The energy in the poker room at the beginning of a Triton series is electric. There is a buzz in the air, as hundreds of people from all over the world have congregated to play high-stakes poker and everyone believes they will go home as the big winner. By the end of the series, the room has emptied out, most people are net losers, and everyone is exhausted. The charged energy has been replaced with a loopy déjà vu. This room again? Have I lived my whole life here? This dynamic becomes amplified once the NLHE tourneys have wrapped up and it is Short Deck, or more recently PLO, time. I’m in the same room, doing the same thing, but now a flush beats a full house. Why am I getting dealt four cards? However, while Short Deck tournaments are becoming less popular, PLO tournaments keep growing. This September in Jeju the $100k PLO Main Event had 116 entries, creating the largest prize pool for a Triton PLO tournament ever. Isaac Haxton ended up victorious, winning his first Triton title after six second-place finishes. Ike is in good company, as I am also 1-6 heads up for Triton titles.
It was an eventful final table, with two of the wildest hands I’ve seen at a Triton. In both hands, Ike got Nacho to fold the best hand in spots that were such large punts by Nacho that I didn’t feel like writing about them. Many poker hands are punts, and most are not interesting; I thought the only interesting thing about Nacho’s plays at these final tables was the amount of money he was lighting on fire, but others, including James Dempsey and Kevin Rabichow on the commentary, seemed to think they were difficult spots, so I am going to write about them both today.
Two pretty good rules in poker are, you can’t fold getting 6:1 if your opponent is value betting worse, and you should never fold the nuts. Nacho broke both of those rules at the final table. Nacho broke rule #1 when he had 5.3M back with a pot of 4.4M, and he bet 3M and folded to a shove with AcKs9s5h on 7d7s5sAsAh. Ike had an easy value shove with Td6d7c5c. He should shove all full houses, and Nacho folded, getting 6:1 with a hand that beats 75 and 55 and chops with A5. It’s not even that hard a spot for Ike to be bluffing; he just needs to go all-in with certain non flush, non full house Ax combos occasionally. Had Nacho called, with the third nuts facing less than a minraise all-in, he would have had the chip lead heads-up. Instead, Ike won his first Triton title on the very next hand, denying Nacho his fifth Triton title.
In terms of sheer dollar amounts, Nacho’s heads-up fold was a much bigger mistake, but he had another punt at a final table— one where he folded the nuts— that many people are defending, and that is the hand I will write about today.
Triton Jeju II 2025 Event #12 $100K PLO Main Event
(50k/125k/125k) (SB/BB/BBA) 5 Remain. We are at the final table. 250k Starting Stack
Rahul (650k) folds, Nacho (8.1M) calls T♦️9♥️8♠️6♣️, Robert Cowen (2M) calls OTB with A♥️K♠️J♠️2♣️, Jesse Lonis (4.9M) calls the SB with A♠️9♦️5♣️4♠️, Ike (13.1) checks the BB with 8♥️7♥️6♠️4♥️.
Flop (625k) A♣️7♣️5♠️: Lonis checks, Ike checks, Nacho checks, Robert checks.
Turn (625k) 9♠️: Lonis bets 275k, Ike calls, Nacho pots it to 1.725M, Jesse calls, Ike re-pots to 7.525M, which doesn’t quite put Nacho all-in, but puts Lonis all-in. They both fold.
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What Nacho Was Thinking
Nacho had an almost-rundown in the CO and decided to limp it, which seems in line with his preflop play throughout the final table. The flop goes four ways, and Nacho flops a 13-out wrap on a two-tone flop. He could bet, but would be in a tricky spot if anyone raised him, so he checks. He turns the nuts, Lonis bets, Ike calls; Nacho has the nuts with 10 outs to improve to a higher straight, so naturally he raises. Nacho can get Jesse and Ike to call with worse or fold hands with equity and Nacho can comfortably get all-in vs. Jesse. Jesse calls, then Ike back-raises all-in. Even though Nacho has the nuts, he figures that Ike either has the nuts himself or a hand with a lot of equity vs Nacho, and Nacho doesn’t want to risk getting 5th place with three other short stacks in the tournament and folds.
