YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → I've Seen Students Lose Thousands By Neglecting Preflop

I've Seen Students Lose Thousands By Neglecting Preflop — Transcript

by Carrot Corner - Poker Education · 4,348 words · 662 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00Ladies and gentlemen, we must not be the
0:02guy in the middle with the range T-shirt
0:04preflop matters. The idiot knows it and
0:06the pro knows it as well, but somewhere
0:09along the poker journey, the guy in the
0:11middle has become very confused. He
0:13thinks he can outsource preflop to a
0:15chart or a solver, but charts and
0:17solvers are lying to you about the EV of
0:20common preflop situations and you can
0:23add some juicy low-hanging fruit to your
0:25game today by taking the advice in this
0:28video. You do not need to be great at
0:30cards to benefit greatly from these
0:32concepts. But before we get into it,
0:35let's take a sneak peek into the life of
0:38range T-shirt guy.
0:39>> I follow charts [music] at 1 and
0:41[singing] L. Bro bro bro.
0:47I flat 98 [music]
0:49suited when it's [singing] diamonds.
0:53Bro bro bro. [music]
0:55I play my range, not my hand. [music]
0:59Bro bro bro.
1:03I [music] calculate
1:05value to bluff ratios.
1:09Bro bro bro.
1:11>> [music]
1:11>> I can't come out tonight cuz rake. Bro
1:15bro bro. [music]
1:18>> Okay. Enough mocking the audience. It's
1:22time for the truth.
1:23Ace 10 offsuit is a losing under the gun
1:26in a six-max cash game. You shouldn't
1:28open this hand in a human world, but
1:30solver will generally tell you that it's
1:31break-even or even slightly winning to
1:34do so. Why? What's going on here?
1:36Solvers aren't lying to you, per se.
1:39They're just describing a different
1:40environment to the one that you're in.
1:42Before we accept the EV of a hand in a
1:45range chart, we need to ask what the
1:47conditions are under which that chart
1:50was created. If we start making our way
1:53through the game tree here and we say
1:54that we raise this hand, the hijack is
1:58meant to be folding ace queen offsuit
1:59and king queen offsuit a lot of the
2:01time. The hijack is meant to be folding
2:03sevens and sixes and fives and eights
2:05and nines sometimes.
2:07And when the hijack folds all of those
2:09hands is of course very good for us
2:10because we have a crappy hand out of
2:12position to the hijack.
2:15What's very bad is when somebody three
2:17bets us.
2:19And in real life
2:20the regs that you play against will
2:22three bet
2:24loads of these hands that are mixing.
2:25They'll pure three bet them
2:27because they are simplifying pre-flop by
2:30playing three bet or fold.
2:32And the fish will call with all the
2:34pocket pairs. It's not good for you.
2:35It's not good to get flatted by threes
2:37when you open ace 10.
2:39You're an equity dog to threes or out of
2:41position. There's loads more people that
2:42are going to call now as well. Your hand
2:44is not very good multiway. There's lots
2:46of reasons why you'd rather they folded
2:47threes rather than called it. What you
2:49want to happen with ace 10
2:51more than anything is you want to win
2:531.5 big blinds by having everyone fold.
2:55That's a phenomenal result for ace 10
2:57offsuit because after all opening it
2:59from under the gun is only worth 4% of a
3:01big blind. So if you can make 150% of a
3:03big blind if everybody folds
3:06that's
3:07absolutely phenomenal.
3:10If you want to know what your biggest
3:11leaks are post-flop by the way, check
3:12out our starter kit at Carrot Corner. It
3:14is free. Sign up and watch the three
3:1710-minute videos included.
3:20So as we explore this game tree
3:23that the solver's verdict was created in
3:28we realize
3:30that it gets worse
3:31and worse
3:33and worse.
3:34>> [snorts]
3:35>> Because it's not just hijack that's
3:36meant to be folding hands like king
3:38queen offsuit.
3:39Did you know that cutoff is also allowed
3:41to fold ace queen offsuit here? Look at
3:44all these pairs that aren't playing.
3:45Recreational players will play way more
3:47hands than this. That's bad for you.
