Punt of the Day

POTD #291 In a $500k Tournament I Flop a Set and Scare Off Jason Koon

Sam Greenwood — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:02:43 GMT

In my own study and in my private coaching, I always make sure to review complete sessions. If you only focus on “trouble” hands, you’ll only study from hands you know you struggled with, while ignoring leaks that are in your blind spots. For most people, the biggest room for improvement in their game is not about mastering rare but unusual spots. It is about identifying common mistakes they make in hands they think are “standard.” So it’s important to study every pot, big and small. If you only notice your c-bet strategy is bad because the hand ended up being raised on the river, you need to spend more time thinking about the hands where your opponent folds to your c-bet.

In today’s hand, I picked a larger c-bet size and Jason Koon made a comment that if I had c-bet smaller, he might have done something frisky. Did Jason’s comment fill me with enough regret that it forced me to look up a simple c-bet decision in a three-bet pot, or am I just a diligent poker player who practices what they preach and reviews every hand? The punt I’m writing about is from a $500k buyin, so perhaps I felt obligated to look up every hand I played in such a high-stakes tournament, or perhaps I am so unsure of my deepstack no-limit play that I felt the need to look up any questionable deep-stacked hand myself. The answer is probably “all of the above.” Today’s hand played out in a way that felt totally standard to me, but it was only after the fact that I learned that the solver equilibrium strategy here is much more passive than I expected.

$500K NLH Triton Million - Event #2 Triton Poker X WSOP Paradise 2024
(2k/4k/4k) (SB/BB/BBA). 1 Million Starting Stack. Registration is open.

It folds to Jason Koon (1.381M/345BBs) on the button who makes it 11k, it folds to me (741k/185bbs) the SB with Q♣️Q♦️, I make it 46k, Jason calls.

Flop (100k) A♦️Q♠️6♥️: I bet 50k, Jason folds.

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PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION ONLY POTD #291 In a $500k Tournament I Flop a Set and Scare Off Jason Koon

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Sunday Special #20 An Englishman Runs a Bluff in Belgium

Sam Greenwood — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 10:01:16 GMT

My (Sam’s) thoughts are included in the footnotes. If you are reading this via e-mail, it might be an easier read on Substack where the footnotes require less scrolling back and forth. Click here. On to the Sunday Special where we have a first time submitter

The submission has been lightly edited for content and clarity

About me: I am a recreational player from the UK who has been playing for about 10 years now. Most of my poker is online cash games, but I do enjoy a live tournament now and then. I would say that my fundamentals are decent enough but more comfortable in 100BB cash game ranges than shorter stack tournament ranges.

The hand comes from the Pokerstars Open Namur €1,100 Main Event - my first ever tournament abroad! I was fortunate enough to satellite in, and I had a mental note to get some content for POTD (winning the €220k up top would be a nice bonus as well).

Pokerstars Open Namur €1,100 NLH - Main Event
(1k/1.5k/1.5k) (SB/BB/BBA) 450 Left. 223 Cash. Average is 140k. Starting Stack is 30k.

I (90k) open UTG7 to 3k with A♠️J♠️, UTG+1 (~300k) raises to 9k, folds to me and I call.

Flop (22k): J♥️T♠️8♠️. I check, villain checks.

Turn (22k): K♦️. I check, villain bets 8k, I raise to 30k, villain folds.

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My thoughts: I’m at a fairly tough table (at least relative to the field I’ve seen), with aggressive players on my left who are likely pros.1 I get 3b by my immediate left to a somewhat larger size. I think this is a pure call but the bottom of the calling range more or less (at least, the worst suited ace).2

I get the dream flop for my hand and possibly my range3 - my first thought is that JJ, TT and 88 are well represented in our range pre, along with KQs and AQs which are at the least 8 out straight draws. I might be falling into the subscriber special trap of putting too much importance into who is flopping sets however!4 I decided not to lead though since our hand is so strong and people probably c-bet too much if indeed we are supposed to have leads, with the plan of x/r or x/c depending on sizing.

On the turn, it superficially looks like it is very good for IP, however AK is pretty far from the nuts here.5 I decided that at this point we should try to check and use the showdown value of our J, but that goes out the window when villain bets.6 I note the smaller sizing and essentially decided that I didn’t want AK to check back the river on a brick and win, and that it would make up a good part of his range.7 I also thought that most likely he would fold AK, and that AQ would be more inclined to bet flop (or flat pre) or might size bigger on the turn.8

I was also quite focused on how tight our preflop range is and how few natural bluffs we have - I don’t have many flush draws given the cards on the board - AQs, KQs and AJs mainly, of which AJs is the weakest.9 However we are in a world of pain if villain jams over us, so maybe we just need to bluff 99 and 77 that can easily fold to a jam.10

I chose this hand since I thought there were many decisions to be made, and I know this is a spicy flop where in 100BB deep cash ranges, in certain 3bp configurations, there are open jams on the flop.11 Perhaps that could be something to consider - ripping turn either as a check /raise or just open rip, to really put AK, KQ, QQ and AA in horrible spots. Interested to know your thoughts!12

As an aside, I really enjoyed the structure of the tournament, however I was a bit surprised that they allowed players to muck rather than showing down. I thought that wasn’t allowed in most tournaments, and it is something I really hate in live cash games.13

I ended up cashing for just over the min cash (which was ok given I was fairly short nearing the bubble)14, but at least my brother is still going with 50 left as I write this. I at least made one good decision, which was to swap action with him!15 Big fan of POTD and happy to write in again if you will have it.

All the best,

Adam

If you made it to the end of the post and are interested in being the subject of a future Sunday Special, let me know. Do not be shy if you lack poker skill or accomplishments. No solver analysis is required from you and I’d much rather have hobbyist poker players, who are good writers that can produce clean copies and clearly articulate their thought process than editing the writing of 99% of accomplished poker players.

I think a lot of pros three bet too often in soft main event fields. A good way to counteract this is to just open tighter. You will make more money with your good hands and won’t need to play tricky spots OOP versus players who might be better than you postflop.

From a cEV perspective this is too tight. A9s, ATs, A5s and A4s all continue. However the only hand that is making a lot of EV where I’d think folding would be a clear mistake is ATs (which can also four-bet as AJo should be a frequent three-bet bluff from your opponent). With half the field cashing I’d call AJs pure, mix call and four-bet with ATs/A5s/A4s and fold A9s, unless I really wanted to go war vs my opponent.

It’s hard for the dream flop for you range to be a flop that’s pretty good for QQ+ and AK. It’s an okay flop for your range, but even though KQ and AQ have strong draws, they aren’t great hands yet and you should still have hands like pocket sixes and A5s. The best flops for your range are boards like 876 rainbow where you flop three sets your opponent rarely has and one or two straights they rarely have.

That tends to be more of a trap in single raised pots. The issue here is the solver often four bets JJ and TT pre as UTG7 here and occasionally three bets JJ/TT/88 themselves at UTG+1. So you don’t have a huge set advantage here. It’s about 6% to 4%. 876 is around 9% to 3%. We are also ignoring blockers here, if your opponent has KTs and blocks TT, your set advantage decreases.

The three-bettor is not supposed to c-bet 100% of the time on the flop, they frequently check with range. However, this is a pretty normal spot a lot of players get themselves into if they build too much of their check back range around AK. Then they don’t have good hands often enough on blank turns and have good hands too often on AKQ turns. It’s still a pretty good turn for IP because they can also have KJs, KTs, AQ, in addition to having AK.

I would check for a couple of simpler reasons, I don’t think we fold out better and our hand isn’t quite strong enough to value bet. When you check, I’d expect your opponent to regularly bet the turn themselves and there is no reason to put money in the pot for your opponent when they will do it anyways (imagine someone betting out of turn, you’d always check to them). I also would not read too much into his small size, this looks like a card that is great for his range, I could see him stabbing with anything and don’t think a small turn bet here is all that more likely to be AQ compared to AK.

The flip side here is he bet a small amount and it’s always appealing to see a cheap river with a big draw.

