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Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live

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Dated:
Sep 29th, 2011
By:
Phil Galfond
Game:
NLHE
Stake:
Mid Stakes
Teaching Method:
Session Video 3+ Table
Language:
English
Type:
6 Max
14690 Views
26 Comments
8.6410
(14 Ratings) 8.64

Phil tries to play tight while playing a 6table session at midstakes NL.

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Comments

  • PhilGalfond PhilGalfond Bluefire Pro Poker Pro
    554 Posts
    Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    30 Sep 2011 at 2:15am
    Discussion for Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live.
  • GrosBlob GrosBlob Poker Newbie
    4 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    30 Sep 2011 at 10:52am
    The concept of overbetting the river as an optimal betsize, can I find this math explained somewhere? Mathematics of poker i guess, section? Thanks !
  • z1pz0r z1pz0r Poker Newbie
    4 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    30 Sep 2011 at 12:47pm
    At 19:30, what do you think about villan's play with 99? Can someone balance there by 4bet/calling 88+ and 4b bluffing?
  • ilockurchips ilockurchips Poker Newbie
    4 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    30 Sep 2011 at 4:53pm
    omg did u just open fold 57 suited in the co. hahaha this is exactly what i need to tighten up my game a bit. keep em coming phil.
  • ghetifal ghetifal Poker Trainee
    80 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    30 Sep 2011 at 10:10pm
    Great video. I don't mind the drifting nature of the commentary in this because you get around to some really great points. For a really tight UTG range, would you still open all pocket pairs? KQo? AJo? I assume if someone wants to play less than 20% of hands, they will eventually have to adjust their preflop all in ranges, but when a laggy player is doing this to "change gears", should they still be getting in the same range of value hands since the opponent won't have adjusted yet? On the other end of playing "different" than most regs preflop is a guy on pokerstars who opens more than 40% of hands from every position while winning at a good rate at mid-high stakes. It seems this should be very exploitable. Since no one else is doing it, is it just that regs haven't taken the time to figure it out or adjust? So did it feel gross open folding 98s preflop? :P
  • PrayingMantis PrayingMantis Poker Newbie
    12 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    1 Oct 2011 at 4:59am
    Finally! Been waiting for a vid like this from you, Phil. Great content as always.
  • tompoker88 tompoker88 Poker Trainee
    78 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    1 Oct 2011 at 5:42am
    seems like even phil doesn't have a big edge in those games anymore, which gave the whole vid kind of a pessimistic undertone. otherwise good video, especially for the "fancy play syndrom" guys. maybe it is really time to switch to omaha, gonna check out the omaha transition vids soon ^^
  • EvilSky EvilSky Poker Newbie
    10 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    1 Oct 2011 at 12:34pm
    Phil is folding A2s-A5s in UTG/HJ a factor of you trying to play tight or do you generally think its not a profitable open?
  • ElTorreroRubio ElTorreroRubio Poker Newbie
    91 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    1 Oct 2011 at 6:03pm

    I wish PLO didn't exist.

     

    Great vid.

  • Maximilian Maximilian Poker Newbie
    6 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    2 Oct 2011 at 2:36am
    GrosBob - Math of over-betting is explained in MoP & on 2+2. Enjoy!
  • bullyboh bullyboh Poker Newbie
    6 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    2 Oct 2011 at 3:21am
    your argument that big bets on the river are optimal because you can bluff (15:00) more is not correct. His calls will be 0EV and so will be your bluffs. The EV-difference will come from the valuebets. I think your argument is only correct if you can bet 100% of your range and he has to give more than enough fold-equity. But then the optimal betsize should not be the maximum but the minimum which lets you bet 100% and have him fold.
  • robrob74 robrob74 Poker Newbie
    5 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    2 Oct 2011 at 9:49am
    Good to see you doing nl holdem. I'm not a PLO player so thank you. It's much appreciated if you can do these once in a while.
  • Maximilian Maximilian Poker Newbie
    6 Posts
    Re: Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    2 Oct 2011 at 11:47am

    bullyboh wrote:

    your argument that big bets on the river are optimal because you can bluff (15:00) more is not correct. His calls will be 0EV and so will be your bluffs. The EV-difference will come from the valuebets. I think your argument is only correct if you can bet 100% of your range and he has to give more than enough fold-equity. But then the optimal betsize should not be the maximum but the minimum which lets you bet 100% and have him fold.

