Welcome to a brand new, one hundred percent free episode of the Low Limit
Cash Games podcast. This is a podcast I created exclusively for you, the
lowest stakes poker player at your local card room or at your home poker games.
One two, No Limit, one three, No Limit. We're here
to help you become a winning player. Let's jump right into it, shall
we. I'll do proper thanks to new fans of the pod after we do
the content for our new agreement with each other. But I have to quickly
say the positive response to the changes we've made to the pod. Just going
one month with a free public feed with no upfront noise, uh and then
the other three episodes a month being strictly for fans of the pods has been
overwhelming, So thank you. Today we're going to talk about the scariest board
textures and all of No Limit Hold Them Now. I see people barreling off
and getting themselves in all kinds of trouble on these board textures all the time,
and it's really easy to slow down. You can still extract some value.
But one of the most important concepts in No Limit Hold Them that you
have to understand is that no limit means you literally could be putting your entire
stack at risk. And I find that some people are too flippant with their
stack. They're too willing to commit most or all of their stack on early
streets with hands that are marginal at best against most of their opponent's holdings.
Sometimes they aren't really thinking about their opponent's holdings, and they aren't really thinking
and for sure about their opponent's ranges and how their opponents ranges interact with the
flop turned and river. But primarily the flop will be the discussion we'll be
having today. So I know ranges can be a bit to take in.
I know it's a little bit difficult. When we all start out playing poker,
we think about our hand, what hand we have, how much do
we like it? And then once you move from that, you start thinking
about your opponent's hand. And for many many years, a lot of us,
including myself, we just only thought about our opponent's hand. Why hand
can our opponent have here? What hand does he have? And to be
fair, I still quite often think about my opponent's specific hand, but I
more often think about their range, because in terms of the mass and how
profitability works, as long as you're playing correctly against your opponent's entire range of
hands that they can have, you're going to be profitable. So one of
the biggest scenarios in hold them, where you are risking your entire stack.
Remember, the more your stack is at risks, the more right you need
to be. This is the same principle between playing short stacked and deep stacked.
I get asked a lot of questions, what's the main difference between playing
you know, short stack hold them versus really deep stack hold them? And
the answer is is that you have way more money at risk, and the
incentives of hands changes a lot. And when you can understand that your opponent
can have, especially in situations where ranges are narrowed or more well defined and
you can more correctly attribute them to certain boards, it's going to allow you
to not go broke as much in bad situations. It's going to allow you
to make more money and good situations, like a lot of good things happen
from that. And so I know this is kind of a big setup to
explaining it, but I want you to understand that you need to always be
thinking about your opponent's range and how it interacts with the boards. So I'm
just going to talk about one scenario today, although it could apply to other
scenarios, but primarily, when you know you have a good hand, and
so we have several good hands on our range, we should all be thinking
about range of hands we open from certain spots, but we always have a
you know, pretty good hand, uh, depending on what our position is
at the table, And a lot of times we have a monster you know,
aces or kings or something like that, and so we'll raise pre flop
and we'll get called by one or two or multiple opponents, and we have
to be thinking of about what calling ranges look like on certain boards, and
it can be difficult for some people to really picture in their mind and opponents
calling range. Now, the more you get used to working with ranges,
looking at ranges, studying ranges and how they interact with the board, and
you don't need solvers to do this, although solveris do make it a lot
easier. You know, solvers can tell you what percentage of your opponent's ranges
one pairs, no pairs, draws, gut shots, open enders, flush
draws, and stuff like that. You know. Beyond that, I find
their applicability to low stakes games not necessary to beat low stakes. Doesn't mean
you can't learn concepts from them and get even better and more advanced. But
I'm just saying to beat low steaks, you don't need to pay a ton
of money for a sovereign. Let's face it, solverers are expensive. They
do help you visualize how your opponent's range of hands interacts with the board,
and it'll just print it out for you. Basically, it's like a here
dummy, here's what your opponent can have. But you know, you can
use a tool like poker cruncher or flop Zilla or things like that and it'll
do the same thing for you. You can just put in what your opponent's
range is. You can put in what the board is, and it'll tell
you how often your opponent has a pair, two pairs, you know,
over pairs, flush draws, gut shots and stuff. These boards, these
flops are almost always scary versus a calling range. So when you have pocket
aces or bucket kings or ace king or ace queen and you seem like you
have a really good hand, that's probably the best hand. These are times
that you should while you can still bet, and there's many different incentives re
betting. You should always be aware, but this is not the best board
for you. So the first one we're going to talk about scary board texture
number one. Uh, there's four of them. In general, they're easy
to remember. I talk about this a lot with people that I work with
one on one. Anytime you see a board that's queen ten x, queen
nine x, jack ten x, or jack nine x, and X means
any other card, right, So x could be a five, it could
be a seven, it could be a deuce. Whatever, Queen ten x,
queen nine x, jack ten x, or jack nine x. Anytime
you get a flop that is a combination of those one of those type hands.
