Doug and his longtime heads-up coach Fabian Adler have been working on a new course called The End Boss System for the last few months.
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As we approach the October 9th launch of The End Boss System, Doug is releasing in-depth hand analyses videos every Friday, starting with this hand he played against Daniel Negreanu in a $100k buy-in Heads-Up Duel (basically a deep stacked sit and go).
Note: If you’d prefer watching to reading, check out Doug’s video above.
The blinds are 200/400. Doug starts the hand with 93,600 chips in his stack and Daniel has him covered with 106,400.
Doug raises to 1,000 with 5c 4c. Daniel 3-bets to 4,000 with As Jd. Doug calls.
Read Doug’s Preflop AnalysisQuick note on preflop sizing: I make it 1,000 to go. If you wanna get really precise, as stacks get deeper you want to increase your raise size on the Button.
It’s possible that the correct raise size here would be more like 1,100. As you get closer to 60k (150bb) or 50k (125bb) stacks, it might move down to 900. When you get under that, you might even go smaller than that.
But the point is, this is roughly the right raise size. You don’t have to be super-down-to-the-chip-accurate. But I want you to know that as you get deeper, you do open to a larger size on the Button.
Negreanu makes it 4,000 to go. This is actually just a little bit too big.
The opposite thing happens when you’re in the Big Blind [and out of position]. You want to make your raises smaller as you get deeper. I know that is against conventional logic, which was “as you get deeper you want to cut down on their implied odds [by raising bigger].”
But what’s more important is that as you get deeper, the [in position player] just wins more money. So, you want to keep the pot smaller rather than trying to prevent hands from seeing flops. It’s just what the math [dictates in this spot].
Negreanu’s size isn’t crazy big, but I’d like to see the size be slightly smaller here.
Ace-Jack offsuit in this situation is not a hand that will always 3-bet. Let’s take a look at some 3-betting ranges for heads-up.
The more yellow a hand is, the more it 3-bets. You can see the exact 3-bet frequency for each hand in the bottom right corner of each cell. For example, AJo shows “0.6” which means it should be 3-bet 60% of the time.
This chart shows what an optimal 3-bet range would look like around these stack sizes.
You can see that Ace-Jack offsuit is only 3-betting 0.6, that means 60% of the time. So, Negreanu actually will just call preflop with Ace-Jack offsuit more than you might assume.
As a quick note, at 100bb stacks, Negreanu would always 3-bet this hand. But as you get deeper, these offsuit broadway hands perform worse. They tend to flat more, they do worse versus 4-bet.
Essentially, on this stack size, Negreanu should mix in calls, but mainly 3-bet.
Over to my call versus this 3-bet. This chart is how I should respond to an optimally-sized 3-bet (I should actually respond a bit tighter because Negreanu used a bigger size):
The more yellow a hand is, the more it calls. You can see the exact call frequency for each hand in the bottom right corner of each cell. For example, 54s shows “0.79” which means it should call 79% of the time.
Five-Four suited is mainly calling versus the 3-bet — 79% of the time you’re going to call. It actually 4-bets 21% of the time.
As you get deeper, these [suited connectors] make nice 4-bets because your playability improves. You get some nice boards to be able to barrel. Your equity versus the high pairs, with a hand like Five-Four suited, is better than a hand like Queen-Jack or something like that.
I think I 4-bet something like a quarter of the time in-game. I can’t remember exactly.
So, this hand gets in there every now and then with a 4-bet, but it mainly just calls, which is what we do. Let’s take a flop.
Note: The End Boss System will include preflop charts for every heads-up situation at 100bb, 200bb, 300bb and 400bb stacks. There are different sets of charts for each raise size, so you’ll be prepared to respond to any open size, 3-bet size and 4-bet size.
The flop falls Ad 7c 3c with 8,000 in the pot.
Daniel bets 4,000. Doug raises to 12,000. Daniel calls.
Read Doug’s Flop AnalysisDaniel decides to bet half pot with his top pair good kicker. I want to talk about a couple of things on the flop.
I play a single size strategy on the flop — which means I have one specific size I will use when I choose to bet the flop. I think Daniel does the same, but I’m not sure. So, we’re going to approach [this analysis] from the perspective of using an optimal, single size.
If you’re using an optimal single size, Daniel’s size of half pot is not a very great size. The reason is that it’s simply too big to allow you to value bet with hands like Kings, Queens, and Jacks.
If we look at the total value of this strategy [in PioSolver], the out of position player’s pot share would be 4660 chips when they use the big size.
And if you use a small size, like I’m recommending something like 22% pot, the value is 4710 chips. So, basically you make about 50 chips more [on average] by using the smaller size strategy.
