Punt of the 2026 WSOP Main Event
A Running Thread: Last Updated July 14th 2026 at 10:04 AM PST with Day 8 Updates.
NB: Hands are listed in chronological order. If you’d like to go down to the most recent hands. I suggest CTRL+F either “Day X” or “July X”.
We at POTD are trying to find the biggest punt of the 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event. This post will be a running thread of all the contenders. The comments will be open to all, so if you have a submission, please post it here or reply to this post. If you’d like to see last year’s top 10, you can do so here. If you suggest a hand, please link me to a live update or a video clip or legibly write out the HH. I don’t want to see a million messages that read “Mike Matusow’s bust out hand”. I will also briefly share my thoughts and give a grade, I normally grade on an A-F scale, but that is when I am grading my own play. Here I am grading the size of a punt and will be grading on a 0-100 scale. 0 is a perfectly played hand, 25 is a well played hand, anything over 50 is something with a clear mistake. Grades are a living breathing organism and may change throughout the tournament based on future play, changing my mind and persausion of readers like you. There is no tried and true formula for what makes an 100, but some criteria that will be considered
Stakes matter: Almost every hand played on stream on Day 1A is a hand that if I played myself, I’d give it a D or worse, but a true 100 needs to be for high stakes deep in the tournament. The gold standard for this type of hand is Joe Cheong’s bustout hand in 2010
Quality of player matters: I am going to be grading pros who “should know better” a lot harsher than Joe or Jo Pokers on the run of their lifetime. Kristen Foxen’s 2024 bustout hand is getting a higher score than Darvin Moon’s three bet calling QJs heads up in 2009
Hands where a player is eliminated will be graded harsher than ones where they lose a large chunk of their stack
However, hands where the punter manages to win the hand in spectacular fashion might get an upgrade such as Nicholas Rigby’s dirty diaper bluff in 2021
A hand where several players punt will get a bonus
Some hands have a particular Main Event Magic. An ineffable “I know it when I see it” quality. Mark Newhouse busting 9th again on a bluff(?) after declaring he wouldn’t do it again. That’s Main Event magic.
I am offering a discount code throughout the WSOP. If you are not a subscriber and would like to become one. Go to https://www.puntoftheday.com/wsop
July 2nd Day 1A
Overplaying Hands Preflop
The first elimination was a classic type of punt, getting in 300bbs preflop with AKs is often a reasonable poker play, calling a 6-bet shove when you need ~43% to breakeven for chips is not. This is a big punt, but is also a type of punt that happens every year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another version of it on Day 1B. However Anthony Marini gets bonus points for calling all-in and being the first elimination on day 1A.
70/100.
I don’t know how the players got all-in preflop in this hand, but that is a lot of BBs with AQo. It’s less than the previous hand… only ~150bbs, but that is probably around 110bbs too many. The table talk elevates this grade a little bit and I am assuming AQo shoved preflop and did not call all-in. Not as big a punt as the AKs hand, because AQo could have won the hand without showdown, but this is a big punt.
68/100
Sometimes in Main Events you play multiway pots where everyone in the hand knows that one player has the goods, except the player who loses the pot. In this hand Eli Schneider four bets to 8x the three bet size 300bbs deep after a three bet and a cold call. I don’t know Eli Schneider, but I know he has AA here. One of his opponent’s Scott Seiver, realized he had AA and folded QQ. Sarkis did not realize his opponent had AA and not only made a losing preflop call, but a losing flop call. This hand is a big 300bb punt, but gets upgraded because it features the return of a Main Event legend.
77/100
A Tiny Punt, but a hand I find funny
Minko makes a totally acceptable bluff and leaves 100 chips of his 60k starting stack behind. His opponent jams and Minko calls off his final 100. This is probably about the same as leaving $60 lying on the ground. Every hand I write about in this article will lose more money, but this river call is basically lighting money on fire.
30/100
A Tiny Pot. That Should be Bigger
Andy Park just flats QQ in a spot where it’s a pure squeeze. Then leads the flop when he should pure check range. Then checks the turn when he could bet again. Once he checks Christopher Mason checks aces as an overpair when he definitely should bet. Then Park value bets the river just large enough that he doesn’t get raised. There were so many different ways for either player to make this pot bigger, but they did not do so. I suppose I can give Park credit for somehow losing the minmium, but Mason deserves demerits for failing to win the maximum.
55/100
Scott posted the whole HH including preflop action. Scott correctly identified that his opponent was the type of player who would massively overplay top pair, went for it and got rewarded. The ace, seven runout is also a nice bit of poetry. I can’t decide between this hand or the other three way three bet pot between Scott Seiver and Sarkis Akopian. So I am giving this hand what Scott told me that Sarkis said he folded.
77/100
People love isolating limps in the main event. Generally you want to do this in position, however it can be okay to do it out of positon from time to time. 74s is likely too weak a hand to isolate ,but can be a fine play vs a weaker opponent. However, once a third player enter the pot. It’s time to wave the white flag. I don’t like Zizka’s flop bet, which hits the BB’s flatting range so hard that I think they rarely fold. I hate his turn bet, when it’s even less likely the BB folds and then once every draw misses on the river, I really hate his river bet. He somehow found a way to get to the river with no blocker/total air combo where a big bet would probably work a lot of the time and instead he bet 10% pot and got looked up by bottom pair.
Chambers would return the favour and also take a weird line where he puts way too much money in the pot with 74 from the SB. Chambers should have folded preflop, the flop and the turn, but I think his river call is probably okay. Both these hands get a
74/100
Brian Roberts once told me that there is no such thing as a bad river bluff in a tournament. I think this one might qualify Capparelli three bets AJs in a spot where it’s too strong to three bet bluff and too weak to three bet for value. His three bet size is too large and he leaves himself with 110% pot to play on the flop. He bets third pot on the flop, which is also a little too large, but acceptable. Things really fall apart on the turn where he check-calls with just ace high and then leads all-in on the river. His river bluff is for 20% pot and it just seems extremely unlikely he can get any turn value bet to fold on the river. Preflop and flop are a little too big, but acceptable plays. The turn check-call and river shove is a contractor trying to dig his way out of a hole he shouldn’t have dug in the first place.
Two Plus Two photoshop legend Adam “Admo” Richardson" decided that after UTG8 raised and the CO called, that the button was making a move and that he could get away with cold four bet shoving T9o. You need to be really confident you’re opponent is making a move to try to do something so crazy. Preflop positions here are supposed to be so tight that AQo probably should fold, if AQo is not folding it’s very hard for this to be good. Admo knows it, maybe he just wanted to get back to his computer to make some more funny posts.
64/100
July 3nd Day 1B
So I have learned that the Winamax stream is free for all and I will be linking to the YouTube clips from their French language stream. I will also link to the WSOP English language stream that is available for non-Americans. For Americans, get ready to learn some French. For the 1B updates, I will begin with the Pokernews update.
I feel obligated to write about the first bust out hand everyday. Most 600bb pots will feature some punting. This hand starts off nicely with Vrubel limpraising preflop with AA. People isolate limps very wide in the main event and it’s probably a pretty good exploit, especially when you three bet to a large size like 19bbs. The flop is where things go haywire, this is not a terrible flop for AA, but it’s not such a good flop that you’d want to bet 120% pot. When you get raised, you’re probably beat and should fold. Shoving doesn’t accomplish anything, especially with the Ad in your hand I doubt players are raise calling Th9h or KdQd here all that often. However getting in 6x pot with an overpair on this board is a normal poker play. It’s not a good play in L1 of the WSOPME, but it’s a normal enough poker play that I can’t grade it too harshly.
51/100
Getting AIPF with the wrong hand
Games are so tough nowadays that Diane Zimmerman with 270k in Hendon Mob cashes from Baltimore, Maryland is three bet/five betting A3s. Unfortunately in this case she 5-bet after someone 4-bet half their stack was probably not folding. This is worse than many of the other questionable preflop all-ins we’ve seen thus far
75/100
A lot of money goes into the pot with pocket deuces here. Josh Shapiro should fold preflop the first time and the second time. I think the shove of 22 is better than shoving A3s above just because shoving 22 with no fold equity vs a tight range is better than shoving A3s vs a tight range with no fold equity. However, the first call is a mistake from 22 where the first three bet with A3s is an acceptable play. Let’s call it a draw
75/100
Naoya Kihara posted his bust out hand on Twitter. There are some technical notes I could make, the solver basically pure squeezes preflop and I’d squeeze even more often with an aggressive player on your left. Postflop seems weird to me, either the BB is so fishy and splashy that I’d want to raise the third nuts on the flop and hope he doesn’t have me beat or he’s reasonable enough that when he makes a pot sized three bet on the turn. I’d consider folding.
