500NL, 1000NL and 2000NL Hands with a HIGH-STAKES PRO

[@craigmontalbano]

This was awesome Pete. Have him on more! Loved it.

[@susymay7831]

A great guest. Looking forward to hopefully many more episodes with this guest!

[@archerscherer44]

Love your content.. For real, some of the best poker content out there. This is your best video in 3-4 month hands down. This guy needs to be on your channel more! He echoes your teaching style in such a way that is massively additive to the content and beneficial to the student. One student’s opinion

[@MikeD-rr2bj]

Every video is Clarke's best video

[@ltsjack]

Love the shout-out to The Grinders Manual and the accompanying head shake when asked if it's still something you recommend haha I would not recommend it anymore either but that's one of the first pieces of content that really got me started as well and will always have a special place

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

Yeah I was proud of how it did in its day but poker has moved on A LOT.

[@zekemiller7999]

In what ways would you say poker has moved on/what sections of TGM are outdated? I read it within the last year and thought it was outstanding, so I'm curious if I could modernize in some areas :)

[@jonquixotte9448]

@@CarrotCornerPoker I got your book and asked you these questions and you never answered me.

[@yoniker83]

@@CarrotCornerPoker If you can expand on why you wouldn't recommend it today? I'm going through the book right now and loving it, the way that you make the reader think all the time. Other than preflop what is not correct in the book?

[@mikemcgovern8990]

Great as expected! Loved the 2 of you bouncing ideas off one another and generally agreeing. Looking forward to part 2

[@Wiffle_]

Love videos like this. Pete + Competent players breaking down their thought processes is super valuable.

[@best7993]

I have a question about 17:00. We are talking about villain having maybe ace jack suited or kj or kq suited. But i fold literally all of those in 4 bet pots and instead call with like 56 78 and then ace king/ace queen. Isnt that what we are suposed to do because of reversed implied odds? Or is folding those hands bad? Its so confusing because it seems like good regs play these hands yet ur not suposed to? Whats the deal here

[@kingjonc]

Two really good nuggets here for me. The 4bet pots not mattering much in the solver’s eyes due to low spr, and playing pure lines instead of mixed if the villain is either balanced or biased in only one direction.

[@PhonyBologna]

Solver's river play is an unstable equalibrium. Often if opponent is overbluffing, you should call with all bluff catchers (that beat their bluffs), and if they are under bluffing you should fold everything and only start thinking calling when you start matching/beating their value bets (as you both block their value, and of course can win at show)

[@kingjonc]

Yeah this is a concept I’m already familiar with. I just love the step further where the villain might be a reg with perfect frequencies but we don’t give up any ev by playing a mix strategy as a pure strategy, and! If the villain happens to be making a mistake, the pure line begins to print.

[@PhonyBologna]

@@kingjonc it's the same concept, just reworded. He is just saying villain is just bounding it. He is still saying X% overbluff or underbluff, which is still the same concept of saying villain has X tendency here. Technically in the real world it's often like 20% under bluff to 10% overbluff. So it crosses both thresholds, but the skew you land on, say 5% underbluff is what matters

[@kingjonc]

@@PhonyBolognayeah I agree. All we are saying is we can rule out one direction of bias from the villain. Either over bluffing or under bluffing and then the consequence is that we can play a pure strategy even if the villain in actuality is playing perfectly gto as playing a pure strategy doesn’t give up ev if it was normally a mix. Edit: missed the second part. I guess we can think that way. But I personally wouldn’t use that logic in game. It’s either they might be over or under not some mix of both. I wouldn’t trust my random parameters in game and if I could see either an over or under bluff in a spot, I’m just gonna stick to Gto

[@Donker-Konger]

This was so good I turned down the playback speed. I want to think because it was so good I wanted to relish the content and make it last like my last Highland Toffee bar. Probably the reason was this was strategy dense enough that I needed the playback to be slower to understand. Regardless, I loved this content and will return again to watch every so often. Please, Mr. Clarke, please more content at this strategy level.

