POTD #199 A Trip to Virtual Dublin

New Years Resolution #2: Don't be wasteful.

My introduction yesterday discussed a potential poker-themed New Year’s resolution of “play simple poker;” today, I am going to pivot to a life-based New Year’s resolution: Don’t be wasteful. Yesterday I referenced New Year’s in my introduction and added a hacky bit about resolutions— today instead of wasting that premise I am going to use it by building a theme week around one tossed-off sentence.

There are many ways people can be wasteful in poker: making hopeless bluffs, calling three-bets too loose, paying off a nit on the river. Of course when you are playing a game where the score is counted in money, you should try to save money whenever possible. The wastefulness I am focusing on today is about being efficient and squeezing every last drop out of something you already have. One of my most-read recent posts was about Jesse Lonis’s hero-fold vs. Ryuta Nakai in the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event. In that post I wrote something that got some pushback, that I felt that node was actually overbluffed, not underbluffed. So even though I wrote about the hand, tweeted about the hand, ran several sims about the hand, and made a video (available to premium subscribers) about the hand, I wanted to fulfill part of a New Year’s resolution of not being wasteful by using every thought I had about this hand as some content for POTD. So I decided to write a whole post about a hand where I was check-raise bluffing the river too much. Today I have an example of such a hand from the 2020 online Irish Poker Open— and if you want a poker resolution in this introduction, here’s one: To make 2026 the first year I attend the actual Irish Poker Open. Dublin is a great city, I have many Irish subscribers, and have only heard good things about how much fun and how sui generis this tournament is. Today I’m writing about virtual Dublin and an example of a time where I bluffed in a similar spot to Ryuta Nakai, and then explain why my thought process was off and how it led to me overbluffing the river.

Irish Open Online Event #7 Main Event Day 2
(2200/4400/550) (SB/BB/Ante) 30k Starting Stack

It folds to Samuel Vousden (420k) in the LJ who makes it 9.6k, it folds to me (133k) in the BB with 5♥️3♥️, who calls.

Flop (25.8k) 9♥️3♦️2♦️: I check, Samuel bets 11.25k, I call.
Turn (48.3k) K♠️: I check, he checks.
River (48.3k) A♠️: I check, he bets 37,750, I shove for 112k total.