POTD #101 Monte Carlo Monday: That Hand vs Vladimir "Gambledore" "Santa Claus" Korzinin

Monte Carlo Monday's peak with one of the more notorious hands I've played

On Friday, I wrote about what I think is the most watched hand I’ve ever played— although my 2019 WSOP bustout hand could be more watched. There are a lot of airport bars that have ESPN on a 24/7 loop and over time that adds up to a lot of eyeballs watching Timothy Su crack my aces. All respect to Timothy Su, but I believe that I am the main character of that hand. I’m the guy whose Main Event hopes were dashed and whose aces got cracked— whenever there is a viral hand involving AA, the audience identifies with the player who has AA. These factors make that WSOPME hand the most-viewed hand I played where I am the hero. I do not know what the most-viewed hand where I am the hero and I win the pot is; feel free to suggest hands below.

The two other highly-viewed hands that I’ve played are POTD #100, where Phil Ivey is the hero and I’m cannon fodder. and in POTD #101, where as you can see in the YouTube splash image below, Vladimir “Gambledore” Korzinin¹ is the hero and I remain cannon fodder.

I’ve never won a Triton NLHE event, but I’ve had many close calls, finishing second three times, as well as having, not to complain too much, many other final tables where I was chip leading or close to it only to lose some key all-ins and finish outside of the podium. Before the FT began, I was interviewed and asked about never winning a Triton NLHE tourney, and thought to myself that a $150k with over 100 runners would be a pretty damn good way to end the streak. Finishing 8th was simply not on my radar, even though deep down I knew it was a possibility. Well, sometimes the cards get dealt in such a way where you’re forced to play a really big pot, even if you don’t want to. That’s what happened to me in Monaco, and I’ll need to continue trying to win my first Triton NLHE title.

Triton Monte-Carlo 2024 $150K NLH - Event #12 Final Table. We are 8-Handed (
(50k/100k/100k) (SB/BB/BBA) 200k Starting Stack 121 Entries

Dan Smith (940k) folds UTG8, Ossi Ketola (2.515M) folds UTG7, Vladimir (5.555M) makes it 200k LJ, Tom Fuchs folds the HJ (3.45M), Stephen Chidwick (3.14M) folds the CO, Fedor Holz (1.56M) folds on the button, Bryn Kenney (2.34M) folds the SB, I (4.59M) call A♣️5♣️ in the BB

Flop (550k) T♣️4♣️2♦️: I check, Vladimir bets 750k, I jam for 4.39M, he calls with Q♣️Q♠️, the board runs out 8♥️, K♥️ and I finish in 8th place

What I Was Thinking

I was unsure what the bottom of my value range would be preflop here, but I think I would probably call QQ and AK vs. Vladimir, who plays poorly postflop and will have linear preflop aggression and is more likely to four-bet shove AQs than A2s. I would still have some bluffs here, just so my entire range isn’t KK+, but they would be polar, and a suited ace is not a hand I’d want to three-bet bluff here.

On the flop, I checked and faced a large overbet. Two notable hands from earlier in the tournament had stuck with me. The previous night, Thomas Boivin raised the CO with 28bbs; Vladimir had 55 bbs and three-bet to 8.5bbs on the button then folded to a shove with 88. I’d seen many of these types of plays from him, where he made an oversized bet with a linear middle-of-range type hand and folded to aggression.

The other hand on my mind occurred minutes earlier, when Vladimir busted Thomas: Vladimir raised the HJ with QsTs; Boivin called in the BB. The flop was As9d5c and it checked through; the turn was the 5s, Thomas bet 2/3rds pot, and Vladimir shoved for around 1.5x pot with his bare flush draw and cracked Thomas’s trips, which is how Vladimir found himself with a chip lead 8-handed.

Vladimir is an unpredictable player whose play style often depends on his mood. The previous night, I saw him make a big fold when facing a shove for a large proportion of this stack. Today, I saw him miss a pure c-bet and then make a big shove with a draw. Does that mean he was more willing to gamble today? It’s unclear, and I have at times struggled to get a read on him. In the moment, I thought his overall betting strategy would be too linear, his average bet size too large, and that he would be capable of making some relatively large folds. In this hand, I was not sure if he’d fold top pair, but certainly he’d fold smaller pairs and better ace high, and I thought I’d be facing a lot of turn aggression and didn’t want to risk check-folding my hand on the turn, so I shoved the flop.

At the time, I remember thinking my shove here was like four-bet shoving AKo preflop. 170% is a large shove postflop but a normal sized one preflop, and I’ll always have around 50% equity when called, which is usually not the case when you have AKo. I also considered some sort of dream scenario, where he calls a shove with QcJc and occasionally folds top pair. I thought I’d have enough fold equity to shove and went for it.