[@douglasjamesmartin]

"from solvers perspective 4b pots are the smallest pots" - random guy i never heard of. Beautiful

[@jrm8206]

Nice one. He looks and talks like a NASA engineer that makes an extra 100k a year clicking buttons in his spare time 😃

[@UpliftSomeone]

Keep it coming Pete, love your channel!

[@mikemcgovern8990]

Read the title and got immediately excited! This is the content!

[@bigenglish22]

When Alex is talking, the camera should do a slow zoom to Pete´s face with Marvin Gaye ´s Let's Get It On playing as background

[@liamo4287]

i usually get bored fast of hearing people talk poker, but i watched this to the end. very good

[@randomrivers]

Awesome content! Looking forward to part 2

[@bebla8381]

I dont think he would have showed the A6 hand had it not worked out... Sure CO can have a lot of bluffs, but for that size he is ALLOWED to bluff like 40% of the time, hes got around 20-25 value combos (+30 if you count AJ/AQ, which would be value bets vs A6), so even if he bluffs absolutely everything you have barely the right equity to call. Calling is just hoping to be shown Q high and win, without considering much else.

[@ekw555]

thanks Alex & Pete!

[@Awre18]

What a crusher, listening to this and seeing these hands is cool asf, crushing 200nl right now hopefully I’ll be able to play against guys like this soon if I can break through the 500nl barrier I love reg battling

[@CancelIFR]

The biggest issue with making an OOL call down vs a reg in a small pool is that you’ll quickly be countered. You can easily exploit this call by calling down mixed combos pure and have a sustainable exploit that goes undetected.

[@Rocks_a_Rolex]

I like most of the stuff here and I think PC is a very good teacher in general. That said, not sure what I'm supposed to take away from the A6s hand? Calling the turn loses money and calling the river burns it. PC says that "if you showed this to an advanced player...they would get it instantly." Agreed...I can say with a very high degree of confidence that every advanced player will say that calling river with an EV loss of ~18bbs is, well...suboptimal. Even the SD (J9s is almost a pure bluffjam) reveals nothing about villain, or his alleged tendency to overbluff. If we did accept the premise that villain overbluffs otr, we have PLENTY of other combos available (K4s-K7s for example) that make better hero calls since they only lose ~2bbs. Could it be a US Cash/Cool Kids thing to randomize calling combos facing 3x OBs otr? Sounds more fun than estimating EVs. "Hey Pete...you're not gonna believe this but I just rolled A6s...I'm f----ed."

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

I will make one point in response to this. When humans deviate from equilibrium and EVs swing as a result of the imbalance, they do so as a direct function of how much is in the middle. When we face a jam for 3x pot and make a call, 16bb is a much smaller amount in % pot than we’re used to it being. I’m not saying this is a winning call, I’m still on the fence about that, but I don’t think it takes as much overbluffing across turn and river collectively as the raw solver ev in bbs suggests at first sight. Small swings in a huge pot can lead to large changes in EV when it’s expressed in BBs.

[@Rocks_a_Rolex]

@@CarrotCornerPoker Fair point but the point that I was trying to make, that may have been lost on you, is that not all bluff catchers are alike. Consequently, it's vital that we consider them relative to one another, as opposed to other variables (such as the size of the pot.) If you make a quantitative comparison, it will be clear that A6dd is one of the worst bluff catchers in terms of EV. To give a simple illustration of this point, if we increase villain's bluff combos by 100%, or 2x, we can widen our calling range (from 25% to ~37%) but we still don't have to consider A6dd as a viable option. Another point to consider is players who use 3x river sizings are far more likely to be cognizant of the fact that they can have a high % (43) of bluffs. It's tedious but if you mess around with villain's value/bluff ratio, you'll conclude that it would require not a significant but a momentous departure from GTO to get into the territory where we can't fold A6dd.

[@JankyJimmy]

I think what we should take from it is the “street poker” concept. Being a player in the same pool as Alex, I feel this spot 100% (A6s hand) he trusted his read and gut and called with great reasoning behind why. The stakes he plays at; the players are very well versed in theory. Very. This could be apart of a lot of unseen actions. Not the first tango he’s had w this villain. The leveling wars on PSMiNj are real; reg battles get gritty

[@MikeySmithJones]

Great discussions. Thanks for the content!

