POTD #198 Madrid Monday: Pocket Seises in a Cuatro Bet Pot

and a belated Happy New Year to all the POTD subscribers

A belated Happy New Year to all the POTD subscribers! We have just passed the 2000 subscriber mark and hope to add at least 2000 more in 2026, whether you signed up on day one or joined to see the free content I posted last week. Your support is appreciated and I am excited to kick off a new year of punting with all of you.

I think a good New Year’s resolution for most poker players to make would be to try and play simple poker. Most of the big mistakes people make involve them trying to make a spectacular play when the simple play is right there. However, most players are not playing Super High Rollers versus other top players. The better the competition you face, the less you can rely on making money while only making standard plays. If you never hero call on the rivers, opponents will take note and start bluffing you a lot. If you never find loose no-equity turn barrels, your opponents can comfortably fold everything when draws fill on the river. If you always three-bet suited aces, but never three-bet suited kings, queens and jacks, check-folding second pair on ace-high flops becomes an easy counter.

You want your game to be fundamentally sound and based on simple principles, but not so simple that a strong player could start exploiting you. One concept that makes you hard to play against is to construct your ranges while being mindful of board coverage. The concept of board coverage is to play early streets in a manner such that no matter what cards appear on the flop, turn or river, you will always have some hands to value bet and some hands to bluff. If you always bet flush draws on the turn, you’ll never have a flush on the river. If you always check back flush draws on the turn, you’re likely underbluffing the turn and your opponent can overfold to your turn bets— like many things in poker, it’s all about balance. In today’s hand we look at a situation where I try out a solver play that is designed in part to provide board coverage, three-betting middling pocket pairs preflop. By three-betting mid-pair hands, you can bluff postflop on boards with lots of high cards, but there’s another downstream benefit: You can call small four-bets and set-mine or bluff in four-bet pots. It’s a simple concept, but there’s a big difference between conceptually understanding why you occasionally three-bet small pairs and flat a four-bet with them, and understanding how to play postflop when you have a small pocket pair and a pot-sized bet to play. The preflop play is worth a tiny amount of EV, and you can only earn that EV by playing well postflop. Did I play a hand in an unconventional way versus a tough player, or did I cost myself money when I should have followed the mantra I began this post with: Play simple poker?

Triton Madrid Event #7 €75,000 NLHE
(6k/12k/12k) (SB/BB/BBA). 63 Entries, 26 remain, 8 cash. 200k Starting Stack.

It folds to Andras Nemeth (431k) in the LJ who makes it 25k, it folds to me (680k) on the button with 6♣️6♠️ who makes it 65k¹, it folds back to Andras who four-bets to 138k, I call.

Flop (306k) K♦️T♦️7♣️: Andras bets 40k, I call
Turn (386k) 8♥️: Andras checks, I check
River (386k) T♠️: Andras checks, I check and lose to Q♦️Q♥️