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www.CardPlayer.com Vol. 34/No. 3January 27, 2021
Shifts In Poker Strategy
With Ping Liu
Bet Sizing For Premium
Pocket Pairs
Kentucky Wins $1.3 Billion
Lawsuit Against PokerStars
DAMIAN SALAS WINS 2020’S EXTRAORDINARY WORLD SERIES OF POKER
$10,000 BUY-IN MAIN EVENT
FIRST-EVER ARGENTINIAN WORLD CHAMPION TRIUMPHS IN EVENT MARRED
BY DELAYS AND PLAYER DISQUALIFICATIONS
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6
Table of Contents - Card Player Vol. 34/No. 3
CARDPLAYER.COM VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3
Features18
Damian Salas Wins 2020’s Extraordinary World Series of Poker
$10,000 Buy-In
Main EventBy Erik Fast
22Shifts In Poker Strategy With Ping Liu
Poker Pros Revisit Hands From The Past To Show How The Game Has
Changed
By Steve Schult
The Inside Straight8
Poker News Recap
12Player Of The Year Update
By Erik Fast
16 Head Games: Proper Bet Sizing With
Premium Pocket PairsBy Craig Tapscott
Strategies, Analysis & Commentary
26What Will We Remember About The 2020
WSOP Main Event?By Gavin Griffin
27WWFD?
By Greg Raymer
28How I Got Banned For Life From The
Golden NuggetBy Houston Curtis
30Discovering LeaksBy Nathan Gamble
31Transitioning From Live To Online Poker
By Jonathan Little
Also In this Issue6
About Us
33Tournament Schedules
34Poker Leaderboards
Tournament Hand Matchups
16Michael Deinlein vs. Anton Siden
27Samuel Vousden vs. Luc Van Der Beek
29Manuel Ruivo vs. William Kassouf
32Manuel Ruivo vs. Samuel Vousden
18 22
16
Cov
er ©
WSO
P.co
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CARDPLAYER.COM 8 VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3
THE INSIDE STRAIGHT
INSIDE STRAIGHTNews, Reviews, and Interviews From Around the
Poker World
the
Sign Up For Card Player’s Free Poker School.
Review Hundreds of Articles and Videos On Winning Poker
Strategy.
www.CardPlayerPokerSchool.com
AS GRUDGE MATCH HITS HALFWAY MARK, DANIEL NEGREANU PUTS A DENT
IN DOUG POLK’S LEAD
By Steve Schult
After being down nearly seven-fi gures to Doug Polk, Poker Hall
of Famer Daniel Negreanu won several buy-ins over the last few
sessions of their high-stakes grudge match to fi n-ish the year
down slightly more than $770,000 as their high-stakes grudge match
reaches its halfway point.
Polk had been up more than $957,000 through 9,950 hands head-ing
into one of their mid-December sessions. Up to that point, the
gen-eral consensus was that Negreanu was running poorly, having
been on the wrong end of several coolers. Even Polk admitted as
much.
But Negreanu won $143,642 over 834 hands in a marathon session
to cut Polk’s lead to just over 20 buy-ins. After Negreanu’s
victory, the duo took some time off to play the online portion of
the $10,000 World Series of Poker main event, but came back in late
December to play three more sessions before the year’s end.
� e six-time WSOP bracelet win-ner won another $117,962 on Dec.
21 to bring the defi cit below $700,000, but Polk won nearly all of
that back in their penultimate session on Dec. 23. After a break
for the holidays, Polk and Negreanu played one fi nal session on
Dec. 28.
Negreanu won roughly a buy-in of $40,000 in the fi nal session
of 2020 before stopping exactly at hand no. 12,500. � rough the
halfway point of their 25,000-hand match of $200-$400 heads-up
no-limit hold’em, Polk
now offi cially leads by $770,254. “We kind of thought it made
sense
to stop at the halfway point and readjust, see if we want to
continue playing or not.” said Negreanu after the match. “It’s kind
of a good time because our next match isn’t until Jan. 4 and we can
decide, will the match continue?”
According to the agreed-upon terms of the match, the player who
is down at the halfway point has the option to quit. With Negreanu
down slightly more than 19 buy-ins, he has the right to stop
playing and cut his losses, if he wants.
When asked if he was going to keep going, however, Negreanu
seemed optimistic and made it look like the show would go on.
“It’s [like] a football game at the
half. If you were down 49-0 against a really good team, you
might go ‘You know what, guys? Let’s pack it in for the second
half. Let’s not get out there. Let’s go have some beers.’ But I
don’t think it’s quite that bad,” said Negreanu. “It’s 19-0. He’s
up 19 points. � ree touchdowns is what I need, and that’s
essentially what three big winning sessions could look like. If you
play longer sessions, you can win 10, 12, 15 buy-ins, especially as
the stacks get deeper. I’m going to have to run really hot to win
the match, but he did that in the fi rst half. As the match went
longer, I started playing better and better. � e version of me
today is not the same version of me in the fi rst week.”
In a tweet promoting a stream of the match, Polk also made it
seem like
Doug Polk Daniel Negreanu
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KENTUCKY WINS $1.3 BILLION LAWSUIT AGAINST POKERSTARS By Steve
Schult
the pair would be playing more heads-up poker in 2021.
“We will be hitting the 12,500-hand mark today. Will DNegs tap
out? Tune in to find out!” tweeted Polk.
But in a follow-up post of the thread, Polk simply wrote, “No,
he won’t.”
Despite Negreanu winning a buy-in back in their most recent
session, Polk was in the driver’s seat for nearly
all of it, winning more than three buy-ins before running a
couple massive, unsuccessful bluffs.
With $20,000 in the middle, and the board reading A� J� 9� 7�
4�, Negreanu checked and Polk moved all in for about $60,000 with
8� 2�. Negreanu quickly called and showed the nut straight to take
one of the biggest pots of the match. He won a few more pots and
ended the day in
the green. �e bluff caught the attention
of four-time bracelet winner Shaun Deeb, who needled Polk that
the play must have been a setup to keep Negreanu playing the second
half of the match.
“Nice to see [Doug] punting today to make sure Daniel has a
winning ses-sion and doesn’t quit at 12,500 hands,” tweeted Deeb.
�
On Dec. 17, the Kentucky Supreme Court reinstated a 2015 ruling
from a Franklin Circuit Court, ordering PokerStars to pay roughly
$1.3 billion to the state.
�e suit was originally filed in 2010 by Kentucky Justice and
Public Safety Cabinet J. Michael Brown, who now serves as Gov. Andy
Beshear’s executive cabinet sec-retary, for $290 million against
the online poker site. �e suit claimed that the site was operating
illegally inside the state’s borders and that 34,000 residents
deposited on the site and lost nearly $300 million.
Franklin Circuit Court Judge �omas Wingate ruled in favor of the
state in 2015. After the state requested trebled damages, Wingate
ruled that the site owed the Kentucky government $870 million.
�e Stars Group (TSG) appealed the ruling, and in 2018, a
Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed Wingate’s decision. In Kentucky,
anyone can sue “winners” to recover lost wages in a game of chance,
but the court ruled that the state itself can’t sue on behalf of
its citi-zens.
State officials decided to re-appeal the case and took it to the
Supreme Court, where they received a 5-4 ruling in their favor
�ursday. �e court agreed with the origi-nal ruling from Wingate and
determined that PokerStars is on the hook for the $870 million.
After the state asked for an additional 12% in interest payments,
the total fine came to $1.3 billion.
Although Beshear himself called on lawmakers to pass internet
gambling legislation earlier this year, he called the actions of
PokerStars “irresponsible” following the ruling.
“�is will never be enough to make up for the damage to Kentucky
families and to the state from their years of irresponsible and
criminal actions, but this is a good day for Kentucky,” said
Beshear.
His pro-gambling stance was a cornerstone of the 2019
Gubernatorial race as he promised to bring brick-and-mortar casinos
to the state, while former Gov. Matt Bevin made wild claims about
nightly suicides occurring at casinos. Since Beshear’s victory,
however, there hasn’t been any progress on gambling
legislation.
Once the court order is finalized, the state will pursue payment
from PokerStars. �e site is expected to pursue other legal options,
but acknowledged to investors that it would have to pay at least
some part of the massive fine. Such a blow could have crippled
previous ownership groups of the company, but Flutter
Entertainment, the parent company that purchased TSG in May of
2020, has the revenue to survive the hit. Flutter reported revenue
of $2.9 billion in 2019, while TSG earned $2.5 billion.
PokerStars operated in the U.S. in what many would describe as a
legal grey area following the 2006 passage of the Unlawful Internet
Gambling Enforcement Act. It left the market in the wake of Black
Friday but returned in a limited fashion in 2016 after receiving a
license to operate an online poker site in New Jersey. �e company
expanded into Pennsylvania’s recently legalized market in 2019, and
was approved by the Michigan Gaming Control Board in December.
�
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CARDPLAYER.COM 10
THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - News, reviews, and interviews from around
the poker world
VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3CARDPLAYER.COM 10
THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - News, reviews, and interviews from around
the poker world
Nebraska Casinos To Launch In Late 2021By Steve Schult
Expanded gambling will launch in Nebraska in late 2021 with
full-scale casino gambling scheduled to launch in early 2022,
according to one of the largest operators in the state.
