Vekked's $162 MTT Review

First and foremost, this video was amazing. Very well prepared, extremely informative, and no dabbling or anything of the sort. I felt every second I was being hit with great concepts and very good thought processes. Very very very well done, and I hope your next videos come out soon.

Onto the hands:

First off the hand 6/6 at around 13:00. I agree with you pretty much pre-flop, but post flop I think was pretty odd/weird. Player 1 and 2 are almost certainly going with their hands, and you are never folding vs either of them. The flaw I found in your thinking was acting like we have the nuts here and that is why we should flat. We actually have the 6th nuts, and that is nothing to sneeze at imo. I agree that we should flat, but I think for the reason to fold to JY here, especially since he is a good player.

I don't seem him ever fucking around in this spot, as it is almost a guaranteed show down vs 2 opponents (maybe even 3), plus our flat looks extremely strong. I actually think we are closer to the bottom of our range, considering we have straights, sets, and virtually no overpairs as we would have iso'd 9/9+ pre a large % of the time. If I am him, I am probably folding anything worse than a set or huge combo draw here, almost all of which have us beat.

So basically, I would flat call get it in no matter what vs two shorties, and fold to Jy jam, and be pretty happy about it, as I don't think flatting here EVER induces worse hands, and if it does, he is jamming better hands a higher % of the time anyways (he has more sets/straights mathematically than 2 pair here given card removal, and he never jams with a 1 pair hand vs 3 players on this board), so its still okay to fold IMO.

If you think he jams vs your flat every time with pair+straight draw then maybe its okay, but I really think that is unlikely.

The biggest thing though was thinking this was the nuts and trying to find the weakest line, where it clearly is not the nuts, and I don't think we should treat it as such vs Jy.

Next J/10s at around 18:00. I agree again with post flop play. Perfect hand to raise and c-bet take it down TONS against a fishy limper (not being results oriented vs this players KK). First off, I think there is a lot more merit to a c/r here than you give. It is literally only bad vs a set. My problem is calling down 3 streets and missing, and losing out on all that equity plus generally having a tough river decision.

The turn is even pretty tough if you don't hit and they fire big, because its a spot where you are pretty sure you are behind, but don't have equity to call. Furthermore a lot of people limp bet flops with tons of stuff, and fishy people love their broadways. By just calling here I feel like you are just in way to much of a guessing game if you don't hit, and losing out on a ton of equity you have on the flop vs pretty much anything.

I just feel like there are a lot of bad scenarios that can happen on the turn/river. I think again this is a lot closer than you hinted at in the video.

It is basically:

Will I get payed if I hit VS relinquishing all of your equity on the flop

There are definitely pros and cons to both, but in this case I think they are really close to being the same ev, and I think raising the flop to barrel/get it in is the easier way to play the hand, so that would be the determining factor for me

The hand Q/J at around 33:00. This is probably a preference thing of mine, but 40bbs deep facing a smallish 3b in position with a playable hand vs a lagy reg, I am calling here 100% of the time. Floating all gut shots and pot controlling pairs ect, trying to take away on further streets if I don't have anything. If you are not a very good player then a fold is certainly fine, but with these reads and the situation in the video, this seems like a really really good spot to flat. Pot on flop will be 3k with 9k effective, so I think you have enough wiggle room to make this a +ev spot.

7/7 hand around 39:00 . At first I thought the hand was played totally fine here, and I was going to comment on it in that regard, but I changed my mind. Basically my thinking was "okay 7/7 isn't actually that strong here, so why would we want to induce action?" . Then I realized oh hey, we only have 30 blinds and are never folding in this spot unless they are a super nit type player.

That made me realize that the reason you 3b small here to induce action is because you are already getting it in vs the top of his range, so why not try to get it in vs the bottom of his range as well. You just made it seem like 7/7 was the nuts here, and you wanted to be inducing because we had the nuts. That logic is obviously wrong, and I am entirely sure you meant it the way I just put it. As in higher chance of getting it in vs worse, because we are already getting it in vs better.

The bet size on the river was just weird, and worked randomly, but I don't like it.

