Balanced Poker Against Different Opponents & Styles: GTO Lab
GipsyTeam
7 August, 15:10
Nick Petrangelo and Jonathan Jaffe on GTO Lab break down hands from the World Series of Poker Main Event Day 1 stream and discuss exploitative lines against unknown amateurs and Nick Rigby.
Petrangelo: I went through the first two days’ worth of streams on YouTube at 2x speed and just kind of combed through and found the big pots and interesting stuff. Obviously, I always love to run this kind of thing by Jon. I find him to be someone particularly good at navigating big fields. He’s kind of a fish whisperer, if you want to call him that—a Main Event savant type of guy. Anyone who knows his reputation knows he takes an exploitative approach, which is definitely what we want in the Main.
I focused a lot on what I’ll call very Main Event–y type hands—three ways in a three-bet pot, like the one we’ve got here. On spots like that, you’re just off the rails immediately. It should be a really big advantage for strong players who have that skill set.
But for the solver boys out there, it might be a bit of a brain-breaker. They’re like, “Wait a second, this isn’t supposed to happen. What am I supposed to do here?”
Alright, so this one’s interesting. It fits right along those lines. The stream started at 200/400, so we’re not quite at the very beginning. Blumstein, former champ, raises from what looks like the lowjack and gets three-bet by Napolitano, who has aces.
You need to ask yourself—when you look at a guy you don’t recognize—does this guy even bluff preflop? Is he just using his image to run me over?
Already an interesting spot. What do you think—how do you play the small blind as this guy when you’re flying blind? When you wake up with a hand like jacks or something like that?
Jaffe: Yeah, that’s immediately one of those spots where you start considering things you don’t really care about when your normal ROI is around 20% or lower in regular tournaments. In those, you’re just thinking, “What does the chart do here?”
But if you’re in the small blind and you’re covered by both opponents, SPR on a call is going to drop to something like five to one or six to one pretty quickly. There might already be cause for an edge-fold, depending on what you know about Napolitano. You might just ditch the jacks.
Certainly, calling out of position is going to be pretty ugly—even if you think you’re better than both of your opponents. I would at minimum just put in some silly click-back raise that makes no sense, like 7K or something. A size that’s just ridiculous. It’s the actual “Norman Chad let’s raise to see where we’re at” play. That kind of thing actually has merit in the Main Event.
If I know nothing about Napolitano, I don’t think I’m ready to fold jacks yet—unless I have just a dream Day 1 table. Those concerns are really, really important in the Main Event. This idea of “just survive, make sure you don’t do anything crazy on Day 1” really depends on your table.
If you have a difficult Day 1 table, then you don’t have the same ROI. Whatever you think your ROI is—let’s say it’s 80 in this tournament—well, it’s a roll of the dice. Your Day 1 table might shoot that up to 150 or drop it to 50. You can get really different tables, and that’s going to affect how you want to play those jacks.
So game flow conditions and what you know about your opponents—there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to the small blind with jacks. I also wouldn’t play any calls.
For GTO Wizard, the small blind range at the start of a tournament with 200bb stacks looks like this:
At 160bb the ranges are slightly different, but the jacks react in exactly the same way – with a confident fold. So it's not all bad with the chart play! – GT.
Petrangelo: Yeah, I think I’m kind of on board with you. If I have tens, I’m sliding them into the muck right away. One thing I’d say, no matter who the opener and the three-bettor are—unless one of them is just one of the worst players in the tournament—if you flat in this spot, it’s pretty obvious what you’ve got. Like, you don’t have 6-7 suited, right? Maybe you do, but you’re not doing anything deceptive. Everyone kind of knows where you are.
Jaffe: And something that maybe goes without saying, but I want to put this out there—entirely different situation if we’re on the button as Taylor. Then, depending on game conditions, you could maybe call with 6-7 suited. Not only is jacks just a completely reasonable theory call, but there are some peculiar-looking ones too. Depending on how you feel about your opponents—mostly how passive they’re going to be postflop—you can get away with some silly hands there.