3:48Regs will three bet more hands than
3:50this. That's very bad for you.
3:52I don't even need to show you the rest
3:53of the game tree, right? You get the
3:54picture.
3:55Look at button.
3:57Yes, they're allowed to play more hands.
3:59Some regs will fold fives all the time
4:02instead of calling sometimes. They'll
4:04also three-bet you all the time with
4:05eights and stuff like this. Some of them
4:07will.
4:08So, it's much much worse for you in real
4:09life.
4:11The exception is when either this player
4:13here in the small blind
4:14is a whale
4:16and they're flatting like queen six
4:18suited and then playing terribly and
4:19donating stacks, then you kind of need
4:21to be in it to win it.
4:22You still have to balance that with the
4:24rest of the table, but the higher the VP
4:26IP of a small blind or in particular big
4:29blind player,
4:30the more you can say, "Okay,
4:32to hell with it. I know that the
4:33hijack's going to three-bet me too often
4:35with ace queen offsuit. I know that the
4:37cutoff fish is going to call me too
4:39often with fives and that's kind of bad.
4:42I'm going to say fish, I don't mean
4:43whale by the way, but the out of
4:44position whale is going to come along
4:46and punt off a stack with 10 nine off
4:49when they flop top pair and I flop top
4:50pair and that makes up for it. So, there
4:52are some mitigating circumstances under
4:54which you can play this hand, but do not
4:56accept the solver's the verdict at face
4:58value that this hand is winning for you
5:00to play. It's absolutely losing for you
5:02to play on most tables. And that's
5:04before we even get in
5:06to the human
5:08spot skill asymmetry
5:11paradigm. I love making up terms. That
5:13that sounds so cool. The human spot
5:16asymmetry EV paradigm.
5:19What am I going on about?
5:20Well, consider this, right? Is a solver
5:23better at handling in position or out of
5:26position? Now, that's not the same
5:27question as it's EV. We know it's EV is
5:29going to be higher in position. It knows
5:30that, too, and that's why it doesn't
5:32play as many hands from out of position
5:34and checks more in position and even
5:36calculates its EV to be lower on its
5:37graph thingy that you can look at in a
5:39program like Wizard.
5:41But, the question I'm asking is, does it
5:43play worse? Does it fail to access the
5:47GTO strategy
5:49out of position more than it fails to
5:51access that in position? Clearly, the
5:52answer is no. It has a completely equal
5:56ability to perform as well as positioner
5:59like there of a lows in either case, out
6:01of positioner or in position.
6:03But, the human
6:05does not.
6:06The human crumbles when out of position
6:08because they're faced with far more and
6:10more difficult decisions.
6:13So, when you open from under the gun,
6:15and let's say now you have a better hand
6:17than ace 10. Let's say that you have
6:19nines, right? You open nines from under
6:21the gun. That's only making, by the way,
6:23a fifth of a big blind in theory wild,
6:24right? Hardly winning anything at all.
6:27Wouldn't take much for this to swing to
6:28be a fold, okay? It takes something, but
6:30not loads.
6:31And then you factor in
6:33that the hijack is three-betting really
6:35often, right? More often than
6:38than this with these these hands up
6:39here. Maybe less often with some of
6:40these hands down here, though, right? It
6:41does balance out a bit with some
6:43players. But, let's say you get
6:44three-bet, right?
6:45By the By the cutoff. Let's say the
6:46cutoff three-bets you, and it comes back
6:48to you.
6:49And now your nines is just a mix, right?
6:51But, you just call this hand because
6:53you're like, "Nines is too good to fold.
6:54I can't fold nines." And what actually
6:56happens here
6:58is that you call it,
6:59and then you play way worse than the
7:01solver plays after it. calls nines. It
7:03thinks it's break even, and then you
7:05butcher the spot way more than it
7:06butchers it, right?
