June 26, 2024 • 22 mins
HAND RECAP (6 handed, final table, 125K/250K blinds - 250K BB ante)
Ausmus (4.5M chips) raises to 500K from the Cutoff with A♥ Q♥. Only Reichard (3.2M chips) calls from the Big Blind with J♥ 8♣.
(Stack size notes: Reichard is the shortest stack. Ausmus is one of the shorter stacks, but everyone besides the chip leader has fewer than 30 big blinds. The chip leader has around 18M.)
Flop T♣ 3♣ 2♣. Reichard checks. Ausmus bets 300K. Reichard calls.
Turn 7♠. Both players check.
River 2♠. Reichard bets 2.1M into 2M. Ausmus calls with just Ace-high.
Get access to Aaron Barone's exclusive training content in the Upswing Lab: https://upswingpoker.com/the-poker-lab-coaching
Watch the full final table at https://www.pokergo.com/
Written Version of This Episode
00:00 Introduction to Tournament Tips
04:23 Tip 2: Defend Your Big Blind Often
08:42 Tip 3: Be Cautious with Three-Bet Bluffing
11:02 Tip 4: Adjust Your Three-Betting with Deep Stacks
13:21 Tip 5: Smart Continuation Betting
18:08 Tip 6: Plan for Future Streets
21:06 Tip 7: Learn Basic Heads-Up Play
In this episode of our poker strategy podcast, host Mike Brady presents seven critical tips to elevate your tournament poker game. Drawing from the expertise of Miikka Anttonen, a renowned Finnish poker player, this episode provides actionable insights to help you run deeper and play more confidently in poker tournaments.
The podcast begins with Tip 1, focusing on raising frequently when the action folds to you. Mike explains why small raises, particularly with antes in play, can be highly profitable even with marginal hands, and how to adjust your raising range based on the tendencies of the players in the blinds. Listeners will learn the importance of understanding the math behind these moves and how to exploit different player types effectively.
In Tip 2, the emphasis shifts to defending your big blind more often. Mike breaks down the pot odds calculations and explains why you should call more frequently, especially against smaller raises. He also discusses how to adjust your defense strategy in multi-way pots and why you should avoid over-defending against stronger opponents.
Tip 3 highlights the dangers of three-bet bluffing with middling stacks, where Mike outlines which hands to choose for three-bet bluffs and why understanding stack size dynamics is crucial in these spots. Tip 4 co
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike (00:00):
Over 1200 poker players have been whittled down to six
$439,000 is the first place prize up for
grabs.
Let's review a key hand from the 2,500buy-in freezeout tournament at this
year's World Series of Poker. Theway this one ends is absolutely wild.
I'm Mike Brady and Tournament Pro AaronBarone is here to break it down for you.
(00:22):
You ready?
Aaron (00:23):
I'm ready.
Mike (00:25):
So the action kicks off here with six players left.
The blinds are 125K and250K and Jeremy Ausmus,
who is one of the shorter stacks,
he's the second well kind of tied forthe second shortest stack at this point.
He raises it up to 500,000. That's amin raise with Ace Queen of hearts.
Jeremy Ausmus, Ace queen of heartsfrom the cutoff raises it up,
(00:49):
clearly standard,
min raise is the size we're going to beusing when we're this short deep in a
tournament. No point in really evendiving deep into the analysis on that one.
The action folds around to Reichard inthe big blind after we see an interesting
fold from one of the other short stackswho folds ten nine suited in the small
blind. Reichard has the shorteststack, 2.7 million to start the hand.
(01:10):
So he's got about 12blinds to start the hand.
Jeremy Ausmus has about 18 blinds.
Reichard has Jack eight offsuitand ops to defend his big blind.
This is really the first somewhatquestionable decision point.
So I'll turn it over to you Aaron,
what do you think about Reichard's callhere in the big blind with Jack eight
offsuit?
Aaron (01:30):
As the shortest stack,
I don't mind having somelooser defends here.
I think it would be a disaster if hedefended this and there was another stack
having 2 million chipsor 2.4 or even 1 million,
would be real bad because it'stough to realize your equity.
You can get bluffed out on a lot of runouts and even run outs where you feel
like you have probably the best hand.
(01:51):
The ICM might make you have to fold.
But here as the shortest stack, Ithink you're getting a good price.
And again, as the shortest stack,
the ICM pressure on you isn't nearlyas significant as it is on the small
blind who actually folded a worsehand but a higher equity defend.
(02:12):
So I'm fine withdefending this Jack eight.
I do think that if I'm in the spotup against an amazing player who is
able to read my soul at timesI want to defend a lot tighter.
And if I'm up against a player who issomeone who I have good reads on and I'm
familiar with how they play,then maybe I defend even looser.
Mike (02:30):
That makes sense.
The key takeaway here is thatwhen you're the shortest stack,
and we mentioned this in previousepisodes of this WSOP breakdown podcast,
when you're the shortest stack,
the ICM pressure on you isn'tthat significant because you're kind of the person
whose head is on the chopping block.
Whereas if there was a shorterstack than Reichard here,
he should play relatively tight becausehe kind of wants to wait out that
(02:53):
shorter stack. But in this casethat shorter stack doesn't exist.
He is the shortest stack so he candefend relatively loosely. Now that said,
we did run this handwith all the stack sizes,
all the payouts usingHold'em Resources calculator,
which is a great tool for running thiskind of unique tournament scenario.