Petrangelo: So what do you think about Blumstein in that spot? Is that just a hand you overcall with every time in the Main Event, or are these ranges too strong?
Jaffe: I like putting in king-ten suited, just enough. King-nine suited... we’re starting to find ourselves in some situations where I’d probably get out of there. But again, it comes down to how aggressive we think Napolitano is going to be. It’s not about how strong his range is—it’s about how many difficult decisions we’re going to be forced to make on the turn.
If we call king-nine suited and the flop comes nine-high, are we going to have to fold the turn sometimes? Or is this guy just never going to be bluffing, and we can comfortably fold? I think king-ten suited is almost certainly a call.
Another big factor is Blumstein’s stack. If he only has 45K here, I think I’m folding.
Petrangelo: Now, do you think this is a crazy bet into those two ranges from Napolitano?
Jaffe: Yeah. And this is the kind of thing—nearly none of us are going to have a stream table on Day 1 to get this kind of information—but I mean, this hand could easily get shown down. It’s insane once you realize someone is continuation betting this flop after this action.
From the small blind, we’re already starting to think—on a ten and nine board—that he actually flops a set more than 15% of the time. This is just wild. That flop smashes Blumstein’s range.
We definitely want to check the aces here. But most importantly, what do we take away from this? Probably that this guy is one of those people who thinks, “Hey, if I was the preflop aggressor, I’m supposed to continue.” He probably heard that somewhere, and now it’s just what he does.
So, the turn here—what do you think about Blumstein leading?
Petrangelo: I think it’s probably mandatory. You’d think we would have heard from the small blind already if he had flopped a set or a straight—like if he had queen-jack suited and was some kind of crazy guy. Or if he had eights, nines, or tens. It’s pretty uncommon to see those hands slow played here. Not impossible, but unlikely. We’d expect the small blind to go after the c-bet with those.
Jaffe: Now, if you’re holding king-ten suited, and you think about the incredibly narrow range that exists—yes, it's narrow, but it still exists in reality—like we see Taylor actually call with jacks. Maybe he has over 50% pocket jacks and pocket queens in his range. Those hands aren’t blocked. It's a very small range, but it’s real.
So it’s like, “Wow, I don’t care whether they call or fold—I just want to put money in against them.”
And we think Napolitano... I don’t know if aces come to mind right away, but we’re pretty sure we have him beat more often than not, and we don’t expect him to be bluffing this turn.
Petrangelo: One of the things you can do in Main Event hand reading is just acknowledge how uncommon it is for a non-pro to three-bet something like queen-jack suited, pocket eights, pocket nines, or even nine-ten suited in this situation
Jaffe: And I think one of the traps players fall into here is asking, “Well, what are we bluffing with as Blumstein?”
Petrangelo: There are plenty of potential bluffs.
Jaffe: Exactly. Like, yeah, one guy has jacks or queens, the other guy has aces or ace-king. It’s not a great spot to bluff. I’m not trying to get the guy off his hand.
Petrangelo: What do you think about this river? Should Taylor bet the straight? Should Blumstein bet the ten?
Jaffe: I don’t think we need to talk about Taylor at all. Hopefully, nobody watching this webinar will ever find themselves in Taylor’s shoes. It’s just kind of irrelevant.
But for Blumstein and Napolitano, yes—taking Taylor into consideration is important. But I wouldn’t dispense strategic advice on how to play after you cold call from the small blind.
If we go to Blumstein though, it’s an interesting decision that I think revolves mostly around metagame. Outside of the high-stakes world, blocking on the river tends to have a very metagame-driven feel for a lot of players. You’ll hear both sides of it: “If I bet small, I’ll induce raises,” or “I bet small to stop them from putting in more money.” In other words, betting small can be used to avoid facing a larger bet.
Both sides make sense—it depends on your opponents.