7:08And the thing is that your in position
7:10opponent does butcher their spot, too,
7:11but they don't butcher it anywhere near
7:13as hard as you butcher the out of
7:14position spot. And so, nines is now
7:16negative for you to defend against the
7:18three-bet. But, because you opened it in
7:20the first place, and then always called
7:22it to a three-bet, it's now like close
7:23to losing for you to open nines as wild,
7:25isn't it? How early position really,
7:27really sucks for a human. So, way, way
7:29back in the day, I was part of the Brown
7:31and Base forum that helped to talk about
7:33cold flop turn river. And Ben Sulsky,
7:34Sauce123, who some of you may know, was
7:37part of that forum. And he made a post
7:39called the Sauce strategy.
7:42Do you know what the Sauce strategy was?
7:44This guy was way ahead of the times. It
7:45was to open really tight from under the
7:47gun. This is before solvers, by the way,
7:49right? Like, Harrington was making
7:50preflop charts, maybe. And And that was
7:52about about it. Maybe Maybe Barry
7:54Greenstein was making some preflop
7:55charts. But, apart from that, nobody was
7:57really talking about preflop charts. You
7:59had to draw them with felt pens and
8:00[ __ ] It was terrible times.
8:02And
8:03Ben Sulsky said,
8:05"Just open the button like 60%, and open
8:08under the gun like 15% and like your
8:10HUD, you'll still appear normal overall
8:13and you'll actually be playing all the
8:14good spots and not the bad spots where
8:15there's no EV anyway, and boy was he
8:17right. He was 100% correct. So, if I had
8:21to recommend to you
8:23a 25 NL player, let's say that's what
8:25you are, a 10 NL player, what chart
8:27should you open from under the gun? It
8:28should be something extremely trimmed
8:31compared to this. It should be like a
8:33go to the barbers again, number four all
8:35over, number three all over, kind of
8:37kind of haircut to this bad boy. You
8:38want to be opening like eights plus. You
8:41want to be opening like king queen
8:43offsuit plus minimum ace queen, maybe
8:46ace jack, but probably not.
8:48You want to be opening like any hand
8:49that's close to 10% of a big blind and
8:51nothing else. That's my honest opinion.
8:53Just fold with ace three suited, ace
8:54three suited on the average table. Just
8:56skip these hands. Don't bother with
8:57them. Not only are they probably losing
9:00human versus, you know, three-bet of old
9:02reggie table or fish flatting in
9:04position table where you aren't whales.
9:06Like, they're also just very annoying
9:08and difficult to play and a waste of
9:10time. And if you're playing fast fold,
9:11you could have just moved on to another
9:13hand. And if you're playing reg tables,
9:14what about those other two spots that
9:16were happening over there that you've
9:17now butchered because you had to
9:18navigate some cold called pot out of
9:20position with ace ten off.
9:22Right? Let's go to a second scenario
9:23here.
9:26All right, the worst suited connector of
9:27them all because when the flop is queen
9:28jack ten, nobody wants this hand, right?
9:31The reverse implied odds, man.
9:34So, nine eight suited, you open the
9:35small blind, the big blind three-bets,
9:37you know what the equilibrium answer is
9:38here. I don't know why four-bet is
9:40highlighted um as not the only thing you
9:42can do. You can four-bet this hand in
9:44equilibrium. You can also call, you can
9:45also fold. This hand is ace three way
9:47mixed. Don't believe me, let's have a
9:49look at our friend the chart.
9:51There it is. All options are the same
9:53EV. Hmm, how interesting. What an insane
9:57coincidence solver. Oh wait, it's not
9:59for the solver because the solver is
10:00actually rigged so that as many hands as
10:03possible
10:04are exactly zero EV between all three
10:07options.
10:08In real life, this would be an
10:10incredibly
10:12absurd coincidence. Like being born on
10:15the same day as your entire family or
10:17something like that. Like having the
10:18same birthday.
10:19It'd be like that.
10:21So, [snorts] what's different in real
10:22life with the 98 suited in this spot?
10:25Well, ask yourself.
10:27How do you play after you flat this
10:29three bet? Do you know what the check
10:31raises are?
10:32No. Do you know where your call fold
10:34thresholds are? No, let's face it. None
10:35of us have studied enough blind versus
10:37blind three bet pot to know how to
10:38handle B60s, B75s, B50s, or B33s, or
10:41B25s properly. We get the thresholds
10:44wrong. So, right out the gate, we check,
10:47they bet. They probably don't make many
10:49mistakes when they're building a betting
10:50range. They can bet everything on some
10:51boards.
