Corgi's avatar


102 points

is red line player code for people who are making a lot of money on nonshowdowns and losing on showdowns?

May 22, 2019 | 9:26 p.m.

on the last paragraph, i didn't agree with your first sentence until i read your second sentence. it kind of sucks for players too lol.

May 22, 2019 | 2:48 a.m.

LOL a few hands later. Defend bvb 42o, ck back KJ8ss bomb 130% Jx I love it. There's the first time I KNOW Pio isn't suggesting that. Maybe it would if you nodelocked their strat to being too passive.

May 21, 2019 | 10:07 p.m.

When you got ck/raised with top set KK on KJXhh, I totally understand your sentiment of "clicking back will probably net me more vs this player type"

Nick Howard had a video or series on following meta and exploits and changing from what you've learned or estimated equilibrium to be when you expect someone to be going way too far in a certain direction. I think he got ck raised with trips on a paired flop, and he said the same thing. Basically, if they're opening themselves up to getting punched with their nose out, they're likely to still have that mindset if you reopen their decision making into a part of the tree that doesn't exist at equilibrium. Flop 3bet with crappy trips and he stacked off vs highcards or a gutshot. Calling would be standard vs a pro because it's equilibrium, but if the villain is saying fuck it by going that far out, give them the ability to do it again.

I'm confused why you got ck/raise/fold vs a clickback though. You must be right that he has a 2nd pair type hand and is taking the risk averse move. Flop 3bet with a single heart is likely to be profitable in that spot, which is very interesting to me. Like you can 3bet/fold with the bare Th and snap profit.

May 21, 2019 | 10:05 p.m.

Comment | Corgi commented on Must Watch HU Videos?

Agreed and recommend the Tyler Forrester videos as well. He plays 2/5 Zone on Ignition, or regular tables. His process seems to be record a topic when there's not as much action, which I appreciate. I don't need to see what peak hour action looks like on a soft network. He chooses to record when action is small enough that he's mostly playing 3 handed.

That said, if you're the kind of person who watches a video and memorizes ranges, you're likely to fuck your game up since his heads up hands will always be the opener is out of position.

May 21, 2019 | 9:23 p.m.

This guy's video on SPR is what got me the tree I referenced earlier. I ran a few different boards at different bet sizes and stack sizes just to see flop check/raise frequencies. It's funny, I didn't even notice that the 3bet size was only 3.5x, but that makes so much sense.

May 2, 2019 | 11:10 p.m.

this comment was so wholesome.

May 2, 2019 | 7:55 a.m.

I don't think I said anything about playing a mixed strategy with anything. I just meant that I gave PIO lots of options, and it prefers using the largest sizing here. So I think you should only have one flop sizing, and it should be all larger on this texture in a 3bet pot.

But at any sizing, PIO wants to 3bet shove over a flop raise. Sure they'll have some flush draws maybe, but that's not really your concern. Most of the raising range aren't dominating draws, and you should be happy to get in this many outs if your villain is raising lone Tx.

May 2, 2019 | 4:26 a.m.

Pio prefers a larger flop sizing when given 70% or 33% options. My guess why - If you bet small, you're trying to make EV by getting a fold from something that is correct to defend vs that size. ie You're looking for overfolds. Obviously not with this exact hand, but range.

With a 70% flop sizing, IP is raising 17% (sets, two pair, overcards+backdoors)
Then OOP shoves with most overpairs (actually folds some), sets, the nut draws, combo draws.

With a forced 33% flop sizing, IP raises a third of the time, which is overpairs (gave IP 20% QQ+), sets, combodraws, some overcards+gutshot.
Then OOP 3bet shoves the hands you'd expect, but that includes the combodraws.

May 1, 2019 | 1:01 a.m.

I'm using DriveHud right now, so I don't have any ignition hands downloaded. Unfortunately, being a zone session, I don't have any hands to confirm if I'm involved. Honestly, that J44 3bet play looks like something I'd do, including the all in river. I'll say there's like a 5% chance it's me, because I can't download the hands and look. Most of my run was at 1/2 and the small field 55-109's anyway, though I did play a few 4-6 handed sessions of 2/5 thinking "I wonder which one of these people is Tyler" despite most of the hands I remember were definitely recreational tables or pro's not near their A-game. It helps being on mountain time. My 2am is everyone else's "I've been playing for 14 hours and I'm down 3k, how do I fix"

April 24, 2019 | 11:19 p.m.