Ho-Chunk, Inc., the incorporated version of the Ho-Chunk tribe,
which operates three existing horse rac-ing tracks in the state,
announced that it has launched a separate division of the company
to operate the new casino.
�e Wisconsin-based tribe, which runs several casinos in its home
state, created WarHorse Gaming, LLC to run casino-style gaming in
the Cornhusker State, according to a report from a Nebraska NBC
affiliate.
WarHorse Gaming, LLC will oversee operations at Horsemen’s Park
in Omaha, Lincoln Racecourse in Lincoln and Atokad in South Sioux
City. WarHorse management began the initial planning stages and
told the local media its anticipated time frame for the rollout of
casino gaming.
“�is is an exciting time for Nebraskans,” said WarHorse Gaming
Executive Director Brian Chamberlain in a statement. “Our team is
working tirelessly to bring first-class gaming and entertainment to
the state. �ough there is still a great deal of work to be done,
we’re excited for the chance to bring a new industry to the state,
and with it, an entirely new source of tax revenue and career
opportunities.”
�e measures will bring poker to Nebraska for the first time in
state history. Poker players were forced to travel to neighboring
states to play in legal, regulated live games. Iowa was a popular
destination as there was a Caesars-owned property near the
Nebraska-Iowa border in Council Bluffs, which was home to a World
Series of Poker Circuit stop every year.
Last month, voters in Nebraska were one of five states that
overwhelmingly supported expanded gaming initia-tives in their
state. With November’s results, Nebraskans decided that
casino-style gambling could come to horse racing tracks, which were
already legal.
�ere were three separate initiatives regarding casino gaming on
the ballot. One would amend the state constitu-tion to allow
gambling and the other two dealt with how the tax revenue would be
distributed.
Despite all three passing with a 64% majority on Election Day,
it was a bumpy road to get there. After a pro-gambling group that
was backed by the Ho-Chunk tribe got enough signatures to get the
issue on the ballot, the Secretary of State refused to put it on
the ballot, citing confusing language.
�e issue was brought before the state’s Supreme Court, which
voted 4-3 in favor of allowing the initiatives on the ballot in
November, ultimately allowing the people of the state to bring
poker rooms and other casino games to their home state. �
BEN GREENWELL WINS INAUGURAL WORLD COLLEGE POKER FALL BRAWL
TOURNAMENTBy Card Player News Team
Ben Greenwell has won the inaugural World College Poker Fall
Brawl event. �e 22-year-old Ohio State University student defeated
a field of 1,000 entries in the free-to-play tournament, which was
held on the PokerBROS social gaming platform. �e actuarial science
student was awarded a championship belt, a custom PokerBROS avatar,
a six-day hotel stay in Cancun, Mazatlan, or Puerto Vallarta, and a
private lesson with WPT champion Jonathan Little as part of his
first-place prize package.
�e final table took place on Saturday, Dec. 12, with poker
professional, coach, and author Alex Fitzgerald and comedian and
poker player Clayton Fletcher hosting the action. A full replay of
the final table can be viewed at the World College Poker YouTube
page.
Greenwell rivered a straight against the flopped top set of Ben
‘spartan1122’ Fisher to take a nearly 5:1 lead into the final
showdown against Vanessa ‘Hernandezhh1’ Hernandez, a full-time mom
and student at Midland College in Texas.
In the final hand of the event, Hernandez raised from the button
with A� 7� and Greenwell three-bet to 9,600 with the K� 8� from the
big blind. Hernandez called and the flop came down 8� 7� 6�.
Greenwell bet and Hernandez raised. Greenwell moved all-in and
Hernandez made the call. �e 9� and Q� kept Greenwell in the lead,
securing him the title.
Here are the results from the final table:Place Name Age
School
1 Ben ‘OSUNutz’ Greenwell 22 Ohio State University
2 Vanessa ‘Hernandezhh1’ Hernandez
26 Midland College
3 Ben ‘spartan1122’ Fisher 35 Arizona State University
4 Ryan ‘rtc1755’ Clark 24 Sacramento State University
5 Blake ‘blaclaire23’ LaClaire 20 University of Arizona
6 Chris ‘FoldsNuts’ Pagel 21 University of Colorado at Colorado
Springs
7 Jesse ‘JesseKim7’ Kim 18 Montclair State University
8 John ‘jpitts10’ Pitts 22 University of Tennessee at
Knoxville
�e next WCP event is scheduled for March of 2021 and
registration is now open. �e tournament is free to play for any
college or university student with valid ID 18 years or older. Sign
up at www.WorldCollegePoker.com. �
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MAJOR ONLINE SPORTSBOOK BEGINS GRADING U.S. ELECTION BETSBy Card
Player News Team
One of the world’s largest online gambling sites has fi nally
started pay-ing out the winning bets it took on the U.S.
Presidential Election.
According to a report from Newsweek, London-based Betfair began
grading and paying its election bets on Dec. 15, a day after the
Electoral College members offi cially cast their ballots to give
for-mer Vice President Joe Biden a 306-232 victory over President
Donald Trump.
“� e next President market rules stipulated that we would settle
the market on the candidate that had the most projected Electoral
College votes,” said the company in a state-ment. “Following the
Electoral College votes being cast, that candi-date is clearly Joe
Biden. � anks for your patience.”
Shortly after the election, it was
reported that most online sports-books were delaying payout
while the ballots were still being count-ed. Following a 2016
blunder when Dublin-based Paddy Power paid out nearly seven-fi
gures to those who bet on Hillary Clinton, books were care-ful not
to make the same mistake.
BetFair stated publicly that it would not grade the bets until
there was a clear winner. With razor thin margins in several
states, counting that went on for days after the elec-tion, and a
handful of lawsuits fi led by the Trump campaign contesting the
results, the bookmaker opted to wait until it was certifi ed by the
Electoral College.
All of Trump’s attempts at a win through the court system had
been thrown out by the time the book began paying bets. Most
recently, the Texas GOP led a lawsuit to con-
test the results in several key battle-ground states, all of
which were won by Biden. � e Supreme Court threw the case out,
claiming there wasn’t enough evidence to hear the case.
Just before the election, there was $337 million bet on the
election, with $170 million wagered on Biden and $156 million on
Trump. � e largest bet was a man in the U.K. who bet $1.29 million
on Biden to win.
While American sportsbooks are prohibited from taking bets on
the election, off shore books were taking bets, and many in the
poker world were willing to use lines set by the books to wager
against one another. Because the odds swung so wildly in both
directions on election night, some savvy bettors were able to lock
up essentially risk-free profi ts by bet-ting both sides at the
right time. �
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CARDPLAYER.COM 12 VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3
Place Player Points Final Tables POY Earnings
1 Vincent Wan 2,280 1 $909,420
2 Cary Katz 2,195 9 $2,449,943
3 Tai Hoang 2,188 2 $953,675
4 Farid Jattin 2,177 6 $1,205,493
5 Anton Suarez 2,100 1 $1,000,000
6 Kahle Burns 1,956 6 $2,923,988
7 Aaron Van Blarcum 1,920 9 $1,856,381
8 Alex Foxen 1,897 8 $1,733,059
9 Sam Greenwood 1,881 6 $1,357,807
10 Tim Adams 1,857 6 $5,904,777
11 Brian Altman 1,848 3 $542,866
12 Trung Pham 1,813 7 $277,746
13 Michael Addamo 1,806 5 $2,143,310
14 Pablo Silva 1,800 1 $1,000,000
15 Ricardo Eyzaguirre 1,785 6 $415,575
16 Christian Rudolph 1,750 1 $620,000
17 James Romero 1,736 2 $745,000
18 Erik Seidel 1,686 5 $669,649
19 Eric Afriat 1,680 1 $394,120
20 Benjamin Winsor 1,636 4 $295,054
MAXWELL YOUNG WINS SHR TAMPA WINTER POKER OPEN MAIN EVENT
The Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Winter Poker Open $1,700 buy-in
no-limit hold’em main event featured a $200,000 guarantee. That
figure was blown away by over a million dollars when 779 entries
were made in the event, building a final prize pool of $1,207,450.
That sum was paid out among the top 78 finishers in this event,
with the lion’s share going to eventual champion Maxwell Young. The
six-time WSOP Circuit gold ring winner earned $226,510 and 912 POY
points after emerging victorious. This was his first POY-qualified
score of the year, but it alone was enough to see him surge into a
seven-way tie for 90th place in the rankings.
AARON VAN BLARCUM MAKES HIS NINTH FINAL TABLE OF 2020Aaron Van
Blarcum exploded on the live tournament scene in 2019. The Dallas
native
took down the World Poker Tour Legends of Poker main event at
the Bicycle Hotel & Casino in the fall and then jumped right
into the highest stakes tournaments in the world. He now has more
than $4.4 million in career cashes and is proving that he is far
from a flash in the pan. Van Blarcum has made nine POY-qualified
final tables in 2020, with his most recent deep run being an
eighth-place finish in the $1,000 buy-in event at the Bally’s Main
Event Mania series. He earned $1,859 and 24 POY points for his deep
run in that event. Van Blarcum kicked his year off with a trio of
final tables
Maxwell Young
Aaron Van Blarcum
THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - Player of the yearAs of
12-29-2020
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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT
in high roller events in Australia, cashing for seven figures
along the way. He then went on a cashing spree in the spring,
making five final tables during the month of March to add another
$750,000 in earnings to his résumé. With his most recent deep run,
Van Blarcum has increased his point total for the year to 1,920,
which is good for seventh place in the overall POY race standings.
