POTD #294 PCA 50k. I Almost Let Tim Adams Hero Fold to Me.

The author of Modern Tournament Mastery, tries to outwit me.

Upswing Poker has recently released a course titled “Modern Tournament Mastery” by Timothy Adams and Daniel Dvoress, featuring content from Stephen Chidwick. Dan has been making videos for Run It Once and now GTO Lab for quite some time, and Stevie for Run it Once and Octopi. They’re experienced poker players, coaches, and training video creators. Tim Adams is an experienced poker player and coach, but is new to the training video arena, so he enlisted the help of yours truly to review his parts of the course to give him notes and feedback. (I have not looked at Dan and Stevie’s parts, but I am sure they are excellent.)

From watching Tim’s portions of the course, I can say that the Upswing marketing copy that states

Tim Adams and Dan Dvoress built a course that teaches you the why behind solvers, so you can confidently deviate and crush any tournament.

is accurate. Upswing has graciously gifted me some courses to give away, and if you are a paid subscriber who comments on this post, you will be eligible to win a free copy of Modern Tournament Mastery. If you are not a paid subscriber, you have a week or so to subscribe, before I draw the winner of the contest. I am offering a discount for the WSOP, which you can redeem at https://www.puntoftheday.com/WSOP.

In the promotional material for the course, Tim is described as “2× Triton ME Champion who teaches you to think, not memorize.” Tim has very strong fundamentals, but he is able to adjust his strategies when he gets reads on his opponent or has exploitative thoughts on a certain situation. In today’s hand, we look at a hand where I punted, and Tim thought long and hard and really tried to deviate from the solver strategy to exploit a mistake I made. Fortunately, Tim could not find a big fold and I stacked him anyway, but the hand reinforced an important lesson for me: If your opponent is thinking of deviating versus you, it’s time to dig into your own ranges and think about how you can become less exploitable.

2023 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $50,000 6-Handed
(1k/2k/2k) (SB/BB/BBA) 100k Starting Stack

I am in the LJ with J♣️J♠️ (160k/80bbs) and make it 4500, it folds to Tim Adams (50k/25bbs) who calls.

Flop 6♦️2♠️2♦️ (12k): Tim checks, I bet 3k, Tim makes it 10k, I call.
Turn T♥️ (32k): Tim bets 8k, I shove for his final 36k, he tanks and unhappily calls with 6♥️5♦️ and I win on the A♥️ river.

What I was Thinking

Preflop, you’re obviously opening jacks. I know the preflop raiser plays checks on a lot of paired boards, but you rarely check overpairs on 22x boards, because while the BB has trips more often than the preflop raiser, it’s still unlikely that either player has trips. Once I get check-raised, I considered fastplaying my JJ. It’s normal to reraise overpairs that don’t have much protection, but JJ has enough protection that I thought I’d slowplay JJ and raise the smaller overpairs like 77-99.

The turn is a ten and Tim blocks, and I thought back to the heuristics I had for fastplaying the flop: You raise your weakest overpairs that are vulnerable to overcards. On an offsuit ten, JJ that doesn’t have a flush blocker is clearly my weaker than my other overpairs (QQ-AA), so it is the perfect hand to shove. I shove and Tim begrudgingly called my shove. I think the way I’d describe his body language was “I don’t really think you’re bluffing enough here and I should fold, but I’ll call because I respect you as a poker player and want to keep you honest.” If Tim were playing his A-game, I believe he would have found the fold, but fortunately he was not and called off.

What I Got Wrong

Of course my preflop logic is sound. I do occasionally check the flop with range, but never with 77-JJ. Quarter pot is an acceptable c-bet size. Once I get check-raised, I rarely three-bet the flop, but the hands that do are mostly A6, 77 and 88. There are some boards where it’s tough to find the three-bet bluffs on the flop, but not this one. I just three-bet flush draws and AJ with a diamond. A pretty simple strategy to execute, but an even simpler one is the strategy with JJ… pure call.

On the ten turn facing a quarter pot bet, JJ is also a pure call; however, every Tx combo mixes raising, sometimes all-in, sometimes not. So why does JJ slowplay? It has slightly more equity and is better protected, especially compared to a hand like T9 or T8. It makes some sense that I might want to shove JJ to stack Tx, but I am probably stacking Tx on most rivers anyways. Better to let Tim keep bluffing with hands like 98/97/87 or flopped gutshots that might bluff the river or bluff-catch if they river a pair.

That being said, shoving the turn loses 0.03bbs compared to just calling. Shoving QQ loses about twice that; KK and AA lose around twice of what QQ loses. So the EV loss is pretty small. However, that’s in a world where Tim calls a shove with a six 80% of the time. Some of my bluffs here are pretty easy to find— any non-nut flush draw is a credible hand to shove. Most of my bluff-raises are rather tough to find: Hands like AK/AQ/KQ/KJ with a diamond often raise the turn and sometimes even call off if Tim shoves. If I am not finding those tricky bluff-raises, while also expanding my value range, Tim can comfortably fold most of his 6x combos worse than A6, which I might shove myself. In hindsight, I think I can say that Tim should have folded 65 vs. me, and I am fortunate Tim did not punish my carelessness.

Types of Error

Failed to slowplay: Misunderstand what my weakest top pair/overpair type hand was.

Grade

I had two very easy decisions in this hand: raising preflop and c-betting. I had one pretty easy decision, just calling the check-raise instead of three-betting. My turn strategy is close; I was only one pip off (AT raises). However, my concern here is, I don’t think I am bluffing enough, and I could easily get exploited by someone folding with a 6 too often. Fastplaying too much and bluffing not enough is a really costly mix, and I was playing the type of player who at his best can exploit a tendency like this. Fortunately, it’s very hard to always be playing at your best, and Tim was unable to exploit me in this hand. But I think I made a clear mistake by shoving the turn, and as we all know by now, one clear mistake is a

B-