enty 50nl HU

1 table

[links broken~tb]

for some reason the camera jumps focus a few times, i dont know, i didnt do anything besides click my mouse and enter bet amount but im guessing theres some shortcut thing that lets u shift focus and i was doing it without knowing about it, but its not a big deal i think u can still see everything ok, if not just ask

anyways, ull see what happens, 50 mins 1 opponent
i think i made some mistakes in the crucial hands so let me know what u think
all comments are appreciated

will watch and comment in a bit

When you render the vid make sure you choose not to apply Auto Smart Focus. That should fix the annoying zoom problem.

Before I even watch it I bet your betsizing sucks.

kleitches said:

When you render the vid make sure you choose not to apply Auto Smart Focus. That should fix the annoying zoom problem.

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i do remember that being checked
now i know

it probably follows my mouse or smth retarded

SeanyJ said:

Before I even watch it I bet your betsizing sucks.

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quite possibly true, let me know where and how much

j7 hand 3 minutes in : you said it yourself this is perfect card to 3 barrel with, just do it and get him to fold or if he calls get the image of a 3 barreling spewtard and just value town him later.
a9 5 minutes in or so: 262 flop, he has 80% cbet, i think you can call one bet and try to take it on the turn or call him down with A high.
being nit picky any reason why fold T8 on button? this guy is folding to your raises like everytime (twice)
33 where you hit your trips with a flush draw on the flop, you played it fine, that Q isn't the greastest card in the world but its also not bad, because sometimes he pairs his QKs/AQ which certainly is in his 3 betting range but you played it fine, I would of shoved also, but if you are playing an aggro thinking player, I think reraising flop to induce a shove is a good idea.
a7s 12 minues: if you are trying to create a an aggresive dynamics, 3 bet with garbage hands which are easier to play, but 3 betting a7s against this guy is bad, it plays so bad oop because his raising range on button is so small for heads up and he pretty much owns you because its pretty obvious even to a bad player.
a9: like the way you played it and talked through it, if he has mid pair and if you go for thin value he probably folds it on that board so i like the check behind because it did look like flush draw.
44: personally i would probably just donk bet, but the way its played its fine to fold, honestly he never has 6 here not because its unlikely for him to have it but because he is horrible and doesnt know how to thin bet.
A9: i don't really see why you decide to check raise here, you have yet to do it with top pair hands and really only hand thats doing it there is like a flush draw or like 9T and he should be able to out play you on the turn easily.
37 like 24 minutes in: good play.
28 minutes in with T9: i lol'ed at him not raising you.
good play with the 56.
got to love his huge ass luckbox AA<TJ runner runner quads.
KT: first of all, you 3 bet hands that play like hell OOP, second of all why c-bet you always fold out worse hands or he raises and you have a decision to make, check for pot control, then evalue on turn, and once you bet and he raises, calling there is kind of bad, I think I'm just folding because you know that this player is really not capable of making moves, plus he should also realize your 3 bet % is so small and his A is good.
AK: its a fold, i already said this, this guy is not capable of making moves, there is no other explaination.

Some side notes: ok I don't mean to sound like a total d**k but you are lucky to get away with only being down so little. few things you were doing wrong in my eyes:
you let him over run you with 3 bets, 22% is way too high for hu and you only played him back at him like 3 times. Also if you are trying to create an aggresive dynamic and want this guy to play back when he doesnt have hands you need to 3 bet with garbage and showdown with it, nothing tilts people more than losing to some garbage that flopped two pair or w/e, or bluff and show him. This guy was not a thinking player so it would just tilt him and not really make him think that ur trying to set him up.
Also I saw you 3 bet with hands that play so bad OOP against his raising range, which in the vid you said hud doesnt matter but it kind of does for his opening range and you didn't adjust to that.
My final point is about c-bets and playing on the button, this guy was folding so much and calling c-bets so much, here is what you do start raising every button because of his tight calling range, and polarize your c-bets and try to only c-bet when you hit, when you are raising every button and even if only c-betting when you hit, this guy wouldn't have noticed, and if he started 3 betting you, start 4 betting him. To me it seems like you play same strategy from beginning to end with like 3 3 bets with garbage, I saw no adjustments and no counter adjustments against this guy. Also you kept saying it throughout the match, this guy is bad, he is not capable of making moves, stop paying him off when you know he has the nuts. Oh and one more thing, mix in some donk bets when you know the flop misses his range because his opening range on button was pretty small, and if you only donk bet when you hit sets, you will never get paid off. To me it seemed like you had the mentality of trying to just keep the pots small when you should be trying to have the game aggro as possible and just own him in position. I mean you did have some solid plays like with T9, that was the right play and read he just got lucky, but you also made some silly mistakes which cost you a lot of money, the KT and AK hand.

