➧ November 6th Winner: Andrew Stern
➧ November 13th Winner: Matthew Drager
➧ November 20th Winner: Christopher Gilley
➧ November 27th Winner: Robert Koller

Team LearnWPT will be at the Wynn Las Vegas helping cheer on our 4 winners - Help us wish them luck!

Thank you to everyone who participated and we look forward to offering more ways to get you on the felt and at the final table.

If you are playing any of the WPT World Championship Festival at Wynn Las Vegas events let us know and if you see any of the stop and say Hi.

Good luck and good playing,
- Team LearnWPT

In celebration of the launch of ClubWPT Gold, the World Poker Tour is hosting a 2,000 player, invitation-only freeroll tournament during the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas and we want to help LearnWPT Students get in the action!

Don't miss this chance to play in the biggest live freeroll of all time on December 13th in Las Vegas and walk away with the $1,000,000 life-changing 1st prize or win one of 100 seats to the $10,400 buy-in WPT World Championship.

To be eligible to win a seat, players must first visit ClubWPTGold.com and sign up for a free account with code LEARNWPT (no purchase necessary) prior to November 27th. Once completed you will be eligible to win 1 of 4 Golden Passports awarded in November (your $2,500 value ticket to the event) specifically for LearnWPT students.

Click here to register with code LearnWPT, be sure to complete the verification process, and you're entered to win!

Must be a legal resident of the United States (excluding the states of Idaho, Michigan, Montana, and Washington) and the District of Columbia and be able to play the event in on December 13th in Las Vegas. Participation is void where prohibited by law.

ClubWPT Gold $5,000,000 Invitational Freeroll at Wynn Las Vegas:
➧ December 13, 2024 - Day 1 at 10:00 AM PT
➧ December 14, 2024 - Day 2 at 10:00 AM PT
➧ December 15, 2024 - TV Final Table at 4:00 PM PT
➧ See the full schedule here

What You're Playing For:
➧ 503 players in the money (~25% Paid)
➧ 1/5 Chance Consolation Prize to win a $10,400 buy-in WPT World Championship seat
➧ Mystery Bounties begin at final 297 players - chance to win top prizes of two $100K envelopes, two $50K, four $25K, and four $10K
➧ Click here for more info

One Golden Passport winner will be drawn each Wednesday starting on November 6th through November 27th. Winners will be contacted directly by ClubWPT Gold confirming your seat and next steps. If you need assistance creating your ClubWPT Gold account click here for additional information.

You've put in the work, now let's get you in the action!

Good luck,
Team LearnWPT

P.S. Click here for everything you need to know about the freeroll

No purchase necessary. Must be a legal resident of the United States (excluding the states of Idaho, Michigan, Montana, and Washington) and the District of Columbia. Participation is void where prohibited by law. Void where prohibited. Must be 21+ to gamble. The Golden Passport valued at $2,500. The Golden Passport is non-transferable. Winner must play the awarded event seat on December 13, 2024 or the prize will be voided. Prize includes one seat only and does not include transportation, lodging, taxes, food and beverages.

DECISION POINT: You are in the early stages of the $1,100 WPT Prime Championship Tournament with blinds at 300/500 and a 500 big blind ante. Most stacks are between 50-100BBs and you have 95BBs. First to act, you raise to 1,300 with A♦K♦. Action folds to the Hijack who makes it 3,800, the Big Blind cold 4-bets to 8,500, and action is back on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing the early stages of the WPT Prime Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. The blinds are 300/500 with a 500 big blind ante. Most of the table has between 50-100 big blinds. We are dealt A♦K♦ Under the Gun (UTG) with 47,500 chips in our stack. AK suited is firmly in our first-in opening range from early position, so we raise to 1,300 chips. Action folds to the Hijack who makes it 3,800. Everyone else folds to the Big Blind who cold 4-bets to 8,500.

Since we raised UTG and were reraised by the Hijack, the player in the Big Blind should already be putting us both on very narrow ranges. This means that the Big Blind’s cold 4-betting ranges should be quite polarized, with most bluff combinations that have card removal effects to the opponent's biggest hands. A good example of a hand that fits this category is A5s.

