June 12, 2024 • 40 mins
Let's analyze WSOP final table hands with over $400K on the line! Want to fast-track your tournament poker skills? Get in the Upswing Lab to get access to Aaron Barone's exclusive training content: https://upswingpoker.com/the-poker-lab-coaching/
Written Version of This Episode
Event #12 $1,500 6-Max Payouts: 1st - $439K | 2nd - $293K | 3rd - $210K | 4th - $153K | 5th - $112K | 6th - $83K | 7th - 63K
HAND #1 (7 players left 100K/200K blinds - 200K BB ante)
Spasov raises to 400K from UTG w/ T♦ T♣. Dube folds K♦ Q♥ from UTG+1. Only Fan calls from BB with A♠ J♥.
(Stack size notes: Spasov has 8M chips and is in 5th. Dube has 9M chips and is in 3rd. Fan has 11.5M chips and is in 2nd. There is a very short stack with 1.3M chips.)
Flop J♣ T♠ 3♦. Fan checks. Spasov bets 350K. Fan calls.
Turn 3♥. Fan leads for 500K. Spasov calls.
River 2♦. Fan bets 850K. Spasov raises all-in for 4.45M. Fan calls.
HAND #2 (5 players left 150K/300K blinds - 300K BB ante)
Fan raises to 650K from the Button w/ A♣ 6♣. Spasov calls from the SB w/ 9♥ 8♥. Dube calls from the BB w/ 4♦ 2♦.
(Stack size notes: Fan has 8M chips and is in 3rd. Spasov has 21M in chips and is in 2nd. Dube has 6M in chips and is in 4th. The shortest stack has 3M chips.
Flop A♠ T♦ 5♠. Checks around.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike (00:01):
We've got a couple of hands from a World Series of Poker final table to
share with you today. I'm Mike Bradyand I've got a special guest with me.
He's a tournament poker pro,
888Poker stream team member and UpswingPoker's newest coach Aaron Barone.
You ready to go through these hands Aaron?
Aaron (00:16):
I'm ready.
Mike (00:17):
All right, let's do it.
So this is the $1,500 buy-in sixmax final table event #12 at the
World Series of Poker. Keep inmind, I'm watching this on PokerGo.
If you want to see this entire finaltable play out and many more this summer,
you can go to pokergo.com and subscribe.
We're going to run through two handsfrom this big final table where over
(00:38):
$400,000 is going to the winner.
So first we're going to recap each streetand then go back and do the analysis
for that street.
The action for this one kicks off withSpasov from under the gun raising to
400,000. He's a strong Bulgarian player.
How do you feel about that raisesize and everything, Aaron?
Aaron (00:57):
Raise size seems fine.
The shallower you get and thedeeper you get in tournaments,
you want to pick a smallersize I think overall.
I think you could still go 2.1 but Ithink at the point of min or 2.1 we're
probably just splitting hairs here.
Mike (01:09):
I would think so. Action does fold around to Fan in the big blind.
We did have one interestingfold earlier in the hand.
We'll talk about that for a moment.So if we just go back a bit,
we see that Dube here,
Dube perhaps has king queen offsuit underthe gun one and he's going to make a
what looks perhaps likea somewhat tight fold.
(01:30):
Can you speak to that a little bit, Aaron,
because I assume it's notquite as tight as it looks.
Aaron (01:35):
I think there are two options here that I'd like with king queen offsuit
and it's either three betting or folding.
I think flatting this versusan under going to open,
we don't know how tight Spasov's beenplaying but just generally thinking about
how ranges are,
I don't want to be flatting it but bythree betting it you can actually move
your opponent off some better hands.
How does Ace Jack feel when you get threebet here, by under the gun plus one.
(01:56):
How does Ace five suited feel?
Even pairs as strong as pocketeights probably don't feel great,
especially given the ICM and thestack setups that exist at this table.
So I think three betting is reasonableand you'll want to do it some of the
time. I think folding is also fine.
I don't mind folding. I justreally would hate calling.
(02:18):
I think calling is the one decisionthat I would say I'm way against,
but whether you're decidingto three bet or fold here,
really you can mix it.
I think you're supposed to mix it andnot do one a hundred percent of the time.
So his decision's totally reasonable.
Mike (02:34):
Yeah,
I mean calling is especially bad whenthere's so much ICM pressure of the
situation. You have Gordonbehind with a big stack,
you have Fan behind with a bigger stack.
Yea has about the same chips as you soyou can't really be hopping in there
willy-nilly.
So it does get back around to Fan thinkclear defend with Ace Jack in the big
blind. Would you agree?
Aaron (02:51):
Yeah, definitely not folding Ace Jack.
There's an argument forusing it as a three bet
and again it comes down to how wide doyou think the original raiser is opening,
what hands you can make them fold.
How does Spasov feel with pocketeights when he gets three bet here?
How does it even feel with Ace Queen?Like a better hand than ace Jack?
(03:11):
So it depends what you want to use inthe spot as a three bet bluff and that
obviously goes back to howyou think your opponent plays.
I think flatting is fine. Ihave no problem with flatting.
I would say if I was choosingdifferent combos of Ace Jack,
I'd rather flat suited and three bet offsuit just because the suited hands are
going to play a lot better andtherefore have more equity.
Mike (03:33):
Sure, yeah,
I could see Ace Jack making its wayinto the three bet bluff range here,
but in any case he doescall, we see a flop,
pretty nasty one of Jack ten three.So middle set versus top pair,
top kicker here.
Fan checks over to Spasov who has aclear continuation bet I would say,
he goes for 350,000 into 1.1 million.
(03:55):
Fan with his top pair.
Do you think this is a clear decision tocall Aaron or do you think there's any
chance he could check raise here?
Aaron (04:03):
I think check raising would be a pretty big blunder in this spot.
Once you've flatted ace jack inthis spot and you flop top pair,
you're still not tryingto play for stacks.
We could actually argue that in a ChipEV situation you might want to be check
raising here it's your strongest top pair,
but we're no longer in that situationat a final table when the pay jumps are
(04:24):
very significant and so I thinkflatting preflop sort of disguises the
strength of your hand a little bit andflatting on the flop does the same thing
and the benefit of doing that is youget your opponent to bluff more run outs
and that's sort of what you wantwhen you have top pair even top pair,
top kicker, you're rarelytrying, I mean as a flatter,
rarely trying to play for all of it,
(04:45):
but what you're trying to do is get themax value and often that means allowing
your opponent the opportunity to bluffand he just has a very strong bluff
catcher and I think it's tooweak to turn into a check raise.
Mike (04:55):
In other words, if we were not playing at a big final table,
if we were just playingearly in the tournament or something like that with this
stack depth, I think check raising iscertainly going to be on the table.
It's probably something that solvers aregoing to do because at the end of the
day you have top pair,
top kicker and you're onlyplaying 40 ish big blinds deep.
Generally speaking top pair,
top kickers going to be worth the stackswhen there's no ICM considerations and
(05:18):
you're 40 blinds deepso you can check raise,
they're going to have tofloat you a bunch in theory,
you're going to probably stack King Jackif you get a safe runout and you check
raise the flop and you bet bet turn river,
but in this situation that'snot really going to be the case.
Spasov is going to be very, verycareful against a check raise.
He's not going to float nearly as oftenas he would if it was early in the
tournament. Similarly,
(05:39):
he's going to make hero folds with handslike king Jack and queen Jack by the
river a lot more often becauseof the ICM conditions and of
course for Fan, he doesn'twant to double up Spasov here,
he has him covered but if hedoubles up Spasov in this hand,
he becomes one of the shortstacks and he ends up in a really,
really tough spot.
So it's not like he wants to take evena marginal check raise for value here.
(06:03):
He's going to keep hisopponents range wider,
he's going to keep his range wider andhe is just going to call that seems like
clearly the best play given the ICMpressure of this situation with huge page
jumps on the line here.
Interesting turn the three of heartsputs a full rainbow on the board,
no flush draws and that obviously pairsthe bottom card and Fan is going to do
something interesting here.
(06:25):
He's essentially going to saythis card is better for my range.
I'm way more likely tohave a three than you.
You're not going to bet this turnas often as I would want you to.
So I'm going to lead into youfor 500,000 into 1.8 million.
What do you think of this play, Aaron?
Aaron (06:39):
I think typically I would agree that the three is a much better card for
his range than it is for Spasov andit's still a better card for his range.
You got to think of how many threes he'sdefending preflop and I don't know how
tight he's playing but is he actuallydefending every suited three in this spot?
Is he defending nine three suited orten three suited or jack three suited if
(07:02):
he's defending those anyway, is hegoing to lead turn with a full house?
So what about seven three suitedor six three suited. Six three,
five three we have some chip EVdefends here with those hands but in an
ICM high pressure environment we'regoing to be defending them a little less
often and those threes comprisethe more likely ones in his range.
What about off suit threes like alright,
(07:22):
I mean is he defending any of them otherthan Ace three off and even that hand
we could talk about.
Mike (07:27):
Yeah, he might fold Ace three off honestly.
I mean he's up against under the gunrange who has several stacks behind
that hover him in thisICM pressured scenario.
So Spasov isn't going tobe particularly loose here.
If anything he's going to betighter than a typical eight handed
under the gun range or rather sevenhanded under the gun range. Correct.
(07:49):
So do you really want to hop in therewith Ace three offsuit? I think maybe not.
So to your point it might only be likequeen three suited, king three suited,
four three suited,
five three suited really sort of thequote best suited threes, right? Yes.
Aaron (08:02):
So we talk about this card being better for Fan's range,
that might be true but even if weadd in those combos of three x,
this board is still probably betterfor Spasov's range because he has Aces,
Kings, Queens, jacks and tens andFan might not have any of those.
