional MTTs. The fact that players… How To Calculate Raises In Poker One of the most frequently asked questions in poker is how to calculate the size… Principles of River Play The river offers the least complicated strategy of any betting street. With no further cards… Exploitative Dynamics GTO solutions are designed to be unexploitable, performing reasonably well no matter how your opponents… How ICM Impacts Postflop Strategy Most players understand how the Independent Chip Model (ICM) in poker impacts their strategy preflop,… 10 Tips for Multiway Pots in Poker While lots of work has been placed into research and explanation of heads-up pot strategy,… What is the Bubble Factor in poker tournaments? The Independent Chip Model (ICM) shows us the real money implications of tournament chip decisions.… The Theory of Progressive Knockout

hands that won't make enough profitable situations. So you throw away a hand like: In fact, you frequently should fold AT or KT in these very loose games. 166 Part Four: Playing in Loose Games On the other hand, if you are in a loose, passive game where they usually call, but only occasionally raise, you should play any Axs under the gun. You should also be playing a hand like under the gun, and anything better. You should play these hands because you are going to win a lot when you hit them. That is, you take advantage of bad play. You would also play all pairs. Conversely, you often shouldn't raise with your AK or AQ in spots where you would raise in tougher, tighter games. When the Pots Get Big When the pots get big, this fact should dominate your approach to playing the hand. Large pots create tricky situations from the flop on. Basically your number one priority is to win it. Not to win more money, but to win the pot. However, winning the pot is not that simple. It isn't just a matter of thinking "I have the best hand, therefore I bet." It might be better to check in order to get someone in late position to bet so that you can check-raise. It might be better to bet hoping someone else will raise. And, it might be better to set this up on the previous round. For instance, suppose you have two kings or two queens in the big blind. The player under the gun raises, and six people call. Our preferred way to play this hand is to not reraise, and then when the flop comes to bet out, unless it includes an ace. You should come out betting enlisting the original preflop raiser to be your unwitting partner to knock people out. For example, if the flop is instead of reraising (before the flop) and giving your hand away, and then betting on the flop where most of your opponents will now correctly call you, you should just call (before the flop) and give up a little preflop equity in order to bet on the flop and have the original raiser on your left knock out all those people who were getting the proper price to chase. 168 Part Four: Playing in Loose Games It's so important to increase your chance to win the pot that it an be right to bet a hand that you know is beat. For instance, ifyou have the flop comes and the pot is pretty big, it is almost mandatory to bet if you are in early position. You do this not only because you might make a straight, but because it is important to get hands like When the Pot Gets Big 169 out. You would bet even if you knew that someone had a six or a seven in their hand and was going to call you all the way. If a nine or a ten comes on the river you want to maximize

Hand Range 156: BB vs CO (15bb) • All-in 16.4% / • Call 60.4% / • Fold 23.2%

calling a bet or raise after another player has also… Understanding Which Mistakes Cost You the Most Money I am fortunate enough to have worked for many years with the mental game coach… Overbetting The Flop in Cash Games Although most commonly analyzed on turns and rivers, flop overbetting can be a devastating weapon… Using New Skills at the Poker Table How many times has it happened to you that you make a mistake only to… Flatting Ace-X Hands Shortstacked Playing out of position is tricky, but it’s an essential part of tournament play. With… Playing Limped Pots as the BB in MTTs Success as the BB in limped pots begins before the flop. The BB’s equilibrium strategy… The Absurd Game Theory of Chopped Boards A “chopped board” in poker is one where the community cards make up the best… Playing Limped Pots as the SB in MTTs MTT confrontations between the small blind and big blind force no-limit players into uncomfortable situations,… The Art of Learning Poker In his book The Art of Learning, chess and Push Hands champion Josh Waitzkin describes… Is Donk Betting for Donkeys? “Donk betting”, or betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor… Delayed C-Betting This is a companion piece to Probe Betting. It stands on its own, but understanding… Probe Betting As far as rules of thumb go in poker, “check to the raiser” is a… ICM and Blind Battles: The Big Blind This is a companion piece to this article on the SB’s strategy for blind vs… ICM and Blind Battles: The Small Blind ICM incentivizes more conservative play, which means that at stages of the tournament where risk… The Initial Bettor’s Advantage The mathematics of poker holds a little-known secret: the first bettor enjoys better bluffing odds… Mastering the Chiplead: The Scalpel and the Sledgehammer When you have a lot of chips at a final table or in another situation… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in Cash Games Our never-ending quest for money and fame leads us to the flop. We open the… How ICM Impacts Restealing From The Blinds When I first started working with preflop solves, one of the features I found most… The ICM Benefits of Late Registration in Poker Tournaments Why do so many professional poker players register late for tournaments when they clearly would… Flop Heuristics: OOP C-Betting in MTTs Playing against an in-position cold-caller is dramatically different–and dramatically more difficult–than playing against a caller… Counterintuitive Calls Solver outputs such as those provided by GTO Wizard are models of no-limit hold ‘em,… How To Negotiate Final Table Deals Most people’s first introduction to the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is not from studying bubble… How does ICM impact PKO strategy? If you have read The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments you already know why we… Understanding Blockers in Poker Often when looking through a solver’s meticulously crafted grid of deception, one of the following… Flop Heuristics: IP Cold-Caller in MTTs A Cold-call refers to the act of calling a preflop raise when you don’t close… Flop

Introduction No limit hold ’em is hot. In only a few years, the game has gone from rarely played (except in tournaments) to one of the most popular forms of poker. The last few years have seen millions of new players. The no limit literature has had trouble keeping up. Relatively little has been written about the game, and most of what has been written is either misleading or is presented in a “recipe book” format. That is, most of the discussion has been of the “If you have top pair, and your opponent bets, raise...” variety. These recipe books give you a taste of how to play the game, but can get you into trouble quickly if you know only the what’s and not also the how’s and why’s. This is not a recipe book. We don’t tell you what to do if you have top pair and your opponent bets. We tell you what factors you should consider when you make your decisions. We teach you how excellent players think about the game. We don’t give you a fish so that you can eat today; we teach you how to fish so that you may eat forever (or so the saying goes). No limit hold ’em is complex, sometimes frustratingly so. If you have $50 in front of you, you should do one thing, but if you have $200, you should do something different. And if you have $1,000, you might do a third thing. If your opponent plays one way, you should do one thing, and if your opponent plays another, you should do something else. To be successful, you have to learn how each of these factors (stack size, opponent play, and many more) affects your decisions, and you must learn how they work together. While many of the concepts in this book have been known to elite players for years, we expect most of our readers to be taken aback by the depth of discussion. We think a lot of you will say to yourselves, “I didn’t know I was supposed to be thinking about all these things while I played. I had no idea there was so much to the game.” This reaction is natural given how the game has been packaged and sold on television. Advice comes in sound bites: “You never want to go broke on a draw,” or “Ace-queen is a good hand; ten-seven is a bad hand.” Sound bites make for terrible no limit advice. Reading even just the first few chapters of this book should give you a big knowledge edge over your friends and opponents who learned the game by watching television. This book isn’t intended for beginners. We assume that you are familiar 1

about that play, which happens a lot at the table, is that the A♠J♠ has put raising money in the pot without taking any raising power for himself.A♠J♠ could have raised the pot himself, but instead paid the same price with a limp and a call. Same price, no extra purpose. AJ doesn’t find out anything about what his opponent is holding (his opponent could be raising just to take advantage of the limp), he didn’t narrow the field, and he didn’t take the lead. Now let’s look at the consequences of that action. The board comes Q♠-9♦-2♦ and what happens? A♠J♠ checks to pocket 5s. Can you hear it? “Check to the raiser.” Now the 5s bet and what does A♠J♠ do? He folds. To be fair, he didn’t have the better hand. In fact, the 5s rate to win the pot 75% of the time after the A♠J♠ misses on the flop. But the way the A♠J♠ played the pot, he couldn’t win without it being the best hand. And that’s the problem. You can’t be a successful hold ’em player if you must have the best hand to win. But what if the A♠J♠ had raised like he was supposed to in the first place and the pocket 5s had called? Then the A♠J♠ leads out on the Q♠-9♦-2♦ board and the pocket pair folds. So the worst hand wins, the hand that only hits on the turn or river 25% of the time, just by raising pre-flop and taking control. That’s called extra purpose, my friends. Even if one hand dominates the other, say AJo versus ATo, the first raiser and first bettor is likely to win, because neither hand much loves that flop of Q♠-9♦-2♦ and when one hand bets first, the other hand goesaway. It doesn’t so much matter who has the best hand, but who has the lead in determining who wins the pot. And that is how most hands of hold ’em play out. Around here we have a saying, “The second liar doesn’t stand a chance.” What that means in hold ’em is simple: BE FIRST IN TO WIN I don’t want to discount the possibility of someone getting creative with you if you raise pre-flop and make the expected continuation bet. Someplayers will float you—flat-call on the flop—with the intention of raising you off the pot on the turn. But if the next card off the deck is scary (andviewed through a certain filter, almost all of them can be scary), that player has to be super-creative to follow through on his bluff. And we don’t even hate that, because every time you force your opponents to get super-creative on you, you’re giving them opportunities to do really stupid things, which is always good. Also, super-creative players are the exception, not the rule. Under normal circumstances, in the everyday run-of-the-mill poker game, you havecontrol of the pot after raising pre-flop and getting heads-up. Now, you’ll miss that flop 67% of the time, but so will your opponent, so ask yourself who you

theorist Will Tipton. His methodology consisted of first creating conditions a good subset must satisfy and then finding the minimum subset of flops that satisfies all of them. Tipton’s proposed subset conditions: ♦ Any particular single card comes ♦ A flush draw of a particular suit comes ♦ A monotone flop of a particular suit comes ♦ A paired board with the pair being of a particular rank comes ♦ A three-straight board of any rank comes ♦ A board with any particular one-gap in the rank comes ♦ A board with any particular two-gap in the rank comes Tipton’s flop subset contains 103 flops but, unfortunately, it has some issues and cannot be used to fully represent the entire game. His methodology makes sense and was improved upon by others, but I found that it is simply too difficult to significantly reduce the game size while keeping an eye on all of its characteristics. I also tried a different approach, by selecting a flop representative of the different structures, textures, ranks, families and number of possible straights, and the lowest number of flop subsets I could create was 356 flops. PioSOLVER developers Kuba and Piotr created a different methodology, consisting of defining some metrics which a good subset must satisfy, and then ran custom software to find the best subset of N elements that scores the best on the metrics. The metrics they used are equity against full range, against 50% range and against AA, as well as EVs from all 1,755 flops. Kuba and Piotr tried several metrics and determined that a mix of EV and EQ performs better than others including EV alone. They developed subsets of different sizes, including 25, 49, 74, 95 and 184 flops. The more flops in the flop subset, the more accurate results you will get. This is particularly the case with high SPR, because of the different ways some elements of the range can hit some boards very strongly and create cooler situations that will end up with the players playing massive pots. For these situations to be accurately represented, you need to have as many flops as possible. You can find the subsets and more details on their blog at www.piosolver.com. Their pre-flop subsets are optimized to accurately approximate equities and EV for the pre- flop solver, not post-flop strategies. For this reason, these subsets are not guaranteed to produce a good approximation of post-flop play. This is why I decided to go for a different approach and

opponent has and then go on to determine their best play on the assumption that their opponent has the hand they're assuming he has. However, as we saw in the chapter on reading hands, this is a bad and potentially costly way of going about the business of decision-making. There is a better way, which is employed by most good players. They ask, "What are the various hands my opponent could have, and what are the chances he has each of them?" They determine the best play for each of the possible hands, and they usually choose the best play against their opponent's most likely hand or hands. Sometimes it works out that no matter what your opponent has, you wind up with the same best play. This is especially true in the relatively easy decisions — for example, deciding to fold when you have nothing in seven-card stud, the pot is small, and your opponent with an open pair of aces bets on the end. If, on the other hand, the pot were large — hence the reward would be large — you might want to determine the chances of a bluff raise working if your opponent has nothing but two aces. Analysis at the Table 247 And, of course, those chances depend upon the chances that your opponent has in fact only aces. Frequently, then, a different play becomes correct depending upon what your opponent has. For example, a bluff raise might have a reasonable chance of working if your opponent has nothing but two aces. It has less chance of working if that opponent has aces up. It has little to no chance of working if he's made a straight and no chance whatsoever against aces full. Therefore, determining whether the risk of two bets (calling and raising) is worth the possible reward of the pot depends: 1.Upon the chances that your opponent has only two aces rather than any of his other possible hands. 2.On whether that opponent is the type of player who would fold them if you raise. Let's say you decide there's only about a 25 percent chance that your opponent has two aces and a 75 percent chance he has aces up or better. Furthermore, if that player does have only aces, you think there's only about a 50 percent chance he will fold if you raise. Then the reward of the pot is probably not worth the risk of two bets, and you should fold. In general, when you have alternate plays dependent upon your opponent's hand, you choose the best play against his most likely hand or hands. Let's say you figure an opponent to have Hand A 40 percent of the time, Hand В 35 percent of the time, and Hand С 25 percent of the time. Usually you would pick the best play against Hand A, which is your opponent's most likely hand. However, if Hand A requires one play, while both Hand В and Hand С require quite another play, you would ordinarily make the second play since it

