*** Jeans´ NLHE beginners video series thread ***

[Winnergambling]

In this thread, you can comment on Jeans´ free NLHE video series available on this site. Feel free to post any comments on hands, plays, suggestions to future videos etc.

[Nuutinen]

First of all thanks for a nice video. Im kinda glad that i would have played most of the hands on the same way as u did.

~4min u have 66 in a limped pot, board 299. Shouldnt u raise there on the flop? U can easily have the best hand..

~11min u stack the guy with A9, what about if turn was smaller card than 9?

~26min KK! I would have raised something like 20 on that flop against a donk bettor. On the turn pot is ~30 and he shoves ~55 kinda insta , i wouldnt put him on a flush. It is hard to put him on a hand since those 6max limpers, usually fishes, can limp with any three gapped suited or not thrash, like As5d there.. Tuff spot. I would have called anyway

U didnt really use 2nd barrel as i remember, but it seemed to work nice, well u won most of the pots on the flop so needed. I should also do it a lot less against random players.

GGWP

[Jeans]

Hey, the problem with sixes on a flop of 299 is that first of all you aren't sure you have the best hand, and it is probably gonna be expensive to find out. If you raise the flop, you will almost never be getting worse hands to call, so what you are doing is turning your hand into a bluff, and might be raising the flop with 72o. Then lets think about just calling, it might be a good idea, but you wont find out where you are and 2 overcards will draw out on you 25% of the time. Basically when you have the best hand you are gonna win a small pot and when you dont its gonna be really expensive for you to find out. So I prefer just to fold it.

A9o hand, I would definitely have still called a blank turn, and to be honest possibly even a blank river as I really felt that this guy was running over me at that point.

Yeah after checking the video out the KK raise on the flop was too small, I dont like to raise full pot but to like 19 would have been better. Also the turn is a really tough spot and I have talked with alot of winners in this game and some say snapcall some say snapfold so...

There didnt really come up many good spots to double barrel, but I do use that alot.

[HollowPoint]

Thanks for this great learning opportunity, not many professionals give free lessons for other players, I really appreciate it. I´ve been trying to learn HU Texas for just a few weeks now, so this last video was very interesting.
Obviously table-image is your friend, so you must have better reads from his play than an average opponent. I mean you talk about hands afterwards and so on? He must be happy that you told beginners to stay out of his way…

Now some general questions:
Why don´t you raise every hand from button? That would give folding equity for hands like 32, which don´t have much value seeing the flop with normal stacks? I think BB would still be forced to fold enough to make the raise profitable. I don´t see much difference in raising 76 or 32, they are both worthless in a raised pot unless you hit at least a two pair.

You like to c/r those paired flops often. Some opponents have had that tendency, and I think this is not a good play if over used with much money behind. This gives a great opportunity to out play villain, either by re-raising or better yet smooth calling the raise. This can put you in a very uncomfortable situation, playing a big pot out of position against a possibly monster hand. Even if you have hit the set, you can´t be really happy about your hand.

You say table-image is tribetting too much at one point, and adjust by tightening starting hands on button and plan on fourbetting lighter. Wouldn´t it be better to keep raising button as normal and smoothcall/fourbet more often in this situation?
Since you were obviously the best player post-flop here, would it be better for you to guide the game more towards post-flop play rather than pre-flop, where you really can´t use the full range of your skills? So rather than the normal tribet/fold strategy, how about smooth calling and limping also?

6:30 TT on the button, flop 8dQc4h. You raise pre-flop and cbet the flop, villain calls. On turn you hit your set and raise again. If the villain had the Q, he had likely raised on the flop, by just calling there I feel like he has some sort of a small pocket pair most likely. Your raise on turn tells him you are not worried about his hand, so you have him beat and you force him to play correctly and fold. Checking behind here should be almost automatic, and betting on the river where he might call you down with A-high.

12:15 QTs, flop 8c7d6d not giving you the flush draw. You choose to float here. Now the turn brings 4d, a pretty scary card. You check/fold. What kind of card were you hoping on the turn? With any diamond I would rather lead the turn, and other T, 9, 5 or a 4 I would go for a check raise if I was planning to make a play on that board.

There would be tons of other questions to ask, but I guess this has to do now, I´m trying to do my opening post here, not a novel! Thanks again for your time, much appreciated!

[Jeans]

Hey HollowPoint, really good questions. I would like to start by saying texas hold'em heads up is alot different to shorthanded or full ring nlhe. In those games all the winners play a very similar style, while in HU, people can have very different styles and still be winners. Yeah table-image is my friend, but I haven't played against him almost at all, because I normally play so much higher stakes, and rarely talk poker strategy with him.

Your first question is something that was discussed alot on 2+2 high stakes forums, there was proof it would be +ev to open any two cards against most opponents. But alot of good HU players (for ex durrr, raptor) didnt agree. I also don't like to open the weakest of my hands like 32o, because if my opponent doesnt see me fold a single hand on the button he will probably start adjusting and 3betting alot more. Also 32o is a tough hand to play profitably postflop. But if someone is way too tight out of the big blind I obv open any2.
At the beginning of the match I usually like to c/r those kind of flops to see if my opponent is willing to just give up the pots or fight back. In this case they didn't seem very willing to start bluffing me back, also when I finally hit trips, I expect to get paid off alot easier and do not want to be afraid to get my money in.
When someone is 3betting way too much, it is important to adjust by tightening your button range. He is simply mathematically risking too much money pf compared to the antes, and I can take advantage of this by letting him have my SB a little more, and win more back when I get a premium hand and win a big pot. About the postflop skill, in a 3bet pot, there is not really as much postflop skill involved (obv there is but not as much). As you saw in that one hand where I decided to defend T8s, when I flopped top pair I didn't really have an option to laydown the hand. You bring a good point about limping your button, I have been experimenting with it recently, but I'm not very confident in that play yet so I decided not to use it in the video, there are some very successful highstakes players who openlimp alot of hands so it's not a bad strategy.