If we analyze this spot in a solver and assume the Hijack and Big Blind are using appropriately balanced ranges, we see that the recommended play with AKs is to shove all-in. In fact, the most surprising thing that we see in the solver output is that almost our entire range is reduced to shove or fold against this 4-bet from the Big Blind. The combinations that are recommended to raise small and call an all-in make up a tiny percentage of the strategy.

This spot is still incredibly close given the strength of our hand preflop. Shoving AKs has a slightly positive expectation, however the offsuit versions of AK are neutral with the solver recommending a fold over half the time. Based on this output we can make a few general assumptions.

We should not be flat calling this raise, or raising a size that is not all-in. Additionally, our hand will quickly become unprofitable if the Big Blind is not 4-betting an appropriate range that is balanced and includes ATs/A5s with some frequency, JJ about half the time, and AQs almost always.

So without any knowledge of how our opponents play, we should move all-in here and assume they are playing reasonable ranges. If the Big Blind is 4-betting a narrower range than optimal, or if we feel our edge over the table is significant enough that passing on a spot that might be slightly +EV to make sure we are around for future opportunities where we can exert our skill edge, then folding would be best.

Moving all-in is the best play, unless we have player specific reads or a significant table edge, in which case folding is best.

📚 Poker Study Sessions With Team LearnWPT

Ready for December? NOW is the perfect time to start preparing!

Team LearnWPT is back with a Member Exclusive Study Session Webinar series to get you ready to dominate the WPT® World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas this December. We’re holding four interactive sessions focused on plugging the biggest leaks in your tournament poker game.

Each Study Session includes lively interactive lectures focused on sharpening fundamentals and provides key strategic reminders to make sure your game is rock solid and ready to make deep runs. We’ll also recommend supporting Strategy Episodes to watch prior to each Session. The best part? You can ask questions and get direct feedback from Team LearnWPT during the Webinar.

A huge THANK YOU to every Student who’s joined us for the WPT World Championship Study Sessions. Members can rewatch the sessions anytime from the Webinars Dashboard.

Not a Member but want to watch or attend the Session? You can today for just $5 your first month of LearnWPT Membership!

We’re in the home stretch now! LearnWPT Members - make sure to submit any questions or hands on trouble spots to Ask a Pro Discord and we’ll get you ready to conquer Vegas!

Good luck and good playing,
-Team LearnWPT

Review Previous Poker Study Sessions!

➧ Study Session 4: Plugging River Leaks - River play allows for more creativity and aggression, especially when a lot of chips are on the line. Tough opponents will look to get max value with big hands and use pressure to steal their fair share of pots with bluffs. In this Session we'll go over specific examples of the biggest River Leaks and how you can stop them from draining your stack. Live with Eric "Rizen" Lynch and Adrian Naggy: Wednesday, November 20th

➧ Watch these Strategy Episodes to prepare for Session 4:
• Episode 309: Plugging River Leaks With Tony Dunst
• Episode 349: From the Lab - 2 GTO River Spots
• Episode 401: Unexpected Solver Bluff Spots With Tony Dunst

Thanks to everyone who joined the Live Study Session!

Did you miss it? No worries! Members can rewatch the Study Sessions anytime on the Webinars Dashboard.

➧ Study Session 3: Plugging Turn Leaks - Turn play can be challenging. Equities can change quickly on this street and you need to be alert for moves, especially when facing tough opponents. You need to keep the pressure on and win more pots. In this Session we’ll talk about the biggest errors made on the Turn and what you can do to prevent them from derailing your next deep run. Live with Eric "Rizen" Lynch and Adrian Naggy: Wednesday, October 30th

➧ Watch these Strategy Episodes to prepare for Session 3:
• Episode 31: Turn Second Bullet Basic
• Episode 291: Turn Considerations
• Episode 346: Turn Checks
• Episode 554: Turn Leads

Thanks to everyone who joined the Live Study Session!

Did you miss it? No worries! Members can rewatch the Study Sessions anytime on the Webinars Dashboard.

