High Stakes Poker Hand Review

Hello friends!

Today we will look into some juicy high stakes hands I played recently on GGpoker.

We have big pots, PIOsolver, exploits, 3bet bluffing, backdoor straights, all the good stuff.

Let’s jump straight in with a tough river spot at $50/100.

Relevant to note that villain is a reg on the passive/nitty side.

Flop

I will be mixing this spot: in my sim it bets 55% even though we use b25 as our size.

I use a simplified range here.

I don’t compromise much EV, I would rather hit the preflop frequency than the exact hand selection.

A lot of people make the mistake of betting range, playing it like we are in some linear 3bet range spot. 

Stop. We are 3betting 19%, a lot of which is junk, you can’t blindly cBet anymore.

If someone does this, he opens himself to a lot of exploitation and it is your job to capitalize on it.

I RNG a check flop: my hand is fine either way, QQ+diamond checking back more because it’s less vulnerable to backdoor diamond runouts (or so I thought).

Turn

Ingame I don’t see any other option than call here.

For his strategy, I will give him a mix of block and pot. I don’t know if he is doing this ingame, but I do think a block bet is good in this spot to get me off random air I will have in this spot.

For my reaction, call is the play.

River

Here things get interesting. We don’t have much behind, so I’m thinking he should use a mix of block and all-in.

From an exploitative stand-point, I expected him to bluff with all-in size.

I was ready to call against that.

b75 looked like a non-standard sizing he will underbluff, where he wants to get called by me.

Calling being out of the question, I decided to fold, maybe mixing in some shoves.

We have a good flush blocker and we can easily have flushes here. Yes, we don’t have much behind but I believe we would get a lot of credit, especially from a passive/nitty villain.

Back to PIO, surprised to see 75% is the preferred size.

Against this, my hand mixes call/fold.

This means our hand is a 0 EV bluff catcher.

We make no money calling this on the river against a balanced opponent.

If we factor in that he is on the passive side and b75 is possibly under-bluffed, folding becomes easily the best option.

We only make money by calling here if he is substantially overbluffing me. Unlikely.

The most important concept here is the river decision for you to think about and implement the deviations in your games.

Let’s do one more fun hand for today.

CO is a big fish. BTN is a good reg.

Preflop - building a dynamic range

Reg should isolate here very wide, as fish is loose and he also posted the blind.

My spot becomes interesting.

I will want to play quite a few hands, to get involved with the rec.

We have 3 dynamic variables:

• how big the rec is

• the iso size

• the iso range

All these can vary a lot depending on the situation, which makes having a ‘standard’ range difficult.

My calling range will be wider than normal, so I need to adjust my 3bet strategy accordingly.

When having a wide calling range, a polar 3bet strategy makes sense.

• 3betting top range is intuitive

• calling a wide range is intuitive

• 3bet bluffing K3s is not intuitive

As every one of these spots is unique (because of the variables above), you have to actively think of your altered flatting range and construct the 3bet bluffing range on the spot. I like taking top of my folding range with good blockers as candidates for my 3bet bluffs.

Easy to see a hand that looks like it can’t call and just fold it. This is why you should be very careful against regs who 3bet you in this spot, and exploit by overfolding.

Back to the hand, the rec cold calls, decided he won’t stand for these shenanigans. Reg folds.

Flop

When rec cold calls, I believe he has a somewhat strong range.

I don’t like bluffing on a texture he can hit a lot, with so little equity and being OOP.

I can always bluff later.

Turn

Now I pick up a bit of equity and I assume his check back range is weak.

I intend to start a 2 street bluff to get him off better hands like K and A highs.

River

I somehow have a straight in this pot.

Thinking of his range, I want to get max value when he somehow has a weak/medium pair, so I size up.

Apparently my plan of bluffing him off Ahi would’ve worked out well.

That’s it for today, if you enjoyed this breakdown and want to get first access to future ones, subscribe to this newsletter.

Also, if you feel stuck with your game and want a personalized roadmap to improvement, I recently opened my coaching to the public: https://highstakespokercoaching.com/

GL at the tables!

Daniel ShowOfForce