What Sam Thinks
Nacho should fold preflop for chips, he should fold preflop second in chips in a tournament with a micro stack about to post a BB and BB ante, and he should certainly fold preflop if he doesn’t feel like he can stack off the nuts with a redraw on the turn vs. Ike later in the hand. His preflop play isn’t that bad, but it’s the original mistake that sets the rest of the hand in motion. If you can’t stack off with the nuts on the turn because of ICM pressure, you should tighten up preflop, and mediocre badugi hands are a great place to start.
Poker is complicated and PLO is an especially complicated variant, but I don’t think this hand is all that tricky. Ike has the ability to pot all-in with the nuts on the turn. He should take the opportunity to do so. Yes, there are two flush draws on board, and yes, it’s PLO, so someone could always have Ts8sJc6c and have the nuts and a wrap and two flush draws and Ike’s bare straight is in trouble, but being worried about a hand like that is seeing monsters under the bed. When Nacho limps the CO and has 86 in his hand, he will often be double- or single-suited; he will often have cards that wrap around 86, which means he can have sets and straights; and guess what, it doesn’t matter. Ike still has the nuts and is only shoving for pot in a spot where Lonis and Nacho do not want to gamble and Lonis never has the nuts with or without a redraw. Playing the river multiways is tough, and Ike can generate folds if Nacho is bluff-raising the turn, which is not that unlikely a play. If Nacho can have T986, why can’t he have T988, or A664, or QQ88 with a flush draw, or a myriad of other combos with key blockers and some equity? There are spots in PLO where you want to play the nuts cautiously because you are worried about running into a better nuts, but that’s usually a deeper-stacked concept and rarely applies when you can just pot all-in yourself.
But let’s say Nacho is never bluffing; why would you want to raise the bare nuts into a range that is only the nuts and a likely high-equity hand in the middle from Jesse? Because you can still get them to fold! On POTD I have regularly written that in NLHE, equity denial is overrated, but in PLO, it’s a key part of the game. On the stream, they mentioned that over half the deck is bad for Ike, but it’s unlikely Nacho and Lonis combine to have all of the potential outs vs. Ike. A 7 or a club look like bad cards for Ike, but against Nacho and Jesse’s actual hands they are not, but Ike doesn’t know that, which is why Ike wants to pot all-in and end the hand ASAP. That he can get not just Nacho, but apparently many viewers and commentators on this hand, to fold the nuts with a redraw is an added bonus.
Which brings me to Nacho’s fold. In theory, you don’t want to get all-in vs. the chip leader without a huge equity premium if you are second in chips in a tournament with some micro-stacks present. However, raw pot equity does not capture this situation appropriately. Nacho has 60% vs. Ike’s hand, but he can never get knocked out of the tournament. Ike checked in the BB here; he can have all sorts of random 86 hands. He can have J862 badugi; he can have 8666; on average, Ike’s straights knock Nacho out of the tournament something like 5% of the time. There is so much money in the pot that Nacho needs to take the gamble, even if Ike will occasionally do something like back-raise all-in with a set and two flush draws.
Final Thoughts and Grade
I am not a PLO expert, and when I am discussing PLO I tend to couch my strategy advice with caveats, because I might be wrong. I understand why people think this is an interesting spot from Nacho, and maybe it would be with a hand like Qh8hQd6d. With a hand like that, I think I’d argue that just calling on the turn is for the best. Maybe if this were No Limit Omaha and someone shoved 4x pot on the turn, Nacho could fold. However, this is still PLO; Nacho has the nuts and a redraw and is facing a pot-sized raise that isn’t even putting him all-in. The most likely outcome in this hand is that Nacho and Ike will chop, followed by Nacho doubling up, followed by Nacho getting knocked out of the tournament. In a cash game, you might be worried about Lonis calling all-in and getting the best of it with a hand like his vs two straights, but that’s not a concern in a tournament.
This all boils down to some very simple concepts: Don’t VPIP pure folds, and don’t fold the nuts with a redraw. On POTD I will only give an F to myself, so I will give Nacho the gentleman’s F.
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