KINGS vs ACES in the Main Event (WSOP Hand Breakdown) | Upswing Poker Level-Up #46

This article is a transcription of the Level-Up Podcast, hosted by Upswing VP Mike Brady with special guest Aaron Barone. You can watch or listen to the entire episode via the links above or read on if you prefer a written version.

Mike (00:00):

Aces versus Kings in the World Series of Poker Main Event. $10 million first prize, 11 big blind effective stacks and the money somehow doesn’t go in? Let’s see how this one played out and get expert analysis from coach Aaron Barone in our final WSOP hand breakdown of the year. Before we dive in, I want to let you know that it’s the last day to get 33% off the Upswing Lab over on upswingpoker.com during our Vegas Winners sale. If you want to upgrade your skills, whether you play cash games or tournaments, head over to Upswing and get in the Lab. It has everything you need to get better fast and this sale expires when the main event winner hoist their bracelet. So Aaron, we got a doozy today. You want to go ahead and set up the situation for our viewers and listeners?

Aaron (00:49):

Sure. So there’s 14 left in the World Series of Poker Main Event.

(00:53):

We are sitting on a pay jump as in the next person who goes out, will receive less than the person who goes out after them. So folded to the cutoff. One of the short stacks, Coelho has pocket Aces, pretty good hand to see. He’s sitting on 11 big blinds and he raises to 2.4 million.

Mike (01:08):

That is a min raise with the blinds at 600K, 1.2 million. So Coelho decides to opt for rather than shoving all in for just 11 big blinds, he’s going to keep the pot small, try to entice his opponents to play when he’s holding the best possible hand. What do you think of this approach, Aaron?

Aaron (01:26):

In this spot, I think most of your range is going to jam or your continuing range anyway, but you still want to have hands that raise and when you do raise, you are going to pick the min raise sizing off this stack size and Aces is the best hand you can have and the hand you want to use here for sure to min raise with you are still going to get action from players behind you.

(01:47):

The big blind might defend wide, a hand like pocket sixes could re-jam from either button or small blind, but a lot of the value comes in the big blind defending and you getting to play Aces in position with about half your stack already in the middle or at least 5 million or so, 6 million in the middle and you having 11 million behind. So I do like raising here. There are parts of my range that prefer to jam, but this is not one of them.

Mike (02:10):

If you just think about how it’s going to play out, sometimes bad things will happen. Sometimes you’ll kind of slow play these Aces like this, raise small. Your opponent might call with eight seven suited, which they would’ve folded against an all in and maybe they flop a straight and you have a bad beat story on your way out of the World Series of Poker here.

(02:28):

But a lot of times what’s going to happen is your opponent is going to flop a pair of sevens with that eight seven and you’re going to win some extra chips from them. So that’s kind of the thinking behind this approach. We did run this spot in an ICM calculator and it does confirm that raising to two big blinds does make significantly more money in the long run compared to shoving all in, but of course shoving all in makes money as well, so you kind of can’t go wrong. The action folds to Kristen Foxen in the Big Blind, one of the better players left at this stage arguably, and she looks down at two Kings, same suits even so she can’t even make a flush to outdraw Coelho and she’s got 46 million in chips. She’s one of the kind of middling stacks, about 40 big blinds going into the hand.

(03:12):

She definitely doesn’t want to be taking huge, huge risks at this stage. There’s a lot of pay jumps that are coming up as Aaron mentioned, but she has pocket kings. I mean this is a hand that you’re going to be willing to put in a lot of chips with. The question is sitting in the big blind here facing this small raise, what are you doing and what are your thoughts here, Aaron?

Aaron (03:30):

So depending on how your opponent sets their range up, sometimes it is good to trap with a hand like kings. People typically trap Aces here. It didn’t use to be the case, but it caught on in the last couple of years and it’s a really smart play to trap Aces out of the big blind just at shallow stacks, whether you’re the shallow stack or your opponent is, you have an unbeatable hand that you can basically trap with by just defending the big blind and checking over to them on the flop.