FWIW The solver bets AK on the flop a little more often than AQ, this is in part because AK can comfortably bet/fold where AQ needs to stack off. I agree with your turn logic, this play only makes sense if you can get AK to fold. What gets tricky about this hand and lots of hands where both players have a ton of pair + straight draw hands is making sure you are not overbluffing and making sure you pick your bluffs correctly. You could be bluffing here with QQ, any suited queen, any suited 9, any flush draw and of course your actual hand and if you really wanted to get frisky a hand like AcTc. Generally these spots are tricky, but a good rule of thumb is you need to either be able to fold out better or get called by worse. Fast playing 77 on 654 vs the BB is great because you’re getting money in good vs 86. Fast playing 43 is not. In today’s hand you could maybe get called by some worse hands like QJ that checked back the flop, but for the most part, you identified this check-raise bluff correctly, if you never get AK to fold. This bluff is not good.

I think you are too tight preflop here, but let’s even say you fold QTs and 98s here, but you also fold AQo pre. Well you still only have AQs, JJ, TT,88 for value, which is only 13 combos. So you still need to be careful you aren’t over bluffing QJs, some AJs without a NFD, some As5s or As4s, some 99 and all of a sudden you’re actually bluffing ~half the time. That number could rise if you ever do things like lead the flop or bet the turn with AQ or sets.

I would generally lean towards check-raising more polar because I would not want to check-raise fold a hand this strong. However, the solver does check-raise fold your hand with some frequency, so it’s an acceptable play. My concern would be that if humans ever shove hands like KTs or AK, checkraise folding AsJs can be costly. So I’d like to insulate myself against not knowing what my opponent’s turn three bet shoving range looks like and check raise a little more polar.

There are lots of outs that improve your hand, but might not improve it to a winner for the whole pot (A,J,Q), which makes me even more inclined to check raise a little more polar and I’d probably lean towards a hand like QTs or T9s and non paired nut flush draws as my ideal turn check raise bluffs here.

Open jams on the flop occur here generally when the three bettor is OOP and more often on boards where a flopped straight and flopped one card straight draws are not possible. Boards like JT5 flush draw get a lot more shoves than JT8 flush draw where you might just get snapped off by J9 or QT.

Before I looked at the sim, I had no strong preference between check-raising small vs check-raising all-in. With a weaker hand like 99 or QT check shoving would be a disaster, but you might have the exact hand that might want to check-shove. In game, with your hand, there is an element of sizing your opponent UP and asking what play will get AK to fold most often. If I thought my opponent would fold AK to a check-shove, I would never shove QT, but I might shove your hand. If I thought they’d never fold AK, I’d just check-call.

I thought this rule was enforced in PokerStars tournaments, but I could be wrong and I have no idea what the local rules are in Namur. I mostly like this rule because I hate the dumb games people play at showdown. Just muck or table your hand. Please stop pump faking or even worse the Kassouf game of stating “I have two pair, can you beat that?”. However the stated reason for this rule is for game integrity purposes and that is kind of silly, there are almost no documented cases in serious tournaments of players chip dumping to each other and it getting caught by forcing showdown in a non all-in pot.

It’s more than okay, you will not cash most tournaments you play and this was the biggest tournament of your life. Congrats!

Unfortunately he finished in 35th. Nice run!

Week(s) In Review #60 May 24-June 6th 2026

Sam Greenwood — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 10:02:14 GMT

POTD devotees may have noticed there was no Week in Review last week. That is because as I was putting the finishing touches on last week’s Week in Review, my wife went into labour and shortly thereafter delivered our second child. I am not known for being a live read specialist, but there were some clues I missed, such as my wife saying “I think I’m having contractions” on Friday night, approximately 12 hours before we left to go to the hospital. All’s well that ends well, and my sleep schedule is not totally ruined yet. A small victory that I do not want to brag about, lest I jinx it, so we will move on.

I hope POTD subscribers are enjoying “Poker Summer Camp”, and I miss being there, so if you want me to feel like I am there, please continue to send me punts from any and all WSOP events, whether they were punts you made, benefited from, witnessed or read about. A reminder: no brags or bad beat stories, and please send hands from mixed games. I want to test myself to see if I can identify punts in games I don’t know how to play.

I have some evergreen Week in Review topics I can write about, such as what constitutes “fair” markup, when should late registration end in tournaments, and what makes a good poker broadcasting team. I also have some more esoteric ones, such as game theory and wagering in Jeopardy!, and what is wrong with the Toronto Blue Jays? But this week, I wanted to ensure I got something published, so I am keeping it brief, but I will put this in bold before asking you to subscribe.

I AM RUNNING SHORT ON SUNDAY SPECIAL SUBMISSIONS! PLEASE SEND THEM IN!

And of course, please subscribe.

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Housekeeping

If you missed it, I outlined my personal coaching philosophy in the previous Week in Review, and if you are interested in signing up for my coaching services, I suggest you read that post here.

Many people in the poker content space offered deals that lined up with the start of the WSOP. My marketing team (me) missed that opportunity, but you can now sign up for 22% off an annual subscription at https://www.puntoftheday.com/WSOP.

If you’d like to sign up for Octopi, Run It Once, or GTO Lab, you can get a discount using the following codes. They are also offering deals right now, and you can use my affiliate code.

Run it Once use code: POTD for 10% off
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If you are not currently a GTO Lab subscriber, they have recently launched a free “Starter” plan that gives you free preflop cEV charts and a preflop trainer with no hand limits. “Basic” mode that is only $25/month, despite it’s name. It is not basic at all and gives you access to cEV postflop sims.

Additional Sims For Premium Subscribers

Premium Subscribers are given access to a Google Drive folder where they will also be able to download the raw files of sims I used to write my POTDs, sims that are more accurate and appropriate than equivalent sims in the big public libraries. The past two weeks I uploaded

A PIO sim look at my response to Brewer’s large preflop size for POTD #285
A Rocket Solver flop sim (and several failed tests) for POTD #286
Several HRC sims testing when five-bet shoving KQs is best for POTD #287
A Rocket Solver sim looking at the three-way three-bet pot POTD #288
A PIO sim for POTD #289
A PIO ICM using custom preflop ranges for POTD 290

Additional Analysis for Premium Subscribers

Everyday Premium Subscribers get an extra bit of analysis not included in the main post. Today, I’ll share #onemorething from POTD #285, where I wrote about what my response might look like vs. a slightly smaller three-bet size.

POTD #285 ⁠onemorething
What if Chris picked a large, but slightly more normal three bet size, let’s say he three bet to 15bbs. I’d still mix preflop folds with pocket pairs, but the folds would start to kick in with pocket sevens and lower instead of pocket nines like we saw above. I would never fold AKo to this size, but would start folding KTs, QTs and suited connectors between T9s and 76s. 65s is still the super star and always calls.
When he three bets to a smaller size less of his three betting range is AA, so he still c-bets a lot, but more betting volume goes into a quarter pot size and less goes into half pot. When he bets quarter pot I raise the flop around 15% of the time with all my 5x combos, including 65 and the raise is enough to get JJ and TT without a spade to start folding right away. When I reach the turn 5x with a flopped backdoor flush draw mostly gives up on the turn, but the 5x combos without a backdoor flush draw usually keep barreling. A 60% pot turn bet is enough to get some of his weakest Kx to start folding right away and even some AA and AK combos start folding. The river strategy remains the same, he will bluff with 5x and 76 so I lose to some bluffs and block a whole bunch of his bluffs and I have a very easy fold. So it looks like using “normal” ranges my flop play is a little better and I should have given more consideration to barreling the turn, but my river fold is good. One of the questions one needs to consider when analyzing this hand is: Is his big preflop size actually similar to what the solver picks or it is just a sizing error and his range will more closely resemble a 14bb or 15bb three bet range? But in this hand it doesn’t matter all that much, my hand can raise the flop and barrel the turn, but it needs to fold the river.

Media

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Bluesky

POTD #290 Almost FT Friday: How Thin Can I Value Bet Near the Bubble?

Sam Greenwood — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:01:40 GMT

One of the most common questions I get asked nowadays is a variation of “At what point in a tournament does ICM start to matter?” Me being me, I struggle at giving a direct answer to a question, but I have been asked the question enough times that I’ve parsed down my long answer enough for it to (hopefully) make some sense. The short answer is, it matters from hand one, but the way it matters is extremely marginal– In a freezeout it folds to the SB who goes all-in for 100bbs and shows you 2d2s, do you call with Tc9d? I think most people understand in a soft freezeout, you might rather stay in the tournament than collect your 3% edge. They’d never fold in a cash game, which means your decision is being guided by, if not ICM, explicitly an idea that staying in the tournament is worth more than winning as many chips as possible.

