$127,165 Madness! 3 Players Move All-In in High Stakes Game (Analysis)

It’s not very often you see a multiway all-in at high stakes cash game… let alone an online high stakes cash game.

But we’re going to be looking at one today between Wiktor “Limitless” Malinowski, Manuel Saavedra, and the mysterious player “ARTdirector”.

The blinds are $200/$400 and the effective stack is around $40,000. Yeah, this is a big game.

Without any further ado, let’s dive into the hand analysis!

 

Preflop Action

Wiktor opens up the action by raising $880 from the Cutoff with . ARTdirector 3-bets to $2,768 with from the Button. Manuel cold-4-bets to $8,000 with from the Big Blind. Wiktor calls. ARTdirector calls.

Preflop Analysis

Wiktor has an obvious raise with Pocket Aces, the best starting hand possible.

Facing a Cutoff raise on the Button, ARTdirector should be looking to employ both a cold-calling range and a linear 3-betting range with around the top 17-22% of hands. Jack-Ten suited should be mixing between cold-calling and 3-betting at equilibrium.

Manuel should be cold-4-betting with around the top 5-6% of hands. That range is made of Pocket Tens or better, Ace-Jack suited or better, King-Jack suited or better, Ace-King, and some Ace-Queen offsuit.

Facing a cold 4-bet, Wiktor should be 5-bet shoving with a range of Pocket Queens through Pocket Aces and Ace-King. By just calling with Aces, he risks giving ARTdirector a cheaper price on a call while he is out of position against him in a multiway pot. These factors lower the expected value (EV) of a call by quite a large margin.

However, Wiktor is an elite professional and is definitely aware of this. My guess is that he chose to make an exploitative call here because he expects ARTdirector (likely a recreational player) to call too loosely. This, in turn, increases the EV of this action.

ARTdirector makes the call, which is a pretty big mistake given the strength shown by the other two players. He is faced with two ranges much stronger than his, but he has position over them which mitigates some of that.

Overall, we have a couple of questionable preflop decisions made.

Flop Action

The flop comes . The pot is $24,200.

Manuel bets $7,260 with . Wiktor calls with . ARTdirector calls with .

Flop Analysis

An action flop gives both Manuel and Wiktor overpairs, while ARTdirector has a flush draw.

Despite Manuel being the 4-better, Wiktor should have the strongest range on this board as Pocket Aces make up a larger percentage of his overall range.

For this reason, and the fact that he is out of position, Manuel should start with a range check and see what the other players do. This gives him an informational advantage at the cost of some equity realization. This is a cost-effective decision in my opinion as the information gathered is more valuable.

However, he chooses to bet 30% and the action is on Wiktor, who chooses to call.

Wiktor should be raising and call is a mistake since he is giving away cheap equity to both ARTdirector and Manuel. Another advantage to raising is that almost all of Manuel’s betting range (overpairs and flush draws) will also be calling a raise.

As played, ARTdirector has an easy call with his flush draw given the pot odds that he is getting.

Turn Action

The turn comes the , making the board  . The pot is $45,980.

Manuel shoves all-in for $34,568. Wiktor calls for $30,548. ARTdirector calls for $20,089.

Turn Analysis

A blank turn changes nothing and creates a ton of action.

I think Manuel’s decision to shove all-in is a losing play — he is simply over-valuing the strength of his hand. Why do I say that? Let’s break down what Wiktor’s and ARTdirector’s range likely look like.

• Wiktor: Pocket Aces, Pocket Jacks, Pocket Tens, and
• ARTdirector: Pocket Aces, Pocket Jacks, Pocket Tens, Pocket Nines, and suited Broadways with a flush draw

Now, we need to imagine what these players might call a shove with. In Wiktor’s case, it’s hard to believe that he’d call with anything but Pocket Aces and . In ARTdirector’s case, he will likely call with his entire get-to-turn range (see the range above).

Against these two calling ranges, Manuel only has 10% equity when called.

Wiktor has an extremely easy call with his Pocket Aces that are extremely likely to be the best hand right now. He just needs to fade ARTdirector holding exactly Pocket Nines.

ARTdirector is priced in to call given the amazing pot odds that he has for his gutshot combo draw. He’s actually in a great spot here. It’s always nice to have the only good draw in a multiway all-in!

Results

The river comes the and Wiktor wins the $127,165 pot.

Do you like how each of these guys played their hand?

Would you have played any differently? Let me know in the comment section down below!

Multiway pots are extremely hard to solve, even for computers. The added player in the mix increases the amount of range versus range interactions exponentially.

We can see that even the best players in the world are likely making mistakes in these situations given the time constraint that they face when deciding in real-time, so we have to give them a good amount of leeway. 

That’s all for this hand analysis! Hope you enjoyed it and that you learned something new from it!

If you want more high stakes hand analysis, scroll down to “Related Posts” below.

Till’ next time, good luck, grinders!