It interacts so well with opponents pre flop calling range. A lot of
the times it will give your opponents a pair and a straight draw, a
pair and a back door, two pair, open enders, and gut shots.
It just gives them a ton of hands that they want to continue with.
Now, does that mean you have to shut down on boards like this
and you just have to check check check. No, you know, depending
on the strength of your hand and the incentives of your hand, you can
for sure bet for value. You can bet for protection and value you can
fit for protection. You just need to be aware that a ton of scary
turns can come which will cause you to move from maybe trying to get three
to trying to get two streets, or make you move from trying to get
two streets of value to maybe just trying to get one street of value.
It just the nuts on these boards will change dramatically by the river, is
the point I'm trying to make. If you think about let's think about a
Queen ten X board and let's just for the sake of an argument, make
it the most insignificant X card ever. Queen ten deuce. Let's think about
a Queen ten deuce board, and let's think about all the cards that come
on the turn that are kind of scary but then lead us to a ton
of scary rivers. So, Queen ten nine, any jack has become open
ended. Now, any eight has become a gut shot. Any king has
been a gut shot. Any king. Queen is top fare and gut shots
and back doors, and we could go on and on. You can go
down this path, and again I encourage you to use a free tool like
a poker cruncher, and just put in a range of hand your opponent would
call with and then put one of these boards out there and just look at
the various different type holdings they could have. But let's say on Queen ten
deuce, let's say let's say a nine comes on the turn. So now
any jack is open ended. So if your opponent called you with jack ten
and I'll have middle pair and they're opening, And now let's think about how
many turns we hate right, we hate any eight, we hate any seven,
we hate any king. We also still hate any jack, we hate
a ten. You know, depending on our overall range. I'm not listing
us as having any specific hand here, but if you want to picture one
in your head, let's just picture we have the Granddaddy. I'm all pocket
ass agatesas is not in great shape on a board that runs out queen ten
deuce nine to eight, Quan ten deuce nine jack, and it all starts
on the flop, and you recognizing that the nuts on this board is going
to change a lot, and it may limit how many streets of value you
can get. It may indicate sometimes you're just gonna fold your one pair hand,
which I find a lot of people are terrified at doing It's just going
to change incentives of your hands. So anytime you see this board, you
need to see alarm bells going off on your head. Spooky. This board
is spooky either way. That's why I'm doing this episode. We're coming up
on Halloween, right, it's Halloween week. Now. You may be listening
to this six months from now, but if you're listening when it posts live,
it's it's a Halloween episode. Scary boards, all right, So those
are some scary boards. Now, those boards become more scary when there's two
of a suit, right, So Queen ten X that's two hearts, or
Queen ten X that's two spades, Queen nine X two hearts, two clubs,
you know, and so on and so forth. Jack nine x of
you know of two diamonds. Now, the nuts is going to change a
ton between now and the river, and so you're gonna have to proceed cautiously.
You do all need to be in there barreling it all off with pocket
aces like a maniac. That's not to say your pocket ass won't be the
best hand by the river. That's to say that the nuts will continue to
evolve throughout the streets, and you need to be a very aware of cards
that come. You need to be very aware of what your betting sizes,
your betting, and how much of your stack you're committing, et cetera,
et cetera. So scary board Queen ten x, Queen nine x, Jack
tin x Jack nine x. More scariest when it's those boards with two of
a suit. Scaryest boards it is when you get one of those cards that
you don't want to see on the turn on those boards before when it just
comes on the flock. So scariest boards Queen ten nine, Queen Jack nine,
Jack ten nine, Jack ten eight. I mean, these boards just
smack a ton of your opponents calling range. They have a ton of open
enders, gut shots, two pairs and sets. They just have all kinds
of monsters and pocket aces. Has to proceed with caution on these boards.