So it’s always something you should be considering, but often the effects are very small. The metaphor I often use is that ICM affects your strategy in the way that wind might affect how you steer a boat. From hand one of the tournament, you are in the water and you want to make it to your destination; you cannot return to the port you came from. Throughout the journey the wind will shift in intensity and direction, but it’s always there. You need to adjust to it and hope you gauged the effects correctly.

Today’s hand is another tricky hand where I need to determine what my value betting thresholds should be as we’re approaching the money. I reverted to a simple heuristic of, just check back your lowest-EV value bets, which is usually appropriate, but in this hand I failed to realize what my lowest-EV value bet actually is, and I didn’t realize there were certain peculiarities about this hand that made it very unlikely my opponent, Fedor Holz, had me beat.

Triton Cyprus 2023 - Event #11 $100,000 NLH - Main Event
(15k/30k/30k) (SB/BB/BBA) 23 Left. 15 Cash. Average is 1.1M

Link to YouTube video

It folds to me (1.27M) on the button with T♥️T♣️, I make it 65k, it folds to Fedor Holz in the BB (915k) who calls.

Flop (175k) 8♦️7♦️5♣️: Fedor checks, I bet 115k, Fedor calls
Turn (405k) A♥️: Fedor checks, I bet 200k, Fedor calls
River (805k) A♠️: Fedor checks, he has 535k back, I check and and beat K♥️6♥️

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What I Was Thinking

We’ve had a stretch of strong preflop hands in POTD. Yes, you raise TT on the button. On these sorts of flops with three low cards and lots of straight draws possible, you often pick a big c-bet size with your weakest and most vulnerable overpairs. This is a board where 99 might get cute and bet small or AA might get cute and check, but TT has no draw and is vulnerable to overcards. I played it as a pure bet and a large one.

The turn A is not what I wanted to see. This is not like raising UTG, where I might frequently bet a hand like A3s or AdTc as a bluff on the flop. I shouldn’t have all that much Ax in my flop c-betting range. However, Fedor should fold a lot of ace high on the flop and be aggressive with a lot of Ax preflop, so if TT was the best hand on the flop, it’s likely still best now and I can continue value betting my flopped over pair. The river A is good for me; it counterfeits whatever low-frequency flopped two pair Fedor might have, but more importantly, it means he has hands like A9 or A6 much less often. If TT was the best hand on the flop and the best hand on the turn, it’s the best hand on the river. Shoving for value is tempting, especially vs. someone like Fedor who could easily look down at a hand like Kd5d and decide to call off with it. However, if I checked and lost, I’d be just below average, while we are still only eight away from the money. It felt like it was more important to save a big chunk of my final 800k chips than to go for thin value, even if I thought my hand was usually best.

What I Got Wrong

For chips, Fedor occasionally but rarely leads the flop. I pure c-bet my hand and mostly pick a big size, I pure two-barrel the turn and mostly pick half pot, and I pure shove the river and checking loses almost 5bbs. But this is not a cEV hand. I have a slightly above-average stack, and two-thirds of the field will get a $175k mincash. Preserving my stack is important, and neither Fedor or I are playing cEV poker. So what does a postflop ICM output say for this hand? Fedor occasionally, but rarely leads the flop. I pure c-bet my hand and have a 50/50 split between a big size and a small size. I am about 50/50 between betting half pot and checking on the turn and … I pure shove the river.

So I think my preflop, flop and turn mix are all fine; They’re frequent plays in cEV and tournament scenarios. My river play is not. My hand has 84% equity on the river (compared to 89% in cEV), and Fedor can call me down with any unimproved flopped pair. Fedor is definitely capable of making big calldowns and I should have shoved. It is my lowest-EV value shove— 99 is technically a worse hand, but Fedor never has TT, 99 blocks slowplayed combos of 96, and A9 is more likely to peel the flop than AT. I thought I needed to tighten up my value-shoving range on the river, but this is not a spot to do so, in part because Fedor’s range has so much 8x/7x/5x that anything that beats an 8 is good enough to shove, even as we approach the money bubble.

Types of Error
Nitty river check back

Grade

This is a pretty specific river card. The solver doesn’t want to shove an offsuit two river, because then Fedor will have enough top pair or slowplayed two pair that TT is too thin a value shove. The ace river gives him fewer Ax and counterfeits his two-pair hands, and TT is upgraded into being a hand good enough to shove. The river strategy here, both value betting and bluffing, is pretty simple. If you beat a pair of eights, whether you have 99, KK, or A2, you shove. If you can’t beat a pair of fives— even if you have Ks9s, which has 12% equity— you have to consider shoving. I had an oversimplified strategy of “value bet tighter at the terminal node because of ICM,” without thinking about Fedor’s range enough. I should be value betting tighter, but an 84% equity hand with two-thirds pot to play does not cross that threshold.

C+

PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION ONLY POTD #290 Almost FT Friday: How Thin Can I Value Bet Near the Bubble?

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:00:05 GMT

POTD #289 The Dream Flopping Top Set with AA in a Three Bet Pot

Sam Greenwood — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:59:29 GMT

Most poker players tend to be better at playing great hands than bad hands. This might seem obvious: If someone shoves the river, you snap call with the nuts, but need to think with second pair. However, what I specifically mean is that great hands are often outlier hands with clear strategies. What should I do with AQ preflop facing a raise 100bbs deep? Sometimes call, sometimes three-bet. What if I three-bet and get four-bet? Sometimes call, sometimes fold, sometimes five-bet. What about AA? Always three-bet. Almost always call a four-bet. Easy.

The other reason why it’s easier to play great hands than bad hands is from a range construction perspective, it’s easy to remember what to do when you have a great hand… look at your two cards, you have a great hand, it’s time to implement Great Hand Strategy™. Balancing your range by adding bluffs, but just enough bluffs that you aren’t unbalanced is tricky, and also requires work. You need to look down at A4o and actively decide to play it like AA sometimes. You can just play AA like AA, you don’t need to worry about playing it like A4o. The rules for playing great hands are often pretty simple: You bet smaller because it’s harder for your opponent to bluff-catch when you have a very strong hand and because you don’t need to worry about protecting your own equity because your hand is strong. It’s more likely your opponent will improve to a second-best hand than improve to one that’s beating yours. However, you also want to build a pot and get lots of money in the middle, so you need to balance getting as much money as possible in the pot with not knocking your opponent out of the hand.

In today’s hand, I have the board totally locked. It feels like my opponent will never be able to bluff catch versus me, so I default to a normal pattern: Play passively, let him bluff or improve. But in the process I missed an even more important concept: When you have a great hand you want to put money in the pot versus hands you have drawing dead.

Triton London 2023 - Event #5 $50k NLH 8-Handed
(1.5k/3k/3k) (SB/BB/BBA) 200k Starting Stack. Registration is Open.

It folds to Pascal Lefrancois (154k) on the button, he makes it 7k, I (168k) make it 26k, with A♥️A♣️ in the SB, Pascal calls.

Flop (58k) A♠️K♥️7♥️: I bet 12k, Pascal calls
Turn (82k) 2♥️: I check, Pascal checks
River (82k) 7♦️: I bet 28k, Pascal folds.

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PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION ONLY POTD #289 The Dream Flopping Top Set with AA in a Three Bet Pot

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:59:28 GMT

POTD #288 The Most Dangerous Play in Poker: Slowplaying Aces

Sam Greenwood — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 10:03:00 GMT

Every poker player is aware of the slowplayer’s lament: You think you’ll slowplay because your hand is so strong, and you imagine you will also get the flop, turn, river of your dreams. Then you get a horrible flop and you find yourself asking, Why did I slowplay in the first place? I got too cute. That reaction is an emotional one: It doesn’t mean the slowplay was bad, you’re just upset you got the wrong runout. Having an emotional reaction in the middle of any poker hand is a bad place to be in, but especially after a slowplay gone wrong. You went from having a great hand to having a so-so hand. This is when you need to dive deep and access every ounce of poker skill you have to navigate choppy waters. Instead you’re bemoaning your luck and hoping to get bailed out on the next street.