*You can see Doug compare these values in the video analysis for this street*
It’s not the end of the world. You can definitely use either one. But one of the things I like about the small size, the 22% pot rather than the 50% pot, is this is what the flop c-bet range looks like for Daniel if he uses the size he used…
Salmon = Bet half pot | Green = Check
…and this is what it looks like if he just does the 22% pot size.
Salmon = Bet 22% pot | Green = Check
Basically, if you go small, like I’m recommending, not only do you make more money, but you also can just bet every single hand and there’s nothing that Button can really do about it
It is a much easier strategy to play and is a higher value strategy to play. I would strongly recommend doing this over what Daniel did here on the flop.
Going back to Daniel’s size that he did use Ace Jack would quite often be betting here, but it would do a check about 20%, 25%, 30% of the time depending on the combo.
You can see the ones like Ace-Jack with a Jack clubs actually check almost half the time, whereas the ones with no club are a little more likely just to bet and get some value.
Also, when you have a diamond, you’re a little less likely to bet because you block some backdoor flush draw hands that would call. So, Ace-Jack with the Jack of Diamonds doesn’t like betting as much as Ace-Jack with the Jack of hearts.
I know it seems kind of nitpicky and not that important, but these small differences between these hands are actually something that matter when you’re creating your strategy.
If you’re going to try and play poker at a really high level, you want to be thinking about blocker and unblocker effects as you go through a hand.
Anyway, one thing that Daniel successfully did here was he kind of knocked me off of playing a correct strategy. All of the work that I’ve done on boards like this assumes that your opponent is going to bet a really small size, which Daniel did not do. He bet half pot.
Because of [Daniel’s bigger size], the Button does almost no raising. If we look here, when I decided to raise to 12,000 on the flop, basically I don’t have almost any raises. In fact, I would only be raising 1.4% of the time.
Typically speaking, when raise frequency gets below 2 or 3%, you don’t really lose that much by never having raises at all. And that’s definitely what I would recommend to do here.
If I look at 5c 4c, specifically, it would always call. If we look at the EV of raising versus calling — they’re very, very similar. [Calling has a value of 11903 chips whereas raising has a value of 11851 chips.]
But the point of the matter is when sizes get big on flops like this, your opponent is much more polar. It makes way less sense for you to be raising.
So, I do think my raise on the flop, while very close, is a mistake.
I want to show you guys why I did what I did, though.
If your opponent bets the small size and we look at what you’re supposed to do…
Salmon = Raise 3x | Green = Call | Blue = Fold
…you do lots of raising. The idea is that you can’t let your opponent bet really small and knock you off a bunch of equity. You need to fight back, get value, get your bluffs in and work all these ranges together.
Versus the small bet, Five-Four of clubs will raise about a fourth of the time:
So, there’s a good principle here that I use, which is that this hand does fit into a raising strategy.
But I did miss the main strategic concept, which is that as that flop size from your opponent gets bigger, you should respond by never raising.
This is going to make the rest of the hand a little bit weird because we’re out in the wilderness in a line that shouldn’t really happen.
Anyway, back to the hand, I raised a 12,000 and now over to Negreanu. What should he do facing this raise?
He actually does do a good chunk of 3-betting on the flop:
Salmon = 3-bet | Green = Call | Blue = Fold
The strong Aces like 3-betting, as do [the sets with] Pocket Sevens and Threes. (Note that this matrix is not proportional to weight. This is just giving you an idea of what the strategy should be.)
So, basically if Negreanu has any Ace, he’s going to at least call. If he has a pocket pair, the strong pairs are more likely to call. The weaker pairs are more likely to do some folding — like Eights, Nines, Tens. The stronger Aces are more likely to just call.
So, Ace Jack here actually do some 3-betting, but only when you have the Jack of clubs. I don’t mind just never doing this and only calling [with all Ace-Jacks], but I do think as you get closer to Ace-Queen, Ace-King, you have to put some uncomfortable 3-bets in on the flop.
Anyway, Daniel does decide to just call. Let’s take a turn.
The turn is the (Ad 3c) Ks. There’s 32,000 in the pot and Doug has 77,600 behind.
Daniel checks with his As Jd. Doug bets 21,000 with his 5c 4c. Daniel calls.
Read Doug’s Turn AnalysisDoug’s Turn Analysis
Negreanu checks as he should with all of his hands in this spot.
This is what my bet range should look like:
I put in some various sizes so you can see what size is optimal to use. I went for a geometric pot bet — so I bet 21k (roughly two thirds pot) trying to setup [a shove on the river for] roughly the same percentage of the pot.
As you can see, the solver would only really use that. So, I feel quite good about my size here.
As for my hand, 5c 4c — and I felt this end game — it feels a bit awkward because if I bet five four of clubs and get jammed on, it is a complete disaster for my hand.
