POTD #85 The Biggest Pot of The WSOPME

But is it the biggest punt? (Photo: PokerGo)

The WSOP, and especially the WSOPME, is the Super Bowl of poker, not because it is the best football game and certainly not because it ends with the two best teams playing, but because it is a spectacle. My attention to the Main Event has waxed and waned over the years depending on who is making a deep run, what is going on in my life, and most importantly, as someone who lives on the east coast, my sleep schedule. When Greg Merson won the WSOPME, I remember staying up until 4AM to watch him close it out; nowadays, if I’m up at 4AM, it’s more likely because I fell asleep at 8PM than that I stayed up through the night. However, I am committed to POTD and finding the POTWSOPME, so I was prepared for late nights on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was imagining horror scenarios of watching 8-minute limp/check BvB hands as 7 players remained at three in the morning. We did not get that. We got one of the, if not the, briskest final tables in WSOPME history, which is great for my sleep schedule, but not ideal as someone trying to mine the live stream for hands to write about. You can’t win ‘em all, unless you are Michael Mizrachi.

Fortunately, there were two hands that I felt warranted the POTD treatment, not because they were massive punts, but because they were interesting hands that may or may not have featured a punt. The concept of this blog is to be critical and highlight mistakes, but of course the reality is, no players play perfectly, but most players play adequately. If every hand featured an F-triple-minus punt, then people actually would have 200% ROIs in the Main Event. What you see more often are mistakes on the margin that are worth interrogating and learning from, whether the mistake is made by me, Kenny Hallaert, or the reigning WSOPME Champion and the newest inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi. I wrote about Kenny folding AKo yesterday, a hand that had a chance to be the largest pot in the tournament. Today I will write about the actual largest pot of the tournament.

WSOPME 2025 Final Table 5 Left

5th: $2,400,000
4th: $3,000,000
3rd: $4,000,000
2nd: $6,000,000
1st: $10,000,000

Wasnock (90.6M) folds HJ, Mizrachi (324.7M) makes it 4M in the CO with Q♠️T♥️, Bojovic (16.5M) folds OTB, Kenny Hallaert (115.4M) calls the SB with K♠️J♠️, Dunaway (35.3M) calls the BB with 9♠️7♣️

Flop (14M) K♦️T♣️3♥️: Kenny checks, Dunaway checks, Mizrachi bets 5.5M, Kenny calls, Dunaway folds

Turn (25M) Q♣️: Kenny checks, Mizrachi bets 21.5M, Kenny calls

River (68M) 4♠️: Kenny checks, Mizrachi bets 60M, Kenny calls with 85M back.

What Kenny Was Thinking

Once again, POTD has not reached out to Kenny Hallaert; we will let him get some much needed R&R and enjoy his millions of dollars. I will do my best to read his mind. KJs is not a particularly attractive three-bet for chips, and certainly not at a final table vs. the Grinder, who will call three-bets wide here. We want to play small ball vs. the chipleader when we are second in chips. Kenny snap-checked the flop, here so I don’t think he was considering leading, and, once again, wanted to keep pots small vs. Mizrachi. He faces a bet and could check-raise, but he called because, let’s all repeat the mantra, "he wanted to keep pots small vs. Mizrachi.”

This turn appears good for Kenny’s specific small blind flatting range, and I’m sure Kenny knows that, but he has a medium-strength hand vs. someone who will bet too large and too linearly, so there is no reason to lead. By now there is 25M out there and Mike bets 21.5M. Kenny can no longer play small ball. It’s not a great spot, but top pair and open-ender is a very strong hand, and Kenny either decided the Grinder was bluffing enough or he had enough equity vs. the Grinder’s thin value bets that he called.

The river is the toughest part of the hand. Kenny knows he beats all bluffs and he blocks some key value hands the Grinder could have. The Grinder bets 88% pot and 71% of Kenny’s stack. If Kenny folds, he’s almost tied for third place; if he calls and loses, he’s second to last; and if he calls and wins, he will almost be the chip leader of the tournament. Kenny flicked in the call after one minute and ten seconds, which, given the pace of play in the Main Event¹ and the size of this pot is practically a snap call. For Kenny to call this quickly, I think he had a live read or opponent read that he went with, but since I have not spoken to Kenny I can only speculate on his thoughts, but I will give mine below.

What Sam Thinks (No Cheating)

As always, these are my initial thoughts without looking at any outputs. I don’t know what the solver would do preflop here; I wouldn’t be surprised to see it play very few flats and play very aggressively, but I think into this lineup, especially with Dunaway defending very wide in the BB, I would call. There are two reasons for this: One, Dunaway peeling wide means he’s more likely to bust the tournament when we flat instead of three-betting. Two, Dunaway’s stack might prevent the Grinder from putting too much pressure on us. It’s a lot harder to bluff into two people than one person, especially when one stack is quite short.

On the flop, I think leading could be appealing; we have a much stronger range than the Grinder, and boards with two broadways smack our SB flatting range. However, given the Grinder likely c-bets too wide and too linearly, I’d rather check and let him put money in the pot. Once he bets 40% pot, which is on the larger size, I have very little interest in raising, especially with Dunaway behind. If Dunaway does something aggressive, I’d like to see the Grinder’s reaction before I put a lot of money in the pot, and letting Dunaway peel with dominated top pair, Tx, or a straight draw is appealing.