Even if I wasn’t going to fold, I’d rather call. I’ll start with the obvious reason why, I’d rather put 27k in the pot drawing dead than 70k. There are also action killing rivers such as 9x,4x,7x or hearts, that might prevent you from getting stacked by hands that beat you. Do I think there are players in the main event that are such wild cards that you might have ~40% equity on the turn and need to call a raise? Absolutely. Do I think there are players who are such big wild cards that you’ll have over 50% when you jam and are called? Not many and versus those players I’d start by raising the flop. If this hand were played by an unknown I might not even include it in POTD. There are all sorts of quasi coolers in multiway pots in the Main Event, but for Naoya to post it and confidently defend it. I’m including it in this countdown and giving it a pretty punty grade
71/100
AK folds in a 4bp English Paywall
As I go through the Day 1 footage, I am finding it hard to determine how many punts I should post because because most hands have several blunders. If I included everytime someone flatted an open with two unpaired offsuit cards lower than ten, this post wouldn’t be completed until 2028. So I am sharing punts from the stream tables that I find particularly interesting, entertaining or representative of WSOPME play.
This hand falls into the final camp, one tricky thing about the Main Event is there are players who if they four bet you, you should fold KK vs and there are players who if they four bet you you should never fold AJo. In today’s hand 97s raises UTG7 almost 180 bbs deep, and then questionablly four bets it when the HJ three bets. The three bettor has AhKh and flops just AK high on 4s3c3d and folds to a third pot c-bet. Folding on the flop is a losing play, but it doesn’t lost all that much … unless your opponent is the type of player who might four bet 97s. This is a key skill in Main Event poker and in this hand both the four bet and flop fold are bad, but about as big mistakes as you’d see in a normal hand on stream
20/100
Rigby Just Calls on The River En Francais
Another hand that has lots of technical mistakes. Rigby’s large preflop open. What looks like a pure c-bet, but perhaps he’s supposed to mix checks with range when he raises 4x and is live to have 32o some of the time. Kendall’s extremely loose turn check-call, his nonsensical river lead and Rigby’s just call. I get Rigby just calling on the river, he’s confused by his opponent’s line and thinks a fullhouse is possible. He’s making a read and going with it. However, I like having a variety of punts in this feature and I like reminding myself that players who have had success with crazy play aren’t always crazy all the time. I still think Kendall’s turn check-call, river lead is rather bad as is just calling on the river, but this isn’t a serious contender for Punt of the Main Event.
40/100
Wrong Read at the Wrong Time En Francais
Kendall has just lost a big pot KK vs AA and 6xes preflop from UTG+1 off of 40bbs. It folds to Siegel in the BB with TT. To me he has a decision to make right now, either Kendall is angling and busting out a giant raise with AA to appear tilted … or he is actually tilted and making a giant raise with a variety of weak hands. If it’s the latter, you need to shove TT it’s only 43bbs and there are 8.5 in the middle. If you think he’s angling, I’d still probably call unless I had a lead pipe lock read on him. If you just call preflop it’s because you think he’s strong. Well once the flop is Q77 and your opponent bets 120% pot, it’s probably time to fold TT. I think Siegel took the wrong approach playing vs Kendall here and he should have shoved pre or folded the flop.
35/100
July 4th Day 1C
Happy 250th Birthday America. Poker is often spoken about as being one of the great American games, let’s hope poker players of all nationalities will honour America by playing respectable poker. Let’s see if they co-operated.
From my perspective there appears to be a lot less dead money in the WSOPME than there used to be. I don’t mean bad poker players, there are still plenty of those. I mean people who don’t seem to know the rules of poker who are somehow playing the WSOPME. Twenty minutes into the day and Mr. Newkirk had already lost a decent chunk of his chips and then put in far too much money with the second nut straight on a paired board. I have a policy that I’ll try to write about the first KO, but I also have a policy that I won’t grade hands unless I have the complete action of the hand. Mr. Newkirk punted, but he gets a grade of
N/A
K5s tries to bluff AA English Paywall
When I am watching a Triton stream, my brain is looking for any small mistake or tendency my opponents might be making. If someone barrels an open ender when they’re supposed to check, I flag it. When I am watching Day 1 WSOPME footage, I can’t shut off that part of my brain, but I know I need to be more discerning for POTD. On a day like today, almost every streamed hand was a multiway pot with several questionable plays, however within the meta of the tournament none of these punts were all that bad. Someone flats an open with 42s and puts some money in the pot with bottom pair, sure seems good to me. Chris Moorman checkraises 77 on KK5 multiway in a spot where their never supposed to raise with the BB still to act behind, sure seems fine to me.
So there were lots of punts, but mostly from recs and nothing too egregious. I am not going to write about why Antonio Esfandiari should have called instead of shoving with his pair plus NFD. So I only have two day 1C hands to write about the hand first bustout hand of the day and the hand posted above. Sometimes when reviewing the footage, I see normal sorts of punts, someone getting too much money in the pot with top pair and they barely register. This hand was enough to get me to leap out of my chair and the usually calm Nick Schulman to say “Oh, dear heavens”.
Jamie Gold raises the LJ off 50bbs to 1.2k, the CO three bets to 3.6k with pocket tens and 125bbs, Jourdan Baptiste has 600bbs and cold calls with K5s, Mr. Orlando makes it 10k in the SB, Jamie folds, the CO calls and Jourdan calls again. The flop is Q77r, Orlando bet 7ks, TT folds, Baptiste floats K5 with a backdoor flush draw. The turn is the Th, Orlando checks, Baptiste instantly shoves for 1.8x pot. and Orlando tank calls with AA and Baptiste loses 1/3rd of his monster stack.
There are so many things I love about this hand punt wise. Let’s start with a small detail, it’s very funny that Kent made a good fold with TT and it was immediately punished by the T turn and adds insult to insult by rivering quads.. We get some great table talk with Baptiste saying he hasn’t eaten and his blood sugar is low. Baptiste has a totally insane hand an extremely loose preflop call twice an even looser flop peel and an even crazier turn bluff. Every decision in the hand is progressively puntier. I like that once Baptiste is called he takes a very long time to table his hand and when he tables stone nothing, Orlando looks back at the board to make sure that Baptiste is in fact drawing dead. I also generally like the sportsmanship involved in the hand, an absolustely wild bluff and a nice hero call, but no over the top theatrics or anything to annoying. A great hand and the leader in the clubhouse.
90/100
July 5th Day 1D
I took to Twitter to ask about this hand. Here is what I found interesting about it, this is a board where sets are the nuts, second, third, fourth and fifth nuts. Lander could frequently play AA and KK like this and Buonocore would almost never play AA or KK like this. A lot of Main Event discourse revolves around a hand where someone gets a lot of money all-in with the second, third or fourth nuts and every armchair poker player claims it was an easy fold. Well in this hand Lander, put his opponent to the test and dared him to call with the fourth nuts in a spot where Lander could easily have the three hands that beat the fourth nuts.
To the credit of people replying to my tweet, most of them were consistent. They felt that Lander could represent the goods and Buonocore was capped. I suppose that technically Lander shove shove AA and 99, and Buonocore should probably not fold A9s or 99, which means Lander should be bluffing with hands like T9s that blocks A9s, but bluffing with 65 nothing could be a totally reasonable play if you think you can get 44, 88, 99 or two pair to regularly fold. Landers’ three bet size is also too small preflop and his turn size is also probably too small. I am going to assume Lander had 65s and not 65o so I’ll say this hand is right on the border of massive punt and a genius bluff into a capped range.