9/9 around 45:00 . This was a spot I found the most interesting, and one that is super awkward at lower stakes tournaments as it happens a ton where you get these shorties that flat all the fucking time. I think the best line in this spot is to check call, or if it goes check check jam the turn if no other over-cards hit. I think it offers the highest % chance of getting the money in good, or making him spew off a random bluff. I think that outweighs the free card we give them if it goes check check. Where as if we just jam, we are almost only getting called by better.

I just hate the idea of letting my opponent play perfectly, and I realllly doubt they are folding a K or a 10 here. Fish use the logic of "why would he jam with a king here? my 10 is good" a lot of the time, after they realize the pot is as big as their stack, and call. By checking you give them the option to make many more mistakes, and as I said I think this fact really outweighs giving them that card. Sure sometimes they call with 7/7 or 8/8 on the flop if we jam, but if they are that bad, they are probably doing that on the turn as well, or jaming it themselves on the flop.

I really wanna know your thoughts on this one, because it happens a lot in the tournies I play, and I really do think this is the best line.

Anyways, I know this is a huge post, so if your bored and wanna respond to all the questions that would be fantastic, and if not that's cool too :) . I am sure you love discussing poker though, and I think i posed some fairly interesting ideas, so I am sure your itch will force you to respond.

Again, great video, and I really really enjoyed it, I definitely want more like this one. Honestly the prep work and going over the HH before hand was what really made this better than a lot of the others so far, as it took out all the durdling and watching someone take the blinds.

Keep it up!

Thanks for the comments guys! Part 2 has already been submitted, and part 3 and 4 should be on their way for this. To be honest I prepared much more for my first 2 videos than this one but I guess just skipping a lot of the less interesting hands makes it go smoother and results in a better vid. It's hard to tell what level people are at, and I'm sure a lot of beginners want to see every single hand so they get an idea of opening ranges and things, but I guess that's not necessary for you guys really. I'll reserve that for times when I review an FT or something and reads are really important.

I can't really respond to all your comments in depth right now because I'm at the PCA and the internet's awful so the vid won't stream. I think you brought up a lot of good points Jimbo, I'll need to watch for exact stacksizes and maybe get out pokerstove to answer for sure but I think in general you're giving the villains too much credit. Yes the tournament is relatively highstakes and the regs should be pretty good, but they still make a lot of mistakes and in general don't think about hands perfectly in game. People spew and make mistakes on the side of aggression a lot in highstakes, and that's how we can exploit them.

A set on that board with straights and stuff might not seem like the nuts, and 77 with 30BB might not seem like the nuts, but they kind of are when you see villains getting it in with nothing but a straight draw or A4o some % of the time. Vs. certain people we can look to fold if certain action happens, but imo these aren't the spots for doing that. Perhaps flatting looks strong than shoving with the set, in which case we should just shove, but my thinking was that leaving some perceive FE (even though there's likely none) is better than leaving none. There's a good chance he should be folding the NFD or most combo's of overs + FD with this action but I think there's basically 0% chance he does that in game. If he has pair + straight draw there's also a pretty good chance some of those hands get put in as well. I think 9s and 10s probably get put in too most of the time. With the 99 hand maybe I made it sound like we were shoving as a bluff to get him to fold a T or K but thats not the case, I expect him to call with those hands almost always. We're shoving sort of for a thin bluff/protection. If he has a hand like AJ/AQ and we bet and he shoves, he's probably correct in doing so since he has close to 40% equity. If we jam and he folds he's probably making a mistake (like I said I don't have pokerstove and such to check for sure but this is from my rough math). It's obviously a dumb spot and doesn't really matter what we're doing here in the long run but I think on a board this coordinated we have enough equity in the hand that we need to realize by the river, it just depends on whether our equity is higher if we induce or shove. I think inducing basically only gets action from hands that are correct in getting it in, but shoving might get him to fold some gut shots that he should call with, or call some flush draws that he should fold with. He also might do something worse some % of the time like fold QJ or call 88 or something which can only add to our value.