And the results were that Jackeight offsuit is right on the
(03:16):
borderline according tothe calculation we ran,
it's actually a slightlyslightly losing call,
but then Jack nine off isa slightly winning call.
If we had ran this calculation for longer,
it's very possible that it would haveactually moved into slightly profitable.
So the takeaway really is that his handis right on the borderline and you can
kind of go either way. If I wasin this situation as Reichard,
(03:37):
and I don't know Reichard's game at all,
so I should throw thatcaveat out there first,
but if I was in this spot asReichard at this final table,
six players left and I was up againsta really good player like Jeremy Ausmus
who straight up hasmore experience than me,
is going to be better than me ingeneral at tournament play with six
players left at a big final table.
(03:58):
I'm going to make the foldwith a borderline hand like this because I just don't
feel confident enough to play a borderlinehand profitably against such a great
player. Whereas maybe if I wasup against a weaker player,
someone who I identifiedas a weaker player,
then I would go for the call withthis hand. But against Jeremy Ausmus,
I know I would opt toplay a little bit tighter,
(04:18):
maybe even fold something like Jack nineoffsuit here and make Jack ten offsuit
the worst hand I would call. Do you thinkthat's a reasonable approach, Aaron?
Aaron (04:25):
I do.
And there's also an added benefit ofplaying tight here is that when you
fold the hand's over the next hand beginsand there's a chance that other people
clash and you get a pay jump, which atfinal tables is very, very important.
It can just be free money.
So the idea of playing tight here becauseof your opponent or a little tighter
(04:46):
because of your opponent,
makes some sense and you're not reallylooking to play a bunch of pots even
though you are the short stack and theICM pressure isn't as significant as it
could be.
It doesn't mean that you want to get inthere with any two cards and try to play
pots.
You still do want to stay out of thefray a bit and hope that two players that
are not you end up getting the money allin and then you can benefit from that.
Mike (05:09):
Yeah, I mean you never know. We could fold this hand very next hand.
It could be Aces versus Kings betweentwo of the other guys and you just locked
up an extra $30,000 in this case.
But Reichard does make the callwith the Jack eight off suit.
So it's Jack eight off suit versus AceQueen of hearts going into the flop,
which is ten three two all clubs.Reichard has the only club,
he's got the eight of clubs, sohe's got Jack eight, eight of clubs.
(05:33):
He checks it on over tothe pre-flop aggressor.
Now the action is on Jeremy Ausmus withhis Ace Queen of hearts that has totally
missed this ten three two all club flop.
There's about 1.4million chips in the pot.
Reichard is the effective stack.He's got about two total pots behind,
3 million chips. What is your playas Ausmus here in position, Aaron?
Aaron (05:56):
I think I'm goin to be betting fairly frequently and when you're doing
that, especially in this sort of a board,
you want to pick a really small sizing.
And so here I think going even assmall as a min bet is actually fine.
I believe that more traditionallyyou're going to go like 1.1,
1.2 big blinds sometimes as much as 1.8.
But I mean all thosesizings are really small.
(06:17):
I do think that Ausmus doeshave a fair number of flushes.
You could argue that Reichard hasmore flushes and we'll get into that.
But Ausmus still has the advantagein terms of over pairs and
strong top pairs probably even setsas in Reichard probably jams pocket
tens, pocket threes,pocket deuces preflop.
So I still think you'll be bettingthis board a pretty high frequency.
(06:39):
His exact hand is interesting becauseyou could argue that are you really
folding out that manybetter hands right now?
But you are denying equity to otherhands in Reichard's range that
pushing out some equity isnot a bad thing at any point.
So I do think betting is theplay and a very small sizing.
Mike (06:59):
Yeah, Reichards definitely going to fold some hands with equity here.
I don't think he's going to foldanything better than Ace Queen High,
but he is going to fold ahand like Jack nine no club,
which has six outs to beat Ausmus.
So this bet that Ausmusdoes decide to make will
accomplish some good things forhim. Ausmus does go about that size.
You were saying Aaron, he goes,what is that 1.2 big blinds,
(07:20):
300,000 chips into a 1.4 million chip pot
unsurprising to see a very good playergo very small on a monotone board.
That is kind of a universal strategy.
Now almost every studied player knows ifyou're continuation betting in position
on a monotone flop, you're going tobe doing so for a very small size.
Now it's back on Reichard.
Who is facing that 300,000 chip betwith his eight high one card flush
(07:44):
draw. What do you thinkhis play is here, Aaron?
I don't think raising is really on thetable at all with a hand like this.
So it comes down to calling or folding.
Aaron (07:54):
So he's getting an amazing price, right? It's 300 into 1.6,
you're getting over five to one.
And to me these spots used tofeel like folds, automatic folds.
And upon doing more work,I realized that well,
even though I have only the eightof clubs in terms of a flush draw,
I also could win the pot witha jack or an eight potentially.
(08:15):
And you add those things together,
I have enough equity to continuein terms of pure chip ev. ICM,
it's a little bit different.
But you mentioned raising here not beingon the table and I don't think I would
raise this combo,
but if the suits were switched and I havethe jack of clubs instead of the eight
of clubs,
I might look to raise a little morebecause if you think about how Ausmus
(08:37):
range looks in terms of the nuttyparts of range being flushes,
they're going to be stuff like Acequeen of clubs, Ace King of clubs,
Ace jack of clubs, jack ten ofclubs, like all the Broadway clubs.
