Hungry Horse Bootcamp

Question 1

Player Types

Fish

Characteristics

Answer 1

• Loose, passive, stationy
• Call too much
• Fold too little
• Bluff too little (key difference from whales since they over bluff)

Question 2

Player Types

Fish

Possible Exploits

Answer 2

• Hand incentives - WHAT DOES OUR HAND WANT TO DO?
  • Do NOT use range vs. range
• Fish are too passive, so we have to put the money in for them
  • Consider donking Rivers when we get there, because they won’t bluff frequently enough or value bet thinly enough
• Use LARGE value sizes early on in hands
• When we bluff, consider using smaller sizes to fold wide / weak range
• Overfold MASSIVELY to their aggression!

Question 3

Player Types

Whale

Characteristics

Answer 3

• Biggest losers in the game
• Loose, aggressive, stationy
• Call too much
• Fold too little
• Bluff too much (when given rope)

Question 4

Player Types

Whale

Possible Expoits

Answer 4

• Hand incentives - “WHAT DOES OUR HAND WANT TO DO?”
  • Forget range vs. range, only use hand vs. range when playing against whales
  • Consider giving them rope to let them bluff
  • With marginal/SDV hands where it’s hard to get value from worse
  • With nutted hands where we hard block continuing range
  • Always remember to ask ourselves: “What are we targeting?”
• Value bet using HUGE sizes
• Bluff way less vs. whales
  • When we do bluff, use small sizes to fold weak/wide ranges
• Bluff-catch them often, but overfold when they fight fire with fire
  • Rationale: Even aggressive players under bluff when we take aggressive action

Question 5

Player Types

Trying Rec

Characteristics

Answer 5

• Trying to win, but many leaks
• Tight, passive, nitty
• Call too little
• Fold too much
• Bluff too little

Question 6

Player Types

Trying Rec

Possible Exploits

Answer 6

• We have to consider ranges more than vs. whales/fish since this player type is actually trying!
  -We have to put the money in for them
  
  • Rationale:
    
    • Passive tendencies
    • Trying recs underbluff and don’t value bet thinly enough
• Use bigger value sizes EARLY in the hand
• Size down with value on rivers
  • They rarely see big bluffs, and have learned to fold in big pots
• Bluff more frequently for LARGER sizes
  • Capable of making the big folds —> These are good players to empty the clip against in good spots to bluff
• Overfold to their aggression since they don’t bluff often enough!

Question 7

Player Types

Reg

Characteristics

Answer 7

• Winning for-profit players
• Tight, aggressive
• Capable of making folds in big pots and bluffs in small pots
• Call correct amount in small pots, call too little in big pots
• Fold correct amount in small pots, fold too much in big pots
• Bluff correct amount in small pots, bluff too little in big pots

Question 8

Player Types

Reg

Possible Exploits

Answer 8

• Put yourself in their shoes
  • Play our value like they play bluffs
  • Play our bluffs like they play value
• If you’re going to bluff - make them uncomfortable
  • Most regs are uncomfortable playing massive pots for all the money without the goods
  • Most regs are quite comfortable playing 200bb pots with marginal hands. 600bb pots? not so much
• Overfold in big pots
  • They will run the bluffs in the small/medium pots - but they tend to play straight up when all the money gets in the middle

Question 9

Flop Strategy

Range Bet 1/2 Pot Boards

SRP IP PFR (HU @ 200 BB)

Answer 9

• Any Flop that is non Ace high (including all 4 board types - dynamic wet, dynamic dry, static wet, static dry)
• All monotone Flops (including Ace high)
• All paired Flops (non Ace high)

Board Examples: J92ssx, K72r, TT6r, T66r, KQ3ssx, 954sss, AKTsss

Rationale & Key Considerations

Why range bet ½ pot as a bluff?

• Villains will often cap themselves by the Turn or River
• Therefore, we choose a small size with bluffs to funnel them to the Turn with a wide / weak range
• This makes our double / triple barrel bluffs more profitable

Why range bet ½ pot with value?