Thanks for the thoughts Tyler Forrester

I didn't really think about defending turns like you described (giving us gutshots), though that makes sense. If you tell me that this hand is clearly capable of defending almost all turn and river cards, making the IP opponent indifferent to bluffing with napkins, I'll chalk it up to believing you and leaving it at that.
That said, when a villain 3bets the flop, it's probably really hard to have an accurate understanding of their specific range, and then I'm concerned this kind of defense measure may accidentally be putting us in a spot where villain gets to exploit you. Say they flop 3bet any pair + any three card straight air. If they give up the air that doesn't turn to four and still fire all the pairs, but you are unaware of that, you could be ck/calling vs hands that crush you equity-wise. I don't know if I'm misapplying defense theory in my head when I think about these parts of a tree that don't really exist too often. I wish I too had a database of hands that I could look at to see what this means lol.

April 24, 2019 | 11:13 p.m.

12 minutes in at J44:

You snap calling the flop 3bet is very interesting to me. I'm assuming PIO says to do it, but per what you said to me about looking more at turns and rivers, I'm realllly interested in your thoughts going forward in the hand. To me, it looks like you probably have too many hands to defend in a manner that makes your opponent indifferent to bluffing. I don't mean on the river either. If your opponent bets the turn 100% of the time, and you have this many bluff catchers that would then need to defend twice, aren't you opening yourself?

I've run this spot at varying SPR's for CO open, BTN flat, and the ck/raise frequency is really big (23%), the flop 3bet range is really small (it doesn't like it at all with what I gave), and then the call vs a 3bet is 40%, which seems to blend in with what you're doing. But if your IP villain knows that, I'm confused why they can't just autofire (and why they didn't vs you in the actual hand)

April 24, 2019 | 6:05 a.m.

Time to see if my recent sun run made it's way into your video!

April 24, 2019 | 5:44 a.m.

For the very last hand on the turn sizing, I've realized in similar spots I'm doing the same thing! I mostly came up in 2013-2014 on Bovada (30bb avg in late game) mtts, and my guess is I stumbled into that mindset back then and felt it was working. But you mentioning that who cares if a solver says to do that because it demands a high check raise response at Nash really got me thinking. I just did that today on a paired board with a flush to try inducing, only to get a passive response and expensive river midway in the $162 6max on Ignition. Welp.

April 21, 2019 | 7:23 a.m.

I'm trying to take your advice about running PIO spots from the turn and river, Tyler!

The very first spot is interesting to me because of the river. While watching, I thought that I'd prefer check/fold because JT at any frequency adds several combinations to what could be part of the turn raising range, and now it got there. Then I tried to run this in PIO. The top board is a 9r river and the bottom board is a 2r river. I was shocked to see it would advocate fold more top pair on the 2 vs 9 at Nash.I'm guessing that my range construction has a lot to do with it, but also I'm thinking maybe KJ blocks JT well enough that we still call, but I don't follow the logic on the 2 river since at the very least all the JT are in the betting range. Admittedly, I'm not sure of the weights, but I would have never guessed Nash would look near that.

April 21, 2019 | 6:04 a.m.

I enjoy this comment enough to say something about it as the video starts.

April 11, 2019 | 11:49 p.m.

I bought Pio a few days ago and haven't even touched the preflop solver. This was eye opening.

March 18, 2019 | 3:05 a.m.

Coming over from the Transitioning to PLO playlist.

Vs Ike, you defend IP with Q972sssx and he checks 732r.
You check back and what I hear makes sense to me. You're giving up some % of ev that comes as folds in order to get more ev from turns that Ike catches up in some degree, or you're doing it to strengthen your checking range on a lot of turns, or both.

You raised the turn 6ss and never mention at all Ike having 45xx here. My takeaway from that is that at least at the time, you assume Ike would never ck the flop with 45, or it was inconsequential enough relative to the rest of his range that you don't mention it, or it was assumed as basic info he of course could have some nuts but that's not that important, or it was a fluke that you didn't mention it, I imagine all of that goes out the window if Ike was 40bb's. Was it/is it common to short stack in PLO?

I'm a live NL player almost primarily, having transitioned from mtt's 5 years ago, and now have the opportunity to work with a PLO pro in my area. I want to absorb more than I miss from the opportunity. I apologize if my questions aren't the right questions, or are too simple, or irrelevant.

Feb. 19, 2019 | 5:59 a.m.