liked that guy's face you think humans don't make decisions for those crazy reasons he could just be tilted with that person he could just be tilted in general now if you said i think you know i've seen it in a similar situation so i'm 70 percent sure he has those hands so i'm going to fire that's great okay that makes sense that's an estimate it's going to be hard to know how accurate it is but that's a good estimate now if you said no normally this guy's very solid and i think he would just call with those hands so i'd only say like 20 30 percent of the time he's got that so i'm gonna check back here again okay cool sounds pretty reasonable and as we gather more information we'll refine it now uh for i'm assuming i knew something similar to that and that's why i checked back but we need to make sure that we are if you were going to bet there you should probably bet fairly small so you can better get on the turn and get called again by ace highs if at all possible because a lot of times this is a really good let's say we did go ahead and fire there because we thought tens nines eights and sevens which i didn't think uh were three betting there this is a great card for ace king or ace jack to call again the flush draw missed in the queen pair making it less likely we have a queen so you could do that but if you just went bomb bomb it's going to be much more difficult for this player to do that now i decided to check back i did not think this player was three betting tens nines eights and sevens nearly as much here once they check again it's very unlikely they would check a queen again it it's i i guess a lot of a lot of people are weird pot controllers on the site i guess they could still have kings or races but that's not that likely because they probably would bet that like 60 70 80 percent of the time on the flop whatever number you want to give it so but most likely you're facing a high card here like uh tens nines maybe something like that so we do go ahead and fire here and we do fire a little bit smaller here because the majority of the hands combination-wise that we want calling us are our a size but unfortunately we do not get that that is most likely that's most likely an ace high that just didn't want to bother going with the bat bat here you have jax under the gun what would you like to do here how much did you raise to i hope you guys this is always the 2x why one re-jam stack two rejam stacks three region stacks four re-jam stacks if you do not know what i mean by rejam

a queen there's a good chance your opponent's made two pair with king queen and you'll be able to get a lot of action in that spot uh whereas if you have eight seven on that board king nine five and you make your gut shot by hitting a six your opponent's not gonna have as many combinations of five six for two pair as they would uh king queen for two pair and so that's that's kind of again the nitty-gritty of it of seeing not only how many outs does your hand have um but how how how likely is it to win a setup on a later street um so the stacks get deep we want to plan for those later streets but when stacks are shallow we don't need to worry about those cooler situations on later streets so depending on our pot stack ratio different properties of hands become more important um and so here's just a quick breakdown of it again as a reminder so first we check how many streets of bed are left pot start ratio check when the pot stack ratio is one we plan for right now one raw hand strength and showdown value pot stack ratio is two to four we want to plan for the next three that's where outs and equity become important when the pot stack ratio is 5 to 13 we want to start planning for two streets from now which is where nut potential is important and with 14 to 40 pot stack ratio assuming pot size bets want to plant for three streets from now where the implied odds and reverse implied odds so really getting those set up situations becomes important i know it's like really really complex stuff this range construction stuff so choosing the best hands to play post flop here are the properties to consider for each hand the more of these a hand has the better so we have absolute hand strength that's kind of looking at your hand on a hand chart you know do i have trips to pairs straights flushes flush draw open ender combo draw next we have equity which is your chance of winning versus your opponent's range think outs easy way to do this is to throw a hand into a equity calculator plug in their range plug in your hand and you'll get your equity against them future equity is chance of winning if the pot gets big so instead of thinking of quantity of outs think of the quality of the outs that you have if i hit my out do i have the nuts or could i have the second best hand um if i hit my hand is my opponent likely to make a second best hand or are they likely to just have a marginal hand they can't give a lot of action anyway if i try to play a big pot next we have backdoor potential which is a bonus because you pick up extra equity when you

of the time what does that mean for our opponent he needs to defend with 65 of his hands however if we throw a queen out there and look at the statistics we find that he doesn't even have a pair of 45 percent of the time which means even if he defends with every parent draw he's not defending 65 of his hands he's only defending 55 of his hands I love this play because most guys will call with a high card or a gut shot once versus a small bet because probably they should but then on the turn when they miss and you fire a quote substantial bet out there they'll let it go what they don't realize is they're getting worked there's one other bet you can do here I only use it maybe 10 of the time but I'll use it with a young guy who's getting angry with me I love these in Planet Hollywood tournaments small events in Europe wsopc events let's see if you can get this this also works out online too you get a lot of LOLs in the chat alright guys what do you think it is time is up you can just bet a little 850 there into the pot of 6 30. so you bet 850 guys how do I figure out how often this needs to work If This Were poker 101 this is the first thing they would teach you you do 850 divided by 1480. that means our bet as a pure Bluff needs to work 57 of the time so what does that mean guys for our opponent I'm going to pause here for a second if you haven't thought about it think about it it means he needs to defend with 43 of his hands the problem is if he defends with any pair that's only 35 percent of his range this is a fun uh for those of you who are familiar with baseball I call this the change up just because nobody expects it and you get with young guys I love this play because you get a lot of poop and then they fold which is fine I I'm I'm fine looking Dom right but it's been a long time since I did this bet and somebody figured out what I was doing and they decided to raise or something because most of the time in the states I I don't know why this is but most people as long as you don't leave them looking stupid they'll full that's at low in Middle stakes and if it's like a WPT in Baltimore that's a lot of satellite winners and stuff like that right despite it being a more substantial buy and it's going to be people that generally play 500s and 400s and stuff like that so as long as you're not as long as you're allowing them to save face they'll usually Let It Go and in this case in common poker parlance you're kind of seen as

tight-aggressive play until after the flop, when you have more information. Sometimes you are sitting in late position holding a decent hand when five or more players have limped in. How should these family pots (those with multiple players) affect your starting requirements? First, remember that with so many participants, it will likely require a better than normal hand to end up winning the pot. In two- or three-way pots, hands such as top pair (one of your cards matching the highest card on the board, such as A-9 and a flop of 9-4-2) tend to get the job done. However, top pair (even two aces) will usually not be enough against more than five opponents. So, you should look to play hands that have the potential to develop beyond just one pair. Hands such as A-T offsuit are virtually worthless in these situations, as they contain little straight or flush potential. Instead, good hands include any pair and big connecting suited cards. With a pair, you should win a nice pot if you flop a set, as one of your many opponents will likely pay you off when he holds top pair. The hand T-9 suited is definitely playable here, as it possesses the versatility of turning into a straight or a flush. However, with a hand such as this, you can’t get too excited when you flop a pair, if several players are involved. You will likely be either outkicked* or outdrawn, as a middle pair is extremely vulnerable. Tip # 8 of 52 When one player has raised, and it has been folded around to you, you should stick to the raise-or-fold philosophy. Following this advice will keep you out of trouble. Many hold’em hands seem like they should be worth seeing the flop, but when you look at the situation objectively, you see that these hands just get you into trouble. For example, suppose a player has raised from early position, and you have A-J. At first glance, this seems like a good hand. After all, you have two high cards including an ace. However, when you consider the range of hands the raiser is likely to hold, your A-J doesn’t seem so mighty. (The assumption here is that the raiser only raises with decent hands.) It is very important to think about what sorts of hands your various opponents are capable of raising with, and from what positions. When you think this way, you see that getting involved in a raised pot (when the raiser is a typical player from early position) with A-J is not a profitable strategy. In all likelihood, the raiser is holding one of two hands: a medium or high pair, or two high cards including an ace. If it’s the first possibility, his pair is probably in the range of aces down to eights. So, if you have A-J, you are in decent shape against eights, nines, or tens. However, you are a sizable underdog against jacks, queens, or kings, and a monster underdog should you be unlucky enough to run into

of attention to that there's a lot of spots well some spots come up like this on the turn especially where you just gotta go for it you gotta try to put in the bluff and it's hard to add that into an implementable strategy because it's not all the time it happens but you're saying it's Ace cyboards King exports um are very very common for it okay one of these fun Corner cases we have to figure out yep yeah we can go through a bunch of Ace King boards and just go through all the spots where we see this two pair blockers Bluff is Ace King and Ace Queen effectively the same boards Ace Queen yeah yes absolutely okay absolutely yeah it's gonna happen a lot and and one thing to keep in mind is it's typically when you have a tighter range if you open the button for example 55 or 55 of hands and then it comes with a six then you don't use two pair blockers because you have 10-5 suited you have so many unpaired 10 highs and Jack highs and stuff like that but when you open an early position for example with like 17 of fans where can you draw your Bluffs from right you don't have as many hands to draw Bluffs from so then your six becomes really good and so in this spot you're playing a tight range situation where you three by the small block so you don't have like you know eight nine off suit to be bluffing off on the turn and have a bunch of combos of it right you have to use logical hands and so when you're having a tighter range now the two pair blocker becomes extremely pertinent and you don't really want to use a hand like Jack nine right this is an air ball right exactly yeah especially at a position you need Equity you need Equity okay cool so you've got the world's happening in this hand I remember what I had okay yeah you barrel for about 60 which is great and the opponent calls and you get not a fun River oh God yeah so this is a tough spot because he's just gonna call me literally every Ace every time right yeah and he's gonna have a lot of Base he doesn't have a lot of King he's gonna have the gut shots I wasn't sure if I was supposed to bet tiny here actually I thought that small would be kind of neat but then he just like randomly hero called me with the camera drag or something yeah I don't think betting tiny makes too much sense for your overall strategy um yeah exactly like if you have pocket aces I guess that that makes some sense in that tiny but let's think about more so what makes a good bluffing candidate on the river I think I actually asked you on the sand afterwards and I was thinking like do I even want

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Hand Range 148: BB vs SB Limp/Push (15bb) • Call 43.4% / • Fold 56.6%

that's going to result in you just winning more money so there's more money for you to win and typically the pre-flop caller doesn't have a whole lot of nut hands in their range okay let's take a look at this scenario now 40 big blinds deep okay 40 big blinds deep same scenario just a little bit shallower stacked well a lot shallower stacked notice now relatively similar pre-flop strategy ADB blinds compared to 40 big blinds except for our implied odds hands go down to Value so we don't get to Splash around as much as 2D connected type stuff however against the under the gun eight rays and a cut off call now we really tighten up perhaps more than you would think a lot of people think it'd be sacrilege to fold the 87 suited on the button in this situation but you should also notice that because the pot is bigger we're now going to start having some all ends this dark red color is all in so 10 shoves all in Ace King offsuit Ace queen offsuit king queen suited and King Jack suited and Ace Queen suited a little bit are shoving all in in the scenario some portion of the time also notice our three betting range gets really linear in this scenario notice before versus just the Rays we were three betting still some asex suited King X suited off suit blocker hands Etc now the all suit hands are still out of here suited connectors hands are out of here and we're three betting very very polarized I'm sorry very very linear just the best hands for the most part okay let's take a look now 20 big blinds deep same scenario just 20 big lines deep on the button versus an under the gun eight raised you see we do not have a small three betting range anymore for the most part we do see Tiny slivers of not all in three bets but you can ignore those for practical purposes because it's almost none of your range we're ripping it all in with the hands in dark red for 20 big blinds and we are calling the hands in green what if there's a cut off call well now interestingly enough we do start to develop a small free betting range mainly with the nuts Aces Ace King suited queens and Jacks and then a few blocker Bluffs which is quite interesting to see and we're shoving all in with a similar but slightly different range of hands we were shoving with before it's not that different really just more good strong big cards there's again a very linear range but notice here we don't get to call anymore you may be surprised to see no calls in the scenario I mean most people would think oh call the small pairs you have to realize it's detrimental to put in two big lines in the scenario and then have the small blind or the big blind jam it all in

In this spot we can breathe a sigh of relief due to our glorious position and revert to a balanced polarised range against this player who folds a slightly higher than balanced percentage to 3-bets after raising. In fact, A6s is a particularly suitable choice to form 4 combos of our bluff portion. It's slightly too weak to flat (depending on who is in the blinds) it blocks Villain's continuing range, but more importantly at this stack depth, it can flop the nuts and cooler Villain for a very large amount of BBs. Hero raises to 9.5BB. Hero's sizing is larger than what we're used to (see Figure 62 for a reminder of what standard 3-bet sizing looks like). Hero benefits from using bigger sizing at this stack depth for two reasons: Hero gets to cut down Villain's implied odds and stop a large part of his range being very easy to defend. Hero does not need to fear this larger 3-bet size costing him too much EV when Villain 4-bets as Hero can flat a lot of his range vs. a 4-bet in this position. Villain could elect to 4-bet larger than usual, but this will cut back the profitability of his 4-betting by increasing RFE. To conclude the first section of this chapter we've learnt two crucial things:

webinars they cost a tenth of the price and the main things you want from pile silver are the equities in the range Explorer and you can do those on those programs yeah card runners Eevee Wagner I think is similar but I don't have much experience with it I just exited out someone asked so will poker coaching members not have access to these webinars I believe what's gonna happen is they're gonna be separate webinars for the premium and the regular but I'm not a hundred percent sure yeah I haven't been given all the information yet from Jonathan so I would just keep posted I'm sure there's gonna be emails about it there'll be a lot of information you guys will get cleared on that fine John saying you can become an all like in these tournaments you can be easily become an all-in or Nothing position so the attitude to remain in the tournament do you see a stronger gut factor of the player involved basically all I'm trying to do is put the player to the range and then decide what my best options should be after that and then stuff like how well does the player play post ball how is he gonna make mistakes how well will he let me realize my equity a lot of those like type of questions will go into my factor of do I ever call do you Roberto do you still get any coaching or do you talk hands with friends at your level yeah I talk hands with friends with people right now I'm not coached I've gotten coached in the past in general my main way is I'm kind of I wouldn't say a lone wolf but like I've been just working on my game my own kind of doing my own stuff it's really hard to find other good poker players that have really good work ethics there's a lot of really smart poker players but it's it's hard to find once I have good work ethics and then also ones that like I've worked on this a lot and I used to be very poorly explaining what I'm thinking in poker and maybe I still him I've gotten a lot better at it though I think and so there's a big difference between being a really good poker player and being able to explain your thoughts in poker well Julius yeah it's a good point in this situation is the waste risk worth the reward seems to be the question that should be pondered mostly yes and then the main question I ask myself is that with King SiC suited if I go all-in does he fold any hands that I dominate yeah you hold some you know stronger Kings in mine and he might fold like a six off versus if I just call I'll ask myself do I keep any hands in I dominate myself and so those are two really key points because those are how you double up or how you