Because of that I felt like maybe I should do some checking. I forget in the moment if I did all bet or randomized — I assume I randomized some check backs. But you want to be a little bit more polarized when you do bet the turn. It doesn’t feel like it’s that bad for you if you bet 9c 6c, for example, and get jammed on. You’re okay to bet-fold that.
But with 5c 4c, bet-folding is a complete disaster for your hand. You’re almost priced in to have to call, but it will be quite close.
Because of this, the solver does not bet when it has 5c 4c even though it’s a very strong holding.
If we want to break down the EV difference, it’s kind of similar to the flop. Betting and checking not too far off from one another. The bet value is 1609, the check value 1644. But it is a mistake. It’s a little bit better to be checking here than it is to bet because you do not want to have to bet-fold your equity.
So, when we look at other kinds of hands that like betting, we can see if we decided to raise the flop with some Ace-Queens, those will bet the turn when we don’t have a club. If we have Ace-Seven or a set, those hands are pure barreling to turn — at least sets are to try and get value.
We can see some other bluffs here. The main hands to think about in this spot are the Five-Three suited hands are going to be nice bluffs. You raise those and barrel because you block two pair and sets. And then some of these straight draws hands are getting in there as well. Pocket Fours is making it in there as well. And then of course your value.
Very, very slim range here because we do not have flop raises. So take this with a grain of salt.
Over to Daniel with Ace-Jack on the turn. He really doesn’t do anything here other than call:
Dark Salmon = Raise All-In | Salmon = Raise | Green = Call | Blue = Fold
There’s no frequency of raising with Ace-Jack, but sometimes Ace-Queen and Ace-King will raise, particularly Ace King when you do not have a club.
Some Pocket Kings always raises the turn with the idea being you want to try and get value and prevent your opponent from realizing their equity. Kings with the club likes to raise all in. If you have Kc Kd — I don’t want to get into suit combos too specifically.
But you can see in the solver that basically there is a good chunk of check-raising. About 8% of hands going for check-raise here.
Ultimately an Negreanu decides just to go for the check-call, which he should always be doing with Ace-Jack. And let’s take a river.
The 2c on the river completes a board of Ad 7c 3c Ks 2c. There’s 74,000 in the pot.
Daniel checks. Doug goes all-in for 56,600.
Let’s go ahead and see what he does.
Read Doug’s River AnalysisDoug’s River Analysis
The river comes the beautiful 2c. We have hit our flush, although the offsuit deuce would’ve been slightly better, a little more disguised, either way we have gotten there.
Daniel checks over to us. Not too much to really talk about here. If we do have 5c 4c, we’re pure jamming.
I guess the question might be what would be the thinnest that we go for value? Some pretty weird stuff starts to happen here because we can have flushes so often. Even hands like sets are going to do a chunk of checking back here. This kind of boils down to us having such a specific range that’s able to raise this big on the flop and barrel to turn.
But basically flushes and some sets are able to go for value. Pocket Threes, a little bit of Sevens, but more or less you’re going to be a flush or nothing when you decide to jam here.
The bluffs are going to be hands that raise with a club, but you have almost none of those. Guys, when ranges get this specific, it’s not even really worth going into because, basically, this hand is off the rails because of my flop raise.
If you are going to have raises on the flop, this is why you need to have some bluffs in there — [so you can have bluffs on rivers like this]. Like if you did have Jx Tx with a club, sometimes that needs to bet the turn so that you’re able to jam when the river is a club.
This is why it’s important to construct a range as well on earlier streets and why you should not take lines that have very, very few hands in them because it will be very hard to be balanced.
I really don’t even think it’s possible I could be balanced here. I don’t think I would look to raise many of these hands versus the flop size. I think I’m just basically exploitable value heavy here and I don’t entirely know what I can do about it other than not raise the flop.
Anyway, back over to Negreanu. A difficult situation for him for sure, but when he has Ace-Jack, no club, he basically always folds.
The solver will once no blue moon go for the call.
I think exploitably, your opponent really has to have some bluffs that they prepared here, like a club in their hand just to get to barrel off.
I have definitely had some hands like that even versus Daniel. I can think of one in a 4-bet pot where I raised a two club flop with just the Kc and I just barreled off when the club got there on the river.
But the point of the matter is you got to be playing a pretty sick animal to even debate calling here without a club. I just don’t think there are enough hands that could really make sense to bluff with and you really have to prepare for that on earlier street.
So, I do think that check-folding on the river is the best play for Daniel.
Daniel makes a nice fold with his As Jd and Doug scoops the 74,000 chip pot.
While that did put Doug into the lead, he eventually went on to lose the match several blind levels later.
Check out the next hand analysis video from Doug here!
And be sure to join the waiting list for The End Boss System if you want to take your poker game to a higher level on October 9th.
I used to play a ton of poker. Now, I’m the Vice President of Upswing Poker and only play a decent amount of poker. Read my full bio here.
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