10:53It's not a big deal anyway.
10:55If it's a slight EV loss, who cares? Big
10:57blind just gets to do what they want.
10:59And then we just butcher the threshold,
11:02miss the check raises,
11:04call too many times with a certain hand,
11:06don't call enough times in another spot,
11:08don't read the texture correctly.
11:10We make way more mistakes
11:12because we're presented with the
11:13opportunity to make way more mistakes.
11:15That's how it works. So, if you call
11:16this hand
11:18at 10 NL, you lose money.
11:20Partially because the big blind is too
11:22linear with respect to their three
11:23betting. They have like ace nine suited
11:24in there instead of jack deuce suited,
11:26and that really sucks. Like if you look
11:27at the GTO big blind three bet range
11:29here, it is a hell of a lot of hands
11:31that are really bad. And nine eight
11:33suited is not even doing that well
11:34against jack five suited, but you still
11:36want the jack five suited to be in
11:37there, right?
11:39Because it's going to dilute how often
11:41the
11:42pocket aces are in there or the other
11:45hands that dominate you.
11:46So,
11:47when you look at this, there's going to
11:49be an absence of 10 four, 10 five, jack
11:51three, jack deuce, all of these hands,
11:53these low hands down here that you
11:54actually dominate. Like eight seven is
11:56not going to appear three bet. It's
11:57going to call a ton of the time, right?
11:59I know this is just one sim. Different
12:01sims will spit out different outputs.
12:02Just don't worry about the exact output
12:04on your screen here. Take away the broad
12:07message.
12:09So,
12:10this sucks for you.
12:12Already, you just have less equity.
12:14You're against the bigger hands more
12:15often than you should be due to that
12:17linearization of their three-bet range.
12:20And the other thing you need to be
12:21cognizant of here is that four-bet
12:24will probably not return as much fold
12:26equity as you expect in this particular
12:28node.
12:29And that's not going to be true of all
12:31players. And as you move up in stakes,
12:32it will actually be really good to
12:33four-bet here because there'll be regs
12:34that just take too many bluffs or just
12:36three-bet too much here cuz they know
12:38it's a juicy spot. And if you're against
12:39one of them, you know, clicking it back,
12:41little four-bet here, they've got a
12:42polarized range.
12:43Very good play. Like could be a money
12:45printer. But against the average tight
12:47reg at like 10 NL or fish at 10 NL, if
12:50you four-bet here, you're going to face
12:51more continues than you should and and
12:53the correct thing to do against a random
12:54player at 10 NL here is to fold this
12:56hand
12:57to a three-bet. And you know, you might
12:58you might not like it, right? You might
12:59feel weak. And you might feel like, "I'm
13:01going to follow the chart and mix in the
13:02four-bet." But actually, it's going to
13:04be losing for you as the out-of-position
13:06human who is
13:08less skilled in this particular
13:10configuration than the in-position human
13:12because the in-position human is sitting
13:14like a third-grade exam and you're doing
13:16like fourth-year uni chemistry. That's
13:19kind of what it's like to play out of
13:20position in this spot compared to play
13:23in position, which is like reciting the
13:25start of the alphabet, not even the full
13:27alphabet. It's click a bet button and
13:29good things happen, right? So, this is a
13:31fold. It is not a three-way mix. It's
13:33not indifferent. For you, it's losing.
13:36And you should trim your defense range
13:37if you're playing low and micro stakes
13:39in this spot and you should just accept
13:41that the EV comes
13:43from getting it through pre-flop or just
13:45getting called and people over-folding
13:46and under-raising to your flop C-bet.
13:48That's where the EV comes in this spot.
13:51Okay, another one. Queen 10 here in the
13:53hijack. Cutoff three-bets you. This
13:55should strike you as a meh kind of spot.
13:58It's actually just slightly losing in
14:01theory to defend this one.