• Villains will fastplay their strong hands at too high a frequency
• Therefore, when we have CPFS type hands, villains will put in more money for us with their thick value hands anyway
• Plus, we can capture value against the weak portion of their range that would have folded to a big Flop bet

Question 10

Flop Strategy

Overbet or Check Boards

SRP IP PFR (HU @ 200 BB)

Answer 10

• We are playing an overbet (1.5-2x pot) or check strategy on all Ace high boards (except monotone boards)

Question 11

Flop Strategy

Exceptions to 1/2 Pot Range Bet Strat

SRP IP PFR (HU @ 200 BB)

Answer 11

• Exception #1: Vs. extremely passive villains, we want to choose larger sizes with value much more frequently
  • On dry boards, we usually don’t have an incentive to size up, EXCEPT vs. extremely passive villains
• Exception #2: On dynamic wet boards, especially, we can size up to approx. 100% pot with our strong hands that unblock their continues
  
  • Examples
    
    • KK, QQ, 99, 22 on J92ssx
    • QQ, 22, AA on KQ2ssx
• Exception #3: On K high dynamic wet boards (KQ2ssx), we can choose a pot size with AK because they won’t raise king-high boards as light as other boards
  • However, even on all other dynamic wet boards, top pair prefers ½ pot
• Exception #4: When SPR is lower than 200bb, we can either go smaller (33% pot) to play a 3 street game or size up slightly to play a 2 street game when ~50BB effective

Rationale & Key Considerations

Why overbet or check?

• Weak players / fish often have WAY too much Ax, so they will have a ton of top pair on Ace high Flops
• They tend not to fastplay value on these boards either because their hands are invulnerable (77 on A72r) or because they are scared of us having a monster (A3 on AK3)
• It’s much easier to get top pair to fold on boards where Flopped top pair is no longer River top pair (which isn’t possible on Ace high boards)
• Therefore, we either 1) overbet to target strong hands that are never folding Flop or 2) we X back to allow their Turn action to give us much more information about their hand strength

When to overbet with value?

• Thick value+ (usually AQ / AK+)
• There is no need to go super thin as most of our thin value wants only 2 streets of value, and we can play perfectly once we see the action villain takes on the Turn after Flop goes XX

When to overbet with bluffs?

• We don’t need to go crazy here. Be very selective.
• Ideally, we want a hand that blocks their nutted hands that doesn’t have TOO much SDV ourselves
• We can choose hands that block bottom pair/set, or on wet boards, we can choose either pair + FD or LE bluffs
• We don’t want to choose HE bluffs that are in a pickle if we get raisedRationale & Key Considerations

Why overbet or check?

• Weak players / fish often have WAY too much Ax, so they will have a ton of top pair on Ace high Flops
• They tend not to fastplay value on these boards either because their hands are invulnerable (77 on A72r) or because they are scared of us having a monster (A3 on AK3)
• It’s much easier to get top pair to fold on boards where Flopped top pair is no longer River top pair (which isn’t possible on Ace high boards)
• Therefore, we either 1) overbet to target strong hands that are never folding Flop or 2) we X back to allow their Turn action to give us much more information about their hand strength

When to overbet with value?

• Thick value+ (usually AQ / AK+)
• There is no need to go super thin as most of our thin value wants only 2 streets of value, and we can play perfectly once we see the action villain takes on the Turn after Flop goes XX

When to overbet with bluffs?

• We don’t need to go crazy here. Be very selective.
• Ideally, we want a hand that blocks their nutted hands that doesn’t have TOO much SDV ourselves
• We can choose hands that block bottom pair/set, or on wet boards, we can choose either pair + FD or LE bluffs
• We don’t want to choose HE bluffs that are in a pickle if we get raised

Question 12

Flop XR

Continuing Range: 3x XR w/ 1/2 Pot Bet

Answer 12

Question 13

Flop XR

Continuing Range: 3x XR w/ 2x Pot Bet

Answer 13

Question 14

Flop: A high

A72r

SRP IP PFR

Answer 14

• Overbet Value: AQ+ (AA can be mostly X)
• Overbet Bluff: K2s and 76s (blockers) and 54s with no BD (don’t mind bet folding)
• K7s is a pip too good to bluff: Therefore, check this combo back

Question 15

Flop: A high

A76ssx

SRP IP PFR

Answer 15

• Overbet Value: AQ+ (AA should be mostly bet)
• Overbet Bluff: 65ss (blocker + combo draw), T8s / T9s with no BD (don’t mind bet folding)
• Don’t use the bluffs like KTss or 54ss: If we get jammed on with these hands, then our life sucks

Question 16

Flop: A high

AJJr

SRP IP PFR

Answer 16

• Overbet Value: AK+ (harder to get value from Ax here, and we can run into trips)
• Overbet Bluff: We need to be creative here as broadways have enough SDV to X back
  
  • We can choose our worst hands with a backdoor (e.g., 54s) to bluff with

Question 17

Flop: A high

A32ssx

SRP IP PFR

Answer 17

• Overbet Value: AK+ (they have a lot more CPFS hands here, so we need to go stronger for value)
• Overbet Bluff: K2ss, 65s with no backdoor flush