➧ Study Session 2: Plugging Flop Leaks - Making good Flop decisions ensures you’ll have a great chance to grow your stack while also smartly protecting your chips when taking a cautious line is the better play. In this Session we’ll talk about the biggest Flop errors and what you can do to prevent them from derailing your next deep run. Live with Eric "Rizen" Lynch and Adrian Naggy: Wednesday, September 25th

➧ Watch these Strategy Episodes to prepare for Session 2:
• Episode 208: Check-Raising Instead of C-Betting
• Episode 294: C-Betting Against Tough Opponents
• Episode 471: Train & Explain - BB Call Vs BTN Open at 20BBs
Play the same hands that Nick analyzes and follow along

Thanks to everyone who joined the Live Study Session!

Did you miss it? No worries! Members can rewatch the Study Sessions anytime on the Webinars Dashboard.

➧ Study Session 1: Avoiding Common Preflop Mistakes - Knowing how and when to make moves preflop is one of the keys to getting a hold of chips in a poker tournament. In this Session we'll discuss key opponent tendencies you need to be on alert for, how to spot leaks in your strategy, and how to adjust to specific player types. Live with Eric "Rizen" Lynch and Adrian Naggy: August 28th

➧ Watch these Strategy Episodes to prepare for Session 1:
• Episode 305: First-In Hand Ranges
• Episode 405: Button Defense
• Episode 463: Big Blind Defense at 15-40BBs

Thanks to everyone who joined the Live Study Session!

Did you miss it? No worries! Members can rewatch the Study Sessions anytime on the Webinars Dashboard.

Improve Your Game With Team LearnWPT

The time is NOW to start getting your poker game ready!

Whether you are brand-new to poker training or you’re an experienced student this is your chance to learn from world-class professional poker players in a friendly community using state-of-the-art tools.

You must be a LearnWPT Member to access and join the WPT® World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas Study Sessions and becoming a Member is easy! Click the red JOIN NOW button to get started.

As a Member you'll gain access to LearnWPT Training and WPT GTO Trainer packs, featuring Downloadable Tools, our Ask a Pro Forums, over 500 Strategy Videos (and more).

All for just $5 your first month of Membership.

We'll see you online,
-Team LearnWPT

Have Questions about LearnWPT? Send an email to our Support Team at [email protected] or click the red CONTACT US button.

LearnWPT Instructor Johan Schultz-Pedersen took to the online felt last weekend to win his FIRST career WSOP Bracelet!

Johan captured WSOP Bracelet #1 and the $149,745 1st place prize after outlasting the 3,379 entry field in the $400 No-Limit World Series of Poker Colossus Online Event #20. As a testament to Johan’s focus and determination, he won his first bracelet while on an off day before the start of Day 2 of the $10K WSOP Main Event!

This incredible victory is the highlight of an already epic summer, including 🔥 12 WSOP cashes and a Final Table in the super stacked WPT Alpha8 Trifecta $25K buy-in event at Wynn Las Vegas.

Johan adds this win to his impressive list of live and online career accomplishments including:

➧ WSOP Bracelet Winner
➧ More Than $1 Million in Combined Online and Live Earnings
➧ PartyPoker $150K GTD Tournament Champion
➧ Final Table $5K Buy-in EPT London Main Event
➧ Multiple Cashes in $25K Events Including WPT and PokerGO Tour

Johan’s knowledge of Game Theory Optimal (GTO) poker strategy has been a valuable asset in developing many of the training solutions currently available for the WPT GTO Trainer.

We are very proud to have Johan on Team LearnWPT and know that this is just the beginning of his championship success.

Congratulations Johan!
- Team LearnWPT

He's done it again!

LearnWPT Instructor Tony Dunst took to the online felt last weekend to win his third career WSOP Bracelet!

Tony captured WSOP Bracelet #3 and the $134,888 1st place prize after outlasting the 2,435 entry field in the $500 No-Limit World Series of Poker Deepstack Online Event #15. After a hard fought 13 hour battle of online play through a massive field stacked with Pros and online grinders the remaining 8 players reached the final table.

