On my way to final tabling the 2019 Triton London Main Event, I made a big call down vs. Mike Watson, and Sosia Jiang was so impressed by my play that she called me “a maestro” at the table. You can watch the clip below, but Triton switches to the other table before Sosia compliments me, so you’ll have to take my word on it. In the hand, Mike (30bbs) minraised the button, I (100bbs) defended Jd4c in the BB, I check-raised 433r and Mike called, I blocked 2d turn and Mike called, and I checked a Td river and called Mike’s pot-sized shove and beat his Kc5c. The day ended, and I went back to my room and quickly set up a sim to run overnight to assess my level of mastery throughout the hand. I woke up to some sad news: I had punted.
When I arrived at the turn, I was supposed to shove. Mike has a lot of ace-high hands that turn a wheel, and I want to deny equity to his 10-outers. I recently remembered this hand and thought to myself, “This is perfect fodder for POTD.” I was literally called a “maestro,” for the first and likely last time in my life, after I won a hand where I blundered. A humbling experience for all involved. Except… when I dug into this hand in 2025 for this blog, I realized something. In the initial sim I ran, I must have given myself a larger flop check-raise than the one I used in game and in reality. I played J4 perfectly vs. Mike— Bradley Cooper should star and direct in a biopic about me.
So I had to go back through my big file of hands where I punted to Mike Watson to find a hand I could write about for POTD. When I did, I found another hand, which also looked like a hand that I had played perfectly. I had weak top pair on a paired board and got all-in with the best of it vs. a huge draw that bricked and I won.
However, upon further analysis, there were a couple of problems: I added a zero to the SB’s stack, giving them 70bbs instead of 7bbs, which gave me a very different preflop output that ended up drastically changing what my preflop and postflop strategies should have looked like. Read more to see how I messed up.
PokerStars Hand #225544963940: Tournament #3157018426, $5000+$200 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XV (3500/7000) - 2021/04/05 17:37:30 ET
Table '3157018426 8' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: calvin7v (154977 in chips)
Seat 3: kZhh (349451 in chips)
Seat 4: 3DTemujiN (216545 in chips)
Seat 5: Sam Greenwood (658625 in chips)
Seat 6: SirWatts (456173 in chips)
Seat 7: jareth3542 (51801 in chips)
Seat 8: wizowizo (618700 in chips)
Seat 9: dpeters17 (627426 in chips)
Dealt to Sam Greenwood [Jc Tc]
dpeters17: folds
calvin7v: folds
kZhh: folds
3DTemujiN: raises 8750 to 15750
Sam Greenwood: calls 15750
SirWatts: raises 47250 to 63000
jareth3542: folds
wizowizo: folds
3DTemujiN: folds
Sam Greenwood: calls 47250
FLOP [Jd 9c 9s]
Sam Greenwood: checks
SirWatts: bets 39813
Sam Greenwood: raises 86187 to 126000
SirWatts: calls 86187
TURN [Jd 9c 9s] [7d]
Sam Greenwood: bets 411250
SirWatts: calls 266298 and is all-in
RIVER [Jd 9c 9s 7d] [2c]
Sam Greenwood: shows [Jc Tc] (two pair, Jacks and Nines)
SirWatts: shows [Td Qd] (a pair of Nines)
Sam Greenwood collected 943846 from pot
SirWatts finished the tournament in 58th place
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What I Was Thinking
I thought that HJ vs. CO vs. BU into a 30bb opener, Mike would have enough hands like AKo/AQo and 88 that I’d need to continue JTs vs. a three-bet, even though my range was a little face-up and I was out of position.
On the flop, I thought I wanted to fastplay top pair with an undercard to the jack, because it was more vulnerable to overcards and had the most backdoor straight potential, which would give it the best equity vs. overpairs. Once I got to the turn with so little to play and top pair with a gutshot, I had no other option but to stick it in.
What I Got Wrong
At the time, I thought my preflop call was close, but fine. The problem is, once I give the SB a 7bb stack, Mike gets a much worse price on his squeeze, because with almost 7bbs dead, the SB can call all-in 25% of the time, including hands as weak as 54s. Since Mike will end up all-in vs. someone a lot of the time he three-bets, he three-bets a lot less often. However, he still mostly three-bets QQ+, and when he three-bets with a short SB, he has JT dominated with an overpair almost a quarter of the time. JTs does not have enough equity to call preflop and should fold to the three-bet.
The reasoning for why I should fold preflop is the same reasoning for why I should never raise the flop: I am simply up against an overpair too often. This is especially true vs. a range that often bluffs AJo and KJs preflop; my hand is not good enough to put money in the pot preflop and not good enough to raise the flop. Additionally, my flop raise size is much too large– after Mike bets the flop we have around 2x pot to play, I don’t need to make a raise much larger than the minimum, and I raised more than 3x. Once we get to the turn, there is no debate; I need to go all-in with top pair and a gutshot, and I was fortunate to have the best hand and held.
Types of Error
Too Much Money
Grade
I made a lot of mistakes in this hand, but I think the saving grace is that Mike was probably not adjusting his three-betting range as extremely as the solver was. The solver plays some goofy traps with hands like AQs that humans never find, so I suspect all my plays are doing fine. I can’t perfectly range Mike, but there’s an asymmetry to all my plays; it feels like my preflop call could be winning small or losing medium. My decision to raise is probably fine, but not for my size, especially when calling will always be fine. Squeezed pots with unequal stacks preflop are unusual spots that are difficult to execute, but they are technical hands that are all about the details, and my plan was not detailed enough.
B-