In today’s hand, we’re approaching a big money bubble of a $75,000 in Triton Cyprus, and while usually I slowplay less preflop as ICM pressure begins to mount, I felt I had a dream spot to slowplay AA. Then I got a nightmare board for my hand, and had to maneuver through a three-way three-pot bot on a connected board. I did not know who had a range advantage or how this hand should play out postflop. I needed to figure things out quickly, but instead, I was thinking man this sucks and played the hand in a way that reflected that thought process.

Triton Cyprus 2022 - Event #5 $75K NLH 8-Handed
(10k/20k/20k) (SB/BB/BBA). 22 Left 12 Cash.

It folds to me UTG7, I (1.16M) makes it 45k with A♥️A♣️, Talal Shakerchi (1.345M) calls next to act, Michael Soyza (835k) makes it 190k, I call, Talal calls.

Flop (610k) K♠️Q♦️J♦️: Soyza checks, I bet 125k, Talal calls, Soyza folds.
Turn (860k) T♥️: I check, Talal checks.
River (860k) 4♥️: I bet 300k, Talal folds.

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PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION ONLY POTD #288 The Most Dangerous Play in Poker: Slowplaying Aces

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 09:59:22 GMT

Sunday Special #19 Flopping Top Pair at the Feature Table

Sam Greenwood — Sun, 31 May 2026 10:02:33 GMT

My (Sam’s) thoughts are included in the footnotes. If you reading this via e-mail, it might be an easier read on Substack where the footnotes require less scrolling back and forth. Click here. On to the Sunday Special where we have a second time submitter.

The submission has been lightly edited for content and clarity

This week we have another submission from Sid Sudunagunta, who introduced himself to POTD readers with Sunday Special #14

Hi, I’m Sid Sudunagunta, a recreational player based in the UK. Around 6-7 years ago I started playing online and became increasingly obsessed with poker. It’s my main hobby and I tend to plan my holidays around trips to various series and festivals. Over the last 2-3 years my focus has shifted away from NLH and more towards mixed games, though I’m always conscious that I don’t want to fall hopelessly behind in Holdem; to that end, Punt of the Day has been an invaluable resource. Most mornings start with one or two POTD articles over a coffee, while my cat Dorito bats my coloured pens off the table. I then go to work and try not to forget the lessons I’ve learned.

Today’s hand is from day 2 of the Party Poker Sheffield £500 main event in January of this year. It was streamed and the video is embedded below (hand starts around 6.00.40):

31/273 remain and 41 paid. $31st gets £1000. The next pay jump (£1150) 27 players
(8k/16k/16k) (SB/BB/BBA)

Aleksandar Georgiev (810k/51bbs) a pro and a regular on the Party Tour, raises the HJ to 35k off 810k. I defend the BB with A♣️5♥️ (328k – 20.5bb).

Flop (94k) A♠️Q♠️T♥️: I check, he bets 35k, I call

Turn (164k) 2♦️: I check, he bets 85k, I call

River (334k) A♥️: I check, he puts me all in for 189k, I call and beat 6♠️5♠️

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What I Thought

Preflop: I thought I could jam A5s, but offsuit I wanted ATo/AJo. I could jam A5o against a BTN open.1

Flop: I flopped top pair, bad kicker and was torn between check-jamming and check-calling. I hadn’t played much with villain but I thought he was aggressive and capable of bluffing, I thought it was better to check-call and keep in his worse value and bluffs.2

Turn: I didn’t love this spot, this is the part of the hand that I feared could be the punt. I know calling down with top pair at SPR ~2 is rarely too heinous, but I’m behind a lot of value (could be dead) and I expected to face a shove on a lot of rivers. That said, I thought I was fairly high up in my range (the commentators also said this)3; I do have KJ but otherwise I don’t have sets or 2 pair (except a turned A2)4, so I thought I would need to call with Ax. Also some of my Ax check-raises flop? I didn’t think about this in game but I wonder if the 5 kicker is good, not blocking his bluffs (K9s, J9s, etc?).5

River: Trips is a good hand and while I could still be dead I called quickly and was pleased to see a bluff.6

What I Learned

I looked in GTO wizard at chipEV 20bb effective (single size). If Sam’s footnote says that’s useless please feel free to ignore this next bit7 . Oh. 65s isn’t in villain’s range and there’s barely a sliver of 76s. I wonder if I can pretend he had 87s.8

My possibly useless GTO wizard findings are as follows:

Preflop A5o pure calls. My jams come from pairs 22-QQ, A7o A6o (not sure why it’s not the suited wheel Ax9 ), AJo-AKo more or less pure and some mixing of AQs, AJs, K9s. I also have a polar 6bb 3b range: AKs and KK/AA pure and some AQs, QQ. This is balanced by AJs (I assume this is a bluff?10), JTs11 and a smattering of various low frequency crap (A2o, Q5o, J7o, etc).

On the flop I check range and HJ bets range (GTOw likes b4712). I’m at a huge range disadvantage, HJ has 60.9% equity here. My strategy is interesting: I call 19% and jam 10%. All my Ax jams at some frequency (except A7o and A5s for some reason, pure calls. Oh and A7s and A6s because they heavily prefer to shove preflop but if I have them here they pure call).13 ATs pure jams. With the offsuit Ax, if I have a bad spade (AX6s or worse) it jams, if I have 8s or better it mixes more and prefers jamming the combos without a spade. I imagine this is something to do with the spades in villain’s range.14 My exact combo is a pure call. I also shove QTs/o pure and mix with KJs/o. My bluff jams are flush draws with a broadway card (K8s, J7s, T4s etc).

Turn is a pure check from me and facing b49 I mostly call with a small amount of shoving.15 Regarding being high up in my range, A5o has 49% range vs range equity and is in the top 33% of my range. On the river I mix leads with all my Ax, plus things like KQs/o, KJo, QJs/o, plus some goofy bluffs like 9s3s, 3s2s. Facing the shove I call.16

I think my main takeaway from this hand is the flop strategy is quite interesting and should be easy enough to execute: I can essentially check-shove any Ax, but not all Ax, so having a spade blocker with a bad kicker is helpful.17 And the bluffs are intuitive: flush draw with a straight blocker. Finally, I think against a villain who is opening two pips wider on the suited connector front my call down is even more justified.

One reason I wanted to write about this is that after the hand the villain told me my turn call was really bad, so I wanted some reassurance.18 So I asked some friends, who told it me it was fine. And GTO wizard has told me it was fine. Now I want Sam to tell me it’s fine.19 If you’ll permit me a brag20, I did go on to win this tournament.

If you made it to the end of the post and are interested in being the subject of a future Sunday Special, let me know. Do not be shy if you have a lack poker skill or accomplishments. No solver analysis is required from you and I’d much rather have hobbyist poker players, who are good writers that can produce clean copies and clearly articulate their thought process than editing the writing of 99% of accomplished poker players.

Under ICM pressure you often jam suited aces, but for chips you mostly stick to offsuit ones and A5o is a fine hand to bluff shove here as are AT and AJo.

The main reason you can’t jam is his c-bet size is too small. His small c-bet size means your shove is around 1.7x pot, which is too much to shove. His small c-bet size should also be a stronger range that has more hands like top set and KJ, which is not an attractive range to shove A5 into. Even if that c-bet size is just the size he picks in this spot, the fact that it’s such a larger shove should deter you and calling is best.

You and the commentators seem to concerned about where you are in your range and not enough about the fact that he should be playing any top pair combo like the nuts and you block all those top pair combos and have a lot of chop equity vs a hand like A8.

Some Q2s and T2s as well.

Not blocking those hands are fine, but this board is so good for his range that he should be bluffing with basically any hand with two cards lower than nine in it, including the pocket pairs, hands like 6d5d, etc so your kicker isn’t particularly meaningful. The lower kickers are preferred because he has fewer of them in his opening range. He has 98s, but does not have 94s. What matters sf that you have an ace that blocks top pair. If you were only allowed to play one card on the turn, you’d probably need to call down here.