Just as the sun was rising over the Las Vegas Valley, the last hand of heads up play with his opponent “vevere” was dealt, and the marathon session ended with Tony securing WSOP Bracelet #3.

Tony adds this win to his impressive list of live and online career accomplishments including:

➧ World Poker Tour Champion
➧ 3x WSOP Bracelet Winner
➧ 3x WSOP Circuit Ring Winner
➧ More than $5 Million combined live and online cashes
➧ World Poker Tour Lead Commentator
➧ 10+ Years as Professional Player and Respected Coach

Since the beginning of LearnWPT in 2016 Tony has been an incredible asset to LearnWPT Members providing unique insights and expert strategy advice. His experience in the booth and on the felt combine for a one of a kind perspective on the game and we are proud to have him on Team LearnWPT.

Congratulations Tony!
- Team LearnWPT

DECISION POINT: You are currently eight-handed in the middle stages of a major weekend online tournament with blinds at 500/1,000 and a 1,000 big blind ante. Most of the stacks at the table have around 50BBs and 75% of the field is still in play. The UTG player raises to 2,000 and it folds to you in the Small Blind with Q♥Q♦. You reraise to 9,000, the Big Blind folds, and the original raiser calls. The flop comes 6♦4♣3♠ and action is on you.

What do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are in the early to middle stages of a major weekend online tournament. Most of the stacks at the table, including us, have around 50 big blinds. Around 75% of the field is still playing. The blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante. We are dealt QhQd in the Small Blind with eight players at the table. The UTG player opens to 2,000 and the action folds around to us.

While this raise came from an opponent seated Under the Gun, this opening range should still be as wide as 18-20% of overall hands when using a small opening raise size and with a big blind ante in play. Our specific hand pocket queens is well ahead of that range. Due to being out of position we are heavily incentivized to push our equity edge preflop by reraising rather than taking a passive line and playing out of position postflop with relatively deep stacks. We choose to reraise to 9,000 chips, the Big Blind folds, and the original UTG raiser calls.

The flop is 6d4c3s and with a stack to pot ratio (SPR) of around 2, our pocket queens are very strong and we are near the top of our range, so folding should not be a consideration at any point in the hand. Given that is the case our main concern here is finding the best way to get money into the pot against their range. When the UTG player just calls our preflop raise, their range is usually condensed to pairs as well as some suited aces and suited broadway hands. Although AK might just call sometimes preflop, many players would just move all-in preflop with that hand so we can discount it from our range assessment. This means that when we’re ahead our opponent is likely drawing to somewhere between 2-3 outs, the exception being the times they specifically have combinations of A5s and 55.

The big temptation that many players have here is that they want to bet big and just get the hand over with.

If we really think about UTG’s range our hand isn’t that vulnerable when we’re ahead on this flop. You’re not likely to make big hands at a high frequency in any given tournament, so it’s vital that we’re able to maximize our value when spots like this do occur. If we bet big here our opponent may continue with some of their overpairs, however most of their defending range will be composed of hands that are drawing super thin on this flop such as JTs/ATs.

Consulting the output from a GTO solver for this spot, we see that the preferred line actually checks with our hand at a high frequency here to induce a stab from the portion of UTG’s range that just contains overcards. In addition to checking the solver recommends sometimes betting with a mix of sizing between 25-50% pot. Using a sizing any larger than half pot will likely force our opponent to play closer to “perfect”, by folding all their hands that have little equity against us and only continuing with their strongest holdings.

In real-world games our decision in this spot will be influenced by any tendencies we’ve observed from our opponents.

If we have observed that the UTG player might aggressively take a stab at the pot if we check, this is a great place to play our hand a bit deceptive and check the flop. Against more passive opponents it’s crucial to start betting now and to choose a small sizing that will allow UTG to continue with hands we are dominating.

Both checking and betting small are the best plays.

DECISION POINT: You are on the bubble of a major multi-day tournament with blinds at 1,000/2,000 and a 2,000 big blind ante. You have 9♠9♣ in Middle Position and a 40BB stack. Most of the table has you covered except for the UTG+1 player and there are multiple shorter stacks at other tables. The UTG+1 player has a 30BB stack and raises to 4,500 (2.25BBs).

Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are on the bubble of a major multi-day tournament. We have 40 big blinds and most of the table has us covered. There are multiple shorter stacks at other tables. The blinds are 1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 big blind ante. We are dealt 9s9c in MP1. UTG folds and the UTG+1 player makes it 4,500.

If this were earlier in the tournament where we were thinking about ChipEV only, pocket nines can easily continue here by both calling and reraising. The output from a solver for this spot without any real money considerations in play recommends a mix of calling and raising both with pocket nines, largely favoring calling. We can call UTG+1’s raise in that situation with as low as pocket 7s and still be profitable.

Once we start to factor in the ICM (Independent Chip Model) implications of being on the bubble our range starts to tighten up significantly. This adjustment is especially critical given many of the stacks still to act at the table cover us. In a situation where there is tremendous ICM pressure at play it would be a disaster if we were to commit a significant portion of our remaining stack only to run into a player behind us willing to put in a lot of chips.

As you approach significant payout jumps the value of survival increases significantly. This means the big stacks can play quite aggressively and leverage their ability to threaten the shorter stacks. Consequently, medium and smaller stacks often have to play much tighter. If we were facing a UTG+1 open on 40BBs with pocket 9s in the pre-bubble stages of a tournament it would correct to continue 100% of the time.

On the bubble we would need at least pocket tens to continue, and even then we only show very marginal expected value in this situation in the long run.

Folding is the best play.

It’s easy to perform badly for a long time. Anyone can do that. Your A-game, however, is taxing. You’re utilizing recently learned skills and that requires more effort.

Even though performing at an A-game level feels, at times, natural and easy, I can assure you that experience doesn’t reflect the fact that your A-game uses a lot of mental energy and requires endurance to sustain.

While improving your mental endurance can be helpful in a variety of ways, with the World Series of Poker (WSOP) coming up, I want the poker players out there to pay special attention to this blog. Poker tournaments are intense and you need a reservoir of energy to be able to access the knowledge and skills you’ve worked on more recently, including progress in your mental game. This is especially true in the late stages of a tournament where the big money is on the line. The last thing you want is to falter down the stretch because you’re tired.

Of course, mental endurance is key in other fields. For many traders, endurance is a concept that isn’t discussed much but is still significant. This is especially true for newer traders who have yet to condition themselves to the intensity of the live market, which is very different from a typical 9-5 job. More experienced traders tend to underestimate the impact of burnout and don’t realize that strengthening endurance is key to minimizing or avoiding burnout altogether.

Mental endurance is also relevant for golfers, including me, who are trying to improve their games. But the WSOP only comes once a year and I’m going to focus my examples and advice here on tournament poker.

One of the reasons mental endurance is key is because, for all of us, the only thing guaranteed every day is the C-game.

C-game relies mainly on your unconscious. Decisions come automatically and there is no deep thinking involved. Thinking is your mind working and if it’s working, it’s burning energy. If you have to think a lot and think deeply to perform well, it’s an indication of the lack of mastery or automation of knowledge and skills. I’m not saying that’s bad, I’m simply outlining the facts.

Your A-game, on the other hand, requires effort, preparation, and the right conditions. A-game is earned, not expected. Understanding the demands of what is actually required to be able to sustain your A-game for longer periods of time can help you unlock that performance more often.

To be at your best more often, you want to expand the amount of time where you are operating in that optimal state. You need endurance. You want to be capable of making high-level decisions when you need to or, at a minimum, solid ones that are part of your B-game and don’t fall into C-game.

Decisions that require thinking burn more energy than standard decisions made automatically. Training knowledge to a deep level, on the other hand, not only builds capacity but preserves energy.

Habits and routines are energy-efficient. With a limit to how much you can think about at any one point in time, the more of your skills that are automated, or mastered to the level of Unconscious Competence, the better able you are to make quick, and accurate, decisions while burning less mental energy.

When your knowledge is part of your Unconscious Competence, performance becomes more instinctual. To be clear, I’m not saying to automate your decisions, I’m saying that by automating more of the knowledge that feeds into your decisions you preserve mental energy.

