December 11, 2024 • 16 mins
Every hand begins with preflop play, so making correct decisions is critically important. Upswing Poker VP Mike Brady and Scottish poker pro Gary Blackwood share five actionable tips that you can use to elevate your game and take advantage of your opponent's mistakes!
Join the Upswing Poker Lab and check out the Low Stakes Launch Pad course. Make sure to use promo code LEVELUP when you sign up and you'll receive $50 off!
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00:00 Tip 1: Tighten Your Big Blind Defense
01:57 Tip 2: Big Blind Three-Bet Strategy
06:30 Tip 3: Adjusting Ranges Based on Opponents
10:35 Tip 4: Tighten Up in High Rake Environments
12:43 Tip 5: Aggression Over Passivity
15:11 Announcement: Low Stakes Launch Pad
Ready to take your poker game to the next level? In this week’s poker strategy podcast, Upswing Poker VP Mike Brady teams up with Scottish poker pro Gary Blackwood to deliver five essential tips for mastering preflop play. Whether you're an aspiring pro or a recreational player, this episode is packed with actionable strategies to plug leaks in your game and exploit your opponent's weaknesses.
The duo begins by addressing one of the most common leaks in poker: over-defending the big blind. With practical advice on hand selection and leveraging position, they help you save valuable big blinds in the long run.
Next, they dive into the art of the big blind three-bet, showcasing how an aggressive and calculated approach can dominate opponents in both theory-based and exploitative scenarios.
As the podcast progresses, you’ll learn the importance of adjusting your ranges based on the players at your table. Whether you're up against loose-passive recreational players or aggressive pros, adaptability is key to staying ahead of the competition.
Gary and Mike also explore the impact of high rake environments, emphasizing tighter ranges and smarter calls to maximize profitability.
Closing out the episode, the hosts discuss the benefits of aggressive play and how erring on the side of aggression can turn the tide in your favor, especially in low stakes games. As they say, the best players are the ones who keep their opponents uncomfortable, and this poker strategy podcast teaches you exactly how to do that.
They also announce the Low Stakes Launch Pad course, designed to provide foundational strategies for beating low stakes games. Available now in the Upswing Poker Lab, this course is a must-have for serious players.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike (00:00):
Ready to level up your preflop strategy.
I'm Mike Brady alongside Scottishpoker pro, Gary Blackwood.
Gary (00:07):
Welcome to the podcast guys and girls.
Today we're going to talk about preflop.
I'm going to give you five tips forplugging them leaks and becoming a preflop
master.
Mike:
We're going to start with relativelybasic tips that you may have heard before,
and the advice will getmore advanced as we go.
Gary:
Let's start with the most important tipthat most of our viewers will ever hear
(00:27):
on this podcast.
Avoid defending too wide fromthe big blind versus a raise and
multiple calls. Thatis not an exaggeration.
This tip could save you thousands ofbig blinds in your life. It's A, B, C,
it's a little boring. People don'twant to hear it, but it's the truth.
When you're in the big blind andit goes raise, call, call, call.
(00:48):
You are absolutely not in any way,
shape or form priced in with any ofthe trashy hands you might think you
are.
If you're the type of player who justshrugs and calls in this spot with ten
four suited, nine seven offsuit, acedeuce offsuit, king five offsuit,
the list goes on.
You need to either quit poker immediatelyor tighten up from the big blind.
(01:10):
It's such a bleed to think that you arepriced in this spot and to go ahead and
call,
especially playing live poker where thepre flop raises can be three big blinds,
four big blinds, even five bigblinds. It's kind of boring,
but tighter is better. Handslike suited kings, suited aces,
pocket threes, six foursuited totally fine,
(01:31):
but the semi-trashy hands andthe trashy hands especially,
let them go, save a few big blinds,
save more big blinds postflopand plug that leak immediately.
Mike (01:42):
You really want to focus on having hands with great playability,
particularly in multi-way pots whenyou're in these raise call, call,
call scenarios before theflop from the big blind. Gary,
what do you got for tip number two?
Gary (01:57):
Let's continue with looking at the big blind right now.