I don't think he's going to be openinghands like King five of clubs as often
from the cutoff, even eight six ofclubs or eight seven of clubs here.
Given the stack distributions,
(08:58):
it doesn't make as much sense for him tobe raising those hands given he should
also be tight because of the ICM pressure.
So maybe with the Jack of Clubs I mightlook to raise a little more and even
though we had said before for Ausmusif he bets Reichard isn't going to fold
really better hands now,
but if Reichard check raises for sureAusmus is going to fold better hands like
(09:20):
this Ace Queen,
I mean pretty much any hand that doesnot have a pair or a club in it is just
going to go right into the muck.
And the hands he continues with that area little bit on the lighter side will
be high club combos. And so having theJack of clubs can block some of those.
And so I think actuallyI might raise that combo,
but this one I'm just going tolook to continue with a call.
Mike (09:42):
That makes a lot of sense.
You want to be blocking moreof your opponent's strong hands and you just want a
better flush draw when you're raisinghere. So Jack of clubs eight might raise,
but jack of hearts eight of clubs forjust the eight high flush draw does just
call. That's what Reichard does. Andwe get the seven of spades on the turn.
So Reichard picks up agutshot straight draw now,
no reason for him to lead into theprevious street's aggressor here.
(10:05):
That card isn't so good for his rangethat he can sort of support a leading
range. So he checks it over to Ausmus.Now there's 2 million in the pot,
Reichard has a little morethan that behind 2.1 million.
So stacks are already on thetable here and Ausmus has a
decision to make does he want to continuebetting with his ace queen of hearts
(10:26):
that has totally missed this ten threetwo seven board or he can check it back
and play a river. Do you leanone way or the other, Aaron?
Aaron (10:35):
I do want to be betting some hands here as Bluffs, right?
You definitely want to do that.But in this particular situation,
Ausmus has a hand that has a lot ofshowdown value and it's not the worst hand
in his overall range. So if you havea hand here like Queen Jack, right?
Or if he raised Jack nine of spadeshands like that Queen high, jack high,
(10:56):
I look to bet those a little more alongwith obviously some of my value hands,
right? I think Ace Queen no clubis just going to be a check.
With one club, now you'regoing to block flushes,
which are strong parts of your opponent'srange and you're going to have actual
equity in this hand. So Imight look to barrel those,
but I think we have to remember thatAusmus is pretty short as well, right?
(11:19):
So there's ICM pressure on him,
arguably more on him thanon the shorter stack.
So I think he wants to be checking morehands here and Ace Queen is one of them
I would check.
Mike (11:30):
Ausmus does seem to agree with you as he does tank a little bit,
but eventually check back with hisAce Queen. 2 million in the pot.
He's got a little more than thatbehind and he has a decision to make.
Does he want to take a stabat this with his jack high?
There's really no way hehas the best hand here.
He has essentially no showdown value.
(11:50):
So the question is does he wantto take a stab at this? Aaron,
what is your take? What areyou doing in his shoes here?
Aaron (11:56):
So we talked earlier in this hand and you had mentioned you'd fold pre
flop and a lot of people would,
and I think that's fine andif you're somebody who said,
I want to call pre flop, but you get tothis river and you don't want to bet,
probably should have folded pre right?
A lot of your value in defending andplaying hands is when your opponent
has shown you they have a weak range oryou think whatever reason they're not
(12:19):
going to call you want to apply pressure,
especially when you're low in yourown range where Reichard is here.
So I would be looking to bet here,
I know he has a littleover the pot behind,
but I don't think I wouldpick an all in size,
but I would still definitelylook to be betting.
Mike (12:37):
This is a crucial pot by the way,
just to kind of zoom out and thinkabout where we're at in this tournament.
These two players are twoof the shorter stacks.
Were staring down the barrel of a $30,000pay jump or potentially missing out on
a $30,000 pay jump.
And the pay jumps only get bigger fromhere and this is a very significant pot
to both players. IfReichard wins this pot,
he essentially has doubled the chipsthat he goes into this river with.
(12:59):
He goes from 2 million to 4million. If Ausmus wins this,
his stack increases by about 50% comparedto where he is going into this river.
So this is very, very, verysignificant at this stage. Ironically,
there is a person in the background onour screen right now that's wearing a
shirt that says ICM is for poor people.
That's a quite funny shirtthat I'm just seeing now.
(13:19):
Pretty ironic given our heavyemphasis on ICM in this discussion.
So back to the analysis,
you mentioned that all inwouldn't be your bet size here.
So I'm curious,
what size would you be going with asReichard when you're taking a stab at this
river with your jack high?
Aaron (13:38):
So I'm trying to think about first of all my value range and how it
looks right. And obviously I have flushes,
I have a handful of some suited deuce x,
but not as many as you mightthink given the ICM pressure,
is nine deuce suited defending,eh, is six deuce suited, defending,
not so sure about that.
But the other issue is if thiswas a pure chip EV situation,
(14:01):
I think the all in size is totallyfine. But at a final table, again,
pay jumps are important and so youwant to generally pick slightly smaller
sizings. Your survival is moreimportant than accumulation.
So obviously in a perfect world Iwould say, man, when I have the nuts,
I really want to go allin and get all the money.
And when I'm bluffing I want to picka small size. So if I get looked up,
(14:25):
well I didn't lose that much,but you can't play that way.