51/100
Going all-in with a bad hand can never be too costly a play, if you’re on the river, well you might get your opponent to fold. If it’s preflop, you can always hope your opponent folds or suck out yourself. The most costly play is putting a lot of money in the pot questionably just to fold anyways. I do not know what Easterling had in his hand but putting in 22,000 chips on the flop and 32,000 chips on the turn, just to fold to an all-in for 6k more is as costly a play as one can possibly make. Since I don’t know what Easterling had, I will not give him a grade. However, if I were given the complete action and his two cards, this could be the type of punt that I’d grade in the 90s.
N/A
Castro shares his chips with the collective
This hand shares a lot of similarities with Jourdan Baptiste’s 90/100 punt from Day 1C. A questionable cold-call of a three bet, a questionable cold-call of a four bet. A questionable flop peel, a puntastic turn shove and getting called drawing dead. However, this hand gets a lower grade than the Baptiste punt. The cold call of the three bet with 33 is a better play than the cold call with K5s. The cold call of the four bet is probably just a winning play with 33. This is a large pot, but it’s a smaller pot than the one Baptiste lost. This hand doesn’t have the fun side plot of the third player in the hand, folding what ended up becoming quads. This hand was also not on stream and seeing a punt is always more fun than reading about one (this blog excluded)
83/100
I’ll be honest. I checked my notes. Saw no hands from the stream and figured I must have made some sort of mistake and deleted the stream hands. There were mistakes on stream, Joe McKeehen making a big hero call vs an oddly played nuts, Daniel Negreanu not four betting AA out of position for some reason, Shaun Deeb playing two hands with a two in them and making trips both times, but nothing that I felt warranted inclusion in this post. See you back here tomorrow for Day 2.
July 6th Day 2ABC
Just Calling With Full Houses Part 2
One difference between SHRs and Main Events is there is a lot less river aggression. When watching the Main Event stream I have become accustomed to seeing players fail to find an “easy raise” with top pair on the river. I don’t write about those hands. This year there has been an epidemic of people just calling with full houses that has been driving me crazy. Some of these just calls have been correct and even though not raising a full house on the river hurts my soul. For POTWSOPME purposes, I’ll hand it to the player who called with the fourth nuts on the river only to be shown the second nuts. However there were two day two updates that were egregious enough that they warranted inclusion here.
The first hand, I learned about from a Poker News update that Brett Slezak titled “Where is the Rest of the Pot?”. I don’t know the preflop or flop action so I can’t grade the hand, but when you bet half pot on the turn and quarter pot on the river and are just called by the fifth nuts something has gone terribly wrong.
The second hand I will also refrain from grading because I did not know the preflop action, but queens full loses to one hand quad fours. Elia Ahmadian could easily be value betting a straight, even if he’s not value betting a straight he has at least 8 combos of boats compared to 1 combo of quads. If you beat 88% of his river value betting range, you need to raise. Coolering your opponents is hard to do. When you are fortunate enough to do it and fail to extract max value. You have punted.
N/A
Lots of money going in the pot with a gutshot
This is a more typical main event punt. I don’t need to tell you that limp-cold-calling a three bet with 98s is a bad play. Floating the flop bet is fine, but shoving over a turn bet with so little equity is a disaster. Raising small would be a better play, as would calling. Any play that puts less money in the pot than all-in would be a better play
87/100
Sometimes players in the Main Event are over it and just want to go all-in. My advice to these players, instead of making a big shove preflop, or on the flop. Just decide to raise and three barrel if you have air. Andrew Lydon did not believe Radwan Khuri had anything when he shoved for 3x pot on the flop and called with middle pair and some backdoor draws. Had Khuri bet 25% pot on the flop, 75% pot on the turn and full pot on the river, he also might have busted the tournament— Lydon still has a hand that he can hero call with. The difference is when Lydon folds on the turn or the river, Khuri will have won money from Lydon. I tend to not grade plays that scream I’m bored. I want to get out of here, too harshly. KJ high on Q73 is a bad hand, but a hand that has some hope. It’s not like shoving 98s on AKK rainbow. However shoving 3x pot with no pair, no draw on the flop and getting called my middle pair is pretty rough
75/100
Eshaan Bhalla Catches a Big One
We have two self reported punts today and they are both big ones. In a three way pot UTG got in 175bbs on Th9h7d3d with AcKc vs Bhalla’s 8h6h. Read the tweet to see the action, but good lord this is a massive punt. I’ve heard of people never letting go of AK, but this take it a whole other level. I think this is on a similar level to Jourdan Baptiste’s Day 1 punt, but a hand on stream will always trump a self reported one. So I will grade this one point lower than the current champ.
89/100
Tony Dunst Scoops a Big One
Another self-reported hand, but this was self reported privately to me. Tony Dunst texted me to say
If you’re collecting punts:
At 1k-1.5k HJ goes 3k, middle aged woman on button with 130k calls, I call BB 94hh.
Flop: 943r one club
X, x, 6k, I raise to 18k, fold, button shoves, I call and hold vs Ac2c
This is a very big punt, but given the Baptiste K5 shove, the Khuri KJ shove and the AK shove reported above, this unknown middle aged woman managed to at least shove with a gutshot and a backdoor flush draw. It’s a punt, but not in contention for punt of the Main Event.
83/100
McMurray Calls a Shove with K9 In English
This clip begins with someone at the table saying “You can’t edge pass, you just gotta run it”. This is foreshadowing. The hand ends ends with 76 year old Floyd McMurray calling a 20bb reshove with K9o and flopping a king vs pocket nines to send David Frutchey to the rail. This is obviously a punt. I am sure McMurray knows it is a punt, but sometimes you just want to gamble. What’s even funnier about this hand is that McMurray is stone faced and doesn’t say a single word after calling the rejam and bad beating David Frutchey. This is a clear mistake in a relatively small stakes pot and I’m sure there are dozens of hands just like it that aren’t captured on stream. However this one was so it makes the cut.
74/100
July 7th Day 2D
Jeff Fenster ended up blinding out during day 3. So much like Floyd McMurray above, I think he knew he was punting here and was probably a little bored. If someone wants to gamble, I don’t grade them as harshly as someone who believes they’re making a great poker play. At least until the money gets big. In theory J4s has some fold equity here, but a cold four betting range is much stronger than a squeeze shoving all in range. So I’ll give this two points worse than the K9 call.
76/100
No grade for this one, but given the preflop cards, I can assume this was three bet preflop. When you only lose to quads or aces in a three bet pot, you should shove KK. I could even sign off on checking here if the board were say 88894 where he’d lose to 99. This is too tight, but without full action, I will not grade it. Remember to bet the river with your full houses.
N/A
Byron Kaverman is a very good player and I’m sure he knows that KK is a pure turn bet and a pure river raise. My guess is he picked up some sort of live read, maybe he thought he saw his opponent had a two sider. However whatever he thought he picked up on was wrong. Byron could talk me into this hand being a 30/100 punt and if he truly thought this was a WP poker hand I’d probably grade it a 70/100. So let’s split the difference and give this a
50/100
When you call all in for your tournament life with A3 high on KJ259, and lose to your opponent bluffing with AT high. Then you have the gall to say your opponent is “So fucking bad” (At POTD we do not feel the need to censor curse words like Poker News). Then you tell your opponent to “stop being a bitch” and to “shut up”. In my day to day life, I’ve been trying to use more creative insults, which means avoiding some cliched misogyinstic insults such as “bitch” I will make an exception here. There is one person being a bitch in this hand and it’s the guy who called all in with A3 and then whined like a baby about how his opponent misplayed the hand. I wish this hand were on stream.
88/100
Various Tight Play En Francais In English
This entry will be representative for a whole host of hands I saw on stream where people made tight folds in small to medium pots. One persistent thing I see on Main Event streams is people bet too often with middle of range hands on the flop and the turn and people fold too often to that aggression. I am used to seeing people check-fold straight draws or two overcards with a backdoor or third pair or other clear continues, but calling a three bet with QQ and then just check-folding to a small turn bet after the flop checked through on J99K is too much. It was shocking to me. It’s not the worst play I saw or even close, but it’s representative of a specific type of punt I saw a lot of.
Other similar hands from day 2D include Incorrectly check-folding top pair in a three bet pot (in French), Correctly folding an overpair and a gutshot in a three bet pot (in French). Here is my general advice, if you’re going to fold top pair postflop to a ~half pot sized bet postflop, you should not call a three bet in the first place.