The Turn Probe Bet What, No C-Bet? Imagine yourself defending as the BB caller vs BTN preflop raiser in a 100bb cash game pot . After calling the raise, the flop is dealt: T72 r. This board is neither particularly good nor bad for either player. We start with a check, expecting a continuation bet. Against this bet, we can choose to fold, call, or raise, depending on our read on the situation. Instead of c-betting, our IP opponent elects to check back the flop . In HUD HUD A tool used in online poker games to track and display poker statistics of the players on the table in real-time. terminology, you would see this statistic labeled as ‘Missed C-Bet.’ This is unfamiliar territory for many players, given c-betting too often is the norm nowadays. Thus, if you see someone toning back on the c-bets, they could either be too passive or someone who has studied with solvers and has a somewhat balanced check-back range. The fourth community card hits the felt, and we, as the OOP player, make a bet on the turn . (this is known as a ‘Turn Probe Probe A bet made on the turn or river by the player who is out of position after the in position player, who is also the preflop aggressor in the hand, chose not to make a continuation bet on the previous street . ‘ in HUD terms). What information should we use that could help us construct a +EV betting strategy in terms of size and frequency? Before we make our decision, let’s rewind to the flop. When our opponent checks back, we now have some additional information on them without needing to look at a solver solution. Range Deficiencies We can say that our opponent’s range is somewhat capped . It contains very few nutted hands because they like to see the pot grow, and so would’ve made a c-bet most of the time. If the postflop betting action doesn’t start immediately at the flop, building a big pot by the river becomes much harder. Thus, we can confidently exclude many combos of hands, such as overpairs, sets, and top pairs. We can see this by looking at BTN’s c-betting strategy. We always c-bet KK , QQ , JJ , our sets, and many of our better top pairs. BTN’s detailed c-betting strategy on T72 r In many live games , you could almost say with 100% certainty that overpairs or sets won’t be checked back on a T72r flop when in position , although sometimes tricky players will know that checking back top set makes some sense since they block a lot of our top pair combinations that continue against a bet. For draws, there aren’t that many on this board, but I expect most players to always c-bet their straight draws . Intuitively, it feels awkward to check back a hand like 98 or J9 and face a bet on the turn since calling with a draw feels quite bad, and raising doesn’t seem to represent a

uh the hero has here 15 16% hands so he has two twice as much hands as many hands as the cut of has here and there's a lot of overlapping in the range so the ranges are very similar in the shape there's a lot of overlapping and um there's also this portion here of mid M string hands like you know sixes sevens eights nines tens Jacks right that our middle pair that the hero has that the cut off doesn't have um so just with that information now we we we kind of get a sense that you know the cut off will actually be more polarized have the polarization Advantage well the hero hill we have a a range that actually needs protection and um he would probably benefit from R playing passively so let's look at the the GT solution here and yeah um now the the Cod of the the hero will be checking his range right all of the hands uh just for the reasons that we mention we're loing we're missing some of the sets here with the FES and then there is a bunch of middling ex strem hands in the range that just benefit so much from protection and then the imposition player is a lot more polarized and he has as overall the polarization event as super at the equities there is a small Equity disadvantage for our our position but the main thing here is uh the polarization right so um and there are not really any throws that would really change the uh the board too dynamically in future streets so um here will benefit a lot from by just playing passively here right uh in this situation the hero goes for a very large bet he's betting like two3 of the pot here which if we compare um it's B even more than that actually yeah it's Bing much bigger than that I gave uh yeah I gave 2550 it's been like two3 of the PO so if we compare the Eevee here of betting big or checking uh there are a lot of hands that definitely benefit a lot from checking and we input even a bigger bigger bet size will of course not being used not be used if the 69 chips is not used the 80 chips will definitely not be used so um uh the this bed size definitely um means that the hero is completely missing um the the situation you know the way the rang just interact with the board and again this is something that you should be thinking out at the very start of the hand you know who has a stronger range who connects the stronger hands possible here who has the strongest R Who benefits from checking who benefits from betting uh what B size makes sense given these constraints right um so the hero he totally missed and you know he's he's of checking his range he's actually going for a very large bed size which is

is to see a flop cheaply. You're hoping to flop a monster and bust a player or two, while tossing your hand away when the flop is not favorable (which, by the way, is most of the time). Here, however, you have to fold. First, your hand is not a true suited connector. There's much less chance of making a straight with an eight-six holding than with two consecutive cards like eight-seven or seven-six. In addition, these are low cards rather than high ones. If you play jackten suited, there's some chance that the flop may come under your cards, giving you an additional way to win. But there's still another problem with the hand. The three players yet to act have $990, $310, and $810 respectively, while the one player already in the pot has $840. With the blinds at $50 and $100, all of these players are under pressure to make a move soon. That's not what you want to see when holding suited connectors. If one of them decides it's time to take a marginal hand and shove all his chips in, you're going to have to throw your hand away. However, let's say the player in your position decides to play. Action: You call $ 100. The button raises to $200. The blinds fold. Player C calls for another $ 100. The pot is now $650, and it costs you $100 to call. What do you do? Answer: The pot is offering you 6.5-to-l on your money, and your flush and straight possibilities 29 make this an easy call. Notice what's happened here, though, because this is very important. Your hand started out as a somewhat silly, speculative move. Now in just a second it's morphed into a straight value play. You won't see that kind of move in the stock market very often, but in poker it happens all the time. Not only shouldn't you fall in love with a hand, you shouldn't fall in love with your evaluation of a hand. They change all the time, and you have to be ready to change as well. Action: You call for another $100. The pot is now $750. The flop comes 9♠3♣2♣. Player C checks. What do you do? Answer: That's a very good flop for you. Two clubs, and only one overcard to your 8♣6♣. You should make a move to win this hand right here, but cheaply if you can. Players C and F have $640 and $790 respectively. A bet of $100 is too little (too easily called) but $200 to $300 looks about right to shake out any weak holders. This way his pot odds won't be too good in case he has a call. Action: You bet $200. Player F calls. Pot now $1,150. Fourth Street: 7♣ Question: What's the play? Answer: Now the only hand that beats you is a higher flush, which is always a danger when you're in the habit of playing low suited cards. But in an online tournament, with the blinds going up every ten hands or

Snap To act immediately without thinking much about a decision. Can be used in conjunction with other poker action terms (snap-call, snap-jam, snap-fold).

precision. Cash games, where stacks typically run into the hundreds of… Heads up! Exploiting SB’s Preflop Mistakes Heads up (HU) tournament play presents unique challenges to the average player. Many tournament players,… C-Betting As the OOP Preflop Raiser Position is an extremely valuable advantage in poker. Most players would describe the comfort zone… Overchoice: Making Sense of Multiple Sizings Solver solutions with multiple bet sizes often involve a lot of mixing between those sizes,… River Refinements: When Your Opponent Won’t Check-Raise One of the biggest strategic differences between playing in versus out of position involves betting… Turn Barreling in 3-Bet Pots There are two articles on the GTO Wizard blog that make good prerequisites to this… The Right Way To Think About Protection Suppose Paul the Protector is in a 200bb cash game and opens A♠A♣ in the… The Importance of Board Coverage The first public version of the GTO Wizard announced AI upgrade already has some useful… How To Adjust When Villain Has No Bluffs “They always have it!” is a common, semi-joking expression in poker to describe the tendency… Adjusting on Later Streets After Exploiting Flop The key to exploiting opponents profitably is knowing when to stop. I’m not referring to… C-Betting IP vs Passive Poker Players A preflop raiser enjoys a significant range advantage over a BB caller, enabling them to… C-Betting Against ICM Preflop Ranges You raise from early position (EP) in a multi-table tournament and the BB calls. Both… The Art of Bluff Catching Bluff catching—calling a bet with a modest hand which you expect to win only if… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by IP On some flops, it is simply not possible for the preflop raiser to continuation bet… Is Limping Pimping? In a past Discord post, one of our members noted that an upside of implementing… Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by OOP A preflop raiser who continuation bets too often is always a potential target for exploitation,… Preflop Button Mastery in PKOs Playing from the Button presents many unique opportunities in any tournament format, especially in PKOs.… The Worst Turn Card Greetings from GTO land. In today’s article, we will use the Turn Reports feature to… Navigating Range Disadvantage as the 3-Bettor Picture this: We’re playing a NL500 6-max cash game, and we’ve won a few pots,… Mastering Three-Bet Pots In Position in MTTs Playing in position against a three-better is a lesson in playing to your advantages. As… Mastering Three-Bet Pots Out of Position in MTTs Three-bet pots are scary. Playing out of position is scary. Put them together, and you’ve… The Greatest Final Table in Triton History Today, we’ll examine one of the most epic final table battles I’ve ever witnessed! Our… Mastering Thin Value Bets in Checked-Down Pots Valuing your hand appropriately—determining whether it’s strong enough to value bet or so weak you… Maximizing Value on Monotone Flops Monotone flops tend to provoke great anxiety among poker players. It’s easy to imagine that… How to Defend Against Turn Donk Bets Responding effectively to donk bets on the turn is tricky;, there’s no getting around

crossing to try to get more value out of this hand there are a couple cards on the river that can actually be Crossing not just the two Aces but the two remaining Kings would both get for Burke a full house but he doesn't know what four Burke has the turn pairs the king and four brothers size to slow down perhaps because he believes Magnus has many hands here that will want to Bluff or bet for protection however the Sauber generally prefers barreling here with Aces and with most of the range this king is actually a good card for the pre-flop aggressor because it improves the equity of his strong under pairs which he has an advantage in given that it is now less likely that the pre-flop caller has a king So hands like tens through Queens are certainly going to be strong enough to bet here especially with the short SBR as the threshold for stacking off decreases when the effective stack becomes smaller and having locked up the Full House magneticized to continue to slow play which is consistent with the solver strategy however if the players were deeper we see that this would be a pure bet to grow the part with just one street remaining but even if they put Fort Burke on an Ace King type of hand those cards would still apply but it said it's a queen of hearts on the river and Fort brick reaching for his chips betting 18 000 into a pot of forty two thousand what a Poker Face by Magnus Carlson looking a little troubled by that bet but expect them to come over the top obviously now he's losing to some King Queens as well so we'll see how he approaches it you shouldn't be concerned so much about the king 9 King a but those are possibilities as well but for wouldn't have been three betting those I don't believe he's been playing fairly close to the best and for him to be three betting king queen would have been out of character for Fort Burke as well so Carlson should still feel he has the best hand here he does just call though folks so the river is the queen of hearts and forberg decides to make a small blockish bet however the Sauber prefers shoving here which again is largely a function of the spr as there probably are enough weaker hands it magnets his range that can call given his passive line such as Queen X 9x and lower pocket Pairs and as for magnus's check back well there's really no two ways about it this is a massive blunder according to this Sim pocket eights is a pure shove and checking loses around 15 000 ships in EV so why on Earth did this Super Genius check now obviously we can't read magnus's mind but from his monologue in the last video he clearly understands the concept of thinking in ranges and so if I had to guess magnus's

a J-10 in the hole. There were two players in the pot in front 344 of me. Here’s what the flop looked like: FLOP As you see, I had a belly straight draw. Since there was no raise before the flop, I was reasonably sure neither of my two opponents had very strong hands. On the flop, the guy in the first seat made a reasonably sized bet (throughout these discussions, a reasonably sized bet means about the size of the pot), and the player in front of me called it. Both players had a lot of money in front of them, so I called as well. The fourth card was the 2?. They both checked on fourth street, and so did I. The last card was the 3?. The board now looked like this: When all the cards were out, the guy in the first seat checked again. After he bet on the flop and then checked twice on fourth and fifth, I figured he had the top pair with a bad kicker. I felt the guy in front of me was drawing at some kind of straight and obviously had missed his hand. Much to my surprise, he made a real out-of-line bet on the end, far bigger than the size of the pot. When he did that, it looked to me like he was clearly trying to steal the pot. I was also sure I had him high-carded. As I said, I felt sure he was drawing at a smaller straight than I was. If I was correct in thinking I had been drawing at the highest possible straight, I knew I’d win the pot if I just called. I also knew the other player couldn’t overcall because his hand wasn’t strong enough. So I called that out-of-line bet, and my analysis proved correct. The player with the pair threw his hand away and Johnny Moss, the guy who over-bet the pot, was drawing to a little straight. So I won the pot with a jack-high. I didn’t tell you that poker story because I won the pot with a jack-high. And you shouldn’t remember it for that reason. It has a more significant message. I told you I felt neither guy had much of anything and explained why. Obviously, it was more than just a nebulous feel. I had played with both those 345 guys often, so I used a certain amount of reasoning and a process of elimination. And a lot of it was based on recall of previous hands. Recall Whenever I use the word “feel,” you should understand it’s not some extrasensory power that I have. It’s just that I recall something that happened previously. Even though I might not consciously do it, I can often recall if this same play or something close to it came up in the past, and what the player did or what somebody else did. So, many times I get a feeling that he’s bluffing or that I can make a play and get the pot. But actually my

the villain had six four off which is oh no no I had six four off they had five six off so they Bluff caught there with third pair um that's a little bit of uh questionable hero call there with third pair um so facing a big bet on this board with my flush draw I'm going to call uh yeah just going to start by calling um I should have a fair amount of Queens in my range I don't know that yeah I don't know the villain bets the turn with less than a queen um so basically we're just gonna fold to a turn bet so Ace Queen off here just gonna be uh three bet pretty slam dunk facing a four bet we will call and going back to that five six offhand that villain just played um I think yeah that says something about their strategy about the way they play they like Bluff catching uh wide formation here flopping top here top kicker we are just going to be um we're just going to be basically going for it um three streets of value gonna be 2270 in the pot on the turn and we'll bet 70 percent Jax a set of jacks should be four betting so like Jack should be four betting the value they have is really pocket sevens this Jack on the turn is not Ultra great for us it obviously promotes their flop middle pairs um now I don't think our hand is strong enough to go for three streets of value and we have a flush completing card and a straight completing card I'm not Ultra concerned with the I'm not Ultra concerned with the flush completing aspect of it they will have some like King tints in their range and now they bet um hmm three-quarters pot here it's quite I just can't think of a hand that we beat yeah I think I'm just gonna fold I can't think of a hand that we beat um which is typically a bad sign when you're Bluff catching okay okay like once the cutoff opens and the button calls we get to call some of our pocket pairs in the small blind due to a lot in part of the low rake environment of these Stakes so here with the ace 8 with the eight of Hearts uh because we block the straight and villain three bets a lot of their sets of tens probably a lot of their sets of sevens we're just going to start out big very unexpected to get raised here I don't expect to get raised like very often at all the Rays is quite small we're getting three to one um I think I'm just going to fold when you bet those boards with an available straight and you choose a large sizing the frequency in which you get raised typically goes down which means that the hands that do decide to raise you are more Equity driven by Nature so they are