He has cashed for more than $1.8 million in POY-qualified events so
far this year.
ALEX FOXEN CLIMBS INTO EIGHTH PLACE WITH FLURRY OF SCORES IN
WYNN HIGH ROLLERS
The Wynn Poker Room in Las Vegas hosted a series of ten high
roller events throughout the month of December, each with a buy-in
of $10,000. World Poker Tour winner and 2019 POY race runner-up
Alex Foxen made the money in half of the events held during the
series, cashing for $354,500 in total along the way. Foxen tallied
one victory, three runner-up finishes, and one fourth-place showing
throughout the high-stakes festival. Only two of the five events
that he cashed in qualified for POY points however, as several of
them failed to meet the minimum requirements for field size or
total prize pool. The two POY-qualified scores he secured during
the month of December were enough to see him climb into eighth
place in the overall rankings, with 1,897 points and over $1.7
million in POY-qualified earnings on the year.
TRUNG PHAM MOVES INTO 12TH PLACE WITH SEVENTH FINAL-TABLE FINISH
OF THE YEAR
Trung Pham was able to leapfrog Michael Addamo and Pablo Silva
in the 2020 POY race standings with the 19 points he earned as the
eighth-place finisher in a $400 buy-in no-limit hold’em event held
at the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Winter Poker Open. The tournament
attracted 155 entries to create a $51,150 prize pool. Pham took
home $1,688 as the eighth-place finisher. This was his seventh
POY-qualified final table of the year. With 1,813 total points and
$277,746 in year-to-date earnings, Pham now sits in 12th place on
the POY leaderboard. He has won two titles in 2020. He took down a
$300 buy-in event at the Million Dollar Heater series at the Beau
Rivage Resort & Casino in January for $13,847 and 125 points.
In February he won a $360 buy-in event at the Wynn Spring Classic
for another $11,703 and 125 points. His largest score of
the year came when he finished second in the $1,700 World Series
of Poker Circuit Rio Las Vegas main event for $129,305 and 760
points.
WILLIAM FIREBAUGH DEFEATS NICHOLAS PUPILLO HEADS-UP IN INAUGURAL
BENNY BINION SHOOTOUT EVENT
The first-ever Benny Binion Shootout event was held in
mid-December at the South Point Poker Room. The $2,050 buy-in
no-limit hold’em event attracted 128 entries to build a $256,000
prize pool, which was paid out among the top 16 finishers. The
largest share was ultimately awarded to William Firebaugh, who
defeated deco-rated tournament poker professional Nicholas Pupillo
heads-up to secure the title, the top prize of $100,000, and 264
POY points. This was Firebaugh’s third recorded live tournament
win, and his first score of six-figures or higher. His biggest
previous pay-day came when he took down the 2019 WSOP Circuit
Horseshoe Tunica $600 big-blind ante event for $36,219 and a gold
ring. Firebaugh now has $373,530 in career tourna-ment earnings to
his name. Pupillo took home $50,000 and 220 points as the
second-place finisher. This was his seventh POY-qualified
final-table finish of the year. With $249,732 in year-to-date
earnings and 1,139 in total points, Pupillo now sits in 53rd place
in the overall rankings. The score increased Pupillo’s lifetime
earnings to $3.35 million.
Alex Foxen
Trung Pham
Nicholas Pupillo
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CARDPLAYER.COM 14
THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - Head Games
VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3
HEAD GAMES Proper Bet Sizing With Premium Pocket Pairs
By Craig Tapscott
The Pros: A lex Fitzgerald, Jonathan Little, and Ryan
Laplante
Craig Tapscott: When you have a big hand preflop (aces, kings,
or queens) in late position and a player has already opened UTG+1
at a full table, what are the variables that determine what your
bet sizing will be when and if you raise?
Alex Fitzgerald: If I’ve got an extremely loose player behind me
who is calling down big bets with any pair, then I’ll definitely
consider calling preflop. If that loose recre-ational player is in
the big blind, then I’m even more inclined to smooth call. �ey will
likely call with close to anything while in the big blind and
getting a discount. While multi-way pots are messier, I’d prefer a
multi-way pot with one guy who will pay off with
any pair as opposed to a slightly bigger heads-up pot with one
great player. If the initial opener is fan-tastic post-flop, he’s
prob-ably not going to give me a ton of money anyway if I three-bet
him, so that is also a time I will consider flatting.
�at said, the vast majority of the time I will three-bet. I find
Americans love to call three-bets out of position with anything
they opened, so I love tak-ing advantage of that. You want them to
put as much money in the middle as possible, obviously. �e art form
is figuring out who can’t fold preflop. Typically, people who are
always limping, cold call-ing, raising, and trying to see flops are
the types of people who get really touchy when you try to deny them
a flop they want
to see. You might know 4-6 suited is a fold, but they don’t. �ey
really want to see that flop with their high VPIP (Voluntarily Put
$ in Pot). So, in that case, you can even pump it to 3.5 times
their opening bet, because they’ll still call you. With regs who
are comfortable folding pre-flop, you can shade the bet down a
little smaller.
Jonathan Little: �e main concerns when you have a hand you want
to poten-tially three-bet are the initial raiser’s range, and the
stack depths. As stacks get shorter, there is usually some merit to
calling with aces, and perhaps kings, because you really want to
get value from those hands, and calling allows you to call with a
slightly wider range of hands that flop well, like 9-8 suited.
As stacks get deeper
though, you should almost always three-bet with your best hands
because you want to build the pot and extract value. You typically
want to three-bet to about 2.5 times the initial raise when you are
in position and to about 3.5 times when you are out of posi-tion.
If someone raises to 500 and you are in posi-tion, make it 1,250.
If you are out of position, make it 1,750. As stacks get really
deep, perhaps 100 big blinds or more, you can instead three-bet to
3x in position and 4x out of position.
Ryan Laplante: When playing a tournament, you will generally be
between 40-80 big blinds deep in this type of situation. When
considering what to three-bet, and the size, we need to think about
three main factors.
014_HeadGames.indd 14 1/4/21 12:11 PM
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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT
What is their opening range, how deep are the effective stacks,
and are we in position or out of posi-tion? Let’s say we are 60 big
blinds deep, and we are up against an early posi-tion raise. So,
their range should be somewhat tight (8-18% of top tier hands
depending on the player). Because of that and how deep we are, we
need to make our three-bet size somewhat large.
A general rule of thumb to follow against a single raise with no
callers is that 2.5x equals tiny, 3x equals small, 3.5x equals
medium, 4x equals large, and 5x equals very large. Where x equals
their open bet size.
So in this situation, I would three-bet to 3.5x or 4x their
opening bet and do so with a range of 10-10+/A-Q+ for the most part
and might mix in some bluffs like A-5 suited, K-9 suited, or J-9
suited. Now, if we were in the small blind or big blind I would
three-bet to 4.5x. So, if they opened to 2,000, and we were in
cut-off I’d three-bet to 7,000, while if we were in the small
blind, I’d three-bet to 9,000 or even 10,000.
Craig Tapscott: Please breakdown your thoughts on how you
determine bet sizing on the flop with
an overpair heads-up, including all various dif-ferent board
texture con-siderations. After you are called on the flop, how is
your sizing on the turn or river determined versus one player that
you have position on?
Alex Fitzgerald: I tend to focus on games where I know people
are play-ing their hand, not my hand. If I’m ever playing a player
who is effectively ranging me, then I have to ask myself why I’m in
that game. Because there’s always looser money out there and I’ve
discovered over time that 90% of my job is game selection.
In the games I like to play, I look at the board and I ask
myself what the chances are my guy has a pair. If the flop is J� 9�
7�, for example, that is a board where my oppo-nent has a ton of
pairs and draws with their three-bet calling range. On that kind of
board, I’ll blast it, because most of the peo-ple I play with can’t
raise without two pair or better. Occasionally, they’ll raise a big
combination draw, but I’ll let them get away with that. It’s fairly
basic what they do, as usually with a draw or pair they call, if
they have better, they raise, and if they
bricked, they fold. After they call, I judge the turn and river
cards and go for the kill with big bets.
If I know the guy can’t fold top pair and that’s his most likely
holding, I’ll overbet. You trap them this way. Most guys can’t fold
a pair of any kind to just one continuation bet. Most guys can’t
fold a pair they liked after investing huge on that flop. If they
only called a 33% pot-sized bet after you 2.2x three-bet their
open, they could get away, but if you play it like this you get the
bad regs and recreational play-ers trapped. �e draw miss-es and you
bomb again. �ey’re not going anywhere with that much money in the
middle because they feel committed. If the board comes J-5-5
however, that’s a super hit or miss board so you’re going to have
to cajole them with a different bet.
Jonathan Little: On the flop, you pretty much always want to bet
with your best made hands and draws. And as the board is better for
your range, you should bet with an even wider range of hands
including your marginal made hands and junky hands.
