Sunday Special #26 Aaron Barone's Four Bet Pot on Day 6 of the WSOP ME

He has AK and it whiffs (Photo: Rachel Kay Winter)

My (Sam’s) thoughts are included in the footnotes. If you are 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. Aaron Barone.

Aaron Barone is a professional poker player and streamer with over 21,000 followers. With nearly two decades of tournament experience, he has established himself as one of the game’s most consistent midstakes online tournament specialists. Since shifting his focus to MTTs in 2019, Barone has profited nearly $1.5M despite not recording a single score over $60,000 which speaks to his consistency and sustained success. A long time ambassador for 888poker and content creator/coach for Upswing Poker, he recently he became a co-host of 888poker’s Main Event, allowing him to share his passion for the game with a wider audience.

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Aaron’s submission has been lightly edited for formatting and clarity

WSOP Main Event Day 6
(30k/60k/60k) (SB/BB/BBA)

It folds to Aaron in the HJ with A♣️K♦️ he makes it 120k, It folds to the button (2.9M/48bbs) who makes it 305k, it folds back to Aaron who makes it 825k, the HJ calls.

Flop (1.8M) Q♠️5♦️3♦️: Aaron bets 425k, the button calls
Turn (2.65M) Q♣️: Aaron checks, the button bets 350k, Aaron calls
River (3.35M) 2♥️: Aaron checks, the button shoves for 1.2M, Aaron folds. The button windmills over 99 as a bluff.

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Preflop -- I’ve been aggressive at this table, moreso than most and havent shown down that much. Imagine table will eventually play back, no one has yet and no one’s appeared to get out of line.

When BTN 3-bets, I think there’s a chance he’s wider than normal given what I said above. Appears to be the type to pick up on my aggression levels/make adjustments.

Have been told be some people I could just shove vs his 3-bet, and I’m sure it’s fine/profitable but I think ripping 50 BBs (Understand it’s slightly less with ante but still) after a 5 BB 3-bet is fairly bad.¹ Especially when the range is exclusively going to be AK, can’t imagine wanting to use hands as strong as AA/KK or as weak as 99/TT. ²

Another reason I decide to 4-bet is to give him a chance to 5-bet shove something like A5ss. Given my image/position I think it’s possible he rips in that sort of a hand, at least at some frequency, which increases the equity of 4-betting non all in.³ My sizing is 14 BBs, which I think is fine, given I’m OOP. He calls.⁴

Flop: Seems reasonable to bet range here for a tiny size. Have AA/KK/QQ at full frequency, most of my bluffs are wheel Aces with equity. King of diamonds could lead me to bluffing certain runouts as well.⁵

Bet roughly a quarter of the pot, he calls.⁶

Turn: Thought about betting again, simply because I’m blocking his strongest hands (AA, KK, AQ). Wasn’t sure if I’d make that many better hands fold, if TT/JJ peels pre and calls flop, this card shouldn’t deter them from continuing again— Even though in theory my decision to bet again should be a concern, that’s not always how people think.⁷ End up checking, my opponent bets 350 and I find myself counting up the size of the pot. End up at 2.7 Million, which means I’m getting 10-1. Thought the price was too good for following reasons:

1) He could have JJ/TT and my A/K outs are good

2) He could have KK and my Ace outs are good

3) He could have a worse hand and is probing / I dont know if he’ll shut down river

4) He could even have the same hand⁸

General plan though is to call / fold most rivers. I call.

River: 5. I check, he shoves 1.2M into 3.4M.

Initially I was just posturing. Bad river because it does complete a wheel Ace, which was potentially one of the bluffs I beat. At this point I’m 100% folding.

But as I sit there for a few seconds, I feel him getting more uncomfortable. Not a live read guy so wont pretend I’m an expert, but the longer I took the less comfortable he seemed to me. Started thinking about what value hands would take his line -- 3 bet pre, call 4 bet, and then bet small turn/shove river. Jacks/Tens felt way too thin.⁹ Even Kings might not bet at full frequency, not sure. Didn’t expect many Qx to 3 bet pre and then call a 4 bet. If that’s true, I’m left with AA, AQ, QQ as slam dunk value shoves -- I block two of those combos and there’s only one combo of quads.¹⁰

Think about this for longer than I expected, and then consider what an amazing price I’m getting. In a few minutes I’ve gone from 100/0 (100 being fold, 0 being call) to 55/45. Price is insanely good, his value range is super narrow / I block it, and if I’m wrong I’d be left with something playable, in the neighbourhood of 10-15 BBs. Ultimately I fold, going back to what I thought about earlier, the river completing another potential bluff. The thought of him turning a pair into a bluff didn’t cross my mind, if I’d have considered that I probably would have folded a bit sooner.¹¹

I fold, he windmills 99 for the ‘bluff’ and TJ Reid makes it a point to tell the table there’s no way I folded better. :)¹²

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. What’s tricky here is that shoving 50bbs with AKo facing a three bet out of position is the standard solver play. Depending on the sim you look at it’s the play 80-90% of the time. Of course that is usually vs a 6-7 BB three bet where you’re shoving 48bbs into a pot of 11bbs or around 4.3x pot. In this hand you’d be shoving 46bbs into a pot of 9.5bbs, which is closer to 5x pot.