Fan might have tens. I meanyou could flat jacks here,
which I actually would kind of like buta lot of people would just end up three
(08:24):
betting it but I would stillargue that this board is in favor
of Spasov. I don't mind the decisionoverall again to be leading.
I just don't think it's as clear ashow we would see this spot normally.
Normally you'd say yeah the threeis great for big blinds range,
here I don't think it's as clear cutand so I'd be leading less frequently.
Mike (08:45):
Yeah,
that makes sense and it would be a lotdifferent if a turn was something like a
ten, right? Or maybe if this was Jackeight four and the turn was an eight,
that would be a scenario where Fanwould have a lot more trips in his range
because Fan would defendpre-flop with a lot of ten x.
So if the turn was a ten here he wouldhave a lot more trips than his opponent
and that would make sense to leverageby leading that is the thinking here
(09:08):
for Fan,
it's just debatable whether or not hehas quite enough threes I suppose to
support this leading range atleast at a decent frequency.
Aaron (09:18):
Well you could argue that because he doesn't have as many threes,
it makes leading ace jack actually better,
now it's one of the better value handshe has other than having a three or a
full house. What's the best hand hecan have here? It's either top pair,
top kicker or top two andtop two would be a pretty
mediocre lead because you block theJack and the ten from continuing.
(09:39):
Here if Spasov has a hand likeQueen ten or King ten or a Jack
or really any ten Ace King, acequeen, king queen, queen nine,
he still is going toprobably continue those.
So actually when we look at thevalue hands that Fan could lead here.
I don't think Ace Jack'sa terrible combo for it.
Mike (09:57):
Yeah, I would a hundred percent agree with that.
If you're going to have a leading rangeAce Jack is going to be in there a chunk
of the time at least if notat a somewhat high frequency,
but in any case he does lead for that500K about a little under third pot and
Spasov decides to slow play.
He just calls with abouttwo and a half pots behind,
he has 6.8 million in his stack andthere's 2.8 million in the middle.
(10:18):
I assume you like that decisionoverall Aaron to just flat the turn,
kind of keep Fan's range wide,
allow him to continue bluffing inposition as Spasov with a full house here.
Aaron (10:28):
I do like the flat and I actually don't think Spasov should really have
raises here at all. Again,
it's not a Chip EV situation soSpasov is more incentivized to survive
this hand than get max value.
So I think flatting tens is definitelywhat you should do here on this turn
because if you end up raising here andyour opponent has a hand like a Jack,
(10:49):
they feel pretty bad about it.
I don't know if you're getting paid butif they have a bluff you're definitely
not getting paid and we talked about itearlier in the hand from actually from
Fan's perspective,
you're bluff catching at times with toppair and I'm not saying you're bluff
catching with a full house here,
but you're giving your opponentthe chance to bluff on rivers.
(11:09):
So if Fan has nine seven ofclubs or Queen eight of spades,
you're going to get more money by callingeither because he bluffs the river
or he gets there and eitherway you get extra value.
Mike (11:23):
Right. For sure. This is one of those kind of straightforward spots.
I think a lot of people play this kindof situation very intuitively where you
have a hand that doesn't mind if youropponent catches up with a hand like Queen
nine and hits a straight or doesn't mindif they continue to bluff so you slow
play it.
I think it's one of those very intuitivesituations that a lot of people are
(11:44):
just probably getting right.
Almost everyone watching would probablyknow to slow play hands like this in
this situation. In any case,
he does just call we get thetwo of diamonds as we get this shot of both players
and Fan's going to bet again.And if I remember correctly,
he goes for a somewhat smallishsize, see exactly what it is,
(12:05):
looks like 850,000. We'll see when thegraphics update in a moment here, it
is on 2x speed by the way guys, sothey're they're not blinking that fast.
I know what you're thinking. So yeah,he goes 850,000 into 2.8 million,
so about third pot or so kind ofa block size that strikes me as
pretty smart Aaron because we've beenharping on ICM pressure throughout this
(12:28):
entire hand.
Spasov isn't going to be super happy toput in a bunch of chips with a marginal
hand against a bet on this river, right?
So maybe it makes sense to putthis hand in the block size for
that reason,
although I could probably argue the otherside where if Spasov does have a hand
like King Jack or Ace Ten,maybe even pocket nines,
(12:49):
Ace Jack beats all those hands,
a lot of the hands that Spasov can calland maybe you can go for a little bit of
a bigger bet. Something more liketwo thirds. What are your thoughts?
Aaron (12:58):
I believe on final tables overall your bet sizes are actually supposed
to be smaller because of the ICM pressurein terms of percentage of pot and
things like that compared toChip EV situations because again,
your survival is more importantthan getting max chip value, right,
because survival is so much valuein itself. But with Ace Jack here,
I think you made the point at the endthat all the hands that look up Fan here
(13:22):
that are worse than Ace Jack nines,
nines is maybe not the best examplebut we'll call it pocket sevens,
even sixes because they wouldn't blockas many straight draws or King Jack,
queen Jack or Ace ten even I thinkking ten suited is interesting.
All those hands that areeither worse top pairs,
strong second pairs or second pairequivalent we'll say might call a
(13:46):
bet that's 1.6 million instead of 800K.
And so at that point I think if we'regoing to pick one size and we don't expect
our opponent to bluff raise, I thinkpicking the bigger size is the way to go.
However, when you pick this small size,
something that does happenoccasionally is you induce a bluff.
If Fan picks the size with the planof I'm going to be able to induce
(14:10):
bluffs here for my opponentand then snap 'em off,
I mean I think that's reasonable.
I also don't think Spasov's goingto have that many value raises here.
So that might've beengoing into his thinking.
Mike (14:21):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I wouldn't be surprised if Fan's thinkingwas somewhat as simple as I want him
to call here. I don't think he's goingto be super willing to commit chips,
so let's go for a slightly smallersize with a hand that is very
strong but is far from Nutted and Iwouldn't be surprised if Fan also would be
going much bigger if he did happen tohave a three here with a hand like Ace
(14:41):
three suited.
Aaron (14:42):
And there's also because of how the stacks are set up,
if Fan gets called here andwins this pot, he goes to,
we'll call it 13-14 millionand Spasov falls down to about
6 million and you look how the table'sset up right with Gordon having 22,
Fan would have 14 or so and the nextbiggest stack would be Dube at nine.
(15:02):
Yea at nine.
Fan would've kind of put himself furtherahead of the other middle stacks,
which when you are at a final table,we can't always be the chip leader,
but being a comfortable secondis actually a great place to be.
And in that realm of thinking,
maybe it's better if you bet reallysmall and you think you're going to get
(15:22):
value all the time,
separating yourself from other playerscan have more economic impact for
you rather than going for the bigsize and not getting paid as much.
I still think that the range of handsthough that Spasov calls with for 800K or
1.6M are almost identical.
Mike (15:40):
Yeah, that makes sense.
So Fan might have cost himself somevalue here in the case where Spasov had a
hand like Queen Jack,
but in this case Fan made a resultsoriented good decision to bet
small as his opponent raises prettychunky 4.5 million which is about a pot
sized raise,
I think a little less than pot sized raisehere from Spasov and this is a pretty
(16:02):
nasty spot for Fan. Now you didlead small, like Aaron said,
maybe that induces some bluffs fromSpasov so now you could level yourself
into a call and think, well I bet small,
maybe he's just attacking thesmall bet and pay this off.
What would you do in this spot, Aaron?
I know it's hard to be unbiased as yousee the cards, but what do you think?
Aaron (16:22):
So I think we have to go back and think about what Spasov's range looks
like, where he raises preflop under thegun and then continuation bets flop,
calls turn on this texture. What sortof bluffs can we think he has? Right?
I guess king queen, King ninesuited might not even open.
Queen nine suited I mentionedearlier might not even open,
nine eight suited might not open.I don't know how he plays exactly,
(16:46):
but King Queen is squarely in there.
I think that's a hand that's most likelyto be used as a bluff here and if he's
going to bluff king queen and that's thehand that Fan thinks he's going to use
all the time,
it's kind of tough because Fan has a handthat doesn't block a king or a queen,
right? So if Fan here has King Jack,
I think it's a bet fold that Idon't feel bad about it at all.
It feels a little tougher with Ace Jack,
(17:07):
but at the same time I think thisspot is so drastically under Bluffed,
especially at a final tablethat without having any reads
whatsoever, I would lean towards a fold.
Mike (17:20):
And if you think about what Spasov is risking here,
should he be bluffing with a handlike King Queen, if he gets called,
he's going to be down to 2.4 millionand in this hand he's going to have gone
from being a kind of comfortablemiddle of the pack stack or somewhat
comfortable middle of the pack stack toone of the two shortest stacks kind of
competing with Pacheco for the nextbig pay jump and that's going to be a
(17:41):
really, really cruddyspot for him to be in.
So I would guess most human beings,
to be frank are just not goingto have bluffs here very often.
Certainly not as much as a very aggressivesuper high roller type player would
or that a solver would. Idunno Spasov's game too well.
So he could very well be a playerwho's capable of making this play,
(18:03):
but just on a human level, this is achallenging thing to do as a bluff.
Would you agree?
Aaron (18:09):
Definitely. When we think about if someone says,
well I could pull thatmove, I could do that.
Well it's one thing to do it day oneof the tournament when you have 200 big
blinds and you could rebuy, it'sanother thing to do it on a final table,
a televised final table and as you said,where you're one of the middle stacks,
it could be in danger of beingnow one of the shortest stacks.
(18:29):
The other thing that jumps out tome here is that this is not true,
I'm saying of Spasov butit is of some players,
is you look at the raise size he picked,
some players here will still bluff theirking queen, but they'll make it 2.85,
they'll make it 2.9,
3.1 and other players fall into thehabit of I'm actually going to go bigger
with my value bets andsmaller with my bluff sizes.
