POTD #121 Monte Carlo Monday: You are Cordially Invited to Watch Me Punt

A hand from the 2024 Triton Monte Carlo Invitational

I have had success in a variety of different tournaments live and online. I have big cashes in NLHE, Short Deck, and PLO tourneys; I’ve had them in Asia, Europe, and on the internet. There are always more worlds to conquer, but in tournament poker I’ve mostly done it all. One thing I have not done is cash an invitational tournament. In 2019, Sosia Jiang graciously invited me to be her partner in the Triton £1,000,000: I lost a preflop all-in with AK to Wai Leong Chan’s AJ— he would end up cashing the tournament. In 2022, Andrew Pantling graciously invited me to the $200k Coin Rivet invitational in Cyprus: Seth Davies busted me with A9s AIPF vs QJ and ended up cashing the tournament. I did not receive an invite to the second invitational in Cyprus, but Pantling invited me again for the 2023 invitational in London. I lost AQ to Aleksejs Ponakov’s A4 suited for a big pot; he’d finish fourth. 2023 Monte Carlo: Pantling invite, one bullet, busted to Paul Phua who cashed. 2024 Monte Carlo: I changed it up this time— Orpen Kisacikoglu invite, two bullets, first bullet busted by Brian Kim who mincashed; and the second bullet I lost a big pot to final tablist Xuan Tan before getting eliminated by 5th place finisher Mikalai Vaskaboinikau. The PCA Triton Million: Pantling invite again, bluffed off bullet one to Nick Schulman, got AK to Alex Foxen’s AA on bullet two; he’d come in 6th place.

With results like these, who knows if I’ll ever be invited to an invitational again? Of course, I’m being tongue in cheek— I’ve played nine total invitational bullets, which means on average I’d expect to have cashed around 1.5 tournaments, and if you made it all the way to the end of my self-pitying, whiny introduction, you can count several pots which, if they went differently, would have likely led to me cashing one or two of these. In today’s post, we will look at a hand from an invitational that— from a butterfly effect perspective— could have led to me cashing this tournament, but in most other senses, was as inconsequential a pot I’ll ever play. With an enticing lede like that, who doesn’t want to read more?

Triton Monte-Carlo 2023 - Event #1 $200K NLH Triton Invitational\
(6k/12k/12k) (SB/BB/BBA) 35/73 remain 13 cash. 300k Starting Stack

It folds to me (303k) on the button I raise to 24k with K♠️5♠️, Juan Pardo defends the BB off 1.1M

Flop (66k) T♦️8♦️6♥️: Pardo checks, I bet 27k, he calls

Turn (120k) 2♥️: Pardo checks, I check

River 3♥️: Pardo bets 40k, I fold.