You need to call on a river A especially since you now chop with a lot of value.

Ideally you’d run a sim that gives him an opening range that is unique to this stack alignment. You are 20bbs deep, but he’s over 50bbs deep with 2 of the players he’s opening into, which means he might be able to getaway with opening hands like 65s. However a wider opening range with hands like 65s just makes your hand an even clearer stack off.

We are analyzing your play, not his. If you see something non solver approved in his play, you want to think about if it makes your play higher or lower EV than the solver baseline. In this case I think him opening looser than cEV clearly your calldown higher ev.

The suited wheel aces don’t jam because they have more playability postflop and can call c-bets or checkraise bluff on more boards. A5o does mix shoves in the multi-size postflop sim with equal stacks. The general idea here is you want to shove a polar/bluffing range that targets folding out stronger kickers. The HJ’s worst offsuit ace they pure open is A8o, so you shove A7-A6 to target that A8.

Not a bluff at all, a very happy three bet call, that is making around 4bbs to call a shove.

This is also a three-bet call and I tweeted about this play here and described to someone over DM the following way. When you don’t play preflop reshoves all-in. Your three bet call range is pretty linear, so you three bet call say JJ+ and AK, if you want to add more hands you add TT, then 99, then AQs, etc.

Okay but let’s stay you are shortstacked and three bet call JJ+, AKs but you just go all-in with AKo or TT or 99, but you want to add some more hands to your three bet-calling range so you can three bet bluff more and also have some hands that can bluff postflop if your opponent calls a three bet. Adding a hand like pocket fives or t9s makes sense.

However part of the reason the solver three bet calls hands like JTs or T9s is because the in position solver player recognizes your BB three bet as being very polar. If you have QQ and are facing a three bet calling range of JJ+/AK and bluffs with hands like K5o or J7o you should always trap in position. So they trap QQ+ and shove hands like AJ+, 88, some bluffs with hands like A5s or whatever and JTs does okay vs that range.

If your opponent doesn’t play a solver strategy in response and shoves QQ+, obviously three bet calling T9s becomes less appealing

Again there is a difference between shoving for a raise of 170% pot and 140% pot and sometimes that extra 30% makes all the difference.

The general shape here is the stronger your kicker is the more often you shove, but it’s not flawless. I am not entirely sure why exactly A7 and A5 slowplay, but it shouldn’t matter much.

It has more to do with the fact that Ax8s might want to keep a hand like 6s6x in the hand, but Ax6s might want to knock out 8s8x. 20bbs even on a board like this top pair is so good it needs to stack off, but Ax8s is good enough to trap where Ax5s is not.

With more money to play, facing a trappier c-bet size against a wider preflop range with more potential bluffs. I think calling is the way to go.

This is a river lead that’s likely unnecessary to implement, but knowing OOP does lead the river here means that versus many opponents you can profitably give up and check the river with zero equity hands.

Even at 25bbs when the shove is for 165% A4-A2 with a spade frequently shove as does A9 without a spade. So the same shape holds, but the threshold changes a little as the stacks get smaller. I’ll also note you don’t want a “flush draw blocker” here, you want a backdoor flush draw for yourself when you shove and are called by better.

Folding the turn would be very bad here, it looks like it starts being a play 35bbs deep vs an 125% pot turn barrel. You are getting far too good a price to fold.

It is

I really wanted to make this footnote “I will not” and end the blog post here, but I’ll let Sid brag. I think this is an interesting type of hand for a Sunday Special because it’s a well played hand where he could have taken alternative routes that would have also meant the hand was well played. However in writing down all his thoughts he showcased some things he did not know that I could write about and expand on, which is why I will continue to encourage readers of POTD to send submissions. They continually provide fodder for me to write about things that I might not touch in the main blog because they seem automatic to me.

POTD #287 I Battle Local Hero Michael Addamo on His Home Turf

Sam Greenwood — Fri, 29 May 2026 10:00:35 GMT

Yesterday I wrote about a hand I played in the $100,000 Challenge in the 2020 Aussie Millions, but today we are going to go back in time a couple days to talk about the other tournaments I played on that trip. The first tournament I played was the $25,000 Challenge. It had 169 entries and I came in 4th place. I don’t remember many hands from that tournament, and even reading through the Pokernews live reporting, my memory was not jogged— there was a lot of “Sam Greenwood gets all in with AK and beats JJ,” Perhaps it was the jetlag, perhaps it was just an uneventful tournament with a successful result. The next tournament I played was the $50,000 Challenge. It had 82 runners and it was another tournament I entered just one time and got knocked out in 4th place. I would have preferred some wins, or at least some podium finishes, but I could not complain: Two bullets and two fourth place finishes requires running very hot.

I don’t remember many hands from the $50,000 Challenge either, but I certainly remember my bustout hand because it featured an out of character play from me. I was never a big preflop clicker even when that was a big part of the metagame, and in the hand I five-bet bluff-shoved into Michael Addamo, got snap called by AA, and Addamo flopped 99.9% equity. I did not hit my 1/1000 shot and had to settle for another fourth place. Earlier in this paragraph I described this bustout hand as “spectacular,” but I did not use the word punt, because I am still a little unsure about it. I am unsure if it’s a solver-approved play or a good exploit, but as I was playing the hand I was definitely thinking exploitatively. I had a plan to exploit my two opponents, but I’m just not sure if it was the right plan. The only way to find out is to do some digging and see if I could have done something different or just got unlucky to run into AA.

2020 Aussie Millions $50,000 Challenge
(5k/10k/10k) (SB/BB/BBA) We are 4 Handed
4th: 398k 3rd: 477k, 2nd: 716k, 1st: $1.074M

Pokernews Update

Michael Addamo (1.45M) makes it 22k, Cary Katz (1.25M) calls on the button, Orpen Kisacikoglu (570k) folds in the SB, I (820k) make it 105k with K♠️Q♠️, Addamo makes it 230k, Cary folds, I jam 820k total, Addamo snap calls with A♣️A♦️ and I am drawing dead to a running royal flush on A♠️4♠️4♣️, which I do not hit on the T♦️ turn or K♥️ river.

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PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION ONLY POTD #287 I Battle Local Hero Michael Addamo on His Home Turf

Fri, 29 May 2026 09:59:51 GMT

POTD #286 In The Aussie Million $100,000 Challenge. My Play is a Challenge

Sam Greenwood — Wed, 27 May 2026 10:01:27 GMT

As I am writing this, the Aussie Millions just ended; as this is being published, it ended 3-4 weeks ago. The Aussie Millions was not a part of the poker calendar from 2021-2025, and it was sorely missed. It’s one of the best stops on tour, and while I did not attend it this May, I always loved going to Melbourne to play at The Crown. I preferred when it was run in January, during Australian summer and Canadian winter. It has been said that during the summer in Melbourne you can experience every season in a day, well in Canadian winter you mostly experience one season in a day and it’s not good. The Aussie Millions Poker tournaments were also run at the same time as the Australian Open tennis tournament, which meant a consolation prize of busting a tournament could be walking half an hour to watch some world-class tennis. The food, hotel and hospitality were all top notch and I assume remain so; I can’t wait to go back.

Looking at Poker News and The Hendon Mob, the 2026 series was mostly a local affair, with almost all tournaments being won by Australians, but the turnout was still great, which is very impressive. The Main Event got 770 runners, a very nice number for a 10k (AUD) freezeout. I bet they will top that number next year. The top 7, and 17 of the top 19, of the Main Event were Australians, and I predict after a successful showing in its return, you’ll see more international players travelling over to Australia next year. I hope they move it back to January, a slower time on the poker calendar, which should bolster fields, but also allow people (me) to see the tennis tournament. To close out this week, I am going to look at a couple of hands I played the last time I travelled down under, in January of 2020, where I had a very nice series and final tabled the $25k and the $50k, but today we’re looking at hand from least successful tournament in Australia, the “$100,000 Challenge,” where I three bulleted and did not cash. Today’s hand is from that final bullet, I flopped top pair top kicker and tried to make things simple, but in the process missed out on getting the most value.

2020 Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge
(6k/12k/12k) (SB/BB/BBA) 250k Starting Stack. Registration is Closed

Pokernews Update

I make it 26k (334k) UTG7 with A♣️K♠️, Tim Adams (580k) calls in the CO, Michael Zhang (892k) calls in the BB.

