Sunday Special #2 Mike Goodman Returns with a Chiplead

Will he squander it? (Pictured: the other MLG)

POTD has added a new feature, every Sunday we will try to have guest columns from a variety of non-professional poker players. Where they will outline their thought process and I will comment, via footnote on errors in their thought process. This idea was presented to me by the author of this week’s post, Mike Goodman. I would introduce him, but he’s already done so last week. If you are interested in soccer you should listen to his podcast Double Pivot with host Michael Caley. This feature will be free to all subscribers and I hope you enjoy it.

NB: 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.

In my first microstakes hand for Sam’s newsletter I wrote about a situation early in a tournament. That was kind of cheating. My whole deal is that I’m seeing how good I can get at poker while not spending money on solvers and other tools. Playing pocket tens early in a tournament though is the kind of situation that even without subscribing to anything you can still look up the answer to on something like GTOWizard. You don’t have to do much extrapolation when you’re playing a heads up pot in a spot where tournament factors don’t really come into play. So, for today, I wanted to look at something different.

This hand takes place with 21 people left in an $8.88 tournament with 2100 runners. A tournament like this has something like 250ish buy-ins for first and everybody at this point is feeling it, and the tournament is now playing quite shallow as a result. Also, since GGPoker rolls back the blinds at the final table, it creates a really large bubble effect, because you can sneak in there with even three or four BBs and have a manageable enough stack to shove and get folds once the blinds reset.¹ When you’re playing from 16 down to 9 you can see some extreme stuff.

So, in this hand I’m the chip leader with 38 BBs and the villain has just doubled up to 26 BBs, which puts him fourth in the tournament. I had just done the math as the cards were dealt that if he doubled through me that would leave me 11th out of 21, should it come to that. It came to that. I get dealt A8o in the BB and decide to Do Things when villain raises the button.

Let’s get on to the hand.

Sunday Superstack $8.88 Hold’em No Limit - Level39 (175,000/350,000) - 2026/01/04 17:51:07

UTG (5,396,339): folds
LJ (11,585,935): folds
HJ (1,434,058): folds
CO (2,183,860): folds
BT (9,133,210): raises 350,000 to 700,000
SB (1,463,700): folds
MLG (13,548,126): raises 1,575,000 to 2,275,000
BT: calls 1,575,000

*** FLOP *** [8h 4d 3d]

Hero: bets 1,050,000
BT: calls 1,050,000

*** TURN *** [8h 4d 3d] [3h]

Hero: bets 1,750,000
BT: calls 1,750,000

*** RIVER *** [8h 4d 3d 3h] [9s]

Hero: checks
BT: bets 4,013,210 and is all-in
Hero: calls 4,013,210

BT: shows [Ad As] (two pair, Aces and Threes)
Hero: shows [Ac 8s] (two pair, Eights and Threes)

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What I thought during the hand

Preflop:

I have Ac8s. There are a couple of sub 5BB stacks at the table and the CO has just over 7BBs and we’re seven handed. A bunch of the times I’m just going to be calling a jam with nothing to think about. But, it folds to the button who raises. The button should probably be fairly constrained here. The combination of the SB having less than 5BBs and me having a big stack means there are a lot of bad things that can happen and he shouldn’t be raising the lowest chunk of his chip EV range.² Does he know that? I don’t know. He raises to 2BBs and SB folds.

I don’t KNOW know what to do. I do know that A8o is in the family of hands you can lean on for aggressive small 3-betting.³ The combination of an A for card removal plus relatively poor playability make it a decent 3-betting candidate in spots like this, but I’m not even exactly sure if this qualifies for chip-EV here, let alone how to change my ranges at this spot. Specifically I know that for pure chip-EV I just have a whole bunch of jams in this spot. Instinctively I think this deep in a shallow tournament I’m probably doing a lot less jamming and more small 3-betting, though precisely how I’m building my ranges I’m not sure of.⁴

Often times in a marginal situation like this I’ll just pass on the risky play if I think my postflop game isn’t really strong enough to eke out the EV that would make it profitable.⁵ That said, this one should be relatively easy to play if I 3-bet. I don’t exactly expect the fourth biggest stack in the tournament to want to play a lot of pots with me, and I’m obviously not calling a jam. And even if we do see a flop, most of the time I’m just doing my little flop c-bet and not much more.