gets better. Remember that on the heels of a limp, there’s a cascade of degrading information. How does that cascade look if you raise? If someone calls your raise, then someone else calls behind, the overcaller’s hand is usually stronger than the first caller’s. Strong, but not superstrong. Not AA or KK or AK strong, because once there are two players in front of him, almost no one will just flat withAA and KK and AK. So while limpers behind limpers don’t tell you much, multiple calls behind a raise paint a picture of progressively stronger hands, while conclusivelyeliminating the strongest of hands. Thus we see two information streams running opposite to each other. Limps behind limps cascade less and less information, whereas calls behind raises reveal successively narrower ranges. You want more? We’ve seen how someone raising behind your limp might have nothing but pure air. But consider that same raise if you’ve opened the pot for a raise in first position. Everyone knows you’re strong there, so if you get re-raised, you can be pretty sure it’s by a strong hand. Good poker players rarely re-raise your early-position raise with complete air and almost always re-raise with what they consider to be the best hand. Notice the difference. When a player raises your limp, you learn absolutely zero about his hand. When a player raises your open raise, you canreliably place it in the top 5%-10% of hands. Now think about your 77. If you open for a raise in the first place, when you get re-raised, you have either an easy fold, since the hand that reraises is almost always better than yours, or the choice to try to call to hit a set if the price is right. That is a much easier decision to make than if you limp and you have no idea what the other player is holding. Finally, there’s the following beautiful thing: If you limp and call a raise, it’ll cost you more than open-raising in the first place. But if you open-raise and don’t get re-raised, you learn much more about your opponents’ hands for a cheaper price. That’s more information for less money. Doesn’t that sound good? Which leads us to … THE NUMBER-ONE REASON FOR RAISING: TO GAIN INFORMATION The Number-Two Reason for Raising The number two reason for raising—and it, too, is a damn fine one—is to narrow the field, to reduce the number of players you face. And this is true no matter what two cards you hold. No two cards in hold ’em would rather play against multiple opponents than just one. That includes small pairs, AK, suited connectors, and yes, even AA. It’s Weird About Aces Some people can’t stand to win heads-up with them. They think they’re cheating themselves of value by milking a single opponent with that monster. They’re also afraid to raise, because they’re worried that everyone will fold and they’ll win nothing but the puny blinds. Well, that’s greedyand greed is never a profitable strategy. Against one opponent, your aces will win

Semi-bluffs A bet made with a currently mediocre hand (such as a draw) but that has the chance to improve on future cards.

poker is one where the community cards make up the best… Playing Limped Pots as the SB in MTTs MTT confrontations between the small blind and big blind force no-limit players into uncomfortable situations,… The Art of Learning Poker In his book The Art of Learning, chess and Push Hands champion Josh Waitzkin describes… Is Donk Betting for Donkeys? “Donk betting”, or betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor… Delayed C-Betting This is a companion piece to Probe Betting. It stands on its own, but understanding… Probe Betting As far as rules of thumb go in poker, “check to the raiser” is a… ICM and Blind Battles: The Big Blind This is a companion piece to this article on the SB’s strategy for blind vs… ICM and Blind Battles: The Small Blind ICM incentivizes more conservative play, which means that at stages of the tournament where risk… The Initial Bettor’s Advantage The mathematics of poker holds a little-known secret: the first bettor enjoys better bluffing odds… Mastering the Chiplead: The Scalpel and the Sledgehammer When you have a lot of chips at a final table or in another situation… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in Cash Games Our never-ending quest for money and fame leads us to the flop. We open the… How ICM Impacts Restealing From The Blinds When I first started working with preflop solves, one of the features I found most… The ICM Benefits of Late Registration in Poker Tournaments Why do so many professional poker players register late for tournaments when they clearly would… Flop Heuristics: OOP C-Betting in MTTs Playing against an in-position cold-caller is dramatically different–and dramatically more difficult–than playing against a caller… Counterintuitive Calls Solver outputs such as those provided by GTO Wizard are models of no-limit hold ‘em,… How To Negotiate Final Table Deals Most people’s first introduction to the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is not from studying bubble… How does ICM impact PKO strategy? If you have read The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments you already know why we… Understanding Blockers in Poker Often when looking through a solver’s meticulously crafted grid of deception, one of the following… Flop Heuristics: IP Cold-Caller in MTTs A Cold-call refers to the act of calling a preflop raise when you don’t close… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in MTTs In the world of poker, the flop is a crucial stage of the game that… Flop Heuristics for Defending the Blinds in MTTs The field of Game Theoretically Optimal poker is extensive, and thus, to simplify our strategy,… Multiway strategy in Progressive Knockout Tournaments Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments are much more complex than traditional MTTs. The fact that players… How To Calculate Raises In Poker One of the most frequently asked questions in poker is how to calculate the size… Principles of River Play The river offers the least complicated strategy of any betting street. With no further cards… Exploitative Dynamics GTO solutions are designed to be unexploitable, performing reasonably well no matter how your opponents… How ICM Impacts Postflop Strategy Most players understand

if he has like Queen seven of diamonds if you breathe on this pot he's folding and that's pretty much the only hands that are gonna fold king highs probably not folding to anything but anything below queen high is folding to anything so if you're betting trying to get a fold this is very exploitative and you cannot exploit others without becoming becoming exploitable yourself if nobody knows who you are I just bet a third pot if you mess this board assuming this is just the first hand but if I'd hit I would bet bigger now obviously as the game goes on you can't keep that up you should adapt a balanced strategy or if you want to play ball if you want to play money ball you can try to play rock-paper-scissors and outguess the guy just like major league pitchers do it's up to you neither is wrong both schools of thought can learn from each other there should not be this big war between the gto guys and the exploitative guys most of the gto practitioners will tell you that they use a lot of exploitative lines and the exploitative guys should learn vice-versa right so anyways guys recapping the five post-flop tricks you can use number one raise pairs on the turn to get money from weeklies number two over bet the turn when your opponent caps is range number three lead the river for value versus opponents who are trying to buy the showdown number four check raise ace high boards with the best kickers at number five bet bigger on ace high boards when you have the ace alright guys thank you for attending today I know your time is valuable and everybody on the internet is competing for it so I appreciate the time you spent with me today today's free lesson was brought to you by the tournament assassin package which is on sale for just a few short days normally how to think like a poker players $300 and master the flop is $300 in each of these tests your poker episodes is thirty dollars so they normally be 720 but for a limited time you can get all of this $4.99 dollars because Jonathan littell loves you guys apparently the thing I like about this package is it works together so nicely how to think like a poker players about thinking deep in tournaments when your energy stores are depleted it's about simplifying the situation to the most important inputs and attacking that video package 10 episodes in all will have you attacking the blinds attacking preflop razors in defending your big blind better than anyone else in your tournament once you master those essentials master the flop will guide you on an overall system that will see you out plan your opponent's on a multitude of boards including suited boards wheel boards paired boards straight in flush draw boards small card boards in everything in between it will help you think about the game more actively in attack

ADJUSTING TO STACK SIZES — AN EXAMPLE 90 should concentrate on stealing the blinds or playing heads-up. This is doubly true if your stack is short because you are playing in a tournament with an ante. In that situation, move all-in immediately to maximize your chance to win the blinds and antes. Final Thoughts This example demonstrates well how stack sizes can change your decisions dramatically. The same hand, opening with pocket eights in middle position, should be played in three different ways with three different stack sizes. With a short stack in a tournament, maximizing your chance to steal the blinds and antes is the most important consideration, so you should raise all-in. With very large stacks, increasing your chance to win a huge pot if you flop a set is most important, so you should raise a modest amount. But with an in-between stack, about 70 times the big blind, the most im- portant consideration is making sure you don’t get reraised offyour medium pair.23 A poorly-conceived raise can be a gift to your unwitting opponent with a big pair. Raising puts him in the situation where his natural play works out perfectly for him. Don’t do that! 23This whole analysis breaks down completely if your hand is something like ace-queen. In fact, the arguments go almost exactly the other way for ace-queen. It’s a hand that will be happy winning the blinds or getting it heads-up. And it will often welcome a reraise rather than fear it, as the reraise lets ace-queen get away before it gets into trouble on the flop (if it makes top pair, but is still no good).

don't show much long term profit, your opponents will see this, and when you I do have a top quality hand they won't throw their hands away as much because they are frequently seeing you in the pot. Two Examples Suppose you start with: You should not raise with this hand in many situations because of a variety of reasons. First, you give your hand away. Second, let's say four people limp in and you are on the button. You should probably not raise. Now let's say the flop comes: and everyone checks to you. You should bet virtually every time. You likely have the best hand since everyone checked (to a nonraiser), and probably have six outs if you don't. And by not raising you are more likely to have someone bet into you, and if you do flop an ace or a queen you can raise and force people out who would otherwise have called, getting their price. One of the problems with raising with this hand is that everyone checks to you on the flop, you bet (assuming you make a pair), and they are getting the proper price to call you with middle or bottom pair (assuming they have a different kicker). So they are no longer making a mistake on the flop when they call. 162 Part Four: Playing in Loose Games In general you should not raise with offsuit hands (other than AK), except if you have a chance to isolate a weak opponent. That is, you think you can knock out the players behind you and (hopefully) the blinds. Once you know you can't knock people out, it is often better to just call. (We are talking about how these hands should be played in a weak game. In a tough game you might wind up playing it the same way but for different reasons. Now the problem with AQ is that it is not that much better than your opponents' hands. So it also may not be right to raise with AQ for a different reason, though a raise would knock people out.) In poker, there are a lot of hands that.ivhen a player on your right bets and you know you can knock people out, you should raise. But if you know that you can't, now you should just call and maybe even fold. , For instance, in a weak game where many players are playing too many hands and going too far with their hands, if the player under the gun limps in and you have and there are several players still to act behind you, you should fold. In fact, even if you were the player under the gun you should probably fold. However, on the other side of the coin, if you are against people who play badly, there is not a lot of raising before the flop, and because of the fact of the way these hands materialize, you should play a lot of hands, especially suited hands. Two Examples 163 For example, if four people come in, you

NO LIMIT AND THE FUNDAMENTAL THEOREM OF POKER 14 The Fundamental Theorem of Poker highlights the value of hand reading and deception. One of your goals when you play no limit hold ’em is to try to deduce your opponent’s holding while disguising your own. You try to make few mistakes, while you encourage your opponent to make lots of them. if you do a good job, you will be winning the “battle of mistakes,” and over time money will flow from your opponent to you. Indeed, the format of no limit hold ’em allows the Fundamental Theorem of Poker to blossom fully. In limit poker, many situations arise where you simply cannot entice your opponent to make a mistake no matter what you do. Say you are limited to a $20 bet, and you know that your opponent has a flush draw. If the pot is $200, there’s absolutely nothing you can do to encourage your opponent to make a mistake. You can bet $20, and he will call, just as he would do if he saw your cards. The 11-to-1 pot odds make the bet and call automatic plays, and neither player has any real opportunity to make a mistake. In no limit, however, you can choose whatever bet size you want. That ability allows you to deceive your opponents more fully and to encourage them to make mistakes. You could bet $150 into the $200 pot, and the player with the flush draw might no longer be correct to call. If your opponent likes to draw to flushes, and he isn’t so concerned about the exact odds he’s getting, he may be willing to call your $150 bet even though it’s a mistake. Say you know your opponent well enough to know that he will call a $100 bet correctly, and he will fold to a $200 bet correctly, but he’ll mistakenly call bets in between. You can target your opponent’s weakness by betting the exact right amount to encourage his mistakes. No limit hold ’em permits you to exploit the weaknesses in your opponents’ playing styles by betting just the right amounts to induce them to make mistakes. Manipulate your opponents and create situations where they are likely to make mistakes. Don’t let them offeasy. Place them in situations where their natural tendencies lead them astray. For instance, some players (and we’ll talk about these players more later in the book) are particularly suspicious (especially if you’ve given them even the slightest reason to be suspicious in the past). They seem to always be worried that every bet is a bluff. Consequently, they tend to call bets (particularly some big ones) that they shouldn’t call. These players make for very profitable opponents in no limit hold ’em, and the reason is that they are very likely to pay offwith second-best hands when they shouldn’t. That is, they systematically tend to make one certain type of mistake. If you were playing limit hold ’em, there would be only so much you could do to exploit this weakness. You could

aren’t just a sound investment, they’re crucial. They attract people to your product. They ensure that you get callswhen non-bluffers don’t. And bluffs confuse your opponents about the kinds of hands you hold, making their decision-making harder, hallelujah. So bluffing in a tight game serves the needs of future equity. It serves present equity, too. Tight players are more likely to give up without a fight, which means you don’t need the best hand to win. In fact, you’re in the perfect situation to bluff without any downside at all. You have a good shot at running the bluff successfully at the moment, but if you do get caught, you earn future equity! So it’s all good. All I’ve just done is tell you something you knew all along: Bluff in tight, not loose, games. But let’s bring this all back to our discussion of the ratiobetween ante and pot size. Since loose games have a larger pot-to-ante ratio, the risk of ruin is lower and we can afford to wait. Ergo, play tight; gamble less. Also in loose games, bluffing doesn’t work. Ergo, don’t bluff. Since tight games have a lower pot-to-ante ratio, the risk of ruin is higher; we can’t afford to wait. Ergo, play loose; gamble more. Also in tight games, bluffing pays massive dividends. Ergo, bluff away. And now, mirable visu, the game theory and the math converge perfectly. When you’re playing in a loose game (a bigger game by definition), simply subtract all your starting hands with a high bluff component—a high likelihood that you would have to bluff to win the pot with your holding—and you’ll be playing appropriately tight for the game. When you’re playing in a tight game (a smaller game by definition), you can add back a lot of those bluffy hands and you’ll be playing appropriately loose. By this simple device, you can find exactly the right bluffing frequency and the right degree of tightness for any game you’re in. In other words, you now have the tools to beat any game, no matter howloose or tight it is. Ain’t game theory wonderful? A Side Trip to Tournaments You see another application of this risk-of-ruin metric in tournaments, where it’s amazing how people get things almost completely back-assward. Their first mistake is playing way too loose at the beginning. They start a tournament with something like 100+ big blinds, and they think, Yeahbaby! I can play lots of hands! They fear no real risk of ruin. They think each call is such a small part of their stack that they can take a chance andsee a flop. But pot odds have little to do with starting stack, since pot odds, by definition, are the relationship of the bet to the pot, not to anyone’s stack. Playshould thus be dictated by the math of one’s investment in the pot, exactly as discussed above. But most players don’t see it that way. They just think they have such a nice big stack that they can get involved a lot; going broke feels like it’s

