A Hand From My 2015 World Series Of Poker Final Table

It is day three of the WSOP $10,000 limit holdem championship. We are three-handed at the final table with Justin Bonomo and Jesse Martin. We’re all reasonably close in chips:

Jesse Martin: 1.18 million, 47 big blinds
Justin Bonomo: 1.17 million, 47 big blinds
Ben Yu: 1.03 million, 41 big blinds

Payouts

1st: $291,456
2nd: $180,114
3rd: $130,480

We’ve been playing three-handed now for 15 hands, as Aleksandr Denisov was eliminated in fourth place about 20 minutes ago. Since we’d become six-handed, Jesse Martin has been to my immediate left, so my small blind is his big blind.

In these situations, my strategy was to never raise my small blind when folded to me—I am completing most hands and folding the bottom of my range. If he opts to raise the big blind, I am never reraising. All of this is intended to keep my range balanced against a strong hand-reading opponent while minimizing variance given that I believe that he was rarely folding if I did open-raise. There are downsides. Jesse has the option to raise for value or to get me to fold hands I’m complete/folding while I am doing neither of those two things.

With the chip stacks so even, I considered returning to my normal cash game strategy of just open-raising. That said, the remaining pay jump from third to second is still quite large, and reducing the size of half the pots you play can still be significant when everyone has less than 25 big bets. It’s difficult to evaluate all of this definitively without doing extensive mathematical modeling.

This is the 113th hand of the final table:

Preflop:

I complete the small blind with J-8 offsuit, Jesse checks.

Flop: A 7 4

I bet, Jesse calls.

This bet is a bluff, but it’s a bit of an awkward one. I’m getting few better hands, possibly only queen-high, to fold. Betting does prevent me from being bluffed by hands that might just fold, but would take a stab if given the chance, such as 10 8. It doesn’t actually prevent me from being bluffed against hands with real equity, such as straight draws, as they can easily raise or make bets on the turn that I’m unable to call. I do have two overcards to second pair though, and a reasonable number of backdoor straight draws, making this a better hand than normal to take a stab at this flop.

One of the reasons I elected to bet is a product of Jesse dividing his preflop range into raising and checking hands. He appeared to be doing a good job of balancing which hands he was raising such that I’d expect him to check some aces preflop, but his range is still weighted against hands with an ace in them here. However, this also means that his range is weighted towards hands with a four or seven in them.

Turn: J

I bet, Jesse calls.

Our bluff has now turned into a value bet. We’ve already discussed that it’s less likely for him to have an ace because of his preflop actions, but we also have to discount the number of aces as he might raise some of them on the flop. For these reasons, and the possibility he can have a straight draw he floated the flop with, I’d have to call down if raised. I’m intending to bet the river as well, expecting to be paid off by a seven, four, or even king-high. This is the least interesting street of the hand.

River: 4

I check, Jesse bets, I think for quite a long time before folding. Jesse has 6 4.

With my jack, I sat there trying to imagine him having a hand I could beat or even chop with. I failed to come up with them. I chop with other jacks, but the only jacks he can make it to the river with are king-jack or maybe queen-jack and he is very likely to raise those preflop. I expected him to check back worse pairs, mostly sevens. While Jesse is very capable of making thin value bets, and did so in earlier hands we played, there aren’t many worse hands that can pay off a seven and it’s much harder for him to have bluffs having called twice. I am also live to be check-raising for value.

Matt Matros, who was commentating this final table noted that he could be value betting sevens in Jesse’s situation. He also pointed out that I am at the top of my range—if I had an ace, I would have gone ahead and bet the river and probably had to pay off a raise, even though it might not be consistent with my reasons for folding here.

I assumed Jesse would have played his draws more aggressively by raising them on the flop or turn. In limit, many draws are played aggressively because, even if your opponent has a set or some other hand that can three-bet, you aren’t getting blown off your draw.

If this hand were played as no-limit hold’em, it’s very reasonable for Jesse to just call twice with 6 5 or other straight or turned flush draws, intending to try to take the pot, but it’s just not that common a line in limit hold’em to float twice. I can’t think of many situations where I’ve done it, especially on a board as dry as this.

Basically, I thought he had an ace or a four more than the five-sixths of the time I needed to call. My fold is very exploitable. We had only played a hundred or so hands total on the day, and even fewer three-handed, so it’s very possible that I misassessed the situation and just got lucky that he had a better hand, but that calling getting 5-to-1 was actually profitable. I’m probably not writing about this today if he happened to have a bluff.

The better my opponents are, the more I prefer to play as game-theory optimal as possible, which does not involve folding the top of your range like I did here. I find it even more important to play like a robot on a large stage where emotions can be running high, but a couple nuances of limit hold’em I’ve noticed over the years overrode all that. ♠

Ben Yu discovered poker while at Stanford University where he developed his prowess for mixed games. He has lived for the WSOP ever since 2010 when he broke out with a 2nd place finish in the World Series of Poker $1500 limit holdem shootout. His poker-induced adventures have included living abroad in Rosarito, Mexico and Toronto, Canada to continue playing online and traveling the European Poker Tour circuit to in search of the most delicious schnitzels and pierogies.