With that in mind, when preparing for the WSOP it’s important to know when to stop learning new things. There is often a tendency to want to do everything and check all the boxes, but you have to work/study with an eye towards the big moments. If you cram too much information in your head right before the series starts, you risk not having access to that knowledge readily available because of pressure, and you’ll burn more energy trying to get to it.

Cramming puts you in a compromised position from both an execution and endurance standpoint. While it can be hard to selectively choose to not try to improve areas of your game that you “theoretically” could, your ability to access that information is not guaranteed. So figure out when you’re going to stop actively learning new things, and hold yourself to it.

Of course, after that point and during the series, you can make small adjustments, because they can be easily integrated into your game. But you will play far better going in with a knowledge base that you know is solid and reliable vs. cramming for the WSOP like it’s a test in school. And let’s get real, you never took a test in school where the exam lasted 12 hours a day, and sometimes for several days in a row! So why would you approach the biggest tournament series of the year that way?

Now is the perfect opportunity to build mental endurance for the WSOP and the process is similar to the process of increasing physical endurance. As an example, if you want to run a marathon, you are not going to just show up to the race without having built a capacity to run long distances. And you likely aren’t going to start your first training run at 20 miles and build from there.

While the analogy isn’t perfect, we can use the general framework of steadily ramping up your endurance to give us ideas on how to do it in poker. Here are a few ideas that have helped clients:

• Make a realistic assessment of where you are today. For example, look at your average volume in a series like the WSOP or in years past, the prevalence and severity of mental game problems, and what your ideal WSOP schedule looks like.
• Between now and a week or two before your WSOP starts, create a training plan where you look to steadily increase your volume or duration of play, either online or live. The idea is to understand where your limit is and then push it a little more.
• To help you build endurance while playing well, use injecting logic statements and strategic reminders to help ensure you retain emotional stability and quality decision making as you push.
• Increase steadily over time. While it’s hard to be exact about how much to increase your play, I think a reasonable goal is 10% at a time. Be wary of pushing too hard and burning out instead of increasing capacity.
• We still have some time before WSOP and it’s a good opportunity to treat smaller poker events in the lead-up as a good tune-up for what’s been working tactically and an opportunity to build some mental endurance.

At the end of the day, if you want to perform at a high level, you have to fight for it. If it was easy, everyone would do it and there would be no reward.

I hope you final table a big event and that when you get there you have more energy than normal, and you can see how your opponents are tired and more vulnerable to tilt and mistakes from fatigue. This, of course, doesn’t mean you’re going to take down the title, but in a game like poker, you’ll take every advantage you can find.

If you want more content like this to help you prepare for the WSOP, including improving focus, reducing tilt, and getting in the zone more often, check out The Mental Game of Poker 2 and my video series The Mental Game Tune Up for Tournament Poker.

-Jared Tendler

For more insight and stories from Jared visit his blog at https://jaredtendler.com/blog/

Analysis of Mental Game strategy is as important as any poker technique you can master which is why top poker players trust Jared Tendler to help maintain focus & bring their A-game to the table.

Jared's Mental Game Tune Up for Tournament Poker video series is a step-by-step guide to prepare your mental game for sustained success and get you ready for the WSOP, WPT® World Championships, or a series at your local card room.

This step-by-step guide to preparing your mental game for sustained success during a tournament series includes:

• 8 specific training modules with 34 video lessons
• Downloadable worksheets to personalize your training
• A private community forum
• Review quizzes to reinforce your learning!

Find out why the world’s best poker players trust Jared to help them maintain focus and bring their A-Game to the table more consistently. Unlock a hidden edge in your poker game, and start working towards unshakable confidence at the table today.

DECISION POINT: You are in the middle stages of a multi-table Tournament where blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante. Stacks at the table are between 30-50BBs and you have 50BBs. You’ve observed the players on the Button and in the Blinds to be solid opponents. Action folds to you in the Cutoff with Q♠T♠ and you raise to 2,300. The Button 3-Bets to 6,900 and both of the Blinds fold.