60/100
July 8th Day 3
When I see a post like this I gear myself up to write about it. Honestly, it’s not that bad. Preflop and flop are totally mandatory. Kevin could also raise the flop— it’s probably a good exploit vs someone c-betting too wide, but calling is fine. On the turn once again, he can do whatever he wants. I’d lean towards checking though, AJ high should have some showdown and Kevin should have a lot of no pair he could bluff with. AK high should be a reasonable bluff catcher for the three bettor. It’s never good when you’re bluffing one pip worse than one of your opponent’s most common bluff catchers. AJ should have a small amount of showdown on the river, but most importantly it’s just not quite the right hand to bluff. You don’t want to bluff with an ace in your hand or a spade in your hand. Stick to bluffing your floats that are king high or worse. If I played this hand I’d give myself a C-, but for Punt of the World Series Main Event, it’s hard for me to go much higher than a
40/100
AK Puts a Lot of Money in the Pot
I don’t grade hands where I don’t have the complete action. This hand could be single raised pot CO vs BU. Where the CO c-bet and the BU called. The alternative is a three bet pot where the CO called Q9o pre, check-called the flop and led the turn. Either way AK is a pure bluff catcher on the turn. Calling down with AK high could be a totally fine play on a blank river. There is just no reason to shove for ~2x pot to deny equity and I doubt he’s getting better to fold. If Cai flat called pre he did so because he didn’t want to play a big pot with AKo. Well he found a way to do so and ended up getting all-in drawing dead.
N/A
This hand might seem okay or close to it. They started the hand 45BBs deep, and getting all in with top pair is not always a mandatory play BvB. Checking back the river here loses ~10bbs, by comparison that’s around how much money raise calling a jam with T7o would cost the BB here. This is a collossal mistake and he happened to run into a hand that easily could have bluff caught.
70/100
One thing that happens in the Main Event is people overplay pocket pairs because they love flopping sets (hey, so do I). Then once they flop a set they somehow don’t get all of the money in the pot. Yes Orlando Haas started the hand over 150bbs deep and yes he does lose to 6 combos of KK and JJ. I don’t care. There are no straights or flushes possible, you have a set, just stick it in and hope your opponent has AA, AK, KJ or as he had today K8.
Raising Trying to Represent a Set
I’ve done a lot of complaining about people not raising with full houses. Well credit to 2020 Online WSOP Main Event champion Stoyan Madanzhiev for saying “if people won’t raise non-nut full houses, I’ll try to represent the nut full house”. Craig Waikem takes a weird line here, to me that either means he’s bluffing or he has A9 beat. The only reason to raise here is if you think you can get your opponent to fold 22 or 5x and since Waikem did not do that, Stoyan picked the wrong customer. The way the timing is described in this update, this hand seems especially punty, but since I do not know the whole HH, I can’t give this hand a grade.
N/A
JC Tran Slowplays Top and Bottom En Francais
In my life and in poker, I like some semblance of logic and order. JC isolates a LJ limp with A3o in the CO. I don’t care for this play, but it’s acceptable and a normal WSOP Main Event play. Here is what bothers me about this hand, he flops top and bottom, what a fortituous outcome. His opponent leads into him, even better! Then he proceeds to call three times despite the fact he covers his opponent and his opponent never bet very big. The whole reason to isolate A3o is to control the pot size and outplay your opponent in position. JC did the first part of that, but did not do the second part of that. Of all the nitty river plays I’ve seen this is the most acceptable, but it comes from someone I’d never expect it from.
45/100
Grinder 4bets 42s into KK En Francais
If you four bet the second worst hand in poker and run into the second best hand in poker. You’re making this write up. However, I’ve given up making sense of whatever magic The Grinder has up his sleeve.
42/100
Welcome to the Roque Show Pt 1 En Francais
Part 2 En Francais
There is a lot of homogenous play in poker tournaments nowadays and it’s fun to watch someone play where I feel I have no idea what he will do at any point in time. In hand 1 Roque raises AQ (normal), checks back the flop vs the Grinder (a little unorthodox, but playing cautiously with top pair on A53 vs a player who, we established above, is a big fan of 42 makes sense to me.) Checking back the top two (absolutely baffling, you have top two vs the Grinder, start putting money in the pot immediately). Raising the river once straights and flush fill and you block his most likely bet/calling hands on the river (equally baffling, you got a terrible river just call). That being said playing weird and passive on the flop and turn is rarely super-duper costly so as confusing as this hand is it only gets a
62/100
I suspect readers of this blog will think I hate hand two, but honestly. It’s okay. The preflop open is too loose, especially into the Grinder’s BB. I doubt you’re putting a ton of ICM pressure on him by minraising here. However any given preflop open can’t be all that bad. Calling the three bet is also, not ideal, but it’s a very small three bet. Roque is in position, and due to the small three bet size can call and play postflop in position with a large stack to pot ratio. He use his position to control the pot size and outplay a non-expert player. I’d never fold J9o in his shoes— granted, J7o is a much worse hand than J9o, but I’m just saying it’s not as bad as it looks. Floating a quarter pot bet with some backdoors on the flop seems fine to me. He could bluff the turn, but waiting to see what Tao does on the river is okay. My biggest gripe about this hand is I really don’t like his river size. He needs to bet a size that will guarantee that Kx folds and get a lot of Ax to consider folding. His river size is way too small. It’s an interesting hand from an unconventional player, it’s still a punt, but I prefer how he played this hand to how he played AQ.
61/100
July 9th Day 4
Before we begin Day 4 punts, we have a couple punts from prior days that I’ve been made aware of
Squeeze shoving 30+bbs with Q6o is bad. I am sure Huck knows it’s bad. At least he had fold equity. Let’s give him a grade slightly lower than some of the other preflop punts I wrote about earlier.
73/100
Jesse Lonis folds a flush to a minraise
I’ve previously written about Jesse making big folds vs a river minraise in POTD #194. I don’t know the action in this hand either he check-called the flop and turn and led the river or he check-called the flop and bet the river once the turn checked through. Either way he bets too small on the river, should not fold his hand in theory, and got shown a bluff. It’s a poorly played hand, but since I do not know the action it will not be graded.
N/A
On to the Day 4 hands
Unknown Player Let's Sean Winter fold KK
Obviously part of the story of this hand is Sean’s incredible fold, but there is absolutely no reason to make such a big shove with AA here. The amateur player cost himself a giant pot by doing something stupid and got max exploited. Typically when someone punts they lose a big pot, but here the punt is preventing oneself from winning a big pot. Making a giant shove with AA is not an uncommon play, it’s usually a bad play and this unknown player picked the worst person in the tournament to try this play out on as Sean folded KK.
81/100
Four Top Pair Folds
Quatre Haut Paire Couches
A theme of the day four stream was players folding top pair on the turn. Two of the top pair folds were correct vs their opponent’s actual hand and one was good in theory (Vanessa Kade’s). There were some technical errors in these hands before the top pair folds occured. Jordan Griff, Vanessa Kade and Bradley Ruben should reraise preflop. Aaron Mermlestein should probably check the turn (unless he can get QJ to fold in which case it’s a great turn barrel). Every other turn top pair fold is dicey, except for Vanessa Kade’s which is good.
Jordan Griff’s turn fold facing an 80% pot is a very large mistake and given he was facing a loose preflop open and a loose turn barrel, I doubt it’s secretly a good exploit.
The other top pair fold was from Daniel Peraudo and it was a bigger punt than Jordan Griff’s, but it would not be the biggest punt Mr. Peraudo would make on day 4. I’ll give the two turn folds that were incorrect the same grade
70/100
Daniel Peraudo's Punt of the Day
I’ve written this before, but if you’re trying to get one pip better than you hand to fold, it’s probably not a good bluff. In this hand Daniel Peraudo is persuasively trying to represent top pair and trying to get Tx to fold. The problem is he has 88— a hand that is barely worse than Tx and should have just folded the flop when Foxen bet on the lager size.