(03:58):

With Kings it’s a little different because with pocket Kings, your opponent can still call your jam wider than if you had Aces. So imagine you have pocket Aces here in the big blind. If you jam, well, your opponent is less likely to have a hand like Ace King, Ace Queen or Ace Jack because you have two Aces. When you have two kings, you unblock the Ace Queen, the ace Jack, the Ace ten suited, and if those hands call you when you shove in, great, you’re 70% to win. If those hands fold, you folded out 30 ish percent equity. So with kings here it is trickier than with Aces. I think most of the time I would opt just to jam. I think Coelho’s range is going to have some traps in it and we see it’s Aces, but he could do the same thing with Queens, Jack’s, tens and those hands are calling a jam.

(04:50):

And the other issue is if he has jacks, how many boards does he go broke on, right? If he has tens, I mean the minute an over card comes out there, he’s going to slow down. And so I actually think the best way to get value versus Coelho’s range with kings here is to jam. But if Foxen thinks he sets his range up with too many raise-folds and he’s willing to blast off on later streets, calling makes some sense.

Mike (05:14):

I think Kristen agrees with that second argument because she does decide to slow play and just call. So now we’re going into the flop. There’s already 6.6 million in there and the effective stack Coelho has just 11 million, so less than two pots behind. In theory, this actually is a very reasonable hand to trap in a lot of situations. So you certainly can’t fault Kristen Foxen for making this call pre-flop.

(05:38):

In any case, the flop comes Ace ten five, kind of a disaster for Coelho. He’s got to be feeling pretty good about winning the hand at this stage, but it’s got to be hard to get paid off, especially against the hand that he’s up against. Kristen checks over to Coelho as she would with all of her range. And now Coelho has a decision to make my gut reaction on this board. Aaron, and you could tell me if I’m in line with you. I’m tempted to check because I just have the board so crushed, right? It’s hard for Kristen to have an ace when I have two of them in my hand and there’s one on the board. It’s also possible that she would’ve just shoved all in pre-flop with an ace. So it feels tough to get action if I bet, but it’s too suspicious if I don’t bet because this is a board that I should be continuation betting very often and against a good player like Kristen Foxen.

(06:27):

If I check back on this flop, I think alarm bells are going to be going off in her head and she’s going to have a pretty good idea that I’m going to often have a strong hand and she’s not going to be willing to put a bunch of chips in with marginal holdings on later streets. What are your thoughts?

Aaron (06:40):

I totally agree and a lot of players are eager to slow play and trap, but if you’re an aggressive player and you have a really good hand when you slow down, it actually is what sets off the alarm bells. So here I would be more suspicious of a check from Coelho if I’m Kristen, than a bet. This is a board that Coelho is going to bet with almost his entire range, probably his entire range should actually betting given how condensed it is. We were talking about how his range looks pre flop and yeah, it’s some high pairs, but maybe it’s also Ace King suited, Ace Queen suited.

(07:16):

Maybe there’s some weaker suited Aces in there too. Perhaps there’s some weak suited Broadways in there. Maybe a king queen suited, a queen jack suited, right? So his range overall is so strong it is going to bet this flop most really I would say all the time. I would actually say a hundred percent of the time his range should be betting this flop. And if he ends up slowing down with a hand this strong and then making some moves on turn or river, then Foxen’s going to think, well, I mean why didn’t he just continuation bet the flop? I actually think his range looks weaker by betting here. I would say players often think the opposite, right? Oh, a check I’ll look weak. Well, a check on a board, you should bet all the time that’s good for your range actually looks really strong. It does the opposite of what you’re trying to do.

(07:57):

So I like betting here. I like the sizing he picks. I was going to say one big blind is what I would go, but anywhere between one and one and a half big blind seems fine.

Mike (08:06):

Coelho does bet exactly one big blind into the roughly five and a half big blind pot and now it’s back on Kristen. She’s got a call 1.2 million to win the 7.8 million in the middle. It’s already probably feeling a little bit dicey for her because Coelho raised from the cutoff pre flop off a short stack. He chose to just min raise rather than shove all in. He’s going to have a lot of ace and something else in his hand. Maybe he can have king ten offsuit or something like that. I guess that’s possible kind of farfetched in the main event. I don’t think a lot of players will make that play preflop, but it is possible.