Flop (96k) A♦️ Q♥️ 7♥️ : Michael checks, I check, Tim bets 26k, Michael calls, I jam 308k, they both fold.

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PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION ONLY POTD #286 In The Aussie Million $100,000 Challenge. My Play is a Challenge

Wed, 27 May 2026 09:59:51 GMT

PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION ONLY POTD #285 Monte Carlo Monday: Chris Brewer Picks a Preflop Size I am Not Prepared For

Mon, 25 May 2026 11:04:36 GMT

POTD #285 Monte Carlo Monday: Chris Brewer Picks a Preflop Size I am Not Prepared For

Sam Greenwood — Mon, 25 May 2026 10:02:15 GMT

One of the trickier adjustments most people need to make in lower-stakes games is adjusting to odd preflop sizings. The CO raises and you have T7s on the button— any of call, fold or raise are reasonable plays. Did the CO minraise? Did they 3x? If it’s the former, you probably need to call; if it’s the latter, you can fold. The problem is, many of your opponents who pick alternative preflop sizes aren’t doing it strategically. They aren’t specifically raising a 3x range that will be a little tighter than a minraising range, they’re just picking a size and going with it. You still need to play tighter because you’re getting worse pot odds, but this is more of an exploitative adjustment to someone opening too large than a theoretical counter to a larger size.

It’s hard enough playing tournaments to know what your preflop ranges should be 50bbs deep, 40bbs, 30bbs deep, etc. It’s even harder when you need to know 50bbs when the SB and BB have 10 bbs each, 50bbs as a chip leader nearing the bubble, 50bbs as second in chips at a final table with the chip leader still to act behind you… and then you also need to count for alternative sizing. Memorizing preflop charts will help, but if someone picks an unusual size, you will need to bolster your memory with your problem-solving skills. “Am I getting the odds to call this size?” and “What does this size mean?” are questions you must answer. Unusual preflop open sizes are uncommon in the games I play, but you still see a wide variety of three-bet and four-bet sizings. In today’s hand, I faced a very large three-bet size, one I was not prepared for, and I was unsure how to respond. It turns out that I found the right preflop play, but failed to find the right postflop one.

Triton Monte-Carlo 2024 $125K NLH MAIN EVENT
(500/1k/1k) (SB/BB/BBA) 250k Starting Stack. Registration is still open.

I (255.5K) make it 2.5k UTG7 with 6♥️5♥️, it folds to Chris Brewer (283k) who makes it 20k from the SB, I call.

Flop (42k) K♦️8♠️5♠️: Chris bets 10k, I make it 35k, Chris calls.
Turn (112k) Q♥️: Chris checks, I check.
River (112k) 8♦️: Chris bets 27k, I fold.

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What I Was Thinking

You raise 65s deep stacked, even from early position. I was surprised that Chris three-bet to such a large size. His size is more of a BB three-bet size when he has a more polar range, but a SB three-bet range is generally pretty linear and tends to size smaller, even though you need to play out of position. The three-bet size was too big, but today’s entry is not about Chris Brewer’s mistakes. I was confronted with an unusual size and thought I could fold a lot of suited connectors, but thought 65s was too strong because it can pip A5s on 234 boards and it can pip a variety of Ax hands on 2345 boards. So even though 65s has worse high card value, it makes higher-EV straights than 87s and certainly 98s, so I thought I could call.

On the flop I wasn’t sure if Chris should c-bet range, but my heuristic is, if the flatter always four-bets AK and the the three-bettor always three-bets AK, then the three-bettor should always c-bet dry king-high flops. In this hand, I figured I’d have plenty of AK and Chris might not have all that much, so I thought he’d mix some flop checks. I have a set blocker (not that I expect him to three-bet 55 very often), but I figured a flop raise could get QQ-99 to fold right away, and if not, I’d still have five outs to improve.

The turn doesn’t seem great for me. Chris can have KQs, QsQx, and he can also have hands like A5s that I am now blocking that would check-fold to a bet. I decided to give up my operation. When Chris blocked the river, I was tempted to call— I beat all his draws that missed— but ultimately decided that if 76s is a high-frequency bluff from Chris, having a 6 in my hand made calling very unappealing, so after my frisky flop play, I decided to give him the pot.

What I Got Wrong

Preflop is tricky for me, and I did not realize how big a powerhouse 65s is for me facing this large three-bet size. I mix folds with AKo and 99, but 65s and 54s always call. If I can mix folds with AKo to a three-bet of this size, then my AK advantage decreases, and this board is a pure c-bet for Chris, who has AK or better 25% of the time. Most of his betting volume goes into larger sizes, but this smaller size is used occasionally. No matter what c-bet size he picks, there is a consistent pattern in my response: I almost never raise with range. However, A5, 65 and 54 are part of the sliver of hands that do occasionally mix flop raises. The goal of raising those hands is to fold out higher pairs. I could bet the turn, but that is with the goal of folding out top pair, which I could accomplish, but is no guarantee. On the river, Chris’s common bluffs include 76s and A5s, so it’s hard to call when I lose to some of his bluffs and block the rare bluff I do beat. My fold is mandatory.

Types of Error

Had I been writing POTD when this hand was played, I might have been thinking “well at least I’ll have a hand to write about today” as I was playing it. I was not crazy over my preflop call, my flop raise, my turn check or my river fold. In hindsight, my only real blunder was the flop raise, and even that was not too bad a play. I rarely raise with my range, but this hand is one that gets in there. Still, raising a hand without much of a plan in a spot where my range never raises is a clear mistake. So this hand gets the classic POTD

B-

Sunday Special #18 "A Tornado of Reads, Pot Odds, and Concepts"

Sam Greenwood — Sun, 24 May 2026 10:02:49 GMT

The submission has been lightly edited for content and clarity

This week we have another submission from Loris aka Lion King, who introduced himself to POTD readers in Sunday Special #15

My name is Loris, I am 27 years young and I play mostly low to mid stakes online and I plan for my poker dream to soon become reality
After finishing the German equivalent of high school I decided to go to a German state police, because I always had a strong sense for justice and honestly I didn’t have a clear plan for my future with my young age of 18. In my college years I got into poker and in a fateful night while I was sitting in my student dorm in the middle of nowhere (the police college was placed in a very small, isolated village) I asked myself, if there is more to ask from life. I decided back then, about 8 years ago, that I at least wanted to give the poker dream a try, so I won’t regret it later on when I look back at my life. Because I have to work the usual 40 hours with shifts and I only play tournament poker, I do have much time to study poker and only so many days I can actually play poker. So when I don’t have obligations to fulfill my day starts with a Club Mate drink and around 1 hour of poker study before my actual day begins!

Mid Stakes Online-Poker (SB/BB/A). 8 Handed.
30$ Big-Field GG Poker on a Sunday. Registration still open
Hero opens from HJ and 16.44bb to 2bb w Q♣️J♥️, folds to the BB, a player with aggressive stats (forgot the flag) – looked like a regular – who called and covers.

Flop (5,38bb) A♥️K♥️4♣️: Hero c-bets 2.3bb, BB raises to 6.6bb.

Turn (18.57bb) 8♠️: BB bets 7.84bb effective, Hero tanks 2 timebanks,
calls and is all-in.

River (34.26bb) 3♠️: BB shows A♣️4♥️ and wins while already tagging me as calling station (probably).

What I Was Thinking:

Preflop
As HJ with 16.44bb I was the shortest stack on the table left to act. The only non all-in size this short I do play is 2bb. Against a field that plays more passive than it should, preflop and postflop, I do mix preflop between shoves and minraise.

That is because: I can call a three-bet more often with more speculative hands preflop because I’ll face less reshoves and more three-bets non all-in. Many middle of range hands gain more EV by shoving – because they don’t get the extra EV from weak hands bluff shoving as regularly as they should.

