in the middle of the video - i put him on 55 based on how it played out - fine getting in preflop, check back with nothing on flop, bet with set to get value from an ace, and raise when you're very sure you are good
The problem with A9, A8, A7, A6 (offsuits)...unless you hit your 2-pair, you'll likely be running scared to any big bets on any Street. And apparently, even after you hit your 2-pair.
Closing the action I am not holding any Ace getting this price closing the action. I would lead turn. I like the way hero played the river. Also no one us mucking a bluff there it’s just to great of a show.
The most likely villan hold here in my humble opinion is 55. These geniuses here in arizona take some strange lines. Feels like ive seen this one before. And in my humble opinion. In the straddle here. I like raising or folding depending on the enemies. Leaning more towards a fold as ppl in 2 5 live gms arent gto or exploititive wizards
Villian could Have A2 spades. Could have 55. Could have 88. Could have AA. Could be over-value-ing a flush. Yes, caller had great blockers against a boat, but there were still 6 combos of boats here. I’d say 90% of the time hero is beat here.
Another great example of why exploitative play is superior to GTO. It blows my mind that people in the chat were suggesting it's a call because of blockers, which means they completely ignored the way the hand played out. There is so much valuable information to be had throughout the hand, and it's way more important than the slight odds change created by holding two blockers.
You are presenting a false dichotomy. GTO vs exploitaitive is not an either/or proposition. If you understand GTO, you can be much more profitable by deviating from a GTO play as an exploit in certain situations. The key is you understand your deviation and why you are doing it.
Using the concept of blockers doesn’t mean you’re taking a GTO approach. One might choose to bluff with the nut flush blocker 100% of the time vs a nitty opponent as an exploit because you know they’ll fold. But that doesn’t mean it’s a balanced GTO play.
Never should have been in that hand to begin with, the first thing he said, is very correct. A-rag in early position is a roll killer. Even AT AJ or even AQ any of them suited, in early position to a raise, is suicide call..... so, you're in the hand, I think you played it fine, Bart's analysis is fine, up to the river.... You can't open there. You want to show your hand cz you think there is a chance that it is good, now you get raised, you can't showdown. You always have to check river unless you are certain where you are. As you found out,, you had to fold, and now you don't know if you are playing good, or getting played. ... What value are you looking for anyway when you bet there? If he checked a big Ace on flop is the only turn bet you can beat, or if he's bluffing turn, then he can't call you, but again, you give him the chance to raise you off your hand. If you check, he either bets or not, but you get to showdown losing the same or nothing, or sometimes win... I disagree with one thing though, I don't think you look strong at all, when you bet river. I mean, you checked flop, you check turn, he could have KK or QQ and think you are bluffing river or have shitty hand like 99 or Arag, and easy to push you off. You gave him every opportunity to control you when you cold bet a brick river. He probably had aces, cz there is a good chance you have 88 there, it's the only real hand that makes that bet make sense. You were keeping him honest and lucked out on the river. So, lol, that contradicts what I said about looking strong, lol, or does it? - if he had aces, he didn't think about your strength, he didn't have to. If he didn't have aces, he thought you looked weak obviously, cz he can't beat anything, can he. Unless he has aces, lol I think the lesson in this hand is that once you are there, in that situation, if you were running a sound analysis up to the river, you would have seen faster, is that the 8 didn't really change anything, it just sucked you in... YOU SHOULD HAVE CALLED RIVER!! He has to have aces to beat you, and you are blocking, and it's poker, the 8 may have given you the W. Cz, I think there is a good chance that, because of positions and preflop, the CO was looking to check raise the flop, hoping the button would bet. Cz you both called the raise, button called potentially for a heads up pot so he should have a big A or pocket pair, or maybe suited broadways, so good chance, 2/3, that he bets. So raiser is either slow playing AA, or AK, AQ, AJ, which you win most of, or he's etting your range is lower than his, after the checked flop, in which case you win all the time. Only hand he can beat you with is AA, you should have called. ... THAT is poker, boys. lol Peace **When the button doesn't bet the flop, at that moment, that is the moment when you see what a terrible call Arag is, in early position to a raise lol - you flop top pair, 2 pair, you can't bet, table checks to button, if he bets, you have top pair and you don't even want to call a position bet, lol, and you can't open to a preflop raiser behind you, and if raiser Cbets, you also can't call, and if button checcks, you still don't want to bet out on turn, though I'm surprised you didn't, but, yeah, that hand, is just hell on every round, even if you flop 2 pair, it plays the same a lot of the time, depends on the other cards and your rag second pair. You basically need trip 8s, and you also need the Ace to be there or not be there for the raiser or someone to pay you anything, so it's like a 95% losing hand. Just made up the #, but you know what I meaan.