This turn seems like a very good card for our range, and leading is appealing, but there is no reason to play leads vs. someone who will put in too much money vs. a check. Once Grinder bets such a large size, I think I could find the fold with K9 or AQ and maybe QJ, but KJ is too strong a hand. We are getting direct pot odds vs. his exact hand right now and have reasonably good visibility on the river. The only card that improves us, where we might not know what to do is an offsuit jack, but I think it’s an easy check fold as I really doubt the Grinder will have many potential bluffs on a J river.

The other rivers that are tough to play are total blanks such as the 4s. Once we check and he bets, we have a pure bluff catcher. We block some value, notably J9/AJ and KK/ KQ/KT. Grinder’s river size is interesting; he seems like a guy who is on a rush and wants to end the tournament ASAP. I don’t really give him credit for betting non-AI with a straight or a set here-- maybe exactly KK because it blocks value, but I also don’t necessarily think he’d bet 40% pot on the flop with KK. It’s very easy to say this when you see his cards, but I think he’s representing two pair or a set with this size, and I am not sure how useful our jack blocker is, but our king blocker certainly is.

Ultimately, we have a pure bluff catcher, and there are two questions here: How often is he bluffing, and how thin is he value-betting? My answer is coloured by the fact he bet QT, but overall, I think Grinder’s aggressive image is largely fictional. I’ve played with some of the most aggressive poker players in the world and watched them on stream, and Grinder wouldn’t crack the top 100. It’s rare to see him take total nothing and blast off with it; it’s common to see him put in too much money with a medium-strength hand or draw, and in this hand there just aren’t that many of those. That’s especially true here because, in a three-way pot, he’d need to c-bet on the larger size with some bad hands. The question is, how often does he get to the turn with Ax and Jx, and how often does he barrell off with them? I think his slightly larger flop size, turn bet into a strong SB range, and not going all-in on the river all discount the chance he is bluffing. My instinct is that if we fold the turn with hands like QJ/AQ/K9 a lot, then we are pretty low in our range, and I’d rather call linearly vs Grinder, although that’s easy to say given that I saw him value bet QT.

Can I also say something that might surprise readers of this blog? I wish Kenny had engaged in speech play. This is likely the biggest pot he will ever play, and the Grinder has not exactly been concealing tells throughout the WSOPME; look at the final hand for further proof of this. Grinder looked legitimately conflicted before betting the river and based on his hand strength, I think he was legitimately conflicted. I know that sometimes wading into unfamiliar territory in such a big pot is scary, because if you make the wrong decision by doing something you normally don’t do, it will feel terrible. However, that's part of the gamble of playing poker. I remember I used to joke that when Antonio Esfandiari would stare people down for 9 minutes, he was freerolling that his opponent might get so bored they’d turn over their hand. I think in a hand like this versus someone who has been giving off tells, you need to take your time and try to get something out of him.

What The Solver Says

Preflop is a call and Kenny plays quite a few more hands than I expected. He is under so much ICM pressure that he can’t even really three-bet/call QQ, so he flats QQ, and by flatting hands like QQ, his range is tight enough that he can also flat some more speculative hands such as QTo or 86s. The 97o BB defend is a clear fold, and even some bad Ax folds as the BB here.

I ran the flop in PIO ICM as a HU pot, which will not give close to the “real” output in this hand, but we’re playing vs. Michael Mizrachi and a BB who is defending four pips too wide; I am not looking for a real output, but just an approximation we can use as a learning tool. The solver SB did not play flop leads, and I don’t think one should play leads vs. Mizrachi either because he will bet too often versus a check. After facing a 40% pot bet, the solver SB raises some bare top pair, but mostly raises gutshots and bottom set. Deviating to call only seems appropriate.

On the turn, the solver leads around 1/3rd of the time with range, because we have a massive range advantage-- 61.5%. However, no combos pure lead, and playing leads does not gain much EV. Once again, if the Grinder is going to bet too often when we check, there is no reason to lead. Once we check, it agrees with my/Kenny’s intuition we just have too much hand to fold. Folding top pair without a flush draw is fine, as is folding any other pair plus straight draw, but top pair and an open ender is too strong.

However, since we’re talking about the SB’s massive range advantage, let’s talk about the Grinder’s strategy. QT has 66% equity on the turn; once QT bets 86% pot and gets called it has 48% equity. In other words, it is behind the range that calls a bet and the solver folds it if it faces a jam. So the only reason to bet QT for this size is protection. For that reason, the solver almost always checks QT, and when it bets, it bets half pot.

On the river, our hand is a mix, but 33 pure folds, two pair mixes folds, and TT mixes folds. That is because his weakest pure value bet is supposed to be TT. If betting two pair on the turn was a dicey proposition, you can imagine how dicey it is on the river. KJ mixes because it blocks KK and AJ/J9 and beats all his bluffs. However, when playing such a massive pot, deferring to “I think this is a mix” is not what you should do; you should try to find the right exploit.

Final Thoughts and Grade

If Grinder is value-betting three pips too wide on the river and is barreling the turn with middle of range way too often, you need to respond by calling much more linearly on the river. In solver land, JJ and TT are similar EV calls. In real life, they are not. I think Kenny should have recognized that if he’s making tight turn folds, KJ is near the bottom of his range, and versus someone who generally bets too linearly, you’d rather call strong absolute value hands than hero call with blockers. That being said, he still has a credible bluff catcher vs. someone capable of running a three barrel bluff on the biggest stage, but knowing Grinder will play QT like this, it’s just so hard to believe that KJ is actually a winning call in practice.

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1. By comparison Grinder took 45 seconds before folding K3o to a three bet and Dunaway took 30 seconds before check folding Qh4s on Ah7c6d UTG vs BB.