POTD #174 A Three Bet Pot in Jeju vs Darren Elias

After failing to find leads all week, I overcorrect and lead when I should not have

Tuesday and Wednesday’s hand took place in three-bet pots from EPT Paris 2024, in spots where I did not recognize I could lead the turn after check-calling the flop. Those hands were from some of the first tournaments I played in Paris, and while I ended up having some deep runs in that series, I ended up having a slightly losing trip. Then I went back home for a week to recover before flying to Korea for Triton Jeju. That series started off poorly, and by the time I reached the Main Event, I had fired 16 bullets in 9 unique tournaments and had one mincash. PLO and Short Deck tournaments would follow the Main Event, but the Main Event was my best shot to rescue what had been a disastrous trip thus far. I’ve written before how much I love deeper stacked tournaments with slower structures like the Main Event, and I was prepared to play my best poker in attempt to recover all the money I had lost over the past month.

Playing one’s best poker usually involves being focused, well-rested, and having a balanced strategy and mindset. When some of the least stressful days you’ve had recently involve a lot of international travel, that can be hard to do, and “let’s get back to even” does not represent a balanced mindset. When you are on long trips it’s rare to do intensive studying, but it’s rather common to do lookups and sanity checks. In Paris, I had looked up some hands and saw that I missed some counter-intuitive leads that I did not fully understand how and when to implement. Did my lack of comprehension stop me from attempting to mimic those plays in Jeju, where I had been playing poker every day for over a week straight and was still jet-lagged and tilted from losing gobs of money? Of course not. In the previous installments of leading week, we looked at what happens when I passively missed leads because I was unsure of my ability to execute them; today, we will look at a hand where I tried to make up for the missed leads I had in Paris, by finding a similar lead that was not quite right.

2024 Triton Jeju $100k NLH Main Event
(1k/2k/2k) (SB/BB/BBA) 250k Starting Stack. 7 Handed. Registration is Open

It folds to me (133.5k) in the LJ with A♠️J♣️ and I make it 4.5k, it folds to Darren Elias (437K) in the CO who makes it 14k, it folds back to me and I call.

Flop (33k) A♦️K♦️8♣️: I check, Darren bets 11k, I call.
Turn (55k) T♦️: I lead 15k, Darren folds.