(08:45):

But the point is his range is just so tight out of the cutoff that she’s probably already not feeling too great about this even against the one big blind bet. That said, would you agree that she kind of doesn’t have a choice? She’s got a call that just small bet there, right Aaron?

Aaron (08:59):

Yeah, I definitely want to call one. It is actually one big blind, and you’re right, A lot of his weaker hands that she beat pre-flop were Ace X, Ace eight suited, ace nine suited, ace jack, ace queen, and she’s behind those now. So while she was trapping pre flop, this is a disaster flop for her and really her best hope is that he has a hand like a Broadway combo or he has a hand like Queens and Jacks and is going to slow down, but folding really can’t do that here. Still getting a good enough price to continue raisings out of the question.

(09:30):

So she just makes a call.

Mike (09:32):

With 9 million in the middle. The turn comes the eight of hearts. So the board is Ace ten five with two spades turn eight of hearts, that’s the second heart. So there’s two flush draws on the board now. 9 million in the middle. Kristen checks over to Coelho, he’s got 9.7 million behind and there’s 9 million in there like I said, what do you think, Aaron? I mean if I had a hand like Ace King as Coelho, I think I’d want to go all in, but with specifically this hand, what are your thoughts?

Aaron (09:59):

We had a hand on the Upswing breakdowns that we did before for the WSOP where someone slow played a little bit, their opponent caught up and people were very against the idea of slow play and that is going to happen sometimes just part of the game. But you’re right that he has a top set here.

(10:20):

I would prefer to check this back and I know that there are a lot of draws possible and I’m allowing my opponent to draw for free, but if I end up jamming here, I don’t know how many worse hands call my jam, a hand as strong as king ten, a hand as strong as Ace four. I don’t know if that hand’s going to actually call a jam in this spot and those are near top of range that aren’t like two pair. It’s hard to imagine she actually has a set in this spot even though she might play tens the same way, but I’m not really sure. I really like checking and yes, you give your opponent a chance to catch up, but you also give him a chance to bluff and that might be how you get value in the spot.

Mike (10:59):

I think a lot of the hands he’d get value from too are the ones where he’s just in a cooler situation.

(11:07):

Like when Kristen does have pocket tens that she slow played pre flop somehow and has a set of tens. Maybe she has Ace five for two pair, maybe she has pocket fives for bottom set. He’s probably going to stack those hands no matter what. Even I think on a river that completes draws, I think they might just get the money in. There’s just so little behind or they’ll at least get a substantial amount of the money in on the river. So against hands that he’s going to stack on the turn, he’s going to probably stack them anyway or at least win a lot of chips from them anyway. I guess the only upside to jamming is you get draws that have equity to fold. So it’s pretty nice to get Queen Jack to fold here, right? Because it has eight outs to beat you. So that’s an upside to betting in general, not just jamming.

(11:49):

Let’s go ahead and see what Coelho decided to do here. This is an absolutely pivotal moment in the tournament for him. If he gets this right, he could basically punch his ticket to the final table or near punch his ticket to the final table. If he gets it wrong, he’s still going to be one of the shorter stacks and he does decide to bet again, but it’s not all in, it looks like. It looks like he’s going to go for kind of an in-betweener size. This is kind of looking suspicious to me. He goes 3 million into 9 million and he leaves 6.7 million behind. So it kind of feels like he’s committed. If he’s bluffing with a draw and then she goes all in, he’s committed to call it off depending on what the draw is. So for him to really be bluffing here, he has to have a hand with almost no equity.

(12:36):

Maybe it’s hard to even think of one, maybe like queen ten offsuit. He’s turning a pair of tens into a bluff trying to get her to fold an ace, and I’m really twisting my brain into a pretzel even trying to come up with that. It’s not very realistic. What do you think?