Peraudo does have hands that he could bluff with here: 6x, turned flush draws, but if he’s bluffing a pair of eights to get a pair of tens to fold, he is bluffing almost his entire range here and that’s a problem. There are also some technical problems here most of Foxen’s Tx will be suited preflop, which means 1/3 of the hand class you’re trying to fold will have a flush draw and will never fold. The offsuit Tx Foxen has is often AT, which of course is never folding. If you want to lead all-in here as a bluff to get JhTh to fold here you can pick almost any other hand, there is no reason to shove 88.
85/100
Shoving king high no draw into three players is not a good play. This would be a totally fine hand to bet-fold, but a bad hand to shove. Radwan Khuri made a similar play and I gave it a 75/100, I’ll add two more points for each extra player in the hand.
77/100
Baron Leads the River (En Francais)
This hand is more or less fine, but I am including it because it features something that really irks me. People leading hands they’re not supposed to lead because they’re afraid of not getting max value and in the process they open themselves up to get bluffed. The solver would pure check the river with range OOP here. In solver land the IP player would regularly shoves 280% pot. In this hand your opponent is likely not playing No Limit Holdem, but something closer to Pot Limit Hold Em. You have a hand that is worth around a pot sized bet, there is no reason to bet pot yourself, you just open the door for your opponent to raise you if they have you beat or to bluff you. This is hardly a punt, but it annoyed me enough that I felt the need to write about it
28/100
Just Go All-in Preflop (En Francais)
This was one of my lessons from last year’s coverage and the first time I’ve seen it this year (on stream at least). There is a raise and a call, you have 27bbs, just Jam AKo. Please just do it. Mitchell would have likely gotten called by 99 or TT and got knocked out and he ended up getting AIPF with KK vs AA to bust a little later. He was doomed no matter what, but if he jammed here he would have saved me writing this paragraph.
66/100
Just Go All-in Preflop (Or Postflop) (En Francias)
88 with 23bbs facing a EP open is mostly a shove from the SB, but calling is a fine play. However, if you call, you do not fold when you flop an overpair. If you don’t want to stack off on 652, you could check-call just to be safe, but I wouldn’t like it. The absolutely worst play is putting in a third of your stack and folding. This play looks especially bad when you opponent shoves the flop with AJ high with no backdoors or blockers. I’ve written before about how costly putting extra money in the pot to fold later is and this hand is a prime example of it
85/100
FYI this hand is interrupted by an all-in at the other table, but they return to it after the Grinder wins with AA. When Aaron clicks it back preflop, I think Nathan should probably fold, but I can defend it. It’s a very small four bet, Nathan is getting a very good price. It’s probably not great that Aaron’s bluffs are often hands like AJo that have Nathan dominated, but I get it. However, once the 553 flush draw flop comes out he needs to abandon ship. The pot is so large it’s unclear if Aaron would even fold a hand like AJ high on the flop. Our hand is very bad and has limited ways to improve. If you had a read that Aaron was weak, jam preflop, as is just fold the flop.
82/100
E-Dog Plays like a Puppy (En Francais)
Erick Lindgren had two overcards a gutshot and a nut flush draw and he lost the hand to bottom pair. How did this happen? He bet 30% pot on the turn and 35% pot on the river. All he needed to do was bet a large size that would set it up such that he could shove the river and he would have gotten Chaudey to fold on the turn or on the river. This line is the worst type of small ball poker, E-Dog kept the pot small, but bled off chips and didn’t put pressure on his opponent. Chaudey made a nice call and made Erick pay.
67/100
Pads Fastplays a Set (In French)
This hand doesn’t lose much EV vs the solver, but it irks me for it’s inconsistency. Pads should know better. His set is a pure call on the flop (especially with a club), if you’re shoving the flop it’s because you think your opponent is almost always calling your check-shove, which means you think he’s rarely bluffing preflop. If you think your opponent is not capable of three bet bluffing preflop here, you should probably just fold to the three bet. Pads flop shove is him making a read on his opponent and it was the wrong one
33/100
Sudrania Gets Two Pairs To Fold (In French)
I love everything about this hand. Ganesan is feeling himself after doubling up with a set vs Artur and three bets 55. Sudrania calls half his stack preflop with A5s. The 55 three bet is a little light, but defensible, the A5s call is not defensible, but a fun play to witness. A5s donk shoves all in on the flop once it flops a gutshot and a backdoor flush draw, which sure, why not. You need to stack off if you check, maybe you can get ace high to fold. Instead he shoves 40% pot and gets both players to fold pairs. Artur’s fold seems fine to me, he has to be worried that two players have him beat. Ganesan’s fold is crazy. He is getting a good price and Sudrania will usually shove higher pocket pairs preflop. It takes a lot of confidence to put someone on a hand exactly like T9s and fold here. An excellent Main Event hand where most of the actions are one I feel like I could not have predicted if I tried.
83/100
I am saving the best for last. The money bubble of the WSOP Main Event is always a little weird and it’s been made even weidrer because the “bubble boy” gets more than a min cash. A min cash is $15,000 and the bubble gets a $25,000 seat to WSOP Paradise (they might also get a free hotel). All this means you shouldn’t be that concerned about bubbling the tournament, but you still want to play good cEV poker. Stoyan Madanzhiev got the memo and got all in for 60bbs with AKs vs 55. Should his opponent Gregory Brown have raised first in and four bet shove 55 for 60bbs? Probably not, but four bet shoving a small to medium pair for a lot BBs is not something worth writing about here.
Zhaken Seitbekov busted playing a hand as if he was more interested in winning a $25k seat than cashing the tournament. He did end up winning the flip and a $25k, congratulations! Zhaken decided to get 100bbs in the pot with bare top pair vs a set. However the way he did it was needless. He check minraised the turn and shoved the river in a spot with weak top pair when he was more likely to fold out better than get called by worse. A totally unecessary punt, he could have just check-called the turn and river instead of check minraising the turn and shoving the river. A totally bizarre hand. See you in the Bahamas
88/100
However the POTD and the current leader was Chris Moneymaker’s hand to bust the main event. He raised J9o in the HJ, called a three bet from the BB and called down on 87778 hoping to chop with his opponent’s bluff. There have been some punts thus far, but most of them will not be remembered all that well because there are always punts in the Main Event. Chris Moneymaker is a Main Event icon and this will never be his most remembered hand, but a decade from now I could see myself saying “Do you remember when Chris Moneymaker bubbled the Main Event calling down J9o playing the board?”. A great poker hand, Main Event punt, and a new leader in the club house.
92/100
July 10th Day 5
Not Raising a Boat, Overplaying Second Pair, Overplaying Second Pair Part 2
All these hands get an N/A, but they tell a story about WSOPME play. In hand 1 Mads Wissing doesn’t raise the third nuts on the river because he’s not sure if a worse hand will call a jam. In hand 2, Sasha Liu makes a very dicey turn checkraise and ends up bet/calling the river with just two pair. In hand 3 I have no idea what’s going on, but somehow Artur shoves QT on the river when it should be too strong to bluff and too weak to value bet (It was not the only Poker News reported hand that had me asking “was that river shove for value or a bluff). I am including these hands because of Mads Wissing’s table talk in hand 1: if you find yourself saying “I am not sure if a worse hand will call a jam” remember, it probably will. Folding trips, or a straight or two pair can often be very tough, if you have a strong full house and can minraise all-in, just do it. Thank me later.
A similar hand that had me yelling at the screen was Marius Gicovanu (Winamax) betting third pot in position on the river with a set. There is overall, very little river aggression in these tournaments, just bet big when you have a set. Don’t rely on other people putting money in the pot for you.
On the flip side you had this spicy river raise in a three bet pot where the three bettor is only really repping a questionable slowplay. Most river aggression in the WSOPME works out pretty well, but this hand just seems punty. I doubt Gannon is value betting worse than a king for this size and you’re laying him a good price, You’re not really repping much and probably rarely getting a fold. In an entry where I complained about a lack of river aggression, the river aggression is the only I will grade as a really big punt (especially because the flop check and turn call are also not good)
85/100
After it was already established Mads Wissing was a bit of a river nit Berkeley Yuan takes an odd line with top 2 that seems designed to put as little money in the pot as possible. I am not a fan, but I guess it’s not the most costly line.