(18:50):
So even if they have a corrector so frequency of doing it,
they actually make money because they'repicking the bigger size with their
value. So when they getcalled and they have it,
they win more money when they getcalled and they didn't have it,
well I lost less. Because ifhe makes it 2.8 or even 3.2,
I think Fan has a similarrange that continues.
(19:11):
And by making it larger here he actuallyends up getting more value if Fan
decides to call with the Ace Jack.
Mike (19:17):
And let's go ahead and see what happens here.
Fan does stick in the moneyand Disappointingly has to muck his hand and this
ends up being a really key pot. Spasovends up challenging for this bracelet,
no spoilers yet,
and in that hand he basicallytraded places with Fan and more.
He went from about 8 million inchips to 14 million in chips.
(19:37):
He's now in second. He's in just avery, very good spot in this tournament,
Simeon Spasov. And our next handinvolves Mr. Spasov as well.
So let's take a look at that one.
Aaron (19:48):
Perfect screenshot.
Mike (19:50):
It is.
We open up here with Fanmaking an appropriate face for the hand that he's about
to play. Sorry Mr. Fan, thisone is just pretty rough.
I do not blame you but thisis a brutal spot to get into.
So we now have five players left.
Each player has locked up $112,000and again they're playing for
(20:10):
$439,000.
The next pay jump is about $40,000 andevery pay jump after that is even bigger.
Kicks off with Fan who,
I'll start by saying shouldn'tbe playing a ton of hands here.
We ran this spot in Hold'emresources calculator before recording
just to kind of see howeveryone's supposed to play a typical button open range
(20:32):
early in a tournament. It's going tobe about 40% of hands give or take.
In this spot as the button consideringhe's opening into the very big stack in
the small blind and there's a very shortstack in Yea in this hand who's going
to be the big blind in a couple of hands.
Fan is actually only supposed to raiseabout half as often as a normal button
range here, about 23% of hands accordingto the calculation that we ran.
(20:55):
So just something to keep in mind rightaway that he's supposed to be quite
tight here. Spasov,
another thing we were surprised aboutis supposed to play quite loose the
calculation we ran,
he gets to play around 39% ofhands total that's combined between
calling,
three betting non all in to six bigblinds and three betting all in.
(21:17):
So it's kind of a crazy spot where thissmall blind is actually supposed to be
playing a good bit looser versusa button raise than the button's
initial raise, which has gotto be quite rare, right Aaron?
Aaron (21:28):
You don't hear about that very often,
but it does happen in situations whereone player has a lot more leverage than
the other and that'sclearly the case here,
especially with Fan not only being ashorter stack but not being the shortest
puts a lot more pressure on him where hecan't defend as wide versus three bets
whether not all in or jams and that'swhy his open range has to be a lot
tighter.
Mike (21:49):
Yeah,
Spasov is essentially goingto just realize a lot more equity in the small blind
here than he normally would. He's goingto be able to run very effective bluffs,
he's going to be able to win potswith medium pairs because his opponent
checks down with a handthat might otherwise bluff.
There's just a bunch of different possiblerun outs for this hand where Spasov
(22:12):
essentially wins more oftenthan he is supposed to.
So that's what allows him to play alot of hands in the small blind here.
Then we have Dube in the bigblind with the four two suited.
This is actually I think probablyjust a fold with the four two suited.
I mean I don't blame him for calling,he's getting an amazing price.
He only has to call 350,000 toplay for a 2.2 million chip pot.
(22:36):
So he doesn't need very much equitybut he is the second shortest stack.
He kind of wants to stay outof the fray for the most part.
Would you agree with that Aaron?
Aaron (22:46):
You can't get much looser in terms of defending your suited combos than
four high.
So it's definitely on the looser sideand I think given his stack size,
he's not the clear short stack.
There is a stack with nearly about halfas many chips as he does and so he does
want to stay out of the fray giving theother two opponents in the chance or in
the hand a chance to clash andprotecting his stack and his equity.
(23:09):
So I think folding for sure is the rightplay with the four deuce suited here.
But if it was switched,
if Dube actually had the shorteststack of 3 million and Yea had his
6 million,
then I could actually argue a flat hereis pretty reasonable because when you're
the clear shortest stack, that's whenyou're liable to take some chances.
Mike (23:28):
Right? Yeah,
the ICM pressure isn't so great when youare actually the shortest stack at the
table, but in this case Dube doesdecide to hop in and potentially
risk his tournament life in this hand,
which is something you generally don'twant to be doing when you're the second
shortest stack and there's someonesitting behind you with 10 bigs,
doesn't end up mattering.Spoiler alert for him though,
we end up with a very interesting potdeveloping. So it comes ace ten five,
(23:52):
two spades, it checks to Fan, hedecides to check back with his top pair.
What do you think aboutthis checkback on the flop?
Aaron (24:00):
I can understand the desire to check back and I actually don't hate it.
I think it's one of hisweakest Aces he has here.
He has to be concerned abouttwo players in the hand,
the small blind flat's a little concerningtoo in this spot because even though
small blind has nine eightsuited, we can see it,
A lot of his hands willconnect with this board.
You don't want to get check raised,getting check raised off top pair is,
(24:24):
I mean to put it mildly,
very annoying and frustrating andthat can easily happen in this spot.
How do you feel about a check raise whenyou're Fan from either player, really?
You don't feel great and soI understand the checkback.
What I will say is that most playershere when they check back this flop,
they have a hand exactly likethis. They have a weak ace,
(24:44):
they have a strong ten,
they have kings to jacks and if you cancorrectly put a player in that sort of
range when they check back,
sure they have a strong ish hand butit's also a hand that's going to fold to
pressure most often ifyou barrel turn and river.
Mike (25:00):
Yeah,
I mean it's never going to be too badto check back basically your worst top
pair unless it's a range bet scenario.
But one downside of checking back is youkind of give Spasov the opportunity to
potentially run a very efficient bluffagainst you. As we were talking about,
he has the leverage hereand if he decides to use it,
it might get kind of nasty for Fan andthat is actually what ends up happening.
(25:24):
Kicks off with Spasov leadingout on the turn for 1.1 million.
So kind of a chunky bet already it'sonly half pot but at a final table with
so much money on the line, half potkind of feels chunky doesn't it?
Aaron (25:36):
Well definitely sets up for some pot sized ish jams on the end.
Mike (25:41):
And now Dube is in a really nasty spot and this kind of to me sums
up why the pre-flopcall doesn't really work
very well in this scenario. Hehas a super strong hand here,
he has a gutter with a flushdraw and he's only got 15
blinds.
There are not many scenarios in pokerwhere you have 15 blinds and a combo draw
(26:04):
and you're not happy tojust hide hoe in your chips.
But this is one of those scenarios,it is pretty brutal to shove on here,
get calls and now you're potentiallymissing out on a 50K pay jump
with four high. That is brutal. So nowDube is in a really challenging spot.
Do you think he should jam here orwhat do you think? He ends up folding,
(26:24):
which I mean I'm sure hewas very pained by that.
I could see it on his faceand I would be in pain too.
What do you think of the play?
Aaron (26:31):
Obviously the concern for him is that either the original raiser has a
hand like we'll say Jack Ten orAce Jack or King Queen's very
reasonable and the small blind couldhave a range that includes those hands as
well.
Although I put ace jack a little bit lesslikely and even King Queen could just
shove.
I think if you're going to play this handand you're going to fold this sort of
(26:53):
situation,
you shouldn't have played it anywaybecause you're not going to realize enough
equity.
I actually think jamming makes a lotof sense in his spot because you know
have the worst hand.
But even though both opponents couldhave really strong hands unless they have
the nuts or two pair, I think you'regoing to actually generate a lot of folds.
(27:14):
I think if Spasov has a handhere like Ace nine suited,
I don't know if he's goingto call off in that spot.
If Fan has a hand here thatas strong as Ace Queen,
I don't know if he's going to calloff. Yes, he's going to call off Jacks,
he's going to call off Ace Jack,
he's going to call off King Queenand Pocket tens that check back,
which by the way never checkback this flop. So yeah,
(27:37):
there are a couple strong hands thatFan can have and there are a few that
Spasov can have, but really withSpasov we're afraid of King Queen,
which might shove pre, Jack Ten,
which there's going to be a few combosof that but only suited so three combos
of that and maybe Ace Ten,
even Ace five feels a little bitloose of a flat, but it's possible.
(28:00):
I actually don't thinkI'd be folding here.
And the biggest issue with gettingthe money in is a potential pay jump.
But if you think you have enough foldequity then it's time just to move it all
in.
Mike (28:12):
And I mean a really good practice in tournaments for those not familiar
with this way of thinking is to kind ofthink about your position if you make
one action and then the position you mayfind yourself in if you take the other
action. So if we just think throughthat as Dube here, if he folds,
he kind of maintains his situation,
it actually gets a little bit worsethan it was going into the hand.
(28:32):
He's still the second shortest stack.
There's still another player who'smore likely to bust than him next,
but he's not in a great spot by any meansto get a significant number of ladders
going forward. So that's onescenario he could just fold.
He could jam obviously one scenarioof him jamming is he might bust the
tournament so that's the worstcase, nightmare scenario for him.
(28:53):
But if he jams here and gets itthrough, he picks up 3.3 million,
he gets up to 8 million and heactually becomes the third place stack
granted a distant thirdbut he is in third,
that is a quite good position to bein at this stage of the tournament.
So it's either fold andkeep this kind of not the
worst but not great scenario that he's in,
(29:16):
potentially bust or getup to 8 million chips.
And then of course there is kind ofscenario D where he could potentially get
called and hit his draw and then he'llhave an even better third place stack.