Or if your opponents figure thatout, you're going to have a bad time.
So I think instead in this spot,
I'd want to pick a smaller size with themajority of my range and by picking a
smaller size I get to value bet morecombos as well. So in this spot,
if I'm Reichard and Ihave a hand like ten nine
(14:46):
no club, do I want to shove ten nineand hope I get called by Ace Queen?
It seems a little optimistic. It'spossible, but it's optimistic.
If I have a hand like say Jack threeof spades, do I want to go all in?
Not really. And so Ithink by jamming here,
his range becomes quitepolar and in addition,
(15:06):
when he is caught bluffing,
he's now out of thetournament or close to it,
rather than leaving himself with aplayable stack of we'll say between
four and six big blinds,which isn't great,
but it's much better than zero big blinds.
Remember your last big blind tournamentis worth a lot more than the previous
(15:26):
big blind because being alive in thattournament still gives you the chance to
ladder up. So that's why Iwould pick a smaller size here,
probably around maybeeven one third of the pot.
And that would give me if things go wrong,
a lot more playability for future hands.
Mike (15:44):
Going for that smaller size allows you to much more comfortably value bet
with a wider range too, right?
I mean shoving all in here with aweak ten or especially something
like a three feels incredibly ambitious,
but when you bet 700,000into 2 million on this river,
it's pretty easy to imagine bettinga ten and getting called by worse.
(16:04):
So that does kind ofcheck out. In a cash game,
this would definitely be justa shove to try to take it down.
There's no reason to try to survive ina cash game. But this is a tournament.
Reichard does have that incentive andbased on the bet size he does decide to go
for, he does agree thatsurvival is important,
but he takes it to a much more extremelevel. He bets almost all of his chips.
He leaves exactly one 25,000 chipbehind. So if he gets called here,
(16:28):
he's basically out of the tournament.I mean he technically isn't,
but he's going to need several doubleand triple ups to get back in the game if
this bluff doesn't get through.
He bets just under 2.1 million intothis 2 million chip pot and now
it's on Jeremy Ausmus who does not quicklyfold. He's got ace queen of hearts,
he's totally missed this boardagain, it's ten three two seven two,
(16:51):
3 clubs on the flop.
And Jeremy Ausmus hasthe ace queen of hearts.
Good things about Jeremy's handinclude that he does not block
any of these one club hands thatmight be bluffing the river,
but on the other side of thecoin, by not having a club,
he doesn't block any flushes.
So that factor kind of maybe washes eachother away. It's really hard to say.
(17:14):
It's almost always different in differentsituations how blockers actually
function.
I think what it really comes down to forhim here is does he just think this guy
is going to be making this play withenough value hands and can he just
call ace queen of hearts here? Isthis just going to be a winning call?
What is your take, Aaron?
Aaron (17:34):
Yeah, and I think that's the concern we talked about a little bit on the
earlier part of this river is thatwill Reichard have enough value hands?
So yeah, he's going to have flushes, sure,
but he might not have all flush combosbecause of how his pre-flop range looks.
And he is certainly going tohave a lot of one club combos.
(17:55):
Does he have tens for avalue shove? Probably not.
Does he have deuces fora value shove? Sure,
but what are his most likelydeuces he defends? Well,
it's high card suited deuces, sohe might not have eight deuce,
but he'll have Queen deuce suitedand Ace Deuce suited. Well,
Ausmus blocks two of those combinations.
So I actually think he has a blocker ina way that we don't normally think about
(18:17):
it here. We normally thinkabout a blockers with a club blocker and sure, yeah,
he blocks flushes,
but the other part of his valueis going to be three of a kind.
And Ausmus does block the more likelycombos of that. So that's something,
sometimes these decisions, allyour choices seem pretty miserable,
but you have to just choose between thebest of the bad options and go with what
(18:41):
limited information you have. So Icould see Ausmus looking him up here.
It'd obviously be an amazing call.
And I go back to what Isaid earlier on the river,
if Reichard bets 700K here or 800k,
I think he gets almost the same amountof fold equity if not the same amount,
and yet he gets to risk less.
But Ausmus is going to be more concernedabout him having thin value like
(19:05):
a ten where I don't think Ausmus thinksthat's even part of his range at this
point.
Mike (19:10):
Right. With the size Reichards decide to use,
I think Jeremy Ausmus is correctlyrecognizing that this is trips
or better, essentially it's trips or aflush basically maybe once in a while,
Reichard can have a really good ten,
Ace ten offsuit or somethinglike that could be in there.
I mean Ace ten offsuit is prettysimilar to trip twos on this board,
(19:30):
but is he going to dothis with ten nine with
these tens that are more prevalentin this range, like the medium tens,
it would be pretty ambitious to go forthis pot size shove with all this ICM
pressure at a big final table and goingfor that thin value with a medium or a
weak ten. So by shoving all infor just over pot on this river,
(19:53):
like Aaron just said, Reichardhas polarized his range.
He's either got a bluff and there area ton of potential bluffs in his range
or he's got a very strong hand,let's say Ace ten or trips or better,
something like that. And yeah,he's got some of those hands,
but I think Jeremy Ausmus correctlyrecognizes that he's just going to have so
(20:13):
many potential bluffs here.
There's a solid chance this guy's justbluffing way too often and doesn't have
enough thin value and Jeremy Ausmusdoes decide to call picking off Reichard
and winning this 6 millionchip pot with Ace Queen High,
absolutely monstrousplay from Jeremy Ausmus.