pots. Big Draw, Multi-Way, In Position, With or Without the Lead, Checked to You Once again, you have A♠K♠ and you’re in late position. Only now you have three other people in the pot with you. Presumably, you got in this spot by either overcalling two players against an early-position raise or by raising limpers who called, along with a blind or two. Once again, the board is T♦-6♠-2♠. In these types of multi-way situations, it isn’t especially important to your strategy whether you were the preflop raiser or not. What matters is whether or not the action is checked to you and if it’s not, where the bet has come from and who’s called inbetween. So let’s go through a couple of scenarios to get conceptual control of how to play these hands. First, an easy one: The action goes check to you. Whether you have the lead or not, you should generally bet half- to three-quarters-pot. Only consider not betting if the pre-flop raiser is directly toyour right and he surrenders the lead. This check is strange, and strange usually means bad for you. This is a place where a continuation bet isusually warranted, since two of the pre-flop-raiser’s opponents have already shown weakness. Why isn’t he betting here, when he knows heprobably has to get past only you to win the pot? His check suggests a bigger hand, hoping for a button bet from you. So you should stronglyconsider checking here. It’s much different if the pre-flop leader is sitting in early position. When that player raises early, picks up three callers, then blanks the board, a check is completely normal; obviously, picking up a pot on a textured board with three callers behind when you have air is damn unlikely. So a check from an early-position leader can be taken as weakness, rather than an attempt to trap. Unless you have a strong reason to suspect a trap, make your standard bet. If you pick up some callers, it’s no big deal; you’re getting a great price on your draw. Just remember that against multiple callers, your ace and king outs might not be clean, so treat the hand more like a flush draw. Picking up only one caller is fine as well. That the player only called suggests his hand isn’t made, since he didn’t feel the need to protect it. He’seither on the weaker range of made hands or drawing just like you. You’re likely to win the pot with a bet on the turn, whether that card makes your hand or not. Also, because you have only one caller, it’s more likely the ace or king is good if you hit one on the turn. But what if your bet gets check-raised? That depends on who’s check-raising and whether callers are in between. If your bet gets check-raisedwith no callers between you and the check-raiser, you’ll generally move-in or re-raise big, depending on which play is appropriate for your stack. This is most likely to win the pot right there and more likely to win

& Gos I was playing Tournaments for the first decade of my career. But after my first… Relationships and Poker In my more than 15 years of poker coaching, I’ve helped hundreds of clients improve… Do Multiple Sizes Matter? Should I work out the other tools or just stick to the crowbar? Solver results… The Science of Learning Applied to GTO Wizard The way we were taught to study in schools was flawed and has negatively impacted… Check-Raising a Single Pair In this article, I will address a question raised by Twitter/X user ’Matt Riley’, who… The Turn Probe Bet Imagine yourself defending as the BB caller vs BTN preflop raiser in a 100bb cash… When To Encourage Multiway Pots in PKOs I was recently shown this fascinating PKO hand from the GTO Wizard PKO library. Somebody… Protect Equity and Prosper When we think about the best hands to bet in a given situation, we tend… Do Solvers Have Targets? Targeting has long been a staple of exploitative poker thinking. When you’re value betting against… Disciplining Big Blind in Limped Pots When the BTN open-limps off a short stack, the postflop play against the BB should… I’d Rather Be Drawing Which is the better hand on a K♥8♦5♦ flop: K♠T♣ or 7♥6♥? OK, I’ll admit… The Curious Case of Open-Limping Buttons Before the advent of solvers, open-limping was considered the province of passive, gambley recreational players… Cleaning Out Sticky IP Callers A “sticky” player on your left, one who calls your preflop raises too often and… Defending Against Tiny 3-Bets Tournament poker is about precision. Cash games, where stacks typically run into the hundreds of… Heads up! Exploiting SB’s Preflop Mistakes Heads up (HU) tournament play presents unique challenges to the average player. Many tournament players,… C-Betting As the OOP Preflop Raiser Position is an extremely valuable advantage in poker. Most players would describe the comfort zone… Overchoice: Making Sense of Multiple Sizings Solver solutions with multiple bet sizes often involve a lot of mixing between those sizes,… River Refinements: When Your Opponent Won’t Check-Raise One of the biggest strategic differences between playing in versus out of position involves betting… Turn Barreling in 3-Bet Pots There are two articles on the GTO Wizard blog that make good prerequisites to this… The Right Way To Think About Protection Suppose Paul the Protector is in a 200bb cash game and opens A♠A♣ in the… The Importance of Board Coverage The first public version of the GTO Wizard announced AI upgrade already has some useful… How To Adjust When Villain Has No Bluffs “They always have it!” is a common, semi-joking expression in poker to describe the tendency… Adjusting on Later Streets After Exploiting Flop The key to exploiting opponents profitably is knowing when to stop. I’m not referring to… C-Betting IP vs Passive Poker Players A preflop raiser enjoys a significant range advantage over a BB caller, enabling them to… C-Betting Against ICM Preflop Ranges You raise from early position (EP) in a multi-table tournament and the BB calls. Both… The Art of Bluff

Straddle An optional additional blind posted by players other than the Small and Big Blind. Straddles are only used in cash games, typically in live poker and rarely online. Commonly used to increase the size of the game, and encourage action and gambling.

elect to call. The small blind also calls, and the big blind folds. The pot now contains $170. Flop: J♣T♥9♠ Question: How excited are you about this flop? Answer: Evaluating the texture of a flop is a crucial skill. Your quick impression might be that this is a fine flop for you. You now have top pair plus a king kicker, which sounds good. But now let's think about how this flop would impact the other likely hands. Presumably there are no high pairs at the table. (You'd better hope there aren't, otherwise you had no business in the pot in the first place.) But if not, then what were these three other people calling with? One of three hands actually - unpaired high cards, medium pairs, and low pairs. Someone who called with a low pair wasn't helped by this flop. That's good for you. Someone with a medium pair just made trips. That's real bad for you. But the high card draws are very dangerous as well - king-queen made a straight, jack-ten made two pair, and many of the others made at least a straight draw. Your sentiment right now should be "Proceed with Caution." You're not unhappy with top pair plus an overcard kicker, but one or two of your opponents are probably happy with this flop as well. You're actually very glad you act last here. You'll be able to see what they do, and proceed accordingly. Action: The small blind bets $320. Player A raises to $650. Player B goes all-in for $960. The pot is now $2,100. What do you do? Answer: Presumably all questions have now been answered. 146 Your jacks are worthless. Get out. Action: You fold. The big blind calls the all-in bet. Player A goes all-in for his remaining chips. The hands were: Big Blind - 8♠7♥, Player A - A♥J♦, Player B - 9♦9♣. The big blind won all the money with a straight. Recapping the hand shows us that Player A's initial raise under the gun with A♥J♦ was a little loose. Player B's call with a pair of nines was fine. The small blind's call with 8♠7♥ offsuit in bad position was a hopeless play which eventually won a huge pot. (That's poker, however.) After the flop and the small blind's bet of twice the pot, Player A should have realized that his pair of jacks weren't necessarily any good now. Your fold on the flop saved you from a substantial loss. Be glad you got out cheaply. Hand 6-13 Situation: Late in a single-table online tournament. The small blind is aggressive. Your hand: T♥T♦ Action to you: Player A folds. Question: Do you call or raise? Answer: With a medium pair you can't let people in cheaply. You need to raise enough to hopefully chase out all but one opponent. Winning the pot right here is not a bad result either. You should raise three to four times the big blind. Action: You raise to $200. Player C calls. The others all fold. The pot is now

Hand Range 90: Stack Depths for CO Push

very far away. What’s the result of that thinking? In the first few levels of a tournament, play tends to be very loose and pots tend to be multi-way. Now we knowthat in those circumstances, you should play tight. Your risk of ruin is low and the game is too loose around you. But now here comes the middle of the tournament. The blinds rise and antes are added. The average stack size drops from 100+ BB to as lowas 50 BB. Now the fear of going broke kicks in. So what do most players do? They tighten up—at exactly the moment when risk of ruin says youneed to loosen up. See what Imean by back-assward? The math completely backs this notion of playing tighter early and looser later. When the antes engage, there’s suddenly a lot less mathematical pressure on your raises. Most tournament structures have a 100-200 level without antes, then a 100-200 level with antes. That’s the perfect time tolook at the effect antes have on the pressure you put on your hand by raising. When the blinds are 100-200 and there are no antes, when you openwith air you must win 70% of the time to be in profit (you’re playing a hand that was a no until you decided to bluff with it). But when you add a 25-chip ante, suddenly there’s an extra 250 in each 10-handed pot. Now when you open weak, you’re risking 600 chips towin 550, which puts you at very close to even money, requiring you to be successful just over 50% of the time. Obviously, you can open weaker more often if you have to win only half, as opposed to over two-thirds, of the time. So just at the time when everyone else is, illogically, tightening up, you’re doing good math and punishing them. Better yet, don’t forget all the time you spent establishing a tight image in the beginning levels of that tournament, not because you wereconsciously trying to establish that image, but as a natural consequence of playing correctly when facing low risk of ruin. Then, when risk of ruinshifts and you need to add more bluff component, your raises will get the respect your tight image earned. You see the average pot size shrinking (not absolutely, remember, but relative to the antes). So you start playing a bit looser and because it takes awhile for perception to catch up with reality, people continue to perceive you as tight, even though now you’re playing quite loose. So look at what you just did for yourself. By doing nothing but playing theoretically correct poker, you put your opponents into total confusion about how you play. Now you can continue to loosen up all the way to the bubble, because the bubble tends to be the tightest point in a tournament (whether it’s themoney or final-table bubble). Conventional wisdom tells us to loosen up at the bubble and generally that’s true. It’s also theoretically sound, becausepots tend to play small at the bubble and smaller pots relative to the blinds

Out of Game Analysis: Out of Game Analysis is work that can be done off the tables but not very easily in the limited time available in-game. Outs: Outs are the cards left in the deck that Hero can hit on future streets when currently behind to make a hand better than his opponent's likely holdings. Over/Under Bluff: To Overbluff is to bluff more of your range than is balanced. *We do this ourselves to exploit people who overfold. *We exploit this in others by overcalling. Over/Under Call: To Overcall is to call more of your range vs a bet or raise than is balanced. *We do this ourselves to exploit people who overbluff *We exploit this in others by underbluffing Over/Under Fold: To Overfold is to fold more of your range than is balanced. *We do this ourselves to exploit people who underbluff. *We exploit this by overbluffing. Polarised: A Polarised range contains two clearly different parts: strong hands for value, and weak hands as bluffs. The medium strength hands in between are not a part of the range. Polar: A 3-bet range is Polar when it contains two distinct groups of hands: value hands and bluffs. When using a polar 3-bet range, Hero always has a range to call the open which sits in between these two parts of his 3-bet range. The calling range is weaker than his 3-bet value range, but stronger than his 3-bet bluff range. Hero 3-bets every hand he deems good enough for value then calls every hand from the remaining hands good enough to call. Only then does he start to 3-bet bluff hands. These hands always come from what would otherwise be his folding range vs. the open, not his calling range. Pot Odds: Pot Odds are the ratio of the pot as it currently stands to Hero's investment to see the next card. Procedural Check: A Procedural Check is one made by the non-aggressor of the previous street to the aggressor of the previous street before that player has had a chance to act on the current street. It is generally done with a player's whole range and skews that range in no way towards either strength or weakness. Pyramidal Strategy: A Pyramidal Strategy is one in which Hero's range to take an action shrinks proportionately on a street by street basis from pre-flop through to the river. Hero does this in order to make sure that he is not taking one action with too large or small a part of his range on any street.

