We have some more tips on how to crush the Zoom(Rush & Cash) Pools on the GGPoker network, these hands are all played on the Natural 8 software which is part of this awesome new poker site. Steffen “go0se.core!” Sontheimer plays the $1/$2 6 Max games like an absolute boss, so let’s see what we can learn.
Making sizings the same on all streets
Also known as Betting Geometrically which just means roughly calculating an equal sizing to bet on all streets in order to get stacks in. The reason we do this is to help get more action, let’s say we bet too big too early, we might kill our action… the same being true for the times we bet too small on earlier streets and are then forced to make a huge River bet to get stacks in, our opponent can call twice and then fold once we bet larger.
The way we avoid this happening is that we try and bet equal sizings on all streets of action so in this pot Steffen bets around 30% on the Turn leaving his opponent around 47BBs into a pot that will be around 115BBs when we come to the River, allowing for a similar sizing for his All-in move.
Continuing with just Ace high
Now for most of us, including myself I looked at this pot and thought, easy fold on the Turn, we called a 3-Bet and tried to spike our gutshot when we faced a C-Bet, however now our opponent is betting pretty big and setting up a River all-in.
Steffen decides to continue though, he reasons that he beats bluffs with his Ace-high like heart draws and straight draws, he can hit his gutshot and his Ace high can be a win for him.
Hitting a bluff card
The other option is that he could hit a card that is better for his calling range than his opponents and that is what happens. When the 3rd heart hits the River he can often have a flush here, so when his opponent shows weakness and checks he empties the clip and applies maximum pressure. It’s important to note that he would do this for value with all his flushes too, the bet works and he scoops a pot most players would not be in a position to take down.
Have to get the pot big at some point
It’s hard to want to raise when you have the board locked up, Steffen flops quads in this pot and check calls flop and is thinking about check calling on the Turn, however, he is just too deep and he wants to get this pot large at some point in the hand, so he opts to make a big check-raise on this Turn card, he could represent hands like trips, flush draws and full houses, so he has a balanced range in this spot.
He ends up leading the River and getting jammed on by a complete cooler hand with his opponent holding Kings Full.
Overbets seem to only mean one thing in low stakes
This is a pot that many people would just stack off with, however, Steffen knows better, he is protected here because although he just has top pair, he would check and trap with nut flushes in this spot too.
His opponent just keeps firing out the over-bets though, which is scary news.
He check-calls the River too after improving to two pair, which now might beat some other worse two pairs, his opponent showed him the goods though and although this pot got pretty large he didn’t get stacks in and saved himself from further damage is a raise had gone in at any point.
Sizing down against shorter stacks
There are some times when we can make 4-Bets smaller, in this case, Steffen is against two qualifying parameters for this. Firstly his opponent is short-stacked starting the hand with just 89BBs and secondly, they sized their 3-Bet to 4.5x his open raise, so that means that Steffan can just raise around 2.5x as a 4-Bet because there is already quite a bit of change in the middle.
Let’s say his opponent made it 3x the raise making it just 6BBs, then Steffen might want to go to nearer a 4x sizing making it somewhere in the region of the same 4-Bet of 24BBs.
Watch the session here
All the highlights are here on the youtube channel that Steffen and some other German Pros put together, check it out!