eNTy said:

i do remember that being checked
now i know

it probably follows my mouse or smth retarded



quite possibly true, let me know where and how much

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bet sizing was fine imo.

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/general-poker-13/july-poker-chat-thread-155587/post-1236334.html for a couple thoughts... obviously I don't have nearly as much HU (cash) experience as you but I've played a few hundred SnG's HU. I didn't really have much to say, gonna go back and read bob's comments now.

edit: I would add that I also go broke on the set of 3's vs. flush.

jamesdadeliverer said:

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/general-poker-13/july-poker-chat-thread-155587/post-1236334.html for a couple thoughts... obviously I don't have nearly as much HU (cash) experience as you but I've played a few hundred SnG's HU. I didn't really have much to say, gonna go back and read bob's comments now.

edit: I would add that I also go broke on the set of 3's vs. flush.

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now that I think of it, players like this tend to get "fancy" so I think if he had a flush there he would of probably checked and try enty to bet and shove over him, but when he bets you know he either hit that Q or already had pp or is trying to double barrel with overcards representing Q and shoving is perfectly fine.

i mostly agree with what bob said with regard to thinking about what hands are best to 3bet with regard to his raise/calling range. KTo for example is not a very good one, it plays better just calling his open because it flop pairs that aren't too vulnerable, which is helpful OOP. when you get action on your 3bet he'll have dominating hands somewhat often

with regard to preflop opening, i saw a lot of times on the button you're pretty much auto raising J-rag offsuit and folding some T8 97 type stuff, which is kinda backwards. T8 and 97 play way better than J-rag, you should probably just be folding J-rag preflop unless you can really run the guy over, which wasn't the case here. i know the face card looks pretty but Jx is really trashy

on the T9o where the board is 73cT7Q and you c/r flop and bet turn and say you think he's on a draw... then you bet half pot into him on the river when all the draws brick which doesn't really make any sense. you say it can be for thin value but what worse can he call with? first of all even a hand like 88 or 99 would have an incredibly hard time calling you on that board with how strong youve played your hand. and there are just a lot more combos of non-pocket pairs than pocket pairs, so he's not going to have hands that you can get "thin value" from nearly as much. just c/c. you would have probably gotten owned anyway but at least you give him a chance to bluff with the biggest part of his range. and hell, he might have checked back the Q he rivered because people are so bad at value betting

pretty much you've overrepresented your hand a ton up to this point, so trying to get value from such a narrow range that likely won't even be able to call, it's not nearly as good as c/c-ing, saving money when he checks back some better made hands, and getting him to bluff the missed draws he so often has

fwiw another problem with betting there is how awkward stack sizes are if you get raised... you said you would probably pay him if he shoved because it's so little more, but i don't think this guy would hardly ever make a bluffraise with what looks like no fold equity on the river. he has to be doing that more than like 15% of the time for a call to be good, and there's no way he does it more than 5%. sometimes your pot odds are great but your hand can almost never be good based on the way it played out and you just have to fold it anyway

blankoblanco said:

i mostly agree with what bob said with regard to thinking about what hands are best to 3bet with regard to his raise/calling range. KTo for example is not a very good one, it plays better just calling his open because it flop pairs that aren't too vulnerable, which is helpful OOP. when you get action on your 3bet he'll have dominating hands somewhat often

with regard to preflop opening, i saw a lot of times on the button you're pretty much auto raising J-rag offsuit and folding some T8 97 type stuff, which is kinda backwards. T8 and 97 play way better than J-rag, you should probably just be folding J-rag preflop unless you can really run the guy over, which wasn't the case here. i know the face card looks pretty but Jx is really trashy