The Ending: Napolitano calls, and Taylor calls and takes the pot.
Jaffe: Every pro who’s played the Main five times knows this. If you’re Jim from Kansas with a Hendon Mob of $1,700—don’t call if we leave you 15% of your stack behind. If we put you all in, snap-fold. Don’t tank it off.
Petrangelo: Exactly. You want to make it hurt when you're bluffing in the Main, especially on Day 1. You never know when someone is going to follow the “I’ll take it seriously after I lose the first half” approach.
Petrangelo: Anyway, let’s get into this next hand—a three-bet pot that got requested in the early comments.
We’re already in a pretty aggressive three-bet pot. Dantis opens from under the gun +1 (so, under the gun eight-handed), and Leo Marget three-bets from the lowjack.
Quick reminder: In nine-handed poker, early position really matters. You can't just break the rules. You need strong hands. There are a lot of players in the Main Event who get antsy and try to play too many pots, but this isn’t six-max. When you're opening from early position in a full ring game, it better be legit.
Leo three-bets from the lowjack, and we go to a flop of queen-ten-nine. She bets about a quarter pot, and Dantis calls.
Already, if you're talking about a legitimate three-bet range, you're not exactly thrilled on a queen-ten-nine flop, even with ace-ten. Sure, you might have some equity, but you’re still not happy.
Jaffe: Also, be ready to adjust. Leo Marget has been playing for a long time—she knows what she’s doing. I’m guessing she doesn’t three-bet ace-four suited here if she thinks her opponent is calling ace-ten offsuit. So be open to changing your reads. You’re not going to know your opponent’s range from the jump. People surprise you. And I’m guessing this call would have surprised her, too.
Petrangelo: So what do you change? For me, it’s like—if I see that ace-ten offsuit is a call in that spot, I’ll adjust by tightening up my three-bet bluffs. Maybe I ditch hands like ace-four suited. Maybe I don’t need to flat ace-jack suited anymore—I can just three-bet more of the high cards and cut the junk.
But yeah, that’s a really loose call from out of position. Check-call.
Desantis' continuation range, according to GTO Wizard, looks something like this:
Leo's 3-bet is, of course, completely standard, done with weight, but noticeably more often than a call.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. What do you think about barreling? Is this the spot where every hand becomes a bluff-catcher against this guy and we expect folds?
Jaffe: Here’s the inconsistency for me. Either he’s a nit, in which case I don’t want to three-bet ace-ten offsuit to begin with, or he’s super loose, in which case I also don’t want to be three-betting a marginal hand. Either way, I shouldn’t be here.
The equity of ace-ten comes from three-barrel bluffs, and that’s a big ask. My chips are worth more than that. If I think the players behind me are super nitty and I won’t get squeezed, maybe I flat preflop, but I’m probably just folding.
I wouldn’t start this line against either player type—not a nit, not a LAG. And if I got to this flop somehow, I’d check. The board smashes his calling range. Any equity from betting ace-ten is going to come from aggressive, high-variance lines. I’m going to need to put in a lot more chips, and I don’t love that tradeoff.
Yeah, I’d probably just call—even ace-queen suited sometimes.
Petrangelo: That whole discussion reminds me of a larger macro theme in the Main Event, and among great players in general. It may not apply to the elite crushers watching this, but a lot of people still think the best player is the one putting everyone in tough spots all the time. The guy winning every pot, redlining everyone, just going ham.
It’s a common misconception that you go to the Main, you’re the best player, and you just run everyone over. There’s a time and place for that, and a time and place to play with precision.
Quick live thing: this guy’s been in the tank the whole time we’ve been talking, and he’s showing real discomfort. In the Main Event, some players are actors—they’re trying to trick you. But this guy on the turn, and then he calls, he’s just playing poker honestly.
Jaffe: That’s an important distinction. Sure, there’s always a chance this is his version of acting, and he thinks it’s so obvious it can’t be fake. But based on this one data point, he looks sincere.
