POTD #320 Saaskilahti vs Jumalon Round 2

The Biggest Pot of the WSOPME and possibly the Punt of the Year

Ben Tollerene once described deep-stacked poker to me as being a lot of small boring pots with rare spectacular gigantic pots. The same can be said about heads-up No Limit Hold ‘Em. When you only have two cards and there are only five cards on board, one or both of you is going to have nothing a lot of the time, which makes it very hard to play a big pot all that often. This is especially true when two inexperienced players play each other HU; even very good ring NL tournament players are often not prepared for regularly playing pots with varying degrees of “nothing,” and the action can be slow.

This is especially true in live MTTs where the most common form of HU is rake free with a BB Ante. There is a lot of limp-check preflop, followed by cagey and passive play postflop, but not every match is like that. When Lucas Jumalon and Lauri Saaskilahti got heads-up last week, I was not expecting a finesse match, I was expecting to see fireworks. It felt like they were both itching to play big pots and there was not going to be a “feeling out period.” I was seated on my couch at 10:30 EST because I was unsure if the match would make it to 11:00. I was correct as we had an action packed match that was largely decided by a hand that was an instant classic that many were calling one of the biggest punts of all time. Some time has passed and I’ve been able to gather all my thoughts about the hand and I’m ready to answer, if that was an unusual, but well played hand, a legendary punt, or somewhere in between.

World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table
We are Heads Up $10M 1st, 6M for 2nd.
(2M/4M/4M) (SB/BB/BBA)

Lucas Jumalon (287M/72BBs) calls Q♠️5♦️, Lauri Saaskilahti (258M/64bbs) checks J♦️3♦️
Flop (12M) A♠️K♠️4♣️: Lauri checks, Lucas bets 4M, Lauri calls
Turn (20M) J♠️: Lauri checks, Lucas bets 40M, Lauri calls
River (100M) 6♠️: Lauri checks, Lucas bets 180M of Lauri’s 214M, Lauri calls.

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What I Thought When I First Watched the Hand

I’ll admit, I had checked out when I saw the hands and the flop. I assumed Jumalon was going to bet and Lauri was going to fold. Once Lauri called, I was reminded of Hand #158 where Lauri made a loose flop peel vs. Jumalon’s top set. (Jumalon also made a questionable turn overbet with his set, which is a little bit of foreshadowing for today’s hand.) I thought Lauri’s flop peel was too loose, but thought it was close with backdoor broadway and wheel draws, and was impressed that he was comfortable making loose flop peels out of position.

The way many inexperienced players get run over heads-up is, they don’t find enough marginal continues and they allow their opponent to win the pot with small bets too often. The aggressor believes that their opponent won’t hit an appropriate minimum defense frequency¹ and consistently makes a version of the same gamble, over and over. “I bet half pot that you won’t defend 2/3rds of your range here.” Over one hand, your opponent folding a little too much won’t be worth as much as bad river play in a big pot, but overfolding on early streets recurs so often that it will add up to a rather nice win rate for the aggressor.

On the turn, I thought that Lauri was going to be in a relatively tough spot with third pair. Once again, he needs to reach deep to find some unusual turn continues, and while he’d greatly prefer to have a pair with a draw, second pair should never fold to a medium sized bet and third pair should be close. Lucas did not bet a medium size; he bet 2x pot. My instinct was that in all forms of NLHE, you rarely overbet on the turn when a flush completer turns, and Lucas size’s was too big. If he’s betting 2x pot here, I am not sure what he’s trying to exploit. Lauri doesn’t seem like someone who likes folding, and this is not like ring NLH, where having the nut blocker matters much more than having any other flush blocker. In fact, the nut blocker is probably a very bad card to bluff a blank river with, as Lauri should never fold the Qs on the flop. When you overbet the turn with the Qs, it looks like you’re setting up playing for stacks on the river. Unfortunately, a hand you’re trying to get to fold on a river like, say, the 6h, would be hands like Qs4c, Qs6c or Qs9c, which means you don’t want to bluff with the Qs on the river.