I think your plan of check/calling is really bad because again we're allowing hands that have significant equity in the pot to realize it either by getting a free card or getting it in correctly. Our hand is too vulnerable on this board texture to try to widen his range of getting it in, and inducing a bluff isn't great when we're so shallow that some of his bluff hands are going to be correct in bluffing. If the K was an 8, and we had 77, I think a line like that would have more merit because he can't have hands that he thinks he's bluff shoving but actually doing it correctly vs. our hand.

Thanks for the response, I hope you kick it at the PCA! Do they have a lot of tournaments less then 1k? I would like to go there next year if I have the dough, seems like a sweet venue/holiday. I bet a lot of people think the same thing, probably a lot of weaker players here (then again that is EVERY live event).

I agree more so with the 9/9 hand now that you put it like that, the fact that he can have a ton of equity here in a lot of spots makes the shove better is basically what I am understanding.

I do however still disagree with the 6/6 set on 6/7/8 two tone. Maybe at the point of you flatting, Jy jamming, and the other two people calling, you probably have more than enough pot odds to draw to a boat, but I really don't think you are ever ahead here. I am not a really excellent player, but in Jys shoes, if you flat there, I am folding 8/9 and 7/8 on that board.

Maybe this is a leak of mine, as I don't think I do gamble enough in tournaments or play aggressively at this point.I have been in this situation quite a bit where there is tons of action before me, and I easily fold 2 pair and 90% of the time I have been beat. You didn't show the rest of the hand, but I can pretty comfortably guess that BB had a straight draw (possibly with a 7) or weak diamonds, and UTG had an over pair and was looking for max action by limping utg, which also co-insides with his odd flop raise (instead of jamming). Then I would put hero on 2pair+ here if hero flatted. Against those ranges, I am only calling with sets and straights, A/9dd and A/10dd

Again, I don't think that I am an amazing player, but even an average player can know that they are beat here unless they have a VERY VERY strong hand when 3 people show a lot of interest in the pot, and if you aren't beat, you are probably going to be dodging tons before the river.

With the pot odds as said, I am calling here with 50bbs if I flat, however, I still don't think we are ever ahead if the action plays out that way. So all-in-all the argument is totally pointless because we are playing the hand the same way, but for different reasons. That being said, if I am 70-100bbs deep here I am call folding to Jy, being 50bbs deep I am straight jamming it in because it looks the weakest to a thinking player (which you said Jy was), and therefore we have a higher chance Jy calls with something worse.

If you were in Jys shoes with a hand like 7/8, or 8/9, or 9/9 (presumably the only hands that have the smallest equity vs us that he is jamming with), how would you play it? At es~50 blinds would you go with those hands in this spot? At 70bbs?

I personally don't think you are giving Jy enough credit. He is in a very comfortable position, and is risking half of his huge stack in a spot where he could very easily be drawing super thin.

I am obviously only looking at how I WOULD play it in his spot, and that could definitely be where I am wrong, but the way I am seeing it there is no way we are getting it in good vs Jy here to justify calling off 70+ blinds at this stage in the tourny. I would be jamming with 6/6 though here in this situation with 50bbs though, as it represents more hands like 8/9. Ad/9, ect ect than flatting does imo. A little bit deeper and I think it is optimally played as call/fold to Jy.

This situation is fairly rare, given the weird stack size set up. There are a ton of situations like this that are deeper though, and this is a very very tough spot in those situations, so I still think there is lots of value in discusing it.

Basically out of all this, I want to know how you would play the marginal hands in Jys spot, or even the strong hands, if hero were to flat here at 50bbs and 70bbs. If you really think that he would go with 8/9 here then we should certainly be flating/calling, but I really find that hard to beleive.

Re: the PCA. If you include 1k's there's definitely a lot of tourneys 1k and under, I think there's nearly a 1k every day except for a couple. There's also like 3-4 300s, some 500s, etc. They run 9-man SNGs all day as well and cash if you're interested in that. If you're only playing stuff 1k and under I'm not sure if it'd be worth coming for a purely poker trip, but I think it's definitely worth it for a vacation/poker trip. The weather/beach is beautiful here, I brought my gf so I'm not grinding all the sides and such, but I think even if I was here by myself it'd be hard to not just do touristy stuff. I can see maybe next year or something I'd be more into playing a lot since I've done or am going to do most of what I wanna do here. It's definitely a fun trip but I'm not sure if it's the best from a value perspective.