No mention of 55? Hear me out... If villain has 55, which is unblocked, V should not be afraid of a better boat, so he's never not raising the river. H playing 22, 88, or AA this way is just too weird. Good fold for this and many other reasons. Or as Bart said, if you got bluffed, you got bluffed.
Strongly agree. Was thinking the same. I think 55 is by far villain’s most likely holding. It’s the only hand that’s almost always played exactly this way at every street. So much so that I think that’s like 70% likely to be the hand if villain shows down. The rest is something like 10% AA, 10% oddly played flush, 10% courageous oddball bluff. So roughly you saved 350 90% of the time and lost 1010 10%. That math works out to a pretty +EV fold.
To me V's hand screams 55 and I think hero most likely made a good exploitative fold. 8 blocker doesn't mean much when V would not be betting pot on turn with 88 no club
Bart, thinking about the last part of your analysis, would it be fair to say most folks in 2-5 games generally are not willing to bluff raise on rivers… Thus, helping us lean toward fold, especially paired with the A8o line was strong as well????
When I saw this hand during the call in show, I was initally thinking that we should never lead this river, but after looking at the villains size on the turn, when he goes almost pot, villain will have so many give ups on the river it's unreal. Villain has to consider that hero has called such a large turn bet that hero must be relatively strong. So in reterospect, I think a lead for 1/3rd or 1.5x at a low frequency is fine.
You don't think with the flop checked through, that all bets are off when it comes to hand strength/range? Hero checked twice, V might just be buying, then H only calls, .... really looks like a club draw or bluffcatcher, no? Or, so tell me, why does he look strong? ..... Cz if he is strong, why wait for river? Why not just raise when he gets the bet? That's where he sold himself out. V knows that unless H has 88, he can push him off. ... In any case, H should never bet the river there, and we learn ehy in this video. He has showdown value, he needs to get to showdown cheap asp, check-call, all day long, only way you make money with this hand, which should not be attempted in the first place, lol... peace
One thing I don't think was discussed is that if V bluffed, he elected to give pot odds rather than shove. Which seems incredibly unlikely. I wonder what chat thinks about that? Seems that in small stakes that giving good odds when bluffing is burning money, especially if he had A with K of clubs, which still had a little showdown value against someone overvaluing AQ or AJ
Preflop-fold Flop-check call Turn-check call or lead 50 River-as played check call because he bet so large on turn, unless the bet is massive then consider folding. Or if we led turn then continue to lead river and if raised, easy fold-and if we get bluffed so be it, it happens. Main point-fold pre and avoid all this other stuff. We save more money at low stakes by folding, not by winning pots.
I also disagree with saying the river sizing is too large. I think potting it and getting hero calls from all aces and if they shove all in over bet you can easily fold. Plus you can represent a missed flush draw
Agreed, a variable sizing OTR is fine I think if we are bet/ folding. I think all flushes other than nut are prolly flatting, nut flush and boats and bluffs are raising u. I guess bart want to target Ax only for value, which I assume is why yhey go small. IMO I would xc river, inducing bluffs and mitigating damage vs flushes
@@conephompany Issue with that is you're losing value from any AK / AQ that will probably check back the river. Also 95% of the field doesn't bluff shove the river over pot size bets, but some people will raise 3x over 33% river bets. So pot size not only gets the most value but also gets the most respect.