    Sorry but Phil was correct. Because we are clairvoyant on relative hand strength, a larger bet will capture more of this clairvoyance, despite his calls being breakeven. You can find the math in Mathematics of Poker.

    In addition, another point that Phil mentioned but maybe didn't fully articulate is that if we can't fold to a shove (because there is so much money in already), we should shove. If we bet less, he jams his stronger hands and calls his weaker hands, and we have an adverse selection of pot sizes.

  • bullyboh bullyboh Poker Newbie
    6 Posts
    Re: Re: Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    2 Oct 2011 at 2:48pm

    Maximilian wrote:

    Sorry but Phil was correct. Because we are clairvoyant on relative hand strength, a larger bet will capture more of this clairvoyance, despite his calls being breakeven. You can find the math in Mathematics of Poker.

     

    im not questioning that a bigger bitsize has higher EV in a nuts or nothing situation, just where the EV comes from. We win more because we get more value on our hands, not because we can bluff more. but maye he didnt mean that...

  • StealthAssassin StealthAssassin Poker Newbie
    2 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    2 Oct 2011 at 6:39pm
    I don't get why the overbet would be the only bet size for value. We think his range is likely a one pair hand we want to fold, so if we had the nuts why not make a bet he can call often as to one he is calling very infrequently. The other thing I don't get is how come we aren't assuming this player is a fish... he is showing platinum star status at a mid-stakes game.
  • Maximilian Maximilian Poker Newbie
    6 Posts
    Re: Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    2 Oct 2011 at 6:44pm

    StealthAssassin wrote:

    I don't get why the overbet would be the only bet size for value. We think his range is likely a one pair hand we want to fold, so if we had the nuts why not make a bet he can call often as to one he is calling very infrequently. The other thing I don't get is how come we aren't assuming this player is a fish... he is showing platinum star status at a mid-stakes game.

    Assuming he's not very bad, it seems exploitable to use different bet sizes for value & bluffs...

  • PhilGalfond PhilGalfond Bluefire Pro Poker Pro
    554 Posts
    Re: Re: Re: Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    3 Oct 2011 at 4:17am

    bullyboh wrote:

    im not questioning that a bigger bitsize has higher EV in a nuts or nothing situation, just where the EV comes from. We win more because we get more value on our hands, not because we can bluff more. but maye he didnt mean that...

    Our EV comes from the fact that we can win more of the pots.  With a balanced range, we are indifferent to whether he calls or folds against our bets, so in theory, every pot we bet into, we win what's in the middle and nothing more/less.

     

    I haven't read Mathematics of Poker, but I'm sure they can explain it much better than I can.  Could anyone who has read it sum it up nicely?

  • bullyboh bullyboh Poker Newbie
    6 Posts
    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    3 Oct 2011 at 7:23am

    PhilGalfond wrote:

    Our EV comes from the fact that we can win more of the pots.  With a balanced range, we are indifferent to whether he calls or folds against our bets, so in theory, every pot we bet into, we win what's in the middle and nothing more/less.

     

    yes, you are 100% correct. my idea was just when he calls optimally and we look at our EV per hand, our made hands will win more with a bigger betsize, not our bluffs. i did missunderstand you then. That view that we will allways win exactly the pot works if he has only bluffcatchers. If he has some of our valuehands it gets more tricky.

  • Wilsonc91 Wilsonc91 Poker Newbie
    33 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    3 Oct 2011 at 1:35pm
    9:42- When we check raise this flop, if our opponent were to push all in in this spot as opposed to bet folding. In reference to the KhQh hand. What would be your reasons for folding? What specific reads would you need to justify calling off in that exact spot ?
  • BigBoy34 BigBoy34 Poker Newbie
    2 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    4 Oct 2011 at 1:16pm
    I see a lot of people talking about here how the midstakes to highstakes NL games are becoming tougher and tougher and edges are getting smaller, but currently how are the midstakes-highstakes plo games? I am a midstakes nl pro myself plus I live in the US where the sites I can play on plo games rarely even run at midstakes and higher, so I am curious to how these plo games are. Are they becoming regfested as well, or is there a legitimate difference in terms of beatability between mid to highstakes plo and nl holdem?
  • WeLostAlpha WeLostAlpha Poker Newbie
    24 Posts
    Re: Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    5 Oct 2011 at 4:36pm

    BigBoy34 wrote:

    I see a lot of people talking about here how the midstakes to highstakes NL games are becoming tougher and tougher and edges are getting smaller, but currently how are the midstakes-highstakes plo games? I am a midstakes nl pro myself plus I live in the US where the sites I can play on plo games rarely even run at midstakes and higher, so I am curious to how these plo games are. Are they becoming regfested as well, or is there a legitimate difference in terms of beatability between mid to highstakes plo and nl holdem?

