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.
The first super high roller I ever played was the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 event in January 2015. PIOSolver was released a couple months later in March 2015, and while private solvers existed as early as 2013, most of the early solver adopters played high-stakes cash games, particularly heads-up.
So, when PokerStars announced they’d be running the “largest-ever buy-in online tournament” as part of the 2015 World Championship of Online Poker, I marked it down as a tournament to play.
At the time, the best cash and tournament players’ skillsets didn’t overlap much, and they rarely played against each other. Tournament players were not using solvers, nor were they playing vs. people who used solvers.
(Side note: I remember the first time Jonas ‘OTB_RedBaron’ Mols overbet the turn against me, and I sat there with the nuts running through my timebank totally baffled as I did not know what to do. I ended up raising, incorrectly thinking he was greedily overbetting for value against a tournament donk like me who can’t fold top pair. He snap folded, of course.)
This WCOOP event presented an interesting opportunity for me, as most of my edge would come in later stages of the tournament where my short stack and tournament games were strong. But there was enough value in the tournament early on that also wanted to play from the start, even if I would often be the fourth-best deepstack player at the table.
I didn’t remember much about the tournament (it took place 10 years ago and a belated congrats to Ben Tollerene for winning it), but when I rewatched my commentary series on Run It Once where I reviewed my play, I got A-K under-the-gun, saw Timofey ‘Trueteller’ Kuznetsov in the big blind, and I began to remember today’s hand.
Event: 2015 PokerStars WCOOP $50,000 No-Limit Hold’em
The Hand
I had 27,542 and looked down at A♥K♠. I raised to 750 from under-the-gun at the six-handed table. It folded to Trueteller in the big blind with 52,125, and he called.
Flop: J♦9♥8♣
Trueteller checked, and I bet 1,400. He called.
Turn: Q♣
Trueteller checked, and I bet 2,345. He called.
River: 4♠
Trueteller checked, and I bet 4,690. He called with A♦10♣ to take the pot.
What Was I Thinking?
The flop favors my range and is dynamic, so I do want to bet on the larger size.
I don’t want to bet a large size on the turn, however, because it’s hard to bluff when he can often have a straight, so half pot is an appropriate bet size. A-K is a good hand to barrel as well, because it can improve to a better hand vs. a straight.
I’d mostly keep barreling with flush draws, including hands like A♣9♣ or A♣J♣, while occasionally betting sets and two pair, but I’d never bluff with no pair, no draw.
On the river, I don’t have many hands to bluff with. I would want to give up with flush draws because they block his weakest continues.
I’d want to value bet straights, and A-K without a club is one of the few turn barrels I have without a club. It blocks A-10 and K-10, so I want to bet it on the river, but I don’t want to bet much larger than half pot because I can never get a ten to fold.
What Did I Get Wrong?
I’ve taken to skipping basic preflop decisions in this section, but I’m reviewing a 10-year-old hand where I made a lot of mistakes, so I’ll start with a pat on the back.
I open-raised A-K offsuit. That’s a good play!
On the flop, I was probably pure c-betting with range, which seems like a reasonable play when you raise UTG and have 57% range vs. range equity. But it’s actually a mistake.
This board is connected enough that I don’t want to bet everything. Even a very high equity hand like A-A starts feeling the heat if it gets check-raised, so I play some checks with range.
When I bet, I mix a big bet (my size is fine) and a small bet (let’s say 25% to 33% pot), and as is often the case on boards where A-K whiffs, A-K mixes between all three options.
In my initial analysis, I state that on a turn like this I do not get to bet a big size. That is incorrect.
My ideal turn size is 150% pot, and it includes K-10, A-10, some sets, some flush draws, some K-x and A-x with a nothing kicker, and yes, some A-K, but mostly with a club.
No matter what size constraints I give my flop or turn strategy, A-K bets both the flop and the turn sometimes.
The problem is not how I played my hand, but with my strategy. I’m pulling way too many of my turn bluffs from A-K. I am not betting the turn enough with total air, partially because my preflop range is too tight, (I don’t have K-5 thru K-7 suited in my preflop range) but also because I am not finding any no-equity two-barrels.
I didn’t mention 3-3 thru 6-6, 5♥4♥, or A♠2♠ as hands I could bet the turn with, but the solver bets with them a lot. This means if the river is a club, ace, king, or ten, I will not have enough hands to bluff with on the river.
My turn and river sizing make sense, in that I don’t want to overbet into a straight that will never fold, and he has a straight around 30% of the time on the turn. However, we are deep enough that I can actually get straights to fold.
If I bet 150% pot on the turn, a bare straight folds 12% of the time. When I shove the river, I also get a non-nut straight to fold around a third of the time. Even if I missed the turn overbet and bet half pot on the turn, if I then shove the river for 2.5x pot, I get a queen-high straight to fold 30% of the time.
I don’t know if I could have gotten Trueteller to fold a straight in 2015, but it’s not impossible.
The problem with my line is that I make life too easy for middle-of-range hands. When I bet 150% pot on the turn, two pair almost always folds. When I bet half pot, it never folds, and it is a reasonable bluff catcher on a blank river versus a half-pot bet.
I thought I was bluffing cheaply in case I ran into a straight, but I was actually making it so that I never get a straight to fold and I can get hero-called by hands that would fold on the turn.
Granted, when my bluff doesn’t work, I do lose a lot more money, but believe it or not, the solver’s sizing choices and overall strategy with range are superior to what my 2015 instincts wanted me to do.
As played, the river bluff is generally fine. If I force myself to bet half-pot on the turn, I do have some half-pot value bets with queen-high straights. And for bluffs, A-K can overbet shove, bet half-pot to target one or two pair, or check.
One lesson with A-K is that, post-flop, you often need to spread your a-K high combos throughout many different parts of your range, and that remains true on the river.
Types Of Errors I Made
- Poor Range Strategy
- Lack Of Creativity
Grade
This is a classic hand that looked fine in 2015, but after a closer examination, I could see all the holes in my overall strategy.
Raising A-K and three-barreling it on a board where I have a gutshot to the nuts, no flush draw blockers, and no showdown on the river all seems reasonable, and it’s one of the most natural bluffs for me to have here. The problems are that my preflop range is too tight so I don’t have enough suited kings to bluff with, my flop strategy is off, my turn size loses EV, and I am not bluffing with enough no-equity combos to such an extreme degree that A-K high might be my only bluff on the river.
This all adds up to a C.
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.