Final Table Takedown: John Andress Shares Small Blind Strategy vs. a Very Experienced Opponent in Seminole 25K High Roller

John Andress was born in Doylestown, PA and started playing poker in 2009 during his junior year at Penn State University. Since graduating in 2010 with a Business degree he’s played poker full time with a healthy mix of mid-to high-stakes cash games and high-stakes tournaments both live and online. He moved to Toronto after Black Friday to focus on cash games on Pokerstars. After some online tournament success, he traveled to European Poker Tour’s Prague and won the $10,000 high roller for $236,000.

Andress now lives in Berkeley, CA. When he’s not playing cash games or traveling to the occasional tournament series, he spends time in the Bay area with his girlfriend, family, friends, and dog Shooter. Andress has more than $1.7 million in live tournament cashes.

Event: 2017 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open No Limit Hold’em
High Roller – $2 Million Guaranteed
Players: 117 • Entry: $25,500 • First Prize: $810,450 • Finish: 1st

Key Concepts: Hand ranges; Bet sizing; Bluff catching; Blind vs. blind strategy

John Andress: This first hand is a blind vs. blind limped pot I played vs. Mike Leah in the first two orbits of the final table.

Craig Tapscott: Did you have any specific read on Mike in general or a game plan vs. him? He’s a very accomplished player to say the least.

JA: I did not have any personal history with Mike and only knew that he’s a solid tournament player with some great results. In general, with no specific reads I lean towards a theory based approach and I try to make adjustments as I obtain more information.

CT: What were the dynamics coming into the final table?

JA: Well leading up to the final table stacks were shallow and most of the action was dictated by push-fold sequences.

CT: For players new to push-fold sequences, can you explain it briefly?

JA: Leading up to the final table the tournament had a fast structure. Stacks become very shallow around the money and again near the final table, so most of the action is limited to all-in or fold with the occasional resteal spot (player A opens, player B shoves over the open).

CT: What stack did you come in with to the final table?

JA: At this point I was fourth out of eight with Chance, Tom, Chris, and Sam all in the danger zone with 10-18 big blinds. In this specific scenario against those good players, I needed to be very selective with my preflop opening spots in order to avoid confrontation with the two chip leaders. The action in this hand folded around to me and…

Andress limps in from the small blind holding K 7.

CT: That’s a pretty strong hand from the small blind. Can you share your thoughts as to why no raise?

JA: Getting more than 6.5:1 pot odds I decided I’d play a limp heavy strategy where I would fold the bottom 20 percent of hands and call with everything else. This would allow me to realize my share of the pot with a wide array of hands. I can also mix in some limp shoves vs. aggressive opponents. Despite ICM (Independent Chip Model) implications and the fact that there are four other players likely to bust before me, I’d have to assume that Mike was raising an inordinate amount to consider not calling preflop and trying to realize my equity. Leah checks.

Flop: A K 9 (pot: 200,000)

Andress bets 75,000.

CT: You’ve got middle pair. So, you’re obviously very comfortable continuation betting in this spot. Is checking ever a consideration?

JA: Yes. This is a board that is going to heavily favor the small blind’s range. Mike will likely be raising his A-A, K-K, 9-9, and A-9 to A-K combos preflop. Where if I limp all of my continuing hands remain in my range. With my specific hand, I think both bet and check are viable options. On this texture, I liked a bet in order to get value from his 9-x, flush draws, and Broadway gutters that are forced to continue vs. a small flop bet size and never raise because of my nut advantage.

Leah calls.

Turn: 4 (pot: 350,000)

Andress checks. Leah bets 150,000.

JA: At this point I decided to check. Then when I faced a bet of 40 percent pot from Mike I was in a tough spot. I expected Mike to check back some of his weaker offsuit A-x preflop hands, so I’m behind A-x, K-4, 9-4, and K-9. I decided to call thinking that he’d always bet his two pair, Broadway straight draws, and flush draws, but occasionally check back his A-x and all of his better K-x hands.

Andress calls.

River: J (pot: 650,000)

Andress checks. Leah bets 225,000.

CT: It looks like he’s begging for a call with that bet sizing.

JA: I know. Mike gave me a great price on this river and given pot odds I’d only have to be right about one out of five times to make a breakeven call. Despite the pot odds I didn’t think he was going to try to move me off a weak A-x hand or even K-x hand with this size bet. It was hard for me to come up with a lot of hands that he would bluff with since even some of his weakest turn bets improved to straights, flushes, or had showdown value. Given that assumption I was more than happy to fold K-7 knowing I’d get to that river with a lot of stronger hands to call or raise with.

Andress folds. Leah wins the pot of 650,000.

CT: Did you eventually find out what Mike had?

JA: Later in the livestream I found out that he had 9-4 offsuit.

CT: Good read. Good fold.

Key Concepts: Bet sizing; Hand reading

JA: This next hand was still early in the heads-up match. Mike started with a 4-1 chip lead, but I had the momentum and was winning a lot of the early pots leading up to this point to get close to even.

Andress calls from the button holding 9 4. Leah checks behind from the big blind.

CT: Once again you’re sneaking in from the small blind. Now you have the 9-4. I guess that hand can’t lose. Let’s find out.

JA: Well up until this point I had the read that Mike was going to play near perfect in a lot of preflop spots due to his long-time experience in tournaments. I wanted to try to negate that by limping a lot of middling hands on the button and raising a polarized range in order to force him to play more post flop pots out of position vs. me.

Flop: 10 9 4 (pot: 230,000)

CT: Great flop for 9-4.

JA: Yes. But this is a dynamic board where the nuts will often change by the turn or river, so I decided to size up and bet big with bottom two.

Andress bets 175,000. Leah calls.

Turn: J (pot: 580,000)

CT: This turn could change things indeed. What’s your read on Mike’s call?

JA: This is an interesting turn card for both players. I was not worried about K-Q specifically, since it is incentivized to raise from the big blind preflop at these stack depths.

Andress bets 500,000.

JA: I bet close to full pot so I could get immediate value and protection vs. drawing hands that might not call a bet on some brick rivers if I check back. He decided to call rather quickly, which led me to believe he’d be weighted towards one pair hands.
Leah calls.

River: 6 (pot: 1,580,000)

CT: Can you value bet your two pair? Or is it too thin and too risky?

JA: It was a rather innocuous river card. I was torn between bet and check. This was a crucial swing pot in the match and making a thin value bet into a better hand would send me back into the 20 big blind range. I thought in theory there was a high probability that he wouldn’t raise his straight combos on the turn because of my large sizing, but I decided to trust my turn read and get value from his K-J, Q-J, J-8 and J-7 combos. Mike thought for a few minutes and…

Andress bets 925,000. Leah folds. Andress wins the pot of 1,580,000.

CT: Congrats on the big win. You came out of nowhere to win a high roller event. What have you been up to recently and what have you been doing to grow and improve your game?

JA: Thanks! It feels great. I only get to play a few of these a year so it feels amazing to finally take one coast to coast (especially after having only one big blind in my stack on the money bubble). I moved to California at the end of 2014 and decided to spend less time traveling for poker and shifted back to focusing on cash games. I play a few events at the WSOP and I try to make it to an EPT and a few of the bigger WPT events every year. As far as improvement, I made the greatest leap in my own game when I began to produce cash game videos for Run It Once. Coaching and making videos has made me accountable to the material I was producing and forced me to do a lot of in-depth theory work away from the table. ♠