51/100
Grinder Doing Grinder Stuff Part 2 Parte Une Parte Deux
A play I do not like to make off a short stack is putting in a bunch of your stack with a pretty good hand just to fold. Grinder does that twice the first time he’s right … sort of. He’s almost getting priced into call and his opponent is a huge wild card (more on that later). I just don’t get leading the flop and leading the turn here with the plans of folding to a raise. It’s obviously not a solver approved play, but it just doesn’t make much sense as a poker play.
The second play inspired this Tweet from me. Even if you think your opponent is very tight you can never be sure when someone will decide to shove a flush draw, or a straight draw or as we learned in today’s hand AQ. Grinder had a read that his opponent wouldn’t shove middle of range hands and he was wrong and it was very costly.
80/100
Hossein Ensan Chickens Out (In French)
Hossein Ensan defended 65o made a loose, but acceptable checkraise with bottom pair (I’d prefer a bigger size). Then he barreled the turn when the turn wasn’t great for him and he had a chance to bluff the river and win a large pot, instead he bet 1/3rd pot and made like far too easy on his opponent who called pretty quickly with AK on AT693. I think any bet size larger than 75% pot is good on the river, I think checking is also good. I hate this in between bet size. However, I do think bluffing most rivers in the main event works out pretty well. So even though I hate this size, this line can’t be too bad.
43/100
After straddling UTG and facing a Will Givens almost minreraise, Loai Elayday shoves 30bbs with 74o from the straddle. I know what you are think Will shouldn’t raise with A3o.
45/100
Okay, the snap shove with 74o is the classic definition of a punt. Normally when you shove 30bbs or even even in this straddled world maybe closer to 20bbs, you will get a fold and there was no exception here. Had this hand not been straddled I might have given this the cheeky 74/100, but since it was straddled this hand becomes even more memorable and I’ll upgrade it all the way to
84/100 and I’ll give an attaboy to JP Sharma for figuring out Eladay's tricks (in French)
Will Givens Three Bets The River (In French)
There are some technical things about this hand I don’t like. Will should wait until he has a diamond before bluffing the river. 54 might have just enough showdown that he can check it. Here is my main problem. Why are you three bet bluffing the river vs a guy who just snap called a 30bb rejam with ATo. Do we think that guy is ever folding a flush?
77/100
Raisning three BBs with 73o almost 73bbs deep, just to four bet it when you get three bet. Betting a high card flop and bluffing JJ. Just an excellent all around Main Event hand. People love playing the highest stakes poker of their life as if there is a 72 or 73 bounty, when there is not one. A very entertaining punt, the nicest thing I can say about this hand is that four bet bluffing anything vs someone capable of three bet bluffing, can never be all that costly compared to like a bad river bluff or call.
83/100
Questionable Turn Slowplay (In French)
This is the 14th hand I’ve referenced in this blog and it might seem inconsequential, but I really wanted to write about it. Stavila is over 100bbs deep and checks back what is effectively nut boat on the turn vs a very unpredictable player. There are times to check back a very strong hand in position. This is not one of them, you need to build a pot and you’re playing against a wild card who might aid you quite a bit. Bet the turn you have a full house!
50/100
Three bet-folding bottom pair (In French)
One of the hardest parts of the Main Event is that when most people get deep they are playing the highest stakes they’ve ever played, but they are still playing a poker tournament so they will often have 30bbs. Well if you have 30bbs and TT or top pair or a flush draw, you’re going to end up all-in a lot. Many players shutdown and let the stakes dictate their stacks off thresholds instead of their stack size. It feels like you need a really big hand to stack of for $200k in equity, but not so much for 30bbs. David Shaw made an odd check back with QQ in the hand directly before the hand I’m about to write about. Then the very next hand he three bet to almost half his opponent’s stack with As3s on Ts7d3h and folded to a shove and his opponent had 98. Turning bottom pair with some nut backup into a bluff is a play that makes sense when you are deep stacked and bottom set is a large chunk of your opponent’s value range. It is a very bad play when your opponent’s value range can just be top pair and he can semi bluff shove with any straight draw. Shaw put in too much money just to fold anyways, the worst kind of play
79/100
Two things I harp on here is just go all-in preflop with good hands and don’t raise-fold medium strength hands when the pot is really big. Paul Guilbeau managed to do both in the same hand. He was four bet by Allan Sannier and had QQ. Sannier did raise UTG9 so this should represent a lot of strength, but Sannier was playing like a maniac. Guilbeau had 50bbs and there were 18.5 blinds in the pot. He should have just shoved. He called and the flop was the dreaded ace high flop— the enemy of KK and QQ. He had 1.8x pot to play and he check-raise folded 425k of his 1.2M and worst of all Sannier three bet shoved the flop with JJ. If you are so concerned about playing a big pot with QQ, you could flat the first time preflop or on the flop. Once you get four bet there is no choice, but to shove and once the flop is ace high there is no hope, but to check-call and hope you can showdown, especially vs an opponent who probably won’t fold KK.
88/100
July 11th Day 6
There was no English youtube stream today, so I’ll just be posting links to the Winamax stream and Poker News updates. Today’s post will begin with a particular bugaboo of mine, people not just going all-in preflop.
DJ Sharma with AK
John Weiss with AK
Dutch Boyd with AQ
DJ Sharma ended up chopping with Shaun Deeb’s AKs. John Weiss ended making a pair of kings and inducing a bluff from worse and Dutch Boyd ended up getting eliminated. When you play poker tournaments you need to get all-in preflop sometimes, if you try very hard to not get all-in, especially when you do not have a huge skill edge over the remaining field. You will just be giving away EV. The Dutch Boyd bustout hand is particularly telling because after trying to not play a big pot preflop with the best of it, he ended up playing a big pot postflop with the worst of it. You, me, Phil Ivey, no one is so good that they can actively avoid not 5bet jamming AKo for 75bbs or AQo for 25bbs.
None of these hands are all that bad, but the pattern annoys me 30/100
Kevin Ordet Mishears the Dealer
Congya Zhang found a hand where one should not go AIPF with AK, when her opponent tables AA out of turn. Kevin Ordet cost himself a lot of chips because he misheard “count” as “call”. He cost himself around 800k chips in EV, there are not many 12bb blunders, but this is one of them.
88/100
Chaudey Doesn’t Squeeze JJ YouTube
Do you want to get 80bbs AIPF with JJ deep in the WSOP Main Event? Probably not. However once there is a raise and two calls, you don’t really have an alternative. I can get the argument for small balling and not being concerned with equity denial. However, if that is your strategy … stick to it. I can’t see a world where you'd want to just call preflop here, but also checkraise the flop and bet the turn. A small punt, but one that irritated me
32/100
Since this hand was picked up in progress and Hossein was UTG where his minraise might have looked like a blind and ante. I suspect that Sharma misclicked preflop here. However once he misclicked pre there is simply no reason to get this much money in the pot with J3. In these spots where you don’t want to check-call down, so you check-shove instead. Just check-call down. On most runouts your second pair will be a reasonable bluff catcher. This is a hand where all the decisions are clearly bad and the way the money gets in is rather punty, but he still has a sort of okay hand to get all-in with.
78/100
Click back wars are in. I don’t think it makes much sense to four bet a hand that is so weak it should never call a three bet. However once he does four bet here, he is almost priced in to call Elul’s shove. It’s only for ~25% of his remaining stack and if Elul can ever have a bluff here, like A5o or K6o, J7o probably needs to call. Folding J8o here would be a large mistake. I think the fold is fine by itself, but it highlights how bad the four bet is. That being said four betting a garbage hand is never all that costly and it seems to be happening quite a lot in this tournament
55/100
Chen Takes an Interesting Line with AA Poker News
I’ve written about the scourge of not jamming AKo preflop and also the scourge of click four and 5-betting with AA when smooth calling is better. There is another preflop habit that irks me, people trapping with AA when they should not be trapping with AA. In this hand Chi Chen should obviously three bet AA preflop vs anyone, but especially vs Allan Sannier. Once he flat calls preflop, he should bet the flop, but somehow his strategy to check back the flop and raise the turn gets Sannier to go nuts with just 66. After making some mistakes early on, Chi Chen has found a way to get Sannier to gift him a double and then he folds on the river. A hand that shows poor fundamentals and a poor ability to maximize a strong hand vs a blaster. I think this hand is slightly better than Guilbeau’s QQ hand yesterday.