That's why he is one of the mostaccomplished tournament players in the
(20:35):
world.
And if you want to become one of the mostaccomplished tournament players in the
world,
a great first step to take is to jointhe Upswing Lab and learn from this guy
over there. Aaron Barone. He's got a tonof great tournament content in the lab.
He just reviewed a Bounty builder win.
It was like a 10 or 11 part series wherehe goes through every significant hand
he played at the final tableand heads up en route to a nice
(20:59):
victory.
He also just released an amazingtournament module in the lab called Five
Tournament Mistakes to Avoid.It's a great one to check out,
especially if you're dabblingin tournaments and you want to kind of tighten the
screws on your game overall.
Plug up some quick leaksthat Aaron commonly sees in poker players that he plays
against online and live. Highly recommendchecking that out over in the lab.
(21:22):
And here's a little scoop.
We're going to be doing a speciallab sale over on upswingpoker.com
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(21:42):
And if you're watchingthis well into the future,
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Still a great deal. Thanks for listening.We will see you in the next one.
Over 1200 poker players have been whittled down to six
$439,000 is the first place prize up for
grabs.
Let's review a key hand from the 2,500buy-in freezeout tournament at this
year's World Series of Poker. Theway this one ends is absolutely wild.
I'm Mike Brady and Tournament Pro AaronBarone is here to break it down for you.
(00:22):
You ready?
Aaron (00:23):
I'm ready.
Mike (00:25):
So the action kicks off here with six players left.
The blinds are 125K and250K and Jeremy Ausmus,
who is one of the shorter stacks,
he's the second well kind of tied forthe second shortest stack at this point.
He raises it up to 500,000. That's amin raise with Ace Queen of hearts.
Jeremy Ausmus, Ace queen of heartsfrom the cutoff raises it up,
(00:49):
clearly standard,
min raise is the size we're going to beusing when we're this short deep in a
tournament. No point in really evendiving deep into the analysis on that one.
The action folds around to Reichard inthe big blind after we see an interesting
fold from one of the other short stackswho folds ten nine suited in the small
blind. Reichard has the shorteststack, 2.7 million to start the hand.
(01:10):
So he's got about 12blinds to start the hand.
Jeremy Ausmus has about 18 blinds.
Reichard has Jack eight offsuitand ops to defend his big blind.
This is really the first somewhatquestionable decision point.
So I'll turn it over to you Aaron,
what do you think about Reichard's callhere in the big blind with Jack eight
offsuit?
Aaron (01:30):
As the shortest stack,
I don't mind having somelooser defends here.
I think it would be a disaster if hedefended this and there was another stack
having 2 million chipsor 2.4 or even 1 million,
would be real bad because it'stough to realize your equity.
You can get bluffed out on a lot of runouts and even run outs where you feel
like you have probably the best hand.
(01:51):
The ICM might make you have to fold.
But here as the shortest stack, Ithink you're getting a good price.
And again, as the shortest stack,
the ICM pressure on you isn't nearlyas significant as it is on the small
blind who actually folded a worsehand but a higher equity defend.
(02:12):
So I'm fine withdefending this Jack eight.
I do think that if I'm in the spotup against an amazing player who is
able to read my soul at timesI want to defend a lot tighter.
And if I'm up against a player who issomeone who I have good reads on and I'm
familiar with how they play,then maybe I defend even looser.
Mike (02:30):
That makes sense.
The key takeaway here is thatwhen you're the shortest stack,
and we mentioned this in previousepisodes of this WSOP breakdown podcast,
when you're the shortest stack,
the ICM pressure on you isn'tthat significant because you're kind of the person
whose head is on the chopping block.
Whereas if there was a shorterstack than Reichard here,
he should play relatively tight becausehe kind of wants to wait out that
(02:53):
shorter stack. But in this casethat shorter stack doesn't exist.
He is the shortest stack so he candefend relatively loosely. Now that said,
we did run this handwith all the stack sizes,
all the payouts usingHold'em Resources calculator,
which is a great tool for running thiskind of unique tournament scenario.
And the results were that Jackeight offsuit is right on the
(03:16):
borderline according tothe calculation we ran,
it's actually a slightlyslightly losing call,
but then Jack nine off isa slightly winning call.
If we had ran this calculation for longer,
it's very possible that it would haveactually moved into slightly profitable.
So the takeaway really is that his handis right on the borderline and you can
kind of go either way. If I wasin this situation as Reichard,
(03:37):
and I don't know Reichard's game at all,
so I should throw thatcaveat out there first,
but if I was in this spot asReichard at this final table,
six players left and I was up againsta really good player like Jeremy Ausmus
who straight up hasmore experience than me,
is going to be better than me ingeneral at tournament play with six
players left at a big final table.
(03:58):
I'm going to make the foldwith a borderline hand like this because I just don't
feel confident enough to play a borderlinehand profitably against such a great
player. Whereas maybe if I wasup against a weaker player,
someone who I identifiedas a weaker player,
then I would go for the call withthis hand. But against Jeremy Ausmus,
I know I would opt toplay a little bit tighter,
(04:18):
maybe even fold something like Jack nineoffsuit here and make Jack ten offsuit
the worst hand I would call. Do you thinkthat's a reasonable approach, Aaron?
Aaron (04:25):
I do.