So that's possible too.
And when I kind of think about all thosescenarios and how likely they probably
are jamming feels better,
especially if we're defending thehand pre-flop, I think this is,
(29:39):
it almost ran out thedream spot to get it in.
But even then I think to go back to thefirst thing I said about this particular
hand,
it really encapsulates why it's notsuch a great defend because we're
talking it out this much. We'repotentially torn between these decisions.
He's clearly torn with a handas strong as a combo draw.
(29:59):
So I think we just reverse backto pre-flop if we can as Dube,
make the fold get out of the way andlet these two other stacks battle.
Aaron (30:08):
Yeah, totally agree.
And it could also be that if thisturn was the jack of diamonds,
not the nine of diamonds. I think it'san easier jam on a nine of diamonds,
now you aren't afraid of as manytwo pair combos or a king queen.
One last thing to consider is a lot ofplayers in this spot, even if it's close,
they're going to opt towards folding. Andit's not only because of the pay jump,
it's because I don't want to lookstupid at a final table with the
(30:33):
cameras on and get all in with four high.
I don't want to be bluffing for the restof my tournament chips after I've came
this far. And that itself shouldn'tbe a reason for you to do anything.
You should be making your decisionsbased on what you think is profitable and
that really should be the end allbe all of it. Naturally as humans,
we talked about it earlier,
(30:54):
we think it's hard for people to find abluff in certain spots and that might be
true of other spots too like this onebecause after putting so much time and
effort into a tournament, I'm surepeople want to walk away saying,
well I got the money in good,
I feel good rather than I made the bestplay and it didn't work out but I can
rest on the confidence Ihave in the play that I made.
Mike (31:15):
Right. Yeah, it makes sense.
Well we've spent a lot of time onthat four high decision but it was an
interesting one.
Now we get to the two kindof more consequential stacks frankly and we have Fan
here with top pair. Idunno about you Aaron,
but I almost feel likethis hand is already
borderline, this Ace six is alreadyin kind of a borderline spot.
(31:36):
I mean I think we're well aheadof Spasov's betting range overall.
I think he's going to havea bunch of draws, bunch of,
I mean all his bluffs are likely tohave some equity be some sort of draw,
but we're not going to have greatvisibility on the river that is,
we're not going to get to show downthis hand as often as we would like even
(31:56):
though we're in position againstthe big stack Spasov in this hand.
What do you think aboutthis spot on the turn?
Aaron (32:03):
I agree that it's close but I actually don't think we're doing that well
versus range at all. We can seethat Spasov has nine eight suited.
It's hard to imagine that many otherbluff combos he can have here unless he's
just, I don't know,
flatting like the old queensix offsuit pre like any
reasonable flatting hand here. We'lltalk about king Queen, that's a straight,
(32:26):
jack ten two pair, king jackwould that bet turn? Weird.
Queen jack would that betturn? Also kind of weird.
There's the nine eight,eight seven, nine seven.
Does he go down to sevensix suited, I mean maybe,
but even the combos he's goingto use, as you said, have equity.
I think this is one of the worst onesand we could just be drawing dead.
He can have Ace ten or Ace jackpotentially he can easily have King Queen.
(32:48):
I guess it's possible that he decidedto flat fives off that stack size.
There are a lot more combos where we'rejust drawing stone dead and then maybe
he actually has a chop.
It's hard to think of just total airball bluffs that he has here or even low
equity bluffs.
This is one of the lowest equity onesand it's quite possible he doesn't flat
(33:09):
eight seven suited or seven sixsuited or decides not to bet turn
with those. Even the otherdraws like the flush draws.
Well sure he could have a flush draw,
but what are the two cards that he hasthat are two diamonds or two spades?
Maybe there's king nine of spades,maybe there's king nine of diamonds,
but the hand isn't over when we call turn,
(33:30):
if we know he's an aggressive playerand this river bricks out with ace six
suited, are we going to call on deuce,
three, four, seven, eight rivers?
Right? And I'm just not sure of that.
Mike (33:45):
Some of those were sort of not even bricks, right,
like the seven and the eight,those bring in some draws.
The nine will bring in some draws.
I do think Spasov can have probably ahost of suited kings here specifically.
That would be what I'dbe hoping for as Fan.
I would hope this Spasov's the guy whomight have just straight up king seven of
hearts here that he flatted with pre,
which is quite reasonable and then nowhas this gutter and he is just going to
(34:08):
bluff with that. And then if he has that,
he can also have king eight of hearts andking eight of clubs and all these just
like King X hands, maybe there'ssome Queen X ones as well. But yeah,
like you said, there's not ahuge laundry list of those hands.
They do have equity against our Acesix. Some of them have good equity,
so maybe we can just considera fold turn from Fan.
(34:30):
It feels really tight.
And then I kind of want to go back to theflop and think maybe we should just be
betting more often with hands likethis to keep ourselves from capping our
range because by checking back the flop,
we are kind of showing our hand a littlebit unless we're very, very balanced.
But we are kind of saying Ihave medium showdown value.
I have a hand that I want to get to theriver with and not put in too many more
(34:53):
bets. But if you bet the flop,
your range can still contain pockettens, Ace ten, Ace King, Ace Queen,
ace Jack, like those types of hands.
And that's a range that Spasov isgoing to be much less likely to attack.
And then of course on the flop,Spasov had nine high no draw.
So results wise he would've foldedthis combo very likely to any flop bet.
(35:13):
Do you think there'ssomething to be said for that?
Thinking back to the flop and as Fan,
maybe just go for a bet with thesetypes of hands that will otherwise find
themselves in some very dicey spotson the turn and river if they check.
Aaron (35:25):
I agree that I think it's important to try to stay uncapped here.
I think the way I would want to approachthis spot though is some of the hands
you mentioned, I would just check back.
I might check back a lot more of my rangehere than I would normally because of
how the other stacks are set up, right?Fan has seven and a half million,
Dube has five, Yea has three.
So maybe I'm actually checking back ahand as strong as Ace jack, ace queen,
(35:48):
ace king. I'm definitely checkingback stuff like ten x of spades.
I'm checking back King Queensand Queen Jacks and King Jacks.
I probably check back Aces here.I might even check back Ace ten.
I think having more of my rangeas a checkback here makes sense.
And then when I get to the spotwith ace six, I don't feel like,
oh man I have top pair, I'munder repped, I got a call down.
(36:09):
I'll realize my overall rangehas a lot stronger hands in it.
Speaking of which we talked aboutfolding top pair and feeling weak,
but I'd much rather have Queen Jackhere or King Jack because now at least I
block King Queen. Andif you think about it,
having King Jack in this spot and havingace six are somewhat similar in terms
of hand strength. If we don't thinkSpasov has that many top pairs anyway.
(36:31):
And King Jack or Queen Jack has theadditional benefit of blocking the nuts,
which is one of the hands thatwe are certainly afraid of.
Mike (36:38):
Plus of course it just has that straight equity.
I mean when you have King Jack,you can hit a queen on the river,
there are some cards that youactually love. Whereas with Fan,
I mean yeah he can hit a six but onlyone six doesn't complete a flush draw.
So he doesn't really have any cleanouts. And the relative hand strength,
the difference between King Jackand ace six here, they're very,
very similar when Spasov usesthis kind of bigger size.
(37:01):
So back to the hand Fan is goingto tank here and eventually put in
the call and we're going to take a verykey river in this tournament with five
left, sort of,
it's an eight of clubs givingSpasov what is that fourth
pair. And this is actually a hand,you can correct me if I'm wrong Aaron,
(37:22):
but this is a hand that's going to wantto bluff even more now that he's hit
that eight, right?
Because by having an eight it makes itless likely Fan has a hand like Ace eight
of hearts here or even Ace eight offsuit,
which now rivers two pair and is goingto be able to call against a shove.
So this is actually a good card, anabove average card for Spasov to bluff.
Aaron (37:41):
Definitely.
And I think a lot of people thinkof showdown value as I have a pair,
but as you said before, theeight is almost never good here.
And if that's the case, then youreally don't have showdown value.
Mike (37:55):
Right. And he decides to not take that showdown value.
He bets all in for 5.6 million effectivelittle over the pot and Fan really,
really quickly folds, whichI don't blame him at all.
I mean this would be a very ambitiouscall for your tournament life with two
shorter stacks. Would youagree with that Aaron?
Aaron (38:10):
Yeah. And again, not everybody turns their fourth pair into a bluff.
Not only is this fourth pair,it's also a straight blocker.
I think it's hard to imaginehow Fan has queen nine here.
I suppose it could be queen nineof spades, queen nine of diamonds,
but that's just twocombos. Other than that,
this card is going to be better for Spasovas you said before because he blocks
some two pair of combos and his rangeoverall is still going to be really strong
(38:33):
here and it's hard toimagine that many bluffs.
So it's a good spot todo it and he does it.
Mike (38:39):
And I love Spasov's face here.
He looks quite proud ofhimself and he should be.
He's played absolutely Fantasticat this final table. Really,
really strong playerwho deserved this run.
Spoiler alert if you don't wantto know who won, because again,
as I mentioned earlier,
this is on PokerGo so if you wantto go watch this final table,
you can do that right now.Spoiler coming in 3, 2, 1.
(39:01):
Spasov does go on to win this tournament.
He overcomes a small chip deficitagainst the chip leader at the time,
Gordon. He ends up takingit down for $439,000.
Really, really nice score for him. AndI believe that's his second bracelet.
So congrats to him. Aaron,
I guess we're going to be doing thisas a little bit of a weekly thing
(39:22):
throughout the summer, right?Sound like a good plan?
Aaron (39:24):
Sounds great. I love it.
I just really enjoy talking poker and thebest part is when you talk about poker
hands, there's no variance.
