POTD #148 Winning Wednesday: The Biggest Cash Game I've Ever Played
There are billions on the table and I have six high. Photo: Sam Greenwood
In 2018, Triton was a very different tour. They had two stops, Jeju and Montenegro, with a combined total of nine tournaments, five in Jeju and four in Montenegro. Three of the tournaments in Jeju were short deck, which means, in the middle of July, I flew from Canada to South Korea to play one 500,000 HKD (~60k USD) with 39 total entries and one 2,000,000 HKD (~$250k USD) with 55 total entries. It was a different time in my life and in poker, when I would travel that far to only play two poker tournaments and that they would be denominated in HKD. I ended up final tabling the Main Event and booking a nice profit on the trip, but my most memorable hands I played in that trip were from the TV cash game I played.
A benefit of Triton being smaller was that it made it easier to get a seat in big cash games. During Triton Jeju, the biggest cash games took place off stream, as everyone was lining up to play Short Deck vs. the man known as “Chairman,” but they decided to run one big NLHE game, a 3M/6M/6M Korean Won game with a buyin of … one billion dollars won, which was approximately a million USD. I remember getting the seat in the game at 9PM local time, which was 8AM EST / 5AM PST, and trying to sell as much action as I possibly could, but most of the people I regularly sold action to were not in Korea and were sleeping.
The game started with a lineup of Mikita Badziakouski, Jason Koon, Tan Xuan, Elton Tsang, Wang “Shanghai Wong” Qiang, Wai Kin Yong, and Rui Cao. I knew this was a good spot and I wanted to get in the game, so I auto-booked action to my regular action buyers and flipped through my Rolodex until I found people who were awake and responding to texts. Many of the Asian players in the game left the TV NLHE game because they got a seat in the short deck game running, and the lineup got tougher as Patrik Antonius, Dominik Nitsche, and Paul Phua joined the game, but Tom Dwan also joined the game, so it was still a pretty good spot in a rake-free TV cash game.
I ended up a net loser in the game, losing 310,000,000 KRW, but I ran a bluff that is one of the first hands that comes up if you Google my name. The spirit of Winning Wednesday is that I write about a hand I punted in a tournament that I ended up winning, but in a cash game, there is no prize for being the big winner on the night. So today, I will focus on a hand where I punted, but I won the hand anyways, which to me fits the spirit of Winning Wednesday.
Triton Jeju 2018 Cash Game (3M KRW/6M KRW/6M KRW) (SB/BB/BBA) 8-Handed
I (730M) make 14M UTG8 with 6♦️5♦️, it folds to Wai Kin Yong (1.28B) who calls in the CO, Rui Cao (1.9B) calls on the button, Xuan Tan calls in the BB.
Flop (65M) 3♣️3♥️2♣️: Tan checks, I check, Wai Kin bets 32M, Rui Cao calls, Tan calls, I call.
Turn 193M) K♣️: Tan checks, I check, Wai Kin checks, Rui checks.
River (193M) J♣️: Tan checks, I bet 70M, Wai Kin folds, Rui folds, Tan folds.
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What I Was Thinking
I knew that 65s often VPIPed from EP when facing an EP open, so I assumed it pure raised UTG. I raised and got called by three players, which was not unusual at this table. On the flop, I am not sure if I randomized, or if I just decided that I should play heavy check with range vs. Rui and Tan, who like to go on adventures in deep-stacked cash games. I checked, Wai Kin bet half pot, and Rui and Tan called; I figured I could call with a gutshot to the nut straight, so I did. On the turn, even if this card seemed good for my range, I figured that four ways, someone usually had a flush, and I decided to be done with my hand. On the river, I had what I felt was bottom of range; I felt I needed to bluff and thought I could have some boats and some ace-high flushes, so I bet 36% pot and got two flushes to fold.
