Week In Review #56 April 26th-May 2nd 2026
EPT Monte Carlo started this week. It is the last EPT where Joe Stapleton will be in the commentary booth. I wrote a nice tribute to Joe’s tenure, but I don’t feel it’s quite right. Normally I don’t mind putting something in this space that I’ve thrown together quickly and is a little slapdash, but since this is a tribute to someone, I wanted to polish it up a little. Look for it in this space, next week. In the meantime you can watch this
Additional Sims For Premium Subscribers
Premium Subscribers are given access to a Google Drive folder where they will also be able to download 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. This week I uploaded
A PIO sim that follows our exact betting line for POTD #273
Several preflop cEV and ICM sims and two PIO ICM sims for POTD #274
A deep stacked blind vs blind PIO sim for POTD #275
Additional Analysis for Premium Subscribers
Everyday Premium Subscribers get an extra bit of analysis not included in the main post. Today, I’ll share #onemorething from POTD #273, where I wrote about why you need to fastplay medium strength hands when shallow.
POTD #273 onemorething
I think the way I played this hand represents a pretty common leak people have in medium to shallow stack poker that is often a good strategy in deep stacked poker. We are 100bbs deep here, and I check-call the flop and Christoph has me beat, the most common outcome is that I will lose a big pot, but not my entire stack. At this stack depth if Christoph has me beat on the flop, the most common outcome is that I will get stacked. When you are deep stacked you play cautiously because preventing yourself from getting stacked saves you a lot of money in the long run. When you are shallow stacked, you’re getting stacked when you are beat, so what you want to do is get as much money in the pot vs medium strength hands like Jx, AQ, AT, pocket pairs that will call a flop check-raise and maybe put even more money in the pot later in the hand.
Imagine a toy game where a 10 is the nuts and a 0 is the nut low. If you have an 8 passive play will make you money vs 0s and 1s, but aggressive play can make you money versus 4s,5s,6s and 7s, you’re losing all your money to a 9 or better anyways, there is no need to play defensively, try to get value from their middle of range hands. One of the first examples of this I saw in solver poker was calling a three bet in the 30-50bbs range and check-raise stacking off 66 on 885, yes you will often run into TT+, but you will also get the most value out of AK and A5s. At this stack depth I shouldn’t have been so worried about getting coolered, I have trips and 2x pot to play. If I’m beat, I’m getting stacked or losing most of my chips anyways.
Media
I recorded an episode of the Thinking Poker podcast that will drop in the next couple weeks. I’ll promote it when it drops, but you should listen to their upcoming episodes, including what I’m sure will be a great episode with Andrew “Luckychewy” Lichtenberger. Go to https://www.thinkingpoker.net/
As always, I can be reached on
I played a hand yesterday that left me feeling bad. 10% of the field was already in the money. A Brazilian in the cutoff raised, and I defended with 9To the big blind with 25 big blinds. The flop came 55Tss, so the cutoff bet 18k to 53k. I raised to 63k, he called, and then came a 4h. At that point, the turn spr was 1, which is 18 big blinds. I went all-in, and he called with AA, and I lost. I think I confused playing fast here; the flop spr is 4.5. My question is, in ICM situations, what's the flop spr limit for playing fast or slow in these kinds of situations? Do you think it's a big mistake to play it like that?