And there's also an added benefit ofplaying tight here is that when you
fold the hand's over the next hand beginsand there's a chance that other people
clash and you get a pay jump, which atfinal tables is very, very important.
It can just be free money.
So the idea of playing tight here becauseof your opponent or a little tighter
(04:46):
because of your opponent,
makes some sense and you're not reallylooking to play a bunch of pots even
though you are the short stack and theICM pressure isn't as significant as it
could be.
It doesn't mean that you want to get inthere with any two cards and try to play
pots.
You still do want to stay out of thefray a bit and hope that two players that
are not you end up getting the money allin and then you can benefit from that.
Mike (05:09):
Yeah, I mean you never know. We could fold this hand very next hand.
It could be Aces versus Kings betweentwo of the other guys and you just locked
up an extra $30,000 in this case.
But Reichard does make the callwith the Jack eight off suit.
So it's Jack eight off suit versus AceQueen of hearts going into the flop,
which is ten three two all clubs.Reichard has the only club,
he's got the eight of clubs, sohe's got Jack eight, eight of clubs.
(05:33):
He checks it on over tothe pre-flop aggressor.
Now the action is on Jeremy Ausmus withhis Ace Queen of hearts that has totally
missed this ten three two all club flop.
There's about 1.4million chips in the pot.
Reichard is the effective stack.He's got about two total pots behind,
3 million chips. What is your playas Ausmus here in position, Aaron?
Aaron (05:56):
I think I'm goin to be betting fairly frequently and when you're doing
that, especially in this sort of a board,
you want to pick a really small sizing.
And so here I think going even assmall as a min bet is actually fine.
I believe that more traditionallyyou're going to go like 1.1,
1.2 big blinds sometimes as much as 1.8.
But I mean all thosesizings are really small.
(06:17):
I do think that Ausmus doeshave a fair number of flushes.
You could argue that Reichard hasmore flushes and we'll get into that.
But Ausmus still has the advantagein terms of over pairs and
strong top pairs probably even setsas in Reichard probably jams pocket
tens, pocket threes,pocket deuces preflop.
So I still think you'll be bettingthis board a pretty high frequency.
(06:39):
His exact hand is interesting becauseyou could argue that are you really
folding out that manybetter hands right now?
But you are denying equity to otherhands in Reichard's range that
pushing out some equity isnot a bad thing at any point.
So I do think betting is theplay and a very small sizing.
Mike (06:59):
Yeah, Reichards definitely going to fold some hands with equity here.
I don't think he's going to foldanything better than Ace Queen High,
but he is going to fold ahand like Jack nine no club,
which has six outs to beat Ausmus.
So this bet that Ausmusdoes decide to make will
accomplish some good things forhim. Ausmus does go about that size.
You were saying Aaron, he goes,what is that 1.2 big blinds,
(07:20):
300,000 chips into a 1.4 million chip pot
unsurprising to see a very good playergo very small on a monotone board.
That is kind of a universal strategy.
Now almost every studied player knows ifyou're continuation betting in position
on a monotone flop, you're going tobe doing so for a very small size.
Now it's back on Reichard.
Who is facing that 300,000 chip betwith his eight high one card flush
(07:44):
draw. What do you thinkhis play is here, Aaron?
I don't think raising is really on thetable at all with a hand like this.
So it comes down to calling or folding.
Aaron (07:54):
So he's getting an amazing price, right? It's 300 into 1.6,
you're getting over five to one.
And to me these spots used tofeel like folds, automatic folds.
And upon doing more work,I realized that well,
even though I have only the eightof clubs in terms of a flush draw,
I also could win the pot witha jack or an eight potentially.
(08:15):
And you add those things together,
I have enough equity to continuein terms of pure chip ev. ICM,
it's a little bit different.
But you mentioned raising here not beingon the table and I don't think I would
raise this combo,
but if the suits were switched and I havethe jack of clubs instead of the eight
of clubs,
I might look to raise a little morebecause if you think about how Ausmus
(08:37):
range looks in terms of the nuttyparts of range being flushes,
they're going to be stuff like Acequeen of clubs, Ace King of clubs,
Ace jack of clubs, jack ten ofclubs, like all the Broadway clubs.
I don't think he's going to be openinghands like King five of clubs as often
from the cutoff, even eight six ofclubs or eight seven of clubs here.
Given the stack distributions,
(08:58):
it doesn't make as much sense for him tobe raising those hands given he should
also be tight because of the ICM pressure.
So maybe with the Jack of Clubs I mightlook to raise a little more and even
though we had said before for Ausmusif he bets Reichard isn't going to fold
really better hands now,
but if Reichard check raises for sureAusmus is going to fold better hands like
(09:20):
this Ace Queen,
I mean pretty much any hand that doesnot have a pair or a club in it is just
going to go right into the muck.
And the hands he continues with that area little bit on the lighter side will
be high club combos. And so having theJack of clubs can block some of those.
And so I think actuallyI might raise that combo,
but this one I'm just going tolook to continue with a call.
Mike (09:42):
That makes a lot of sense.
You want to be blocking moreof your opponent's strong hands and you just want a
better flush draw when you're raisinghere. So Jack of clubs eight might raise,
but jack of hearts eight of clubs forjust the eight high flush draw does just
call. That's what Reichard does. Andwe get the seven of spades on the turn.
So Reichard picks up agutshot straight draw now,
no reason for him to lead into theprevious street's aggressor here.