When you are betting less often (usually when
the board is excellent for your opponent’s range or when the
board is very coordinated), you should typically bet using a large
size of about 75% pot. When the board is unco-ordinated, you should
bet more often, usually using a smaller size of about 33% pot. You
should also tend to bet smaller when the board is uncoordinat-ed
but you lack the nut advantage, such as when you raise from UTG and
the big blind calls on J-6-6. �ere, you have a big range advantage,
but you completely lack the nut advantage because you have almost
no trips in your range whereas your opponent has some. �is should
lead to you betting a tiny amount, about one big blind. After you
bet the flop and get called, you should usually continue betting
the turn and river with most of your best made hands and draws,
again betting somewhat large due to betting some-what
infrequently.
Ryan Laplante: Our flop continuation bet size will be based
generally on how dynamic the board is. �e more dynamic the board,
the larger our c-bet (con-tinuation bet) size and more frequently
we might have to check back our ace
Alexander Fitzgerald Jonathan Little
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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - Head Games
VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3CARDPLAYER.COM 16
highs, while the more stat-ic the board the smaller we c-bet and
the more often we c-bet.
Static boards, like 7� 6� 5�, are difficult for the best hand
possible to change. With dynamic boards, like Q� 9� 5�, it’s easy
for the best hand possible to change. Let’s say I had K�
K�, and we are 60,000 deep, and I had three-bet to 7,000 from
the cutoff against an early position raise, and they called. �e pot
now is 16,500, and the stacks have 53,000 behind. On the static
flop of 7� 6� 5�, I would c-bet 25-30% of the pot, or 3,500 to
5,000. But on a dynamic Q� 9�
Ryan Laplante 5� flop, I’d c-bet 50-75% pot, or
8,000-12,000.
What we do on the turn will be largely based on whether the turn
is a good card for our range to bar-rel, or if it is a better card
for them. On each of these boards I will be very likely to bet the
turn with jacks plus, and more apt to check pocket tens down. Any
time you are considering what type of decisions to make preflop you
need to consider your opponent’s range, stack depths, and your
position, as that will heavily dictate both bet sizes to pick and
how to build your range for bluffs and for value. �
Alexander Fitzgerald is a former commercial fisherman and
freelance writer who became a professional poker player in 2006. He
writes a daily strategic poker newsletter
at www.PokerHeadRush.com for real
working-class people who want to learn poker. He is the author
of Exploitative Play In Live Poker, as well as The Myth Of Poker
Talent.
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player with more than $7
million in live tournament earnings, including two World Poker Tour
titles. He is the author of 15 best-selling poker books, and the
2019 GPI Poker Personality of the Year award winner. Sign up a free
account today at his training site
www.PokerCoaching.com/CardPlayer.
Ryan Laplante has been a professional poker player for more than
a decade and has more than $5.5 million in combined live and online
tournament earnings. He has made eight WSOP final tables, and
earned a bracelet by taking down the $500 buy-in PLO event in 2016.
If you want to learn from him, you can do so easily and affordably
through his website www.LearnProPoker.com.
NOTE: WINNING PERCENTAGES DO NOT INCLUDE TIES. ODDS PROVIDED BY
CARDPLAYER.COM/POKER-TOOLS/ODDS-CALCULATOR/TEXAS-HOLDEM
AnalysisTOURNAMENT HAND MATCHUP Like so many other live poker
tournament festivals before it in 2020, the Irish Poker Masters
series moved online this year. � e centerpiece of the whole aff air
was the €1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. � e tournament
attracted a fi eld of 1,341 entries, creating a prize pool of
€1,341,000. � e fi nal seven players had all locked up at least a
€27,433 payday by the time this wild hand arose. Germany’s Michael
Deinlein looked down at a suited A-2 and raised when it folded to
him in late position. Swedish player Anton Siden was second in
chips at the time and defended his big blind with 7-6 off suit.
Both players picked up gutshot straight draws on the fl op, with
both needing a four. Siden checked and Deinlein made a small
continuation bet of 1,330,000 into the pot of 4,042,500 with his
ace high, gutshot draw and possible backdoor nut fl ush draw. Siden
opted to use his inside straight draw as a semi-bluff and
check-raised. Deinlein called and Siden hit his money card on the
turn, with the 4� giving both players straights. Deinlein had hit
what must have seemed like one of the best cards possible after
facing a check-raise on the fl op. Instead, he called Siden’s
healthy turn bet of 6,965,525 into the 13,142,500 pot drawing stone
dead. � e K� on the river paired the board and completed a backdoor
fl ush draw. Deinlein had less than a pot-sized bet remaining in
his stack, which he called off when Siden moved all-in on the
river. Deinlein fi nished in seventh place, earning €27,433 for his
deep run in this event, while Siden surged into the chip lead.
A
A
2
2
7
7
6
6
K
K
5
5
3
3
K
K
4
4
Siden checked, and Deinlein bet 1,330,000. Siden check-raised to
4,550,000, and Deinlein called.
Siden bet 6,965,525, and Deinlein called.
Siden moved all-in for 47,313,070. Deinlein called all-in for
20,317,335.
With seven players remaining and blinds of 350,000-700,000 and
an ante of 87,500, Michael Deinlein raised to 1,540,000 from the
cutoff .
Anton Siden called from the big blind.
2020 Irish Poker Masters Online €1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Main
Event
ANALYSIS
Michael Deinlein33,460,360 Chips
Anton Siden60,456,095 Chips
Winning PercentageBefore Flop: 56.0%
After Flop: 62.0%After Turn: 0.0%
Winning PercentageBefore Flop: 44.0%After Flop: 38.0%After Turn:
100.0%
FLOP
PREFLOP
TURN
RIVE
R
014_HeadGames.indd 16 1/4/21 12:11 PM
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Poker Stories Podcast
Poker Stories is a long-form audio podcast series that features
casual interviews with some of the game’s best players and
personalities. Each episode highlights a well-known member of the
poker world and dives deep into their favorite tales both on and
off the felt.
Download it directly to your device from any number of mobile
apps, such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, or Spotify.
Catch up on past episodes featuring notables such as Doyle Brunson,
Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harman, Justin
Bonomo, Nick Schulman, Barry Greenstein, Michael Mizrachi, Bryn
Kenney, Mike Sexton, Maria Ho, and many more.
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CARDPLAYER.COM 18 VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3
DAMIAN SALAS WINS 2020’S EXTRAORDINARY WORLD SERIES OF POKER
$10,000 BUY-IN MAIN EVENT
FIRST-EVER ARGENTINIAN WORLD CHAMPION TRIUMPHS IN EVENT MARRED
BY DELAYS AND PLAYER DISQUALIFICATIONS
By Erik Fast
Ever since the second annual World Series of Poker in 1971, the
game’s world championship has been decided by a $10,000 buy-in
no-limit hold‘em freezeout tournament. �e 2020 World Series of
Poker main event did techni-cally check all of those boxes, but
like most of what happened in 2020, it was far from typical.
In the end, Damian Salas emerged victorious with the
championship bracelet and more than $2.5 million in total prize
money. �e 45-year-old poker pro from Chascomús, Argentina became
the first from his country to become poker’s world champion, after
having fallen just a few places short of doing so when he finished
seventh in the 2017 main event.
Salas’ road to the title was different than any world champion
before him. Here is a look at how this unique and often
controversial tournament played out.
WSOP Postpones, Reschedules, And Improvises In Response To
COVID-19 Outbreak
On April 20, WSOP organizers offi-cially announced the
postponement of this year’s planned live series that was slated to
award a record 101 gold brace-lets due to the ongoing COVID-19
pandemic. �e WSOP indicated that they hoped to reschedule some form
of the live and in-person series in the fall, but everything
remained up in the air. With all of the uncertainty surround-ing
the coronavirus outbreak, many in the poker community speculated,
and even bet on whether or not there would be any version of the
series held in 2020.
“We are committed to running the World Series of Poker this year
but need additional time to proceed on our traditional scale while
prioritizing guest and staff well-being,” said WSOP Executive
Director Ty Stewart in the press release announcing the
postpone-ment of the live series. “In the interim, official WSOP
competitions are expect-ed to be played online this summer.”
�e first ever WSOP Online was indeed announced in early June.
A
total of 85 gold bracelets were ulti-mately awarded between July
1 and Sept. 6, with $174.5 million in prize money paid out
throughout the series. Bulgarian poker pro Stoyan Madanzhiev
captured the title in the WSOP Online $5,000 buy-in main event,
earning $3,904,686. �e mas-sive payday represented the lion’s share
of the $27,559,500 prize pool, which represented the largest prize
pool in online poker history. �e 29-year-old defeated a field of
5,802 players in the tournament to secure the champion-ship
bracelet.
It seemed likely that the WSOP Online would be the only series
award-ing bracelets in 2020, as no plans for any live series had
been announced with roughly seven weeks remaining in the year. In
fact, Card Player reached out to the WSOP in late October, but
heard no response. Much of the media relations staff was furloughed
in the early months of the pandemic and subsequently let go. On
Nov. 13, how-ever, tournament organizers suddenly revealed plans
for a hybrid live and online $10,000 no-limit hold’em main event to
close out the year.
