The Tournament Poker Edge Podcast
The Tournament Poker Edge Podcast
October 17, 2025 -- Hold on Loosli
Clayton Fletcher (@claytoncomic) raves about Sylvain Loosli and his user-friendly coaching style. He does not rave about the Tampa Hard Rock. This week's hand history review comes from a $500 Deepstack bracelet event he played on WSOP.COM
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Welcome to the Tournament Poker Edge Podcast. Brought to you by Tournament Poker Edge.com, the only podcast dedicated exclusively to poker tournament strategy. Here's your host, Clayton Fletcher.
SPEAKER_00:Hello once again, everybody, and welcome to the Tournament Poker Edge Podcast, presented by DoctorCoaching.com. My name is Clayton Fletcher, and I am in safe, tranquillo, New York City. Happy to be bringing you yet another episode of the world's longest running poker strategy podcast. Yes, I'm back from Tampa, Florida. I had such a great time at Sidesplitters Comedy Club in the old movie theater. It was so much fun. It's my second time doing that gig. And I even got to venture on over to the Hard Rock in Tampa and play a little bit of a 1-3 no limit, but this had a twist. The minimum buy-in was$400, and you had a$10 straddle and a$40 restraddle that nobody ever did. Of course, the straddles are optional, but yeah, it's basically just a 1-3 deep stack game. Now, this was my first time ever playing at the Tampa Hard Rock, and I gotta say I wasn't that impressed. I mean, it is a beautiful property. There's lots of what you would expect from a Hard Rock memorabilia, like I saw an Alex Van Halen drum kit. I saw something Janice Joplin wore once, and you know, on and on. Lots of cool, like sort of Hall of Fame type of stuff. But just the poker room itself isn't very inviting. There's kind of a lot of disarray, like a lot of yelling, like the supervisor yelling at the dealers, like just telling them stuff like uh you go to table 17 and things like that. It just doesn't feel like a peaceful and relaxed place to play poker. It felt like there was a lot of commotion, and it was only like a Thursday night. It's not like I was there at a really busy time or anything like that. And yeah, just a lot of the dealers were kind of gruff and rude, kind of insulting the players, I guess in a fun-loving question mark sort of way, but it just didn't feel like, you know, as a person visiting for the first time, and we've seen this with other cities that I've gone to, where the dealers just kind of make you feel like you're not part of the club. And of course, the other players are happy to make you feel that way as well. Why would you want the outsider, the stranger in a strange land to feel comfortable on your home turf? But that's where we really need floor supervisors, poker room managers, and especially dealers to kind of bridge that gap and make someone who is not a regular possibly become one. You guys don't know that I don't live in Tampa. Maybe I just moved to the area and I'm playing poker there for the first time. You probably shouldn't alienate me if you want to continue to grow your player pool. So, yeah, just kind of a general lack of professionalism, I would say. But a beautiful property, a very nice, very large poker room, and it just seems like maybe they don't have any competition, I'm guessing, in the immediate area because they weren't really trying that hard. It was kind of like we're the only game in town, take it or leave it, kind of vibes in there. And before you assume that I had bad luck, let me tell you, I actually won$840 in about three hours. So no sour grapes here whatsoever. It was just a far cry. I've recently been playing in Canada. I was up in Montreal at the playground, and everything was so nice, and everyone was so professional, and I just felt very welcomed. Uh, by the way, the bad beat jackpot just hit a few days ago up there in Montreal, and it was 1.6 million Canadian dollars, which is over 1 million US. And wow, wow, that's just so much money. When I was there two weeks ago, everyone was actually talking about how high the jackpot was getting and everything. But yeah, uh wow, it hit at 1.6 million almost, and the winning hand was a nine eight of clubs on a board of seven of clubs, five of clubs, deuce of diamonds, and the other guy, of course, had the four tray of clubs, and then the seven of clubs on the turn gave the top jackpot prize to the bottom end of the straight flush. So, really perfect run out there, and best of all, it was a one-two no-limit game. So these guys are buying in for like a hundred bucks or two hundred bucks, and he ends up winning over a million and a half dollars. It's really cool when things like this happen. So, congrats to everyone that was in the room that night when that bad beat