On the river, I resorted to my default here, which is that hero-calling without a flush on four-flush boards is usually pretty bad if your opponent has been aggressive on the two prior streets. In heads-up and blind vs. blind poker, people have lots of offsuit combos they can semi-bluff with and tend to barrel them too often, which makes it very hard for anyone to be underbluffing the river, especially when they overbet on both streets. Most people won’t overbet the turn without a spade, and most people won’t overbet bluff the river without any key blockers and there aren’t obviously blockers on a board like this. That being said, Lauri did have a pure bluff catcher. I’d be shocked to see Lucas bluff with a hand like JT or Kx here. When your hand beat all bluffs, calling the river can never be the worst play. As I was watching the hand, I expected to see a snap-fold from Lauri, but once he started tanking and started talking, I became convinced he was talking himself into a call. Then I became more focused on the human drama of the hand and spent less time wondering if his river bluff-catch was a good solver or exploitative call. However, my instinct was that I did not like the call, it always helps when I can see their hole cards, but it felt like Lucas was underbluffing and Lauri would have better hands to call with.

What Lauri Was Thinking

Lauri was interviewed by Craig Tapscott on Poker.org. You should watch the whole interview, but I’ll summarize his thoughts on the hand here. Lauri thought Lucas’s button limping range heads-up was weak and that vs a weaker range he could make some loose flop peels. On the turn, Lauri had, he doesn’t explicitly say a live read, but a sense that Lucas was bluffing and that he had the best hand right now and called. On the river, he says he regrets not weighing the fact that most of Lucas’s weak turn barrels had a spade in them, and that even if he felt Lucas was bluffing, it’s very hard for him to do so on this river.

What Lucas Was Thinking

Lucas shared his thoughts replying to Mike Matusow on Twitter. He said he overbet the turn because he thinks Lauri thought he had a “blasty” image, and he might be able to get paid off with a really weak holding if he hit on the river² and he would have given up if he missed.

What The Solver Says

The solver does play limps preflop. Q5o mostly raises first in, J3s almost never raises over a limp. The solver c-bets often on the flop, but not pure. Most of its check-back range are middle-of-range hands like QQ or total air without backup like 98o, but given it’s the solver, almost every hand that mixes checking also mixes betting. Lauri’s flop peel is technically too loose, but Q3 and J5 peel, while J3 needs a backdoor flush draw to see a turn. Having an overcard to a four, is a small thing, but edges are so marginal that occasionally having three more outs adds up. If you think Lucas’s preflop limping range is a little weak and think his c-betting range is a little weak because he bets too much air, and that he might size up with a good hand, then I’d suspect calling is at least breakeven.

Which brings us to the turn. Lauri never leads and the solver button never picks a size bigger than full pot. It’s possible the ideal size is slightly smaller than full pot, but full pot is close enough. The reason for this is because the button’s betting range is pretty linear. Hands like KQ can bet for value trying to get called by hands like Qs9d or 5s4c. Meanwhile, there are not many no-equity bluffs; most of Lucas’s turn betting range has a spade, a gutshot (including the wheel gutshots), or both. No pair, no draw checks 94% of the time for Lucas. If your value bets include second pair with a redraw, and your bluffs have 9 outs vs. bare top pair, there is no need to overbet. A full-pot bet is already enough to get folds from some bare Kx and almost all bare Jx. That being said, calling bare Jx that has two pair outs vs. J4 breaks even, and calling J3/J2 only loses around 1/6th of a BB vs. a full pot bet. In theory vs. the proper sizing, Lauri has a losing continue, but one that’s acceptable if he senses Lucas is up to something. I ran a sim where Lucas could either bet quarter pot or 2x pot to force some volume into 2x pot, and facing a 2x pot bet, J3 loses around 3/4 of a BB, a sizeable amount, but less than I initially expected. Lucas’s line is fine of course; he has a very-high equity draw that can value bet rivers when he hits and can also get better hands to fold right away.

Once we get to the river, something surprising happens— Lauri frequently leads with range. Lucas’s most common turn value bets are not flushes, but hands like two pair, straights and sets. With the AKJ on board, those hands rarely have spades, and Lauri has a ton of hands like Jx3s or Kx8s that now have a lot of equity. Lauri has a flush 73% of the time and he can lead hands as weak as bad top pair as a bluff to get hands like two pair and top pair to fold. After making a very loose turn call, Lauri seems to have a prime candidate to bluff-lead the river, but he chose to check. On the river, Lucas prefers to bet a smaller size with his exact combo, but many offsuit Qs combos shove the river. Lucas doesn’t bluff the river with better than J3, so Lauri does have a pure bluff-catcher. A hand like KxTs is a break-even river call; a hand like Jd3d only loses 0.5bbs. The only way someone could make a really bad river call is if they called with a hand that regularly loses to bluffs or in this case, that their opponent is not bluffing with total air more than 38% of the time.

