POTD #79 I Try to Trick a VIP and get "Owned"

A hand from Triton Cyprus 2023

“Sure, you’re better than poker at me, but I have an advantage over you. You’ve never played with me before, so I am unpredictable and you can never guess what I have.” I have heard so many variations of this sentiment from so many different people in my life in poker, and it is amazing that people still believe it. Everyone thinks their bad game represents some specific type of bad poker that is unique to them and only them. The reality is, not every player is bad in the same way, but there are groups of poker players who are bad in similar ways. If you play enough poker and are observant, you get good at categorizing unknown players and estimating tendencies.

That being said, the sentiment expressed at the top of the post does have a kernel of truth to it. Over the course of several hands, it’s unlikely that a novice player will consistently stymie a top player with their unusual play, but in the short run they can get one over on a top player. Tournament poker is a long iterated game; winning a hand doesn’t mean anything, winning a tournament or being up money over a large sample of tournaments is what matters. However, the best way to do that is to make sure you play every hand as well as possible, which ideally means being one step ahead of the curve and predicting the plays of unpredictable players. In today’s POTD, I played a hand vs a Dao Minh Phu, a rich Vietnamese VIP whose patented move in Triton Cyprus was getting all in for hundreds of big blinds with two cards lower than a six. However, he’s also a player who has multiple gears and was playing more seriously as we got in the money of Event #1, the 25k GG Super Million$. I got cute and tried to outsmart him and he punished me for it; read on to see how.

Triton Poker Cyprus 2023 Event #1 $25,000 GG Super Millions.
(25k/50k/50k) (SB/BB/BBA) 250k Starting Stack. We are in the money.

It folds to me on the button and I (1.2M) raise 4♥️4♠️ to 100k, Adrian Mateos folds the SB and Dao Minh Phu (2.6M) calls in the BB.

Flop (275k) Q♦️J♥️2♣️: I check, he checks
Turn (275k) 2♥️: Dao Minh Phu bets 225k, I call
River (725k) 5♦️: Dao Min Phu bets 400k, I fold and he shows me over 6♠️4♣️

Watch him bluff me in glorious 4K below.

What I Was Thinking

Dao Minh Phu is a wild card who plays quite aggressively, and one of his patented moves is announcing a quick all-in over a bet. I thought that for chips, QJ2 isn’t a pure c-bet after raising the button, and I thought I would rather keep the pot small vs him, especially if he might do something like check-jam 2x. I figured I would check back the flop and figure it out on later streets. On the turn, he bet quickly and on the larger size, which I read as strong, but I figured I could not fold a pair just yet. On the river, Mr. Phu quickly reached for chips, and I needed to determine if I would call half my remaining stack. I was short on timebanks and tried to get a live read off of him but could not. I wasn’t sure if he would value bet a jack for this size and figured having a heart was slightly bad, so I folded.

What I Got Wrong

There aren’t that many technical things about this hand. For chips, I pure raise preflop, and I mix flop checks. The turn is a pure fold for chips, and having a heart in my hand is bad, because when the board pairs, I’d rather have black fours because on a 4h river I can stack a flush. On the river, having a heart is bad for me in theory and vs Mr. Phu. Even if Mr. Phu is occasionally bluffing total air, he’s still more likely to bet the turn and the river with a missed flush draw than with, say, 64o. Which I should note, is not even that big a deviation from EQ. The solver BB frequently bets the turn with 43,53 and 54 offsuit, they prefer a heart, but this is very close to being a solver approved turn bet from Mr. Phu. On average, I have a pretty simple fold on the river, but it’s live poker vs. a VIP who likes to bluff, so it’s always good to think when you have a bluff catcher in that spot.

However, when playing someone who is an exectuive for the “Alibaba of Vietnam”, nailing the correct solver play is not what matters. What matters is making the right play in the moment. If you watch the clip above, you will hear him say “Once you checked the flop, I think you missed.” He is 100% right. I figured I could keep the pot small vs. him, and if he bluffed me with a flush draw or T9, so be it. Instead, he correctly identified that I had an unbalanced, exploitative check range and aggressively bet into me quickly and confidently. It is funny that when I rewatch the stream and look at his eyes, I see weakness and think he’s bluffing, but I think that’s largely confirmation bias from knowing he’s bluffing. I am not a live tell expert, but I trust my instincts, and in game his behaviour did feel confident. It turns out it was false confidence. I was wrong; he exploited my strategy and tricked me.

Grade

I got outplayed by and had a bluff windmilled in my face by the type of player people travel around the world to play high stakes poker against. I have bluffed Phil Ivey, made hero folds vs. Mikita Badziakouski, and hero calls vs. Isaac Haxton. When I look back at all the poker I’ve played, I will focus on those memories, instead of the time a billionaire bluffed me, windmilled it in my face, and the whole table laughed at me. In the words of Randy Lew on the broadcast, “You just got owned, Sam Greenwood.”

D