Action is back on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing the middle stages of a multi-table Tournament. The blinds are 500/1,000 with a 1,000 big blind ante. The Button, Small Blind, and Big Blind are solid players with a good understanding of poker theory. We have 50,000 chips and most of the other stacks around the table have between 30-50 big blinds.

We are dealt QsTs in the Cutoff and action folds to us. We make a standard opening raise to 2,300 and the Button to our immediate left reraises to 6,900. Both the Small Blind and Big Blind fold and action is back on us.

Against skilled and aggressive players it is very important that we are able defend reraises of our first-in opens with an appropriate frequency. In this scenario the Button 3-bet 6,900 to win our initial 2,300 raise amount plus the additional 2,500 in the pot. Since they risked 6,900 to win 4,800 if we defend any less than around 40% of the time (4800/6900) our opponent can profit by reraising with any two cards. Using our estimated equity in the pot as a shortcut to govern how often we need to continue against aggressive action in a specific scenario is often referred to as minimum defense frequency.

The best combinations for us to defend against reraises include hands that realize their equity well out of position. This means that in addition to some of the more obvious candidates like big pairs , Ace-King, and Ace-Queen that will continue by calling or 4-betting, we need to fill out the rest of our range with other hands that don’t favor a 4-bet such as pairs and some of our best suited hands. Our specific hand QTs is one of the better candidates to defend in this spot, with GTO response charts recommending we continue against a Button 3-bet with as low as Q8s.

In game, if we have a read that our opponent is not 3-betting an appropriate range and is instead using a much narrower one, we could make an exploitative adjustment in this spot by folding. Against skilled and aggressive opponents we must defend a certain percentage of the time to avoid being exploited, and QTs falls firmly into the preferred 3-bet defense range in this spot.

Calling is the best play.

DECISION POINT: You just sat down at a live $5/$10 cash game with $1000 effective stacks and are dealt A♠3♠ in the Big Blind. Everyone folds to the Button who raises to $25, the Small Blind folds, and you call. You check the 7♥3♦2♣ flop and your opponent c-bets $35.

Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing a live $5/$10 cash game with $1000 effective stacks and have just recently sat down so we have no relevant reads on the table. Everyone folds to the Button who raises to $25, the Small Blind folds and action is on us with As3s in the Big Blind.

Reraising preflop is certainly valid as a part of a polarized 3-betting strategy, however this hand falls more firmly into the category of a call. The output from a Game Theory Optimal solver prefers to 3-bet A5s, and A4s a portion of the time, leaving A3s and A2s as the suited wheel combinations that prefer calling in this scenario. When analyzing this strategy it’s important to note that 3-betting these hands as a bluff too frequently would imbalance our range.

If we chose to include A3s as part of our overall 3-betting strategy in this instance it could be acceptable, as long as we used some sort of suit or clock randomization technique to maintain appropriate balance. In situations where we have specific reads on an opponent, such as they will call 3-bets frequently but often fold to aggression postflop, we could widen our 3-betting range to include A3s.

In this instance we elect to call and the flop is 7h3d2c. While leading on some low card boards that favor a calling range over the Button’s raising range is a valid play, the default play in this defense calling scenario from the Big Blind is check to the preflop raiser. We do check, and the Button continuation bets $35.

Our pair of 3s is likely to be the best hand on the flop a vast majority of the time and folding to a standard c-bet in spot would be a huge mistake against skilled opponents. Both check-raising and calling have a positive expectation. Right away we can see that check-raising is problematic as our range doesn’t contain many combos that can check-raise for value when we are deep stacked. If a pair of threes is in our check-raising range here, it’s very easy for our range to contain too many weak hands and allow a good opponent to counter by calling or 3-betting more frequently.

We don’t have a backdoor flush draw and our straight draw can only be completed if 4 cards to a straight are showing on the board, so it is not very well disguised. Considering the specific factors in this hand as a whole, calling is the preferred play in this scenario.

Taking this line will likely require some difficult turn decisions where we sometimes may need to call on the turn with 3rd pair, however we show a positive expectation in the long run, especially vs skilled and aggressive opponents.

Calling is the best play.