When a player raises andthe action folds to you,
don't three bet with onlypremium hands. For this spot,
we'll assume that we're playing againsta good thinking player and not a tight
recreational player or a passive playeror a calling station or anything like
that. We'll look at playing versusa button raise first of all,
(02:17):
using Lucid GTO to see what typesof hands we want to three bet.
Some obvious three bet bluffs in therelike ace five suited and Queen ten
suited, but look at all the typesof hands like jack five suited,
ten seven suited, ten eight suitedis virtually a pure three bet.
Even hands like ace four offsuit,king three suited, the list goes on.
These are really important because ouropponent is raising around 45% of hands,
(02:41):
and when we three bet we are makingthem fold around 60% of the time. That's
really quite a lot of folds thatwe're generating just by three betting
correctly.
If you have king three suited and you'remaking king ten offsuit fold always,
if you've got ace four offsuit andyou're making ace nine offsuit snap fold,
you're just doing so much better thanif you're too passive in this spot and
(03:02):
just calling.
Also say you do threebet and the button calls.
You're now playing a three bet pot asthe aggressor instead of a single-raised
pot as the caller.
You have a range advantage on way moreboards and you get to rep hands like ace
king on king seven deuce when you'vegot jack five suited for example.
It's just a better outcome all-in-all tobe three betting correctly from the big
(03:24):
blind.
That big blind three bet range isobviously quite wide versus a wide button
range and has some uncomfortable combosin it. If we take a look now at Big
Blind versus under the gun,
we'll see that we're notthree betting as aggressively,
but it's still really important to findthe suited aces, the suited connectors,
the suited broadways,
and the low frequency combos of handslike ten eight suited, king nine suited,
(03:48):
jack eight suited and so on. Again,
winning the pot preflop is really niceand another important factor is we now
have board coverage on a variety of flops.
If our range is really broadway heavywhen we three bet and the flop comes down
six five four for example, our rangeis really struggling as a result.
Last thing I'll say with this,
(04:08):
you can't just plug this leak and go frommassively under three betting from the
big blind to suddenly three betting allthese combos that you're not used to
playing. It's something you needto implement slowly and surely.
Also really important,
make sure you have a good idea of how toplay postflop so all of a sudden you're
not seeing flops with a much wider rangeand you're not sure how to play it.
(04:29):
But I cannot stress enough how importantit is to be three betting aggressively
and correctly from the big blind insteadof being too passive and just calling
with too many hands.
Mike (04:38):
Particularly against thinking players.
I've found that three betting light fromthe big blind is incredibly effective
because frankly it's justgiven so much credit.
People assume that if you had a prettygood hand you would've just flicked in
the call. You were getting great pododds. So when you decide to three bet,
they tend to put you on a very stronghand and might even make some really big
(05:00):
folds with hands like king jack suitedor even like ace jack offsuit when
they're supposed to call or fourbet. You really get a lot of respect,
at least at first.
I also want to reiterate a point thatGary made about studying postflop
after three betting from the big blindso you're not a fish out of water when
you actually reach the flop withthis wide range. For example,
(05:22):
using the Lucid Poker Trainer,
we can look at a particular situation.The button opens,
the big blind three bets, the buttoncalls and we get an ace seven six flop.
You might think, well, I three betpreflop, that's an ace high flop.
I should c-bet this flop maybe everytime, maybe 80% of the time, whatever.
I'm going to leverage my range advantageand I'm going to bet very often,
(05:44):
but if we look at how this spot isactually played by the solver in the Lucid
Poker Trainer,
we could see that on a seven six aceafter three betting from the big blind,
Lucid checks 62% of thetime facing the button.
So you can imagine how big of a mistakeit will end up being to just bet
every time when the solver ischecking well over half the time.
(06:05):
And this is the type of thing wherestudying just can't be substituted.
This isn't something that'sgoing to be easy to intuit out.
You really just have to dig into solversolutions using a tool like the Lucid
Poker Trainer and see how you'resupposed to play your range generally on
different boards,
and then you'll be better prepared toplay this loose big blind three betting
range post flop. With that said Gary, Ithink we're ready for tip number three.
Gary (06:30):
Tip number three,
be willing to adjust your rangesbased on the players at your table.
We've just spoken about the importanceof playing a good theory-based strategy
in the right spots,
but players who just stick religiouslyto their preflop charts without deviating
are making costly errors. Weuse our charts as a guide.