[@NorgieGeordie]

This was class - thanks for this keep up the amazing work!

[@ncannavino11]

Yo this Alex dude is cool have him on more !

[@danthemaninapan]

I found this fascinating! I've actually been reading the Grinder's Manual recently and, as a new player, have found it insightful. Given that you suggest it is somewhat dated these days, do you have a recommendation for where/how I can continue to study while I cannot yet afford the carrot corner classes?

[@ZakharovProkhor]

I personally found GTO Poker Simplified by O'Kearney and Carter to be the best single poker book I've read, covering game theory reasoning for most of a chapter and then providing heuristic summaries at the end. It's a lot more digestible than Acevedo's Modern Poker Theory.

[@julek94]

28:00 I know it's probably a silly question but if the stacks were a bit deeper here, lets say villain and hero have another 900$ behind, would it be crazy to go all-in there to represent AA or TT full house as the hero can have those hands and villain can't? Cheers.

[@gemini1213]

Great format. Would love to see more of those.

[@fredrik.p6226]

Nice vid. Peter what's your main game and stakes?

[@JankyJimmy]

So happy to see you back excited for the game of NLH; truly makes me happy Pete!! Keep feeding us these 🥕s so we can see clearly and perform optimally 🤓🥂 (ps I’m from Mi and I have a very good idea who this player is, but will not name as it seems he would like to remain anonymous)

[@cubanhack3r]

Question remains! Is he good in your opinion or not?

[@JankyJimmy]

Pete is a 🐐 Great coach. Are you asking if I think the player in video is good?? Because I’m in Mi pool and very well know this dude “Alex” is the real deal. Arguably the “end boss” of our pool on PokerStarsMiNj

[@cubanhack3r]

@jamesthornton8447 Absolutely, he's undeniably the greatest of all time! I inquired about Alex, and it seems you've provided the answer. Appreciate it! I was so impressed with his skills that I even searched for any KZbin or other content featuring him. He surpassed my expectations of what a top-notch crusher is capable of.

[@JankyJimmy]

@@cubanhack3r I’m think he’s wanting to remain anonymous; which is understandable. Personally I know his handle on PSMINJ but I’m not going to put it out there if he doesn’t it want it out. I will say the $200-$2,000 stakes on PokerStars Michigan/New Jersey is a very competitive competent group of grinders. VERY solid pool. I swim at the baby stakes compared to him

[@JankyJimmy]

Very small “elite” pool up there at the nosebleeds too.

[@TimeHandler]

Great stuff, thanks to the both of you!

[@bappo795]

6:32 carrot corner league game review when?

[@heelloooooo956]

You are the effin BEST my man. ❤

[@huggins_will]

Great video, Pete and Alex!

[@Eddie-m7v]

sick content. need more of this.

[@jeegee-cx7ss]

Sorry, but calling a spade a spade... the a6s call isn't good. It's actually really bad. Villain would have to be over bluffing by a huge margin, not to mention that you get beat by bluffs. There's a term here used in the uk. "woeful". It's a woeful call.

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

It’s a pretty big punt in theory but I don’t think it’s as bad as it seems when you consider how humans play this spot.

[@TheDublistic]

looking forward to part 2

[@JankyJimmy]

I see you Dublistic 👀 (JankyJimmy here)

[@seanupton709]

I like how you pronounce 'Nick Eastwood' as 'Nicky Smooth'. The poker stuff is also good.

[@jalapenonhabaneron8223]

How would the reasoning change for hero if villain bet 66-100% on the river?

[@gablen23]

Very entertaining and super informative, thx!

[@icy-spoon85]

Since you don't recommend your Grinder's Manual anymore, what would you recommend for a modern complete coverage of the game? I'm not new but have lots of holes in my game and could use a refresher. My knowledge of poker is pre 2016

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

The Carrot Poker school. Start with grade 1 and take it from there. You can have a browse through the syllabus and watch some previews at carrotcorner.com

[@KingsOfCardio]

Why are you ruling out TT based on "his preflop action"? Tens actually call more than 3B here. It's 60% call, 40% 3B vs an RFI from CO.

