POTD #270 Madrid Monday: I Flop Top Pair with AK and Foolishly Slowplay It
An Amateur Mistake in a High Stakes Main Event
I am almost done pairing all the hands I’ve written about that others have played with hands where I myself have punted. In a nice bit of fortunate timing, POTD #70 is one that I had yet to pair just as POTD #270 was coming up, and it’s taken 200 punts, but I’ve finally found an adequate pairing for a pretty specific and goofy hand.
For those who don’t remember or did not click on the link above, POTD #70 was a Final Table where Michael Lavin was wearing a ClubWPT Gold patch and would win $1,000,000 on top of the $267k for first if he won the tournament, and Jordan Westmorland fastplayed aces into his set to bust the tournament. I argued that the incentives were aligned in such a way that Jordan should have trapped and bluff-caught hoping that Lavin would bluff wider instead of fastplaying his strong one-pair hand.
It’s easy to sit here in my office and confidently comment on a once-in-a-poker-lifetime scenario like being at FT with a crazy promotion that only effects one player [Fun, too! -ed], and I don’t think I’ve ever played a hand that mimicked that exact situation. I went digging for a hand that fit the description and found one with some matching characteristics: a hand where I have a very strong one-pair hand, a hand where my opponent and I have different incentives, and a hand where I made a mistake that I want to have back. The hand I found was from the 2022 Triton Madrid Main Event. We were approaching the bubble and I had a slightly above-average stack. Instead of fastplaying my strong hand vs. a short stack, I got tricky and missed out on winning an even bigger pot.
Triton Madrid 2022 - Event #9 €100K NLH Main Event
(10k/25k/25k) (SB/BB/BBA) 18/93 Left. 13 Cash. Average Stack is 1.3M. 6-Handed.
I (1.57M/63BBs) have A♥️K♣️ and make it 55k, it folds to Nick Petrangelo (1.03M/41BBs) who calls on the button, the blinds fold.
Flop (170k) A♣️5♠️5♦️: I check, Nick bets 45k, I call.
Turn (260k) T♥️: I check, Nick checks.
River (260k) 8♠️: I check, Nick checks.