They are not set in stone and we mustbe happy to deviate really quite often.
(06:53):
One perfect example,
recreational players and weaker morepassive players they call preflop too much
versus raises with handsthat they shouldn't.
If I'm under the gun and there's arecreational player on the button,
I don't open a hand like six fivesuited. That'll be a mix sometimes.
I also don't open a hand like king tenoffsuit. That will be a mix sometimes.
I don't open these marginal hands thatare even more likely than usual to be out
(07:17):
of position because there is a loosepassive player on the button. What's more
the pros all want to playwith that weaker player,
so the blinds are more likelyto call that a little bit wider,
which means more multi-way pots andobviously we have less equity or they
squeeze to try and target and isolatethe weaker player on the button,
so it's just a bad scenario tobe opening these marginal hands.
(07:37):
The exploit that I make there as Itighten up and I don't open with these
marginal hands, which are morelikely to be out of position.
Another way we can deviate fromour charts is when we have really,
really aggressive players behind whowill three bet super aggressively.
Let's ditch hands like pocket twos underthe gun and jack nine suited under the
gun plus one in thatspot, and open stronger,
(07:58):
more robust ranges that won't have tofold really often versus the inevitable
three bets that are coming our way. Thesetwo examples are all about exploiting
preflop by not raising.
You can exploit in otherways like flatting monsters preflop to induce squeezes
versus aggressive players.
But a tip within a tip hereif you want to do that,
if you want to flat preflop withaces and ace king to induce squeezes,
(08:23):
do it when you're under the gunplus one or under the gun plus two.
If the hijack raises,
you should never flat ACEs in thecutoff or the button because it's so
less likely that someone squeezes andif you've got aces and you're seeing a
flop in a single raised pot,
that's just a disaster compared toseeing a three bet pot in position.
(08:43):
So if you want to flat those monstersdo it when you're under the gun plus one
or under the gun plus twoand never from late position.
Mike (08:50):
I would recommend making that move quite sparingly as well.
I have to be able to look tomy left and see at least two,
maybe three players who are goingto be squeezing aggressively in the
vast majority of lowstakes live cash games,
maybe even the vast majorityof games in general.
That's not going to be the case and you'reprobably going to be better off just
fast playing with your strong hands.
(09:13):
I'll also jump here by sharingprobably my favorite overall preflop
exploit adjustment that I like tomake, especially in low stakes games.
This one works really, reallywell in the right spots.
I love juicing up my raise sizequite considerably when there's
a massive calling station in the bigblind or a massive calling station on the
(09:34):
button or maybe one who limped.I'll give you one quick example.
I was playing a 1/2 cash game at TheLodge with my wife sometime last year. A
player limped under the gun,
ended up calling a raise and he reachedshowdown and he showed down eight four
offsuit. And he limped in earlyposition and called a raise.
So immediately I tagged that playerin my head and thought, okay,
when he's the big blind orwhen he's already in the pot,
(09:57):
I'm going to have apretty value heavy range,
and I'm going to really increasemy raise sizes by a lot.
And I think there was one hand wherehe limped for $2 and I made it like $25
with king queen suited and he calledand then he check-folded the flop.
And it's like I just made 12 and a halfbig blinds that I really should never be
making and it's all because I was payingattention and saw what that player was
(10:20):
capable of doing when it cameto his preflop calling habits.
So the key takeaway with that tip,
be observant and be creativewhen it comes to your preflop
exploitative adjustments. Alright, movingon to tip number four, take it away,
Gary.
Gary (10:35):
Again, really important.
Let's tighten up your callingranges in games with high rake.
We've spoken about not calling too widefrom the big blind multi-way earlier.
Let's go back and revisit the bigblind and now focus on higher rake
environments.
One of the great things about LucidGTO Trainer is that we have a high rake
preflop chart to go with amore normalized rake structure.
(10:57):
Look at the types of hands that are nownot calling in a higher rake environment
when the button raises and the big blindis constructing their defending range;
queen nine offsuit, jack nine offsuit,
ten eight off and then suitedhands like jack four suited nine,
five suited five deuce, fourdeuce suited the list goes on.