I think your assumptions about the 66 set hand/how you should play the hand optimally in Jy's shoes are mostly correct, but I just don't think most people are going to be playing the hand optimally in real time, and it's hard to construct logical ranges in a hand like this for most parties. In this hand we flatted in a pretty speculative spot where our hand should likely be overpairs or AQs or something if we're a reasonable player. We maybe shouldn't even have a flatting range in this spot. The fact that we do and that we flatted a hand we probably shouldn't have in our range makes the hand a lot weirder to play. Now from Jy's perspective it's hard to tell what he thinks we're flatting, and for us to tell what he's over-calling. He probably shouldn't have much of an over-calling range either in this spot either given the opener's stack and the stacks left to act. I think it's pretty reasonable for him to assume that we don't really have 6s in our range, and maybe he can discount 7s or 8s somewhat. T9s or 98s we should have even less. I think our flat looks pretty strong here, weighted sort of towards bigger pairs, maybe trapping some % of the time. Some percent of the time we have worse pairs and more suited stuff too if he perceives us as being weaker. Him over-calling is weird too. In theory his over-calling range should probably consist of nothing more than some mid-high pairs and high suited broadway type hands. In reality I think he's a bit on the looser side pre-flop in almost every situation, so it's possible he has a lot more suited connectors/suited gappers, and maybe suited broadway or suited ace type hands (I don't expect him to be flatting off-suit broadways or anything, and he could have some smaller pairs but that's a tiny part of his range that doesn't matter much here).

Since he probably sees the top of our range as being 88, maybe 1 combo of 77, and that's it for value, and he probably expects us to raise flop some % of the time (maybe a large % of the time on a board this coordinated), I think our hand range looks a lot more like TT-AA type of hand most of the time. Those hands aren't a huge part of our range but most of our value/continuing range probably raises on this type of board, so our hand kind of looks like hands that we want to get in vs. the shorties but maybe not him. I think given that 66 is a hand that we basically shouldn't have ever, if he has 87 or 98 I think it's probably fine to get it in, or if it's slightly bad I think he still shoves in real time because obv people don't think this much about hands while playing. Having a blocker to top or middle set + the fact that sets are the top of our range, there's only ~6 total combos we could have, and every blocker removes 2 of those combo's, and we can discount a bit given our flop flat instead of raise on this coordinated board I think our flat doesn't look nearly as strong and he probably rips it with those type of hands. The fact that we actually have 66 and it's maximum 6 combo's from the top of our range I think makes it an easier spot to get it in. Combinatorically sets are super hard to hit, and if people have blockers then it makes it even less likely. If we even just have 2 overpairs in our pre-flop range like AA and KK it's going to be twice as likely that we have AA/KK in this spot than a set. If we 3-bet half of those combo's then we still have more combo's of AA/KK if he has any blockers. If we flat some combo's of JJ/QQ then we have overpairs wayyy more often than sets.

I'm not saying this is 100% the way to look at the hand, but the fact that it's played so weirdly pre-flop and ranges could vary drastically from being very tight and weighted towards overpairs, or a bit looser and weighted towards mid-high pairs, or way looser and have a lot of speculative suited/connected type stuff maybe it difficult to put people on hands, and I think in general people aren't going to be looking to hero fold when ranges aren't that face up, and we definitely shouldn't be looking to hero fold a hand that is 6 combo's from the top of our range and a hand that most people probably discount.

So yea I don't know jy's thought process but I think it wouldn't be too tough to justify jamming or raising marginal hands with blockers and expecting tank/folds a lot from Imustbontilt if he's just makes a couple assumptions about tilt's pre-flop range and flop flatting range.

Combinatorics, isn't that Chapter 1 in Let There Be Range?  Either way, not made up Jimbo.  You actually use it every day, albiet perhaps not knowingly or effectively!

Tyvm sir, appreciate it!