[@NAAF761]

The “regs” in this pool would lose at 100 RnC. If you’re not familiar with this site it honestly might be softer than global poker

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

100 r n c is insanely soft. I think 2011 regs could mostly beat it.

[@Sawstinker]

And yet his statement is true

[@paulgibbons-keynotespeaker]

Excuse my ignorance - what is RnC?

[@6mikros9]

High stakes reg plays his hand in every spot 😂this guy gonna get smoked

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

Shut up

[@abstract1603]

We should relocate to America, this video is the proof...we are waste our times in European poker pools 😅

[@Jacobson-dp7gg]

This HIGH STAKES PRO sounds like a microstakes player in non-US pools with all the same leaks and misunderstandings.

[@teeraw4575]

Imagine playing on a site so soft you can make it to 2k NL and “never make decisions based on blockers.”

[@Ryan-ds5zc]

everything about this hand is so hard to watch, from the flop where homie says doesn't like to x/r Ax because they have too much showdown value (very telling statement about your flop x/r range construction across the board), to the poorly calibrated calling thresholds (you can absolutely fold on both flop and turn), to the insane river call with a hand that only blocks bluffs and never blocks value in a spot where we can be very selective with our catchers, to the part where Pete thinks this hand history demonstrates a high level of play (?????). I feel kind of bad roasting the guy but he did kind of ask for it by initiating the conversation to make this video. my main takeaway is that I need to move to Michigan

[@JankyJimmy]

@@Ryan-ds5zc feel free to join us!! Beautiful place to live but don’t be mad when you get liquidated 😉

[@6mikros9]

Very random stuff, btw his hand(A6ss) I think only can x/r flop some frequensy and never call vs Co range..

[@1312Mork2]

Nah a6s can never fold on flop vs quarter. You can raise you can call but you definately cannot fold with a6bdfd​@@6mikros9

[@Jacobson-dp7gg]

@@purposefulpowerIf you think calling a 3x pot river shove with A6 high is only 2% worse than calling an actual bluffcatcher you’ve never studied with solvers. Probably listened to much to Pete constantly saying “high stakes pro” “really good regs” “my other high stakes students” and fell for his nonsense when he hasn’t got a clue

[@supertequila]

Good content 👍

[@mrpiter1910]

If you no liner recommend "The Grinder's manual" then could you explain why and what would you recommend?

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

The Carrot Poker School courses are my most recent and comprehensive works ever. The Grinder’s Manual isn’t terrible but it’s pretty outdated and nowhere near as detailed or objectively solid as the video courses.

[@Oque.Nos.Somoss]

Amazing content!

[@best7993]

On the 19:00 check jam there. Its really hard for me to understand this. So after they call 4bet they have like 45s+ some pocket pairs ofcourse. And then like aq ak. They dont have kj/k10/a10 kq s right? Isnt that too lose preflop? With all the reversed implied odds and stuff. Then on turn they bet with a lot of hands but almost everything has something right. There is sets aces kings queens 77 is open ended. Hands like 56 has 2 pair ok. Then bluffs is like 109s maaaybe like aq. Then what value is calling u after the jam? 10s are folding right? So all the sets call u so does kings queens aces. Only hand u probably beat is like 77s but that has loads of equity. So where am i wrong here? Im pretty sure i am just not understanding that spot. Please help me carrotman

[@brenneisenchevy981]

cool video but what i really dislike in the first hand is if you assume your opponent is a good reg he should realise you think hes overbluffing this spot when you start calling Ad6d and can adjust in the future but when you just start calling all your Kx and AT he can just talk himself that he ran into bad rng and got bluffcatched and keep on overbluffing this spot.

[@Kevin-ji4lt]

Thanks Pete !

[@theryan244]

Vitruvianman?