on the T9o where the board is 73cT7Q and you c/r flop and bet turn and say you think he's on a draw... then you bet half pot into him on the river when all the draws brick which doesn't really make any sense. you say it can be for thin value but what worse can he call with? first of all even a hand like 88 or 99 would have an incredibly hard time calling you on that board with how strong youve played your hand. and there are just a lot more combos of non-pocket pairs than pocket pairs, so he's not going to have hands that you can get "thin value" from nearly as much. just c/c. you would have probably gotten owned anyway but at least you give him a chance to bluff with the biggest part of his range. and hell, he might have checked back the Q he rivered because people are so bad at value betting

pretty much you've overrepresented your hand a ton up to this point, so trying to get value from such a narrow range that likely won't even be able to call, it's not nearly as good as c/c-ing, saving money when he checks back some better made hands, and getting him to bluff the missed draws he so often has

fwiw another problem with betting there is how awkward stack sizes are if you get raised... you said you would probably pay him if he shoved because it's so little more, but i don't think this guy would hardly ever make a bluffraise with what looks like no fold equity on the river. he has to be doing that more than like 15% of the time for a call to be good, and there's no way he does it more than 5%. sometimes your pot odds are great but your hand can almost never be good based on the way it played out and you just have to fold it anyway

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meh I lied, he is right ^^. thanks for catching my mistake.

btw i'll add more tomorrow, haven't finished the vid yet

Thanks for the comments.
It's hard to play well when you're getting run over like this.
But I didn't feel like quitting him during a vid so I tried to make it work.

I definitely made a ton of mistakes.
My 3betting was crap, I know that. In general I don't 3bet crappy hands oop anymore like KT and A-off but it was probably a result of being slightly tilted by getting owned.

I had a golden convo with someone else about this vid and if I don't get too lazy I'll post some or all of it, keep the comments coming, they're definitely helpful.

watching now. and im putting my vid out today. i promise

eNTy said:

Thanks for the comments.
It's hard to play well when you're getting run over like this.
But I didn't feel like quitting him during a vid so I tried to make it work.

I definitely made a ton of mistakes.
My 3betting was crap, I know that. In general I don't 3bet crappy hands oop anymore like KT and A-off but it was probably a result of being slightly tilted by getting owned.

I had a golden convo with someone else about this vid and if I don't get too lazy I'll post some or all of it, keep the comments coming, they're definitely helpful.

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hey, yeah i def think when youre getting run over to def pick up your 3bets. imo at 50nl i have a pretty high 3bet frequency do to the fact of mindless players not knowing how to adjust. about like 6ish mins in you defend with A9o. flop comes 262 two hearts.he bets 2.75 you fold. i 3bet the hell out of that flop almost every time.

Yeah in a way your vid is going to be a good contrast to show what HU is imo.
When ur running good and hitting hands it's the easiest game in the world so to speak, people just hand you money. But when that's reversed it's hard to get momentum going and making adjustments is definitely a must and I failed pretty big at that in this vid.

I didn't adjust my 3bet range and frequency properly started playing bad hands oop and played bad postflop.

But that's what HU is, awesome when ur running hot but shit when ur not and then it because ur job to minimize losses and try to either get the momentum back or just quit.

eNTy said:

Yeah in a way your vid is going to be a good contrast to show what HU is imo.
When ur running good and hitting hands it's the easiest game in the world so to speak, people just hand you money. But when that's reversed it's hard to get momentum going and making adjustments is definitely a must and I failed pretty big at that in this vid.

I didn't adjust my 3bet range and frequency properly started playing bad hands oop and played bad postflop.

But that's what HU is, awesome when ur running hot but shit when ur not and then it because ur job to minimize losses and try to either get the momentum back or just quit.

