Sunday Special #17 Andrew Brokos Main Event Bluff

The Thinking Poker Co-Host sends in a Head Scratcher.

My (Sam’s) thoughts are included in the footnotes. If you reading this via e-mail, it might be an easier read on Substack where the footnotes require less scrolling back and forth. Click here. On to the Sunday Special where we have a first time submitter Andrew Brokos. If you don’t know Andrew he has been:

a professional poker player, coach, and author for over 20 years. He co-hosts the Thinking Poker Podcast and is the author of the Play Optimal Poker books and dozens of articles for the GTO Wizard blog.

I was recently the guest on the Thinking Poker Podcast with Carlos and Andrew. You can listen to the episode here. I had a great time and if you aren’t interested in listening to my episode, you can listen to Andrew Lichtenberger talk about his interaction with aliens in Episode #497 and they have a very big guest coming up for Episode #500. So make sure you subscribe to the pod, so that you will not miss their anniversary episode. Speaking of subscriptions, if you are reading this and not a subscriber to POTD, please click on the link below.

On to Andrew’s hand:

If memory serves, I came into Day 4 of the 2019 Main Event as the chip leader for the entire tournament. Of course, this memory could easily be fact checked, but why risk disabusing myself of such a beautiful delusion?¹ In any event, Day 4 had not been quite as stratospheric as previous days, but I was still plugging along nicely with 2.2M at the 8K/16K/16K level. I had a really fortunate table draw for being so deep in the tournament, with Danielle Moon being the only truly tough spot.

I opened to 32K with 4h4c UTG.² Danielle called in the CO, a “serious recreational” player (serious enough to travel from another country for the WSOP, though I don’t recall now which country it was - somewhere in Europe)³ called on the BTN, and a recreational player called in the BB.

Flop (152k) Qd 6h 3h: BB checked, I bet 50K, Danielle folded the CO, BTN raised to 125K off a stack of 1M, BB folded, and I called.

Turn (402k) Th: I check, BTN checks

River (402k) Js: I bet 300K and got the fold.

I didn’t understand the theory of multiway pots nearly as well in 2019 as I do now. In retrospect, I think my range should have a very high checking frequency when I’m OOP to two players⁴, and I don’t think this is an especially good hand for making an exception. At the time, I saw multiple backdoor draws⁵ and an opportunity to push my only really tough competition out of the pot at a cheap price.⁶ I thought Danielle would have to play very tightly facing my bet with two players remaining to act after me⁷, and that if one of the others called, I could “outplay them on later streets”.⁸ That sounds a little fishy, writing it now, but I do think on Day 4 of the Main Event recreational players do not protect their ranges very well and can be bluffed off some surprisingly strong hands.⁹

When BTN raised, I wasn’t thrilled, but I also thought it was unlikely he had anything really strong. Getting a good price and with some hope of improving, already having the best hand, and/or bluffing later, I called.¹⁰

The Th was an easy check, even though representing hearts was certainly part of my plan when I called. I thought this player’s turn action would reveal a lot about how he felt about that card.¹¹ If he bet scared, I could raise, if he checked, I could bluff river, and if he bet confidently, I could fold.¹²

I planned to bluff most rivers if he checked, and the J was an especially nice one, as he could now put me on AK or JJ in addition to the flush.¹³ I thought this was about the weakest hand I could have after betting flop and calling the raise, making it a mandatory bluff.¹⁴ This might even be too large a size for a spot where I don’t have a lot of natural bluffs¹⁵, but I didn’t want to rely on a recreational player making a disciplined read and fold vs a half pot bet, so I put a little extra mustard on it.¹⁶

If you made it to the end of the post and are interested in being the subject of a future Sunday Special, let me know. Do not be shy if you have a lack poker skill or accomplishments. No solver analysis is required from you and I’d much rather have hobbyist poker players, who are good writers that can produce clean copies and clearly articulate their thought process than editing the writing of 99% of accomplished poker players.

1. The actual chipleader was Prebben Stokan. Brokos was in second place, in fourth place we had POTD subscriber and recent guest on Pablo Torre Finds Out Galen Hall. Way down in 806th place was Sam Greenwood who’d end up finishing in 45th place, which was worse than Prebben’s 21st, but better than Brokos’s 125th and Galen’s 246th.

2. If it’s 9 handed or there are a lot of short stacks at your table, this might be a marginally losing open, but I like the open.