Comment | Corgi commented on Calling 3 Bets Review

Highly recommend continuing to put out videos on the first few days of the week, as that's my weekend and easiest time to study. :) About to watch now!

Feb. 12, 2019 | 9:41 p.m.

Comment | Corgi commented on Defending the Big Blind

Id like to talk about coaching for pio. Im pretty good at math, and kahneman has been a favorite of mine for a while now. Prospect theory is beautiful and one of my favorite parts of my university experience. My bs is in economics and i focused on behavior. Ive mentioned previously i try to go max exploit too often based on assumptions whos accuracy can mean massive differences in ev, mostly downward. Ill look at cap vs polar stuff some more. Thank you.

Feb. 2, 2019 | 11:29 p.m.

Comment | Corgi commented on Defending the Big Blind

Hey Tyler Forrester ! Not sure where to post this, and I'm not totally sure which videos I was watching where you discussed them, but this is on MOP and Tipton's book.

I've owned physical copies of MOP and Tipton's Heads Up books since college (almost 6 years ago now). I like math and I spend 50 hours a week in Excel between poker and work. Are there videos or a series of videos you recall where concepts within these books are explained? I don't have the drive or time to dedicate toward the true work into rereading those books. I know I didn't grasp a lot of it, and it's been a few years since reading, though I've gone through pieces of Tipton's book several times since then. I feel they're probably beaten to death across several hours of videos. I've watched Sulsky's Toy Game series and have started watching it again. I've watched your videos for the most part. I'm not a winning player in 25-100nl bot lineups, and I have a billion holes in my game. I recognize and take advantage of holes in other peoples games, but I'd like to stop consistently losing vs. some of the people in my fields, and would like to stop feeling lost when I jump into a reg pool on WPN. I don't feel lost on Ignition, but that's not the point. I don't know where to focus.

Jan. 31, 2019 | 5:28 p.m.

Comment | Corgi commented on Defending the Big Blind

At 19:45ish, you're talking about ck/raising as a bluff. I wouldn't have considered bet/folding strong top pairs on that runout, but I play with active players that don't think incredibly deep. If your opponents let you ck/raise bluff those turns, are you doing it more often than the flush draws? I don't know what other hands you'd have, but that feels like an amazing time to overbluff. Counter to that, in my games where bet/calling the turn is the normal, I'm thinking of leading small with the draws, betting large when I have trips. I played a hand last week where I overbetted the turn and blank river on this type of runout (slight difference in ranges. I overlimped vs a whale while in co, btn raised) and was snapped off without any thought whatsoever. If my opponents don't raise the turn vs a lead with AJ/AQ, it sounds like betting small with the draws would work as a good exploit. But then they also end up on this turn with air in many occasions, and will float with air. So that gets me back to thinking overbetting both hand types is best, and ck/folding misses on the river.

Jan. 29, 2019 | 11:43 p.m.

Comment | Corgi commented on Defending the Big Blind

Tyler Forrester Thanks for making this video. I'm about halfway through and I'm loving this rant about maniacs and seeing crazy action early on in a session, after the T9s vs AKs AKQT runout. That's a pretty solid example of making a Bayesian inference. I try not to do this too much because I believe I try to use it as justification for bluff catching too often, but dang is it useful.

Jan. 29, 2019 | 11:30 p.m.

I've been watching and rewatching Tyler Forrester's videos, and watching Ben Sulsky's Toy Game series, over the last two months. I'd say most of the money I've spent on RIO has to go to the Tyler Forrester revenue category. I play almost exclusively live, with the occasional 2 table cash session from 25nl to 100nl, or a random tournament. I work nights a few days per week, and my game options are limited to tough games with harder working people (be it bot implementers or true professionals) or nothing at all. So live is my stuff. I play in a weekly 25/50cent game that starts off $100 deep, usually ending the evening playing $300-$500 deep and rebuys occurring. I also have access to a variety of raked homegames at the 1/2 level. I don't have anything to write about hand history wise, as I'll save that for another thread. But I'm writing this as I'm still excited over the scenario I found myself in last night.