@@boojay7076 what worse is calling you though? everything that beats you makes you own yourself, no? Ask yourself why betting pot here? What will call me that i beat? That would be turning your hand into a bluff, folding out the AK / AQ combos, and getting picked off by everything else.
Almost nothing is "out of the realm of possibility", but I'd say that's one of the only logical bluffs, and even then it's not very likely. Most people would just call hero's river lead with AxKc, it's a pretty big deviation to turn that much showdown value into a bluff. The only other bluff I can think of is KxKc given that after hero calls the turn and leads there's no question KxKc has zero value.
So we have the cutoff opening for $35 button calls hero on straddle calls closing the action. I actually like this call. Seems pretty standard no need to really go in depth. The only way I could consider folding on the straddle is if the cut off was extremely tight and only opened Ace King, Ace Queen, Ace Jack, Ace 10. But generally speaking I think a call is perfectly fine. With the heroes exact holdings with the ace of diamonds and eight of clubs I like the check on the flop. When it checks around and the turn is a 5 of clubs I really like a check. When the cutoff bets a $100 into $112 he is repping Ace King, Ace Queen, Ace Jack, and Ace 10. It looks as though the cut off is trapping with his big Ace. When the button folds I actually like a check raise to $300. The only hands you are worried about are pocket aces for Aces full of deuces, Ace five for top two pair, and pocket fives for fives full of deuces. Of course villain that opened on the cutoff could have a flush. But having the eight of clubs eliminates some of the combinations. Nothing is absolute. You're going to lose when you bluff that's just a fact. You just want to put yourself in the best situation to be right at a higher frequency than you're wrong. If you check raise to $300 your opponent will most likely call for another $200 with his big Ace. As well as call with pocket kings with the King of clubs. Sometimes pocket Queens with the Queen of clubs. Sometimes king queen with the King of clubs. So you do beat some hands. Our plan got a little thrown off with us rivering top two pair. If the river was let's say a 7-2 that's not a club I like going all in for $675. Pot would be roughly $1375 and opponent would be getting only 2-1 on a call. Not saying opponent would fold because sometimes he will call but I think generally speaking it's going to be rare to be bluffing in this spot thus making this check raise profitable as villain would be folding a high percentage of the time I presume. Of course you have to ask yourself does this player over call? If the player does over call then I don't like the check raise on the turn. But that's not what happened. But if our hero did check raise to $300 on the turn and the pot was $712 and we rivered top two pair I would bet $300. Leaving myself with an awkward $375 behind. I would simply fold if villain went all in. I could care less about the pot odds. I would simply ask myself does this player do this type of move with nothing often enough for me to call. Generally speaking the answer will be no. Almost never. Maybe in rare situations where a player is drunk and or doesn't know how to play the game, but generally speaking if you only have $375 behind and when villain jams all in the pot would be $1685 giving hero over 4-1 on a call. If you can find a bluff in that spot I salute you. But realistically very very few people are ever going to attempt a bluff given the stack size of only $375 behind.
A lot of players in lower limits play face up … in my opinion it’s very possible to be passive on an ace high board with pocket fives … he’s already deviating from gto with bet sizing betting frequency and clearly trying to get the money in as much as possible … with out tons of information on the Villian it’s difficult to gauge his skill set but I’m assuming he has pocket fives definitely a boat or better .. although from a gto point of view we may check back and slow play our aces but we block that and there’s only one combo a good fold
Looking for "bluff hands" and made hands that the villain could have. I didn't hear any discussion about any suited wheel hands that villain could have had plus 55. Villain could have raised pre-flop with A2 spades for full house, A3 with 3 club blocker/straight blocker and top pair, drawing to a 3, a 4, and an A, A4 with 4 club blocker/straight blocker and top pair drawing to a 4, a 3 clubs, and an A, A5 suited to turn top two pair (so together 7 more combinations of bluff hands). These could have club blockers plus A and other blockers good to put pressure and bluff along with all the other 1 card club hands you named. These hands are good to balance off AA, 55, A2, 22 and possible 88 hands (10 combinations of made hands) but there are more bluffs available than made hands available when the club comes off on the turn. *Also less likely of course is villain could have turned the straight flush supernuts with 43 clubs (keeping in mind he was the preflop raiser in late position and nobody re-popped him).