What I Got Wrong
Preflop is a mixed open, but I could see an argument for folding it at this table. I probably get three-bet and flatted more often than the solver does, and I also likely face opponents who put in too much money with so-so suited hands that can flush-over-flush me, but opening it is fine. On the flop, I do check with range; no one has trips all that often, but the general shape of my strategy is to play cagily and let other players act and re-evaluate when it gets back to me. However, once I check, and Wai Kin bets half pot and gets called twice, I have a very easy fold. I have a gutshot to the nut straight, but in a four-way pot I only have three outs. In a heads-up pot I might make the best hand on turend sixes, fives, or the four of clubs, but multi-way, I almost never have the best hand on those turns, which means I only have three outs to improve and am getting 5:1 on a call. If I were guaranteed to see a free river, I would not be getting direct pot odds to call on the flop, and my implied odds are not great either. If the turn is the 4d, I still need to fade 2-6 and club rivers if I want to have a hand I can value bet on the river. Even vs. loose players in a deep-stacked four-way pot, I still need to be cautious about running into a full house if I turn a straight and the river is a safe one for my hand.
Another problem here is, if I think I should maybe open fold preflop because my opponents are too loose, and I also think I should check the flop because my opponents will stab too often, why do I think it’s likely that I will frequently see cheap rivers with my bad draw? The most likely scenario in this hand feels like I will whiff on the turn and end up check-folding to a bet, which is never great when you are calling to hit a three-out draw to a nut straight on a paired board. By comparison, every pocket pair has two outs to the nuts, and while one out isn’t nothing, neither is the gap between a full house and straight
I think the other telling thing here is that even though Rui turns a flush, he checks back. Some of the players in this hand, especially Tan and Rui, make some crazy plays, but they know how to play poker. They are not indiscriminately piling in money with 88 on 3324 multi-way. On a rainbow, unpaired board, a gutshot to the nuts would be a close but reasonable continue, but not on this board, where I have one fewer out and might be drawing dead already.
Once I call the flop, I should have a flush draw a decent amount, although in solver land with tighter ranges from everyone involved, I do just start mixing flop folds with nut flush draws. However, I have a boat and quads disadvantage, and the BU and CO still have more flushes than me, so there is no reason for me to lead, especially if I think they will put in too much money vs. a check. The river is tricky; I have four missed straight draws (A4, A5, 65, 54) that are all credible hands to bluff with, and I should rarely have them. I should have two or three credible value bets: KK and JJ, and maybe 33 if I decide to slowplay it on the flop. I do not have a hand like, say, AhJh that wants to bluff the river, so I can’t pull any river bluffs from blockers. However, my value bets are the first, second, and third nuts respectively, or a block bet with a hand like AcAx. So on the one hand, pairing a missed straight draw with AcAx makes sense, but the problem is, if I am calling the flop with 6d5d, I might reach the river with three times as many straight draws as I should. Which means if I always bluff a hand like this, I am wildly over-bluffing. The other thing I did not consider was that, given many of my value bets are boats and quads, I can just go all-in as a bluff. It’s a risky play, and while I normally am pretty comfortable playing with other people’s money, I don’t think torching more than half a million dollars of stakers’ money shoving 3.5x pot in a multi-way pot repping a turned or rivered full house was in my repertoire. I think I reached the river with too much air to always be bluffing, and while shoving with jacks full or better makes sense, I understand why that was not a strategy I was likely to implement in 2018 or in 2025. So I had a reasonable hand to bluff with, but it was in a spot where my flop strategy was off by so much that I had way too much air to bluff with.
Types of Errors
Multi-way madness
Grade
I could see an argument for folding 65s preflop, but my open is fine, especially if I want to play more games like this in the future. My flop check is good, but my flop call is brutal. I am calling a 5bb bet and probably losing more than 1bb. That’s hard to do. The river bluff is interesting. If I truly never bluff A5 / A4 or a small pocket pair like 44-66, then I am bluffing 65 / 54, which are 6 combos total. But I probably have at least 9 combos to value bet (KK, JJ, AcAx, but also some nut flush draws), which means in theory, I could do something like shove my 6 combos of boats, shove 5.25 combos of bluffs, block AcAx and some NFDs, and block the remaining 0.75 combos of 65 / 54, and have a balanced strategy, but I do not think that’s what my river strategy looked like. I think I likely did something like block with all my value bets and all my bluffs, and thus gave my opponents a really good price with any reasonable bluff catcher. Fortunately, I got to “take a huge pot bluffing 2 flushes with only 6 high” and added this million dollar won bluff to my highlight reel.
C-