I am required by my position to be awake in the middle of the night. This Thursday, I took the opportunity the slow night gave and drove the 35 minutes to the law firm to join in the raked 1/2 game, fully planning on eating as much as possible to offset the high costs. I walked in the door and there are 4 drunk business owners with 1k in front of them, straddling and blind raising (in the sb vs a btn straddle) upwards to $30. I didn't realize this game played so big, but wasn't about to drive home. I've studied shortstack math in icmizer and excel pretty much to death, and figured I'll just take all the easy spots they're offering. The biggest whale has nearly 2,000 dollars in hundreds of chips just smashed together in a pile. I bought in for $300 and ran it to $1800 doing nothing but putting the majority of my money in preflop as a 70% favorite vs his range, and stacking off. I got $600 in preflop with QQ vs 47o. I didn't even know this was possible. I saw it, almost refused to believe it wasn't a show to angle someone, and then decided to outline my adjustments. I've never played 5/10 before, and this game was regularly a $10 straddle, and I quickly doubled. I decided to just go linear as hell and fold everything that didn't fit the 70% plan. I also ate 4 bowls of chicken teriyaki and the guy's venmo wouldn't let him send anymore. It felt weird, but he's loaded and fine, so I feel great.

Jan. 26, 2019 | 12:22 p.m.

Awesome. Its been years since i was a bovada reg, so i dont know how much difficulty you face in converting hands or storing them. If its too cumbersome for your playing to review in that way, ill find the value in this format.

Jan. 16, 2019 | 7:43 p.m.

Enhoyed the video, Tyler Forrester

I got a lot or value out of repeatedly watching the specific themed videos youve done. (Ie river check raise, turn check raise, bluff catching 3bet pots etc) and was wondering if you plan to do something similar. I know for myself, it is difficult to gain the same level of insight hearing and watching a live review with many kinds of scenarios instead of reviews on a specific filter set.

Bluff catching river as the pfr on paired boards, the bet ck bet line ip or oop. No worries or rush. Just wondering.

Jan. 16, 2019 | 2:37 p.m.

New to the table, less than 15 minutes in. Prior action by myself is I opened the cutoff to $10, got called by both blinds and didn't cbet a J74ss board in position, folding the turn. Another hand I called in the big blind closing the action four ways and folded the flop. My opponent in this hand looks like a serious player, and at the time I believed to be a pro waiting on a seat change to the bigger game. He's a white guy in his late 30's, wearing a hoodie, talked about someone else at the table starting to get bored and opening up their turn continuing ranges. It was something I heard while buying my chips at the cashier. He straddles first to act to $6 at an 8 handed table.

Two recreational players call. One is an Asian woman in her early 40's. She asked about the rake structure on a pot she had won, leading me to think she would play logically, trying to see cheap flops and make hands. She looks like a limp/call 45o type of person, not a limp/call K3s type of person. She has $300 in front. The other caller is social with the guy I believe to be a professional. They come off as friends, so I assume he plays here most of the week. He's probably 50 and has close to $1,000.

Small blind folds. I have KcKx and raise to $30 off a $290 stack. Straddler has yet to look at his cards. When he does, he holds for a few seconds before calling, almost careful not to show much of anything. The callers fold.
I put the straddlers range on suited broadway, maybe AQ+, maybe TT/JJ. It doesn't make a ton of sense for me to think that this player definitely cold calls with all his pocket pairs or other implied odds kind of hands. I haven't seen much, so it won't take much at all for me to disregard this read, but give all the things pointing to a serious thinking player, and few pointing to recreational, I can't see him calling knowing I have a $280 stack, even with the two original limpers.

($66 after rake, $250 effective) Qx6c5c
$40, call.
I think he'll continue with AQs, KQs, QJs, AJc, AQc, TT/JJ. That's 20 combos. Hands that will continue on most turns are AQs, KQs, QJs, AJc, AQc, which is 8 combos.

($144, $210 effective) Qs6c5c9d
$100, call.
I believe we're in the 8 combo world and plan to shove all but Q or A rivers, assuming one pair will call me even on a club river given the size of the pot and my bet size. I'm not really sure if that means ck/folding for 1/3 pot or not, because I don't know how confident I'm supposed to be with my ranging.

($344, $110 effective) Qs6c5c9dTc
All in, call.

Now, I'm questioning whether or not I should bet closer to pot on the flop, as I don't think any of the hands I listed will respond elastically. That helps me shove all in on the turn for a pot sized bet. I'm wrestling with this because maybe QX makes a hero fold, leaving me to be called by only AQcc, AJcc, both of which are only losing about $25 in EV.

Most of the live poker I play is deep stacked, even with straddle, so being only 50bb's I'm not stoked or sure. I'd love some input on which of the two lines to take.

Dec. 27, 2018 | 7:41 a.m.