So you're just going to enjoy the gameas it's meant to be enjoyed. And yeah,
I hope we do this weekly going forward.
Mike (39:37):
Yeah,
so Upswing Level up for basically theduration of the World Series of Poker is
going to kind of be aWSOP hand of the week.
Gary Blackwood is out there inVegas grinding his heart out.
This is his favorite timeof year to grind. So Aaron's going to step in for him.
We're just going to review one,
maybe two or three interesting handsfrom the World Series of Poker or maybe
other events in Vegas for the rest of thesummer. So hopefully you enjoyed this,
(40:00):
hit that like button subscribe, follow,any of the positive buttons you can hit.
That would be great.
And let me know if you agree withour analysis in the comments.
We're very interested to hear what youthink of the plays and what you think of
what we thought of the plays. So withall that said, thank you for listening.
We'll see you in the next one.
We've got a couple of hands from a World Series of Poker final table to
share with you today. I'm Mike Bradyand I've got a special guest with me.
He's a tournament poker pro,
888Poker stream team member and UpswingPoker's newest coach Aaron Barone.
You ready to go through these hands Aaron?
Aaron (00:16):
I'm ready.
Mike (00:17):
All right, let's do it.
So this is the $1,500 buy-in sixmax final table event #12 at the
World Series of Poker. Keep inmind, I'm watching this on PokerGo.
If you want to see this entire finaltable play out and many more this summer,
you can go to pokergo.com and subscribe.
We're going to run through two handsfrom this big final table where over
(00:38):
$400,000 is going to the winner.
So first we're going to recap each streetand then go back and do the analysis
for that street.
The action for this one kicks off withSpasov from under the gun raising to
400,000. He's a strong Bulgarian player.
How do you feel about that raisesize and everything, Aaron?
Aaron (00:57):
Raise size seems fine.
The shallower you get and thedeeper you get in tournaments,
you want to pick a smallersize I think overall.
I think you could still go 2.1 but Ithink at the point of min or 2.1 we're
probably just splitting hairs here.
Mike (01:09):
I would think so. Action does fold around to Fan in the big blind.
We did have one interestingfold earlier in the hand.
We'll talk about that for a moment.So if we just go back a bit,
we see that Dube here,
Dube perhaps has king queen offsuit underthe gun one and he's going to make a
what looks perhaps likea somewhat tight fold.
(01:30):
Can you speak to that a little bit, Aaron,
because I assume it's notquite as tight as it looks.
Aaron (01:35):
I think there are two options here that I'd like with king queen offsuit
and it's either three betting or folding.
I think flatting this versusan under going to open,
we don't know how tight Spasov's beenplaying but just generally thinking about
how ranges are,
I don't want to be flatting it but bythree betting it you can actually move
your opponent off some better hands.
How does Ace Jack feel when you get threebet here, by under the gun plus one.
(01:56):
How does Ace five suited feel?
Even pairs as strong as pocketeights probably don't feel great,
especially given the ICM and thestack setups that exist at this table.
So I think three betting is reasonableand you'll want to do it some of the
time. I think folding is also fine.
I don't mind folding. I justreally would hate calling.
(02:18):
I think calling is the one decisionthat I would say I'm way against,
but whether you're decidingto three bet or fold here,
really you can mix it.
I think you're supposed to mix it andnot do one a hundred percent of the time.
So his decision's totally reasonable.
Mike (02:34):
Yeah,
I mean calling is especially bad whenthere's so much ICM pressure of the
situation. You have Gordonbehind with a big stack,
you have Fan behind with a bigger stack.
Yea has about the same chips as you soyou can't really be hopping in there
willy-nilly.
So it does get back around to Fan thinkclear defend with Ace Jack in the big
blind. Would you agree?
Aaron (02:51):
Yeah, definitely not folding Ace Jack.
There's an argument forusing it as a three bet
and again it comes down to how wide doyou think the original raiser is opening,
what hands you can make them fold.
How does Spasov feel with pocketeights when he gets three bet here?
How does it even feel with Ace Queen?Like a better hand than ace Jack?
(03:11):
So it depends what you want to use inthe spot as a three bet bluff and that
obviously goes back to howyou think your opponent plays.
I think flatting is fine. Ihave no problem with flatting.
I would say if I was choosingdifferent combos of Ace Jack,
I'd rather flat suited and three bet offsuit just because the suited hands are
going to play a lot better andtherefore have more equity.
Mike (03:33):
Sure, yeah,
I could see Ace Jack making its wayinto the three bet bluff range here,
but in any case he doescall, we see a flop,
pretty nasty one of Jack ten three.So middle set versus top pair,
top kicker here.
Fan checks over to Spasov who has aclear continuation bet I would say,
he goes for 350,000 into 1.1 million.
(03:55):
Fan with his top pair.
Do you think this is a clear decision tocall Aaron or do you think there's any
chance he could check raise here?
Aaron (04:03):
I think check raising would be a pretty big blunder in this spot.
Once you've flatted ace jack inthis spot and you flop top pair,
you're still not tryingto play for stacks.
We could actually argue that in a ChipEV situation you might want to be check
raising here it's your strongest top pair,
but we're no longer in that situationat a final table when the pay jumps are
(04:24):
very significant and so I thinkflatting preflop sort of disguises the
strength of your hand a little bit andflatting on the flop does the same thing
and the benefit of doing that is youget your opponent to bluff more run outs
and that's sort of what you wantwhen you have top pair even top pair,
top kicker, you're rarelytrying, I mean as a flatter,
rarely trying to play for all of it,
(04:45):
but what you're trying to do is get themax value and often that means allowing
your opponent the opportunity to bluffand he just has a very strong bluff
catcher and I think it's tooweak to turn into a check raise.
Mike (04:55):
In other words, if we were not playing at a big final table,
if we were just playingearly in the tournament or something like that with this
stack depth, I think check raising iscertainly going to be on the table.
It's probably something that solvers aregoing to do because at the end of the
day you have top pair,
top kicker and you're onlyplaying 40 ish big blinds deep.
Generally speaking top pair,
top kickers going to be worth the stackswhen there's no ICM considerations and
(05:18):
you're 40 blinds deepso you can check raise,
they're going to have tofloat you a bunch in theory,
you're going to probably stack King Jackif you get a safe runout and you check
raise the flop and you bet bet turn river,
but in this situation that'snot really going to be the case.
Spasov is going to be very, verycareful against a check raise.
He's not going to float nearly as oftenas he would if it was early in the
tournament. Similarly,
(05:39):
he's going to make hero folds with handslike king Jack and queen Jack by the
river a lot more often becauseof the ICM conditions and of
course for Fan, he doesn'twant to double up Spasov here,
he has him covered but if hedoubles up Spasov in this hand,
he becomes one of the shortstacks and he ends up in a really,
really tough spot.
So it's not like he wants to take evena marginal check raise for value here.
(06:03):
He's going to keep hisopponents range wider,
he's going to keep his range wider andhe is just going to call that seems like
clearly the best play given the ICMpressure of this situation with huge page
jumps on the line here.
Interesting turn the three of heartsputs a full rainbow on the board,
no flush draws and that obviously pairsthe bottom card and Fan is going to do
something interesting here.
(06:25):
He's essentially going to saythis card is better for my range.
I'm way more likely tohave a three than you.
You're not going to bet this turnas often as I would want you to.
So I'm going to lead into youfor 500,000 into 1.8 million.
What do you think of this play, Aaron?
Aaron (06:39):
I think typically I would agree that the three is a much better card for
his range than it is for Spasov andit's still a better card for his range.
You got to think of how many threes he'sdefending preflop and I don't know how
tight he's playing but is he actuallydefending every suited three in this spot?
Is he defending nine three suited orten three suited or jack three suited if
(07:02):
he's defending those anyway, is hegoing to lead turn with a full house?
So what about seven three suitedor six three suited. Six three,
five three we have some chip EVdefends here with those hands but in an
ICM high pressure environment we'regoing to be defending them a little less
often and those threes comprisethe more likely ones in his range.
What about off suit threes like alright,
(07:22):
I mean is he defending any of them otherthan Ace three off and even that hand
we could talk about.
Mike (07:27):
Yeah, he might fold Ace three off honestly.
I mean he's up against under the gunrange who has several stacks behind
that hover him in thisICM pressured scenario.
So Spasov isn't going tobe particularly loose here.
If anything he's going to betighter than a typical eight handed
under the gun range or rather sevenhanded under the gun range. Correct.
(07:49):
So do you really want to hop in therewith Ace three offsuit? I think maybe not.
So to your point it might only be likequeen three suited, king three suited,
four three suited,
five three suited really sort of thequote best suited threes, right? Yes.
Aaron (08:02):
So we talk about this card being better for Fan's range,
that might be true but even if weadd in those combos of three x,
this board is still probably betterfor Spasov's range because he has Aces,
Kings, Queens, jacks and tens andFan might not have any of those.
Fan might have tens. I meanyou could flat jacks here,
which I actually would kind of like buta lot of people would just end up three
(08:24):
betting it but I would stillargue that this board is in favor
of Spasov. I don't mind the decisionoverall again to be leading.
I just don't think it's as clear ashow we would see this spot normally.
Normally you'd say yeah the threeis great for big blinds range,
here I don't think it's as clear cutand so I'd be leading less frequently.
Mike (08:45):
Yeah,
that makes sense and it would be a lotdifferent if a turn was something like a
ten, right? Or maybe if this was Jackeight four and the turn was an eight,
that would be a scenario where Fanwould have a lot more trips in his range
because Fan would defendpre-flop with a lot of ten x.
So if the turn was a ten here he wouldhave a lot more trips than his opponent
and that would make sense to leverageby leading that is the thinking here
(09:08):
for Fan,
it's just debatable whether or not hehas quite enough threes I suppose to
support this leading range atleast at a decent frequency.