You can defend these in normal rakestructures, but when the rake is higher,
(11:19):
these no longer become profitable and weunfortunately have to just let them go.
It's really important that we're mindfulof the higher rake environments we find
ourselves in and we adjustaccordingly. Because like I say,
some calls go from being slightlyprofitable to slightly losing based on the
rake structure. Beating the rake doesn'tjust apply from the big blind either.
(11:39):
If we look at how the buttonresponds versus a cutoff raise,
we'll actually see Lucidplay no flats at all here.
Comparing that to areasonable rake structure,
we'll see that there's a big difference.
Overall being tighter and more aggressivepreflop will be higher EV in the high
rake structures.
Mike (11:57):
In general,
calling actions are going to be theones that suffer the most in high rake
environments because you're essentiallyguaranteeing that you're going to the
flop and you're going to pay thatrake, which reduces your pod odds.
Aggressive actions don't tend to getpenalized quite as much in a lot of spots.
You'll see a high rake sim playingjust as loose when it comes to raising
(12:20):
compared to a normal rake sim,
so a lot of the time you can stillraise roughly the same range.
You could still roughly three bet thesame range, but when it comes to calling,
you really got to tighten the screws onyour preflop game and the goal here is
to avoid paying that costly rake becauseif you just raise and take it down
preflop, you don't pay any rake at all.
We've got one more tip readyfor you. Go for it, Gary.
Gary (12:43):
My last tip is the error on the side of aggression rather than passivity.
It is so easy when we play to fallinto the trap of being a loose,
passive player, flying preflopin every spot with certain hands,
being a bit too loose, not beingaggressive, not three betting enough,
letting players behind usinto the pot for cheap,
letting the original raiser seal flopfor cheap. The best players in the world,
(13:06):
they three bet aggressively, they isolate,
they get players heads up in three betpots instead of five ways in a single
raised pot.
We all know how tough it is to playagainst an aggressive opponent who
constantly has their foot on the gas.Let's be that player. As well as that,
one of the benefits of playing like thisis that particularly at lower stakes
games, people don't four bet bluffanywhere near as much as they should,
(13:27):
which means we're going to get to see alot of flops in position. We're going to
be the aggressor or we're going to getto just c-bet and take it down a lot.
It's much more profitableto be the aggressor compared to being passive and just
calling a lot of the time.
We can use Lucid again to look at ourcutoff three bet range versus a hijack
open, so many suited broadways inthere, lots of offsuit broadways,
(13:47):
suited connectors, suited aces,
even hands like pocket sevens are inthere as a three bit instead of flatting
pre-flop and allowing other players inlet's be the aggressive player who's
putting in those re-raises,
making our opponents uncomfortable andplaying bigger pots heads up as the
aggressor.
Mike (14:05):
The one caveat I'll throw in particularly for live players,
and especially if you are a live playerwho plays in a game with low or no rake.
Because the players in your gamesprobably don't squeeze very often,
they're probably not super aggressiveand thus they let you realize a lot of
equity post flop calling is a littlebit better in those games and you can
definitely mix them in, butit's a line you have to walk.
(14:28):
You still want to bethat aggressive player,
but if I'm in middle position and I facea raise and I have pocket fives and I
look to the left of me and I have fouror five players who are just never going
to squeeze and are goingto play super passive,
I'm probably going to flick in the callwith pocket fives rather than fold or
three bet it. But again,
that's a very specific adjustmentbased on the game that I'm in.
(14:51):
In general,
you should error on the side of aggressionand be that tough player that most
people don't want to play against.
Gary (14:57):
Yeah, I totally agree.
Tip number three was to nothave our ranges set in stone,
so I totally agree withyour example there.
We want to deviate accordingly in thatexample you gave when you've got the
passive players to your left.
Let's go ahead and make the callwith the pocket fives there.
Mike (15:11):
Let's wrap up with an exciting announcement here.
The new Low Stakes Launch Pad course,
part one is live in theUpswing Lab right now. Gary,
Tim Jenkins,
and myself have collaboratedon a course within a course.
You can find it in the Upswing Lab.Again, it's called Low Stakes Launch Pad.
The idea of this course is to teach youall the fundamental poker strategy that
(15:34):
you need to know to beat low stakes games.
