Week in Review #17 July 13th-July 19th
We countdown the top 10 Punts of the WSOPME
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After 14 days of reading every PokerNews update, watching (fastforwarding through at roughly 12x speed) every livestreamed hand across all three feature tables, and occasionaly getting hands reported to me from people on social media. I have narrowed it down and picked my top 10 punts of the WSOPME. If you’d like to read all of the contenders you can do so here. We have six questionable folds and four questionable all-ins, oddly we do not have any calls represented in the top 10, maybe because I am a calling station at heart.
The Grinder Open Shoves 19bbs with AJo Hand Starts at 0:6:30
This is not a top ten error in terms of big blinds lost, or money lost or even playing a hand illogically. It’s a bad play. You never shove 19bbs UTG with anything, and if you were forced to AJo would rarely be in there, but AQo would be. Being off by one pip is not so bad. However this was in a clear punt, but most importantly is was one of the hands of the tournament, Wasnock doubled up and would end up finishing in second place and Mizrachi lost, but took his 3bbs and spun them into gold. It might not be the biggest punt, but it’s certainly one of the most memorable
A Big Fold with Trips Hand Starts at 3:48
I am including this hand, because I feel this is type of punt that I would be most likely to make. Buhaiov qualified on GG and given that and his Hendon Mob history, I think Buhaiov is a pro. He finds a turn lead that looks like it could be a play, but it’s actually a spot where he is supposed to check range and everything goes off the rails from there. It’s also a classic type of Main Event punt where someone puts in the exact value of their hand, then totally ignores pot odds and blockers and concludes, I am never being bluffed here. Occasionaly one is right, and their opponent never is bluffing, but we know this is not one of those spots.
Chopped Pots Can Still be Punts
Number ten on the list was a pot where at the end of the day both participants were happy with the outcome and number eight is the same. To quote Joe Stapleton and James Hartigan “everyone loves a chopped pot” and I am no exception. A classic Day 1 of the Main Event hand is someone getting way too much money in the pot with a good hand, but not one worth 300bbs. I often feel bad when I see these hands. This poor player is playing the biggest tournament of their life and busted in a totally preventable spot 30 minutes into the day. They didn’t even finish their water. In this hand both players get in way too much money, way too quickly, but neither busted the tournament because they chopped. Brett Feder ended up busting a former main event champion, while Mark Blake finished in 621st place and collecteds $27,500 for his efforts. GG to both of them
Folding KK facing a three way all-in
If hand number eight is about players not realizing how many big blinds 300 is, hand number eight is about realizing how few blinds 65 can be. O’Brien just flats his KK in a spot where he should three bet and then somehow ends up folding to two all-ins and is shown hands much than KK. Bonus points because he saw his opponents cards and the clean runout for KK and bonus points on top of that because Tristan Wade almost ran down from the booth and handed him a Punt of the Day trophy.
Preflop Flop Hand begins at 2:59:53
I want the punts I select to represent the 2025 WSOPME and unfortunately that means I need to include hands featuring Will Kassouf. Captain Thomas Kelly has one cash in his Hendon Mob, this WSOPME. He had 30bbs and a guy opening 95o UTG8 raised and was three bet, you need to go all-in with QQ and then you need to at least call one bet on the flop. Kelly is a firefighter who I assume can keep calm under pressure, but he’s never had to dealt with the horror of being at a poker table with Will Kassouf for 8 hours. So I will forgive him for punting and congratulate him on his first cash.
In the intro for POTWSOPME, I wrote that hands where multiple invidiuals punted will be ranked higher, so I need to note that Kassouf played his nine high like an idiot.
Nex folds a straight Hand starts at 4:02:00
Look this is a really bad fold and is inexplicable because if you’re thinking of folding on a board pairing river, you should raise the turn. However, Schulze’s most likely hand to play this way would be 55/44. It’s a really bad fold, but when you face an overbet where you lose to your opponent’s most likely value bet, it’s a really big punt, but not big enough to medal.
Will Kassouf quietly folds a straight in 10 seconds Hand Starts at 45:00 mark
In the write up for hand number six, I implied it’s more pleasant to put out a blazing inferno than sit at the same poker table as Will Kassouf and said he played his hand like an idiot. So I’ll be kind to him here, it was very unfair that the WSOP Floor Staff but him on a 10 second clock this deep in the main event. Had Kassouf not been under time constraints this would be a contender for POTWSOPME, but he folded a straight when he literally might have the best hand 100% of the time. That’s hard to top.
Since we played this game for number six. I also need to say Josh Beckenstein punted here as well. He has a pure check-fold on the flop and cbets and his river lead all-in makes no sense. Will Kassouf on a 10 second clock might be the only player in the field who believes Joshau is check-calling the turn with a set of aces, tens or queens. Otherwise Josh is only reprsenenting two combos of A5s in a spot where his most likely hand on the turn is weak top pair or a pair with a gutshot. On the 5 river he even chops vs better Qx. Congrats on the cash and bluffing Will Kassouf, but this is not a well played hand
A chipleader wrecking their chiplead at breakneck speed will always catch the eyes of rubber neckers. This punt begins simply enough with a brutal cooler that could not be prevented, but the hand afterwards sure could. There is just no reason to lead the turn or to shove a bare straight over a turn raise. This is one of those spots where the highest EV plays are the ones that involve you putting less money in the pot. Fold > Call > Raise. The only reason shove is not that costly vs a solver is because the play is never used and if you force it to shove it plays a strategy of shoving some bare Ac hands and some nut flushes, which causes IP to fold some flushes, but occasionaly call all in with a set. A totally preventable and extremely large punt, gets the bronze.