One cheap way to do it is to watch how they look at their cards when it’s not their turn. If they glance early, act distracted, and then muck every time, they’re probably honest.
But if they look early, act aloof, laugh, chat, and then suddenly show up with queens or kings? That’s a different story. That guy is trying to manipulate your perception. He’s not there to “just have fun.” He’s playing the game.
Petrangelo: The guy in this three-bet pot has been showing all kinds of discomfort on the turn. The river is an ace—an awful card for him. Leo is going to be barreling ace-king here. She would have had aces. He knows that. So this river doesn’t help his range much at all.
So now, how do you deal with this? We can see his cards, sure, but if you’re Leo, how do you interpret this lead? It’s illogical. The ace is a bad card for him. He’s been uncomfortable. Now he leads into you on the river?
Jaffe: I’m terrified.
I think I’m beat. I think I’m going back unless I’ve already made the decision that this guy is one of those honest, not-trying-to-trick-you types. In that case, I’m saying, “Oh, he has queens full or tens full, and he thinks I just hit an ace. He’s trying to get something extra out of me.”
Petrangelo: But yeah, then we get into the realm of Leo not thinking like us. She might be saying to herself, “Clearly this guy has some hands he’s going to fold if I jam, and somehow I’ve deemed my ace-four as a relevant blocker.”
Do you think she’s putting him on a slowplayed king-jack and thinking he’s going to fold it? What’s the process behind jamming here?
Jaffe: If I were to guess how I’d find myself making that shove, it wouldn’t be about the cards at all. It would be about the feeling that this guy just doesn’t want me to jam. That’s what would trigger it.
I don’t think I’d shove this hand. But if I did, it would come from something like that—a read on behavior rather than hand strength.
I’ve done this sort of thing before. Sometimes I’ve regretted it, and sometimes it worked out. I can remember spots where I made that kind of move and then immediately thought, “What the hell did I just do?” Then the guy folded, and I told myself, “Don’t forget how that felt. That was a real moment.”
I can’t say whether it was good or bad. Leo was there. She had the read, and she played it in the moment. She has the best idea of what was going on.
Petrangelo: The one thing I do like about the jam is, cards aside, just pretending I didn’t even look at my hand—nobody ever bluffs in her spot. So maybe it’s not that bad. No one expects a bluff here.
Petrangelo: The dirty diaper. Rigby was being a very dirty boy yesterday, and this one is no exception.
When we first talked about this hand, it actually took me about nine tries to figure out what the action was. He just flatted with six-four offsuit—a modified diaper.
Yeah, so this one—John can take this over—but it’s a lesson in randomness. How do you deal with a guy like this? You have to understand that even though it’s a $10K buy-in, people show up to the Main Event for all kinds of reasons.
They also believe a lot of different things. Some of them believe that playing all these low cards while everyone else is playing high cards is their secret edge.
Jaffe: And it’s different for different players. I think when you look at some of the characters we’ve seen on WSOP broadcasts, it’s easy to lump them together. But Rigby isn’t like Will Kassouf, for example.
He’s here to mix it up, play some real hands, pull off some crazy bluffs, and yes, play the dirty diaper. If he’s dealt three-deuce offsuit, the chance he’s folding is incredibly low. That means 16 combos of trash are live in every spot.
So imagine what his flatting range looks like if you know he’s never folding three-deuce. And now he three-bets you? That should shape your whole strategy.
He understands his image. He’ll play differently against Kill Day than he will against Petrangelo. So part of the dynamic depends on how he perceives you. You don’t want to reveal too much too quickly about how you see him—that just gives him more to work with.
He’ll treat players differently. We can’t say exactly what his read was in this hand, but in general, the advice is to check more against guys who show up with completely random hands.
If you give them rope, they’ll take it. Rope can come in the form of checks, small bets, or letting them lead.
Be very careful about bombing into someone who often just has six-high. That’s probably not the move.