Part one is about a three hour lessonwhere I go over a bunch of fundamental
poker concepts that you really have toknow if you want to succeed in 2025 and
beyond. From there,
I pass it over to Tim and Gary and theygo over a bunch of specific preflop
strategies for both high rakegames and multi-way pots.
(15:55):
It actually overlaps quite a bitwith what we've discussed today,
and almost every video has resourceslinked below it where you can learn more
about what was covered in the video.Parts two and three are going to be coming
out most likely in December and January.
Those ones are going to cover postflopstrategies, exploitative adjustments,
and some intangible stuff, maybe evensome live tells. If you enjoy this show,
(16:17):
the Level-Up podcast, I thinkyou'll really enjoy this course.
We tried to make it a verysimilar teaching style where it's very digestible and
easy to understand with a lot of helpfulexplanations and resources along the
way. So if you want to check that out,
head over to upswingpoker.comand join the Upswing Lab today.
Don't forget to use couponcode LEVELUP to get $50 off.
(16:39):
Thanks for listening or watching.We'll see you in the next one.
Ready to level up your preflop strategy.
I'm Mike Brady alongside Scottishpoker pro, Gary Blackwood.
Gary (00:07):
Welcome to the podcast guys and girls.
Today we're going to talk about preflop.
I'm going to give you five tips forplugging them leaks and becoming a preflop
master.
Mike:
We're going to start with relativelybasic tips that you may have heard before,
and the advice will getmore advanced as we go.
Gary:
Let's start with the most important tipthat most of our viewers will ever hear
(00:27):
on this podcast.
Avoid defending too wide fromthe big blind versus a raise and
multiple calls. Thatis not an exaggeration.
This tip could save you thousands ofbig blinds in your life. It's A, B, C,
it's a little boring. People don'twant to hear it, but it's the truth.
When you're in the big blind andit goes raise, call, call, call.
(00:48):
You are absolutely not in any way,
shape or form priced in with any ofthe trashy hands you might think you
are.
If you're the type of player who justshrugs and calls in this spot with ten
four suited, nine seven offsuit, acedeuce offsuit, king five offsuit,
the list goes on.
You need to either quit poker immediatelyor tighten up from the big blind.
(01:10):
It's such a bleed to think that you arepriced in this spot and to go ahead and
call,
especially playing live poker where thepre flop raises can be three big blinds,
four big blinds, even five bigblinds. It's kind of boring,
but tighter is better. Handslike suited kings, suited aces,
pocket threes, six foursuited totally fine,
(01:31):
but the semi-trashy hands andthe trashy hands especially,
let them go, save a few big blinds,
save more big blinds postflopand plug that leak immediately.
Mike (01:42):
You really want to focus on having hands with great playability,
particularly in multi-way pots whenyou're in these raise call, call,
call scenarios before theflop from the big blind. Gary,
what do you got for tip number two?
Gary (01:57):
Let's continue with looking at the big blind right now.
When a player raises andthe action folds to you,
don't three bet with onlypremium hands. For this spot,
we'll assume that we're playing againsta good thinking player and not a tight
recreational player or a passive playeror a calling station or anything like
that. We'll look at playing versusa button raise first of all,
(02:17):
using Lucid GTO to see what typesof hands we want to three bet.
Some obvious three bet bluffs in therelike ace five suited and Queen ten
suited, but look at all the typesof hands like jack five suited,
ten seven suited, ten eight suitedis virtually a pure three bet.
Even hands like ace four offsuit,king three suited, the list goes on.
These are really important because ouropponent is raising around 45% of hands,
(02:41):
and when we three bet we are makingthem fold around 60% of the time. That's
really quite a lot of folds thatwe're generating just by three betting
correctly.
If you have king three suited and you'remaking king ten offsuit fold always,
if you've got ace four offsuit andyou're making ace nine offsuit snap fold,
you're just doing so much better thanif you're too passive in this spot and
(03:02):
just calling.
Also say you do threebet and the button calls.
You're now playing a three bet pot asthe aggressor instead of a single-raised
pot as the caller.
You have a range advantage on way moreboards and you get to rep hands like ace
king on king seven deuce when you'vegot jack five suited for example.