Also, 55 makes the most sense really. blocking the 8 doesnt matter because villain is never potting no club 88 on flush completing turn? A5o much better here than holding an 8
What about KK, QQ, JJ with a club that the villain is turning into a bluff? And tried to semi bluff the turn with, but knows when the villain leads the river that he is is beat
AA (1), A2 (6), 55 (3), and 88 (1) are all V value hands Hero loses to, along with any flush combo like KQ (16), KJ (16), etc. I doubt the flush because any flush without a K definitely should call the river bet, not raise, and most of the K high flushes should as well. V may have decided H doesn't have a deuce or boat for some reason, so I wouldn't discount all K flushes. I don't see a good bluff from V's perspective, though, so a fold on the river seems like the right play.
I have almost no experience playing these weak aces. When lots of the bad players I play against play almost every ace, it doesn't make sense to me to try to beat them at their own game. I just see people show up at the river with a garbage ace played OOP when they have no business being there. I'm usually not trying to push dummies off of a board with an ace unless I have a big one or I can beat one. I don't remember if there was any information about the villain's play style at the start.
The only thing I didn’t understand from this episode was why RU-vid thought a poker channel was perfect to show an ad for the Mega Pokémon play set from Mattel. Not too many 3 yr olds kickin around my local casino that I’m aware of.
Since it checked through on the flop in a multiway pot, I think many villains are likely to have a king high flush and the fold looks better. But we don't really know anything about the opponent, the call in didn't describe villain's tendencies (or his own with how active he'd been). I disagree that a lead looks too much like a boat here... If he's like most live straddle players, Hero will tend to be pretty active and show up with a lot of weaker value hands.
bart- love your vids. however, how does the title "Fixing the Easiest Leak in Poker" pertain to this video? are you referring to just folding pre on this hand or did I miss something completely
I disagree with a lot of this. 1. The turn is definitely not a clear call. I think it’s probably a fold. A pot size bet multi-way should be played against as if it were a 1.5x pot bet heads up due to the CO having less equity and less incentive to bet. Additionally, a lot of strong players will be checking range OOP on the flop, so the CO is getting here with a ton of hands that hero is drawing thin against. 2. Donking river makes no sense from any sort of theoretical perspective. Donk bets are usually used on highly equity shifting flops, turns, and rivers; and only when the equity shift is in favor of OOP. The 8h is a complete brick. If you donk here with A8 then what does that do to your checking range? It would become very vulnerable. If I saw one of my opponents do this then I would be attacking their checks much more aggressively. 3. Hero’s 8c does not block any boats. 88 is not in the CO’s range at all on the river. Why would that hand ever pot the turn? If anything you’re blocking some bluffs. 98o and T8o are a little loose but not terrible opens from the CO with a lot of dead money in the pot. Preflop is close between all 3 options and I’d fold turn, but if I got to the river with this line I’d be check-calling.
A5>A8 to call river especially w the Ad or As. The 8 is irrelevant imo bc 88 isn't arriving at the river this way. The boats are AA, A2s, 55 and 22. I'm calling bc I don't think they use such a large turn sizing.
@Bart, so what is the leak? The preflop call that you said was a fold (Bart takes a call today where an early mistake compounds and highlights one of the easiest leaks to fix in poker.)? On the river, you said he had the best hand until the raise. So is the leak calling the river raise on a paired board?
