Poker Strategy
Aces vs Kings, 500 Big Blinds Deep: Can Garrett Get Away?
By Duncan Smith · Online Cash Game Pro Garrett Adelstein has Kh Kc in a 4-bet pot; the flop comes 9-high, and there are no real draws to speak of. For most players, that’s all that needs to be said. The money is going in, and a cooler in a 1,000bb pot is inevitable. But…
Read MoreToo Weak to Call, Strong Enough to Raise: Garrett Adelstein’s $60K Bluff
By Duncan Smith · Online Cash Game Pro Garrett Adelstein had already become one of the biggest winners on Hustler Casino Live when he played this epic hand in September 2022. He knew his pocket queens were no good on this river. Aaron Zhang had just overbet $15,000 on the river, and the board had run out…
Read MoreGarrett Adelstein Was Sure His Opponent Couldn’t Bluff. He Was Wrong.
By Duncan Smith · Online Cash Game Pro Garrett Adelstein had already become one of the biggest winners on Live at the Bike when he played one of the most consequential hands of his career in March 2018. The game was $100/$200 with a $200 ante, and Garrett and regular opponent Art Papazyan were roughly…
Read MoreHow Garrett Adelstein Used a Weak Player to Bluff Patrik Antonius
By Duncan Smith · Online Cash Game Pro Garrett Adelstein had not played poker in more than a year when he sat down in a $100/$200/$400 game with a $200 ante in December 2023. Rather than ease back in, he immediately found himself in a massive pot against Patrik Antonius, a player he admired growing…
Read MoreGarrett vs Dwan: 4 Lessons From a High-Stakes Cash Game Hand
By Duncan Smith · Online Cash Game Pro Garrett Adelstein recently broke down a fascinating hand against Tom Dwan from a $200/$200/$400 ($200 big blind ante) cash game in 2021. Watch Garrett’s video on YouTube. The hand has all the ingredients you’d expect from these two creative and aggressive players. Garrett takes an unusual preflop…
Read MoreWhy Milestone Satellites Require a Different Poker Strategy
Moneymaker. The Poker Boom. Do you know what they have in common? Satellite tournaments. Moneymaker’s historic run began in an online qualifier. However, that was in a traditional satellite. If you’re chasing your own Moneymaker moment, you need to know how satellites work — and today, that means understanding milestone satellites. In this article, you’ll…
Read More3 Times You Should Bet Big on the Turn (And 3 Times You Shouldn’t)
Sizing your bets optimally on the turn can help you win more money when you are ahead and lose less when you are behind. Knowing when to choose one size over the other is thus important for maximizing your win-rate. There are many ways to reach the turn (in position vs out of position, single…
Read More3 Cash Game Exploits That Print Against Today’s Regs (Backed By Data)
I shouldn’t be giving this away for free, but you’re getting lucky today. If you want to make money playing poker, you have to craft your strategy in a way that takes advantage of certain deficiencies in your opponents’ way of playing. In this article, I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole of…
Read MoreMystery Bounty Strategy: How to Attack Once the Bubble Bursts
A sigh of relief. A thrill of hope. Could this be the day? That’s how surviving a money bubble can feel. But the feeling is even more pronounced in Mystery Bounty knockout (MB or MBKO) tournaments. Because making ITM in a Mystery Bounty means a lot more than the min-cash you’re guaranteed. Eliminating just one…
Read MoreGarrett Adelstein Breaks Down His $390K Payback Hand Against Dylan Gang
By Duncan Smith · Online Cash Game Pro Some poker hands become memorable because of the money. Others stick around because of the players involved, the table dynamic, and whatever history happens to be sitting underneath the surface. This one has all of that. In February 2022, Garrett Adelstein and Dylan Gang played one of…
Read MoreUnlocking the Mystery: Early Stage Mystery Bounty Tournament Strategy
Over the last five years or so, Mystery Bounty tournaments (MBs) were introduced to the live poker ecosystem. They continue to rise in popularity, having considerable representation in the online tournament scene as well. They’re here to stay. And they’re grossly misunderstood. Aside from being a total luckbox, is the Mystery Bounty format beatable? In…
Read MoreDaniel Dvoress Wins Three Triton Titles as Modern Tournament Mastery Launches
Daniel Dvoress picked a pretty good time to have one of the best tournament runs of his career. With Modern Tournament Mastery launching on Upswing Poker, Dvoress has spent the last few weeks doing the best kind of promotion possible: winning some of the toughest poker tournaments in the world. His run at the Triton…
Read MoreHow to Defend Against Large Flop C-Bets in Poker Tournaments
By Leo Song-Carrillo · MTT Pro Being on the receiving end of a large flop c-bet can feel intimidating in a poker tournament. The pot swells quickly. Bad calls are punished. For some players, that fear produces an automatic fold. For others, it sparks rebellion. You fight back, sometimes at the wrong time, and suddenly…
Read MoreSneak Peek: Modern Tournament Mastery w/ Tim Adams & Dan Dvoress ft. Stephen Chidwick
Tournament poker has a way of making every serious player feel behind at some point. You can study for months, build a strong strategy, and still run into spots where the game feels like it has moved past you. Maybe someone uses a line you don’t fully understand. Maybe the stack dynamics change quickly, taking…
Read MoreTimothy Adams Breaks Down ChatGPT’s Poker Logic
Timothy Adams and Mike Brady recently sat down to review a handful of hands played by Mike’s friend Stu, and alongside their breakdown, they had ChatGPT’s analysis of each hand pulled up and worked through both in real time. What you get is a side-by-side look at how strong players actually think through spots, compared…
Read MoreHow Timothy Adams Attacks from the Big Blind (And Why Most Players Don’t)
One thing that becomes very clear early in Upswing’s Modern Tournament Mastery is that while the course is built by both Timothy Adams and Daniel Dvoress, a lot of the most practical, in-the-weeds breakdowns come from Adams walking through spots on his own. The video we’re going to look at today is one of those.…
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