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yeah, imo you can defend alil more. like i dunno, i said this in my vid, but I defend quite a bit with hands like 68 etc. i think its alright as long as you dont get yourself into tough situations.

a bit more commenting:

so the KT hand is kind of a disaster and i think you were a bit tilted and not thinking totally clearly. what you have to put into context when you look at the hand is that it's a 3bet pot and youre the one who 3bet! you have not 3bet much and then you 3bet and he calls, and you bet an AAK flop. he has no reason not to give you credit. he doesn't think you're 3betting light a lot so he will give you big cards in your range often. when he raises your bet just fold

also you say it's an easy cbet, but ask yourself what is the purpose of betting KT on AAK in a 3bet pot? he will fold virtually everything you beat and you build a pot with nearly every hand that beats you. your hand needs very little protection (only a heart flush draw but in a 3bet pot you can't worry all that much about pricing out 1 flush draw since there's sooo many other things they're more likely to have). the only reason to c-bet is to basically "pay for information", which sucks, and then when he gave you the information that you were beat, you didn't listen to it! its very unlikely i'd be in this situation since i wouldnt 3bet it preflop but if i were i would 100% check and evaluate, probably calling down 1 street (this makes your hand look a lot like an A anyway and should be scary to him since so many people slowplay trips) and folding to more resistance

you discussed barreling a little bit and about how you almost never 3barrel. you definitely shouldn't 3barrel that often, but there are a lot of spots where you should pretty much only be double-barreling if you're planning to triple barrel on the vast majority of rivers. i.e. say you have almost no showdown value, J high. the flop has tons of draws and you're pretty confident he's calling you down with a draw. if the turn bricks off and you say "well i'm going to bet the turn because i think he has a draw" but then you give up on the river when another brick comes, that doesn't really make sense. if you're betting the turn on a very drawy board where they've shown no strength, you should usually be prepared to bet the river again when the draws miss. unless you have a pair or A-high hand that can beat most of his missed draws anyway, in which case you can usually just check behind

another thing to remember is your bet sizing. when you're bluffing the river to fold out busted draws almost exclusively, you don't have to bet very big. you mostly just want to bet enough that its convincing as a value bet and that he won't call you with A-high or something dumb like that

meh triple barreling works as long as you are aware of what youre repping/ set it up well with stack sizes etc.

pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (2 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($109.75)
Hero (BB) ($41.15)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 10 , 6
SB bets $1, Hero calls $0.50

Flop: ($2) J , J , 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $2, Hero raises to $6, SB calls $4

Turn: ($14) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $8, SB calls $8

River: ($30) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $26.15 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $30 | Rake: $0.50

the most important part is that your opponent is capable of folding a hand, what youre repping probably isn't as important at 50NL since so many players can't hand-read

but fwiw you're repping a super narrow range. anyway it's kinda surprising he folded after calling the flop and turn, but it obviously depends on the dynamic of the match. if the dynamic is where he'll be calling down w/ A high a lot on the turn then it makes sense. however saying "triple barreling works great" and then showing 1 example where it worked on a dry board is pretty silly

blankoblanco said:

the most important part is that your opponent is capable of folding a hand, what youre repping probably isn't as important at 50NL since so many players can't hand-read

but fwiw you're repping a super narrow range. anyway it's kinda surprising he folded after calling the flop and turn, but it obviously depends on the dynamic of the match. if the dynamic is where he'll be calling down w/ A high a lot on the turn then it makes sense. however saying "triple barreling works great" and then showing 1 example where it worked on a dry board is pretty silly

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lol i never said triple barreling works great. i dont really triple barrel too often esp at 50nl.

but yeah just reread ur post pretty much agree

i like everything u said in that huge post combu
dont know what i can add, cause i agree

probably a result of tilt that hand yes

Geez, this is one of the BEST posts for HU(heads-up) I have seen on this site! Just the value of the video and the responses alone should 'clean up' my game somewhat!

Enty, hopefully you will put out more?

I wish Bob Tiger and Infamous1020 could provide more insight, but it seems as though they won't be on the site anymore.

But blankoblanco's information was amazing. Hopefully he'll give some more insight as well.

Well, I'm gonna search for more HU info.

Thanks guys!

heh this vid is super old

I'll make just one very general comment. Basically, at one point in the video you made the remark that "this is the lowest limit for H/U at $50 so the players at this level aren't bluffing that much and playing for value". I think that reasoning is more wrong than right and part of the reason you felt, in your own words, "that you were getting run over".

None showdown winnings is critical in H/U at any level. Picking your spots by getting good reads on your opponents' betting patterns, board texture, etc is what will balance out your non showdown winnings with positive showdown winnings.