jackpot finally hit. But yeah, my tour, my mini tour is over. I am now back in beautiful New York, and I didn't play that much this week, but I've been spending a lot of time studying with joccoaching.com. I actually participated in a live coaching session. So you've got a coach and you've got the actual player who played the hands, and then the rest of us are in the chat, almost like what we do on Twitch, but everyone's discussing the hand. And the player was none other than Cindy Speyer, who was playing in a World Series of Poker Circuit event, actually, the seniors event in Pompano Beach earlier this year, and they also reviewed hands from two other circuit events that Cindy played in this year, and spoiler alert, she won all three of these events. So that right there is unbelievable. It's only October, and this person has won three circuit rings already this year. But the cool part for me was she was working with Sylvan Loosely, who is a French player that I'm actually friends with, and he was her coach on joccacoaching.com. Sylvan has eight million dollars in live earnings, including the 2019 World Series main event final table, where he got fourth place, and he's also got plenty of EPT scores, final tables, high rollers, you name it. This guy is the real deal. He's quite a crusher, and he's also very good at explaining concepts and asking the right questions to try to understand where the student is at in her development so that he can help take her from where she is now to the next level. As I mentioned, I know him personally, but I've never seen his coaching style before, and it was really cool to watch that. And I even chimed in with a few questions of my own. I love the chat feature because you're watching a coaching session, but you're also able to engage. And another thing that was cool is I got to see Sylvan using GTO Wizard, incorporating that into the coaching. Like you're playing in a seniors event, so we're obviously not going to be looking to play a GTO style because we're going to try to exploit the old guys, right? So it's not exactly the same, but we still start with a theory, and then we know what we're deviating from, in what way to deviate, and how far to deviate. So he called up the solver on the screen, and it was really fun to watch him explain to Cindy how we deviate from the GTO strategy when we're playing against highly exploitable opponents. So, yeah, it was just really cool and to see how a world-class player and coach would incorporate GTO Wizard into the coaching. It was especially fun to do so in real time. Now, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably pretty serious yourself about getting good at poker. Now, I can't promise you guys are gonna win three rings in one year or anything like that, but I can tell you that Jocka Coaching is improving my game tremendously. You can click the link in the description of this podcast episode and give it a try for free for a full week, and then you'll save 20% using the only promo code that is available for this website anywhere this month. The only place you can get a discount on Jocka coaching in October is by using our promo code TPE. Alright, let's review last week's strategy hand one more time, and this time we're gonna see what GTO Wizard would do in my shoes. Uh, just a reminder, it's a$55 WSOP online mystery bounty tournament. This hand was kind of early, still about an hour left in late reg. Blinds are 200, 400, we've got 24,000 when the average is 20,000. Starting stack of 10,000, so I guess it's not that early after all. But yeah, we had 60 big blinds, and the bounties don't kick in for another hour and a half. We open under the gun to 800 with the Queen of Spades, Queen of Hearts, and only the overall tournament chip leader calls with 50k in his stack, and obviously the solver doesn't mind me opening queens under the gun at this or any other table. So let's go to the flop 2550 in the pot. Flop comes ace 109 rainbow, and I go for a check, and villain bets 900. We call. So GTO Wizard does bet this most of the time. 55% of the time, we're supposed to bet 600. Even though the caller is in position, it's not a hard and fast rule that we never bet when we are out of position as the pre-flop razor on the flop. But what we want to do is we just bet a lot less often than when we are in position. So, for example, in this spot, we're going to bet some amount, 75% of the time, usually 600, about a blind and a half, right? But we have other sizing as well. But if we had gotten called by just say the big blind, and then we'd have position, we actually see bet 95% of the time. So it goes from 75 to 95. So we do check 25 of the time, even with the ace high flop here, which is what I did. So my play, although it's not standard, it