structure, and one that is a tiny bit flatter or steeper, tend to be quite minor. However, the difference between flat and steep is quite significant. More importantly, the payout structures at the extremes, like satellites and winner-take-all tournaments are so significant they are essentially different games entirely. GTO Wizard the #1 App for Poker players Study any spot imaginable Practice by playing vs. GTO Analyze your hands with 1-click START CRUSHING NOW JOIN DISCORD Author Barry Carter Barry Carter has been a poker writer for 16 years. He is the co-author of six poker books, including The Mental Game of Poker , Endgame Poker Strategy: The ICM Book , and GTO Poker Simplified . Latest article Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors It amazes me that, after nearly twenty years of playing no-limit hold ‘em professionally, I… How to Handle Loose-Passive Limpers Solver charts and presolved solutions do not offer much in the way of explicit guidance… Top 5 Mistakes in Spin & Gos As a Spin and Go poker coach, I regularly encounter common mistakes that players make,… An Introduction to Spin & Gos I was playing Tournaments for the first decade of my career. But after my first… Relationships and Poker In my more than 15 years of poker coaching, I’ve helped hundreds of clients improve… Do Multiple Sizes Matter? Should I work out the other tools or just stick to the crowbar? Solver results… The Science of Learning Applied to GTO Wizard The way we were taught to study in schools was flawed and has negatively impacted… Check-Raising a Single Pair In this article, I will address a question raised by Twitter/X user ’Matt Riley’, who… The Turn Probe Bet Imagine yourself defending as the BB caller vs BTN preflop raiser in a 100bb cash… When To Encourage Multiway Pots in PKOs I was recently shown this fascinating PKO hand from the GTO Wizard PKO library. Somebody… Protect Equity and Prosper When we think about the best hands to bet in a given situation, we tend… Do Solvers Have Targets? Targeting has long been a staple of exploitative poker thinking. When you’re value betting against… Disciplining Big Blind in Limped Pots When the BTN open-limps off a short stack, the postflop play against the BB should… I’d Rather Be Drawing Which is the better hand on a K♥8♦5♦ flop: K♠T♣ or 7♥6♥? OK, I’ll admit… The Curious Case of Open-Limping Buttons Before the advent of solvers, open-limping was considered the province of passive, gambley recreational players… Cleaning Out Sticky IP Callers A “sticky” player on your left, one who calls your preflop raises too often and… Defending Against Tiny 3-Bets Tournament poker is about precision. Cash games, where stacks typically run into the hundreds of… Heads up! Exploiting SB’s Preflop Mistakes Heads up (HU) tournament play presents unique challenges to the average player. Many tournament players,… C-Betting As the OOP Preflop Raiser Position is an extremely valuable advantage in poker. Most players would describe the comfort zone… Overchoice: Making Sense of Multiple Sizings Solver solutions with multiple

our range will have Queen X down to Queen two suited and we'll have down to Queen eight off so we check we can expect hijack to bet uh at close to 100 frequency this is a hand I played a couple weeks ago as well and then I had Queen do suited and I just called the Flop and I was checking to make sure that that was okay if we raise the Flop with Queen do Suited um he's going to have by the river if we raise flop and bet bet he's going to have a decent amount of Queen X so we can count those combos now he has we have a queen so he has four combos of Ace Queen we had Queen Deuce of Spades so he can have the Queen of Clubs and the four different Aces he can have the Queen of Clubs and the four different Kings he can have the Queen of Clubs in the four different jacks um and the four different tens so that's 16 combos there he can have pocket nines for three combos of pocket nines so that's 20 combos of hands that beat us uh and he started the hand with about 380 combos so he's gonna be beating us his hand is moving better than ours uh about one in 15 times let's say uh if we raise flop at bet half of the hands that call on the river are going to be hands at beat us anyways so it's not a super profitable line we are getting value X you know we're getting value on the Flop check raise by weird Sands and we're getting we're barreling turn and getting called by War Sands so we're getting two streets of added value but we do need to keep in mind that even though we have trips he does have a hand that beat you know he has 20 combos Queen X on this board or queen X or better on this board so that's why you're seeing Queen Deuce Queen three Queen four played uh as a high frequency call on this board if we let's let's say we raise flop here to 40 percent and then we just Barrel on blanks barrel and then shove on blanks so of course we're getting money in good on the flop and we've got two-thirds and we're going to be getting money in very good on the turn as well but on like a blank River we shove Our Queen Deuce as the solver would have us do on this River um look at how much Queen X he has King uh king queen queen Jack Queen 10 Queen nine Queen eight he has um he has about 34 combos that call this River and about half of those beat us so while we're you know this riverbed well it looks good um isn't that great like half of the time close to half of the time that we get called We're beat um so this

have Bluffs on lots of various runouts and whenever you turn a flush card so there'd be three spades on the board you definitely want to keep betting with your flushes and you want to keep betting with some Bluffs and the best Bluffs to keep betting in that spot are bluffs with good Equity the ace or the King of Spades so this is a spot where you get the check raise a lot notice we're folding far less often as well just because we have more stuff on this board because the six and the four lines up very well with our middle connected range in this region so we get to stick around pretty wide let's take a look at another similar board Jack six five we have a similar spot where we check raise about 20 of the time we check call a large chunk we checked fold about 30 percent so another spot where the board lines up very nicely with us on Jack six five you see we're check raising a lot of Jacks and better in general as your top pair is a little bit more vulnerable to being outdrawn you typically check raise a little bit more often because it's probably good but if a king queen or Jack comes king queen Ace king or queen comes you are not so happy about it right so on Jack six five what likes to check raise well notice we have seven four check raising a lot for an open-ended we have eight seven check raising a decent amount nine eight nine seven for gut shots we see sporadic 10 8 and 10-7 check raising those seem a little bit loose but then we see a bunch of random over cards with some back door draws like we see Queen eight with a back door draw Queen Seven with a back door draw King seven King eight King Nine Etc and again you're going to find that an over card or two over cards like we see king queen suited here with a backdoor flush draw really does like the check raise some portion of the time these are very nice hands to put in a check raise because if you get called and you spike an over card to make your top pair it's almost always good and with the back door flush draws those hands are going to be able to continue logically bluffing on lots and lots of runouts especially if they have a backdoor straight draw to go with it like King 8 for example knows when you check race King 8 if you get a let's say a spade on the turn giving you a backdoor flush draw you can keep betting if you had a king you have a really good hand if you have a queen that's probably pretty bad for your opponent maybe you buff it but then also notice if you get a nine you have a gut shot if you get a seven you have a

The Science of Learning Applied to GTO Wizard The way we were taught to study in schools was flawed and has negatively impacted our study habits. In recent years, there has been a paradigm shift in the science of learning that can enable us to redeem ourselves. We now know more about the most effective way to acquire new knowledge and improve skills. Thankfully, GTO Wizard is positioned well to harness the benefits of this new field of effective learning. This article aims to apply some of the new research on effective learning to poker study, particularly in the context of the level of difficulty in the study . So many discoveries have been made, that the following will barely scratch the surface, but it does cover some of the major ways to make a skill stick, as well as why the methods we used growing up were ineffective to begin with. Acquiring Knowledge vs Mastering Skills The first thing to make you aware of is that the learning process differs greatly depending on whether you are learning something for the first time or improving an existing skill. When first learning something new, you need to make things as easy as possible . Let’s say you are studying Badugi, have never played it before, and barely know the rules. However, once you have established a skill at its most elementary level, improving that skill requires difficulty . Psychologist Robert Bjork pioneered what is called Desirable Difficulty —actions that seem to slow down learning in the short term but improve memory in the long term. Bjork argued that our memory has Storage and Retrieval strength . Storage strength measures how deeply embedded and well-learned something is. Retrieval strength measures how easily we can recall something. We never entirely forget what we have, once upon a time, learned; instead, our ability to retrieve memories weakens through competition with other memories. The difficulty required to learn something lies on a continuum. At the very start, when a topic is new, we need as much hand-holding as possible. Once that information is in our memory, however, we require difficulty in our practice to strengthen it. Learning New Information: Cognitive Load Theory The Cognitive Load Theory was developed in the 1980s by John Sweller and has been used to design teaching materials. The core concept in this theory is that we have limited mental bandwidth for dealing with new information but no such limitations for material we have mastered in the past. A simple example is if I showed you this equation: x + 3 = 12 If you are unfamiliar with algebra, then the above equation might be confusing to you. However, you did not struggle with the numbers, the letter x, the +, or the = sign because you already understood them. Sweller identified three factors that consume mental bandwidth and make learning harder: Intrinsic Load – The combined working memory required to learn a pattern so that it can be transferred into long-term memory. Essentially, an indicator of how complex a task is. Extraneous

a sudden your hand might not be worth even a call. Not only is there a good chance you're already beat by the bettor, but frequently you'll get caught from behind by one of the drawing hands. When you cannot get the drawing hands out by raising, you have so many ways of losing that your best alternative is to fold. Let's say in five-card draw you have two 3s and two 2s before the draw. You are in a game where people are going to come in behind you with medium-sized pairs. If you want to play the hand, you must raise to drive all medium-sized pairs out. In this case you're not interested in cutting down your opponents' odds, because you can never cut them down sufficiently as far as your hand is concerned. You want them out of the hand, pure and simple. If they stay, you have too many ways to lose since any two pair beat you unless you hit a lucky 11-to-l shot and make a full house. Therefore, if for some reason you choose not to raise or if you think raising will not drive out the people with the medium pairs, then your only alternative is to throw away your two tiny pair. They simply have too little chance of winning in a multi-way pot to make it worth calling. You must either raise or fold. As we discussed previously, raising is better than calling against a possible semi-bluff when your hand is too good to fold. It is better for a variety of reasons. It gives you control of the hand. It sometimes allows you to win the pot right there. It allows you to take a free card on the next round when you need to. It prevents your opponent from getting a cheap card that will beat you when he is on a semi-bluff. It disguises your hand so that you Raising 135 might very well win when a worthless scare card falls. Raising against a possible semi-bluff is so much better than calling (except in the three situations described at the end of the last chapter) that unless you can raise, you're usually better off folding. Frequently a semi-bluff raise is indicated even though a call would be clearly unprofitable. Let's say you have a four-flush with one card to come. You know the odds against making the flush are 4-to-1, and your opponent bets $20 into a $40 pot. That is, he's offering you 3-to-1 odds on a 4-to-1 shot. You cannot usually call the bet since a call has negative expectation unless you are almost sure of winning a double bet on the end when you hit the flush. In 100 identical situations you will win only 20 times on average and lose 80 times. That is, you will win $60 20 times for a total of $1,200, and you will lose $20 80 times for a total of $ 1,600. Your net loss will be $400 or $4 per hand. So the decision is clear. People who

at Empire Poker you get all the advantages of playing in the loose-shared ring game traffic and play at tournaments with easier opponents. On any given day, there is $3,000,000.00 wagered and 30,000 or more players gaming. The tournament structure at Empire is great, 1000 starting chips with 15 to 20 minute rounds and no antes. I like the longer rounds before blind increases because you are not as rushed to increase chips and therefore needlessly gamble. It is less of a crapshoot and more of a skill game. The Party Poker network does not share tournament traffic so everyone playing is signed up at Empire Poker. They have multitable Sit n Go’s up to 30 players. An evening guaranteed tournament from $10,000 to $20,000. Finally, there is an end of month $200,000 guaranteed tournament at Empire Poker. All of these tournaments have daily satellite qualifiers. It is a toss up which site to choose. If you have a Party Poker account you are not suppose to have an Empire Poker account and visa a versa. So you have to choose which site you want to play at. Each has their own advantages, larger tournaments (and huge payouts) at Party Poker or smaller but easier tournaments at Empire Poker. If you don’t really play tournaments then it does not matter which site you choose. Empire has the better customer service which clinched the decision for me. Paradise Poker 25% bonus up to $50 Top 10 Reasons to Play Poker at Paradise You may be wondering "why should I be playing at this poker site?". We're here to help make that decision a little easier. And if we don't answer your questions or concerns below, please don't hesitate to drop us an email, anytime. 1. Integrity Paradise Poker is the undisputed and recognized leader in online poker. Our reputation for providing the best action, the best software, the highest levels of support and the safest site is second to none. Paradise Poker has recently joined forces with Sportingbet plc, a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange (Ticker Symbol: SBT.L), to form the world’s largest online betting company. With over two million customers worldwide we are proud to offer further transparency and accountability, as well as more safety and security for our customers. We are excited to feature our sister site, Sportsbook.com, America’s sports betting destination and the largest single sportsbook and casino on the planet. As well, Paradise Poker is pleased to provide our clients with the added comfort of an independent third party review of our shuffling. We engage the services of a Big Four accounting firm to review our card shuffling. Please read the Independent Third Party Shuffling Review. 2. Action What kind of action are you looking for? How about non-stop, 24 hour poker action against real people from around the world! Over 7000 players are logged in during peak times. Whatever your game, you're sure to find a table open. 3. Security Paradise Poker considers security to be our number one priority. From the SSLv3/TLSv1 encryption algorithm

a given spot the opponent is much more likely to hold the strongest hand you can usually check most or all the time particularly when out of position but if you are much more likely to hold the strongest hand and your opponent is very likely to hold a weak hand you can usually bet slash Bluff most of the time in most other scenarios such as when it's unclear who's likely to have the strongest hand or when villain is not very likely to have a weak hand hero will generally want to bet slash Bluff some of the time and check some of the time and in that case the next step of our analysis is to determine whether to Bluff our specific holding based on its specific characteristics and there are three primary factors that should be influencing this decision from a GTO perspective one Showdown value two incremental equity and three card removal Showdown value generally refers to the likelihood of our holding winning the pot assuming that the game ends immediately so a flush has a higher Showdown value than a pair and a pair has higher Showdown value than ace high and ace high AI has higher Showdown value than King High and so on and so forth generally speaking the lower The Showdown value our hand has the more inclined we should be to Bluff it we call that in our last video we mentioned that GTO Soul function is to take the actions that will maximize chips on average when deciding between betting and checking the lower The Showdown value of our hand the lower the amount of chips will likely win by playing passively through checking which in turn means that in order for bluffing to be the action that wins the most chips the threshold will be relatively low for example if we look at the frequency of betting represented by red orange and yellow compared to the frequency of checking represented by Green there's a distinct pattern that emerges among the various hand classes we're likely to hold in this spot the classes of hands that bet most often are the strongest hands which is no surprise and our weakest hands with the lowest Showdown value these hands in the middle are predominantly checking this is due in part to the fact that the number of chips these middling hands can win by playing passively to Showdown is higher relative to the number of chips the weakest hands can win by playing passively to Showdown for example the average number of chips a hand like Jack 4 of Hearts is expected to win by checking is only 0.6 big blinds whereas the average number of chips a hand like pocket nines is expected to win is much higher 5.3 big blinds this means that the threshold for betting to be the play that is likely to win the most chips is much higher for pocket lines than it is for Jack four of hearts or in other words bluffing with Jack

ICM A commonly used acronym for the term Independent Chip Model. ICM is a model that translates the value of a tournament chip to actual cash value, better known as tournament equity. ICM calculations are based on the stacks and payouts of all players remaining in the tournament.