I go for it, make it 6.5 BBs.⁶ He calls. Welp.

Flop:

Double welp. So much for stab and be done. I assume there are situations in which I’m not betting small. I don’t know what those are off the top of my head. It’s definitely possible 3BBs into just over 14.5 BBs is slightly too small.⁷ But this, to me, is the easiest decision in the hand and I never really considered anything other than small bet. On an eight-high board with a flush draw I’m obviously calling a jam. Don’t feel great about it, but what can you do really.

Turn:

The obvious play here is now to jam. I have top pair, there is slightly less than pot to play for and there are two flush draws out there. I’m a little (ok a lot) in the wilderness on what his range is here, or even what it’s supposed to be.⁸ For chips I know he can call my preflop 3-bet with a bunch of stuff. I do not know what he’s supposed to do with 21 people left in a gigantic field, when average stack is hovering around 15 BBs. And then, of course, I don’t know how his play relates to what you’re supposed to do. So given all the uncertainty I just jam right? Except I don’t. I bet 25% pot again, and it was mostly an instinct play, but the basic thought behind it was, I can’t ever fold and maybe betting small here and checking the river gets him to “bluff me off air” with enough of a portion of his range that he just folds to a jam to make it worth it. He calls.⁹

River:

I suppose there might be some river cards I’d consider folding to. Maybe a paint card that completes a flush for example, especially a Q or J, though even then for a third pot it’s hard to imagine you could ever actually fold.¹⁰ Regardless, having gotten here checking and calling seems pretty right. I guess there’s a chance he has 77/66/55 here that he would have called with and letting him check those behind costs you more than letting him sometimes desperation bluff QdJd/QhJh or whatever, but certainly in the moment I wasn’t even sure 66/55 get in there preflop and with both sets of missed flush draws you just check let him rip, and hey maybe sometimes he conservatively checks something weird that beats you¹¹

I check. He jams. I call. He has AA. Ah. Well.

What I learned from studying

Preflop:

Ok, so for chips at least I had the shape of this spot mostly right. A8o is, in fact, a hand that you use to 3-bet small a small portion of the time. What looking at free GTO doesn’t help with though is how being deep in a tournament, though not at final table ICM levels of pressure yet messes with the ranges. When we’re at 20ish players left it seems like the long middle portion of the tournament is ending, that’s when we’re in the money and there’s theoretically some level of ICM pressure, but we’re playing mostly chip EV, and the real gnarly white knuckle stuff is starting.¹² But exactly when and how much to me remains is an art not a science for me still with lots of feel involved.¹³

For chip EV there are two dynamics that I think are pretty far from how the tournament is playing. First, I think I’m jamming less from the BB. With 26 BB effective there’s all sort of stuff that gets in there, and if there were 200 people left instead of 20, it’s just pretty easy to jam JTs or A4o or whatever. At 20, man, losing those chips means a lot more. Similarly, at chip EV button calls a ton of stuff vs. the smallish 3-bet. All his suited Ks, A7o, 67s type stuff, obviously all the suited broadway combos, except for KQs and KTs which are jams. Even most of the offsuit broadways continue. One thing that I find bonkers is that QQ/JJ/TT all call the 3-bet while AK/AQ/99 are jams. I get it, for chips the small 3-bet is supposed to be extremely polar and those pairs are way ahead of the bluffing range and not doing great against the value range, but it’s still one of those things I think you rarely see.¹⁴

I don’t think that’s happening in most games at this level ever, let alone deep (and my guess is it shouldn’t happen deep in a tournament where you want to be able to rebluff more and want the good hands in your range there accordingly, as opposed to earlier where you want to be able to call more marginally and so dump your best hands in that bucket) My operating assumption here is that everything is just all that much tighter and more risk averse, so the good hands other than AA, and maaaaybe KK get jammed more, and then so do some more bluffs. But I don’t know if that’s right, I just know I’d be shocked to see a button show up with QQ after calling the 3-bet.¹⁵