The TT hand, I disagree that villain would always raise with a queen, it was early on in the match, and the board was very dry so he didnt have to fear a lot of turn cards, so I could easily see him calling with a JQo type of hand and just c/c the flop. Also he might take a tricky line with say a set of 4s going for a c/r on the turn, and I don't want to keep the pot small when there is a chance I could win his entire stack.

QTs, I most likely have my overcard outs clean which would mean I have 10 outs which almost gives me good enough odds to float already. Also if I lead out the flush card, there are a ton of hands with a high diamond in it that he will call the turn with, so I kind of have to double barrel to really rep the flush, which is not a bad option either, but I think most of all I would have liked a c/r on the turn now that I think of it afterwards. I'm not happy with all of my plays in the video, and sometimes I miss things when I try to explain something else at the same time. If he had checked the turn behind, I would have bluffed pretty much any river.

I hope this answers most of your questions

[HollowPoint]

Hi again! Great to see this site back up again, so I could read your reply, as for the hands played, your explanatinon was good, ty! But as I said, I have tons of questions...

This preflop raise/3bet/4bet scenario has troubled my mind since Ferguson got to the final table again in National HU, this time with another math guy, Bloch. I began wondering does this math approach give them an edge on HU?

So, if you raise every button, and opponent tryes to adjust by 3betting more, he should 3bet 25% time in order to get even, correct me if I´m wrong? That would certainly put them OOP in big pots with marginal holdings way more often than comfortable. Ofcourse they could also adjust by taking the similar strategy and raise every button. So you are right about lack of postflop play, because the game would practically play with 3x blinds. But as long as the opponet doesn´t adjust, this might be a good starting point, as rest of the game is continuous adjustment anyway? BTW I tryed to find the thread on 2+2, with no success sofar, any keywords for the search engine?

From the paired flops answer I realized that you seek for leeks in opponents strategy from the beginning to the end, by testing their style in different situlations. I think this alone will take my game to the next level, thanks! This leads (naturally) to the next question, what are the main leaks and errors you lookfor, and what are the most common mistakes players seem to make?

[Jeans]

Hi again! Great to see this site back up again, so I could read your reply, as for the hands played, your explanatinon was good, ty! But as I said, I have tons of questions...

This preflop raise/3bet/4bet scenario has troubled my mind since Ferguson got to the final table again in National HU, this time with another math guy, Bloch. I began wondering does this math approach give them an edge on HU?

When the blinds get big it's obviously important to know the right ranges for stealing and restealing etc, but to be honest with the blind structures at national HU, there is so much luck involved it only happened to be 2 math guys at the finals. I would say Bloch and Ferguson have an edge over some of the other competitors (like Jerry Yang), but still they had to get very lucky to get to the finals. My guess would be one of the online guys had the biggest edge of the tournament.

So, if you raise every button, and opponent tryes to adjust by 3betting more, he should 3bet 25% time in order to get even, correct me if I´m wrong? That would certainly put them OOP in big pots with marginal holdings way more often than comfortable. Ofcourse they could also adjust by taking the similar strategy and raise every button. So you are right about lack of postflop play, because the game would practically play with 3x blinds. But as long as the opponet doesn´t adjust, this might be a good starting point, as rest of the game is continuous adjustment anyway? BTW I tryed to find the thread on 2+2, with no success sofar, any keywords for the search engine?

When you raise your button to 3bb, you risk 2.5bb (0.5 is your smallblind which is already posted) to win 1.5bb, I'm not gonna go through the math but it can be found in the 2+2 thread, here is the link:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...ing+buttons+hu

I'm not sure about what you mean in your next question, but basically in HU it's always about adjusting and readjusting to what you opponent is doing in order to exploit him.

From the paired flops answer I realized that you seek for leeks in opponents strategy from the beginning to the end, by testing their style in different situlations. I think this alone will take my game to the next level, thanks! This leads (naturally) to the next question, what are the main leaks and errors you lookfor, and what are the most common mistakes players seem to make?

Yeah, and also I see how willing my opponents are to fight for those pots which are very important. Some will never rebluff and I just keep stealing those small pots, while some will take the rebluffing to extremes - then I just wait until I have the trips and take their stack.

Basically what I'm looking for in a player is whether he calls too much, or folds too much, and adjust accordingly.

[HollowPoint]

Congratulations on ECOOP victory!!!

For the Nationals, once would certainly be more luck, but Ferguson has been on the final table 3/4 times on this, it´s not likely to be just luck. He certainly does something better than the rest, with his reputation I figured it might be the math.

I somehow managed to Google myself to 2+2 archives, no wonder I didn´t find the thread... The thread is very interesting, I haven´t had the time to read all of it yet, but it sure gives different views of the subject, ty.

The last question was poorly expressed, and kinda vein also (the answer was so obvious...). I changed my strategy towards more actively testing opponents play on different flops, dry, flushing etc. and trying to find patterns on those situlations. It has given me much better advantage against people I play against freakvently (friends), and also seems to improve my handreading skills against random opponents, so Your help has been very usefull. Thanks again!

Maybe You could do somesort of consept videos on shorthanded play, stuff like 3betting and 4bet bluffing, bet/fold check/call consepts or some other consept You like to teach? Obviously there wouldn´t be much actuall situlations where they would be used, but maybe You could talk about ém, and situlations/opponents where to use and where to not use ém?