87/100
Three Bad Preflop All-ins (and one bad fold)
Don’t go all-in with 62o preflop. Don’t three bet call A7s HJ vs CO for 28bbs. Don’t jam T2s from EP, even if Todd Brunson is at the table. Don’t (allegedly) fold AQs to a 9bb shove and 15bb reshove if the 9bb player might have T2s. I previously gave some bad preflop all-ins grades in the mid to low 70s, but stakes are now high enough that I need to grade a little harsher
77/100
It’s possible no one made a correct decision in this hand (okay I think the flop c-bet and turn jam are good). With just under 10bbs UTG7 Masato decides to steal the blinds with J7s. This is questionable, but maybe something you can get away with vs a tight BB. Konishi has shown down some very tight play on stream, so maybe Masato was picking on the right guy, but today he defended 42o. The flop is AJ9. Masato has second pair and 1.4x pot he needs to get all-in, Konishi has nut low, he needs to check-fold. Masato even bets 1.5bbs on the flop, which given the stack depth is a rather large c-bet. Konishi sticks around with a checkraise, then he turns a pair, jams and gets Masato to fold the best hand after shoving for 35% pot. This is a Main Event Magic hand. Punts from both players, it got me to jump out of my seat as I watching the hand and featured a totally unexpected result where a hand with no path to winning the hand ended up doing just that.
90/100
Two Big Click Back Wars
Soheb YouTube
TJ Reid's Bustout Hand
Both these hands seem like punts, but also seem okay. KQo and ATo are reasonable hands to four bet bluff with in a lot of situations. Once you get 5-bet they are bad hands to jam, but not if you have the right read. Neither TJ or Soheb had the right read. I am going to start with the very boring technical thing here, both of these hands just should fold to the three bet. KQo is not a hand to four bet bluff UTG vs HJ and ATo in not a hand to four bet bluff UTG vs HJ either. Just fold! Of the two plays I guess I prefer Soheb. Soheb made a read and went with it and it was wrong. TJ sat on the fence and called in a situation where while he’s getting a very good price, he barely has enough equity to continue vs Giuseppe’s bluffs.
I’ll give Soheb an 84/100 and TJ an 85/100
I began the punt of Day 5, by writing “Two things I harp on here is just go all-in preflop with good hands and don’t raise-fold medium strength hands when the pot is really big.” Well Ryan Miller did not raise-fold QQ postflop, but he managed to put in 11.5 of his 19.5bbs preflop and then fold QQ as an overpair. With 19bbs here, just shoving QQ preflop the first time is totally fine. It’s the preferred play for chips. If you want to pick a small size to induce, well then don’t fold once you induced more action. I can even understand that once Weiss four bet small, you might just want to fold right then and there. I would not do it, but I’ve been criticized for not going with my read enough when someone “obviously” has AA. If that’s what Miller did here, he would have blundered and it would have made POTD, but I’d have gotten it. Calling and then folding on 973r, one of the safest flops imaginable for QQ is inexcusable. He called almost half his stack to set mine with QQ. Shoving preflop at either time would be fine, folding to the four bet would be an error, but I could defend it. This line feels like it was created in a lab to play a hand as poorly as possible
94/100
July 12th Day 7
Chiplead to bust for Zhao Liu
Zhao Liu built up his chiplead with a really nice slowplay, something that people rarely do in the main event. Especially on connected boards. He furthered his chip lead with a pretty punty play (YouTube). He defended T2o when he shouldn’t have, he bet the turn when it’s an okay play, but his size was too big, he called a turn checkraise when facing a very ambitious bluff, so credit to him for finding that turn continue. However Liu’s river bluff with the best hand doesn’t make too much sense. Either Karakaya is bluffing on the turn or he has Liu beat with a flush or full house, there shouldn’t be too many hands he can credibly bluff with a pair and he should have plenty of hands with no showdown like 97. I also question Karkaya checkraising the turn the As blocker and then not following through on the river. It’s odd to checkraise this combo on the turn, only to give up on a great river to bluff. Actually as I talk it through I think Karyaka might have an okay hand to check-call the river with here, he beats Liu’s diamonds and missed straight draws. Good thing he didn’t.
So how else did Liu lose his chiplead he probably should have four bet shoved TT preflop and then made a very dicey river value bet in a three bet pot. Jumalon made a pretty dicey river raise, which was either repping AA to try to get better top pair to fold or an extremely thin value raise. This whole hand is baffling to me and I’ll give the whole odd hand an odd number
83/100
Liu also lost some chips in some more classic ways, he lost a preflop all-in with AK to QQ. He also lost some in some non traditional ways, such as raise-calling A5o SB vs BB and then bluffing postflop and getting called by AJ high (Poker News). I don’t like preflop here or the turn or the river. You don’t want to bluff with ace high when you are trying to get your opponent to fold ace high. You don’t want to bluff on a board with three spades without a spade. I don’t like this hand
81/100
Fed up with his tumble down the leaderboard he shoved too many BBs with Q9o on the last hand of the night to bust.
16bbs from the CO with Q9o is not the biggest preflop punt we’ve seen, but it’s not a good play
60/100
Zhao Liu made a questionable bluff with the best hand above, but questionable bluffs with the best hand were not just limited to recreational players, Dylan Smith also made a bizarre bluff with the best hand vs the unpredictable Allen Sannier. I think that Sannier is loose enough preflop that I’d have just squeeze shoved 99, but I get overcalling. Postflop is bizarre to me, I can’t imagine Sannier ever playing TT,JJ,KK like this and I don’t think you are getting him to ever fold an ace on the river. That being said, Once Sannier checks the river he probably just has air a ton, so I suspect that this bluff isn’t very costly even if I think it’s nonsensical.
72/100
Ralph Perry Calls Down with 88 (Poker News)
My general rule of thumb is if you call someone down with a true bluff catcher. A hand that beats all your opponent’s bluffs, that blocks value bets your call can never be all that bad. That being said when ThXh fills on the river, when many of Clack’s turm bluffs will have a queen in them , when shoving a set for value on the river here is honestly, a little dicey. I just can’t imagine Clack is ever bluffing often enough here to make this call close to good. It feels like the only hands he might be bluffing with are exactly AJ with a heart and even those combos don’t bet the flop all that often. This call is no good
84/100
If you three bet A2o on the button when someone that covers you raises the CO, it is because you think they will fold to your three bet too often. If that player four bets you, you should fold. They have you beat. Either way one of the two plays here is very wrong and given Todd actually had AA here the five bet just feels like lighting half your stack on fire for no reason. Which is better than Ralph Perry lighting his whole stack on fire for no reason
82/100
Before I go into the final hands here, I need to go into a little rant about the meta game of the main event. Players in position rarely bet large enough, but they do bet often enough. A very common play people make is they bet medium strength one pair hands for a small size in position for protection, value and to get cheap showdown. That means as an out of position player if you want to get 50-60bbs in the pot out of position with say a set or two pair, you need to checkraise the flop and start putting money in the pot right away.
Rami Hammoud did not checkraise top two here, when he covered Mario Boos by a healthy amount and should have been trying to play for stacks. Hossein Ensan flopped a set blind vs blind vs Will Givens who was raising and reraising garbage all tournament. Will was not doing much no equity barreling and Hossein just check-called (YouTube) a set on two streets. Both these plays are also not solver approved and just very costly plays.
70/100
The Punt of Day 7 of the WSOP Main Event
The way Will Givens plays you really want to check-call medium strength hands vs him. He does not three barrel bluff that often and when he does he’s rarely betting more than half pot on the turn and the river. After Hossein did not check-raise middle set vs him, he checkraised 88 on 932. Not only did he check-raise it, but he picked a large size. his checkraise size of almost 80% pot when facing a 40% pot is way too much money going into the pot. After Will called the check-raise a ten putting two flush draws on board turned and Hossein bets 60% pot, which is around 1/3rd of his remaining stack. Will folded 66.
Hossein incorrectly check-called a set twice and then checkraised second pair and barreled the turn with it. This is what I’ve heard Isaac Haxton coin as “backwards poker” you play small pots with good hands and big pots with bad hands, this is not what you want to be doing.
