Poker Hand Matchup: Kristen Foxen Folds Kings Preflop

Outcome

Preflop: With nine players remaining and blinds of 75,000-150,000 with a big blind ante of 150,000, Felipe Ketzer shoved from under the gun with Q♠J♠. Elton Tsang called in the next seat with 10♥10♦.

Philip Sternheimer then shoved from the lojack holding J♦J♣. Kristen Foxen tanked before folding K♠K♣, and Tsang also got out of the way.

Board: 9♣5♥2♥K♦2♠

The jacks held and Sternheimer scored the knockout.

Analysis

The Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju $100,000 main event was down to a final table of nine from a field of 178. The remaining players had $385,000 locked up, and they were playing for a massive $3,766,000 in first-place prize money.

Felipe Ketzer was on a short stack, about eight big blinds, under the gun. He had an easy jam opportunity with a suited Broadway hand, and he took it. Elton Tsang picked up pocket tens in the next seat and called, which was the correct play. Even with the ICM implications, tens are a plenty good enough hand to call in that spot, especially since Tsang had enough chips that losing or folding to a subsequent shove wouldn’t massively impact his tournament standing.

Philip Sternheimer held jacks, and Tsang covered his stack of about 38 big blinds. This was quite a dicey situation at the final table, but jacks could make for a nice shove if he could get Tsang off of some flips as strong as A-K. Given the action, that sort of fold wouldn’t be crazy.

Sternheimer did decide to jam, leaving Kristen Foxen to wake up with kings, having witnessed a flurry of action in front of her. Theoretically, she was looking at three uncapped ranges, since Tsang could just call all of his continues against the short-stack shove.

She had 2.9 million and there was 6.5 million in the middle, though she couldn’t win 875,000 of Sternheimer’s stack, so she was getting about 2-1 odds. Even if she thought Sternheimer was only going with queens or better and A-K, then Foxen was getting the right price to call with queens herself.

However, ICM incentivizes folding these close spots, because folding wins theoretical money. Remember that there was a very real possibility of two bustouts in this hand, which would have locked up an additional $250,000.

However, pocket kings are simply too strong. Again, even against a tighter range than Sternheimer actually had, kings have about 55% equity. That was just too much to fold away here, and it wasn’t realistic for Sternheimer to be tighter than that against two players who had each put in only eight big blinds apiece.

Tsang had an obvious fold once it got back to him, and Sternheimer won an incredibly fortunate pot that propelled him up the leaderboard.

Foxen shook off the mistake as best as she could and rebounded to finish fourth for $1,449,000, adding to her lead on the women’s all-time money list.

Tsang took third for $1,787,000, and Sternheimer made it to heads-up play before bowing out in second for $2,535,000.

The eventual winner was Ben Tollerene, who picked up his second Triton title and $3,766,000. The Texas native now has more than $36 million in career earnings.

Photos by Triton Poker