�is tournament would be unlike any main event before it. �e
new-look format essentially featured the concur-rent running of two
tournaments, a US-facing ‘Domestic Tournament’ and an
‘International Tournament,’ both of which would begin online and
play until their final tables were set. �e remaining players would
then play out those final tables live and in-person at the Rio
All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and the King’s Casino
Rozvadov in the Czech Republic, with the two champions of those
events meeting in a final heads-up showdown for the championship
bracelet and an added $1 million prize at the Rio.
�e last-minute announcement drew some protests from many
players, including Madanzhiev himself, who ©
WSO
P.co
m
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disagreed with the marketing of this newly-revealed event as the
‘WSOP main event,’ when the tournament he had won just a month
prior was also described that way.
“Looking back, If I had known I wasn’t playing the ‘actual’
[WSOP], I probably wouldn’t have re-entered, or maybe even played.
It worked well for me, but I wonder how many others fell for this
false advertising trap?” said Madanzhiev in a Twitter post.
“�ere must be a world champion in 2020,” said Stewart in the
press release announcing the new hybrid event. “Poker’s history is
too impor-tant. It’s a unique format for the main event, but this
is a unique year.”
WSOP bracelet winner and high-stakes tournament regular Sam
Greenwood responded in a social media post, stating, “�ere is. His
name is Stoyan Madanzhiev.”
�e event would kick off just over two weeks after it was first
announced. While much of the focus on the event began to drift to
the chip counts and big hands that normally occupy the poker
communities’ attention during a marquee event such as this, there
were still a number of controversial develop-ments waiting in the
wings.
Salas Triumphs In WSOP International Tournament
�e ‘International Tournament’ segment of this event kicked off
with the first of three starting flights on Nov. 29 on online poker
site GGPoker. A total of 246 entries were made before registration
closed for the day. �e second and third starting flights were held
on Dec. 5 and 6, adding another 171 and 257 players to bring the
total to 674 entries by the time registration closed. As a result,
the sub-tournament built a final prize pool of $6,470,400 to be
distributed among the top 80 finishers.
Just 179 players survived the three starting flights to make day
2, which
would see the field narrowed down to a final table of nine
players over the course of ten hours of online action. With just
nine competitors left, play was halted for a week to allow time for
the remaining players to make their way to King’s Casino in the
Czech Republic to play out the final table in person.
�e final nine were meant to recon-vene on Tuesday, Dec. 15 at
the recent site of the WSOP Europe, but in the end only eight
players showed up. According to the official WSOP live updates,
China’s Peiyuan Sun declined to make the trip to Rozvadov,
report-edly citing travel safety concerns. Based on the published
rules for the event, Sun was disqualified, his chips were removed
from play, and he was subsequently awarded the ninth-place payout
of $75,360.
�e other eight players were required to wear facial coverings at
the table and were tested for COVID-19 prior to the start of play.
Everyone that made the trip tested negative, and cards were soon in
the air. Brazil’s Brunno Botteon came into the day as the chip
leader. Botteon had a breakout summer at the WSOP Online, making
three final tables in as many weeks to cash for more than $1
million. He finished runner-up in a $500 buy-in limit hold’em event
for $41,855, and then four days later placed sixth in the $25,000
buy-in no-limit hold’em high roller for $388,827. Just a week later
he made it down to the final in the $25,000 buy-in heads-up
no-limit hold’em event, but lost to Fedor Holz. He added another
$622,300 for that runner-up showing.
2017 WSOP main event seventh-place finisher Damian Salas sat in
third chip position to start the day. Salas was just three years
removed from navigat-ing his way through a field of 7,221 in the
big dance, only to fall a few spots shy of becoming the first-ever
poker
Stoyan Madanzhievworld champion from his home coun-try of
Argentina. He got off to a better start at the final table this
time around, knocking out Hannes Speiser in eighth ($109,982) and
Stoyan Obreshkov in seventh ($160,512) to move within strik-ing
distance of the chip lead.
Like Salas, Manuel Ruivo had some prior experience playing for
seven-figures top prizes. �e Portuguese player earned more than
$2.3 million as the winner of the 2018 partypoker MILLIONS Online
$5,300 buy-in main event, which drew a massive field of 4,367
entries. Ruivo started the day as the second largest stack, and he
kept pace with the surg-ing Salas and Botteon by knocking out
Dominykas Mikolaitis in sixth place ($234,255) and Marco Streda in
fifth place ($341,879). In the latter elimina-tion, Ruivo’s pocket
aces held against the A-K of Streda after all of the chips went in
preflop.
Salas was able to overtake the lead during short-handed play,
and he extended it even further as the final four battled it out.
He held more than three times as many chips as the next largest
stack by the time the remaining players took their dinner break.
Botteon was able to close the gap somewhat by eliminating Ramon
Miquel Munoz in fourth place ($498,947). �e short stack got his
last few blinds in with A-6 and was unable to outrun the pocket
threes of Botteon, who flopped a set and turned a full house.
Ruivo took his stand against the chip leader after the pair took
a flop of 9� 4� 2�. Salas checked from out of position and Ruivo
bet 750,000. Salas check-raised to 5,000,000. Ruivo only had around
6,000,000 in total, and he announced that he was all-in. Salas
called and revealed the 10� 7� for a flush draw. Ruivo held 9� 4�
for two pair. �e 8� on the turn gave Salas more outs with an
open-ended straight draw, and the 5� on the river completed his
flush, eliminating Ruivo in third place ($728,177).
With that, Salas took roughly a 5:3 chip lead into heads-up play
against Botteon. �e Brazilian was able to take back the lead in the
early going, but Salas regained the advantage and never gave it up
again. By the time the final hand was dealt, he held a nearly 3:1
lead.
Salas limped in from the button with K� 8� and Botteon checked
his option holding 7� 3�. �e flop came down K� 4� 2� and Botteon
checked. Salas checked behind with his top pair
Damian Salas
018_CoverStory.indd 19 1/5/21 7:24 AM
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CARDPLAYER.COM 20 VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3
and the turn brought the 6� to give Botteon a flush draw and
outs to a straight. He checked and Salas bet 1,000,000. Botteon
check-raised to 2,800,000. Salas called and the river brought the
8�. Botteon had missed, but he elected to move all-in as a bluff
for around 6.6 million.
Salas thought it over before making the call with his kings and
eights to secure the pot and the title. Botteon earned $1,062,723
as the runner-up finisher, while Salas earned $1,550,669 and set up
a date with the eventual winner of the ‘Domestic Tournament’ in Las
Vegas.
Joseph Hebert Wins #ForLinda In WSOP Domestic Tournament
�e ‘Domestic Tournament’ fea-tured just one starting day on
Sunday, Dec. 13. �e US-facing segment of this unique event got
underway on WSOP.com just two days prior to the ‘International
Tournament’ final table. By the time the registration was
offi-cially closed there had been 705 entries made, creating a
final prize pool of $6,768,000, the largest ever on a regu-lated
online poker site in the United States.
�e top 105 finishers cashed in this segment of the event, with
the money bubble bursting late in the first day’s play. After 12
hours of action, three-time bracelet winner Upeshka De Silva held
the chip lead with 71 players remaining heading into day 2
action.
It took around seven hours to fur-ther narrow the field down to
the final table of nine. When the dust settled it was 38-year-old
Louisiana native Joseph Hebert who bagged up the chip lead. His
13,052,534-stack was nearly 2.5 times larger than the next-biggest
stack at the table and represented more than 30 percent of the
total chips in play.
Like the ‘International Tournament,’ this event also saw the
final nine travel
to play out the business end of the event live and in-person. �e
players made their way to Las Vegas in order to play down to a
winner on Monday, Dec. 28 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino.
Unfortunately, like its international counterpart, this final table
would also only see eight players take a seat.
Less than a day before play was set to resume it was reported
that De Silva was being disqualified from the event due to testing
positive for COVID-19. De Silva claimed in social media posts to
have been quarantining since Dec. 10 in preparation for the final
table, but had tested positive on both Dec. 20 and Dec. 27, with a
negative test result returned in between.
Although De Silva was to enter the final table among the short
stacks, he was by far the most accomplished player remaining in the
tournament. �e Sri Lanka-born and Texas-raised pro has just shy of
$3.1 million in tournament earnings, with all of his three bracelet
wins coming in no-lim-it hold’em events. He was ultimately awarded
ninth-place money ($98,813) as a result of his
disqualification.
De Silva’s stack was officially removed from play, which meant
that only eight players converged on the final table stage to
battle it out in front of ESPN’s cameras. Gershon Distenfeld began
the day in sixth chip position but got off to a slow start. He lost
a considerable chunk of his stack just a few hands into the action
when he ran pocket tens into the pocket queens of short stack
Harrison Dobin. Just a couple of hands later, he got the last of
his stack in with K� J� against the pocket queens of Ron Jenkins.
Distenfeld failed to improve and was eliminated in eighth place
($125,885). Incredibly, he intends to donate all of his prize money
to charitable causes. �e 44-year-old works in finance and has been
committed to philanthropic works for years.
