The Tournament Poker Edge Podcast
The Tournament Poker Edge Podcast
July 3, 2026 -- To Venice via Gondola!
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Clayton Fletcher (@claytoncomic) reviews several hands from a recent $800 tournament at the Venetian Poker Room
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Welcome to the Tournament Poker Edge Podcast brought to you by Tournament PokerEdge.com, the only podcast dedicated exclusively to poker tournament strategy. I'm with your host, Clayton Fletcher.
SPEAKER_00Hello, once again, everybody, and welcome to the Tournament Poker Edge Podcast, sponsored by Shocker Coaching, where you can receive a seven-day free trial and 20% off your membership by using the promo code TPE. My name is Clayton Fletcher, and I am your host here in fabulous Las Vegas. Happy as always to be bringing you yet another episode of the world's longest-running poker strategy podcast. Want to thank you guys for all of the kind words about last week's episode featuring Esther E. Tay Taylor, who is so lovable, and many of you reported that you found her incredibly relatable, especially when she was talking about trying to find that work-life balance, being a mother, having a career, wanting to play poker more, and all of that. And now, of course, she plays in the $50,000 poker players championship, and she's got a sponsorship with a major casino company. So uh she's doing very, very well. And I hope you guys enjoyed my interview with her. I wish it could have been longer, but you know, Esther's very busy, and I was very happy to be able to get her even for a short convo here on the podcast. Now, today I'm going to share some key hands, rapid fire style, once again. And these will be from an event I've been playing this week at the Venetian. It's an $800 buy-in with a $500,000 guarantee, which they are absolutely obliterating. I believe the prize pool is up above $1.1 million right now for this $800 tournament. Uh, I have a lot of interesting spots from that tournament. But first, I want to go back. Two weeks ago, I talked about a $3,500 tournament I played in at the Win Poker Room, and I got into a spot against a guy that I affectionately called the Rock, a fun-loving, recreational player who was enormous. And I want to look at this hand again using a solver this time and just see, especially one particular moment from the hand, whether I made a good decision or not. So just to refresh your memory, the blinds were 600, 1200. We had 48,000, and I opened middle position with the Ace Jack off suit, and the rock called from the big blind. So of course, the solver has no problem opening Ace Jack off 100% of the time from middle position. Flop came King 75, so a complete rainbow whiff for us. My opponent checked an ibet 2000 and then he called. So let's see what the solver thinks about my bet here and my sizing. Solver loves it. This is what we call a range bet situation, guys. So Faraz has a whole video just about range betting, which is when no matter what we have, on certain flops, we always bet. So it might be a small bet, it might be a medium bet. It's probably a smaller bet. Usually, the more frequently we're betting a flop, the lower we want to go in terms of sizing. So yeah, the solver likes my sizing. 67% of the time, this is the sizing. Of course, we mix in some other sizes as well. But so far, so good for Clayton here in this hand. And now the turn comes the King of Clubs pairing the board, King 7-5, King, Badoogie at this point, and my opponent checks once again. I looked at this card as a bad bluff candidate. Hard for me to represent a king, hard for me to get him to fold a seven or a five or a pair of sixes or whatever else he may have called me with on the flop. So I just kind of gave up on it at that point. But let's see what the solver thinks. And sure enough, we do check behind 93% of the time with this hand. So, you know, I've been questioning myself because, as you guys know, my results haven't really been coming at all these first three and a half weeks in Vegas. So I'm happy to see that all of the training, all of the coaching, all of the study, everything I've been doing with Jocka coaching and everywhere else, this is paying off. I'm actually making good, solver-approved, theoretically correct decisions, even though I don't have any trophies or bracelets or final tables to show for it yet. Anyway, it's a 93% check. Probably the logic being whatever he called with on the flop is still good on the turn, and he's going to call again. So of course we mix in a bet every so often just because solvers have to be somewhat balanced, but I think in real life we can pretty much pure check these spots when we don't have anything. Also, Ace Jack could easily be good, and we don't want to get bluff raised off of it. So for all those reasons, I'm very happy that I opted for the check behind in this spot. And now the river comes the deuce of hearts completing exactly nothing on the driest board ever. King 7-5, King Deuce. And now out of nowhere, villain comes out swinging. He bets 6,000. I don't know, guys. It's like I kind of wanted to call just because he had shown himself to be such a loose, aggressive, and fun-loving and wild opponent. But you know, I just what if he turns over like pocket threes or something embarrassing, you know, and he wins this big pot with that awful hand. I