Aaron (09:18):
Well you could argue that because he doesn't have as many threes,
it makes leading ace jack actually better,
now it's one of the better value handshe has other than having a three or a
full house. What's the best hand hecan have here? It's either top pair,
top kicker or top two andtop two would be a pretty
mediocre lead because you block theJack and the ten from continuing.
(09:39):
Here if Spasov has a hand likeQueen ten or King ten or a Jack
or really any ten Ace King, acequeen, king queen, queen nine,
he still is going toprobably continue those.
So actually when we look at thevalue hands that Fan could lead here.
I don't think Ace Jack'sa terrible combo for it.
Mike (09:57):
Yeah, I would a hundred percent agree with that.
If you're going to have a leading rangeAce Jack is going to be in there a chunk
of the time at least if notat a somewhat high frequency,
but in any case he does lead for that500K about a little under third pot and
Spasov decides to slow play.
He just calls with abouttwo and a half pots behind,
he has 6.8 million in his stack andthere's 2.8 million in the middle.
(10:18):
I assume you like that decisionoverall Aaron to just flat the turn,
kind of keep Fan's range wide,
allow him to continue bluffing inposition as Spasov with a full house here.
Aaron (10:28):
I do like the flat and I actually don't think Spasov should really have
raises here at all. Again,
it's not a Chip EV situation soSpasov is more incentivized to survive
this hand than get max value.
So I think flatting tens is definitelywhat you should do here on this turn
because if you end up raising here andyour opponent has a hand like a Jack,
(10:49):
they feel pretty bad about it.
I don't know if you're getting paid butif they have a bluff you're definitely
not getting paid and we talked about itearlier in the hand from actually from
Fan's perspective,
you're bluff catching at times with toppair and I'm not saying you're bluff
catching with a full house here,
but you're giving your opponentthe chance to bluff on rivers.
(11:09):
So if Fan has nine seven ofclubs or Queen eight of spades,
you're going to get more money by callingeither because he bluffs the river
or he gets there and eitherway you get extra value.
Mike (11:23):
Right. For sure. This is one of those kind of straightforward spots.
I think a lot of people play this kindof situation very intuitively where you
have a hand that doesn't mind if youropponent catches up with a hand like Queen
nine and hits a straight or doesn't mindif they continue to bluff so you slow
play it.
I think it's one of those very intuitivesituations that a lot of people are
(11:44):
just probably getting right.
Almost everyone watching would probablyknow to slow play hands like this in
this situation. In any case,
he does just call we get thetwo of diamonds as we get this shot of both players
and Fan's going to bet again.And if I remember correctly,
he goes for a somewhat smallishsize, see exactly what it is,
(12:05):
looks like 850,000. We'll see when thegraphics update in a moment here, it
is on 2x speed by the way guys, sothey're they're not blinking that fast.
I know what you're thinking. So yeah,he goes 850,000 into 2.8 million,
so about third pot or so kind ofa block size that strikes me as
pretty smart Aaron because we've beenharping on ICM pressure throughout this
(12:28):
entire hand.
Spasov isn't going to be super happy toput in a bunch of chips with a marginal
hand against a bet on this river, right?
So maybe it makes sense to putthis hand in the block size for
that reason,
although I could probably argue the otherside where if Spasov does have a hand
like King Jack or Ace Ten,maybe even pocket nines,
(12:49):
Ace Jack beats all those hands,
a lot of the hands that Spasov can calland maybe you can go for a little bit of
a bigger bet. Something more liketwo thirds. What are your thoughts?
Aaron (12:58):
I believe on final tables overall your bet sizes are actually supposed
to be smaller because of the ICM pressurein terms of percentage of pot and
things like that compared toChip EV situations because again,
your survival is more importantthan getting max chip value, right,
because survival is so much valuein itself. But with Ace Jack here,
I think you made the point at the endthat all the hands that look up Fan here
(13:22):
that are worse than Ace Jack nines,
nines is maybe not the best examplebut we'll call it pocket sevens,
even sixes because they wouldn't blockas many straight draws or King Jack,
queen Jack or Ace ten even I thinkking ten suited is interesting.
All those hands that areeither worse top pairs,
strong second pairs or second pairequivalent we'll say might call a
(13:46):
bet that's 1.6 million instead of 800K.
And so at that point I think if we'regoing to pick one size and we don't expect
our opponent to bluff raise, I thinkpicking the bigger size is the way to go.
However, when you pick this small size,
something that does happenoccasionally is you induce a bluff.
If Fan picks the size with the planof I'm going to be able to induce
(14:10):
bluffs here for my opponentand then snap 'em off,
I mean I think that's reasonable.
I also don't think Spasov's goingto have that many value raises here.
So that might've beengoing into his thinking.
Mike (14:21):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I wouldn't be surprised if Fan's thinkingwas somewhat as simple as I want him
to call here. I don't think he's goingto be super willing to commit chips,
so let's go for a slightly smallersize with a hand that is very
strong but is far from Nutted and Iwouldn't be surprised if Fan also would be
going much bigger if he did happen tohave a three here with a hand like Ace
(14:41):
three suited.
Aaron (14:42):
And there's also because of how the stacks are set up,
if Fan gets called here andwins this pot, he goes to,
we'll call it 13-14 millionand Spasov falls down to about
6 million and you look how the table'sset up right with Gordon having 22,
Fan would have 14 or so and the nextbiggest stack would be Dube at nine.
(15:02):
Yea at nine.
Fan would've kind of put himself furtherahead of the other middle stacks,
which when you are at a final table,we can't always be the chip leader,
but being a comfortable secondis actually a great place to be.
And in that realm of thinking,
maybe it's better if you bet reallysmall and you think you're going to get
(15:22):
value all the time,
separating yourself from other playerscan have more economic impact for
you rather than going for the bigsize and not getting paid as much.
I still think that the range of handsthough that Spasov calls with for 800K or
1.6M are almost identical.
Mike (15:40):
Yeah, that makes sense.
So Fan might have cost himself somevalue here in the case where Spasov had a
hand like Queen Jack,
but in this case Fan made a resultsoriented good decision to bet
small as his opponent raises prettychunky 4.5 million which is about a pot
sized raise,
I think a little less than pot sized raisehere from Spasov and this is a pretty
(16:02):
nasty spot for Fan. Now you didlead small, like Aaron said,
maybe that induces some bluffs fromSpasov so now you could level yourself
into a call and think, well I bet small,
maybe he's just attacking thesmall bet and pay this off.
What would you do in this spot, Aaron?
I know it's hard to be unbiased as yousee the cards, but what do you think?
Aaron (16:22):
So I think we have to go back and think about what Spasov's range looks
like, where he raises preflop under thegun and then continuation bets flop,
calls turn on this texture. What sortof bluffs can we think he has? Right?
I guess king queen, King ninesuited might not even open.
Queen nine suited I mentionedearlier might not even open,
nine eight suited might not open.I don't know how he plays exactly,
(16:46):
but King Queen is squarely in there.
I think that's a hand that's most likelyto be used as a bluff here and if he's
going to bluff king queen and that's thehand that Fan thinks he's going to use
all the time,
it's kind of tough because Fan has a handthat doesn't block a king or a queen,
right? So if Fan here has King Jack,
I think it's a bet fold that Idon't feel bad about it at all.
It feels a little tougher with Ace Jack,
(17:07):
but at the same time I think thisspot is so drastically under Bluffed,
especially at a final tablethat without having any reads
whatsoever, I would lean towards a fold.
Mike (17:20):
And if you think about what Spasov is risking here,
should he be bluffing with a handlike King Queen, if he gets called,
he's going to be down to 2.4 millionand in this hand he's going to have gone
from being a kind of comfortablemiddle of the pack stack or somewhat
comfortable middle of the pack stack toone of the two shortest stacks kind of
competing with Pacheco for the nextbig pay jump and that's going to be a
(17:41):
really, really cruddyspot for him to be in.
So I would guess most human beings,
to be frank are just not goingto have bluffs here very often.
Certainly not as much as a very aggressivesuper high roller type player would
or that a solver would. Idunno Spasov's game too well.
So he could very well be a playerwho's capable of making this play,
(18:03):
but just on a human level, this is achallenging thing to do as a bluff.
Would you agree?
Aaron (18:09):
Definitely. When we think about if someone says,
well I could pull thatmove, I could do that.
Well it's one thing to do it day oneof the tournament when you have 200 big
blinds and you could rebuy, it'sanother thing to do it on a final table,
a televised final table and as you said,where you're one of the middle stacks,
it could be in danger of beingnow one of the shortest stacks.
(18:29):
The other thing that jumps out tome here is that this is not true,
I'm saying of Spasov butit is of some players,
is you look at the raise size he picked,
some players here will still bluff theirking queen, but they'll make it 2.85,
they'll make it 2.9,
3.1 and other players fall into thehabit of I'm actually going to go bigger
with my value bets andsmaller with my bluff sizes.
(18:50):
So even if they have a corrector so frequency of doing it,
they actually make money because they'repicking the bigger size with their
value. So when they getcalled and they have it,
they win more money when they getcalled and they didn't have it,
well I lost less. Because ifhe makes it 2.8 or even 3.2,
I think Fan has a similarrange that continues.
(19:11):
And by making it larger here he actuallyends up getting more value if Fan
decides to call with the Ace Jack.
Mike (19:17):
And let's go ahead and see what happens here.
Fan does stick in the moneyand Disappointingly has to muck his hand and this
ends up being a really key pot. Spasovends up challenging for this bracelet,
no spoilers yet,
and in that hand he basicallytraded places with Fan and more.
He went from about 8 million inchips to 14 million in chips.