Be astonished if he wasn’t holding pocket 2’s, pocket 5’s or pocket A’s. Also, not all blockers are created equal. In the instances where you are bluff catching, I would much rather catch it holding A5 in this instance. 5 is a much better blocker in this hand than the 8
Pretty rare that I disagree with Bart, but I think river bet by hero is probably fine. I doubt Bart is going to want to x/f this river. If that is the case, then we'd rather bet than call, unless we believe villain is more likely to bluff than to call with a worse hand. But, where are the natural bluffs here? KcQd? I think we are more likely to get called by some random Ace or maybe even 99+ than it is that V bluffs this river. So, it seems to me that our only options are x/f or b/f the river. x/f just seems so weak here. Aside from preflop call, I like hero's play.
Sure looks/feels like AA to me. Check the flop to under rep and not to scare anyone off with the board smashed. Pot bet to make up for no flop value and the river value raise trying to get paid.
Only 1 combo of AA out there, vs 3 combos of 5's; even if villain only raises 55 pre at 1/3 of the frequency as aces, the distribution is equally likely to be 55 as AA.
@@travisdonley8768 mathematically, you are correct. I think that it’s more likely that 55 bets the flop at something like 1/3-1/2 pot to rep the ace as the pre flop raiser. Also, on the turn, it seems as though 55 would be more likely to not go full pot so as to be called by any ace. But, who knows? And that’s the beauty of the game. You can play any hand any way you’d like.
I can definitely see villain playing a flush that way. I can see K or Q high flush opening pre-flop and then checking the turn with just a flush draw when the A hits on the flop - Q high flush draw being even more likely (QcJc, QcTc, maybe even Qc9c). At 2/5 games it’s not uncommon to see guys checking on the flop with these hands because they don’t realize how powerful a c-bet would be in this situation. They are content to try to hit the flush or maybe pick up a straight draw. Not ruling out that villain could have a boat here, but I think there are a fair number of flushes too. Just reinforcing that this a fold.
For the first time ever I Don’t agree with Bart on the river, I’m simply never folding. There’s too many strong pocket pairs that would take this line as a bluff imo, maybe even A5s or AK
What boats does he have though? What flushes would he have? We block AA here, we beat AK, he doesnt have the ace of clubs, so KQcc? Why would he keep betting with that. I don’t see the hands that could have taken this line
A2 waiting for someone to catch up. Pocket 5s. The one combo of AA. The one combo of 22. So... 12 combos of value hands make sense. Any kind of double paint with a single club makes sense for a bluff. There's like 20 of those. With 3:1 on a call, on paper, looks like a snap call.
A2, any Kx or Qx clubs, 55, 22, 34 suites… Not raising AK. Also hero leads, so CO can have any of the hands he bet flop with still. He didn’t stop betting
There's not a lot of combos of full house the villain could have here either though. It's a weird spot. He's not showing up with 5-2 or 8-2. You block pocket 8s and pocket aces. Does he open A-2 and flop the boat? I think more likely villain has a flush and thinks hero might have a set of 2s in the straddle or the hand he has, 2 pair.
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I felt like villian sitting here with exactly AK with K of clubs. Pretty safe flop to occasionally check, even 3-handed. Bet turn huge to make it look like he doesn't want a club to call.....and not getting raised def means that opponent DOESN'T have the flush on turn. So when hero leads river, makes sense to raise and rep every hand that is nutted. IF the hero has a hand like 88 (having specifically 8c), 22, middling clubs (although middling clubs makes little to no sense) that doesn't believe.....oh well. Just my two cents on this hand.
I'd be betting big on turn to get smaller Aces to possibly call (which is exactly what happened here). I can also eliminate the possibility of small flushes by opponent by doing this, since they didn't raise me. Because it would be NON SENSICAL to just flat the turn with such a vulnerable hand such as a middling flush (considering a 2, A, or club on river has you stomped)
How unfortunate if villain shows up with A5o/s on the River here and either luckboxes thinking he’s going for value or makes a filthy sick bluff. Think he’s showing down A-A, [most likely] 5-5 or quads like 80+% of the time here though.
16:00 im kinda new to poker and im confused, bart said " if he is only raising boats then you have one of the best hands to call with". Why would you call if he has a boat!?