    Top plo winners clear 15bb/100, top nlhe winners are around 5bb/100.

     

    Great video Phil, please don't make a non live 6max nlhe vid again!

  • BigBoy34 BigBoy34 Poker Newbie
    2 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    5 Oct 2011 at 7:14pm
    Wow pretty sick I did not know the best regs where the crushing the games that hard.
  • ghetifal ghetifal Poker Trainee
    80 Posts
    Re: Re: Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    8 Oct 2011 at 5:31pm

    WeLostAlpha wrote:

    Top plo winners clear 15bb/100, top nlhe winners are around 5bb/100.

     

    Great video Phil, please don't make a non live 6max nlhe vid again!

    Where did you find that top winners have an actual winrate of over 15bb/100 in mid-high stakes PLO? From what I've seen, it is true that there are guys crushing the game between 10 and 12 bb/100, but above 15bb/100 sounds like winrate exaggeration/inflation. There are still guys crushing at 7-10 bb/100 at mid-high stakes NL, just a lot less of them then there are in that range for PLO. If you are looking at sample sizes of less than 150,000 hands for PLO, I think that is a big mistake. Even for NL, where most people have a standard deviation between 90-130 bb/100, and 150000 seems like a decent sample size to start converging with true win rate pretty decently, but in PLO, where mid-high stakes regs have standard deviation between 170-230, you probably need an even larger sample to start determining win-rate, although 150,000 seems like an absolute minimum sample size. Even after 50,000 hands, people can be many buy-ins off from there all in EV, and that only considers all-in variance, without regards to situational variance like running into certain parts of villains ranges more often than normal (for good or bad) or boards running off bad or good for you and stuff.

  • vitinhodzi vitinhodzi Poker Newbie
    26 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    10 Nov 2011 at 12:13am
    Great video Phil! U are the best...
  • donkrx donkrx Poker Newbie
    2 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    8 Feb 2012 at 8:50pm
    If anything, with the way the games are being played now I think there is even more merit to playing tighter preflop. Now that people are 4betting light and sometimes 5bet shoving light too, we're simply fighting fire with fire and it just doesn't make a lot of sense. Why do we have to fight a LAG player with an even more LAG strategy of our own? Yes reraising light can be a good play, but when you get to the point that you're often putting most of your stack in preflop, you end up reducing the edge you might have had postflop. NLHE is largely a postflop game too, so as a stronger player I would think that playing flops is something we want to prioritize. I'm not at all saying to play less *aggressive*, I'm saying to just tighten up opening ranges or 3betting ranges so that our opponents "spaz" against our range which is tighter than they are used to. Basically this is what Phil covered in this video though.
  • tyggigum tyggigum Poker Newbie
    1 Posts
    Re: Phil's 6 Tables Midstakes NL Live
    21 Dec 2012 at 1:01am
    Hi Phil. First of all, just to clarify my level and understanding as a poker player, I'm a somewhat big winner, I guess you can say crush, the 1/2-3/6 games. And I owe a lot of my success at the tables to BlueFirePoker, especially you, Giggy and Alan, who I worked really closely with for a couple of months - well enough of the sweet talk :) I'm thinking, how do you decide whether to call or raise on K high flops when you flop top pair? Obviously it's depending highly on your image and on villian. But I'm thinking more, what boards do you prefer to do it on? Dry boards when villian thinks that you would never raise this board, or wet boards when villain is likely to put you on a draw? The question is maybe not as well written as I would have liked, but hopefully you understand my question. I'm not just thinking wet/dry boards, but I'm thinking generally. What boards do you prefer to raise when you hit top pair, and when do you slowplay/call? I've heard you talk a lot about this in your videos, and maybe you could make a video when you focus on this :) kindly Tórður.

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