Dr. Rubin, I have thoroughly enjoyed this lecture series. As for the riddle, I have a much more simplistic but certainly correct answer. My answer (and more realistically via online misclick), I folded at the turn! There is no way to win or chop at the river.
Hi Dr. Rubin, I'm a Hopkins alumni and it's super cool to see that Hopkins is now offering a poker course. I'm sure that the students are having lots of fun. I know that my 19yo self would've loved this class. It's great to see poker theory analyzed seriously, and not just seen as degenerate gambling. Great work! That being said, I respectfully disagree with every hand's decisions: hand 1: 33 in CO I don't think folding is terrible, but I prefer to play this hand. 1. if someone only has 40 at 1/2, I'm willing to put them in with 33. we're flipping against all no pairs. 2. players who are playing 20bb at low stakes do have some bet folds. they shouldn't but they are that bad. 3. there are 3 players behind us, 2 of which we have position against, and we can rope them in. So I'd raise to 25. 1. If we fold everyone out, great. 2. If the original raiser shoves, we call and hope we win. If we lose the flip or are actually dominated, that's fine, it's only 40. 3. If someone behind 4bets, easy fold for us. 4. If we rope in some players behind and the original raiser jams, we'd have raised 17 and they only raised 15, so when we call, players behind can't back jam. If there's only one player for the side pot (hopefully it's the blinds and not the button, but either way), we play the side pot heads up, and a pair's good heads up. If multiple players called behind, we set up the implied odds for set mining. 5. if one or more players call 25, and the original raiser folds (lmao), we just achieved the same with less money. I think there's also merit for flat calling, since nobody's particularly deep. 1. If someone behind 3bets, easy fold. 2. if we're isolated, players raising 4bb with 20bb starting at low stakes are bad. quite often, if they don't hit the flop well, they'll check and we can jam any flop. if they do bet we fold. it's only 4bb. ppl miss the flop 2/3 of the time. If they raised another small pair, they miss 8/9 of the time, so I think calling this is fine. 3. if we rope more players in, we set up the implied odds for set mining. hand 2: 99 in SB I think if CO's a maniac, then 99 is way ahead of his range, but that doesn't mean they never have a hand. If we raise to 240 with the effective stack (ours) at 1140, we just buried ourselves if they ever call/raise. we have to fold to any raise, min or shove. and if they call, we just put 20%+ of eff stack in, and we have to play the flop out of position with the betting lead. Unless we flop a set (8/9 of the time we don't), we're in a very awkward position. Assuming we flop 2nd pair, when we cbet and they call, we gain very little information while already pot committed with a marginal hand. Also, BB still has to act, and we're risking 240 to win 55 here. That's a lot to win very little. I think the only merit to raising is to stop BB from coming in. We isolate and have better odds to win the hand. I'm more likely to do this against a TAG than a maniac LAG though, since those ppl would be raising QTo just because they're late position, and they're more likely to throw it away facing a standard raise to 125. If we're so convinced that the guy is spewing with 35o every hand, then 99 is way ahead of their range, so why only go after the preflop money? Theoretically if they have any 2, we can just check call 3 streets and win 70%+ of the time. I much prefer flat calling and letting them give us all their money. Obviously we adjust if the board & action doesn't seem right, or if we make a big hand. But say we blindly check call a half pot bet every street, that's 15+40+40+80+160 = 335. We're risking 320 to win 335. That's only risking 80 more to win 280 more. I think this is a better deal. hand 3: TT in HJ Yes, original raiser is TAG in UTG+1, but when we call in MP, we often rope more players in. This is bad for TT because now we like almost no flops. If there are overcards, we're probably beat. If we have an overpair, ppl creating multi-way pots are much more likely to have the small straights or sets. So we're essentially set mining with TT and that's way undervaluing TT. We also open the doors for late position/blind squeezes since we really don't appear that strong, and they basically only need UTG+1 to have AJ-. 