poker is one of the most misunderstood concepts. The word “indifference” means that… Poker subsets and abstractions An “abstraction” is a way to simplify the game of poker. This game is so… Mathematical Misconceptions in Poker Pot Odds and MDF are foundational mathematical formulas in poker. How to solve toy games Poker is a complicated game. It’s impossible to calculate GTO strategies on the fly. By… The Value of Fold Equity – Experiment The term “fold equity” is ambiguous in the poker community. Firstly, it’s an EV equation,… MDF & Alpha MDF & Alpha. Minimum Defence Frequency and Alpha are metrics on poker that determine how… What are Pot Odds in poker? Pot odds are a fundamental calculation in poker. In the simplest terms, pot odds tell… Does your range affect your strategy? Advanced players will often tell you that your range affects your strategy. Visualizing implied odds Implied odds are the value you expect to gain over and above your raw equity.… ICM Basics As a tournament player, you may have heard about the concept of “ICM”, but what… What is Equity in Poker? The term “Equity” is ubiquitous throughout poker theory. Equity refers to your chances of winning… Range Morphology “Morphology” is the study of form or structure. You’ve probably heard terms thrown around such… What is Expected Value in Poker? Expected value (EV) is the most fundamental metric in poker. Every decision you make is… Why doesn’t my solution match GTO Wizard? So, you’ve got your own solutions to some spot, compared it to GTO Wizard, and… Understanding Nash Distance Understanding Nash Distance. One of the most common questions when studying with solvers is “Why… Combinatorics Poker Puzzle Today we have a special puzzle for you that will test your intuition as a… The 10 Most Important Concepts for New Poker Players The 10 Most Important Concepts for New Poker Players. Fundamentals are one of the most… What is GTO in Poker? The meaning of GTO in poker is Game Theory Optimal. Game theory is a study… What does GTO aim to achieve? So what exactly is a GTO strategy? What makes it “unexploitable”? What does it try…

would be right 60 percent of the time — 35 percent of the time when your opponent has Hand В and 25 percent of the time when he has Hand C. When analyzing a poker situation, you go through four steps in deciding on your best play. 1 . Determine the possible hands your opponent may have. 2. Assess the chances of his having each of his possible hands. 248 Chapter Twenty-four 1.Determine your best play against each of his possible hands. 2.In most cases, pick the play that will most often be correct. Analysis in Practice To see how this sort of analysis works in practice, we'll look at a couple of examples. Draw Poker $5-$ 10 Limit Opponent You open for $5 in early position. Everyone folds except the player under the gun who originally checked to you and who now raises another $5. We'll assume you know this player will never make such a play without three-of-a-kind or better. We'll also assume that with the antes and your implied odds it would be incorrect to fold even if you knew your opponent had a pat hand. So the question is whether you should simply call the $5 raise or reraise another $5. Analysis at the Table 249 Your opponent's raise tells you he has either trips, which must necessarily be smaller than your three aces, or a pat hand. If he has trips, you have the best hand and are the favorite to win the pot; if he has a pat hand, you have the second-best hand and are an underdog to win the pot. According to draw poker distribution, your opponent will have three-of-a-kind about 65 percent of the time and a pat hand about 35 percent of the time. When he has a pat hand, you should obviously not reraise. However, it's nearly 2-to-l he has trips. Should you therefore reraise? The answer is no because when you only call and your opponent draws cards, you can draw one card, as though you had two pair, and check-raise after the draw. Assuming he calls your raise, which he will almost always do, and neglecting the slight chance of your opponent improving to a full house when you don't, you win $30 (plus the antes) by playing this way — $10 before the draw and $20 afterward when you check, your opponent bets $10, and you raise to $20. In contrast, by reraising $5 before the draw and coming out betting $ 10 afterward, you win a total of $25 — $15 before the draw and $10 afterward. Thus, the 65 percent of the time your opponent has three-of-a-kind, you win $5 more by calling instead of reraising. At the same time, the 35 percent of the time he has a pat hand (and you don't improve to a full house), you lose only $10 instead of $15, a savings of $5. Therefore, in this situation a call is the correct play since it is right all the time — whether your opponent has three-of-a-kind or a pat

the action by making a token blind bet, so basically, your only concern is whether or not the low card has a hand.* If he does, he probably will not reraise you anyway, but just calling here gives you another 256 shot at stealing this pot. This arises when you catch good on fourth street and he doesn’t. He’ll probably give up right there and you will get the pot. If you both catch good and you are on a cold steal, say with two paints in the hole, give it * For betting purposes on the first round, the ace plays as the high card, not the low. up right there. Don’t go down with the ship; just check and muck with a coy smile. Example Two You: 9-4 J Player One: x-x K Player Two: x-x 9 Player Three: x-x 4 This is another good spot to try to pick up the antes. If you can get by the king, the 9 is probably out unless he holds an overpair. Play the way I just described against the 4. The most important thing to remember is that you should throw your hand away immediately should the king, or anyone else for that matter, reraise. Don’t throw good money after bad. Example Three You: 9-2 J Player One: x-x A Player Two: x-x 8 Player Three: x-x 4 I put in this last example just to make you feel smart. If you can’t recognize that this is a bad spot to try to steal, hang up your guns and mask. You’ll never make it as a thief. CONCEPT 16: DEFENDING AGAINST THE STEAL Once again, this is not a very common situation in eight-or-better. Be sure your timing is right and don’t overuse this play. When a loose and aggressive 257 player, especially one on tilt, raises in late steal position with a low card, what do you do? If you feel he may be stealing, you should probably reraise him with any hand that you would normally just call with. You don’t want to give the thief a free chance to win the pot, which is exactly what he’ll do if he catches good and you catch bad with only one bet each in the pot on fourth street. On the other hand, if you each have two bets in on fourth street, the pot is now big enough to justify a call even though you might be behind. Remember, if he started with a bad one in the hole, you’re not behind—you’re even. That reraise on third street is a kind of insurance against the luck of the draw. You now double your chances to stay in the pot by forcing yourself to see an additional card on fifth street. Also, you are compounding his mistake for him; if he had the bad one buried, he’s now putting in two bets with that bad hand. If you find yourself on the other end of this situation, don’t call, hoping for some miracle. Get out immediately and save that extra

broaden it out to the hijack that's why I brought that in as well because it didn't make sense to also just have a lecture just for the hijack so because it would be mostly the same topic so I tried to put those together anyways guys I hope you really enjoyed this thank you for tuning in today and if you wouldn't mind do you mind if I tell you about a deal we have going on is that Alright typo one in the chat if that's alright or in the questions we have lots of ones awesome I will get right to it if I can figure out how our points work huzzah something new is coming poker coaching premium to be exact what is poker coaching premium coaching premium is a new men ship training site from Jonathan littell Premium Members get Jonathan littles new cash game master class I'm very excited about that over 70 classes covering preflop post flop special situations and more at least one new class added every month a new monthly live training webinar from one of our coaches new interactive hand quizzes every month just for premium members and premium members also get instant access to 500 plus interactive hand quizzes and 40-plus coaching webinars so here's a you guys can kind of check out the layout right here I think this is super neat because well guys I'll just riff with you here this is just me talking when I was trying to learn poker not even that long ago just a few years ago when I was trying to get better you had to do all this stuff yourself I would to learn how to be better preflop I had to filter for everything and uh hold a manager and then I had to learn how to program everything to learn for certain things and it was it was really cumbersome and difficult and hard to teach myself it's just all there now pretty flat post-flop specific hands technical it's in the finances stuff actually is really important to you also will get coaching webinars from yours truly you can learn about exploitative continuation vet sizing 3betting from out of position five post flop tricks you can use barreling theory and more exclusive coaching webinars are coming soon from myself I love these collars but just want to say that poker coaching premium come in June 27th 2019 you can check it out at poker coaching dot-com / premium do that right now if you want to learn more thank you guys for tuning in today I really appreciate it

Dominated A hand that is unlikely to beat the opponent's hand. For example, AK is "dominated" by AA as it only has 6.8% equity preflop.

BET-SIZING 35 In general, the value of your opponent’s mistake will be proportional to the excess amount you bet beyond break-even point. This is an important concept, so we’ll repeat it. Your opponent’s expected loss (and, thus, your gain) is proportional to the excess amount you bet (and he called), beyond what would have been break-even, not the total size of the bet. If $500 is a break-even amount, then you double your profit by getting $600 called versus $550. (A conclusion worth noting is that $600 will almost always be better than $550 in this scenario, as it offers double the profit potential. Your opponent would have to call $600 less than half as often as $550 to make the smaller bet better, and in practice, that will almost never happen.) The value of your opponent’s mistake is only half of the expectation equation. To get your total expectation, you have to multiply the value of the mistake by the chance your opponent will make the mistake. Again, a big all-in bet may offer your opponent the opportunity to make a huge mistake, but if your opponent will never be dumb enough to call, then you don’t gain anything. Say you are fairly sure your opponent has a flush draw, and a $100 bet will be break-even for her. You are choosing between three bet sizes: $150, $200, and $500. You think that your opponent will call the $150 bet about 70 percent of the time, the $200 bet about 40 percent of the time, and the $500 bet 5 percent of the time. To find the best bet, you have to multiply the size of the mistake by the chance your opponent will make it: $35 = ($150 −$100)(0.70) $40 = ($200 −$100)(0.40) $20 = ($500 −$100)(0.05) The best bet is the $200 bet. It doesn’t get called the most often, but it has the highest expectation. Bet the amount that maximizes your expecta- tion: the value of your opponent’s potential mis- take times the chance your opponent will make the mistake. Expectation and Multiple Possible Hands In the previous example, you maximized your expectation against a single, known hand. If your opponent can have one of several draws, you should max- imize your expectation against the range as a whole. Sometimes doing this will mean allowing your opponent to draw profitably with the strongest of his possible draws. Put another way, if your opponent can have a 4 out draw, an 8 out draw, or a 15 out draw, the bet size that maximizes your expectation might allow the 15

This range equates to a conservative 11% of all the hands we can be dealt. There is some difference between this 11% and what your poker program might advise you are the 'top' 11% of hands theoretically. This is due to the fact that with 100BB stacks, it becomes more important to have hands that can both flop good draws frequently and make the nuts a reasonable amount of the time. In a tournament with 15BB stacks this is much less important than just being able to flop a good pair. EG. When matched against each other before the flop, ATo is a 67% favorite over T9s, but the latter will make a more profitable open from this position due to its much higher nut potential and versatility. Moreover, when we do get called after opening UTG, the pairs that we flop with ATo are more frequently in bad shape against hands like JJ, AJ and AQ than those that T9s flops which will tend to be more unique pairs. The opening ranges in this book will always be constructed by picking every hand that will normally be +EV to open with 100 big blind stacks, and not by which hands would perform best if they were all in pre-flop. Sizing (3x) Recall that one of our fundamental purposes behind opening UTG was to prevent too many players from seeing the flop. Remember that if too many players come along, our strong range struggles more to: Have the best hand with good pairs. With multiple opponents it's much more likely someone has flopped a better hand. Pick up the pot with a continuation bet when we miss the flop. Thus, we need a default open-size big enough to thin the field. At standard tables (again with no big Fish) 3x is appropriate for this aim.

Suicide King A slang poker term for the K, due to the fact that the King appears to be stabbing himself in the head on most card depictions.

the final day, and he'd gone through a relatively long stretch with unplayable cards. He may have just wanted to mix things up a bit, and perhaps also thought that his recent inactivity would buy him a little credibility if he decided to bluff later. He couldn't know, of course, that three of his cards were already out in other hands. Amir Vahedi. Amir had T♦8♣, and he was out of position, and there were three other players in the pot ahead of him. Nonetheless, Vahedi called. According to traditional hand evaluations, this was a clear fold. But Amir enjoys making plays like this, and since he has one of the best records on tour, he has to be taken very seriously. Notice that part of his motivation for calling was the excellent pot odds. It contained $224,000, and since Vahedi was the small blind, he had already put $10,000 into the pot, so it cost him only an additional $50,000 to call. His pot odds were 224- to-50, or about 4.5-to-l. I'll have much more to say about the subject of pot odds and hand analysis in Part Four, but for here I'll just say that big pot odds are always a tempting reason to stick around, and Vahedi saw it that way as well. Vahedi's play was a little riskier than it looked, however. He had the additional problem that Tomer Benvenisti, in the big blind, had yet to act. If Benvenisti folded or just called, the action is capped, and we go on to the flop. But if Benvenisti had a hand and elected to raise, then we go around the table one more time, and anyone who was slowplaying before will now get a chance to make a move. So Vahedi can't be sure that his $50,000 call would actually buy him a peek at the flop, and if the betting got heavier, he would certainly let this hand go. The strength of Vahedi's style is that it's almost impossible to know what he's holding at any time, and it's also nearly impossible to look at a flop and know if it helped or hurt him. Vahedi wins huge pots when a flop perfectly matches one of his mysterious holdings, and he can pick up other pots with shrewd bluffs after the flop. Balanced against that is a series of small losses when unpromising hands like this one don't pan out. Vahedi's style works for him, but "beginners" should be warned that it's a very difficult style, and requires enormous skill to play properly. I'll have more to say about playing styles in Part Two. 14 Tomer Benvenisti. Folded in the big blind. The pot was $274,000 before the flop, and there were four players. The flop came 9♠ 6♣ 4♥ Analyzing the texture of the flop. The arrival of the flop is a key moment in a hold ’em hand. Each player has to evaluate the flop for what we call its "texture," meaning the characteristics of the flop and the likelihood that it helped each of

decide to call here with the open-ended straight draw now with the hand like this especially so multi-way um i have to assume that i do have to get there because like i said we are against up against so many different ranges and in a in a limped pot um i do think that this uh nails a lot of their uh limping range um and i don't limp behind very often but a hand like jack aided diamonds i don't want to necessarily isolate pre-flop and and bloat the pot with jack eight uh so like i said i decided to come in for the call but so i do have to be uh kind of cautious with my draw here uh but obviously i am gonna i'm gonna make the call and you know when he is when gypsy is betting into uh five other players you have to give him some credit you do have to give him uh more credit than if this was like a heads-up pod or a three-way pot so the turn is the five of diamonds i did break out here um so poker gypsy does continue the aggression he bets 400 into 860. now i thought about this for a little bit i know i have the open end straight draw but i um you have to consider the fact that because there's two spades on the on the flop if i do end up improving to the straight but uh the the queen or the seven are spades um then i could just be drawing dead to a flush so do and i'm also drawing to the lower end of the straight so i i could be drawing really thin uh verse queen jack so um just considering he's bending into so many players on a a board that i do think that i have to end up getting there and i do have to eliminate some of my outs um because of the spades i end up making the fold here i think that if this was like a like a heads up or a three-way pot i i can consider raising the flop sometimes i definitely like a raise on the flop especially if i had um like if there if the deuce of hearts was a deuce of diamonds i like raising it even more because i could continue barreling on on all uh diamond turns and i can obviously improve to the street so i wound up making the fold uh jackoff here decides to call with his spade draw he bricks and decides to just check pretty surprised that poker gypsy here decided to check back if i were him uh yeah i know that uh jack gate gets there but i think like like i did i think a lot of jack 8 combos fold the turn so if i were a poker gypsy i probably would have bet the river for value now um you know if if jackoff didn't have a spade draw