is GTO wizard approved. So now facing the bet of 900, as we did, it's never a check raise, and obviously, we're not going to fold a hand this strong just yet. It's a pure call, 100% call with Pocket Queens. So now with 4350 in the middle, the turn comes the Jack of Diamonds, and we checked this card, and villain checked behind. Solver has no issues with our decision to check the turn. In fact, we never bet this card in this situation. So now the river, still 4350 in the middle. The river comes the six of hearts, which really doesn't change anything. And I go for the check raise here, guys. I checked opponent put in 2900 into 4350, and I check raise big to 16,500, essentially turning my queens into a bluff. And I was so proud of this play. You know, I talked last week about having those blockers where he can't have the nuts very often because I have the queens. You guys want to know something? GTO Wizard literally never check raises this river with pocket queens. I guess I know nothing about poker because I was really patting myself on the back last week and I couldn't wait to run this hand through the solver. But it turns out we actually donk lead on the river. So we check, call the flop, check, check the turn, and then we're supposed to bet 38% of the time, various sizes, mostly large. Unbelievable. We never are supposed to check raise. So when we check and we face this bet, we actually are supposed to call with pocket queens 98% of the time and only fold 2%. We don't check raise despite the amazing blockage that we've got going on. We do have a check raising range, we just don't put pocket queens into it. I suppose that could be because our showdown equity is too strong, so we prefer to play this as a bluff catcher. I don't know. I I'm really a bit lost here, but our check raising range includes sets like pocket jacks, pocket nines, and of course, when we have the actual nuts king queen, we check raise with that quite a bit. We also do it as a bluff with King Jack and Queen Jack some percentage of the time, but wow, wow, we never do it with the pocket queens. And also, by the way, you guys might remember I left myself like 15 big blinds behind after starting the hand with 60 big blind in my stack. The solver never wants to do that either. When we check raise, it's always a shove. And I suppose that's because we are doing it with the nuts so much. And obviously, even if it's rarely called, which I have a feeling it would be rarely called, the way this hand was actually played in real life, even if that's the case, we still profit more over the long run by putting the whole stack in when we know we finally have the hand completely locked up. I thought I had a perfect candidate to check Gray's Bluff on the river. I was proud of myself, but no, no, sir. We made what we call in Solverland a blunder. And I actually learned something every single time I run a hand through GTO Wizard, and I actually have a great deal for you guys there too. Click the link in the description, and you can get 24 hours, unlimited access to all of GTO Wizard's features. And then when you're ready to buy, you'll save 10%. Because you clicked our link. That's our affiliate link, which is gtowizard.com slash P slash T P E. Alright, guys, I'm ready to do a new hand. This is also from that same trip to beautiful Williamsport, Pennsylvania, home of the Little League World Series. I played in a$500 deep stack bracelet event online, and I was absolutely crushing the table. I had 75k when the average was 55k. Nobody at my table had more chips than I had. It was early on, 200-400 with a 400 big blind ante. So we're almost at 200 big blinds, and it's not called a deep stack event for nothing. This tournament you start with 50k. So it's deep. We were cruising along. We had a top 20 stack with 300 plus players already registered, still over three hours remaining in late registration. One fold to me, and I've got the ace of spades queen of hearts. I decide to open to 800. I know the solver's gonna want to do like 900 or 1000. I don't think it makes that much difference. We're not gonna belabor that, but it's worth mentioning. The deeper you are, the bigger your opening bet should be. But I just min-raised as I will in this spot with my entire opening range. Only the button calls, and he's been very active, loose, and aggressive. Now there's 2900 in the middle, and the flop comes Queen of Diamonds, Eight of Diamonds, Deuce of Spades, Queen Eight Deuce with two diamonds. We've got ace queen, top pear, top kicker, and no diamond. I decide to check, as you guys know by now, when I'm out of position as the pre-flop razor, I very often check to my opponents, and this hand is no exception. I checked villain bets 1450, about half the pot, which by today's modern