56s could easily do this. That being said, if we strongly suspect UTG+1 of having a very strong hand, and 3betting would only get us in trouble, we could flat. However I usually only make these decisions when there's also a live tell, or the opening size is unusual. Just the fact that they're EP and TAG isn't enough. Calling the 3bet is fine, button's raise size was small for 2 ppl already in and blinds behind anyway. I wouldn't say TT's already beat, since UTG+1 didn't 4bet either, which is not very likely with QQ+, and the raise is from the button. Checking to the last aggressor on the flop is fine. I guess this is obviously a made up hand, since it really makes no sense for button to overbet on that board. AA/KK/sets/2p should just bet standard to charge the smaller overpairs. AK/AQ continues, draw+pair semi bluffs are also the same size. There are no front door flush draws so only 35/58 flopped straight. I think against a standard 40-60% bet ($125-190), assuming UTG+1 folds, we need to call. We have an overpair against a button cbet. We're obv proceeding cautiously, but I think if we're only set mining here that's way too exploitable. These are just my 2 cents. Obviously everybody plays differently and I have great respect for trying to teach beginners all these theory and strategy. I just thought there's more nuance to the hands and wanted to point them out :)
Whoever proved that the riddle is "impossible" was right. With pocket pairs you cannot have absolute nuts on the flop PLUS TURN plus cannot win on tie on the river. With any xx pair you will not have "absolute" nuts on a turn if the flop is xx(x+y) and turn is (x+y) - x+y pocket pair would always have "absolute nuts" on turn. Riddle's condition for turn is "impossible". As an example and to prove that 33 doesn't work (same as 22) as a solution to the riddle: villain has 44, the flop comes 334, turn 4 and 33 does not have "absolute nuts" on the turn anymore (yet any river even 2 would make it impossible to win or tie for 33 vs. 44). Same thing goes all the way to pocket KK and pocket AA would allway win post AAx flop. It is understood that river changing probabilities was the point of the riddle, yet it is "impossible" riddle. Cool riddle. *** Whoever expanded to read this far, the right answer to the riddle is... any pocket pair but AA. Student's answer that "it didn't work with 22 so it gotta be 33" is wrong. Consider 22 vs. 34+, flop 223, turn 3, river 3. So obviously the riddle works for pocket 22 same as any pocket pair apart from AA vs. similar villain and similar boards. The answer by the student is just wrong and professor didn't explain the riddle deep enough... Cool riddle.
The student's answer is correct. In the riddle you only know in hindsight that you had the nuts. When you're holding your 33 and the flop comes 223, you have the top full house. The turn comes 2 and the river comes 2. Now, in retrospect, you know that no other player could have held 22 which is the only hand that was beating you. However, the board is currently quad 2s with a 3 kicker; you are playing the board, but as three 3s are already in play only one player could have held that other 3 and they must have something higher they can use as a kicker (all 2s are also in play). Your example is good, but it's very important in the riddle that you know only in retrospect that you have the nuts, that's the case in the student's explanation.
No. That's really stupid. Sorry, but that's not what "the nuts" means: the term doesn't mean the actual best hand based on how the hand played out. It means the best possible hand of all possible hands at a given time. But let's leave that debate aside. The wording equivocates with the participial phrase in terms of time in order to motivate an ad hoc answer to the riddle. This is where it would have been helpful for a logic specialist or at least an English language specialist to come in and help. Why not just express the riddle as: "Looking back afterwards, you realize that you had the absolute nuts at the time but didn't know it." instead of trying to obfuscate by equivocating on the time reference ("Looking back afterwards" is t1, but "you had the absolute nuts" is t2, making this sentence grammatically garbage: that's not how participial phrases work. For example, I can't say, "Living in Chicago, I lived in Brooklyn in 1975.")
I think this was the best video in the series up to this point. This really expanded my knowledge
Dr. Rubin, I have thoroughly enjoyed this lecture series. As for the riddle, I have a much more simplistic but certainly correct answer. My answer (and more realistically via online misclick), I folded at the turn! There is no way to win or chop at the river.
Fold KK Pre Flop video ua-cam.com/video/dZpvDH3JlCU/v-deo.html
The video is no longer available now...
