POTD #76 Monte Carlo Monday: A Three Way Three Bet Pot with Aces

Fedor Holz and Xuan Tan make their first POTD appearances

When you play enough poker you will develop certain neutral pathways in your head. If you have a deck of cards nearby, grab them, give yourself two aces, and peel them as if you were playing at a casino. There’s a good chance you will feel a thrill; you are not playing for real money, or even playing poker, but your lizard brain knows peeling AA is usually associated with something good. One of the psychological battles in poker is developing an ability to override strong neural pathways that are developed over tens of thousands of hours of play. If you peel AcAs, you’re energized; if the board runs out 2456hhh, you’re disappointed. However, there are times where that second board is not so scary-- say, a four-bet pot between two early-position players. What 3x, sets or two pair is your opponent three-betting and calling a four-bet with? It’s at times like these where you need to combine your well-developed internal pattern-recognition engine with critical thinking. This is normally a scary board for AA, but not right now. In today’s hand, I get AA in a three-bet three-way pot and play it like a heads-up pot, while focusing a little too much on protection on a board that is scary in many situations, but not this one.

HH: Triton Poker App

Triton Monte Carlo 2024 Event #3 $40k NLH Mystery Bounty
(1k/2.5k/2.5k) SB/BB/BBA. 200k Starting stack

Fedor (190k) make it 5.5k UTG6 , Tan Xuan (509k) calls HJ, it folds to me in the BB with A♣️A♠️I make it 23k, Fedor calls, Tan calls

Flop (73k) 7♣️6♣️6♠️: I bet 36k, Fedor calls, Tan folds

Turn (145k) 5♣️: I check, Fedor bets 33k, I go all-in for 131k, Fedor folds.