(10:05):
That card isn't so good for his rangethat he can sort of support a leading
range. So he checks it over to Ausmus.Now there's 2 million in the pot,
Reichard has a little morethan that behind 2.1 million.
So stacks are already on thetable here and Ausmus has a
decision to make does he want to continuebetting with his ace queen of hearts
(10:26):
that has totally missed this ten threetwo seven board or he can check it back
and play a river. Do you leanone way or the other, Aaron?
Aaron (10:35):
I do want to be betting some hands here as Bluffs, right?
You definitely want to do that.But in this particular situation,
Ausmus has a hand that has a lot ofshowdown value and it's not the worst hand
in his overall range. So if you havea hand here like Queen Jack, right?
Or if he raised Jack nine of spadeshands like that Queen high, jack high,
(10:56):
I look to bet those a little more alongwith obviously some of my value hands,
right? I think Ace Queen no clubis just going to be a check.
With one club, now you'regoing to block flushes,
which are strong parts of your opponent'srange and you're going to have actual
equity in this hand. So Imight look to barrel those,
but I think we have to remember thatAusmus is pretty short as well, right?
(11:19):
So there's ICM pressure on him,
arguably more on him thanon the shorter stack.
So I think he wants to be checking morehands here and Ace Queen is one of them
I would check.
Mike (11:30):
Ausmus does seem to agree with you as he does tank a little bit,
but eventually check back with hisAce Queen. 2 million in the pot.
He's got a little more than thatbehind and he has a decision to make.
Does he want to take a stabat this with his jack high?
There's really no way hehas the best hand here.
He has essentially no showdown value.
(11:50):
So the question is does he wantto take a stab at this? Aaron,
what is your take? What areyou doing in his shoes here?
Aaron (11:56):
So we talked earlier in this hand and you had mentioned you'd fold pre
flop and a lot of people would,
and I think that's fine andif you're somebody who said,
I want to call pre flop, but you get tothis river and you don't want to bet,
probably should have folded pre right?
A lot of your value in defending andplaying hands is when your opponent
has shown you they have a weak range oryou think whatever reason they're not
(12:19):
going to call you want to apply pressure,
especially when you're low in yourown range where Reichard is here.
So I would be looking to bet here,
I know he has a littleover the pot behind,
but I don't think I wouldpick an all in size,
but I would still definitelylook to be betting.
Mike (12:37):
This is a crucial pot by the way,
just to kind of zoom out and thinkabout where we're at in this tournament.
These two players are twoof the shorter stacks.
Were staring down the barrel of a $30,000pay jump or potentially missing out on
a $30,000 pay jump.
And the pay jumps only get bigger fromhere and this is a very significant pot
to both players. IfReichard wins this pot,
he essentially has doubled the chipsthat he goes into this river with.
(12:59):
He goes from 2 million to 4million. If Ausmus wins this,
his stack increases by about 50% comparedto where he is going into this river.
So this is very, very, verysignificant at this stage. Ironically,
there is a person in the background onour screen right now that's wearing a
shirt that says ICM is for poor people.
That's a quite funny shirtthat I'm just seeing now.
(13:19):
Pretty ironic given our heavyemphasis on ICM in this discussion.
So back to the analysis,
you mentioned that all inwouldn't be your bet size here.
So I'm curious,
what size would you be going with asReichard when you're taking a stab at this
river with your jack high?
Aaron (13:38):
So I'm trying to think about first of all my value range and how it
looks right. And obviously I have flushes,
I have a handful of some suited deuce x,
but not as many as you mightthink given the ICM pressure,
is nine deuce suited defending,eh, is six deuce suited, defending,
not so sure about that.
But the other issue is if thiswas a pure chip EV situation,
(14:01):
I think the all in size is totallyfine. But at a final table, again,
pay jumps are important and so youwant to generally pick slightly smaller
sizings. Your survival is moreimportant than accumulation.
So obviously in a perfect world Iwould say, man, when I have the nuts,
I really want to go allin and get all the money.
And when I'm bluffing I want to picka small size. So if I get looked up,
(14:25):
well I didn't lose that much,but you can't play that way.
Or if your opponents figure thatout, you're going to have a bad time.
So I think instead in this spot,
I'd want to pick a smaller size with themajority of my range and by picking a
smaller size I get to value bet morecombos as well. So in this spot,
if I'm Reichard and Ihave a hand like ten nine
(14:46):
no club, do I want to shove ten nineand hope I get called by Ace Queen?
It seems a little optimistic. It'spossible, but it's optimistic.
If I have a hand like say Jack threeof spades, do I want to go all in?
Not really. And so Ithink by jamming here,
his range becomes quitepolar and in addition,
(15:06):
when he is caught bluffing,
he's now out of thetournament or close to it,
rather than leaving himself with aplayable stack of we'll say between
four and six big blinds,which isn't great,
but it's much better than zero big blinds.
Remember your last big blind tournamentis worth a lot more than the previous
(15:26):
big blind because being alive in thattournament still gives you the chance to
ladder up. So that's why Iwould pick a smaller size here,
probably around maybeeven one third of the pot.
And that would give me if things go wrong,
a lot more playability for future hands.
Mike (15:44):
Going for that smaller size allows you to much more comfortably value bet
with a wider range too, right?
I mean shoving all in here with aweak ten or especially something
like a three feels incredibly ambitious,
but when you bet 700,000into 2 million on this river,
it's pretty easy to imagine bettinga ten and getting called by worse.
