POTD #302 Stephen Chidwick vs Jason Koon in Winner Take All SnG
A Million Euros For First. Who is Going to win it?
In EPT Monte Carlo this year, Pokerstars tried to do something new, which, if successful, could provide some sort of path forward for the future of competitive streamed live poker. They ran a sit-and-go with negative rake. For each entry in the prize pool: There was €111,111 added to the prize pool, but each player only put up €100,000. The idea of this was that if there were no VIPs that showed up, there’d still be an entertaining streamed poker tournament that players would be happy to play because the overlay in the prize pool would be enough compensation to interest plauyers. High roller regs often play tournaments where they have single digit ROIs; this tournament had a baked-in 11% ROI. The other innovative idea was to make this tournament “winner take all,” which meant that, instead of the viewers seeing potentially boring bubble play where the chip leader goes all-in every hand and you watch two short stacks fight it out to see who can secure a min cash, all players would be incentivized to play cEV poker, which would make the stream more action packed, with fewer correct folds of pocket jacks preflop.
I think as a shortcut, it’s fair to say that this format would basically play like a cash game, but there are also some subtle nuances when it comes to optimizing your future game EV within the SnG. If you have two bbs UTG and are posting the BB ante next hand, you should still go all-in wider UTG than you would in a cash game, where you could sit out or top off before playing the next hand. Let’s say you were three-handed with another top player and a VIP, and you think you could beat the VIP heads up 60% of the time. Would you make a slightly losing call vs. the other pro to increase the likelihood you play the VIP heads up? These spots are all interesting to think about and add another fun wrinkle to a format that I hope is run again. The SnG was won by, who else, Jason Koon. He had a key hand that was to me the hand of the SnG: He made a big ace-high call down vs. Stephen Chidwick in a three-bet pot, and it was the type of hand that immediately had me thinking. I am not sure if this hand was masterful or full of punts, which made it a perfect hand to write about for POTD, so let’s get into it.
€100K INVITATIONAL - €1M WINNER TAKES ALL | EPT Monte Carlo 2026
(40k/80k/80k) (SB/BB/BBA). 1M Starting Stack. 5 Handed.
It folds to Stephen Chidwick (2.37M) on the button who makes it 160k, Jason Koon (2.12M) make it 480k in the SB, Chidwick calls.
Flop (1.12M) Q♠️6♦️3♦️: Koon bets 275k, Chidwick calls.
Turn (1.67M) Q♣️: Koon bets 325k, Chidwick calls.
River (2.32M) 6♥️: Koon checks, Chdiwck shoves for Koon’s 1.08M, Jason calls. Chidwick has K♣️3♣️ and Koon is good with A♦️5♣️.