Flop:

I continue to think this is the easiest part of the hand. For chips almost everything bets 25% though with a small chunk of hands like A8o and JJ you can go ahead and bet closer to half pot if you want. I think probably you can just range bet small and be fine. His continues are what you’d expect with his preflop range. Big cards and backdoor flush draws, though some of the worst backdoor flush draws hit the bin. Overpairs TT and up flat as does A8o, while more vulnerable one pair hands like 55/66/K8s just jam the flop. I continue to think that probably deep in the tournament where just winning the chips in the pot is a really big deal those pairs are jamming preflop, and if not I doubt they’re continuing to trap on the flop. But the little man in the computer says what it says.¹⁶

Turn:

Again looking at it for chips, finding some 25% pot bets here isn’t insane. Solver does that with its really good hands and then some complete air.¹⁷ A8o almost never does it though because it’s just too vulnerable against button’s range I guess. But again that’s for chips. Having found ourselves here, I suspect that trying to shoehorn in an extra street of play just isn’t worth it and the value of the pot is massive and I can jam and maybe even force two overs plus a flush draw to fold?¹⁸ And if that’s the case, then not jamming is pretty bad. That said, finding 25% here is in general something I should be more alive to for chips than I realized.

River:

Yeah, I mean there’s a third pot behind and both flush draws missed there’s not a lot to think about. It would be nice if running into AA gave us some information. But I don’t think it does. This line is a relatively easy find for AA in this spot, but sometimes your opponent will be good and sometimes their call/call/jam line will literally only be AA/88 here.

Ultimately if we’re just taking this hand for chip EV, which seems not utterly insane given that over half the field needs to bust before the final table and payjumps seem relatively small until then, I think I played it ok, with the notable mistake of not jamming the turn.¹⁹ But there really are a lot of tournament dynamics at play that I don’t know the answer to. How much ICM pressure should we understand ourselves and villain to be under, and how does the fact that the tournament is now so very shortstacked impact things.²⁰ My interpretation at the time was that I got to apply a lot of pressure and this was a fairly good way to apply that pressure. I’m extremely unsure of whether that’s right though.²¹

Anyway, all’s well that ends well and me and villain ended up being two of the three players who chopped the tournament. He seemed very solid though, and after playing longer with him, I’d probably have just not 3-bet to begin with, or at least not been quite so eager to. He seemed extremely solid and even as a final table chip leader I didn’t really see him get at all out of line, or make a borderline loose or aggressive play.²² I suspect his button opening range was probably too tight for me to be this adventurous²³, and have noted so now in case it comes up in the future. We should all punt our way to victory more often.

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 amateur 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. I am always curious how big a bubble this actually is. In theory, everyone’s stack increases proportionally so no one gains any value, but there are definitely stack distributions where the roll back helps you out quite a bit. Especially with GG’s FT manual seat selection game and especially if you have a large skill edge.

2. The SB being short stacked isn’t the end of the world for the button. The button can comfortably call the SB’s jam and the BB will often be handcuffed to play back at the button because the SB will already be all-in. That being said, the button would probably rather open big cards like K8o than 76s here.

3. It’s in the family because any offsuit ace is in the family, but you’d rather have a bad kicker. When you three bet A2o you fold out his A8o. When you three bet A8o you fold out his A2o. Had he raised from EP or MP A8o becomes a more attractive three bet bluff.

4. This is correct. A rule of thumb is that if you are 25bb deep in a tournament it might be like playing 30 or 35bbs deep for cEV. So there is more small raising and less jamming because you are effectively deeper stacked.

5. I think this is a good safeguard, but I also would encourage everyone to, within reason try out plays that make them uncomfortable, the more you do them the more comfortable you’ll feel playing deeper down the game tree.