His small sizing makes this hand deeperstacked but the fact he started with 48bbs instead of 50bbs lessens the effects of his small sizing. Shoving 48 vs a small size would be roughly equivalent to shoving 55bbs vs a big size in cEV. However neither of you is playing cEV ranges here, you are deep in the WSOPME and your preflop stack off threshold should be tighter than the equivalent 50bbs (or 48bbs) cEV.

2. The other hands in your range would be pairs like 99-JJ, but also some suited wheel aces. I can see the case for not wanting to shove those hands in this spot. I can also see the argument that you don’t want a shoving range that is just AK, but the key question here is. Does he know your shoving range is only AK? If not it might not matter.

3. Given the EVs of shoving and non-AI are similar the key questions here are. Is he live to five bet bluff shove? Is he live to hero fold a big pair and if so what’s the best way to get him to do that? It sounds like you decided number 1 is the case and given your history with him I’ll defer to your judgement.

4. The sizing does sort of scream AK or JJ and is a little big, but if he doesn’t know it doesn’t matter.

5. You’d be surprised to see how often preflop aggressors check in four bet pots. Both players should have a lot of AA and KK here and the bottom of the four betting range is weaker than the bottom of a four bet calling range. This is not the case in this hand. This board is a pure c-bet, especially with the Kd, which gives you cleaner pair outs, blocks some of his flop continues and gives you some added equity.

6. Cheating down a little on size here would not be unreasonable. Some players play fit-or-fold on the flop deep in the main event and are never continuing KJ no flush draw no matter what.

7. You can’t get better to fold, but you can fold out hands with equity or push linear equity vs draws. You also have a hand that can still bluff some rivers or check-call some others. In three or four bet pots it’s very common to take a lot of different postflop lines with AK high so that your range at one node isn’t full of AK high. All of this is to say, betting is fine and checking is fine.

8. I think all these reasons are sound, but I think you are likely discounting the odds that you have the best hand right now, which is the main reason you need to call here imo, especially vs such a small bet, only 10% pot.

9. With the caveat that this is deep in the Main Event and things change. JJ and TT are not too thin. They are clear value bets. Checking JJ on the river here is depending on the sim is a 4-5 BB blunder. Will someone find this a thin value bet deep in the Main Event? Probably not, but it’s a play I’d expect to see in a SHR.

10. I’d also give him some weight of other Qx hands. Hands like KQs or QJs, but I do agree that if you think he’s KK+ for value he has a pretty narrow value betting range and you’re blocking most of it.

11. I wrote about how one of the tricky things about three and four bet pots is navigating spots where so much of your range is AK high. Well in this case he should be able to value shove any pair better than 5x pretty comfortably. From a live read perspective, I think it’s worth considering what his nerves mean. Is he nervous because he’s bluffing? or is he nervous because he’s value betting thin and might get called by better? In spots like that I like waiting my opponent out, making it clear I am thinking of making a very big call down and see if that causes them to calm down at all.

12. Of course the other consideration here is that your opponent might not exactly know what he’s trying to do or why he’s trying to do it. In any form of poker if you are unsure if your opponent understands value betting thresholds, I do not recommned making big river plays versus them. Don’t fold a set and don’t call bottom pair vs someone who might be overplaying top pair, even if it’s close in theory.

In this hand despite what he’s declared after the hand it’s still unclear if he was bluffing or value betting or betting without a plan and then deciding after the fact what his play actually was. The fact that he’s so unpredictable makes me like the fold, in spite of the accurate, live read. Of course the devil’s advocate take here is the solver is supposed to value shove 99 anyways, so if he checks hands like TT,JJ,KK and still bluffs all his missed draws, while only occasionally betting with 99-66 and 5x, maybe you do just need to flick in a call, especially if you can discount trips due to his nerves.

If I played this hand, I’d have shoved preflop. 5x pot is just not that much to shove and in my experience in the Main Event people hate calling all-in flipping which means you might get JJ or QQ or AK to fold and it’s hard to do better than that 5-bet shoving AK. However you seemed to have a good read on your opponent and the fact that he bluffed 99 when the Q paired on the turn makes me side with your preflop line. If he’s bluffing 99 he thinks you have KK+ a lot, which means you succesfully polarized your range preflop in a way where you might get him to do something aggresive preflop (5-bet bluff shoving) or crazy postflop like “bluffing” with a hand that’s making several BBs as a value bet. You could have done things differently, but this hand is WP