POTD #17 GGMillions Addamo vs Kravchenko: Heads Up For 500k

The first hand where I don't blunder

Last Tuesday, Jeff Gross was kind enough to invite me on to do commentary for the live stream of the GGMillion$ final table. It was a fun final table, and before the stream began, a subscriber asked me to pick a hand from the final table and make it my Punt of the Day. I thought it was a fun idea and said yes, before considering that some people might dislike me turning my microscope on others’ play. In today’s introduction, I’m going to preempt this criticism. If people want to take competitive poker seriously, players need to be less sensitive about fans and media members criticizing their play. In sports, the arts, and politics, people’s mistakes are publicly discussed all the time. Some criticism comes from experts, but most comes from overconfident dilettantes who don’t know what they’re talking about. I know because in other arenas I’ve been that overconfident dilettante. If you have the stomach to make a giant bluff for millions of dollars, you should also have the stomach to deal with someone saying “that bluff was a disaster.”

The player who “punted” in today’s blog is Michael Addamo, an excellent poker player and a sweetheart in real life. He won $1,279,288 in this tournament and has played a lot of crazy poker hands in his life. I’d be surprised if he cared that I chose this hand, but for those who might care, I believe he can deal with some mild public criticism. The thrust of this project is that every day I expose my mistakes for all to see; occasionally, I’ll look at the mistakes of others.

3/8/2025 GG Million$ Final Table

Level 20: 400k/800k/100k (SB/BB/Ante) Heads Up. Addamo has ~37M, Kravchchenko has ~80M

Addamo raises to 1.68M on the button with A♠️T♣️, Kravchenko calls in the BB with A♣️4♣️

Flop (3.56M) A♦️J♦️8♦️: Kravchenko checks, Addamo bets 1.175M, Kravechenko calls
Turn (5.9M) 5♣️: Kravchenko checks, Addamo bets 5.9M, Kravchenko calls
River (17.75M) K♠️: Kravchenko checks, Addamo bets 27.94M all-in, Kravchenko calls.

The Hand:

What (He) was Thinking

Obviously I do not have the ability to read Addamo’s mind or to know what he was thinking. If I did, I’d have lost fewer pots to him over the years and have a lot more money. I think Mike’s thought process in this hand is relatively simple: He knows monotone boards play pretty cagey and passively heads-up, and I think he’d occasionally check the flop, but once he bet the flop, I think he suspected that the BB would three-bet AJ, AA, JJ, and 88 preflop and often check-raise the flop with a flush. After Kravchenko check-calls the flop, Mike thinks that unless Kravchenko improved to two pair or a set on the turn, AT is the best hand, and so he keeps betting. On the turn, Mike can push a lot of equity versus hands that have a pair and a flush draw and deny equity from bare flush and straight draws. On the river, Mike still thinks he has the best hand; Kravchenko might fast-play a lot of two pair on the turn. He recognizes that after betting full pot on the turn, he shouldn’t have many thin value bets on the river, his river betting range should be polar, and picking a size smaller than all-in doesn’t make sense. He also has run out of timebank and has 20 seconds to make a decision. Almost all of Mike’s bluffing range should be no pair, and Kravchenko can hero call with a hand like Kd2 or QdJ. Mike has a very aggressive image and Kravchenko has not been afraid to play back at him, so Mike decided to shove.

What the Solver Says

Normally this segment is called “What I Got Wrong.” Today, instead, we are adding “What the Solver Says” and “What Sam is Thinking” segments. In the PIO sim I ran, I only gave Mike one flop size. The solver uses multiple sizes and a polar big bet size is used, but I don’t think many humans play a big size on the flop here and I wanted to look at something closer to the range Mike is playing. Something that surprised me is that at equilibrium the BB rarely raises the flop; regardless of what sizes the bb is allowed to bet the BB raises the flop around 5% of the time. Once I thought about this, it makes sense: The BB’s value range here consists of flushes and a little bit of A8; the BB needs to continue on the flop around 70% of the time and has a flush 4.5% of the time. It’s hard to raise the flop often when you have a value hand that rarely.

On the turn, AT bets the turn around 80% of the time, but the preferred size is 75%. However, betting full pot doesn’t lose EV and is a fine play. The BB rarely raises on the turn, but their raising range is mostly centered around turned two pair, and AT no diamond mostly folds when raised. On the river, shoving AT loses somewhere between 4-6 BBs, but it has 73.5% equity on the river facing a check. In other words, when Mike shoves the river with AT and is called, he has the best hand 40-45% of the time. The thinnest value bet without a diamond that the solver makes is J8, which has 78% equity, but even J8 mixes checks.

There are a couple problems here for AT. One, when you shove 165% pot, the BB only needs to call the river around 37% of the time to hit a frequency to make the button’s river bluffs indifferent. AT might have 73.5% equity, but when your opponent folds the bottom 63% of their range, it’s hard for AT to have 50% when called. Some of the highest frequency river calls that AT beats are worse top pair. It’s never great to value shove a hand that blocks your opponent’s most frequent calls. I thought since the BB was supposed to frequently slowplay a flush, they might arrive at the river with a flush a lot, but they only arrive to the river with a flush 9% of the time-- double the amount on the flop, but nothing too crazy.

What Sam Says

The two major questions I have here are:

Does Kravchenko arrive at the river with better than AT less often than the solver?
Does Kravcheknko hero call more often than the solver?

My answer to question one is-- I am not sure. I think he raises the flop with a flush more often than the solver, but I also think he raises the flop with one pair, one-card flush draws, straight draws, etc., more often than the solver. If I had to bet “Does Kravchenko have a flush 9% of the time on the river?” I’d take the under; however, he might play the turn less aggressively than the solver does with two pair giving him more two pair on the river.

Does Kravchenko hero call more often than the solver? My answer to this question is yes. He tanked for a very long time before calling with A4, which is indifferent, but I suspect he might call the river much more often with one-pair hands with a key blocker like Kd2x or QdJx. Addamo shoving AT vs Kravchenko in this hand is losing less EV than the solver says.

However, I still think he should check. Shoving the river is losing around 20% of the pot at equilibrium. That is a lot. I think, even making favourable assumptions for Mike, it would be hard for this shove to be making a significant amount of EV. I watched the entire heads-up match and Kravchenko played like an inexperienced heads-up player. He was too aggressive preflop, c-bet too often and too large, and was generally sloppy. If Mike checked and won, he’d have 57 BBs. Kravchenko’s weak spots heads-up were common nodes that they’d frequently reach, and he’d leak a lot of EV to Addamo. I think Addamo had an edge in this HU match, and even under the rosiest assumptions, this shove is winning small. I think he’d have been better off picking a strategy that prolonged the match and pushed his edge.

Types of Errors

Too Much Money
Exploiting too much

Grade

I feel weird grading a play that isn’t mine, but I’d feel weirder abandoning the format of this blog less than a month in. Playing for $500k heads up with no time bank is a very hard and stressful thing to do. I think Mike made the right micro exploit, but the wrong macro exploit, and his hand was still a little too weak. If I played this hand with my image, I’d give myself a D+; with Mike’s aggressive image, I’ll give it a C+.