It's just a better outcome all-in-all tobe three betting correctly from the big
(03:24):
blind.
That big blind three bet range isobviously quite wide versus a wide button
range and has some uncomfortable combosin it. If we take a look now at Big
Blind versus under the gun,
we'll see that we're notthree betting as aggressively,
but it's still really important to findthe suited aces, the suited connectors,
the suited broadways,
and the low frequency combos of handslike ten eight suited, king nine suited,
(03:48):
jack eight suited and so on. Again,
winning the pot preflop is really niceand another important factor is we now
have board coverage on a variety of flops.
If our range is really broadway heavywhen we three bet and the flop comes down
six five four for example, our rangeis really struggling as a result.
Last thing I'll say with this,
(04:08):
you can't just plug this leak and go frommassively under three betting from the
big blind to suddenly three betting allthese combos that you're not used to
playing. It's something you needto implement slowly and surely.
Also really important,
make sure you have a good idea of how toplay postflop so all of a sudden you're
not seeing flops with a much wider rangeand you're not sure how to play it.
(04:29):
But I cannot stress enough how importantit is to be three betting aggressively
and correctly from the big blind insteadof being too passive and just calling
with too many hands.
Mike (04:38):
Particularly against thinking players.
I've found that three betting light fromthe big blind is incredibly effective
because frankly it's justgiven so much credit.
People assume that if you had a prettygood hand you would've just flicked in
the call. You were getting great pododds. So when you decide to three bet,
they tend to put you on a very stronghand and might even make some really big
(05:00):
folds with hands like king jack suitedor even like ace jack offsuit when
they're supposed to call or fourbet. You really get a lot of respect,
at least at first.
I also want to reiterate a point thatGary made about studying postflop
after three betting from the big blindso you're not a fish out of water when
you actually reach the flop withthis wide range. For example,
(05:22):
using the Lucid Poker Trainer,
we can look at a particular situation.The button opens,
the big blind three bets, the buttoncalls and we get an ace seven six flop.
You might think, well, I three betpreflop, that's an ace high flop.
I should c-bet this flop maybe everytime, maybe 80% of the time, whatever.
I'm going to leverage my range advantageand I'm going to bet very often,
(05:44):
but if we look at how this spot isactually played by the solver in the Lucid
Poker Trainer,
we could see that on a seven six aceafter three betting from the big blind,
Lucid checks 62% of thetime facing the button.
So you can imagine how big of a mistakeit will end up being to just bet
every time when the solver ischecking well over half the time.
(06:05):
And this is the type of thing wherestudying just can't be substituted.
This isn't something that'sgoing to be easy to intuit out.
You really just have to dig into solversolutions using a tool like the Lucid
Poker Trainer and see how you'resupposed to play your range generally on
different boards,
and then you'll be better prepared toplay this loose big blind three betting
range post flop. With that said Gary, Ithink we're ready for tip number three.
Gary (06:30):
Tip number three,
be willing to adjust your rangesbased on the players at your table.
We've just spoken about the importanceof playing a good theory-based strategy
in the right spots,
but players who just stick religiouslyto their preflop charts without deviating
are making costly errors. Weuse our charts as a guide.
They are not set in stone and we mustbe happy to deviate really quite often.
(06:53):
One perfect example,
recreational players and weaker morepassive players they call preflop too much
versus raises with handsthat they shouldn't.
If I'm under the gun and there's arecreational player on the button,
I don't open a hand like six fivesuited. That'll be a mix sometimes.
I also don't open a hand like king tenoffsuit. That will be a mix sometimes.
I don't open these marginal hands thatare even more likely than usual to be out
(07:17):
of position because there is a loosepassive player on the button. What's more
the pros all want to playwith that weaker player,
so the blinds are more likelyto call that a little bit wider,
which means more multi-way pots andobviously we have less equity or they
squeeze to try and target and isolatethe weaker player on the button,
so it's just a bad scenario tobe opening these marginal hands.
(07:37):
The exploit that I make there as Itighten up and I don't open with these
marginal hands, which are morelikely to be out of position.
Another way we can deviate fromour charts is when we have really,
really aggressive players behind whowill three bet super aggressively.