14:04I beg your pardon. It's not slightly
14:05losing. It's break even. But the solver
14:07is usually folding. Okay, if you solve
14:09the sim to higher accuracy, that might
14:10become a higher frequency or it might
14:12become a pure fold. Who cares? It's
14:13very, very close.
14:15And then reality, you get really
14:17destroyed if you play this hand
14:18actually, because it's super hard to
14:20play this out of position. One day
14:21you're going to need to learn how to
14:22make queen 10 suited as good as the
14:24solver or get as close to that as
14:26possible. But even then, you should
14:28probably still over fold a little bit.
14:30Just have a look at this range here,
14:31right? When you get three bet, ace queen
14:32off is not a defend. Did you know that?
14:34Hijack against cutoff is a losing hand
14:36to defend. You can four bet it. I have
14:38sympathy for four betting regs in this
14:39note, by the way.
14:41With loads of these hands, because what
14:42a reg will do is usually when they call
14:45the four bet, they won't play that well.
14:47And
14:48they tend not to slow play aces at lower
14:51stakes as much as they should as well.
14:52So, you can kind of get very aggressive
14:54in and four bet pots with the right
14:55kinds of hands. So, if you do want to
14:57take a hand like queen 10 suited and
14:59four bet it against a reg, um it's
15:01probably not like the end of the world,
15:03but it's probably best just to fold
15:06until you know what you're doing, until
15:07you've studied that, till you're
15:08comfortable with the exploit. You just
15:09want to be really tight in this spot.
15:11This spot really, really sucks for you.
15:13And it's going to be incredibly hard to
15:15survive at all if you call the hands at
15:17the bottom of this range.
15:19And that even goes for like a hand a
15:20hand like nines. I'll tell you a story
15:21about Shawn who folded nines. Lovely
15:23chap I I don't really know him. He's a
15:25friend of a friend, but I've seen him a
15:26few times in London in the Hippodrome.
15:28He's a reg that plays 2-5 there, I
15:30believe. And once he was at my table
15:32when I was playing there, and he opened
15:34like the low jack or something, and I
15:36three bet the button, and he folded
15:37nines face up, and everyone at the table
15:38was like, "Oh my god, you folded nines,
15:40man. You nit." And I was like, "It's
15:42good fold." And then after that, he
15:44became known as Shawn who folded nines,
15:46at least within my friend circle. And I
15:48always maintained that his fold was good
15:51with nines, because he has to play out
15:52of position.
15:53And he has to figure out what he's
15:55doing, and he didn't really fancy that
15:56spot, cuz he's a sensible reg. And like
15:59one skill that separates sensible good
16:01regs from people that just try too hard
16:03and punt money is a sensible good reg
16:05just understands when a spot is met. He
16:07just doesn't take a crappy spot. Just
16:09like a good sports better doesn't take
16:12some break-even high variance bet. Just
16:15like a good blackjack player doesn't
16:17randomly increase their bet when the
16:19count is neutral, right? Or slightly
16:21bad.
16:22But the poker player does because they
16:25get these broad patterns in their head
16:27about nines. Nines is too good to fold.
16:29It's actually not. You can fold nines
16:31here if you wanted.
16:32So,
16:33hopefully I'm getting through to you. If
16:35you like the way I talk about the game
16:36where we put EV first, by the way,
16:38RunItOnce Carrot will teach you exactly
16:41how to do that in the most common
16:43preflop and postflop spots. In bronze
16:45module two, we actually have
16:48dynamic preflop. We have three episodes
16:50on dynamic preflop play on where range
16:53charts will just nowhere near get you
16:55the highest EV
16:56and how you should deviate from them.
16:59Let's make our hand really bad, but the
17:01situation
17:02really good for the human player.
17:05The human player sucks at cards compared
17:08to the robot. And so, the human player
17:10needs to have as few problems as
17:12possible to solve
17:14lest they drop loads of EV.
17:16The button has very few problems to
17:18solve. It is a smooth sailing kind of
17:21spot.
17:23So, you have the option to open the
17:24nine-four of clubs here. The solver says
17:26if you open this, you lose a little tiny
17:28fragment of a big blind.