[@DBscooperPoker]

The jacks hand seemed "face up". The discussion/explanation sounded like that is okay. I suppose the range is narrow so you can bluff with a small number of hands. But if I were the villain I think I would put him on a hand like 1010-AA a large percentage of the time (weighted more toward JJ QQ). It seems like there are no sets and minimal straights or two pairs. I paused the video and made this comment before seeing the result, and I think villains hand is unimportant to the point here (other than that it feels like they will make correct decisions often) If anyone can explain if I am wrong in that assessment or if it's right but doesn't matter. If hero is balanced are most bluffs from draws here?

[@Coq7]

Some high level thoughts shared here

[@MikeD-rr2bj]

Good stuff

[@NAAF761]

I turned it off as soon as I heard Michigan. Might as well go back in time to 2011 and play.

[@francescoiadicicco1266]

I'm miles away from those stakes and level of thinking, but when a rec fish bombs the river I CALL. No matter what. 😆

[@daviddivad777]

wait, about the a6s call. if the idea is that V is over bluffing, he would have all the bluffs that beat you too (bluffing all his no SDV hand) CPS says always fold if you lose to bluffs, right? so I don't see the justification making sense. (if V was a confirmed spazz/whale maybe but he said Villain was a good reg. a good reg would not make themselves that exploitable vs another by bluffing so many combo's a6 become a call here.)

[@paulmccrory6511]

Great guest...

[@mikemaluf2496]

great content

[@jonathantolan3503]

So unusual to see a poker player mention symbolic logic! (I did Mathematical Logic at uni)

[@All-about-everything]

I crushed 1k nl 8’yesrs ago and I’m totally Confused by all This

[@Tacomonday]

first hand was insaneeeee

[@paulpena5040]

I don't like results oriented thinking. The call down with A 6 is just bad. He caught the nut low of villain's bluffing range and it's a coincidence that he did so. He's losing to almost all reasonable bluffs here. Unless he knows this guy is PARTICULARLY spewy but according to him that's not the case.

[@TheStockAlchemist]

You're probably losing like 30bb with the A6 call. The A7+ aren't the only bluffs you still lose to. You lose to 8x, 10x, 3x, and 2x which are not unreasonable bluff candidates because they block sets and 2p combos. This call is such a losing call it's making my head spin. You even have the Ad which we really want the villain to have. You have to call with roughly the top 25% of hands, and if we think the guy is a maniac, we might be able to expand that to the top 50% of our hands. But ace high is still squarely in the bottom 50%.

[@williamchristopher5653]

I have just started reading the grinder's manual. So I should just throw it out?!

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

It’s outdated and limited in depth. We highly recommend the carrot poker school for a solid modern poker education.

[@williamchristopher5653]

If I could afford that I'd buy it as I've just started playing poker again, the grinder's manual is free and it has actually helped my game a lot. I will purchase CPS when I can@@CarrotCornerPoker

[@hugh6948]

Hey mate, not trying to discount any of the work you've put into your courses, but I do find, even for someone like myself who's trying to get into poker with at least some amount of serious intent, that your courses are rather expensive! I simply couldn't imagine paying that much, even though I wish I could. I love your delivery of speech and style of education, which has drawn me towards your channel, but I guess I'll have to stick to the free content. Is there anything else you would recommend that's lighter on the wallet? Thanks!

[@TheStockAlchemist]

Check jam with JJ is a punt. Are we trying to get 99-TT to hero fold? Your reasoning was on the right track when you said players either underprotect their check back range or they adequately protect their range (they don't overprotect). THIS IS A REASON FOR BETTING JJ, NOT CHECKING. Do you see why?? The only way I can get behind this play is if villain is a whale who will call 4b pre with like 50% of hands and gii on turn with pair+ or any sd. But you said he was a solid reg. Probe the turn small to make hands like AK indifferent and then check river.

[@tessademsky1156]

absolute psycho call hooooooly.... fucking savage

[@MK-qz7fw]

The A6s call is just horrendous. You got lucky and that's It, you got way morę better hands to defend with, especially against this sizing.

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

Id try to stop thinking this way unless you’re sure there’s no exploit available. How many better hands you have to defend with doesn’t causally affect the ev of defending this hand. The call could be bad, I’m still not 100% but this isn’t because we have better defends. It’s bad if we have less equity than we need vs a good reg’s range and good if we have more. Of course if we played this way permanently over the long term vs a good player we would get wrecked but we are free to adjust from this showdown just as villain is.