“�ere is a parallel to investing. You don’t blindly invest in
companies, [and] you also don’t blindly invest in a charity. You
have to do your research. My wife and I have been very fortu-nate
to be blessed with resources. We have spent our time, not only
donating money but also getting involved in charities and getting
our hands dirty. We didn’t have to start from scratch, as we
decided to give to charities that we have been involved with for a
long time,” said Distenfeld after being elimi-nated. “We are in a
pandemic now and the need is greater than ever.”
Seven-handed action continued for more than two-and-a-half
hours. Shawn Stroke was the next to fall. �e 31-year-old Long
Island-native came into the day in second chip position but fell to
the bottom of the leaderboard during the early hours of play. He
got his last chips in preflop with pocket threes, only to have
Harrison Dobin three-bet all-in over the top with A-K and Jenkins
call all-in behind with pocket queens. Jenkins’ big pair held up
through the river and Stroke was eliminated in seventh place
($163,786). Dobin was left with just four big blinds after the hand
and was elimi-nated shortly thereafter in sixth place ($215,222),
while Jenkins surged up the chip counts.
Hebert continued to accumulate chips by knocking out 25-year-old
Wisconsin-based mathematics doc-toral candidate Ye Yuan in fifth
place ($286,963). �e final four battled it out for more than half
an hour before the next elimination took place. In a battle of the
blinds, Jenkins shoved all-in from the small blind with A� J� and
Ryan Hagerty called from the big blind with A� 8�. Both players
paired their live cards on the flop, but the 28-year-old received
no further help and was sent home in fourth place ($387,130),
picking up the largest score of his career.
Upeshka De Silva Gershon Distenfeld
Joseph Hebert
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Just six hands after Hagerty was eliminated, his
sometimes-roommate on the live tournament circuit Michael Cannon
joined him on the rail. Cannon three-bet all-in over the button
min-raise of Hebert holding K� Q�. Hebert quickly called the shove
of around 16 big blinds with pocket aces. A clean runout saw the
29-year-old former pro-fessional video game player knocked out in
third place ($529,258).
With that, Hebert took just over a 2:1 chip lead into heads-up
play against Jenkins, who had begun the day as the second-shortest
stack with just 17 big blinds. Jenkins had accumulated a decent
amount of experience on the felt, with nearly $400,000 in prior
live tournament cashes to his name.
A cooler decided things on the very first hand of heads-up play.
Hebert raised the button with A� Q� and Jenkins three-bet to
2,300,000 with pocket queens. Hebert four-bet all-in and Jenkins
eagerly called off the last of his chips. He was ahead preflop with
his pocket queens, but an A� K� 7� 4� 8� runout secured the pot and
the title for Hebert. Jenkins earned $1,002,340 as the runner-up
finisher.
�e $1,553,256 win nearly tripled Hebert’s lifetime live
tournament earn-ings. His largest score prior to this victo-ry was
$140,932, which he earned as the runner-up in the 2013 WSOP Circuit
Harrah’s New Orleans main event.
Hebert dedicated the win to his late mother, Linda, who passed
away earlier this year due to a pulmonary embolism. His last text
conversation with his moth-er had been about his dream of win-ning
a WSOP bracelet. He created the hashtag ‘#ForLinda’ online to help
rally his friends and family around his efforts
to win this event in his mother’s name.“I am just so excited!”
said Hebert
at the start of his post-win press confer-ence. He went on to
say, “I’m going to take this all in. Winning this tourna-ment was
my ultimate goal, for my mom, but having the freeroll is just
another bonus. I’m just going to take my time and figure out what
to do about that, and go from there.”
Salas Wins Lengthy Final Showdown To Secure Title
Hebert and Salas were supposed to begin their final showdown
just two days later, but 2020 wasn’t finished with throwing
curveballs. A report sur-faced on the morning of the ‘Domestic
Tournament’ final table that Salas was initially denied entry into
the United States because he had been in Europe less than 15 days
prior, having had to travel there in order to compete at the
‘International Tournament’ final table.
While the initial report was never officially confirmed by the
WSOP, the live updates posted on their website did announce that
the final heads-up battle that was originally scheduled for the
night of Dec. 30 had been instead moved to Sunday, Jan. 3.
�e final two players took their seats with 500 big blinds each
to start as they battled for the championship bracelet and the $1
million in added prize money that was on the line.
“We have a great battle ahead of us, Joseph and I, and of course
I am going to enjoy it,” said Salas via an interpreter. “I am
privileged to be able to be here again, at the final stage of the
sport that I am so passionate about.”
�e early action saw both play-ers hold a small lead for some
time. Hebert was able to swing the advantage
his way, building a 3:1 advantage by winning one of the largest
pots of the night. He extended that lead to roughly 9:1 before
Salas found a double up. Although fighting with a stack
disad-vantage for quite some time, Salas was able to survive a
handful of all-ins to prolong the match.
After 153 hands, the two players found themselves more or less
back to even. Every pot became important with the stacks so
shallow. By the time the final hand of the event was dealt it was
Salas who held the advantage.
In the 173rd hand of the match, Hebert looked down at A� Q� on
the button and moved all-in for just shy of eight big blinds. Salas
called with K� J� for the majority of his stack. �e board came down
K� 8� 5� 5� K�, giving Salas kings full to secure the pot and the
title. He earned the champion-ship gold bracelet, becoming the
first main event champion from his home country of Argentina.
Salas added $1 million to his earnings from the ‘International
Tournament,’ bringing his total score to $2,550,969. He now has
more than $5.7 million in career tournament earn-ings to his
name.
“I don’t play for the money, I play because of the challenge,
because of my love of poker,” said Salas. “I play to be better
every time, to compete. I am very proud of myself to earn this
achievement.”
When asked about the volatile swings during his final match with
Hebert, Salas replied, “�at is part of the magic of poker. It is
pure adrena-line. It is a rollercoaster that you face down in a
moment. �at is why poker is so good and so beautiful. What
hap-pened at the table today was simply poker in its pure essence.
I have worked a lot to accept the good times that poker can give
you, and the bad moments, too.”
Salas also realizes what an opportu-nity this is to grow the
sport of poker in Argentina. Past international world champions
have used their notoriety to help spark poker interest in their
home countries.
“I think this performance will help Latin American poker, and
will also help a lot for Argentinian poker. �at makes me feel very
happy. I don’t know what this moment will have as far as an impact
there. I wish that all Latin American countries could start to see
poker as a mental sport, which is what it is.” �
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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - poker Strategy
VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3
Blinds – 40,000 – 80,000 with a 5,000 ante Players Remaining:
6
Roy Winston5,355,000
Mark Weitzman1,750,000
10
10
7
7
J
J
The Hand
Shi� s In Poker Strategy With Ping LiuPoker Pros Revisit Hands
From The Past To Show How The Game Has Changed
By Steve Schult
In the nearly two decades since poker experienced a boom thanks
to Chris Moneymaker’s historic World Series of Poker main event
victory in 2003, the strat-egy surrounding the game has evolved at
a pace never before seen. With online poker, the game’s best
players were able to see more hands quickly and develop more
complex strategies to win. Bet sizing, aggression levels, and even
something as basic as preflop hand selection has changed
drastically since the game went mainstream.
Chicago native and Southern California resident Ping Liu has
been playing long enough to see most of these changes. With his
first significant cash as a pro com-ing back in 2011 and experience
playing online before that, Liu emerged as a true force in 2018 as
a contender for the World Poker Tour Player of the Year title. Not
only did he finish fourth in the Five Diamond World Poker Classic
for $599,147, but he also took fourth in the Rolling Thunder main
event for another $97,510, and fifth in the bestbet Bounty Scramble
for another $73,734.
Last year, Liu picked up a win at the LA Poker Classic, while
also final tabling the $10,000 super turbo bounty event at the WSOP
and finishing third in the WSOP Circuit Planet Hollywood main
event. He now has $2.1 million in career tournament earnings, and
is currently accepting students for poker coaching and can found on
Twitter @PingDotCom.
Liu sat down with Card Player to break down a couple hands from
the 2007 WPT Borgata Poker Open main event final table, which
featured Mike Matusow, Eugene Todd, Mark Weitzman, Haralabos
Voulgaris, and eventual winner Roy Winston.
The Action: Roy Winston raised to 230,000 on the button and Mark
Weitzman called out of the big blind. On the fl op, Weitzman led
out for 400,000 and Winston raised to 1,400,000. Weitzman
folded.
Steve Schult: Before we even get into the hand itself, the fi
rst thing I noticed is the ante size. � e blinds are 40,000-80,000,
but the ante is just 5,000, meaning there is 30,000 in the middle
in antes at the six-handed fi nal table. Nearly all poker
tourna-
ments now use the big blind ante, which would put 80,000 in
antes in the middle. So how should the ante size dictate your
pre-fl op hand selection?
Ping Liu: It’s pretty sim-ple, intuitively, that if there is
less dead money in the pot prefl op, then you have less to win by
raising and trying to steal the blinds. � erefore, you are less
incentivized to voluntarily put money in the pot, and because of
that, you will be opening slightly tighter ranges.
SS: Should it aff ect how large or small you raise? In this
hand, Winston raises on the button to 230,000 and nowadays you
would see something between 160,000 and 200,000 in this spot.