Petrangelo: If Killday check-called with nines here and the hand ended there, you’d probably say, “Nice job. Rigby’s full of it. Good play.”
Because Rigby’s not going for value with king-queen or queen-jack. He’s not barreling three streets. His range is super wide, but once he starts betting, it becomes polarized. So if you start check-calling him down, that’s where you start making money.
Jaffe: There’s a kind of tweener strategy that I think works well against someone like Rigby. You block the flop, hit him with a 25% or 33% sizing, then check the turn with your good stuff. He’s going to float with hands like six-three of hearts and call all those nine-ten offsuit types. After you check the turn, he might reorient, thinking you have a moderate hand or gave up on a bluff, and then he starts going nuts.
You can see what happens here. Talking about the light value—he goes 15.2K over 2,200 into what, like a 9K pot?
Do we think that’s what he’s going to do with ace-jack? I don’t think so. But all the bluffs can go as big as they want. So if you’re Kill Day and you don’t have half a million in Hendon Mob cashes, and you feel like you’ve got a target on your back, use it to your advantage.
Petrangelo: It’s incredible when you can give someone like that a little rope because they have infinite bluff combos. But there’s only so much value they’re willing to bet that big with. This might be one of those spots—again, we can’t blame the player with hindsight—but this might be one of those rare spots where he’s literally only bluffing.
Because if you’re Nick Rigby and you flop a set, you’re probably raising. If you flop some kind of weird two pair, you’re probably raising. But if you float and miss, and someone bets small, and you decide to go huge, that’s exactly the kind of spot where he’ll pull the trigger.
Petrangelo: Maybe he’s just dialed in today. This one goes: open from Caballo under the gun eight, then a call from Brooks. Everyone’s really deep. Rigby is also super deep, and he’s going with ten-four offsuit here.
Again, if you were coaching someone, how do you approach preflop here? Even if you know Rigby’s full of nonsense, a lot of people hesitate. Do you punish that by four-betting?
Jaffe: Let’s be clear: if you can play deep stack pots with strong hands against Nick Rigby, that’s a dream scenario on Day 1. Don’t shy away just because he’s made a run in the past.
If you’re Caballo here, your decision depends on stack depth and how your hand plays. I actually like his flat call in this case for a few reasons. We don’t know how Rigby’s been playing at the table today. We’ve seen highlights, but unless you’ve been watching every hand, you don’t have the full picture.
If you’re Caballo and you’ve got 110K chips and you’re deep with Rigby, yeah, there’s a good chance you want to get more money in pre. But maybe not in this exact spot. Hijack, cutoff, button—all day long, I’m ready to pile more in with ace-queen suited.
Petrangelo: Flop comes ten-high. Looking at his postflop sizing, obviously Rigby is playing tons of trash pre, but he knows bet sizes. If you try to trap him in an obvious line and you’re a nit, he’s probably not stacking off. He’s playing wild pre, but postflop he tightens up a little.
I’ll say this. When Rigby checks the turn, we expect him to fire a lot of bluffs there. He’s trying to apply that second barrel pressure, so when he doesn’t, he probably has something—like six-three suited. And if he has that, there’s a decent chance he’s going to call the river.
We don’t have that many jacks. Sure, we can value bet queens or tens full, but if you’re up against a guy who three-bets pocket fours or six-seven offsuit, he’s probably calling the river if he beats ace-queen. That puts us in a no-bluff situation.
Petrangelo: Also, let’s say he somehow has a legit hand—maybe ace-king. But are we expecting him to barrel that twice and then fold the river? Maybe Caballo thought Rigby had ace-king and decided to jam, trying to move him off it.
Jaffe: If I knew he had ace-king, I’d put the money in. But that’s the problem—projecting. You think, “Well, I’d have ace-king here, and I’d fold to a jam.” But if he’s three-betting six-seven offsuit 25% of the time and fours 10% of the time, that creates an entirely different range. Now you're not really targeting ace-king anymore.