Hi Dr. Rubin, I'm a Hopkins alumni and it's super cool to see that Hopkins is now offering a poker course. I'm sure that the students are having lots of fun. I know that my 19yo self would've loved this class. It's great to see poker theory analyzed seriously, and not just seen as degenerate gambling. Great work! That being said, I respectfully disagree with every hand's decisions:
hand 1: 33 in CO
I don't think folding is terrible, but I prefer to play this hand. 1. if someone only has 40 at 1/2, I'm willing to put them in with 33. we're flipping against all no pairs. 2. players who are playing 20bb at low stakes do have some bet folds. they shouldn't but they are that bad. 3. there are 3 players behind us, 2 of which we have position against, and we can rope them in.
So I'd raise to 25. 1. If we fold everyone out, great. 2. If the original raiser shoves, we call and hope we win. If we lose the flip or are actually dominated, that's fine, it's only 40. 3. If someone behind 4bets, easy fold for us. 4. If we rope in some players behind and the original raiser jams, we'd have raised 17 and they only raised 15, so when we call, players behind can't back jam. If there's only one player for the side pot (hopefully it's the blinds and not the button, but either way), we play the side pot heads up, and a pair's good heads up. If multiple players called behind, we set up the implied odds for set mining. 5. if one or more players call 25, and the original raiser folds (lmao), we just achieved the same with less money.
I think there's also merit for flat calling, since nobody's particularly deep. 1. If someone behind 3bets, easy fold. 2. if we're isolated, players raising 4bb with 20bb starting at low stakes are bad. quite often, if they don't hit the flop well, they'll check and we can jam any flop. if they do bet we fold. it's only 4bb. ppl miss the flop 2/3 of the time. If they raised another small pair, they miss 8/9 of the time, so I think calling this is fine. 3. if we rope more players in, we set up the implied odds for set mining.
hand 2: 99 in SB
I think if CO's a maniac, then 99 is way ahead of his range, but that doesn't mean they never have a hand. If we raise to 240 with the effective stack (ours) at 1140, we just buried ourselves if they ever call/raise. we have to fold to any raise, min or shove. and if they call, we just put 20%+ of eff stack in, and we have to play the flop out of position with the betting lead. Unless we flop a set (8/9 of the time we don't), we're in a very awkward position. Assuming we flop 2nd pair, when we cbet and they call, we gain very little information while already pot committed with a marginal hand. Also, BB still has to act, and we're risking 240 to win 55 here. That's a lot to win very little.
I think the only merit to raising is to stop BB from coming in. We isolate and have better odds to win the hand. I'm more likely to do this against a TAG than a maniac LAG though, since those ppl would be raising QTo just because they're late position, and they're more likely to throw it away facing a standard raise to 125.
If we're so convinced that the guy is spewing with 35o every hand, then 99 is way ahead of their range, so why only go after the preflop money? Theoretically if they have any 2, we can just check call 3 streets and win 70%+ of the time. I much prefer flat calling and letting them give us all their money. Obviously we adjust if the board & action doesn't seem right, or if we make a big hand. But say we blindly check call a half pot bet every street, that's 15+40+40+80+160 = 335. We're risking 320 to win 335. That's only risking 80 more to win 280 more. I think this is a better deal.
hand 3: TT in HJ
Yes, original raiser is TAG in UTG+1, but when we call in MP, we often rope more players in. This is bad for TT because now we like almost no flops. If there are overcards, we're probably beat. If we have an overpair, ppl creating multi-way pots are much more likely to have the small straights or sets. So we're essentially set mining with TT and that's way undervaluing TT. We also open the doors for late position/blind squeezes since we really don't appear that strong, and they basically only need UTG+1 to have AJ-. 56s could easily do this. That being said, if we strongly suspect UTG+1 of having a very strong hand, and 3betting would only get us in trouble, we could flat. However I usually only make these decisions when there's also a live tell, or the opening size is unusual. Just the fact that they're EP and TAG isn't enough.
Calling the 3bet is fine, button's raise size was small for 2 ppl already in and blinds behind anyway. I wouldn't say TT's already beat, since UTG+1 didn't 4bet either, which is not very likely with QQ+, and the raise is from the button.
Checking to the last aggressor on the flop is fine. I guess this is obviously a made up hand, since it really makes no sense for button to overbet on that board. AA/KK/sets/2p should just bet standard to charge the smaller overpairs. AK/AQ continues, draw+pair semi bluffs are also the same size. There are no front door flush draws so only 35/58 flopped straight. I think against a standard 40-60% bet ($125-190), assuming UTG+1 folds, we need to call. We have an overpair against a button cbet. We're obv proceeding cautiously, but I think if we're only set mining here that's way too exploitable.