Hello Tyler Forrester
You touched on something with the AcQ hand that clicks internally with me. I used to play strong draws very aggressively because I figured I'd get 100% equity against whatever portion of the opponent's range that folds - instead of say 60%, and vs the stronger portion of the range I'd always have around 50% minus rake. I don't know why or how I got to that thought process, but your comments about their range almost certainly being polar (and not merged) solidified it for me. Vs a merged range, that strategy would kill because most of it isn't happy and eventually finds a fold. But vs a polar, there's no point to play it as a ck/raise. Thanks!

Dec. 25, 2018 | 8:52 a.m.

I straddle UTG to $1 and the HJ double straddles to $2

Folds to the small blind who is a super lag who 3bets too small imo in oop pots. Regardless, his range is like most pairs 66+, Q8s+, J9s+, AT+, KTs+. I've literally been 3bet by this guy with Q8hh after opening utg 10 handed. We're super deep so I can fathom not comprehending complex lines that would make this hand work, but he's oop and I have a stronger range when he does this. Native American or Mexican guy in his mid 30's. He's got a pretty good job managing a distribution chain and is definitely a smart guy.
Small blind raises to $6.
Big blind is a new player. He's a shaved head white guy in his late 20's, sitting on $100. He's playing games on his phone and texting people. The atmosphere here is really social, so this is somewhat out of the ordinary and tells me he's probably a solid reg postflop.
Big blind calls $6.

The double straddle is a guy who will call with everything suited, 3bet 99+ AQ+. I see he already has $4 in his hands to call.

I have AJo and 3bet to $25. I plan to fold to any aggression from anyone because this game is strictly linear 4bet ranges and at best it's 99/TT.
However, the lag can call me with a decent amount of the hands he opened with, he probably plays 97s oop here. I figured BB was never putting another dollar in and I'd be happy to go to the flop IP with barely 3spr with a stronger range than my opponent.

I tried to give as much information as possible, so does anyone have any comments on this?

Dec. 20, 2018 | 11:54 p.m.

UTG Straddle to $1.

Next to act is a guy who talks about solvers and using Flopzilla (though I'm pretty sure he was successful maybe 10 years ago, he doesn't know how to use Pio [I mean, neither do I but I don't go talking about it in a live home game], he probably hasn't touched Flopzilla in years) He's been complaining about the evening in a jovial manner. He's down maybe $10 from his $140 buy-in, there's been 300bb pots pretty frequently and I'm sure he's at least a little tilted that he hasn't gotten to take advantage of any of those scenarios. White guy in his mid 30's with a beard, he's also a teacher. We're nearing the end of his session. He opens to $3 off $130.

In the cutoff, we have a super lag who may or may not be breakeven to a winner on a technical standpoint in our game, he drinks and he tilts pretty quickly. He buys in for $200 at what is 80% of the time a $.25/.50 game, and adds on cash as he dwindles (usually in $100 increments) He 3bets very wide, probably all pairs, suited connectors down to 76s, suited one gappers like T8s, J9s, suited broadway, broadway aces. He 3bets to $10

Our game has a lot of 3bet bluffing from the same people, but there's very very little 4betting that isn't just a linear range. It's usually QQ+, AK and then is more pairs and AQ+ for the aggressive players. I feel confident in this read, but could easily be swayed by seeing a showdown or bluff that tells me otherwise. I've been playing with these people for over a year.

I am in the small blind with QcQd. Because I expect the lag to call with only maybe 1/3 of the combinations that he 3b with, and I expect him to actually cbet the flop 100% of the time when checked to (this is a leak of his - maybe not 100%, but he's cbeting A4 on KT5 if checked to heads up or three ways), I thought it was going to be more profitable to check/shove any non Ace/King flop (assuming the original opener just calls here, which is probably happening) than to 4bet and bet the flop shove the turn. I've never been in a scenario where I thought that would be the case, as it's not really often I run into people 3betting 20% and cbetting 100%, but this felt right in the moment.

I call. Folds to SolverGuy who calls.
$31.75 8s5s5x
Check, check, Lag bets a single green chip for $25. He has $100 in 20's and maybe $15 in whites and reds.
I jam $80
Solver calls with $40 behind.
Lag folds.

This is obviously not standard 6 handed only 90bb deep (straddled pot), and I have to be really confident in my reads on lag for this to be more profitable than 4betting. 20% 3bet, 100% cbet when checked to. With stats like that, can anyone comment on this kind of range shift?

Dec. 20, 2018 | 11:44 p.m.