Petrangelo: Exactly. So if we look at this river—what is it, 30K in the pot before the 22K bet, with 52K total behind? So if he checks, and we bet 22K, and then Rigby jams—do we think he slow-played something like pocket tens or a jack?
Jaffe: Probably not.
The Ending: Rigby calls.
Jaffe: So it goes: early position open from Kuzov, then a flat from the small blind with kings, and then Mercier overcalls with queen-ten.
First off, hopefully no one watching this is thinking about flatting kings in the small blind. But let’s talk about the mindset behind someone who does that. I think it usually boils down to one or both of these reasons: one, they think they’ll have a hand no one can put them on; and two, they think someone behind them is aggressive and they want to induce a squeeze.
Sure. Maybe they think, “Jason Mercier is super aggressive, so I’ll just trap him here.” Okay, but even if Jason is squeezing 20% of the time, which is already pretty aggressive, this play is usually bad.
Yeah, we definitely don’t want to flat kings there. But once you see that happen, instead of just dismissing it as terrible or nitty or whatever, try to understand what the player is thinking. You may not figure them out completely, but you’ll get into other hands with them, and the more effort you’ve made to understand how they play, the better prepared you’ll be in future spots.
Petrangelo: Now the flop goes check-check to the original raiser, and he bets 10 into 10.5. That’s fine. He gets to apply a lot of pressure as the in-position player facing two out-of-position players.
Then the kings spring the trap with a check-raise. That, to me, is already kind of aggressive.
Jaffe: I think that's a typical raise to see where I'm at.
Petrangelo: This is how I see his thought process: Kings are a very strong hand that I played very cleverly, and now I want to win more with it.
Mercier will call. Would you play the same way?
Jaffe: Yeah. I don't raise here unless it's an exploitative bluff where the hand doesn't matter. I might reraise with J9s, 76s, etc. The main thing is to have the SB raising for information. Or against aggressive regs – there was a time when all the European regs would check-raise the c-bet in this spot with any hand, and you could click-raise them from the BB.
Petrangelo: Is floating less effective here?
Jaffe: Against a reg, it's effective. Against an amateur of that type, it's usually not. If he sees a call, he'll put you on some mid-sized pocket pair and be sure that everything is still ahead.
Petrangelo: What's the weakest hand you cold call with if you were Jason?
Jaffe: Trips :)
Petrangelo: For those of you who are into reads, be sure to check out what happens to this guy when a king comes on the turn.
He quickly checks, sighs heavily and looks away sadly.
Jaffe: Hahaha! Well, maybe he's just checking all the rake on that turn!
Jason checks next – will you comment?
Petrangelo: Maybe he reacted to his opponent's expression and thought, "This is some weird shit, I better check." It looks like a good time to stack T9s, but he checks, which is pretty smart.
Jaffe: Or maybe he sees his opponent's range as being quite polarized. And , in his opinion, they continue to bet, and in the check there will be bluffs and traps with And .
Petrangelo: What we can learn from this hand is how to draw normally with the nuts. Jonathan already named Mercier's cold calling range in this hand – trips. The fact that our big full on the turn blocks top pair is not a reason to check at all, because there are no king-high hands in Mercier's range. On the contrary, it is a great card to draw blatantly if we had or . Don't think that our check can provoke an aggressive professional to bluff – there are no bluffs left in this professional's range after a cold call on the flop.
A bet on the turn could have earned another 10-12 thousand. You can't earn that much by checking. Slowplaying here is a huge mistake, in my opinion.
On the river Geislinger bet 7.2k, Jason quickly called because he was beating some value, and played his eyebrows expressively when he saw his opponent's hand.
If you’re someone who bluffs often, then when you make a hand—because it doesn’t happen that often—you should just pile money into the pot. People have to call you sometimes. But what happens is that many players, especially nitty ones, don’t know what to do when they make a big hand. So they start doing weird stuff. They try to stay consistent with how they play their other hands, which are often not bluffs.
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