Let's ditch hands like pocket twos underthe gun and jack nine suited under the
gun plus one in thatspot, and open stronger,
(07:58):
more robust ranges that won't have tofold really often versus the inevitable
three bets that are coming our way. Thesetwo examples are all about exploiting
preflop by not raising.
You can exploit in otherways like flatting monsters preflop to induce squeezes
versus aggressive players.
But a tip within a tip hereif you want to do that,
if you want to flat preflop withaces and ace king to induce squeezes,
(08:23):
do it when you're under the gunplus one or under the gun plus two.
If the hijack raises,
you should never flat ACEs in thecutoff or the button because it's so
less likely that someone squeezes andif you've got aces and you're seeing a
flop in a single raised pot,
that's just a disaster compared toseeing a three bet pot in position.
(08:43):
So if you want to flat those monstersdo it when you're under the gun plus one
or under the gun plus twoand never from late position.
Mike (08:50):
I would recommend making that move quite sparingly as well.
I have to be able to look tomy left and see at least two,
maybe three players who are goingto be squeezing aggressively in the
vast majority of lowstakes live cash games,
maybe even the vast majorityof games in general.
That's not going to be the case and you'reprobably going to be better off just
fast playing with your strong hands.
(09:13):
I'll also jump here by sharingprobably my favorite overall preflop
exploit adjustment that I like tomake, especially in low stakes games.
This one works really, reallywell in the right spots.
I love juicing up my raise sizequite considerably when there's
a massive calling station in the bigblind or a massive calling station on the
(09:34):
button or maybe one who limped.I'll give you one quick example.
I was playing a 1/2 cash game at TheLodge with my wife sometime last year. A
player limped under the gun,
ended up calling a raise and he reachedshowdown and he showed down eight four
offsuit. And he limped in earlyposition and called a raise.
So immediately I tagged that playerin my head and thought, okay,
when he's the big blind orwhen he's already in the pot,
(09:57):
I'm going to have apretty value heavy range,
and I'm going to really increasemy raise sizes by a lot.
And I think there was one hand wherehe limped for $2 and I made it like $25
with king queen suited and he calledand then he check-folded the flop.
And it's like I just made 12 and a halfbig blinds that I really should never be
making and it's all because I was payingattention and saw what that player was
(10:20):
capable of doing when it cameto his preflop calling habits.
So the key takeaway with that tip,
be observant and be creativewhen it comes to your preflop
exploitative adjustments. Alright, movingon to tip number four, take it away,
Gary.
Gary (10:35):
Again, really important.
Let's tighten up your callingranges in games with high rake.
We've spoken about not calling too widefrom the big blind multi-way earlier.
Let's go back and revisit the bigblind and now focus on higher rake
environments.
One of the great things about LucidGTO Trainer is that we have a high rake
preflop chart to go with amore normalized rake structure.
(10:57):
Look at the types of hands that are nownot calling in a higher rake environment
when the button raises and the big blindis constructing their defending range;
queen nine offsuit, jack nine offsuit,
ten eight off and then suitedhands like jack four suited nine,
five suited five deuce, fourdeuce suited the list goes on.
You can defend these in normal rakestructures, but when the rake is higher,
(11:19):
these no longer become profitable and weunfortunately have to just let them go.
It's really important that we're mindfulof the higher rake environments we find
ourselves in and we adjustaccordingly. Because like I say,
some calls go from being slightlyprofitable to slightly losing based on the
rake structure. Beating the rake doesn'tjust apply from the big blind either.
(11:39):
If we look at how the buttonresponds versus a cutoff raise,
we'll actually see Lucidplay no flats at all here.
Comparing that to areasonable rake structure,
we'll see that there's a big difference.
Overall being tighter and more aggressivepreflop will be higher EV in the high
rake structures.
Mike (11:57):
In general,
calling actions are going to be theones that suffer the most in high rake
environments because you're essentiallyguaranteeing that you're going to the
flop and you're going to pay thatrake, which reduces your pod odds.
Aggressive actions don't tend to getpenalized quite as much in a lot of spots.
You'll see a high rake sim playingjust as loose when it comes to raising
(12:20):
compared to a normal rake sim,
so a lot of the time you can stillraise roughly the same range.