PL: If there is less money in the middle, your raise
size should go down as well. If there is less in the middle, and
you’re still rais-ing three times the blind, you’re risking more to
win less. So, it’s kind of similar prefl op where you can just
think of what you’re raising by a percentage of the pot.
Let’s say you were in a cash game and the blinds were $1-$2 and
you’re rais-ing 2.5 big blinds to $5. � at is 62.5% of the pot. And
obviously with more dead money in the middle, 60% of the pot gets
bigger and bigger eff ectively. � e bigger the antes, the more you
should be raising pre-fl op, because you stand to win more if you
take the blinds down right away.
� at being said, back in the day, people really did raise close
to 3x as the stan-dard and I’m not really sure why that was. And I
think
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over the years, preflop raise sizes just started getting smaller
and smaller all the way down to just a min-raise, which I think
started happening around 2014.
SS: Winston raises to 230,000 and Mark Weitzman calls out of the
big blind. Weitzman started the hand with 1.75 million, or about 23
big blinds. I remember a man-tra from this time period with regard
to stack sizes which generally said that with around 10 big blinds
you should be open-shov-ing and with about 20, you should find
spots to just three-bet shove your stack. Should Weitzman have much
of a flatting range?
PL: �e first thing is that you’re right that 13 years ago,
people usually played 20-big blind stacks a lot more like you
described. �ey would just shove over an open. But over the years,
[we have realized] there is still a lot more play any-where between
10- and 20-big blind stacks. You can flat and take your hand
post-flop.
But that is also a func-tion of what we were talk-ing about
before. If some-one is min-raising, and you have 20 big blinds in
the big blind, you can still defend and have a decent amount of
playability. But when people are opening to 3x, and now you
have
to call two additional big blinds instead of one, it does make a
big difference.
Once they start tripling the blind, your risk/reward for just
shoving becomes a lot better. If they fold pre to your jam, you’re
going to win another big blind plus what’s in the middle. I think
there has been more play post-flop recently at the shorter stack
sizes, but that’s also a function of the raise sizes preflop going
down.
SS: Weitzman calls and the flop comes jack-high with two clubs.
He then donk-bets (betting from out of position into the aggressor)
for 400,000. Can you explain the ratio-nale of why you would want
to donk-bet?
PL: �e rationale behind donk-betting is that you connected with
that par-ticular flop stronger than your opponent did. You’re
saying that you have the range advantage on that board. Usually, if
someone is the preflop raiser, you are going to have the strongest
hands in your range. You’ll have A-A, K-K, Q-Q, A-K. And if you
just flat the raise preflop, then those hands aren’t going to be
present in your range because you most likely would’ve put in a
three-bet.
So very often, the play-er who defends from the big blind, won’t
have a big
hand. Because the top of their range isn’t going to be present.
�ere are certain, pretty specific board tex-tures, where the big
blind theoretically could have a range advantage, but those are
going to be on the lower board textures.
Something like 4-5-6 with a flush draw. �at’s a board where it
is more theoretically optimal to construct a donk-leading range out
of the big blind, because you’ll have a lot more of the 4-5’s, the
4-6’s, the 5-6’s, and also more straight combos than the button. �e
button proba-bly isn’t raising 4-6 offsuit, but from the big blind,
you could defend it.
In terms of what I actu-ally think he’s doing here, I would
guess that he just has a hand that he is look-ing to go with at
this point. He’s just trying to protect it and take the pot down
right away.
SS: How have you seen the donk-bet strategy change throughout
the years? Is there more or less of it now than when you started
posting results a decade ago?
PL: I do think the amount of donk-betting has gone down over the
years quite substantially. Most moderately studied players know
that when you defend out of the big blind, the most common
play is to check to the pre-flop raiser and then react
accordingly.
�at’s something that all the solvers have proven. Checking your
range is going to be the best play. Back then in the pre-solver
era, people didn’t under-stand how ranges interact-ed and they just
started donking on boards where they shouldn’t have a lead-ing
range on it.
�e main problem with doing that is it turns your hand face up.
Let’s say you’re playing with a rela-tively weak player and they
donk on this board and you have nothing, so you just fold. �en the
next time you play a hand with them and you get a similar board
texture, and now they check. Because you know they have a donking
range and they put their strong hands in it, their checking range
becomes unprotected. Every time they check, you can just c-bet
(continuation bet) everything and expect to get a lot of folds
because their range will be signifi-cantly weaker.
SS: Weitzman had 14 big blinds behind, and there was another
player with about 18 big blinds. Is this a good spot for Winston to
apply ICM (Independent Chip Model) pressure or does he usually have
a hand here?
Haralabos VoulgarisMark WeitzmanRoy Winston
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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - poker Strategy
VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3
PL: I think he has to have some equity. He can’t just do it with
air because I think the big blind is show-ing a signifi cant amount
of strength by donking so
big on this board without much behind. He shouldn’t expect him
to lead this big and fold. More likely than not, he’s got a strong
top pair.
Blinds – 40,000 – 80,000 with a 5,000 ante Players Remaining:
6
Q
Q
J
J
2
2
2
2
Haralabos Voulgaris 2,560,000
Mark Weitzman 1,550,000
K
K
J
J
7
7
A
A
9
9
The Hand
The Action: � e action folded to Haralbos Voulgaris, who
completed the small blind. Weitzman checked his option from the big
blind. Both play-ers checked the fl op and Voulgaris bet 155,000 on
the turn. Weitzman called. Both players checked the river and
Weitzman won the pot at showdown.
SS: Action folds to Haralabos in the small blind, who completes.
Open limping is still some-what prevalent in today’s game, but what
were the
types of hands you would generally see people limp with?
PL: Open limping is def-initely part of a pretty via-ble prefl
op strategy, even in 2020. And you’re going to see it a lot more
once you get to a sub-20 big blind stack depth. You can have some
open limps from the cutoff with like 15 big blinds or so. And the
same thing for the button.
But specifically, in this spot, blind vs. blind, the optimal
strategy does include a lot of limps from
the small blind. Especially with an ante in the pot, the small
blind is getting such a good immediate price to complete, they
really are going to be incentivized to play a lot of their hands.
And because their ranges are going to be so wide, often times, the
small blind will often play a limp-only strategy and then respond
accordingly if the big blind does choose to raise.
SS: Weitzman checks his option and the fl op is A-K-J with two
hearts. Both players check and the 9� comes on the turn. Voulgaris
decides to take a pot-sized stab with his deuces. I remember a
limp-stab strategy being imple-mented in these spots. Is this just
a delayed limp-stab?
PL: With deuces, now-adays, the standard play prefl op would be
just to shove when the big blind has 20 big blinds and you cover
him. � e low pocket pairs don’t play particular-ly well post-fl op,
especially against the big blind.
As played, most play-ers would take a stab right away with
deuces on the fl op. On an A-K-J board texture, when the big blind
checks back, he is going to be really capped and not have any of
the strong hands in his range. � ose are the hands he would’ve
raised or shoved prefl op.
It’s unlikely that the big blind has an ace in his hand, whereas
the small blind can still have some of the stronger hands in his
range that was going for a limp-raise. It’s a better board texture
for the small blind, so I think the better play would be to stab
the fl op. Even just for one big blind would be fi ne. If the big
blind has two unders, they aren’t going to con-tinue regardless of
what size he chooses.
When we get to the turn, he’s probably think-
ing the same thing. � e big blind probably doesn’t have that
much, and he’s just going to bet his hand and deny some equity. I
think the pot-sizing is not super eff ective. What he’s trying to
get him to do is get him to fold an air hand, win the pot right
away, and protect his low pair. But since the pot is slightly more
than two big blinds, then all he needs to do is bet the
minimum.
� e big blind will fold something like 7-5 off -suit, or
whatever rags he has. And if the big blind does have a pair, he
won’t fold regardless of wheth-er Haralabos bet one big blind or
full pot.
SS: I know you’re specu-lating here, but do you think Haralabos
was plan-ning to limp-shove on Weitzman prefl op?
PL: I think it should just be a shove every time, so I’m not
sure. From the small blind, there is a lot more limping, but the
deeper you are, with more antes in the middle, the more you should
play a limp-only strategy because you’re going to be playing out of
position and deep-stacked.
� e shorter and shorter you get, the more open raising or open
shoving you are going to see. At the 20-big blind stack depth,
there is a signifi cant por-tion of your range that is going to
want to open shove prefl op, and the most prevalent part of that
range is going to be the small pocket pairs and low, off suit aces
that don’t play well post-fl op. And even some low suited aces
could shove prefl op. You could shove some suited connec-tors for
balance. He will have some limping in his range and will have
raise-calls in his range and some raise-folds. � e shallower you
get, the more options you want to have from the
Ping Liu
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small blind. SS: Weitzman actually
had Q-J offsuit. Should he be raising? What do you think about
his option check preflop?
PL: Did you say he was the shortest stack at this point?
SS: At this point, he is the second-shortest stack. �ere was one
player at the table who had about seven big blinds.
PL: Given that there is a significant amount of ICM
consideration because he’s going to get a pretty big pay jump if he
just folds and lets the other guy bust, that would make me want to
check back his hand a little bit more often.
He could just shove over the limp. And if he knows that
Haralabos is going to limp something like 2-2, then I really
like
shoving as well, because you’re probably going to get him to
fold some stuff that he shouldn’t. I think his two options are
either to check back or shove.