6. Good size

7. My instinct is it is a little too small and you are letting hands with two overcards peel for a little too cheap, but with 1.4x pot left to play it’s not like you can bet much bigger. I would probably bet something closer to 1/3rd pot or maybe even 40% pot. However things become tricky if you’re never three betting junky hands that bet-fold on the flop like T7o or Q6o.

8. You always want to think about what your opponent’s range is, but sometimes you just need to think of your hand. You have TPTK button vs bb and pot to play. It doesn’t matter what his range is, you’re getting all-in.

9. I think the big problem here is you don’t charge draws enough. You’d rather make sure QdJd gets all-in on the turn then potentially set up an opportunity when they can bluff on a blank river. You can’t really fold your hand on any river once you quarter pot the turn, so you’re sort of getting freerolled by draws when you block the turn. When they miss, they can fold or check-back, but when they hit they’re getting a full double.

10. I’ll repeat this again, but you really can’t fold on the river here. Third pot is just so small and your hand is just too good.

11. I am pretty sure the way the the solver would play this hand is the BU would sometimes call a river shove with ace high and always value shove a pair when checked to (you should have AK-AJ high a lot). So with the Ac that doesn’t block either flush draw, I think you just need to shove, especially if you think he might check back A4s or 55 or other pairs. The river reflects a common spot that cuts against a fundamental theory of poker. Normally when you value bet you want to havve over 50% when called, but here if you check and face a shove you need to call everything with ~20% equity or more. You’d rather shove get called by worse 40% of the time, then check, face a shove and be good 38% of the time. You’re value shoving with less than 50% vs a calling range, but still out performing x/c by 2%. Inducing a bluff when several draws miss is appealing, but trying to get called by a worse hand is the higher EV play.

12. One thing I always like to remind myself in situations like this, with 20 left in a 2000 person tourney, you feel so close to the FT, but if you have an average stack you’re an underdog to actually make it. You’ve made it so deep, but there’s still so more to go. (Mike ends up making this exact same point later on)

13. Even for the best players it’s more art than science. ICM is a pretty simple model for something that is the industry standard that guides five and six figure decisions being made almost every day all over the world.

14. Your logic for why they trap for chips is sound.

15. This is also correct. In the GTO Lab ICM agent I am looking at KK-TT always four bet. There is also more four betting in general compared to cEV. Around 30% of hands 4bet in the ICM agent compared to 15% of hands for chips.

16. I am not sure if you get to range bet on this flop, you both have a lot of unpaired stuff a lot and you have more junky offsuit unpaired hands. He should have a pair, flush draw or backdoor flush draw a lot. That being said if he’d ever do something like fold KdQc on the flop, range betting has to be good and I’d always bet any pair smaller than QQ on this flop.

17. It is very hard to bluff all-in here because you rarely three bet suited hands from the BB. Your bluffs for chips here are just assuming that ace high is currently the best hand and closing your eyes and sticking it in. So if you want to bluff with your T7o or K6o type hands, you have to size down a little.

18. You’re never getting two overs and a flush draw to fold or at least you shouldn’t be, but if you think you might be able to do it. You have to shove.

19. I think preflop is the wrong class of hand in a way that’s rather exploitable. It feels like you were itching to make a move and picked a reasonable class of hand, except you have a lot of offsuit Ax combos. So you need to be careful to pick your bluffs somewhat systematically because if you do it based on feel, you’ll end up overbluffing or being predictable.

20. I don’t think you’re under all that much ICM pressure, but at any stage of a tournament playing a pot big stack vs big stack is something each of you should be wary of doing and ranges do tighten up when chip leaders battle. Even when the average player in the field is under very little ICM pressure.

21. I do think you get to apply a fair amount of pressure and this was all pretty reasonable.

22. This might play into your favour, maybe he’s just a guy who will always raise fold K9s, KJo, 66, etc. So three bet bluffing him will work out.

23. I feel the need to close my footnotes by saying this is not an adventurous play. Would you three bet non all-in with AA/KK/QQ/AKs here? If so then you also need to three bet bluff here that hard part if picking the right combos and having the correct bluffing frequencies, but this hand is no more adventurous then say last week’s hand where you hero called the river with TT on K9576