did make the fold, I couldn't call, but I wanted to. So let's see what the solver wants to do. And yeah, it's actually a mixed strategy. Okay, the solver wants to fold 56% of the time. So obviously, my play is solver approved. Uh raise about 8% of the time with Acejack, and that is not a play that I actually considered at all. And call the rest of the time. So about 34% of the time we call. Maybe this is a spot where I should call. If the solver wants to call 34% of the time, maybe the times when we have this type of opponent, it should be 100%. You know, I really wanted to call. And now that I've seen the solver output, I still kind of wish I had called in that spot. But anyway, I want you guys to learn how to use solvers and how to learn from coaches. And the best place to do it is jocka coaching. You guys can save 20% off either a monthly or an annual membership. So that's a big savings there, guys. Give it a try. Seven days free trial. Go to jocka.poker slash TPE. That's jocca.poker slash TPE. All right, guys, I want to move on and talk about this $800 Venetian tournament that I've been playing recently. And we'll just go through a few of these moments that I had at the Venetian. Uh, the competition in this tournament was um, I'd say a step down from what I've been facing, probably because I've been playing a little bit bigger in terms of buy-ins, but also there's just a lot going on around town, and this tournament kind of had a lower guarantee, a smaller buy-in, and kind of not the prestige of let's say the WSOP, and not as big of a prize pull as the $3,500 tournament that's going on at Aria. So it just felt like a good spot for me to kind of Carlos my way over to the uh road less traveled, if you will. And still they got 1700 plus players for a prize pull of nearly 1.2 million dollars. So a lot of action all over town. For the first couple of hours, things went really smoothly for me. Uh, you start off this tournament with 40k, and by the time the blinds had gone up to 500, 1,000, and these are 40-minute levels by the way, I had amassed a stack of 68,000. So, you know, pretty smooth sailing, kind of keeping up with the average, maybe a little bit above. And I was under the gun with pocket jacks, and I made it 2,000, so just a min raise there. And then the very next player, so I'm under the gun, he's in second position, he makes it 6,400, and so now it folds back around to me. I've got pocket jacks facing a three-bet from the worst relative position. I really don't like this spot at all. I mean, obviously, we can't fold. Jax is a bit too strong to fold. This guy, he looked like a golfer. You you know the type. He's like 40 years old, a little bit tan, got a visor on, probably a pretty tight player. Generally speaking, these guys don't get too far out of line. So, yeah, I was worried. I was worried that I was beat, but I had to make the call and see what we can hit on the flop. So I call 4,400 more, and now the flop comes nine of diamonds, eight of diamonds, four of diamonds. And I've got two black jacks. The board is nine eight four, and so this is a good flop for me to get in trouble because I've got an overpair, and I'm worried that my opponent may also have an overpair, and if he does, it's almost certainly better than jacks. Anyway, I checked just to see what he wanted to do, and he fires 12,500 into the pot of around 15,000. I don't know. Look, if you're out playing me with like Ace King with the Ace of Diamonds or something, good for you. Like, I just I threw those jacks away. I almost wished I had folded them pre-flop, to be honest, because I just felt like this guy had it, and then for the next hour, this guy didn't play another hand. So I had a read on him. I thought he probably had jacks beat, but I'm just not at the point yet in my poker career where I can fold jacks for a three-bet. I just I'm sorry, I have to see a flop at this point in my life. Maybe next year I'll be that strong that when I trust my reads so much I can just throw the jacks away like they're seven deuces, but I'm not there yet. So that one hurt, but just a little bit. Alright, let's move on to another hand. The blinds went up to 800 and 1600 with a 1600 big blind ante. And at this point, I had 60,000 in my stack, so just under 40 big blinds. And I raised under the gun once again. This time I've got the King of Spades, Jack of Spades. Now, if I had King Jack offsuit, I would probably just throw it away. The table had been fairly loose, fairly active, but these suited Broadway type hands are so much easier to play. They have what we call playability. So I might flop a straight draw, I might flop a flush draw. Of course, I can flop a strong top pair type of hand, and it's just way better to be suited in these spots. So whereas the offsuit version I would throw away under the gun, I do play King Jack and even King Ten suited under the gun. So I raised it up to 3500, so just over the min-raise there, and both the blinds call. Now the small blind is this older lady with a very thick Russian accent and gaudy jewelry. She looks like a character from a movie, and then the big blind is uh just kind of a generic tight Asian guy in his twenties. So the three of us see the flop, and it comes Jack of Diamonds, Seven of Diamonds, Four of Clubs. So Jack Seven Four with two diamonds. I've got the King Jack of Spades, and the Russian lady just