important concept: When the pot belongs to you because you have the best hand, folding loses you more than your bet. It loses youthe whole pot. If you fold AQ here and your opponent has AK, you only lose 1,000 on the turn by betting with the worst hand because the pot doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to your opponent holding the better hand. But if your opponent holds AJ or T9 or J7 here and check-raises you off your hand, you not only lose the 1,000 you bet, but also the 2,000 already in the pot, since that pot is supposed to be yours. So by betting the turn andopening yourself up to the check-raise, you lost yourself 3,000 to try to win 1,000. If you check the turn instead, now your opponent holding AJ will likely bet the river, that same 1,000, and you’ll call and win the pot. And never, ever, get bluffed. Checking the turn with the intent to call the river ensures that a worse hand never gets to beat you, because you never openyourself up to the check-raise bluff. Not only that, it encourages players to try to bluff you or value bet super-light. A hand like TT that might have folded had you bet the turn will often value bet the river after you check the turn. Same for a hand like T9 or evenAJ. That means a check has huge upside against a worse hand. You’re more likely to pick up extra chips from the other player and you never get bluffed off the whole pot. This concept of avoiding getting bluffed has to do with opening the action. Whenever the action is to you and you’re last to act, you have a choiceof whether to close or open the action. Closing the action means that the betting round is over and the other player(s) can’t bet again. If it’s checkedto you and you check, action closes. If it’s bet to you and you call, action closes. But if it’s checked to you and you bet, you open the action back up. If it’s bet to you and you raise, you also open the action back up. Anytime you open action back up, you risk getting raised. So remember these words: DON’T OPEN THE ACTION WITH A HAND THAT CAN’T STAND TO BE RAISED The best hand can stand to be raised. If you have top set, open the action all you want. Since you don’t risk folding the best hand, opening theaction is pure upside. If you’re bluffing, you can also open up the action; if you get raised, so what? The bluff didn’t work and you fold a pot that didn’t belong to you anyway. If you’re bluffing, you know you’re never folding the best hand; therefore you can open the action in order to try to winthe pot. But when you have a hand that might be the best hand, while being vulnerable to getting raised, reopening the action is a disaster. Then a raise can make you fold your

incentive to shove and take the pot down with less risk on the bubble . It’s also interesting to note that while BB’s folding frequency in heads up pots actually goes down on the bubble, thanks to the protection of stronger hands in the calling range, their folding frequency continues to rise after SB calls. Multiway pots exacerbate the effects of ICM . Better pot odds mean BB wins larger pots when they win, but winning is harder with more players in the pot. ICM encourages BB to value protecting the chips they have over accumulating more chips . Conclusion ICM punishes risk-taking . The closer you are to the bubble, the more you should strive to conserve your chips and avoid situations where your survival is at risk . Consequently, big shoves over late position steals become less desirable as the tournament progresses. When you do shove, such as when stacks are shallower or a third player is in the pot, the hands you shove are stronger. Hands as strong as AK o and JJ prefer shoving to win a smaller pot with less risk over the high-risk, high-reward strategy of three-betting smaller to induce action. GTO Wizard the #1 App for Poker players Study any spot imaginable Practice by playing vs. GTO Analyze your hands with 1-click START CRUSHING NOW JOIN DISCORD Author Andrew Brokos Andrew Brokos has been a professional poker player, coach, and author for over 15 years. He co-hosts the Thinking Poker Podcast and is the author of the Play Optimal Poker books, among others. Latest article Navigating Nasty Rivers Out of Position Playing out of position (OOP) is hard. It’s fundamentally disadvantageous to act on each street… Crack the Shell of Nut Draw Strategy Nut draws hold obvious appeal as betting and raising candidates. They benefit from fold equity,… Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors It amazes me that, after nearly twenty years of playing no-limit hold ‘em professionally, I… How to Handle Loose-Passive Limpers Solver charts and presolved solutions do not offer much in the way of explicit guidance… Top 5 Mistakes in Spin & Gos As a Spin and Go poker coach, I regularly encounter common mistakes that players make,… An Introduction to Spin & Gos I was playing Tournaments for the first decade of my career. But after my first… Relationships and Poker In my more than 15 years of poker coaching, I’ve helped hundreds of clients improve… Do Multiple Sizes Matter? Should I work out the other tools or just stick to the crowbar? Solver results… The Science of Learning Applied to GTO Wizard The way we were taught to study in schools was flawed and has negatively impacted… Check-Raising a Single Pair In this article, I will address a question raised by Twitter/X user ’Matt Riley’, who… The Turn Probe Bet Imagine yourself defending as the BB caller vs BTN preflop raiser in a 100bb cash… When To Encourage Multiway Pots in PKOs I was recently shown this fascinating PKO hand from the GTO Wizard PKO library. Somebody… Protect Equity

blind and big blind force no-limit players into uncomfortable situations,… The Art of Learning Poker In his book The Art of Learning, chess and Push Hands champion Josh Waitzkin describes… Is Donk Betting for Donkeys? “Donk betting”, or betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor… Delayed C-Betting This is a companion piece to Probe Betting. It stands on its own, but understanding… Probe Betting As far as rules of thumb go in poker, “check to the raiser” is a… ICM and Blind Battles: The Big Blind This is a companion piece to this article on the SB’s strategy for blind vs… ICM and Blind Battles: The Small Blind ICM incentivizes more conservative play, which means that at stages of the tournament where risk… The Initial Bettor’s Advantage The mathematics of poker holds a little-known secret: the first bettor enjoys better bluffing odds… Mastering the Chiplead: The Scalpel and the Sledgehammer When you have a lot of chips at a final table or in another situation… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in Cash Games Our never-ending quest for money and fame leads us to the flop. We open the… How ICM Impacts Restealing From The Blinds When I first started working with preflop solves, one of the features I found most… The ICM Benefits of Late Registration in Poker Tournaments Why do so many professional poker players register late for tournaments when they clearly would… Flop Heuristics: OOP C-Betting in MTTs Playing against an in-position cold-caller is dramatically different–and dramatically more difficult–than playing against a caller… Counterintuitive Calls Solver outputs such as those provided by GTO Wizard are models of no-limit hold ‘em,… How To Negotiate Final Table Deals Most people’s first introduction to the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is not from studying bubble… How does ICM impact PKO strategy? If you have read The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments you already know why we… Understanding Blockers in Poker Often when looking through a solver’s meticulously crafted grid of deception, one of the following… Flop Heuristics: IP Cold-Caller in MTTs A Cold-call refers to the act of calling a preflop raise when you don’t close… Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in MTTs In the world of poker, the flop is a crucial stage of the game that… Flop Heuristics for Defending the Blinds in MTTs The field of Game Theoretically Optimal poker is extensive, and thus, to simplify our strategy,… Multiway strategy in Progressive Knockout Tournaments Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments are much more complex than traditional MTTs. The fact that players… How To Calculate Raises In Poker One of the most frequently asked questions in poker is how to calculate the size… Principles of River Play The river offers the least complicated strategy of any betting street. With no further cards… Exploitative Dynamics GTO solutions are designed to be unexploitable, performing reasonably well no matter how your opponents… How ICM Impacts Postflop Strategy Most players understand how the Independent Chip Model (ICM) in poker impacts their strategy preflop,… 10 Tips for Multiway Pots in Poker While lots of work has

Nash Equilibrium A stable set of adversarial strategies where no player can gain by unilaterally changing their own strategy.

to call a lot myself because when you're calling you don't have to be right all that often but yeah this is certainly not a great spot for you at all but it's like it's can't be that bad because you do still be some stuff the problem is he grabbed a tough time on the river if she just keeps betting right yeah agreed it's like if this was just all in here you could probably just call it off but we're not all in and we're nowhere near all in and that means you're gonna end up folding out incorrectly sometimes maybe paying off incorrectly sometimes incorrectly meaning you against her specific hand yeah all right rivers never gonna be you see with the Sam right alright so you call you know if you bet bigger here would you be more inclined to fold on the turn like say she did about 180 and say 130 it's tough to go back to that day as price six years ago but I'm guessing no I think I just wanted to be a hero that's my you know you can't be a hero if you hold the worst hand or the best and that's for sure exactly definitely not alright rivers and eights so this probably connects with you way better than it connected with her that said he'd still track and now you know it's kind of interesting cuz when she bets small on the turn I think she does need to be more inclined to bluff the river but if she bet bigger on the turn she needs to be less inclined to bluff the river agree with it and so she should go dig go small now she kind of has to go big she goes to 60 into seven fifty seven so third pots not only thats the pot after I think I think she bet half caught okay yeah she's about half pot okay yeah the one time they they update the sax immediately alright so yeah half I'm fine alright so what are you thinking at this point yeah so I definitely didn't love the river initially my thinking is that unfortunately a few of her Bluffs actually connected and made a pair at this point this is before she bets anyways I'm thinking some of those like light opens that I was hoping could rationalize a turn call or like eight nine suited eight seven suited maybe seven nine suited and then not a light open but another hand that could connect is a say two spades and so this river kind of makes it where I'm like what Bluffs does she have left it's really just Broadway spades and maybe like a wheel a sly case for ace three there's just not too much that I could put together but I actually be that being said when she goes ahead and bets eight seven and eight nine or off the table that's too thin eval you bet at this point she's really representing a

players in front of you call. In this case, you should raise, even though you run the risk of the initial raiser three-betting it and knocking out the other two players. That wouldn’t be good, but it doesn’t happen often enough to negate the value of the raise. If the initial raiser reraises, it’s not a complete disaster. If he doesn’t, you’ve succeeded in getting more money in the pot, and you may just pick up a free card for yourself on the turn if you miss. Playing Flush Draws Heads-Up A lot of the rules that would apply to playing flush draws in multiway pots go right out the window when you are heads-up. Heads-up poker is like a power struggle, each player trying to get last action and force the other player to back down. More often than not in heads-up poker, both players will flop nothing. The player that wins the majority of those pots usually comes out ahead. Although it has no real value at the time, flopping a flush draw gives you the opportunity to take the initiative on a hand with the hope of either semi-bluffing your way to a flush or forcing your opponent to fold. In heads-up situations, you can check-raise with a flush draw out of position. In fact, it’s often a very good play. Of course, you can always bet right out as well. If you have position, raising your opponent on the flop or the turn might help you win the pot, whether you make the flush or not. How you decide to play a flush draw heads-up on the flop depends on a few key factors: your position, the pre-flop action, your opponent’s tendencies, your table image, and your personal history with your opponent. Flopping Straight Draws There are three types of straight draws that we will cover in this section: open-ended draws, double belly-buster straight draws, and gutshots. An 138 open-ended straight draw would look something like this: You have 9-10 and the flop reads 7-8-2. In this case, you have eight cards that would make your straight (four sixes plus four jacks). Then there is the double belly-buster: Say you have 7-8 and the flop comes 4- 6-10. Both a 5 and a 9 would make you a straight, which gives you the same amount of outs as the open-ended draw (eight). This draw would be exactly the same as an open-ended straight draw, except these belly-buster draws can be slightly more profitable since the hand is less obvious. Finally, we have the gutshot straight: You have 9-10 and the flop reads Q-8- 2. In this case, you can only make your straight with a jack. The open-ended draws give you eight outs, while this gutshot gives you just four. Playing Open-Ended and Double Belly-Buster Straight Draws These draws can be played much like a flush draw on the flop, even though the flush draw gives you nine outs, while these draws only give you eight. There are other drawbacks that affect the straight draw which don’t affect

have them, but you really don’t have a very profitable hand. You’ve got the deck crippled. There’s nothing left that your opponents can have. When you flop a hand that big, you just have to check along and maybe try to win a small bet on the end. Or, if you’re extremely fortunate, you might get somebody to try 372 to bluff at it. They just might try to pick up the pot by representing a hand. You could get lucky that way; but most of the time, you just play it very slow and take what you can get, meaning that you always bet on the end from any position. Here’s another situation where I almost always check: Say I flopped the highest possible full house, known as the big full. That’s what you would have with two aces if the flop was A-3-3, or with two kings if it came K-7-7. If you do have the big full, you’ll have some leverage, so you could give them a free card in most situations (see below for the exception). After you check it once, you bet on fourth, hoping that somebody hit something there. Whenever you’ve got a hand that’s so big you’ve got the deck crippled or one that’s very unlikely to get beaten, you should play it very slow on the flop for two reasons: (1) You want to give your opponents a chance to bluff. (2) You want to give them a chance to catch something if they don’t bluff. With a pair of aces or kings there’s a chance you could flop a straight or flush draw. It would almost always be a gutshot straight draw, with the exception of a Q-J-10 when you had kings. In any case, if I flopped a straight draw, I’d be cautious with my hand. I could easily be beat at that point because any flop that would give me a straight draw could easily make my opponent two pair. I wouldn’t fool with that hand. But if I’ve got the two red aces and three diamonds flop, well, as I noted earlier, that’s a very big hand. I’d play that hand from the hip, and I’d be willing to put all my money in with it. You should always remember that the flop is practically the whole game in hold’em. That’s where your major decisions will be made. The play on fourth street and fifth street is pretty basic by comparison. For example, on the flop, you put your opponent on a particular hand, and all your thinking follows from that. If you think he’s drawing at a club flush, you bet. You must make your opponents pay to make their draws. If the club doesn’t come on fourth street, you bet again. Obviously, if the club comes and you think your opponent made his hand, you check it. If you think you’re beat, naturally, you check it. And if you think your opponent is drawing, you bet. That’s the whole thing. 373 On fifth street, also called the river,

Bullets A slang poker term for pocket Aces. AA