I don’t think raising is a good strategy because I think there
is a portion of Haralabos’ range that will be limp-shoving, and I
think 2-2 would be part of that range. You don’t want to raise
something like 3x and then face a shove.
SS: Weitzman called the turn bet and both players checked the
river.
PL: I think the river action is pretty standard at this point,
but it just sort of goes back to what I said about the turn.
Haralabos didn’t need to bet so big on the turn because he would’ve
accomplished what he was trying to with a one big blind bet. When
he does bet turn and check river, it does seem like his plan was to
just take
the pot down right away. Weitzman played his hand totally
fine.
The Result: Weitzman finished fourth, taking home a payday worth
$380,240. Voulgaris was able to outlast him by one spot, earning
$434,560 for third place. It was also just one spot shy of
Voulgaris’ career best, when he finished runner up in the 2005 WPT
LA Poker Classic main event. Winston went on to win the tournament
and secure the $1,575,280 first-place prize. �e
doctor-turned-poker-enthusiast made a deep run in that year’s WSOP
main event, finish-ing 26th for $333,490, and also won a
preliminary event at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic for
another $230,365, but mostly abandoned the tournament circuit after
2010. �
Roy Winston Wins Borgata Poker Open
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CARDPLAYER.COM 26
Strategies, ANALYSIS & Commentary
VOLUME 34 / ISSUE 3
WHAT WILL WE REMEMBER ABOUT THE 2020 WSOP MAIN EVENT?By Gavin
Griffi n
I guess I could have pre-written this col-umn. Just hours before
one of the now-three World Series of Poker main event fi nal
tables, a player was disqualifi ed for testing positive for
COVID-19.
Whatever the actual chances are of some-one testing positive for
a disease that’s been at the heart of so much misery and pain for
the year 2020, it felt to me like this was inevitable. Having
people play in a tournament online and then fl y to Las Vegas for
the live fi nal table in the midst of a pandemic was inviting
disaster.
In fact, I said as much just a few weeks ago. (Vol. 34 Issue 1:
� is Is Not � e Main Event You’re Looking For)
“Off ering a tournament like this where play-ers will have to
travel to play in it, during the worst days of the pandemic, is a
cynical and irresponsible move by those in charge at the WSOP and,
even though I live only a four-hour drive from Las Vegas and have a
safe place to play, I will not be participating in this event. I
just don’t feel comfortable supporting it.”
� ere has been a lot of discussion on the internet about what
should have been done by the WSOP after someone tested positive,
including many suggestions that would not have been so harsh. But
for all of the discussion, everyone who played in the tournament
knew exactly what would happen if they made the fi nal table and
subsequently con-tracted coronavirus. It was stated right in the
tournament’s FAQ that “any player who tests positive for COVID-19
prior to the start of fi nal table play will be disqualifi ed and
receive the minimum fi nal table payout.”
Everyone who decided to play in this event was aware of the
risks associated with playing it and agreed to be dis-qualifi ed if
they made the fi nal table and tested positive. � e player who
tested positive, Upeshka De Silva, received the ninth-place payout
of $98,813.
De Silva was supposed to come into the fi nal table with the
eighth-most chips and is, therefore, not losing much theoretical
value. However, the fact that it was De Silva who was disqualifi ed
is an interesting wrinkle. He is by far, the most successful
tournament player of those who made the fi nal table, with fi ve
times more earnings than his opponents and three WSOP bracelets
already to his name.
� e really unfortunate thing about this story, other than
Upeshka getting a disease that may have long-term eff ects on his
health, is that I’m now more than halfway through this column and I
still haven’t mentioned the winner of the tournament, Joseph
Hebert.
It’s often said that nobody remembers the runner-up in major
sports competitions. � is is a situation where we might not even be
able to recall the winner.
“I really hope that we remember Hebert’s accomplish-ment, but
after losing heads-up to Salas, will we remember Hebert, or the
fact that De Silva was disqualifi ed? For that matter, will we
remember Salas’ win, or Peiyuan Sun, the Chinese poker player who
opted to not travel to the Czech
Republic for the international main event fi nal table? Or what
about Stoyan Madanzhiev, who won $3.9 million in the fi rst WSOP
main event of 2020, held this summer online?”
“(In fact, since Salas’ entry into the U.S. was delayed and the
heads-up match was played in January of 2021, do we even consider
him a 2020 champion?)
� e sad fact is that there is a terrifi c story in each one of
these people that made one of the fi nal tables, as the people who
produce the WSOP broadcasts so often prove. � e best story this
year might be Gershon Distenfeld, who had just $10,375 in
tournament earnings going into the fi nal table but still pledged
to donate all of his net winnings from his $125,885 eighth-place fi
nish to charity. I hope that his story, and all of the interesting
stories from the tournament, don’t get overshadowed by the
coronavirus disqualifi cation, but I have my doubts.
With a clear mind, and pure understanding of what they were
getting into, each of the 705 entrants to the US main event and 674
entrants to the international main event put up their $10,000
buy-in and agreed to the terms and condi-tions surrounding this
most unusual of main events. Now that the seemingly inevitable has
come to fruition, there is nothing to do but accept the
consequences therein.
I hope it leads to some introspection on the parts of poker
players with regards to how much power they hold in the poker
world. And although I think it’s less likely, perhaps some
introspection on the part of those operators that con-tinue to put
profi t over the concerns of the players.
So, while it’s still fresh in our minds. Please join me in
wishing congratulations to Stoyan Madanzhiev, Joseph Hebert, and
Damian Salas, the joint-winners of the 2020 WSOP main event. �
Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World
Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and
has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings.
Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on
Twitter @NHGG ©
WSO
P.co
m
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CARDPLAYER.COM 2727
WWFD?By Greg Raymer
Often enough, we get lost in a hand, and are very unsure what to
do. When facing a decision for a lot of chips, emo-tions can start
to kick in and hinder us in making the smart-est decision. In those
moments, one thing I recommend for my students is a technique to
take themselves out of the equation for a moment, and thereby help
themselves make the best decision.
We’re all familiar with the common term ‘WWJD,’ or ‘What Would
Jesus Do?’ It is a technique used by some Christians to help
themselves make life decisions with sig-nifi cant moral
implications. Instead of fi guring out what you should do, you try
to fi gure out what this other person, whom you trust, would do if
they were in your position.
� is technique can frequently work very well to remove your
emotions from the decision. I discuss this technique in Chapter 32
of my book, FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies. � e title of
this chapter is ‘Emotional Concerns,’ and this is just one of the
things I discuss. However, for many stu-dents, this is the best
method for avoiding emotional mistakes.
Although it may sound a little silly to ask yourself “What Would
FossilMan Do?,” that is what I recommend to my students. Facing a
tough decision, they should step back, and imagine they were
talking to me about this hand. Maybe it is during a private lesson,
or maybe they’ve just read my book.
But they step back, pretend they have told me about the
situ-ation, and now imagine what I would tell them to do.
� en, just do it! Of course, it need not be WWFD, as you can
replace me
with anybody whom you trust to give you good poker advice. If
you have a friend with whom you talk strategy regularly, put them
in your mind instead. Or, what might work better, is to instead
imagine that your poker buddy has come to you for advice. Imagine
they have described this situation they were in, and are asking you
for help. Now, just follow your own advice.
I think many of you will be surprised at how well this technique
can work. Instead of thinking about what you want to do now, which
includes the entire emotional situa-tion you are in, you are
instead thinking about the advice you might receive from me, or
advice you might give to a friend. Next time you face a big
decision, are having doubts about what to do, and are feeling
emotional about the decision, give this technique a trial run, and
see how it goes. I can’t guarantee you will make the best decision,
but I can promise you this will increase the chances of your making
the smart-est decision possible.
Have fun, and play smart! �
Greg Raymer is the 2004 WSOP world champion, winner of numerous
major titles, and has more than $7 million in earnings. He recently
authored “FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies,” available
from D&B Publishing, Amazon, and other retailers. He is
sponsored by Blue Shark Optics,
YouStake, and ShareMyPair. To contact Greg please tweet at him
using @FossilMan or go to www.FossilManPoker.com.
NOTE: WINNING PERCENTAGES DO NOT INCLUDE TIES. ODDS PROVIDED BY
CARDPLAYER.COM/POKER-TOOLS/ODDS-CALCULATOR/TEXAS-HOLDEM
AnalysisTOURNAMENT HAND MATCHUP Finnish poker pro Samuel Vousden
has become one of the most successful online tournament players in
the world in recent years. In this hand Vousden unleashed
calculated bet sizings to help extract the maximum from his
opponent. � e action began with Vousden min-raising from the cutoff
with pocket kings. Dutch player Luc Van Der Beek called from the
small blind with A-10 off suit. � e fl op brought a paired board
with two diamonds and Van Der Beek elected to check-call with his
ace-high, which could very well have been the best hand given that
Vousden should have a fairly wide range when opening from the
cutoff . Vousden’s continuation bet was small, just 1,520,000 into
the pot of 4,600,000. � is smaller sizing helps keep weaker hands
like Van Der Beek’s in the pot, allowing Vousden to put him in
tough spots on later str