This is to me a hidden punt. Since Will folded, this hand isn’t consequential, but if Will had a better hand (or any draw) Hossein would have unnecessarily lost close to half his stack when he was chip leading day 7 of the Main Event. This hand is a very bad hand and combined with how he played his actual set. I have to give this a very bad grade. In honour of backwards poker, I’ll give him a grade that is the same backwards and forward
88/100
July 13th Day 8
Day 8 has historically been the day with some of the most famous punts in Main Event history, but not this year. Day 8 in 2026 was pretty tame. There were no massive ICM blunders, or cEV punts, no players who cracked after eight days and just went all-in with something stupid, no big meltdowns (or meltups). So today I’ll be focusing on the most interesting pots of the day and ones that still featured clear mistakes, but I’ll start with a spoiler, Ryan Miller’s QQ fold remains the POTWSOPME.
Betting Too Small In Position on the River
This has been bothering me all main event and given Day 8 featured a lot of clean poker. I’ll write about this thing that has been irking me today. Except for odd toygame boards such as TJQK2, you rarely bet smaller than half pot in position on the river in a cash game. Normally under ICM pressure you choose smaller sizings, does this mean you want to bet less than half pot on the river under ICM pressure? No. You value bet tighter and while you might get rid of some very large bet sizes, like 3x pot all-in, you will still rarely bet smaller than half pot and often bet full pot or larger. When you are under ICM pressure you’d rather secure your share of the pot then value bet thinly and risk re-opening the action. You value bet tighter, but you can still bet a large size because your threshold for value betting is stronger.
As a rule of thumb, don’t bet smaller than half pot on the river. There are some situations where people exploit the fact that they don’t think their opponent will check-raise enough and value bet say third pair blind vs blind. That is an okay, but risky exploit, but that is not what happened yesterday.
I’ll start with the most acceptable of these bluffs. Lucas Jumalon bluffing while playing the board. Lucas is credibly repping an ace here, I still think his size is too small, but he is telling a consistent story, I checked back ace high until I rivered top pair. It looks like Gagliano and Galiana (let’s call them Gags and Gals) are often playing the board themselves, so betting a size that looks like he’s trying to get called by a chop when he has an ace is consistent, if suboptimal.
22/100
Daniel Savas tried this move next. He floated the turn with ten high then had an opportunity to represent top pair on the river. Not only is he representing top pair, but on this run out it’s possible he’d only value bet AQ,AK,AJ or A5 and would check chops. So if he wants to bluff and represent an ace it’s pretty easy to do. He just needs to bet bigger. He started the hand with 45M/45BBs, there is no reason that he couldn’t just fire a bet of 9M here. If he’s called he still has a healthy stack, instead he got looked up by QQ pretty quickly. The turn call is also rather dicey here, but he put so little money in the pot it’s hard for me to call this a massive punt.
60/100
Hossein Ensan was next up betting 1bb on the turn with a straight and 1.5bbs on the river (after missing a pure c-bet). I don’t get it, it’s very easy to be bluffing here, anything worse than a pair of tens is something you could bluff with and Deeb can easily bluff catch with top pair, two pair, etc. It’s very hard for Hossein to have a thin value bet here because any thin value bet on the river is probably a hand that would c-bet the flop. You have a polar straight or bluff range on the river, just bet a bigger size. This is not limit hold em, anything greater than 2 million chips would be fine.
61/100
This hand was the most egregious to me. When Deeb c-bets the flop and check-calls the turn he usually has top pair. Hammoud has him covered by a lot and can put a lot of pressure on Shaun. They have 0.9x pot to play. Hammoud’s min value bet here is three of a kind. You cover your opponent, your min value bet is trips, his most common hand is top pair, you have a relevant blocker. This is an easy spot to go all-in. Deeb would have been put in a a very difficult spot with the AsTc, but instead Rami bet just small enough that Deeb reluctantly called without much thought. I am being results oriented here, but it feels like Hammoud was very likely to win the whole pot and then cost himself the whole pot plus an additional 5M chips. I’d have rather checked than bet 1/3rd pot.
78/100
My next gripe of the Main Event that I saw many examples of on day 8 was players not value betting, clear value bets out of position on the river. This leak is related to the leak above, when you are OOP you can bet as small as 10% pot as a value block. If you have a hand that’s neutral EVish as both a bluff catcher after checking and a tiny value block. You’d rather bet 10% to try and get called by worse than check face a half pot or larger bet and hope you beat their bluffs. However missing those blocks is a lot less costly when people often bet 1/3rd pot in positon.
Antonio Galiana missed a pretty clear value bet here. It’s pretty unlikely Lucas has a flush here after raising UTG8 and checking the flop and the turn. Antonio has a pretty specific SB range that is full of pocket pairs, the good news is half those pocket pairs have diamonds and half do not. So it’s easy for him to bluff with a frequency that makes Ax or Kx indifferent. I think it’s more likely Jumalon calls with worse facing a block than bluffs when facing a check and he never value bets worse himself. Just bet.
26/100
Similarly Michael Gagliano misses a pretty easy river value bet here— and misses a preflop fold (but at least his strategy with 87o is consistent )and a turn bet— any Jx that turns top pair can bluff catch pretty easy for Galiana. He once again has very few offsuit hands with one spade that check the flop and the turn, hell even AhKh could bluff catch on the river if he wants. No giant punty massive EV loss type decisions here, but I think three pretty clear mistakes
38/100
I will give some credit to Han Feng for attempting to bluff at this node, using the small block. However I don’t care for his hand selection here because Malcom’s UTG range is tight enough that you want him to potentially have hands like KQ. That being said on an A6549 on board, it’s pretty hard to find any unpaired hands without two broadway cards to bluff with. QT seems not quite right, but it’s fine.
So those were some macro notes on WSOPME play. I also have a gripe for BvB play. That I’ll be posting about in the #studywithsam channel in the POTD discord. Feel free to join by clicking this link. On to the other punts.
Chalk this one up under easier said than done. Once you know Rami can jam 98s here for 30bbs, you can’t fold 88. However, I think I’d have come to the conclusion he should call without seeing the hole cards. The current meta involves people inducing a little too wide, Rami had shown a lot of preflop aggression and we were four people away from a payjump. 88 is making a lot in cEV and we are not under a ton of ICM pressure yet. I would have called. I still fold 77
27/100
Mueller Gets Three Streets From Savas
Greg Mueller has a reputation for being a tight player and he lived up to it on stream, including open folding KTs and JTs, not squeeze shoving AQs in a very clear spot to do so. When you go three ways to the flop and he bets between 20-30% three times on T9893, your 55 is no good. Let it go.
75/100
We just saw Mr. Savas call down 55 in a pretty dicey spot. So why is Antonio Galiana trying to bluff him with no pair, no draw, no overcards. Attacking check back ranges is often a good play, but you don’t always have the green light, especially when an overcard that should hit Savas’s range fairly often turns. Galiana’s river bluff is mandatory after his turn barrel, but boy I don’t like the turn barrel. Wrong hand, wrong customer, wrong situation. You could say it worked, but I think this is more of a case of Galiana running into the bottom of Savas’s range than an actual good bluff.
74/100
Poker is funny, if you asked me about this hand years ago, I’d have said raising 92o over a SB limp was the punt here, but that’s just a good poker play. In theory I think playing a gutshot aggressively vs a SB lead is a reasonable play. It’s just that I really don’t think Han Feng is bet/folding here all that often. It’s easy to say when I see that has 98, but I’d have just called the flop.
38/100
Third Nuts vs Second Nuts On The River
Fourth Nuts vs Third Nuts Preflop
These were two of the most consequential pots on Day 8. In Hand 1, Malcom value bets the second nuts on the river and Karakaya folds the third. Something happened here that should not have happened. In Hand 2 Trayner made a hero call with pocket QQ and it propelled Lucas Jumalon to a massive chiplead and led to Trayner direct bubbling the August 9. Both of these hands will feature the full POTD treatment in the coming days. If you’d like to read detailed analysis of these hands, please remember to subscribe.
I’ll see you all in August for the Final Table.
See you in the Bahamas 😂
Looking forward to reading this every morning of the Main, hopefully. Just FYI, the YouTube links are geo-blocked for those of us in the US.