I expected BB to be the best player left to act, also making it slightly less attractive to never play open jams. The only value hands I do raise probably raise in this lineup are JJ+, AKs, AQs maybe AKo the rest are bottom of the range hands like QJo.1

Flop

Writing is easy when you can just copy/paste: “This flop hits my range very hard. We have all sets.”2 He probably has none as I expect him to reshove pocket pairs, we have AK while he has none, same for the best Ax hands.3 Therefore I felt a bigger c-bet size was appropriate – already putting pressure on everything beside flushdraws and top pairs.4 I think I can also mix with a bigger size, like 3.5bb5 and play many double barrel all-in’s.6

But BB had other plans and decided to raise small. As the clock ticked, different exploits and concepts rushed through my mind, trying to bring order in an already chaotic hand. Let me give you a quick recap of my thoughts:

1. My c-bet size looks strong, his c/r and size looks even stronger

2. I have to continue with something, against a value range I have 4 clear outs with QJ what makes it more appealing to continue than a pair that’s not top pair

3.Is the J♥️good or bad for me?

4. What are his bluffs and do I have enough equity to continue?

As poker players we have to prime ourselves with the most important thought. I am not playing LlinusLLove in this hand, therefore I rank the most important thought here 4>1>2>3.7

In hindsight the big question to me is: Is he only playing AT+ this way or does he mix in gutshots and flush draws?8 I read him as an aggressive player so I gave his range gutshots and flushdraws. Gutshots are bad enough that they don’t mind check-folding the turn. Maybe gutshots even see a river against a check and flushdraws are good enough to stack-off on the flop and are still happy to take their chance and get some fold equity on the turn. As thought (4) cleared my mind I decided I have enough equity to continue.9

Turn:
The driest turn I could imagine. My opponent put me all-in rather quick
so I went into my 2 timebank tank. Multiple concepts hit me once again, amongst them one of the scariest – a misapplied hero call in the form of POTD #149.

I was pretty aware that I was pondering something heroic, so I reached deeper into my thought process. First: pot odds: I estimated that I needed to be good here around ¼ of the time (accurate 23%) to break even.10 Second: Does he have enough bluffs? I still give him flush draws, I am not sure that he plays them 100% this way, but once again, I only need to be good here every fourth time.11

Third: Against value (AT+) I always have 4 clean outs, that’s more than Ax has, so my hand is a better call than a top pair. So I called. Looked at 2-pair. And was out of the tournament.12

Afterward analysis:
Even though I was aware of me being on the edge of misapplying a concept and hero calling myself out of the tournament, I couldn’t help myself and listen to the siren’s song of my “third” thought.

I realized pretty quick that QJ hero call is a much worse call than any Top-Pair, Top Pairs still win when a mere flush draw just hit’s a pair on the river and they do block, well A4 and also a sneaky slowplayed AA – although it’s unlikely that BB will play it this way. 13

I do also look pretty stupid with QJ when I run into 43fd that may plays this way.
So at first I was convinced that I punted, hard, but I wasn’t done with the hand yet and looked into Flopzilla – an equity calculator (not sponsored 😉). And what I found surprised me.

When BB does c/r all flush draws and AT+ on the flop (plus some gutshots that fold on the turn) we do have 32% equity – 9% more than we would need to call in chip-EV enviroment!14 A4s isn’t in the range, I expect some preflop shoves.15

I do make this equity calculations pretty pessimistic to not talk a bad play good. Can I be sure that he plays this way? Not really, but am I sure enough with a 9% margin for error, maybe 7-8% with ICM involved? I guess yes, I do!16

Types of Errors

Misapplying concept
Underestimating pot odds

Final Thoughts and Grade

Thinking about this hand I went from call, to fold, to call.
I liked all my decisions in hindsight, but at the same time the hand looks like I should just have gone with thought (1) on the flop – and folded.17
Ultimately it’s always easy to think you are the sucker in a spot where you only need to be good ¼ of the time. Only enough showdowns (and maybe Sam Greenwood) will tell if I see enough missed flush draws in this spot to make it a true hero call.

C+ for +EV calling station and probably the right play for wrong reasons18

If you made it to the end of the post and are interested in being the subject of a future Sunday Special, let me know. Do not be shy if you have a lack poker skill or accomplishments. No solver analysis is required from you and I’d much rather have hobbyist poker players, who are good writers that can produce clean copies and clearly articulate their thought process than editing the writing of 99% of accomplished poker players.

I think this is too tight. As a short stack one way to maximize EV with a hand like 88 is getting dead money trapped in the middle of the pot and you want to increase the probability people put money in the pot preflop and end up folding to your jam, especially in multiway pots. Also if the best player at the table is in the BB, they also might be the type of player to make loose reshoves or loose 3b-folds, so minraising into his BB might be the best exploit.

I’ll repeat my note from Loris’s previous submission, which is having all the sets is nice, but having second pair or better ~half the time is even better.

If he has a set here, it’s AA that is trapping preflop.

A bigger size might even get some Kx to fold the flop, but with this size you’re trying to fold out 4x, which should be easy, and gutshots, which could be harder.

This size is designed to get second pair to fold, if you don’t think your opponent will fold Kx, don’t pick this size with a bluff.

No need to double barrel all-in. You can pick a smaller non all-in size that will still put pressure on second pair and doesn’t risk your entire stack.

I don’t think your c-bet size looks all the strong, but I think at most stakes checkraising on AKx boards looks very strong. I think 4 is by far the most important question here.

I think the other thing to note here is what is the worst top pair he’s playing like this? If he will raise stack off A2 here, you need to find a lot of bluffs to make continuing QJ reasonable.

It seems very close it looks like QJ/JT/QT of clubs always call the flop, fold without a heart, and mix continues with a heart. Which I guess answers question 3. You want a heart.

The problem with this thought process is his bluffs have a lot more equity vs your hand than his value does. 53o has 10 outs than and you have 4 outs vs a hand like A4. So even if he’s bluffing 1/4 of the time, I doubt your have 23% equity.

Once again his bluffs are more likely to river your hand than you are to suck out vs his value so you probably need him to be bluffing closer to 40% of the time.

A hand like A5 has three outs to beat A4 or AT, but also has 6 outs to a chop. They also block a huge chunk of his value range, while the Jh is a card that should be in a lot of his bluffs. So random top pair is a much higher equity hand, this is especially true if your opponent is someone who might fastplay weak top pair on this board, which is not impossible at all.

Correct

I think these assumptions are optimistic, you need to be playing someone who is very aggressive with their bluffs, but not aggressive with their value and you have a pretty bad blocker vs the opponent with the Jh in your hand,

Some potential value hands like A4o or ATo, could easily shove preflop as the bb.

I’m beating a dead horse here, but I think the real problem here is you’re willing to get very flexible with his bluffing range, but seem very inflexible about the idea that AT is the bottom of his value range. I don’t know your exact Flopzilla sim, but I’d guess adding something like the 12 combos of A9 into his range already makes this call pretty dicey.

I think it’s very hard to think calling the turn is good and calling the flop is not. Either he’s bluffing too much or he’s not. If he is bluffing the flop too often you will hit a turn card you can call a shove on (Q,J,T, heart, total blank) often enough that you can call the turn shove and that’s not even accounting for the fact you might be able to bluff on some runouts. Over DM Loris clarified that he just felt he should have folded the flop because he thinks his opponent is underbluffing on the flop, which is fine, but that’s even more reason to fold the turn.

I don’t like grading the Sunday Special submissions. I want more of them and don’t want to scare people off, but my grade would have been closer to Z in the alphabet than this one :).

Week In Review #59 May 17th-23rd 2026

Sam Greenwood — Sat, 23 May 2026 10:02:20 GMT

I regularly mention on POTD that I do private coaching, and whenever I receive an inquiry regarding private coaching, I usually write up some version of the same message. So because I am efficient and smart, it has taken me more than one year to realize I should write a long post about my private coaching, what it entails, and why I feel like I’d be a good coach for any reader of this blog, so that I have something to link to when I receive coaching inquiries in the future.

Let’s start with the price. I charge $600 an hour or sell 5 hour blocks for $2500. If you are interested, I’m happy to arrange an introductory phone call with any prospective student. Every private coaching student also gets a free Lifetime Premium Subscription to POTD, where they get access to Premium Posts that have additional written analysis, and a daily 5-10 minute video of me going through sims I ran for the hands. They also get access to the raw files of the sims that I’ve run.

