On July 7th 2021, my father, Howard Greenwood, died suddenly of a heart attack. On November 9th of that year, I wrote an obituary of him on what would have been his 75th birthday. Five years have passed since that day and today would have been his 80th birthday. I still miss him every day, so I thought I’d honour the anniversary of his birth by writing about a hand that is memorable to me, not because of the hand itself, but because my dad was very proud of how I played the hand.
My dad was a poker fan because he was a fan of his sons who played poker, but he never played himself. He and my mom learned the rules of poker through observation, and when they watched streams they could mostly understand when things that happened were good or bad for me, but one of the weird things about regularly playing poker on a big stage is, you cannot always tell what hands will stick with novices. I’ve previously written on POTD that the most-viewed hand I was involved in is Timothy Su cracking my aces deep in the WSOP Main Event, which is a pretty uninteresting hand strategy-wise, but reached a broad audience, in part because people love to watch people’s aces get cracked so they can commiserate about their aces getting cracked.
It’s tough to tell what elements of a hand will thrill a poker novice. If you shove 8bbs BvB with 76o it might look like a crazy play— “they’re going all-in with seven high.” Especially in a tournament where they might shove for “millions”. If it is blind versus blind and checks down to the river, and the SB bets 1bb and the BB correctly calls with queen high, it might look like a spectacular play to just call a river bet with queen high, but it’s a pretty standard hand. The flip side of this is true, too: Someone might get into 200bbs with top pair vs. a set, and to the uninitiated it might just seem like a cooler, not a punt. Sometimes I will play hands that I think are standard that others think are “sick,” sometimes I’ll get stacked in a standard spot that others think is a punt, and sometimes I’ll play a hand that I’m proud of, but no one else seems to care about. I don’t play to please fans of mine, even those who raised me, but I am still interested in knowing what hands of mine will capture the attention of spectators.
Today’s hand is in a big buyin tournament— Super High Roller Bowl London, a £250,000 tournament— and I bluffed three people out of the pot, two of whom have me beat. To a poker novice, this does look like a really big bluff; I bravely bet the river with a bad hand on a connected board and got two better hands than mine to fold. My dad was so impressed with the bluff that I was told he leapt out of his chair out of excitement when my bluff succeeded. Well, while I appreciate the love and support and that I won the pot, today we are going to focus on one thing and one thing only: Did I punt in this tiny pot that I mostly remember for sentimental reasons?
£ 250,000 + 2,500 No Limit Hold’em - Super High Roller Bowl London
(1k/2k/2k) (SB/BB/BBA) 300k Starting Stack.
It folds to David Peters (191k/95bbs) who makes it 4.5k in the LJ, I (266k/133bbs) call with 4♠️4♦️ in the HJ, Stephen Chidwick (186k/93bbs) calls on the button, Darren Elias (192k/96bbs) calls in the SB, Ali Imsirovic folds in the BB.
Flop (22k) K♣️7♣️2♣️: Darren checks, David checks, I check, Stephen checks.
Turn (22k) J♣️: Darren checks, David checks, I check, Stephen checks.
River (22k) 2♦️: Darren checks, David checks, I bet 7.5k, Stephen folds A♦️J♦️, Darren folds 3♣️3♦️, David folds 6♦️5♦️.
What I Was Thinking
This is one of those hands where I really only have one interesting decision. When you are 100bbs deep and face a 2.25x raise, you flat pocket fours, even when you are in the HJ facing a LJ raise. Once Stevie overcalls on the button and Darren overcalls in the SB, they will often have suited aces or pocket pairs; thus, they are going to have a flush or a set a lot of the time on the flop, and there is no reason for me to bet the flop with such a weak hand. The turn is okay for my range and David Peters’s range, insofar as we have more offsuit hands preflop than Chidwick or Elias, but we don’t have hands like AcQh all that often. Most of my range is weak, including my current bad hand, pocket fours. If I am behind I have one out to improve to a better hand and potentially 9 outs to improve to a four-way chop. There is no need for me to put money in the pot in such a dire situation. So I checked. On the river, my thought process was rather simple; I felt I should bluff when I have my weakest pair. I did not want cards that interacted with my opponent’s range, and I was unsure if I’d flat 33 preflop, which meant 44 was my weakest pair. This seemed like a hand to bluff, so I went with it, got Stevie to fold a pair of jacks, Darren to fold a small flush, Peters to fold six high, and to thrill my dad.
What I Got Wrong
I flat every pocket pair between 22-QQ some of the time in this situation. However, I almost never bet a pocket pair on the flop unless I have a club in my hand. I’ll occasionally bet A2s and 7x and QcQx-3c3x, but without a club I always check. On the turn, I bet a fair amount of the time with range, around 1/4 of the time total, including bluffing with 33 without a club around half of the time and 44 without a club around 5% of the time, but checking is still the most common play by a very wide margin. On the river, I can start value betting with the 8c and my preferred size with my range is half pot. Half pot is enough to get some players to fold some flushes; for instance, Stevie will fold as strong as the 6c with two people to act behind him. Darren only folds the 3-high flush and Peters never folds a flush.
The problem with my river bluff is that I don’t want a four in my hand, since I can get some people to fold 4c4x. Instead, I want to block higher flushes and pick bluffs that match my value bets. So I want to bluff with a hand like 9d8d that blocks my opponent’s 9d9c and 8d8c and matches my own version of those hands. 9d8d also unblocks hands like 4d4c that might fold to a river bet. On the river, I don’t have any pure bluffing combos, but the pattern is pretty clear that I mix bluffing with big cards that block flushes, not little cards that rarely interact with my opponent’s range.
With all that being said, my highest EV bluff on the river is… 33. That’s partially because I bet the turn with it so often, but it’s still an excellent bluffing hand. However, this is an example of a classic Sam leak, where I acknowledge the need to bluff with the worst class of a certain type of hand I have— in this case, my worst pocket pair— and then, for no particular reason, I decide to double my bluffing frequency because 44 is sort of like 33. This leak reminds me of playing with people who bluff with 44 trying to represent 33 on JT3 because 44 almost flopped a set. In a four-way pot vs. three talented poker players, there is no reason to double my bluffing frequency because I almost have the right bluffing combo. I’m glad my bluff worked, but this is a check.
Grade
Solid preflop play and flop play, but even a novice like my dad could have found out the correct play there. The turn I missed a very low-frequency barrel that basically seems like a play that allows me to find some wacky river bluffs if my turn bet is called and the river is an offsuit 3. The river bluff is one of the worst kinds of mistakes to make: I bet too small (the solver prefers half pot), with a class of hand that is close but not quite the right hand to bluff, in a spot where I need my opponents to make big folds (I am getting people to fold flushes here). So I am betting too small and bluffing too often, which should make my bluff a clear loser in the long run vs. players who can adjust to my frequencies. Fortunately, in the actual hand, I got Darren to fold a flush, which made me look like a hero on stream. I had a relatively deep run in this tournament, and I can remember my bustout hand nearing the money when Ali Ismirovic coolered me, so I mostly have bad memories of this tournament, but this hand will always stick out as a special one to me and I was happy to write about it, but I am not pulling any punches here.
B-
NB: Coincidentally, the editor of POTD father died three years ago tomorrow. Nath said “He was a big supporter of my poker playing; I wrote an obit for him on Facebook.” You can read it at the link in the previous sentence.