If he only raises boats, then your A8 reduces chance he has a boat by 37.5% - without A8, he can have AA, 88, 22, A2, 55 for 16 combos, with A8, the combos reduce to 10, because he can have less AA, 88, A2. So he is 37.5% more likely to be bluffing that he has a boat if you have A8 or A5.
Call me a nit, but I woulda folded dead-man-off quicker than quick. Won't catch me in a multi-way pot with that garbage no matter what the damn pot odds are. I'd only play it heads up in defense mode, rarely.
I disagree. There are tons of losing players. Bankroll management cannot help them win. Their absolute best "bankroll management" strategy is to stop playing, and thereby lose 0, but that is not happening. As for winning players, bankroll management is a pretty simple thing. Don't play too high for your bankroll and don't spend money like a drunken sailor when you run good. There are some players who absolutely fail in these, but it is, at least in theory, a simple thing to get right. So yes, if you have that leak, you are doomed to fail, but I would not call it the biggest leak in poker since there are so many losing players.
I agree with the fold pre but being in the situation he is in at the river, I think it's a sigh call... Hero blocks the boats with A8 only 55 is the most reasonable boat there. He checks the flop which indicates maybe a pocket pair JJ+ with 1 club(I actually put him on QQ or KK with 1club) once it goes C/C on the flop I don't think Villain will put Hero on an A so thinks his pocket pair is good with a redraw to a flush hence why the pot size on the turn. I don't think he puts Hero on a boat due to the fact he probably thinks a boat raises on the turn hoping the Villain hit a flush to get value. Either he thinks his PP is good or thinks he needs to bluff you off a small flush, being in the straddle you defend quite a bit with suited connectors etc. He's representing a boat with the raise on the river, I don't think Flush can confidently raise on the river with the paired board and you have the 2 best blockers with A8, I feel like it's a call but I could be completely wrong, just how I feel on it
@@jackbaden the only problem I would have if I went bigger is that it will tend to look more like a bluff if he for example over bet pot, I think the villains raise amount was probably spot on as it looks like he is raising for value 100%, if he clicked it back I would 100% say for value but anything over what he raised would lead me to believe he is trying to buy the pot and without a house your going to fold with that board texture
The river fold is fine. If I make it to the river with this hand, I probably lead for $125, and fold to the raise, but otherwise, caller played river fine.
I've been folding A9o pretty regularly. even in position. If folded to me in late position I might raise with it but I am definitely not married to this hand post-flop. Without knowing exact statistics, I think I have saved a lot of money based on what I have seen the way the hands of played out.
It's brutal but you're losing to two clubs and only that hand. He could even be doing this with A5 if he puts you on Ax. He doesn't expect you to have A8 here, so you beat all Ax's and this is near the very top of your calling range. If your hand was any better, you probably would've jammed.
Ahh, so frustrating to not know what villain had, paired boards scramble things up so bad and 2 pair is overrated. A2o or something like QTc KJc is what I'd think about but yeah I would have folded.
If he knew that the 8 was coming on the river then yes for sure 😂. I agree that a small-ish lead on the turn was probably not bad even a small lead on the flop might have made sense.
@@edide1627 He played his hand a little too honestly and face up I think. No one with a 2 would have checked twice probably or even a flush on that board. Someone with a big made hand is going to want to build some kind of pot. After he checked twice I think it was just really obvious he didn't have those hands and the other player could exploit him. With A8 you probably really want to see a showdown so if you bet like you have a flush then at least weaker flushes won't raise you. You might get to see a showdown for much cheaper.
This is a joke. 0 percent chance of a bluff. This could even be a 2x hand. And I do not understand Why the Guy cant have a flush. Of course he would raise with a flush, hoping to be called by a 2, smaller flushes or whatever.
We don't have any information on the guy himself , thus making the analysis very difficult. I don't see a sane guy putting in a big raise river here without a boat wanting to target a flush. Except if he is either a lunatic or a complete beginner.