17:30And in reality, you win a good amount of
17:32a big blind, way more
17:34than the solver thinks you lose.
17:37And that's because the solver thinks the
17:38big blind three-bets more than they do.
17:41And it's because it thinks that postflop
17:43the humans are good at playing cards.
17:45And I've talked about this one before. I
17:46won't go into lots of detail here, but I
17:48just want to finish this video
17:50by showing you some examples of where
17:51you need to be way
17:53looser.
17:54Sauce 123 strategy, right? From like
17:572009 or whatever that post was made.
18:00Don't play many hands when you're out of
18:01position to loads of players. You're
18:03going to make lots of mistakes. There'll
18:04be problems to solve. You'll be bad at
18:05them. You're a human. Tough [ __ ]
18:07Play lots of hands when your opponents
18:09have loads of problems to solve where
18:10they're going to drop loads of EV.
18:12Like here. Always open this if you play
18:1410 NL.
18:15It will print money in the long term. I
18:17guarantee that if you play semi
18:19reasonably after the flop compared to
18:21the field
18:22and you get into that habit at a lower
18:24micro stakes game
18:26of opening these hands even for like men
18:28and you do it over a massive sample and
18:30then you filter for times you opened
18:32this like category of semi dog [ __ ] hand
18:35it will be making money over a big
18:37enough sample.
18:38It will.
18:39>> [snorts]
18:39>> I promise. It's a very very good thing
18:41to do and we talk more about that in
18:42bronze carrot module two episode one the
18:45magic button.
18:47Always nice when the the right course is
18:48on screen when I'm saying that. Okay,
18:51the final one I want to talk about today
18:54is this one and this is a hand that most
18:56of you if not not not all of you but
18:58like 95% of you probably just fold here
19:01without thinking
19:02and you can in fact three bet here in
19:05equilibrium is a break even thing to do
19:07King five suited has the right mix of
19:09the King and the five the ideal blockers
19:11right we're block that ace five before
19:12it four bets you you want to want to
19:14have that King high elite level play
19:16guys to three bet the King five suited.
19:18An actual fact in theory this is zero EV
19:20it's an admissible thing that you can do
19:22sometimes
19:23and the hijack is going to struggle
19:25they're going to under four bet they're
19:26going to over fold a bit probably if
19:28they're a reg if they're a recreational
19:30they'll probably over defend but then
19:32play very badly out of position and the
19:33players behind you will miss called four
19:35bet bluffs
19:36overall at low stakes so if we have a
19:37quick look at the sim here I'm going to
19:39make a case for you always three betting
19:41this hand.
19:42So let's go on over to the sim and see
19:44what it thinks about King five of
19:45diamonds in this spot.
19:47Okay, so here is the hijack three bet
19:49range.
19:50Sorry, the button three bet range
19:51against hijack.
19:52And if we go to the King five of
19:55diamonds here
19:56any King five you can see it's zero EV
19:58it's mixing three bet and fold and then
20:00if you want to have a look at the
20:02defense strategy for hijack it looks
20:04like this.
20:05Lots of four betting with pairs that
20:06people pure flat lots of four betting
20:08with hands that people don't four bet
20:09with lots of high frequency four betting
20:11with hands that people just flat and
20:13don't four bet with at low stakes
20:15and just overall
20:17you're going to get similar fold equity
20:19to this you may get a bit less fold
20:22equity because people call way more than
20:24they should here.
20:26They fold a decent amount, but they call
20:28way more than they should and they under
20:29four bet. And what's going to happen
20:30when they call
20:32is that they're just going to go really
20:33wrong after the flop. They're not going
20:34to know how to play against just like a
20:36a normal strategy that bets a lot. So,
20:38you just three bet the sand and you bet
20:39a lot and good things happen to you.
20:41I hate to say it, but the following is
20:44probably true, guys. And you're going to
20:46hate the sound of this, I would imagine,
20:47but I want you to bear with me
20:49as I talk about this a little bit here.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of I've Seen Students Lose Thousands By Neglecting Preflop by Carrot Corner - Poker Education, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 4,348 words across 662 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to choose a caption track available on the video.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, caption language selection, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.