Aaron (12:52):

Yeah, I think the bottom is range here are going to be broadway combos. So maybe there’s a King Jack, one heart, one spade. For some reason he raised pre well yeah, or King heart Jack Spade. Sure, whatever King Jack, that’s really it. King queen maybe. And unfortunately for Kristen, she blocks those. So it’s really hard to imagine how he has a hand that she beats unless it’s a Broadway combo. And even then, like as you said, king jack might be the only hand that folds to a jam.

(13:24):

Queen Jack at that point is not going to be folding. And I mentioned king jack or king Queen, but hearts aren’t folding and spades aren’t folding, and those are both still in his range. So given the sizing, it is really suspicious. And I wouldn’t fault Kristen for folding right now, and I would actually guess if her kings were king of heart, king of spade, she would fold right now because at that point now you block the hands that you hope he has, which are king queen of spades, king jack of hearts. But she happens to have two kings that actually don’t interact with the flush draws. And so I can see her continuing for one more street, even though it is a really small suspicious size.

Mike (14:07):

She’s getting a great price. I mean she has to call 3 million to win 12 million. Once again, she has Kings, diamond, club for those listening on the audio platforms, Ace ten five eight, two spades, two hearts.

(14:20):

So what Aaron was saying there as we await Kristen’s decision is the hands that Coelho would be bluffing with like a king of spades, jack of hearts that blocks the flush draws and has a straight draw. You don’t block those hands. So maybe that’s what enticed her into a call here. Doesn’t block those draws, potentially King X of spades or whatever. She does call 15 million in the middle three of clubs on the river. What a beautiful runout for Coelho still has the effective nuts. Kristen would have to show up with the old four two to somehow have him beat here and he’s got about half pot behind. It’s an automatic decision on the river. I’m sure he’s going to think about it for a moment and then eventually drop the chips in. Coelho does eventually drop in the 6.7 million chip bet, Kristen asked for a count, looks visibly uncomfortable right away, only beats a bluff.

(15:16):

We’ve already talked at length about what those potential bluffs could be. She blocks some of them maybe. She does pretty quickly fold, which I think is in line with kind of how you would’ve approached it, at least on the river, right, Aaron?

Aaron (15:29):

Yeah, I would’ve folded. As you said, she blocks some of the bluffs he might have with Broadway cards. And the other thing is you have to wonder, even if he has potential bluffs on the river, is he going to pull the trigger and bluff them? That’s the thing about spots where you get to the river and your opponent might be bluffing and might not, right? He’s always going to jam Aces for value. People are going to always jam the nuts for value, but even when they have bluff combos and they theoretically should bluff them, they won’t always do it. And so part of it is her hand and how she thinks his range looks.

(16:04):

But another part of it’s is he willing to put the rest in on a bluff day eight of the main event when he’s got about 40% pot behind? So she has to weigh that and she decides very quickly that he is not going to do it. And correctly folds.

Mike (16:20):

Wise decision from Kristen there and somehow not getting stacked with Kings versus Aces for 11 blinds, she maybe could have folded the turn, but it’s kind of splitting hairs because this is a small loss relative to what it could have been considering the matchup pre-flop. That’s how I busted the main event this year, by the way, Kings versus Aces, sprinkle in a little bad beat for the fans. As I mentioned at the start of this episode, the Vegas winners sale, 33% off the Upswing Lab, the most popular course on Upswing poker.

(16:47):

It expires tonight. So if you’re serious about poker, you want to upgrade your game, I highly recommend heading over to upswingpoker.com and hopping in the lab and getting this 33% discount. The lab has everything you need to improve your skills. It has modules for tournaments, cash games, live and online. Each module covers a critical topic or concept and will quickly help you improve your game. It also includes charts for all the different game types for all the common situations. So you never make a mistake before the flop and you get access to a private strategy community where you can ask questions to coaches like Aaron and improve your skills when you get those answers. Aaron has some great content in the lab that will help you improve your tournament game and a little scoop, Doug Polk is currently working on a live poker module that’s going to be coming out in August. So if you want to access that Doug lesson at a discount, head over to upswingpoker.com and get in the lab. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching the WSOP hand breakdown this year. We had a lot of fun bringing it to you, and we will see you in the next one.