We Reach a Final Table of 9 Hand Starts at 4:41:00
There are many legendary final table bubble hands and usually they fit one of two profiles. “I can’t believe this guy wants to make the FT so bad, that he folded KK” or “I can’t believe this guy got all-in with QQ vs this guy who wants to make the FT so bad he’s probably folding KK”. Joey Padron had been very snug all tournament, he folded JJ and TT preflop in some questionable spots, he coolered Michael Mizrachi, but Grinder tanked for a long time and after the hand said he considered folding KK. Then after 8 long days of poker Joey Padron decided that A6o was the hand to go all-in with after and UTG raise 10 handed and UTG7 flat. I think he he is always dominated by one of the two players and never gets a shove through. He lost his mind.
However there is some additional main event magic to this hand, Bojovic does not backshove AK preflop, which is an odd move. Had he backshoved AKo preflop, Wasnock folds his 88. The board double pairs, Padron and Bojovic chop, a butterfly flaps it’s wings in Brazil and the whole FT shakes out differently.
Afriat Folds a Full House Clip Starts at 2:55:00
I graded this an 100/100 at the time and am still baffled by it. He folded a hand he should comfortably three bet for value. To compare it to some of the other big folds we saw during the WSOPME, Veloso’s river raise was twice as many chips as Schulze’s river bet with Kh3h that got 76o to fold. Afriat announces he has a full house so we know he is not misreading his hand. The raise isn’t even that large or for stacks. Afriat needs to have the best hand 25% of the time in order for calling to breakeven. In his table talk Afriat thinks his opponent could have KK, which should always three bet preflop, but especially three bet preflop vs someone raising 86o in the CO. This is in my opinion, undoubtedly the Punt of the Main Event.
Testimonials
Many of the compliments I’ve recieved have for POTD been for my poker analysis, but it’s always nice to see praise for something I am much less confident in, my writing. Several people said some kind things about my writing and sense of humour this week and they are shared below
"You’re a great poker player but mostly cause you seem like a very good writer and i enjoy reading good writing."
Naturally the strategy content here is A+++ but Sam is also a tremendously funny writer.
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Additional Sims For Premium Subscribers
Premium subscribers get the raw files of sims I used to write my POTDs, sims that are more accurate and appropriate than equivalent sims in the big public libraries, videos of me walking through the sims, and a text summary of how I ran the sims. This week I uploaded:
A PIO sim of the actual flop and one from a different flop where my line is used
Three PIO ICM sims that give Melika different strategies
Two PIO sims that compare strategies using GTOLab vs GTOWiz PF ranges
An HRC sim that analyzes what Kenny Hallaert should have done with AK
A PIO ICM that analyzes what the biggest pot of the WSOPME
Additional Analysis for Premium Subscribers
Everyday Premium Subscribers get an extra bit of analysis not included on Substack. Today I’ll share #onemorething I posted about POTD #82. I wrote about how to play versus players who are unknown and unpredictable
I want to talk about how VIPs and unpredictable players play in general. If you are a studied poker player that is trying your best and executing well there will be a consistent internal logic in how you play. You should not raise the HJ with KTo in one orbit and fold KJo the next orbit. Oftentimes the quality that makes someone a VIP is that lack of internal logic, which means it’s important to not overweight individual datapoints from their play. You must constantly observe them and update your reads accordingly.
If you see someone raise 86o UTG, that likely does not mean they are opening 70% of hands UTG, it means they probably play too many offsuit connectors from everywhere, it means they sometimes get bored and make weird plays. Just because they aren’t systematic does not mean they cannot be figured out there are two types of deviations you need to learn to make versus these types of players, one is a Bayesian type of “I know a set, is supposed to mix in EQ, but I can never fold a hand with this hand strength to such a wild card”. The other is basic observing of tendencies: if they haven’t played a pot in a while is it because they’re bored or because they’re watching a sports game on their phone and they’re sufficiently entertained enough that they don’t need to raise 86o UTG to alleviate their boredom. If someone can raise 86o UTG, your job is to figure out when they’ll raise 86o utg.
Media
I had a ~15 minute radio hit on Jays Talk Plus my segment starts at 1:22:10 and I talk about parallels between poker and baseball and the 2025 Toronto Blue Jays. As someone who has been listening to Jays Talk on the Fan 590 my entire life it was truly an honour to be on with Blake and Julia
Two mainstream media writers who have frequently written very well about the poker and gambling worlds are Jay Caspian Kang and David Hill. David has launched a Substack and a podcast to promote his new book and the first episode of the podcast dropped this week. Jay and David discuss National Football Lottery a wild Larry Merchant book from 1973 where moves to Las Vegas for an NFL season and gambles with his book advance. Jay and David both say that the book isn’t as fun as it’s premise, but the podcast episode is more fun than it’s (good) premise and a must listen for anyone in the poker and gambling worlds. Listen to it here. You should also read David’s Rolling Stone feature on the state of gambling in 2024.
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