So I kept putting off this Week in Review post because there were so many hands to catchup with from Jeju that I was afraid the whole post would be unwieldy. Well with each passing week, each potential post becomes more and more unwieldy and I finally bit the bullet and am posting it today. Next week’s Week in Review will be more normal, but before I post a bunch of links to what I have been up to at POTD. Let’s do a quick trip summary of my play in Triton Jeju II.
I played 23 tournaments and I cashed none of them. The trip was very bad, I lost myself and some other people a lot of money. It was not the return to live poker I expected. This is hard to say with when you go 0-23 and don’t even come particularly close to cashing a tournament— in tournaments with starting stacks of 200k-300k, I never got over a million chips— I felt comfortable and I felt that I played well. I made some mistakes, but it just felt like a week where every time I value bet my opponents folded and every time I bluffed they called. Every time I bluff caught, they had it and while I don’t know if my opponents had it when I folded, I bet some of the times they did bluff me.
From a theory perspective it did feel like I had a mixed decision in a lot of big pots I played, which is annoying, sometimes you wish you just had a set when someone shoved the river instead of having neutral EV one pair hand, but alas that’s how it the cookie crumbled. I’ll get them next time. I’ll keep the rest of this introduction brief because I have a lot of catch up to do, but next Sunday in this spot the Sunday Special will return, so if anyone wants to submit a hand, feel free to do so. I’ll list all the ways to contact me at the bottom of this post. If you’d like to help me recoup my losses from Triton Jeju, $1 at a time, you can also become a paid or premium subscriber by clicking the button below.
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. The past month I uploaded (deep breath)
A PIO sim for POTD #328
A Rocket Solver sim from the turn and a PIO sim on the river for POTD #329
PIO sims from the flop and turn for POTD #330
A PIO sim from the turn and the #onemorehand sims for POTD #331
PIO sims from the turn after running three way flop sims for POTD #332
PIO sims using minraise preflop ranges for POTD #333
PIO sims with several c-bet sizes for Ben86 and where he c-bets 100% POTD #334
A PIO sim with 1k/1.5k preflop ranges for POTD #335
PIO sims that force Ike to use his exact bet sizes for POTD #336
A PIO sim using PF ranges that account for Ben Heath’s 3B size for POTD #337
A c-bet size test for and a complete sim for POTD #338
Flop and turn Rocket Solver sims for POTD #339
A squeezed three bet PIO sim for POTD #340
PIO sims that make Joao auto c-bet and one where he can check for POTD #341
A variety of HRC sims and one PIO sim for POTD #342
A PIO sims that forces the BU to c-bet and one that doesn’t for POTD #343
Rocket Solver sims for the flop turn and river for POTD #344
A PIO ICM sim for POTD #345
A PIO sim using inequal stacks for POTD #346
A PIO sim using inequal stacks PF ranges for POTD #347
A PIO sim forcing me to c-bet the size I picked HU for POTD #348
Additional Analysis for Premium Subscribers
Everyday Premium Subscribers get an extra bit of analysis not included in the main post. In Jeju this feature was called #onemorehand and I looked at a second hand I played in Jeju, but did not write about in the main post. Most weeks this feature is called #onemorething and it’s a bit of extra poker analysis. I’ll include a #OMH and #OMT below.
The #OMH is from POTD #339
POTD #339 #onemorehand
This is another three-way pot where my c-bet strategy was off, but in this hand I made what I thought was a pretty easy decision and was shocked to learn it was an error. I raised K7o (I forget the suits) on the button and was called by the SB and BB. I figured this was a very good flop for my range and I had a hand close to the bottom of my range, so I bet half pot and got two quick folds.
In a heads-up pot BU vs. SB, this is not a pure c-bet board according to GTO Wizard at 30bbs (multi size) or 28bbs (single size) or 25bbs (multi size). At 30bbs, I check 65% of the time and bet as large as 124%. At 28bbs, I c-bet more often (90% of the time), but that is because the one size they pick is 20% pot. If you want to put in a lot of c-bet volume, but you can’t c-bet a big size, you usually increase your frequency. At 25bbs, I am back to checking 54% while betting as large as 125%. This is more or less a pure c-bet board BU vs. BB, but the lesson here is the same as the one in the main hand today. If you can’t c-bet often in one of the two HU pots you might play here, you can’t c-bet often when it goes multiway vs. more or less the same ranges.
However, my error in this hand was not a misunderstanding of multiway mechanics. It was a misunderstanding of HU mechanics. I just assumed that Adrian had so little top pair here that I’d get to c-bet range. I raise enough garbage on the button, and Adrian’s flatting range is so specific, that of all the sims I looked at, the most equity my range has on the flop is 51.8%. Blocking with my hand doesn’t lose EV, but the Kx hands that really want to start bluffing on the flop are K5-K2 with backdoor wheel draws and backdoor flush draws.
and the #onemorething from POTD #348
POTD #348 onemorething
A reason why HUNL can be so tough is because both players have nothing a lot of the time. If you have a deck of cards near you, deal out two random hands and a flop. There’s a good chance they both have total air. In ring poker, at least one player usually has something, which leads to strategies like pure c-betting on certain boards. Obviously today’s hand is one where both of us had something, but my play in the hand was poor because I had a HU strategy built around one player often having nothing. A less convoluted way to phrase this is, if both players often have nothing, how can you ever fold when you have something?
The way HUNL tends to deal with the problem of both players often having nothing is passive play on early streets. 25bb HU, the button checks QJT over 60% of the time. The only boards that are pure c-bet or close to it from the button are ace-high flops and flops with trips on them, because the BB almost never has Ax or a pocket pair. On most boards once a turn barrel or a flop check-raise enters the pot, ranges are tighter than you might imagine. They start off very wide, but even the decision to c-bet tightens up ranges dramatically. This doesn’t mean that if you get heads-up that you can never fold top pair or a straight or a flush. Of course you can do it vs. an opponent whom you might think is not bluffing enough, but you can even do it versus the solver. It’s a cop-out to think “ranges are wide, therefore, I can’t fold a hand with a value greater than X,” and that was my thought process in the hand. The better way to think of this hand was, a lot of money entered the pot postflop, Fedor is never value betting worse, I don’t meaningfully block value bets any more than I block bluffs: I should fold.
Media
Since I left from Jeju Run It Once posted several videos of mine
Playing big ante cash on GG and another one
A video looking at hands that Checks down multiway and Part 2
Looking at an old GG Million$ FT of mine
Octopi has began posting Punt of the Weeks hands I wrote about using their vault.
I was on Jared Alderman’s Seeking Balance Podcast
As always, I can be reached on