POTD #16 Monte-Carlo Monday: I Get All-in with a Draw

Still not the hand you're thinking about

Last week, I recorded an episode of the PokerNews Life Outside Poker podcast with Connor Richards. We had a wide ranging discussion, but one question he asked was, “What is it like playing versus Vladimir Korzinin?” I’ve recognized that my bustout hand vs. him at the 150k Final Table will be one of those hands that follows me around for quite some time, and as promised, I will discuss it here at some point in time, but for now I’m going to (lightly) troll my readers with a new feature: Monte-Carlo Monday. The rules of this feature are simple: I will count down the worst hands I played at Triton Monaco 2024, from worst until that hand. What’s the point of this? To annoy the reply-guys who keep DMing me “Did you consider just calling with A5s?”. Well, only partially to annoy them.

The main goal of this feature is to continue something I discussed in POTD #11: The biggest pots one plays will be the most memorable, but the best poker players consistently play small and medium pots well. When you play small and medium pots well, you will deepen your understanding of the game tree and set yourself up to make good decisions if the pot gets bigger. In today’s hand, I make poor decisions when the pot is small and end up playing a big pot with the worst of it.

Triton Monaco Event #3 40k (20k+20k) Mystery Bounty
Level 11: 5k/10k/10k (SB/BB/BBA) 200k Starting Stack. Registration Closed.
73/162 remain. Bounties begin with 41 left. 23 cash.

The Hand

Hand History Triton Poker App
Hand History: MyPokerCoaching Replayer

It folds to me in the CO with J♠️9♣️ with 392k, I raise to 20k, James Chen defends in the BB off 154k.

Flop (55k): T♠️3♠️2♦️ James checks, I bet 11k,he calls

Turn (77k): Q♠️ James checks, I bet 30k, he shoves 123k, I call. James shoves K♠️4♣️, the river is the 9♥️ and I win.