Even the best players in the world make mistakes. Join Sam Greenwood as he breaks down and analyzes hands played from the high roller circuit on his Punt Of The Day Substack.
“Sure, you’re better than poker at me, but I have an advantage over you. You’ve never played with me before, so I am unpredictable and you can never guess what I have.”
I have heard so many variations of this sentiment from so many different people in my life in poker, and it is amazing that people still believe it. Everyone thinks their bad game represents some specific type of bad poker that is unique to them and only them.
The reality is, not every player is bad in the same way, but there are groups of poker players who are bad in similar ways. If you play enough poker and are observant, you get good at categorizing unknown players and estimating tendencies.
That being said, there is a kernel of truth to the legend of the unpredictable player. Over the course of several hands, it’s unlikely that a novice player will consistently stymie a top player with their unusual play, but in the short run they can get one over on a top player.
Tournament poker is a long iterated game. Winning a hand doesn’t mean anything, winning a tournament or being up money over a large sample of tournaments is what matters. However, the best way to do that is to make sure you play every hand as well as possible, which ideally means being one step ahead of the curve and predicting the plays of unpredictable players.
In today’s POTD, I played a hand vs Dao Minh Phu, a rich Vietnamese VIP whose patented move at the Triton Cyprus series was getting all in for hundreds of big blinds with two cards lower than a six. However, he’s also a player who has multiple gears and was playing more seriously as we got into the money of the first event. I got cute and tried to outsmart him and he punished me for it. Read on to see how.
Event: 2023 Triton Cyprus $25,000 GG Super Millions
The Hand
There are a few tables remaining and we are in the money, sitting on a stack of 1,200,000 with blinds at 25,000-50,000 with a 50,000 big blind ante. It folds to me on the button and I look down at 4♥4♠. I raise to 100,000, and Dao Minh Phu calls from the big blind, having started the hand with a covering stack of 2,600,000.
Flop: Q♦J♥2♣ (pot: 275,000)
I check, and he checks behind.
Turn: 2♥ (pot: 275,000)
Dao Minh Phu bets 225,000, and I call.
River: 5♦ (pot: 725,000)
Dao Minh Phu bets 400,000. I fold, and he turns over 6♠4♣.
What Was I Thinking?
Dao Minh Phu is a wild card who plays quite aggressively, and one of his patented moves is announcing a quick all-in over a bet. I thought that for chips, Q-J-2 isn’t a pure continuation bet after raising the button. I also thought I would rather keep the pot small against him, especially if he might do something like check-jam for twice the pot size.
I thought I would check back the flop and figure it out on later streets. On the turn, he bet quickly and on the larger size, which I read as strong, but I figured I could not fold a pair just yet.
On the river, Mr. Phu quickly reached for chips, and I needed to determine if I would call half my remaining stack. I was short on timebanks and tried to get a live read off of him, but could not. I wasn’t sure if he would value bet a jack for this size and figured having a heart was slightly bad, so I folded.
What Did I Get Wrong?
There aren’t that many technical things about this hand. For chips, I pure raise preflop, and I mix flop checks.
The turn is a pure fold for chips, and having a heart in my hand is bad. When the board pairs, I’d rather have black fours because on a 4♥ river I can stack a flush.
On the river, having a heart is bad for me in theory and specifically against Mr. Phu. Even if he is occasionally bluffing total air, he’s still more likely to bet the turn and the river with a missed flush draw than with, say, 6-4 offsuit. Which I should note, is not even that big a deviation from EQ.
From the big blind, the solver frequently bets the turn with 4-3, 5-3 and 5-4 offsuit. They prefer a heart, but this is very close to being a solver-approved turn bet from Mr. Phu.
On average, I have a pretty simple fold on the river, but it’s live poker against a VIP player who likes to bluff, so it’s always good to think when you have a bluff catcher in that spot.
However, when playing someone who is an executive for the “Alibaba of Vietnam,” nailing the correct solver play is not what matters. What matters is making the right play in the moment.
If you watch the hand from the livestream, you will hear him say, “Once you checked the flop, I think you missed.”
He is 100% right. I figured I could keep the pot small vs. him, and if he bluffed me with a flush draw or 10-9, so be it.
Instead, he correctly identified that I had an unbalanced, exploitative check range and aggressively bet into me quickly and confidently. It is funny that when I rewatch the stream and look at his eyes, I see weakness and think he’s bluffing, but I think that’s largely confirmation bias from knowing he’s bluffing.
I am not a live tell expert, but I trust my instincts, and in game his behavior did feel confident. It turns out it was false confidence. I was wrong. He exploited my strategy and tricked me.
Grade
I got outplayed by the type of player people travel around the world to play high-stakes poker against.
I have bluffed Phil Ivey, made hero folds vs. Mikita Badziakouski, and hero calls vs. Isaac Haxton. When I look back at all the poker I’ve played, I will focus on those memories, instead of the time a billionaire bluffed me, windmilled it in my face, and the whole table laughed at me.
In the words of Randy Lew on the broadcast, “You just got owned, Sam Greenwood.”
I’m going to give myself a D.
Sam Greenwood is one of the winningest tournament poker players ever and is third on Canada’s all-time money list, having cashed for $42 million and counting in high roller events all over the world. The former stock trader-turned-champion has played millions of poker hands and is breaking them down street by street on his Punt Of The Day Substack. You can reach out to the Run It Once coach on Twitter/X for private coaching @SamGreenwoodRIO.
- Photo by Triton Poker