What I Got Wrong

I can start with a key piece of information that I missed, which Fedor Holz kindly told me during Triton Jeju. Fedor told me that he had a live read that Vladimir was strong from the moment he opened pretflop. No alarm bells went off for me— I’ve generally found it tough to read Vladimir. It’s also possible he’d give off strength with a hand like KQs, and Fedor’s live reads aren’t flawless, but they are strong, and armed with that knowledge I would have just called the flop.

The solver prefers min check-raising to shoving with range, but playing that strategy would be the wrong exploit vs. Vladimir. The solver likes occasionally minraise/folding and getting extra value when it has a set or two pair. This is a unique enough spot that I want to pick the highest-EV play and am not interested in maximizing the EV with my range if I had a set. I want to find the best play with Ac5c. In this case, shoving to make sure Vladimir folds a hand like AK or 88 is what I should be aiming for if I pick an aggressive action.

The main thing I got wrong was comparing my hand to AKo. My hand is similar in that it has some good blocker value and has good but not great equity when all-in and called. However, like I wrote about in POTD #94, I have a hand that runs very hot and cold. When I make my hand I will have the nuts or close to it, and when I miss my hand I will rarely have the best hand. A reason to shove AKo preflop is because there will be a lot of boards where AK high is the best hand, but it will be tough to play future streets. A5 high will rarely be the best hand, but a flush, a straight, or a pair with flush and straight draws will almost always be hands I can stack off.

A good rule of thumb in solver poker is, the more linear your opponent’s range is, the more linear your range needs to be. A5s becomes a much less attractive bluff-shove vs. someone who is always three-bet/calling AJs than against someone who is always three-bet/folding ATo. Similarly, AQs becomes a much more attractive four-bet shove vs. that someone stacking off AJs preflop. However, in this hand we’re in an unusual spot, facing a player who might be too linear but is doing the equivalent of three-bet/folding AJs, which means if I want to play a more balanced strategy vs. an unbalanced opponent, my most frequent bluff-shoves they will be draws that are lower-EV calls. In theory, that might include some king- and queen-high flush draws, but I want to avoid those shoves vs. someone like Vladimir, who could bet-call ace-high flush draws. That’s not a concern when I have the nut flush draw myself, but A5cc is robust enough that it doesn’t need to bluff shove and I can bluff slightly more polar with lower EV nut flush draws that have trouble playing turns like Ac6c.

For this shove to be breakeven ICM says, I need to get Vladimir to fold 80% of the time when I have around 50% equity when called. I think given how he fastplays draws, I’d probably have more than 50% equity when called, but I don’t think I’d get 80% folds. I am also supposed to have ~70% vs. his betting range, but I don’t think his overbet range is nearly as polar as the solver, and I don’t think I’d have that much equity vs. his betting range which lowers the EV of just calling. However, I also think my EV in calling and seeing a turn is much higher vs. Vladimir than the solver. Vladimir is much more likely to make a six-figure mistake on the turn or the river than the solver is. The two exploits that point in favour of my shove are that I have worse equity vs. his betting range and I have better equity when called, which seems counter-intuitive, but I think I laid out the case for. The two exploits that point against me: I don’t think I am generating folds as often as the solver, and I’m gaining a lot more EV on the turn and on the river.

Types of Error

Too Much Money
ICM is for Rich People

Grade

The preflop spot I compared this to was four-bet shoving AKo, but conceptually, it also has a lot in common with four-bet shoving QQ. I don’t have great blocker value; I have a very strong hand, and I’m doing okay if I get AIPF, but it’s usually very clear which boards are good for my hand, and instead of playing a big pot right away, I’d rather wait for a favourable runout. In the introduction of this post, I mentioned that my preflop value range was KK+, and then postflop I ended up getting all in with a hand that shared qualities with QQ and AK. I’ve had almost a year to stew over this hand, and I still believe that shove is better than minraise. However, I’ve been convinced that my hand is a little too strong to shove over the flop raise, but I do believe Vladimir is the right opponent to do it against, and doing so cannot lose a substantial amount of EV.

B-

1. I told this story on the Life Outside Poker Podcast with Connor Richards, but a friend of mine who does not play poker sent me a video about this unintuitive genius Vladimir “Gambledore” Korzinin who outplayed all the best poker players in the world. The video did not include the hand where he eliminated me, but Vladimir’s story had gone so viral that my friend felt compelled to send it to me anyways.