standards is actually a fairly large bet sizing. I certainly think his range could include a lot of draws, maybe a hand like Jack 10 or Jack 9 or 10-9, possibly with a diamond or even two diamonds, which would actually give Villain a straight flush draw. So yeah, I think a lot of his betting range will be with a draw or a semi-bluff of some sort. So yeah, we can check Rays, but I decided just to call and see how things shake out. I made the call and now with 5800 in the middle, the turn comes the five of hearts. So our board is now queen of diamonds, eight of diamonds, deuce of spades, five of hearts. I check once more, you know, let him bet again. Maybe he's got a queen, and I can beat that. Maybe he's going to keep semi-bluffing with a draw. I'm ahead of that too. The only thing I'm worried about is if he happened to flop a set of eights or deuces. I really don't think villain is going to have like queen eight or queen deuce, right? These are not the kind of hands people make calls with, even on the button. Remember, I raised from under the gun, well, actually second position, under the gun plus one. But yeah, it's highly unlikely that he's got any type of two-pair. And some guys will slow play pocket aces once in a while, which is weird, especially at this stack depth. I mean, we've both got over a hundred big blinds. I don't really think you see very much slow playing, right? He should be trying to three bet me and try to get it all in against my kings with that hand. So I'm not really putting too much weight on the possibility that he's got a better one-pair hand than I have. So it's really just a set of eights or a set of deuces that I'm concerned about. In other words, not that much. So on this Five of Hearts turn, I check once more, and this time he does bet again, and he bets big 5,100 into the 5,800 pot. And now I was worried. You know, you just don't see people blasting this much. I mean, this guy had been loose and aggressive, but the sizing concerned me. It felt like I could really be up against a set. The problem is he's a good enough player that he could fire big on the turn with one of those draws. You know, I feel like Jack 10 of diamonds is a big part of his range for betting half pot on the flop and then firing big again on the turn because he just has so many outs, but he doesn't really mind if I fold either. However, I couldn't help but notice how large and polarizing this bet was. Like he's either got a very strong draw or he's got a very strong hand. Like pocket eights, pocket deuces, that's what we're worried about. And I was streaming this hand and all the hands I played in Williamsport on my Twitch channel, which is twitch.tv slash Clayton Comic. And I was saying out loud, I'm only worried about these two hands, eights and deuces, that flopped a set on me. I mean, suppose he could maybe turn a set with the fives, but I'm not gonna worry about everything, right? But the point is when he bombs the turn, he doesn't have like queen ten. He's not representing one pair anymore. He's representing something bigger with this polarized sizing. But I still I have ace queen, and I've kind of underrepresented my hand by checking it twice. So I think I'm sort of compelled to call, but I certainly didn't like it. I made the call, and now with 16,000 in the middle, the river comes the Jack of Spades for a final board of Queen of Diamonds, Eight of Diamonds, Deuce of Spades, Five of Hearts, Jack of Spades, and I check it one more time, and now villain fires again 12,000 chips into the 16,000 chip pot, and I just felt sick because now even the 10 9 of diamonds got there. If that's a hand he can have, which I think it is, so that's one more hand for me to worry about. Still, the way I've played it, can we really fold a hand as strong as Ace Queen against a competent, aggressive, loose opponent? I really didn't know what to do. I took my time, I went into my time bank, and eventually I made the call, and then villain turned over the deuce of hearts, deuce of clubs, and just like that, we lost about a quarter of our stack in a spot where we just felt like we needed to call because of the way we played the hand. Did I outplay myself here, guys? Is it better just to fold that river? I mean, is he triple barreling as a bluff? Or did he get there or was he there all along? I don't know. It just I'm not getting a great price. I only have one pair. This pot is way too big for one pair, and I couldn't get away from Ace Queen, and that'll do it for this episode. Guys, check out Jocakoaching.com. That's J A K A. Actually, just click the link in the description to make sure you get your 20% discount and seven days free. And for everyone here at Tournament Poker Edge, I'm Clayton Fletcher. Thank you so much for listening.