In order to make a big hero call on a board like this facing back to back overbets, you’d either like your opponent to be overbluffing, or to have both cards in your hand helping you out. Either by blocking your opponent’s value bets or at least unblocking his bluffs. In this hand, I do think a J is a pretty good card to have in your river hero-calling range; the problem, is the three is neutral to bad, and that’s not enough when facing two large bets. “I beat all bluffs” is accurate, but it’s not enough when this much money is going into the pot. It’s especially not enough vs. humans who will struggle to find turn barrels that could bluff a spade river.

Final Thoughts

Often when a pro plays heads-up vs. a recreational player, they adapt to a max-exploit strategy, and that strategy is to try to small-ball the recreational player. Bet small and often on early streets, hoping the rec will over-fold. This appeared to be their gameplan entering this HU match. You could tell from their preflop strategies: Lucas was limping and minraising, and Lauri was often 3xing first in. I think Lauri adjusting by making loose flop peels was an okay exploit, and either way, peeling Jd3d here can’t lose too much money. It’s a 1BB bet vs. what’s basically a random hand, and if you think Lucas might have an extra weak button limping range. Go for it.

On the turn, I think Lucas’s logic for the overbet doesn’t quite make sense. If you think Lauri is too sticky and you aren’t interested in bluffing the river when you miss, it sure seems like you’re going to lose a pot that’s larger than you want to something like 70% of the time. You can make it back by winning a ton when you hit on the river, but it’s also possible you could make a ton of money by betting smaller and overbetting the river, or checking back the turn and raising the river when you hit. I think his logic is a little inconsistent, but of course the play is fine. He has a high-equity draw and bet big. It’s an acceptable turn play. Lauri’s turn call is loose, but like the flop, a hand one pip better mixes calls, and his call doesn’t lose very much, so with a decent read, calling easily could be a good exploit.³

Which brings us to the river. Even though the solver would lead, I actually don’t think Lauri should have; I just don’t think Lucas is betting the turn enough with a hand without a spade or folding KK/AK often enough to a river bet to make the play worthwhile. Once Lauri checks and Lucas overbets, he does have a pure bluff-catcher. He tried to get a live read on Lucas, which in this one instance I think was probably a mistake. If you’re running a crazy bluff heads-up in the WSOPME, I’m sure you will be very nervous. If you’re value betting such that if you get called it’s [almost] “all over baby,” you will be very nervous. On POTD, I tend to write about how in river spots, minor reasons can tip ambitious river plays from being slight losers to big winners, but here the number one thing is, I just really don’t think Lucas is overbetting the turn with a spadeless hand worse than a pair of jacks often enough for him to be bluffing enough on the river. After doing some research, I can say the call was better than initially anticipated it to be vs. the solver, but I think it’s much worse vs. Lucas

What I like about this hand, and why it was a fitting climax to the Main Event, is every street of this hand involved someone deviating from theory to try and exploit the other player. Lucas limped a hand that almost pure raises preflop because he didn’t think Lauri would bluff-raise enough over a limp or a raise first in. Lucas (likely) pure c-bet a spot where he’s supposed to mix some checks because he didn’t think Lauri would find loose flop peels. Lauri found a loose flop peel, and correctly sensed something was fishy about Lucas’s turn bet when Lucas overbet the turn because he thought it might cause Lauri to do something crazy on the river. Which brings us to the river, where Lauri did do something crazy. This hand was the greatest (great meaning large and immense) punt of the Main Event, but all in all, it was a pretty well-played, interesting poker hand between two non-HU specialists trying to exploit each other with $4,000,000 on the line. A hand that rightfully will go down in the annals of poker history.

1. https://upswingpoker.com/minimum-defense-frequency-vs-pot-odds/

2. Correct

3. I saw someone mention about both the flop and the turn that if he really didn’t believe Lucas he should raise the flop/turn and I disagree. If you have a bad hand that’s questionable to play it’s rare that putting more money in the pot with it is an attractive option.