(19:37):
He's now in second. He's in just avery, very good spot in this tournament,
Simeon Spasov. And our next handinvolves Mr. Spasov as well.
So let's take a look at that one.
Aaron (19:48):
Perfect screenshot.
Mike (19:50):
It is.
We open up here with Fanmaking an appropriate face for the hand that he's about
to play. Sorry Mr. Fan, thisone is just pretty rough.
I do not blame you but thisis a brutal spot to get into.
So we now have five players left.
Each player has locked up $112,000and again they're playing for
(20:10):
$439,000.
The next pay jump is about $40,000 andevery pay jump after that is even bigger.
Kicks off with Fan who,
I'll start by saying shouldn'tbe playing a ton of hands here.
We ran this spot in Hold'emresources calculator before recording
just to kind of see howeveryone's supposed to play a typical button open range
(20:32):
early in a tournament. It's going tobe about 40% of hands give or take.
In this spot as the button consideringhe's opening into the very big stack in
the small blind and there's a very shortstack in Yea in this hand who's going
to be the big blind in a couple of hands.
Fan is actually only supposed to raiseabout half as often as a normal button
range here, about 23% of hands accordingto the calculation that we ran.
(20:55):
So just something to keep in mind rightaway that he's supposed to be quite
tight here. Spasov,
another thing we were surprised aboutis supposed to play quite loose the
calculation we ran,
he gets to play around 39% ofhands total that's combined between
calling,
three betting non all in to six bigblinds and three betting all in.
(21:17):
So it's kind of a crazy spot where thissmall blind is actually supposed to be
playing a good bit looser versusa button raise than the button's
initial raise, which has gotto be quite rare, right Aaron?
Aaron (21:28):
You don't hear about that very often,
but it does happen in situations whereone player has a lot more leverage than
the other and that'sclearly the case here,
especially with Fan not only being ashorter stack but not being the shortest
puts a lot more pressure on him where hecan't defend as wide versus three bets
whether not all in or jams and that'swhy his open range has to be a lot
tighter.
Mike (21:49):
Yeah,
Spasov is essentially goingto just realize a lot more equity in the small blind
here than he normally would. He's goingto be able to run very effective bluffs,
he's going to be able to win potswith medium pairs because his opponent
checks down with a handthat might otherwise bluff.
There's just a bunch of different possiblerun outs for this hand where Spasov
(22:12):
essentially wins more oftenthan he is supposed to.
So that's what allows him to play alot of hands in the small blind here.
Then we have Dube in the bigblind with the four two suited.
This is actually I think probablyjust a fold with the four two suited.
I mean I don't blame him for calling,he's getting an amazing price.
He only has to call 350,000 toplay for a 2.2 million chip pot.
(22:36):
So he doesn't need very much equitybut he is the second shortest stack.
He kind of wants to stay outof the fray for the most part.
Would you agree with that Aaron?
Aaron (22:46):
You can't get much looser in terms of defending your suited combos than
four high.
So it's definitely on the looser sideand I think given his stack size,
he's not the clear short stack.
There is a stack with nearly about halfas many chips as he does and so he does
want to stay out of the fray giving theother two opponents in the chance or in
the hand a chance to clash andprotecting his stack and his equity.
(23:09):
So I think folding for sure is the rightplay with the four deuce suited here.
But if it was switched,
if Dube actually had the shorteststack of 3 million and Yea had his
6 million,
then I could actually argue a flat hereis pretty reasonable because when you're
the clear shortest stack, that's whenyou're liable to take some chances.
Mike (23:28):
Right? Yeah,
the ICM pressure isn't so great when youare actually the shortest stack at the
table, but in this case Dube doesdecide to hop in and potentially
risk his tournament life in this hand,
which is something you generally don'twant to be doing when you're the second
shortest stack and there's someonesitting behind you with 10 bigs,
doesn't end up mattering.Spoiler alert for him though,
we end up with a very interesting potdeveloping. So it comes ace ten five,
(23:52):
two spades, it checks to Fan, hedecides to check back with his top pair.
What do you think aboutthis checkback on the flop?
Aaron (24:00):
I can understand the desire to check back and I actually don't hate it.
I think it's one of hisweakest Aces he has here.
He has to be concerned abouttwo players in the hand,
the small blind flat's a little concerningtoo in this spot because even though
small blind has nine eightsuited, we can see it,
A lot of his hands willconnect with this board.
You don't want to get check raised,getting check raised off top pair is,
(24:24):
I mean to put it mildly,
very annoying and frustrating andthat can easily happen in this spot.
How do you feel about a check raise whenyou're Fan from either player, really?
You don't feel great and soI understand the checkback.
What I will say is that most playershere when they check back this flop,
they have a hand exactly likethis. They have a weak ace,
(24:44):
they have a strong ten,
they have kings to jacks and if you cancorrectly put a player in that sort of
range when they check back,
sure they have a strong ish hand butit's also a hand that's going to fold to
pressure most often ifyou barrel turn and river.
Mike (25:00):
Yeah,
I mean it's never going to be too badto check back basically your worst top
pair unless it's a range bet scenario.
But one downside of checking back is youkind of give Spasov the opportunity to
potentially run a very efficient bluffagainst you. As we were talking about,
he has the leverage hereand if he decides to use it,
it might get kind of nasty for Fan andthat is actually what ends up happening.
(25:24):
Kicks off with Spasov leadingout on the turn for 1.1 million.
So kind of a chunky bet already it'sonly half pot but at a final table with
so much money on the line, half potkind of feels chunky doesn't it?
Aaron (25:36):
Well definitely sets up for some pot sized ish jams on the end.
Mike (25:41):
And now Dube is in a really nasty spot and this kind of to me sums
up why the pre-flopcall doesn't really work
very well in this scenario. Hehas a super strong hand here,
he has a gutter with a flushdraw and he's only got 15
blinds.
There are not many scenarios in pokerwhere you have 15 blinds and a combo draw
(26:04):
and you're not happy tojust hide hoe in your chips.
But this is one of those scenarios,it is pretty brutal to shove on here,
get calls and now you're potentiallymissing out on a 50K pay jump
with four high. That is brutal. So nowDube is in a really challenging spot.
Do you think he should jam here orwhat do you think? He ends up folding,
(26:24):
which I mean I'm sure hewas very pained by that.
I could see it on his faceand I would be in pain too.
What do you think of the play?
Aaron (26:31):
Obviously the concern for him is that either the original raiser has a
hand like we'll say Jack Ten orAce Jack or King Queen's very
reasonable and the small blind couldhave a range that includes those hands as
well.
Although I put ace jack a little bit lesslikely and even King Queen could just
shove.
I think if you're going to play this handand you're going to fold this sort of
(26:53):
situation,
you shouldn't have played it anywaybecause you're not going to realize enough
equity.
I actually think jamming makes a lotof sense in his spot because you know
have the worst hand.
But even though both opponents couldhave really strong hands unless they have
the nuts or two pair, I think you'regoing to actually generate a lot of folds.
(27:14):
I think if Spasov has a handhere like Ace nine suited,
I don't know if he's goingto call off in that spot.
If Fan has a hand here thatas strong as Ace Queen,
I don't know if he's going to calloff. Yes, he's going to call off Jacks,
he's going to call off Ace Jack,
he's going to call off King Queenand Pocket tens that check back,
which by the way never checkback this flop. So yeah,
(27:37):
there are a couple strong hands thatFan can have and there are a few that
Spasov can have, but really withSpasov we're afraid of King Queen,
which might shove pre, Jack Ten,
which there's going to be a few combosof that but only suited so three combos
of that and maybe Ace Ten,
even Ace five feels a little bitloose of a flat, but it's possible.
(28:00):
I actually don't thinkI'd be folding here.
And the biggest issue with gettingthe money in is a potential pay jump.
But if you think you have enough foldequity then it's time just to move it all
in.
Mike (28:12):
And I mean a really good practice in tournaments for those not familiar
with this way of thinking is to kind ofthink about your position if you make
one action and then the position you mayfind yourself in if you take the other
action. So if we just think throughthat as Dube here, if he folds,
he kind of maintains his situation,
it actually gets a little bit worsethan it was going into the hand.
(28:32):
He's still the second shortest stack.
There's still another player who'smore likely to bust than him next,
but he's not in a great spot by any meansto get a significant number of ladders
going forward. So that's onescenario he could just fold.
He could jam obviously one scenarioof him jamming is he might bust the
tournament so that's the worstcase, nightmare scenario for him.
(28:53):
But if he jams here and gets itthrough, he picks up 3.3 million,
he gets up to 8 million and heactually becomes the third place stack
granted a distant thirdbut he is in third,
that is a quite good position to bein at this stage of the tournament.
So it's either fold andkeep this kind of not the
worst but not great scenario that he's in,
(29:16):
potentially bust or getup to 8 million chips.
And then of course there is kind ofscenario D where he could potentially get
called and hit his draw and then he'llhave an even better third place stack.
So that's possible too.
And when I kind of think about all thosescenarios and how likely they probably
are jamming feels better,
especially if we're defending thehand pre-flop, I think this is,
(29:39):
it almost ran out thedream spot to get it in.
But even then I think to go back to thefirst thing I said about this particular
hand,
it really encapsulates why it's notsuch a great defend because we're
talking it out this much. We'repotentially torn between these decisions.
He's clearly torn with a handas strong as a combo draw.
(29:59):
So I think we just reverse backto pre-flop if we can as Dube,
make the fold get out of the way andlet these two other stacks battle.
Aaron (30:08):
Yeah, totally agree.
And it could also be that if thisturn was the jack of diamonds,
not the nine of diamonds. I think it'san easier jam on a nine of diamonds,
now you aren't afraid of as manytwo pair combos or a king queen.