You could still roughly three bet thesame range, but when it comes to calling,
you really got to tighten the screws onyour preflop game and the goal here is
to avoid paying that costly rake becauseif you just raise and take it down
preflop, you don't pay any rake at all.
We've got one more tip readyfor you. Go for it, Gary.
Gary (12:43):
My last tip is the error on the side of aggression rather than passivity.
It is so easy when we play to fallinto the trap of being a loose,
passive player, flying preflopin every spot with certain hands,
being a bit too loose, not beingaggressive, not three betting enough,
letting players behind usinto the pot for cheap,
letting the original raiser seal flopfor cheap. The best players in the world,
(13:06):
they three bet aggressively, they isolate,
they get players heads up in three betpots instead of five ways in a single
raised pot.
We all know how tough it is to playagainst an aggressive opponent who
constantly has their foot on the gas.Let's be that player. As well as that,
one of the benefits of playing like thisis that particularly at lower stakes
games, people don't four bet bluffanywhere near as much as they should,
(13:27):
which means we're going to get to see alot of flops in position. We're going to
be the aggressor or we're going to getto just c-bet and take it down a lot.
It's much more profitableto be the aggressor compared to being passive and just
calling a lot of the time.
We can use Lucid again to look at ourcutoff three bet range versus a hijack
open, so many suited broadways inthere, lots of offsuit broadways,
(13:47):
suited connectors, suited aces,
even hands like pocket sevens are inthere as a three bit instead of flatting
pre-flop and allowing other players inlet's be the aggressive player who's
putting in those re-raises,
making our opponents uncomfortable andplaying bigger pots heads up as the
aggressor.
Mike (14:05):
The one caveat I'll throw in particularly for live players,
and especially if you are a live playerwho plays in a game with low or no rake.
Because the players in your gamesprobably don't squeeze very often,
they're probably not super aggressiveand thus they let you realize a lot of
equity post flop calling is a littlebit better in those games and you can
definitely mix them in, butit's a line you have to walk.
(14:28):
You still want to bethat aggressive player,
but if I'm in middle position and I facea raise and I have pocket fives and I
look to the left of me and I have fouror five players who are just never going
to squeeze and are goingto play super passive,
I'm probably going to flick in the callwith pocket fives rather than fold or
three bet it. But again,
that's a very specific adjustmentbased on the game that I'm in.
(14:51):
In general,
you should error on the side of aggressionand be that tough player that most
people don't want to play against.
Gary (14:57):
Yeah, I totally agree.
Tip number three was to nothave our ranges set in stone,
so I totally agree withyour example there.
We want to deviate accordingly in thatexample you gave when you've got the
passive players to your left.
Let's go ahead and make the callwith the pocket fives there.
Mike (15:11):
Let's wrap up with an exciting announcement here.
The new Low Stakes Launch Pad course,
part one is live in theUpswing Lab right now. Gary,
Tim Jenkins,
and myself have collaboratedon a course within a course.
You can find it in the Upswing Lab.Again, it's called Low Stakes Launch Pad.
The idea of this course is to teach youall the fundamental poker strategy that
(15:34):
you need to know to beat low stakes games.
Part one is about a three hour lessonwhere I go over a bunch of fundamental
poker concepts that you really have toknow if you want to succeed in 2025 and
beyond. From there,
I pass it over to Tim and Gary and theygo over a bunch of specific preflop
strategies for both high rakegames and multi-way pots.
(15:55):
It actually overlaps quite a bitwith what we've discussed today,
and almost every video has resourceslinked below it where you can learn more
about what was covered in the video.Parts two and three are going to be coming
out most likely in December and January.
Those ones are going to cover postflopstrategies, exploitative adjustments,
and some intangible stuff, maybe evensome live tells. If you enjoy this show,
(16:17):
the Level-Up podcast, I thinkyou'll really enjoy this course.
We tried to make it a verysimilar teaching style where it's very digestible and
easy to understand with a lot of helpfulexplanations and resources along the
way. So if you want to check that out,
head over to upswingpoker.comand join the Upswing Lab today.
Don't forget to use couponcode LEVELUP to get $50 off.
(16:39):
Thanks for listening or watching.We'll see you in the next one.
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