3. Unfortunately this doesn’t appear to be Andrew’s starting table, but there was a Romanian at his starting table, so let’s say Romania.

4. It being multiway doesn’t help, but I’ll also note that even in a heads up pot vs just Danielle you’re checking here around half the time with range and 70% of the time with your hand. In multiway pots it can sometimes help to think of the pot as heads up pot. if you wouldn’t bet here often in a HU pot with hand or range, the presence of two more players shouldn’t make you more inclined to bet.

5. I don’t think you’re supposed to bet with range very often here anyways, but an important thing to consider when betting pocket pairs in multiway pots is if you can pip flopped middle pair. 77 needs protection, but can also get value from 6x. 44 needs protection, but is putting in money bad vs 6x, so it should check a lot.

6. A relatively cheap price, but third pot is still a pretty large c-bet size. When facing opponents who likely aren’t precise enough to continue more hands when facing a 40k bet than a 50k bet. I’d rather size down. I’d still rather check. Of course you can play a dangerous exploit game of betting 55k with great hands and 35k with weak hands, but you need to be sure your opponents will not notice this.

7. This logic is a little like raising A2o utg because people will respect you raise. Yes Danielle needs to play tighter, but you should also be betting tighter, because you’re betting into three people. Playing too loose to exploit someone who should be playing tight is not a great exploit.

8. I don’t mind betting too often to exploit people who are too tight at the initial node, but I don’t like building a pot because you can outplay them later. You can also outplay them on later streets if the flop checks through and you don’t need to pay the tax of a -EV c-bet to do that. This is especially true of players who will play too face up.

9. Now this I do agree with, but I think there is a difference between actively trying to create those situations and capitalizing on them when they come to you. There are also players who take a stand and refuse to fold top pair and you’ll solely regret building pots vs that player-type. Finding the best exploit in the moment is always a balancing act.

10. So I don’t like the c-bet, but I think with your two set outs, your chance to bluff later in the hand, your backdoor potential and getting 5.5:1 or so, I can get on board with the call. If you were in position I wouldn’t think it’s close at all and OOP I still like the call. However I am skeptical that you already have the best hand, unless you’re up against a big draw, which would be hard to win at showdown versus unless you improved.

11. I think this is the right attitude. If your opponent is going to play face up, finding out what they have is more important than immediately putting pressure on them. If he has a hand like 77 you should have no trouble bluffing on the river, first let’s make sure we don’t waste some chips bluffing into a flush or set.

12. Another reason I don’t really like leading here is, unless a small lead will get top pair to fold. It’s a little unclear what your river strategy should look like when he calls the turn. You aren’t gaining much information about his range or clearly folding out better. If you lead a big polar size you gain a lot of information about his range, but you’re paying a lot for that information.

13. QJ is another one and even if you need AdKd or AhKx or AxKh that’s still as many as 7 combos and AK is a pretty easy hand for someone to put you on.

14. A3s, but your hand is certainly the weakest hand you could have with a heart in it.

15. Well … you had 4h4x, so you might have more bluffs than you think here. You could have 99-77, 5h5x, 54s if you opened it pre, A3s, A6s, K6s, 76s. Suddenly we have a lot of bluffs from you. That’s not even counting if you ever wanted to do something really spicy like shove the river with AhQ or KhQ to fold out a set or two pair. I think your size is fine because you can value bet, straights and sets for a size like this, but I don’t think this size is necessary because you have too few bluffs.

16. I like this hand because I think it really nicely captures the meta in large field MTT tournaments. Someone like Andrew has too much front-door aggression because he thinks the other players are all a little too tight and predictable. The other players are a little too tight and predictable, but rather then keep the pot small, they try to end the hand right away, to deny equity and regain the initiative. This aggression does end the hand, but not in the way the flop raiser hopes it does, they put in the exact value of their hand and then ultimately fold to more pressure. The flop raise opens the door for them to get bluffed off the hand on the river instead of maybe just being able to showdown a winner if they had called the c-bet. The capper to this whole hand being representative of the meta of large field MTTs is that the guy with too much front-door aggression, who makes a loose flop peel, then says that he doesn’t think he has too many bluffs on the river, even as he’s retelling a hand where he’s bluffing a hand that probably should get to the river with way less than 5% of the time he’s dealt it. The guy with too many bluffs who thinks they’re never bluffing is a classic Main Event player type and it was nice to see Brokos step in the shoes of that player today.