Shifts In Poker Strategy With Jonathan Tamayo

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 strategy surrounding the game has evolved at a pace never seen before. With online poker jumping into the mainstream, the game’s best players were able to see more hands faster than ever, developing more complex strategies to win.

Bet sizing, aggression levels, and even something as basic as preflop hand selection has changed drastically since poker’s popularity exploded.

Jonathan Tamayo’s career as a poker pro was spawned in the wake of the boom and he’s been at the front line of strategy evolution over the course of nearly two decades on both the virtual and brick-and-mortar felt.

With live tournament cashes dating back to 2006, Tamayo racked up more than $2 million in earnings, and another seven figures from online poker under the screen name “driverseati.” This past summer, the Texas native won the $1,100 no-limit hold’em at the Wynn Summer Classic in Las Vegas for $237,935 and then finished fifth in the $1,100 Mid-States Poker Tour Venetian main event for another $107,694 less than a week later.

Card Player sat down with the Cornell University graduate to break down a couple of hands from the 2010 WPT Legends of Poker main event to help illustrate some changes in strategy.

The Action: Tom Braband raised to 100,000 on the button and Jared Jaffee called out of the small blind. Kyle Wilson defended his big blind, and the three players saw the flop of J 7 4. Action checked around and the turn was the 7. Jaffee checked, and Wilson bet 200,000. Braband called, and Jaffee check-raised all in. Wilson called and Braband folded. The river was the K.

Steve Schult: Tom was one of the better online players from this era and he opened the pot with a min-raise on the button. Was it the online players that started this trend?

Jonathan Tamayo: It was right around 2010 when min-raising became a thing. It all stemmed from people overfolding their big blind too much. At the time, min-raising felt kind of wrong to me. It felt like I wasn’t going to get enough folds. So, I just min-raised and added an ante.

It was a completely arbitrary number, but it got me closer to what was optimal. A min-raise, 2.2x, 2.3x, 2.4x are all about the same thing though. It’s not until you get to 2.6 or 2.7x where you start to go wrong.

All the good players were doing it, but nobody really knew why. You get to have a wide range, which is fine, but you were able to show much more of a profit because calling ranges were inelastic. Nobody understood that you had to call more against smaller sizes. This worked a lot better then, than it does now.

SS: Jared Jaffee, who would go on to win a WPT event and a WSOP bracelet, called the raise out of the small blind on a 14-big blind stack. This seems like it should be a shove-or-fold spot against an open. Is that accurate?

JT: It’s just so hard to balance. It has to be shove or fold there.

SS: Is there any merit to calling? Could there be a hand or a scenario where it could make sense?

JT: Maybe aces or kings. Maybe some of the top end of your range. It’s just so hard to execute well. In the big blind, you can defend a lot of things. In the small blind, not so much. The big blind is just incentivized based on the price he’s getting to come in with more hands. That’s not ideal for Jared in this spot.

SS: What is a reasonable shoving range for Jared in this spot?

JT: Q-J offsuit can be in there. All the suited aces at the very least. You would knock off some of the worse offsuit aces like A-2, A-3, A-4. You would shove 4-4 or 5-5 or better here. All the suited broadways, K-9 or K-8 suited.

That’s assuming the button is opening a fairly wide range. Otherwise, you could knock off some of the worse hands in that range like K-8 or K-9 suited.

SS: From an ICM perspective, does it make it a better shove for Jared since he would be shoving as the shortest stack into the second shortest stack?

JT: If you’re the short stack, it doesn’t change much. Tom has to be more careful, so it does give you a little more fold equity. But it’s going to be so insignificant that it doesn’t matter much. Plus, busting Jared would give him a pay jump, so he’s incentivized to call more even though he is the second-shortest stack, so your fold equity might even go down.

You might have to shove even tighter. Maybe even knock out 5-5 from your shoving range. Or maybe some of the worse aces like A-6 or A-7 offsuit since you are going to need to have a decent amount of showdown value.

SS: Kyle Wilson is in the big blind with almost 70 big blinds.

JT: He’s going to be defending wide. He’s going to be calling even with a hand like 9-3 suited. Pretty much all your suited hands are going to defend here. You can even squeeze liberally if you conclude that Jared is highly capped.

If Jared is highly capped, and this is his other problem, you can give Kyle a giant squeeze spot. I don’t know exactly how wide to go, but you can get pretty liberal actually. You can put a lot of ICM pressure as Kyle in the big blind on Tom, because Tom can’t get out of line at all. Tom would have to fold hands as strong as 6-6 and A-10 in this spot.

SS: The flop is J-7-4 rainbow and action checks through. I thought 2010 was the year of the 100% continuation bet.

JT: This type of board favors the blinds more than the preflop raiser. They have a lot more J-X, as opposed to A-7-4, which would just crush the button’s range. So, the flop is just more accessible to the blinds and it’s a three-way pot.

If Jared has any pair here and you bet, he’s probably going with it. Jared could call too, but that would let the big blind come along at a good price and you run into the same problem he had before.

SS: What types of hands should Tom bet in this spot?

JT: All of his jacks, some of his good 7-X holdings. He probably checks 8-8, 9-9 and 10-10. He should be betting one or two overcards with a backdoor flush draw. A hand like Q-10 suited might want to bet here for a small size. There’s not much. If you have A-K high with no backdoor flush draw, you might just check this through and try to get to showdown.

SS: The turn pairs the seven and Jared checks. Kyle then bets 200,000 and Tom calls.