These are just my 2 cents. Obviously everybody plays differently and I have great respect for trying to teach beginners all these theory and strategy. I just thought there's more nuance to the hands and wanted to point them out :)
i agree with TT. i'd probably bet pre-flop, and if the flop comes with no overs, i'll definitely bet
@@DoktorL0ve Solver says raise 1/3 and fold 2/3 for TT Preflop, never call. Agreed with betting against no overs.
Is the cameraman the said dude who took pictures of the Loch Ness monster?
New link for Kings fold preflop?
ua-cam.com/video/C7KytDEVsmI/v-deo.htmlsi=S30UzH687nJXxw2W
great stuff
about the riddle
i had the best hand Ax flush on flop..
i all in
i thought i had best hand dancing
other guy with 77 allin
he made a full house 😭😭
I'm going to guess the cooler video is this starting at 8:10, but I have no idea: ua-cam.com/video/tChH3wRKHOk/v-deo.html
it's this one: ua-cam.com/video/W43oHtTKT8Y/v-deo.html
@@stephaniem6482 Thanks.
Whoever proved that the riddle is "impossible" was right.
With pocket pairs you cannot have absolute nuts on the flop PLUS TURN plus cannot win on tie on the river. With any xx pair you will not have "absolute" nuts on a turn if the flop is xx(x+y) and turn is (x+y) - x+y pocket pair would always have "absolute nuts" on turn. Riddle's condition for turn is "impossible".
As an example and to prove that 33 doesn't work (same as 22) as a solution to the riddle: villain has 44, the flop comes 334, turn 4 and 33 does not have "absolute nuts" on the turn anymore (yet any river even 2 would make it impossible to win or tie for 33 vs. 44).
Same thing goes all the way to pocket KK and pocket AA would allway win post AAx flop.
It is understood that river changing probabilities was the point of the riddle, yet it is "impossible" riddle.
Cool riddle.
***
Whoever expanded to read this far, the right answer to the riddle is... any pocket pair but AA.
Student's answer that "it didn't work with 22 so it gotta be 33" is wrong. Consider 22 vs. 34+, flop 223, turn 3, river 3. So obviously the riddle works for pocket 22 same as any pocket pair apart from AA vs. similar villain and similar boards.
The answer by the student is just wrong and professor didn't explain the riddle deep enough...
Cool riddle.
The student's answer is correct. In the riddle you only know in hindsight that you had the nuts. When you're holding your 33 and the flop comes 223, you have the top full house. The turn comes 2 and the river comes 2. Now, in retrospect, you know that no other player could have held 22 which is the only hand that was beating you. However, the board is currently quad 2s with a 3 kicker; you are playing the board, but as three 3s are already in play only one player could have held that other 3 and they must have something higher they can use as a kicker (all 2s are also in play).
Your example is good, but it's very important in the riddle that you know only in retrospect that you have the nuts, that's the case in the student's explanation.
Thanks for the explanation. I finally get the riddle.
No. That's really stupid. Sorry, but that's not what "the nuts" means: the term doesn't mean the actual best hand based on how the hand played out. It means the best possible hand of all possible hands at a given time. But let's leave that debate aside. The wording equivocates with the participial phrase in terms of time in order to motivate an ad hoc answer to the riddle. This is where it would have been helpful for a logic specialist or at least an English language specialist to come in and help. Why not just express the riddle as: "Looking back afterwards, you realize that you had the absolute nuts at the time but didn't know it." instead of trying to obfuscate by equivocating on the time reference ("Looking back afterwards" is t1, but "you had the absolute nuts" is t2, making this sentence grammatically garbage: that's not how participial phrases work. For example, I can't say, "Living in Chicago, I lived in Brooklyn in 1975.")
it's a riddle
Calm down bro 😂
The way that this reads like corporate garbage tilts me so hard lmao
i agree. i was confused by the riddle because it wasnt expressed clearly (and i see many others also misunderstanding in the comments)