Doesn't mean you have to be scared. I mean you have to say,
oh dang, I got to check it down to the river. But you
just need to understand the incentives of your hand. And now I'm just not
going to get deep off into the end of bet sizing and betting strategies because
that would be a whole other episode of the pot, and maybe I'll do
that episode, but I think this episode will definitely get you in the right
mindset where you start adjusting and figuring some of these things out yourself. But
I can't tell you how many times I've seen bad players, and not even
bad players. I don't mean that in an insulting way. I just mean
players that haven't evolved their game very much. Maybe they've tried to get better
and they play in a tighter game, right, that's step one to most
people getting better. I've talked about the evolution of becoming a great player before,
but usually you start out playing way too many hands. Then you try
to get better and you get way too tight, you play way too few
hands, and then you understand that you can play a little bit more hands
once you understand position and understanding your opponents and things like that. So it's
an evolution. But you know, players who are you know, maybe they've
even made that first or second step, so they've gotten tightened up on the
ranges, maybe even appropriately tight. They still haven't evolved enough to understand scary
board textures and the incentive of their hand bet sizing and things like that on
scary boards, and so even players that you know do do well in the
game. Actually, I've seen players that I know do well in the game,
but they just don't play these boards correctly. And they'll have like,
you know, just for an example, pocket aces on a queens and nine
boarder Queen jack nine board or Jack tin nine board or something, and they're
just way over committing to the point that the turn comes and they just can't
fold, or they feel like they can't fold, or by the time they
get to the river, you know, they just they've just committed so much
of their stack. This can't fold because they just didn't understand what was happening
and how they needed to proceed from the flop. So, you know,
it's not if you can remember, if you can remember the first four hands
I gave you Queen ten x, queenine x, Jack ten x, Jack
nine x, you can just remember these because we're just adding a card to
It's Queen ten nine, Queen Jack nine, the same cards, right,
We're just adding one of them into each each other. So there's no you
know, there's no hangers. If you know what hangers are, danglars or
whatever. I think we used to call them danglers. Way back in the
day. But I think it's hangers. But these are bad cards and almaha,
I won't go down that road. But it really messes up a good
hand to hand a hanger. But you know, instead of a deuce,
instead of having a hanger, you got you got a Queen ten nine instead
of Queen ten deuce. I mean, queenin nine is bad. It's the
nuts are going to change a lot by the river almost always. So that's
the scariest, scariest boards. And then if you want to go to this
scary level one hundred, this is the boards where you need to exercise tons
of caution, understand what bet sizings and how often you should bet and when
you should bet, and how you proceed on turns. And it's these scariest
affoards when there's two suits, so you know, Queen ten nine and two
spades, Queen jack nine and two spades. I mean, you have got
to understand where you're at. We're probably not triple barrel value betting this probably
not ever, it's just the odds of it coming blank blank where that we
can just triple barrel off against these flops is so slim that we really need
to understand and use sometime understanding and studying these spots. So what do we
learn from this one? Number one is you need to use some caution and
have some understanding and try to improve your game and have some depth when you
have big pays et cetera, pocket aces or you know, even something like
Ace Queen. When you have Ace Queen on on Queen ten nine Blackadace is
on Queens had nine. Uh, Queens is probably one of the best big
payers you can have on Queens and nine because you block a lot of straightening
stuff that could happen. Even then you have to proceed with some level of
caution. And then the flip side, if you want to move with the
other direction is you can actually use boards like this to your advantage when your
opponents are capped at big pairs and you aren't. Now you know, I'm
not a big fan of running a lot of bluffs at low steaks. Bluffing
is for sure part of the game. I got a message from somebody not
long ago about how they say, well, you see, you never bluff
at low steaks, and you're you're not teaching an optimum strategy for one two
to olimit because bluffing. I've never said you should never bluff. I'm just
saying you don't ever have to. You can one hundred percent be profitable one
too. And my goal here is to try to move losing one, two
and one three delimited players into the winner's column. And they can do that
without ever doing a single bluff. You can. You can move from loser
to winter without ever bluffing. You just can't. The opponents are just that
bad. Now you win more money when you can learn spots that are prime
spots for bluffing, and if you want to start doing some investigation into that,
some study into that these boards are great spots against the right opponent where
you might could pull off a buff. Now you can't do it against the
complete fish that's never folding pocket aces because they don't care what the board comes
and folding their pocket ass. Against the player that can think a little bit,
you sometimes will have the opportunity to pull out bluffs on flops like this,
because you'll get a runout that will allow you to take a pot away
for an opponent who's capped at a pair. I know that's we're getting way
detailed. That's why I save that to the end because I'm not going into
detailing it. That would take like four episodes of the pod back to back
to even begin to scratch the surface on that. But I want to throw
it out there. See understand it. So get familiar with these scary board
textures, the scariest board textures, and the level one hundred scariest board textures,
and understand you need to be considering how you proceed across streets with them,
because it's very, very important. I got to tell you that fans
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