JT: At this point, if you’re Tom, you have to have some showdown value to call here. You’re probably only calling 8-8 through 10-10 and will likely fold the river. You could maybe call some A-K combinations, but I’m not the biggest fan of it here because this board crushes the other two players. Underpairs like 2-2 or 3-3 should get folded.

If he checked back the flop with A-7, he should probably just call. You need to protect your 8-8 through 10-10 with some 7-X. I would lean towards calling a lot. You also have Jared behind, so you need to put some 7-X in your calling range.

SS: Jared ends up check-raising all in and Kyle calls. Jared flopped top pair and Kyle turned trip sevens. What are your thoughts on Jared’s turn play?

JT: Jared just has to bet the turn and see what happens. You can’t let this check through twice. If you get raised, you can decide there. You can’t let it check through twice when you’re this short and the chips are more valuable. Sometimes you just need to deny equity. And the best way to deny equity is to shove all in preflop.

It also illustrates why it’s important to be mostly three-betting from the small blind. Some people play hands as a call from that spot, but it’s hard to do. It’s not easy to execute a complex strategy, so three-betting is a way to simplify the strategy.

The Action: Kyle Wilson raised to 110,000 on the button and Andy Frankenberger defended his big blind. On the flop of 7 5 3, Frankenberger led out for 175,000 and Wilson called. The turn was the 2 and Frankenberger bet 175,000. Wilson called and the river was the Q. Once again, Frankenberger bet 175,000, and Wilson called.

SS: With just over a min-raise and a call preflop from two players with very deep stacks, there isn’t much to talk about preflop. But the hand gets interesting when Frankenberger decides to lead into the raiser on the flop. This wasn’t done very much back then. Why?

JT: Against a 100% continuation-bet strategy, this isn’t great. You should be check-calling or check-raising because you shut out your opponent’s bluffs. You’ll make more money if you don’t lead.

If they start checking back, like players do now, then leading here is fine. This board hits the big blind a lot harder than the button. So you can lead large.

SS: Frankenberger led for about 80% of the pot. Is that large enough?

JT: Yes, that’s large enough. Don’t start leading for 40% of the pot. That defeats the purpose. That’s going to cost you a lot of money in the long run.

SS: If you saw this flop, or another flop that could be advantageous to the big blind, are you going to take your whole range and bet or are you going to split it up into some checks and some leads?

JT: You can split it up. You can check-call hands like 5-4, 5-6, 3-4, maybe some A-3 with backdoor flush draws. If you have a pair and a flush draw, you’re so deep that you could even check-call that too. I don’t think you’ll do anything purely. You could peel two overcards depending on the bet size.

But in today’s world, with smaller sizes, you get a lot more of those peels than you did then when everyone was betting so much larger.

SS: Kyle calls, so what does that do to his range against such a large bet?

JT: He could still be peeling some overcards, although it would be tough given the sizing. Some flush draws are in there, but some flush draws also raise. He could with 7-7 through 10-10. He could even just call with A-A, but this is the problem for Frankenberger when you’re deep and out of position.

Kyle isn’t necessarily capped here. He could still have a lot of good hands on this board. In theory, he could still have plenty of bad hands, but I’m not sure you saw much of that in 2010. In today’s game, you could still see a lot of the A-10 type hands or K-J here. I think there was still a lot of fit-or-fold play back then.

But if the population is still c-betting 100%, you should just take whatever you are going to lead and just check-raise it.

SS: Frankenberger bets 175,000 again on the turn when the flush draw completed.

JT: If you’re going to bet again here, you need to bet large. You’re going to have some flush draws when you led out on the flop and now the flush draw came. You’re going to put a lot of one pair hands in a bad spot where a bunch of decisions don’t seem desirable.

When the card smashes what you’re trying to kind of represent, you need to start betting larger. You got to put pressure on his range. He’s going to have a lot of marginal hands. Even if you have something like 6-5 offsuit, you got to bet large and fold out some better hands.

SS: The river is a fourth diamond and Frankenberger once again bets 175,000.

JT: This just isn’t going to work. It’s a complete block bet and you’re asking to get bluff raised. If you have [the nuts], I guess it could be fine. But even then, you’re just leaving a lot of money on the table in the long run.

This sizing allows you to get bluff raised off a marginal hand, and when you have it, you get called close to 100%, but you still don’t make enough. If you bet half the pot and got called only 50% of the time, you’d still make more. You don’t absolutely need the chips here because even when you win the pot, you’re still fairly deep. So, it’s not like a couple big blinds make a huge ICM swing.

There’s just a better way to go about this. Personally, I would probably check and try and pick off a bluff here.

SS: Should small river sizings generally be avoided?

JT: No. In spots where you’re polarized, which he should be here on the river a little bit, sizings should be larger. You’re not so wide for value that you’re going to bet 175,000 again. It’s a function of the board, the actions prior and what you might have.

The Result: Frankenberger went on to win the $5,000 buy-in event for $750,000, which turned out to be the beginning of sustained poker success for the New Yorker. He later won two World Series of Poker bracelets and has earned more than $3.5 million.

Wilson was the eventual runner-up, picking $370,000 for his efforts. The Canadian player earned $1.02 million over the course of a few years but hasn’t cashed in a live event since 2014.

Braband finished fourth for $109,000 and Jaffee busted in fifth in the hand broken down above for $87,000. Both ended up as top-tier poker pros, although Braband has been absent from the tournament world for the last few years. Jaffee, on the other hand, has $5.2 million in tournament earnings including a WPT title and WSOP bracelet. ♠