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The amuse-bouche before the $200k Invitational is the $30k turbo. Triton always schedules a turbo before the Invitational, because you must start the Invitational from hand one and they don’t want a two-day tournament to postpone the big one, or a long heads-up battle that leaves two Invitational players unable to rest. This turbo was especially turbo-y: 20-minute levels for the first 8 levels, then once registration closes, 15-minute levels. They want this tournament to end tonight, and they have designed a structure to make sure it happens. This often means the play in this tournament is not all that serious. Who cares about what to do in a 200BB three-bet pot when the average stack in the tournament will be 20bbs in 90 minutes?
Well, I care. I want to play every hand as well as possible, and when I punt I want to learn from my mistakes, such that I don’t make them again if the tournament is higher stakes. That means I am writing about today’s hand vs. Stephen Chidwick, where he might have exploited me, he might have exploited the population, or I may have just made a giant blunder. I am hoping that none of these things happen in the Invitational, when the stakes get bigger.
$30K NLH Turbo – Event #9 Triton SHRS Jeju II 2026
(1k/1.5k/1.5k) (SB/BB/BBA) 200k Starting Stack
Stephen Chidwick (212.5k/141bbs) raises to 3.5k, it folds to me on the button (195k/130bbs) with A♣️2♣️ (ignore that the app says A♣️3♣️), it folds back to Stevie who calls.
Flop (30k) 8♦️4♦️4♥️: Stevie checks, I bet 15k, Stevie calls
Turn (60k) Q♥️: Stevie checks, I check
Turn (60k) K♦️: Stevie, I bet 30k, Stevie calls with 6♣️6♠️
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What I Was Thinking
A good rule of thumb is that you three-bet more polar on the button than from the early or middle position. This concept is illustrated well by thinking of hands like KQo or AJo that rarely three-bet on the button, but often three-bet from every other position. You don’t want to flat KQo in the hijack and get trapped in the middle of a multiway pot when you rarely make a great hand. You are happy to flat it on the button and play in position, where you can bluff-catch or value bet with your strong top pair. This means when I three-bet the CO or HJ with suited aces, I often want A5/A4s that can with>stand four-bets, or one pip below my opponent’s worst offsuit open. I three-bet A8s to fold out A9/ATo. On the button, I knew that dynamic fell apart a bit and I’d regularly three-bet my worst suited ace. I rolled aggressively with A2s and three-bet, and I thought I could get Stevie to fold some better suited aces with a larger, more polar three-bet size.
Normally you c-bet a large size on boards like this. My most common and strongest value bet here is usually AA, and I want to front-load the money into the pot and fastplay AA while it is still strong. I decided to c-bet half pot, but was not sure if I should have bet bigger and I did not give much thought to checking with such a weak hand and would rather check hands that had more showdown value (like AK) or improve to a flush or a straight. On the turn I was torn; it’s still a very good card to fast play AA and KK on, and I have a great hand to make no-equity bluffs with; however, it felt like Stevie had a pocket pair, 8, queen or flush draw almost every time, and I was not sure if I wanted to bet such a weak hand into a range that usually has something pretty good. I also felt a little bashful about this whole thing. How did I end up with such a bad hand in a pot with 60bbs in the middle and 170 more to play? Perhaps instead of finding some convoluted solver play where I three-bet A2s because of some theoretical thoughts about polar three-betting on the button, I should stop putting money in the pot with a bad hand vs. a great player. I ultimately decided that I was not generating enough folds on the turn and checked.
The river is pretty simple. I have AK a lot, or some other Kx hands or some sneaky flush draws that checked the turn. The most common hands in Stevie’s range, the ones I am trying to get to fold, are pocket pairs in between 55 and JJ (88 excluded). I don’t want to bluff the river with a card in between 5x and Jx. It’s hard for me to have a two, three, or four here. It is time to bluff. I thought when a flush filled, I couldn’t bet much more than half pot with AK, and I got looked up rather light by Stevie’s black sixes.
What I Got Wrong
My preflop strategy was correct. I three-bet A2s more often than A9-A6s at this node, and I pick a larger polar three-bet strategy. Stevie rarely folds better suited aces, mostly A2 and A6, but I get him to fold some of the time. On the flop, I sometimes bet half pot and sometimes bet three-quarters pot; an in-between size would also work fine. My specific combo prefers a more polar strategy; it occasionally checks, but mostly picks 3/4 pot when it bets. However, whether I pick quarter pot, half pot or three quarters pot, A2 always barrels the turn. A 3/4 pot turn barrel is enough to get king-high flush draws and pocket pairs lower than TT to fold right away. All the reasoning I had above was sound: I still want to bet AA/KK, the board is connected, I don’t want to bet/fold equity. It’s rare for me to have a total no-equity hand, so when I do have one, I have to bet it. It’s not just Ac2c, but As3s, Ac5c, etc. In fact, I basically pure bet the turn any time I have an ace in my hand, including AK. I vastly underestimated how good this turn was for my range. Outside of a king, it is the turn I barrel most often. My checking range is mostly draws that don’t want to bet/fold, an occasional trap with 88 or QQ, and some middle-of-range hands like 87s or JJ.
Once I get to the river, my hand is a pure bluff, and I can value bet as thin as TdTx. I also frequently give up with hands like 76s and 97s. I don’t like bluffing those middle cards because I want Stevie to have a middle pair and fold it. Stevie’s call is a bad one in solver-land, losing small. Did he soul-read me because my physicality gave off that I was bluffing in a three-bet pot in level 1 of a relatively small tournament? I don’t think so. I think he made a technical read; he assumed that I wouldn’t value bet as thin as the solver (almost certainly true; I don’t think I am value betting JdJx here, and I probably regularly check back some Qx). I suspect that I would have found some of the no-showdown give-ups with hands like 76 and 65, as I was thinking that during the hand. However, it’s also likely I have a lot more A2-type hands to bluff the river with given that I missed a turn barrel with this one. If Stevie felt I wouldn’t value bet thin enough on the river, wouldn’t give up with no showdown often enough, or wouldn’t barrel the turn with no equity enough, that’s more than enough to turn any bluff catcher into a call. If he believed one of those things, it’s probably enough to turn his hand into a call. Whether it was a live read or a technical read, he got the best of me, and that’s why he’s the best.
Grade
If I had to grade my own play properly here, I’d say that I would have given up with no showdown enough on the river here, I am not value betting as thin as the solver, and I am missing some no-equity turn barrels. Two of those criteria being met make this a good river call from Stevie. What irks me about this hand is that I feel that if I were playing it vs. a trainer, I would have found the turn barrel. Some combination of fatigue, being on a losing streak, and being afraid of looking stupid told me to put my chips away and give up on the turn. From a technical perspective, I also underestimated how good a turn this is for my range. The goal of playing vs. a trainer is that you train so that you can execute in game. Today’s punt shows that sometimes there is a gap between my poker knowledge and my poker skill.
B-