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.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an excellent memory. It’s helped me remember reads on opponents, solver strategies, and secret bathrooms at different tournament stops.
But it’s also been a crutch, something I rely on when I can’t think straight. As I wrote this entry, I was confident the hand took place in 2024, but when I looked at the hand history in the Triton Poker app, I realized that there was no seven-handed $30,000 no-limit event in 2024. So this hand must have taken place in 2023.
Is my memory slipping as I age? Have I experienced too many situations and played too many hands to possibly keep track of all of them? Will anyone remember me? While these questions continue to haunt me, I’ll try my best to impart some wisdom about playing monotone boards.
Event: 2023 Triton Monte Carlo $30,000 High Roller
The Hand
The blinds are 3,000-6,000 with a 6,000 big blind ante and I have 360,000 up from my original 200,000 starting stack.
The action is on me in the hijack and I raise to 13,000 with Q♦10♣. Everyone folds to David Yan in the big blind who has 222,000, and he calls.
Flop: 9♣6♣2♣ (Pot: 35,000)
David checks, and I bet 9,000. David calls.
Turn: 5♦ (Pot: 51,000)
David checks, and I bet 30,000. David calls.
River: 10♥ (Pot: 111,000)
David checks once again, and I check behind, winning at showdown against his 9♥8♠.
What Was I Thinking?
You should be opening any two Broadway cards from the hijack, so I raised.
Monotone flops rarely get big bets unless you’re shallow enough to comfortably stack off with bare top pair, so I played one small bet size with my range. Monotone boards are also often scary against a big blind range, which will have a lot of janky suited hands, but 9-6-2 is disconnected enough that I thought I’d have a pure bet or close to it, so I did.
I thought the turn was a pretty good card for David’s range because a lot of his pairs or one-club hands pick up additional outs. But I thought I still had an okay candidate to two-barrel as I had two overs and a club. I can get him to fold pairs immediately, and getting him to fold anything that peels the flop is a win for me.
On the river, I thought I had a hand with a lot of potshare, but one that was too thin to value bet. If I could have shoved for pot, I would have, but with 1.5x pot left to play I wasn’t sure if I ever played a size smaller than all-in, or if my hand was strong enough to shove all-in. So I checked.
What Did I Get Wrong?
My preflop and flop thoughts were correct. I don’t get flop checks on monotone boards in this spot until the flops are a little more connected and he can have one-card straight draws. Or if my range contains many hands that have a lot of equity, but want to pot control – hands like K♦10♦ on A♣K♣8♣.
On the turn my thought process was… fine. This a spot where 2008 poker and 2025 solver poker basically come to the same conclusion: Betting unpaired hands with a club is always an acceptable play. The highest frequency turn bet is A♣ 10x and the lowest frequency is Ax K♣, but betting them will always be a fine play.
The river is where I slipped up. Q-10 has 80% equity and we only have 150% pot to play. Also, Q-10 probably has a lot more equity vs. humans than vs. the computer. Humans, including experienced, tricky poker players like David Yan, like fast-playing good hands out of position. I think David is capable of slow-playing here, but my point is that he probably has 4♣3♣ on the river a lot less often than the solver does.
I probably have more than 80% equity vs most human ranges, which means my check back loses more money in real life than in solver land.
I also thought that my river value-betting range would be very polar and I wouldn’t be allowed to make thin value bets, but if I did a better job of constructing David’s range in-game, I would have realized he has a lot of pair-plus-draw hands, like his actual hand – 9-8 offsuit. All the pair-plus-draw hands are credible bluff catchers, so it’s not as if I’m worried about the big blind not having enough worse hands to bluff catch.
Finally, a small, but significant blocker effect: Having the 10c is better than having the Q♣, because I block potential rivered two pair he might have with 10♣ 6x or 10♣ 9x, but don’t block potential bluff catchers like Q♣ 9x.
Types Of Errors I Made
- Misunderstanding range strategy
- Misunderstanding blocker effects
- Playing scared poker
Grade
The first big errors here was misunderstanding range strategy. I didn’t consider that I’d frequently be betting less than all-in with my range on the river.
The other big mistake was playing scared poker. I was too concerned about the low-frequency play of him check raising all-in. I missed out on value with a hand that has a lot of equity. If I’m so concerned about getting check-raised bluffed too much, I should just bet-call instead of checking back. My hand is a strong bluff-catcher because the 10♣ should only be in his value bets and not in his bluffs.
Let’s call it 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.
- Photo by PokerStars – Tomas Stacha