The no limit hold'em poker IQ test (unofficial)

Thanks for doing this. The most fun I had was trying to figure out all the abbreviations. I have seen some of them before (some of them were alphabet soup), but after taking the whole test I was able to put definitions to all. MP and CO were my biggest challenge (Middle Player and Cut Off). And figuring out “o” meant “off.” And learning the rule of 4 and 2. I was thrilled to discover I was a shark - having been a fish for so long. And now that I can throw around some of the lingo I might be able to scare some people into thinking I’m a pro! Great job! Very appreciated.

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It’s right there after the answers:

120 = shark

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Thanks for the test I thought it was really good! 140 for me (had 13,14,15. 28, 31, 36, 40, 45, 46, 48 and 49 wrong, sure no one cares though)
Kinda disagree with 13, 40, 45, 48 and 49. But overall really solid answer sheet!

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:joy::rofl:

nice to hear you learned new stuff from taking teh test. i deliberately put very detailed explanations on the answers so everyone from the new to the more experienced players could learn new things after taking the test, no matter if tehy were right or wrong. very nice to hear it worked for you.

yw, glad u both liked it

well done :+1:

not at all, it’s always fun to hear the details, no matter if it’s the right or the wrong ones.

glad u liked the answers.
just being curious, what’s your opinion of the answers you disagreed on and why?

Really enjoyed the test and got a 138.

I don’t really agree with 29, 33, 35, 39, and 48, but some of these are subjective, so it’s not surprising. I am not an expert, so maybe I can learn from looking at these spots again.

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All of poker is subjective…

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Uhm for 13: ATo is the bottom of my openening range, I guess you can argue for folding / raising here.
for 40: Well 33 does not block any of the value range of the villian, shoving hands like AJo seems way better when shoving as a bluff. (Not dominated when called as often) I think 9+, and AQs+ call. Just see that AJo does better against this range, since you have these hands quite often no need to shove 33
45: I think in this spot you have a lot of AK which you want to get all in on the river, When shoving up with 67cc in this spot you just need to get all in otr to balance for this. Since you rep AK, I think going all-in ott does not make much sence (why do this with AK). Raising to 300M leaves you 160M behind with a 700M pot shoving otr wont get much folds otr (you ofc always want to put your opponent into though spots otr whether you have it or not) Raising to 200M will leave you 260M behind with a 550M pot which seems like a nice shove otr as a bluff. Also the board is not that draw heavy making a bigger raise needed in this spot imo
48: Again going all in here for 17 blinds vs a UTG open just crushes your range. And i dont think many good people will open to fold to a 17BB shove from UTG. So I think you just always get all in vs ATo+ / 7s+. Just fold pre here
49: Raising for information is never good, this just only makes you fold worse hands and call better… AK is a very strong hand I would say the flop favours the calling player he has more 10s 10J KQ hands, so checking here is good. The turn A is good for us (and our range) betting into a good card for the opponents range shows great strengt. I think the villian can have KQ 10s Js and 10J, and for bluffs either rags or flushdraws, I dont see a good reason to try to fold out the villians bluff just call the turn, and plan on calling the river.

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nice points.
i shall give u my theories as well:

13: first of all, the main reason is that AT is a decent hand, but too weak from the UTG because it’s too often dominated. you might win a small pot if everyone folds, or if a bad player decides to call. but if you hit your ace (which is why you play AT in the first place) it’s usually dominated against a decent player. since you’re playing NL25, it means there are already several decent players out there. meaning they know a UTG raise means strength, so they only gonna play when they have you beat. the last thing you want is paying a big part of your stack only to foind out your kicker is no good.

40: i completely agree 33 doesn’t hold a blocker. but the reason small pairs can be included into the bluff range is because they hold decent equity if they bluff goes wrong, while Ax hands won’t. if i would shove AJ as a bluff we hold a blocker so less hands can call and the bluff works more frequently, but if you do get called, you are almost always dominated at his range. as for the range you pointed out, i think hands like 99 or TT are quite loose if they are calling a 4bet shove. if they do they are almost always behind on the value range of the shove, in other words 99 and TT is nothing but a bluffcatcher here, but even if they are as loose as you mentiones, you could defenitely add AQo and AKo into hteir value range as well (AKo especcialy, even if they aren’t very loose) but either if i add hands to a loose player, or remove hands for a tight player, it both makes your range more attractive to bluff small pairs with. i agree that on your range you are still often dominated, but if you remove the medium pairs or add the overcards, you have much better equity against the villains calling range.

45: i completely agree we can rep mostly AK in this spot. but the problem is, so does the opponent. in your example, you assume if we bet 200M the villain will call. the problem however is that we don’t know. it seems like the most logical option, but defenitely not a certain option. if we indeed get called, it might get us more chance to win a huge pot if we hit, but if we don’t, it’s probably still right to bluff shove since he would most likely shove AK on the turn after a raise. so AQ or maybe another draw is the most logical call there, clearly we want AQ to fold. but we might get a fold right away by raising if this was a bluff, not likely, but possible. if we get raised however, we are forced to play it anyway because of the odds we get. clearly, it isn’t bad to call if teh odds were right, but it’s only right because we payed him for it first. i would however like a shove right away, because it makes him fold hands like AQ and other draws. and maybe some small pair bluff hands. however we would probably get called by hands like AK, which still isn’t terrible because we hold a lot of outs. but teh main difference is when we just call, we are sure we did right. while with raising or shoving it’s still uncertain. it’s probably both +EV but i think calling is more because we don’t just hold the right pot odds, we also hold large implied odds because of his aggression and our position.

48: in this question, it’s literally mentioned he likes to raise about half of all his hands, meaning any ace, any pair, most kings and probably several other strange hands. sure you can still decrease some of them because of his position. but still, his range is extremely wide there. but since he does fold hands, it means as well we can get folds out of him by shoving. and since there are so much poor hands we will usually get lots of folds. even if he calls, we still hold decent equity against him.

49: i agree 100% that raising just for information is bad. but it’s more like an additional reason here then just the only reason. i also defenitely think calling is a good option. but the thing here is that calling allows the river card. and there are many unwanted river cards. not just the clubs, but also cards like 8, 9 or even the K. because of his unpredictability, there can be hands like a pair with a gutshot in his range as well, making these cards dangerous as well, even a board pair may be bad if he holds something like that. i agree calling is a good option, i even think it might almost as good as raising, but because of all the draws and possibilities, i like to win it now or know now i’m losing.
i do have to admit you made me hestitant about this one :wink: . actually i still am a little, but do think a raise is slightly preffered over a call here. however you made very good arguments here :+1:.

it would be interesting to see what about this test thinks holz or bonomo lol

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