[@christophera3330]

I agree. I think people tend to get overly results oriented and might be quicker to defend the play because it ended up being "beautiful". But by all means, awesome hand.

[@MK-qz7fw]

Id rather have some folds, and this is the absolute bottom of my range. If villian has brain he's never bluffing me again with this line and i want him to have bluffs there..@@CarrotCornerPoker

[@mariodiaz3976]

11:00 I think the A6 suited hand is a very bad call in the river. Its important not to be result oriented, the fact that he was bluffing doesnt mean It was a good call in theory excluding tells. When he bets 3x pot you should fold most of your range. AT or K7 K6 are so much better calls blocking 2 pairs. I think your hand is one of the worst hands you could have to call. The fact that you unblock bluffs doesnt mean its a good call, you should also block value which your hand doesn't. Haven't looked the hand Up but I am guessing It looses minimum 50bb per 100 that call. Also blockers are very very important in poker in a lot of cases, I dont understand how a 2k reg can say, he doesnt care about blockers.

[@mariodiaz3976]

Hahahaha. Its actually the worst call of all time. Just looked the hand Up. The call in the River looses 1800 bb per 100😂

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

It’s doesn’t lose 1800bb/100 hands. It loses 1800bb/100 every 100 times this spot comes up. This is a really misleading way to use the bb/100 metric because it usually tracks all of the hands you play not just one spot in which you play a giant pot multiplied by 100.

[@mariodiaz3976]

@@CarrotCornerPoker in gto wizard It says -18bb. To my understanding that means 1800 bb per 100. My teacher always says a -0.01ev hand means losing 1bb per 100 which is equivalent.

[@Ryan-ds5zc]

agree with Pete. just say the call loses 18bb. People, even some high stakes players, love just randomly multiplying by 100 and saying bb/100 and it makes absolutely no sense. if anything it probably makes more sense to divide than to multiply, eg let's say you face this line once every 1000 hands then you could say that you're torching 1.8bb/100 here. That's more insightful than just mindlessly multiplying one hand's EV by 100.

[@mariodiaz3976]

@@Ryan-ds5zc It makes total sense to mutiply by 100 to me. It's done because its easy to work with integers. There isn't much more to it.

[@DanDanOreo]

letsss goo soo goood

[@christophera3330]

Another thing that was not mentioned, I think. From Villain's point of view: He probably "knew" on the river that Hero didn't have a set (and maybe even two pair), as they probably would raise turn. So that left Hero with one pair or ace high.

[@robertosansone8992]

Pure Gold as usual...Just a question...are you a psychologist???😅

[@ogle-tr-122bpoker7]

He is calling station

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

Maybe. Or maybe you’re a HUGE NIT??

[@ogle-tr-122bpoker7]

No. I am also calling station😃

[@highwaymoses]

“this guy is absolutely terrible at poker and he couldn’t beat the stakes that I play at (2NL)”

[@redrex0032]

Ridiculously bad video

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

Ohh shut up

[@luckymaggie6594]

Actually a good way to improve poker is to just talk hands with your fellow poker colleagues.

[@dougspanky]

is this dude a plant?

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

No, while both plants and humans are carbon based lifeforms, Alex is a much more complex organism with many organs where as plants are simpler structures. It is thought that plants probably lack the ability to reason and therefore the capacity to play high stakes poker.

[@All-about-everything]

First pot. It’s a single Raised pot guys. Dumb. Call. Period. He can easily Have any pair and turn into a bluff. I haven’t even seen what you do but you guys are flaking Like it’s A 3 bet pot

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

Is this a poem?

[@darrenm394]

you need to stop doing these for free its not good for the community

[@paulgibbons-keynotespeaker]

love it.. idk how many regs are finding bet -3b on river with bluffs a55t2 ccc... AcT Ac2? Kct? amazing content

[@CarrotCornerPoker]

Exactly 16 regs.

[@EatonDix]

A+