One last thing to consider is a lot ofplayers in this spot, even if it's close,
they're going to opt towards folding. Andit's not only because of the pay jump,
it's because I don't want to lookstupid at a final table with the
(30:33):
cameras on and get all in with four high.
I don't want to be bluffing for the restof my tournament chips after I've came
this far. And that itself shouldn'tbe a reason for you to do anything.
You should be making your decisionsbased on what you think is profitable and
that really should be the end allbe all of it. Naturally as humans,
we talked about it earlier,
(30:54):
we think it's hard for people to find abluff in certain spots and that might be
true of other spots too like this onebecause after putting so much time and
effort into a tournament, I'm surepeople want to walk away saying,
well I got the money in good,
I feel good rather than I made the bestplay and it didn't work out but I can
rest on the confidence Ihave in the play that I made.
Mike (31:15):
Right. Yeah, it makes sense.
Well we've spent a lot of time onthat four high decision but it was an
interesting one.
Now we get to the two kindof more consequential stacks frankly and we have Fan
here with top pair. Idunno about you Aaron,
but I almost feel likethis hand is already
borderline, this Ace six is alreadyin kind of a borderline spot.
(31:36):
I mean I think we're well aheadof Spasov's betting range overall.
I think he's going to havea bunch of draws, bunch of,
I mean all his bluffs are likely tohave some equity be some sort of draw,
but we're not going to have greatvisibility on the river that is,
we're not going to get to show downthis hand as often as we would like even
(31:56):
though we're in position againstthe big stack Spasov in this hand.
What do you think aboutthis spot on the turn?
Aaron (32:03):
I agree that it's close but I actually don't think we're doing that well
versus range at all. We can seethat Spasov has nine eight suited.
It's hard to imagine that many otherbluff combos he can have here unless he's
just, I don't know,
flatting like the old queensix offsuit pre like any
reasonable flatting hand here. We'lltalk about king Queen, that's a straight,
(32:26):
jack ten two pair, king jackwould that bet turn? Weird.
Queen jack would that betturn? Also kind of weird.
There's the nine eight,eight seven, nine seven.
Does he go down to sevensix suited, I mean maybe,
but even the combos he's goingto use, as you said, have equity.
I think this is one of the worst onesand we could just be drawing dead.
He can have Ace ten or Ace jackpotentially he can easily have King Queen.
(32:48):
I guess it's possible that he decidedto flat fives off that stack size.
There are a lot more combos where we'rejust drawing stone dead and then maybe
he actually has a chop.
It's hard to think of just total airball bluffs that he has here or even low
equity bluffs.
This is one of the lowest equity onesand it's quite possible he doesn't flat
(33:09):
eight seven suited or seven sixsuited or decides not to bet turn
with those. Even the otherdraws like the flush draws.
Well sure he could have a flush draw,
but what are the two cards that he hasthat are two diamonds or two spades?
Maybe there's king nine of spades,maybe there's king nine of diamonds,
but the hand isn't over when we call turn,
(33:30):
if we know he's an aggressive playerand this river bricks out with ace six
suited, are we going to call on deuce,
three, four, seven, eight rivers?
Right? And I'm just not sure of that.
Mike (33:45):
Some of those were sort of not even bricks, right,
like the seven and the eight,those bring in some draws.
The nine will bring in some draws.
I do think Spasov can have probably ahost of suited kings here specifically.
That would be what I'dbe hoping for as Fan.
I would hope this Spasov's the guy whomight have just straight up king seven of
hearts here that he flatted with pre,
which is quite reasonable and then nowhas this gutter and he is just going to
(34:08):
bluff with that. And then if he has that,
he can also have king eight of hearts andking eight of clubs and all these just
like King X hands, maybe there'ssome Queen X ones as well. But yeah,
like you said, there's not ahuge laundry list of those hands.
They do have equity against our Acesix. Some of them have good equity,
so maybe we can just considera fold turn from Fan.
(34:30):
It feels really tight.
And then I kind of want to go back to theflop and think maybe we should just be
betting more often with hands likethis to keep ourselves from capping our
range because by checking back the flop,
we are kind of showing our hand a littlebit unless we're very, very balanced.
But we are kind of saying Ihave medium showdown value.
I have a hand that I want to get to theriver with and not put in too many more
(34:53):
bets. But if you bet the flop,
your range can still contain pockettens, Ace ten, Ace King, Ace Queen,
ace Jack, like those types of hands.
And that's a range that Spasov isgoing to be much less likely to attack.
And then of course on the flop,Spasov had nine high no draw.
So results wise he would've foldedthis combo very likely to any flop bet.
(35:13):
Do you think there'ssomething to be said for that?
Thinking back to the flop and as Fan,
maybe just go for a bet with thesetypes of hands that will otherwise find
themselves in some very dicey spotson the turn and river if they check.
Aaron (35:25):
I agree that I think it's important to try to stay uncapped here.
I think the way I would want to approachthis spot though is some of the hands
you mentioned, I would just check back.
I might check back a lot more of my rangehere than I would normally because of
how the other stacks are set up, right?Fan has seven and a half million,
Dube has five, Yea has three.
So maybe I'm actually checking back ahand as strong as Ace jack, ace queen,
(35:48):
ace king. I'm definitely checkingback stuff like ten x of spades.
I'm checking back King Queensand Queen Jacks and King Jacks.
I probably check back Aces here.I might even check back Ace ten.
I think having more of my rangeas a checkback here makes sense.
And then when I get to the spotwith ace six, I don't feel like,
oh man I have top pair, I'munder repped, I got a call down.
(36:09):
I'll realize my overall rangehas a lot stronger hands in it.
Speaking of which we talked aboutfolding top pair and feeling weak,
but I'd much rather have Queen Jackhere or King Jack because now at least I
block King Queen. Andif you think about it,
having King Jack in this spot and havingace six are somewhat similar in terms
of hand strength. If we don't thinkSpasov has that many top pairs anyway.
(36:31):
And King Jack or Queen Jack has theadditional benefit of blocking the nuts,
which is one of the hands thatwe are certainly afraid of.
Mike (36:38):
Plus of course it just has that straight equity.
I mean when you have King Jack,you can hit a queen on the river,
there are some cards that youactually love. Whereas with Fan,
I mean yeah he can hit a six but onlyone six doesn't complete a flush draw.
So he doesn't really have any cleanouts. And the relative hand strength,
the difference between King Jackand ace six here, they're very,
very similar when Spasov usesthis kind of bigger size.
(37:01):
So back to the hand Fan is goingto tank here and eventually put in
the call and we're going to take a verykey river in this tournament with five
left, sort of,
it's an eight of clubs givingSpasov what is that fourth
pair. And this is actually a hand,you can correct me if I'm wrong Aaron,
(37:22):
but this is a hand that's going to wantto bluff even more now that he's hit
that eight, right?
Because by having an eight it makes itless likely Fan has a hand like Ace eight
of hearts here or even Ace eight offsuit,
which now rivers two pair and is goingto be able to call against a shove.
So this is actually a good card, anabove average card for Spasov to bluff.
Aaron (37:41):
Definitely.
And I think a lot of people thinkof showdown value as I have a pair,
but as you said before, theeight is almost never good here.
And if that's the case, then youreally don't have showdown value.
Mike (37:55):
Right. And he decides to not take that showdown value.
He bets all in for 5.6 million effectivelittle over the pot and Fan really,
really quickly folds, whichI don't blame him at all.
I mean this would be a very ambitiouscall for your tournament life with two
shorter stacks. Would youagree with that Aaron?
Aaron (38:10):
Yeah. And again, not everybody turns their fourth pair into a bluff.
Not only is this fourth pair,it's also a straight blocker.
I think it's hard to imaginehow Fan has queen nine here.
I suppose it could be queen nineof spades, queen nine of diamonds,
but that's just twocombos. Other than that,
this card is going to be better for Spasovas you said before because he blocks
some two pair of combos and his rangeoverall is still going to be really strong
(38:33):
here and it's hard toimagine that many bluffs.
So it's a good spot todo it and he does it.
Mike (38:39):
And I love Spasov's face here.
He looks quite proud ofhimself and he should be.
He's played absolutely Fantasticat this final table. Really,
really strong playerwho deserved this run.
Spoiler alert if you don't wantto know who won, because again,
as I mentioned earlier,
this is on PokerGo so if you wantto go watch this final table,
you can do that right now.Spoiler coming in 3, 2, 1.
(39:01):
Spasov does go on to win this tournament.
He overcomes a small chip deficitagainst the chip leader at the time,
Gordon. He ends up takingit down for $439,000.
Really, really nice score for him. AndI believe that's his second bracelet.
So congrats to him. Aaron,
I guess we're going to be doing thisas a little bit of a weekly thing
(39:22):
throughout the summer, right?Sound like a good plan?
Aaron (39:24):
Sounds great. I love it.
I just really enjoy talking poker and thebest part is when you talk about poker
hands, there's no variance.
So you're just going to enjoy the gameas it's meant to be enjoyed. And yeah,
I hope we do this weekly going forward.
Mike (39:37):
Yeah,
so Upswing Level up for basically theduration of the World Series of Poker is
going to kind of be aWSOP hand of the week.
Gary Blackwood is out there inVegas grinding his heart out.
This is his favorite timeof year to grind. So Aaron's going to step in for him.
We're just going to review one,
maybe two or three interesting handsfrom the World Series of Poker or maybe
other events in Vegas for the rest of thesummer. So hopefully you enjoyed this,
(40:00):
hit that like button subscribe, follow,any of the positive buttons you can hit.
That would be great.
And let me know if you agree withour analysis in the comments.
We're very interested to hear what youthink of the plays and what you think of
what we thought of the plays. So withall that said, thank you for listening.
We'll see you in the next one.
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