If you’d like to see a sample of some premium posts, you can look at the reruns I ran over the holidays last year. #56, #70, #103, #105, #149, #158, #184.

I think my coaching is very good value; I am priced cheaper than many of my SHR peers, and I put in a lot of extra work that is unpaid. I am a capable and qualified coach for players of all skill levels; however, if someone is a total beginner, there are probably better value coaches for them. Poker is about making money, and if you’re a novice poker player, you’d get more bang for your buck buying cheaper resources and coming back to me when you are more experienced. If you are not budget-conscious and just want the best coach available, I still think I am your man.

I always like to begin coaching new students by reviewing their play, ideally by looking at recorded online sessions or hand histories. The reason for this is before I set out on determining the best way to coach a student, I need to get a sense of who they are as a poker player. Every poker player’s play style, even studied solver “robots,” has its own unique qualities, and I need to get a sense of someone’s play style before figuring out the best way to coach them. I’ve written before about the idea of “poker gravity,” the idea that there are some players who naturally gravitate towards a certain style of play no matter the game they’re playing. If Michael Addamo played with Doyle Brunson in the 50s, he’d be bluffing a lot; if Allen Kessler did, he would be folding a lot. I am not looking to change my student’s inherent poker instincts, but I am looking to lessen the gravitational pull and force them to add plays that might be unnatural to them but will make their game more well-rounded.

When I coach I like to focus on increasing my student’s technical poker knowledge base. “You should rarely c-bet on this board.” “You don’t play flat calls here preflop.” “Your min value bet here is a set.” Information that will improve their game. However, I also think it’s important to marry those concepts with what I know about their play style and personality. If someone keeps flatting three-bets with potential four-bet bluff candidates, we can dive into why they’re not four-bet bluffing enough. If some takes every check-raise spot, we can figure out if it’s their natural poker gravity, a conscious exploit, or if they had an extra cup of coffee that morning. During our coaching sessions, I want to impart as much knowledge about the game of poker as possible, but I also want you to learn about yourself and how you’re playing so we can set you up to execute in an actual game.

I also believe coaching is a long term project and do not subscribe to a “billable hours” model of coaching. If a session goes 10 minutes long, I am not charging you an extra $50; if you have any questions you want to ask me after a session, I am not timing how long it takes me to craft a response. If you are not actively a student of mine, I hope you will be one in the future and still want to do what I can do to help you improve. I mean this as no disrespect to Kevin Rabichow, who I like and respect a lot, and I am sure his coaching is good value, but when he advertised his WSOP Mentorship Package, he promoted that people can send him hand histories on Discord throughout the WSOP and he will respond in 24 hours. That is something I do for free for all my students, even if they are not actively paying for coaching. I tell every student the same thing: “No one has ever sent me so many hands that I’ve felt the need to tell them to stop. Asking me poker questions does not bother me. I’m happy to answer them.” Commenters on POTD and members of the POTD Discord know this to be true of me.

Selling myself does not come naturally, and when I look around the poker coaching and content spaces, I see a lot of oversimplifications, false promises and strawmen. There is no easy solution to getting good at poker; it requires playing a lot and working a lot. I see a lot of poker content from people who have a mediocre understanding of solver poker explaining why the solver is wrong and their exploitative style is the best. No one is arguing that you play perfect solver poker vs. the whale in your local $2/$5 game, but people sure love to contradict a hypothetical person who might say that. Most of the exploitative lessons trickling through the poker world right now could apply to the games I started playing in in 2006. Players are too tight, so you should bet a lot and over-fold when they play back at you. I cannot promise that a student of mine will make millions, but I can promise to give answers that are more complex than “c-bet a lot” or “when a fish bets big he has a good hand.” I don’t like selling myself, especially in the annoying grindset aesthetic that gets algorithmic attention online, but I think I am as qualified as anyone to make you as good a poker player as you can possibly be. If you are interested, please contact me on Substack, Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, or if you’d prefer e-mail, Discord, or WhatsApp, just DM me and we can arrange another way to communicate. If you are a subscriber and would like to take the next step, please contact me. If you aren’t a subscriber and found this post, please subscribe by clicking the button below.

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Additional Sims For Premium Subscribers

Four PIO sims for the very deep stacked hand covered in POTD #282
A PIO sim forcing one flop size from the c-bettor in POTD #283
A PIO sim forcing a two size flop strategy from the c-bettor for POTD #284

Additional Analysis for Premium Subscribers

Everyday Premium Subscribers get an extra bit of analysis not included in the main post. Today, I’ll share #onemorething from POTD #282, where I wrote about playing a big check-raise size when deep stacked.

POTD #282 ⁠onemorething
I wrote that “My hand is basically a pure flop check-raise. I am not sure if I picked the right size; running 200bb deep sims with multiple flop check-raise sizes is pretty onerous.”
But not for Premium Subscribers. I ran a sim that had r70, r120 and r170. R170 is never used, but r120 is used quite a bit, it’s about a 50/50 split and the composition of the r70 and r120 range aren’t all that different. So maybe an r95 size where I raise to ~16k would be ideal. When I use r120 it’s enough to get top pair to start folding right away, especially top pair without backdoor flush or straight draws. KQo mixes, but even Ks7s with no backdoor flush draw pure calls. Facing a larger checkraise the IP player get’s rid of all the A high backdoor floats, but still floats a little bit of QJ,QT,JT with backdoors. As for pocket pairs, the shape is pretty similar to the other classes of hands we’ve discussed. 99-77 can turn straight straight draws so they pure call, but QQ-TT mix folds. Practically I like busting out the bigger checkraise size here, it’s a good way to get money in the pot with great hands and your opponents will likely respond too linearly, they won’t call pocket pairs enough and call too much top pair, which will make them easier to play against later in the hand.

Media

I was on the Thinking Poker podcast with Andrew Brokos and Carlos Welch; you can listen to the episode here.

As always, I can be reached on

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POTD #284 A Bad Hand in A "Bad" Tourney

Sam Greenwood — Fri, 22 May 2026 10:00:48 GMT

Playing EPTs and Tritons can be a grind. I will give my regular disclaimer that it’s not a grind compared to say, working in the emergency room of a hospital on July 4th in Pittsburgh (Should I start watching The Pitt? I think I should start watching The Pitt). However, it’s still challenging: You have to deal with long hours, financial stress, jet lag, and in the case of EPTs, a ticking clock in the morning. You need to register high rollers before the first hand is dealt to get half of your rake discounted back to you. It might not sound like a huge deal to turn a $100,000 tournament into a $99,000 one, but when ROIs of winning players are often in the single digits, it’s hard to do something more profitable than showing up on time and earning a big chunk of your winrate before the first hand is even dealt.

The rake discount is a way to ensure tournaments get off the ground, even if the tournament begins as a tough tournament without any VIPs at the start. It creates an “If you build it, they will come” attitude amongst the pros, who are willing to start the tournament in the hopes some VIPs will late register. This is especially true in Monaco, where people with no track records of playing high rollers are known to pop in and play a 50k or 100k. Unfortunately, sometimes you build it, and they do not come. This creates a bit of a snow day dynamic; you’re sitting around waiting to see if school is cancelled or if you get to watch TV in bed. Even if the tournament does get off the ground, it might not be worth re-entering, so while you want to play and win the tournament, if you bust, you get a rebate of an off day to explore the beautiful principality of Monaco (give or take a four hour nap to get over jet lag). There was no tournament this trip that I played fewer hours in, but I noted several hands that I misplayed. It’s possible I just ran into tricky spots, but I also think my mind was somewhere else, perhaps eating a Monte Carlo Bay hamburger in my bed.

EPT Monte Carlo 2023 € 50,000 No Limit Hold’em (Event 25)
(1k/2k/2k) (SB/BB/BBA). Registration is Open.

It folds to the button, I don’t know who, but this tournament sucked, it was someone good (100k/50bbs) who makes it 5k, I (100k/50bbs) call in the BB with 8♠️6♣️ .

Flop (13k) 9♣️5♦️ 2♥️: I check, button bets 4k, I make it 12k, they call.
Turn (37k) J♦️: I bet 18k, call.
River (73k) 2♦️: I check and lose (I forget if he shoved or checked, but I’m pretty sure he shoved)

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