(16:04):
So that does kind ofcheck out. In a cash game,
this would definitely be justa shove to try to take it down.
There's no reason to try to survive ina cash game. But this is a tournament.
Reichard does have that incentive andbased on the bet size he does decide to go
for, he does agree thatsurvival is important,
but he takes it to a much more extremelevel. He bets almost all of his chips.
He leaves exactly one 25,000 chipbehind. So if he gets called here,
(16:28):
he's basically out of the tournament.I mean he technically isn't,
but he's going to need several doubleand triple ups to get back in the game if
this bluff doesn't get through.
He bets just under 2.1 million intothis 2 million chip pot and now
it's on Jeremy Ausmus who does not quicklyfold. He's got ace queen of hearts,
he's totally missed this boardagain, it's ten three two seven two,
(16:51):
3 clubs on the flop.
And Jeremy Ausmus hasthe ace queen of hearts.
Good things about Jeremy's handinclude that he does not block
any of these one club hands thatmight be bluffing the river,
but on the other side of thecoin, by not having a club,
he doesn't block any flushes.
So that factor kind of maybe washes eachother away. It's really hard to say.
(17:14):
It's almost always different in differentsituations how blockers actually
function.
I think what it really comes down to forhim here is does he just think this guy
is going to be making this play withenough value hands and can he just
call ace queen of hearts here? Isthis just going to be a winning call?
What is your take, Aaron?
Aaron (17:34):
Yeah, and I think that's the concern we talked about a little bit on the
earlier part of this river is thatwill Reichard have enough value hands?
So yeah, he's going to have flushes, sure,
but he might not have all flush combosbecause of how his pre-flop range looks.
And he is certainly going tohave a lot of one club combos.
(17:55):
Does he have tens for avalue shove? Probably not.
Does he have deuces fora value shove? Sure,
but what are his most likelydeuces he defends? Well,
it's high card suited deuces, sohe might not have eight deuce,
but he'll have Queen deuce suitedand Ace Deuce suited. Well,
Ausmus blocks two of those combinations.
So I actually think he has a blocker ina way that we don't normally think about
(18:17):
it here. We normally thinkabout a blockers with a club blocker and sure, yeah,
he blocks flushes,
but the other part of his valueis going to be three of a kind.
And Ausmus does block the more likelycombos of that. So that's something,
sometimes these decisions, allyour choices seem pretty miserable,
but you have to just choose between thebest of the bad options and go with what
(18:41):
limited information you have. So Icould see Ausmus looking him up here.
It'd obviously be an amazing call.
And I go back to what Isaid earlier on the river,
if Reichard bets 700K here or 800k,
I think he gets almost the same amountof fold equity if not the same amount,
and yet he gets to risk less.
But Ausmus is going to be more concernedabout him having thin value like
(19:05):
a ten where I don't think Ausmus thinksthat's even part of his range at this
point.
Mike (19:10):
Right. With the size Reichards decide to use,
I think Jeremy Ausmus is correctlyrecognizing that this is trips
or better, essentially it's trips or aflush basically maybe once in a while,
Reichard can have a really good ten,
Ace ten offsuit or somethinglike that could be in there.
I mean Ace ten offsuit is prettysimilar to trip twos on this board,
(19:30):
but is he going to dothis with ten nine with
these tens that are more prevalentin this range, like the medium tens,
it would be pretty ambitious to go forthis pot size shove with all this ICM
pressure at a big final table and goingfor that thin value with a medium or a
weak ten. So by shoving all infor just over pot on this river,
(19:53):
like Aaron just said, Reichardhas polarized his range.
He's either got a bluff and there area ton of potential bluffs in his range
or he's got a very strong hand,let's say Ace ten or trips or better,
something like that. And yeah,he's got some of those hands,
but I think Jeremy Ausmus correctlyrecognizes that he's just going to have so
(20:13):
many potential bluffs here.
There's a solid chance this guy's justbluffing way too often and doesn't have
enough thin value and Jeremy Ausmusdoes decide to call picking off Reichard
and winning this 6 millionchip pot with Ace Queen High,
absolutely monstrousplay from Jeremy Ausmus.
That's why he is one of the mostaccomplished tournament players in the
(20:35):
world.
And if you want to become one of the mostaccomplished tournament players in the
world,
a great first step to take is to jointhe Upswing Lab and learn from this guy
over there. Aaron Barone. He's got a tonof great tournament content in the lab.
He just reviewed a Bounty builder win.
It was like a 10 or 11 part series wherehe goes through every significant hand
he played at the final tableand heads up en route to a nice
(20:59):
victory.
He also just released an amazingtournament module in the lab called Five
Tournament Mistakes to Avoid.It's a great one to check out,
especially if you're dabblingin tournaments and you want to kind of tighten the
screws on your game overall.
Plug up some quick leaksthat Aaron commonly sees in poker players that he plays
against online and live. Highly recommendchecking that out over in the lab.
(21:22):
And here's a little scoop.
We're going to be doing a speciallab sale over on upswingpoker.com
throughout the entire duration ofthe World Series of Poker main event.
So the sale will start on July 3rd.
So if you want to upgrade your tournamentskills and save big money while you do
it, head over to upswingpoker.comafter July 3rd to get that discount.
(21:42):
And if you're watchingthis well into the future,
you can use coupon code level up tosave $50 on your first lab payment.
Still a great deal. Thanks for listening.We will see you in the next one.
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