donk leads right into both of us for 3,500 into the pot of about 13,000. So it's a very small bet and also the same exact sizing I had used for my pre-flop raise. The big blind folded, and I just couldn't really see a world where my hand wasn't good on this board. She's either got a flush draw or she's got a worse jack, or maybe she's got like a seven. It just didn't feel like there was any chance that my King Jack was no good. We've got about the same stack size, roughly. Maybe she's got a little bit more. So yeah, we both start with about 40 big blinds. I decided to just go ahead and raise right here on the flop. If she is drawing, I want to charge her for that draw. So I raised it to 10,000 after the big blind folded, and she called me. So now on the turn, it's the queen of diamonds. So our board is Jack 74 Queen with three diamonds. So the front door flush draw came in here, and now she don't lead into me again, this time for 10,000, which again is the same amount that I had raised it to on the flop. Now, of course, I have to be concerned about Queen Jack, of course I have to be concerned about a flush, but for this price, I mean I'm getting about four and a half to one on a call, so I don't know, guys. I can't fold. I just call and I hope that she doesn't bet again on the river. And so now there's fifty-five thousand in the middle, and the river comes the queen of spades pairing the board. Jack of Diamonds, seven of diamonds, four of clubs, queen of diamonds, queen of spades, and again my opponent bets 10,000. So now she's offering me six and a half to one, and I just can't fold a pair of jacks at this point. I'm sorry. I call, I don't know. Am I just a donkey? Am I a fish? Am I a payoff wizard? And she turns over the eight of clubs, seven of clubs. So I don't know why, but she kept betting, and I won this huge pot off of her, and then in a very thick Russian accent, she says, You don't believe I have flush, you know. It was just too funny. I was like, Maybe if you had put me to the test, you know, like made a real bet instead of these tiny little bets, you could have gotten me to fold a jack, but probably not. That queen on the river is probably one of the worst cards for her to bluff. It just makes it so much more likely that my pair of jacks is good. But then this is what you find with unstudied players. They don't understand sizing. She doesn't realize that she would definitely have bet much bigger if she actually had that flush. There's no way she would just have like tried to milk me for a little 10k here, a little 10k there. It's just it's not how you play when you have the nuts. So yeah, I just I had to pay it off. If she's got it, she's got it. But you know, for that price, you're gonna get a few more chips out of me for sure. Let's see, a little while later, a couple of bad things happened. My Jack 9 was no good on Queen Jack 9, blank blank. My opponent had Queen Jack, so that was rough. Uh, that lost a few chips, and then I lost a little coin flip against that same Russian lady for her tournament life, so I gave her the old courtesy double up. And the next thing I knew, I only had about a half an average stack, and then I had a big coin flip, and I won it. I haven't really had that many coin flips this summer, just five or six, and I'm you know just about even on my coin flips. But this one got me right back to the average, and then there was a huge pot where I don't even know what exactly happened, but I would say all hell broke loose. Uh somebody shoved for 11k when the blinds were 800, 1600. So a short stack went all in, and then there was a huge chip leader on my right. Now, this was a flamboyant Vietnamese player with lots of uh kind of jewelry and flashy sunglasses, and he was playing a lot of pots and winning almost all of them. This guy had like over 200,000 in his stack at this point, so over 100 big blinds, one of the chip leaders in the tournament, I think, and he just called the 11,000 shove. Now I'm next to Act, and I've got pocket kings, and I three bet it to 40k. So I'm trying to build a pot. Alright, I've got 98,000 in my stack, and I'm trying to get as much of it in pre-flop as I can with my kings. So I make it 40k, and now the action folds all the way back to my Vietnamese friend, and he goes all in. So he puts my tournament life at risk, and I call, obviously with Kings, and he flips over ace jack off suit, and the player who originally shoved for 11k had ace 7. So I'm in great shape and I win the pot. It's a huge pot. I collect 98,000 from the Asian guy, I get another 11,000 from this guy, get the blinds and the anties, and now all of a sudden I have 230,000 when the average stack is only 90k. Now at this point, there's still a long way to go. Okay, only 54 players from this flight will advance to day two and be in the money. There's still 186 players remaining out of the 425 who entered my flight. And I was really enjoying that table, but I had to move to another table, and this time someone I know not very well, but I've certainly played with him before at Borgata or Parks or wherever else back east. A player named Ronnie Barda. He's uh pretty tight, you know. He looks like a flashy guy, but he his playing style is like on the tighter side, actually, in my experience. So he's at my table and nobody else that I recognize, but it already looks like it might be a slightly worse table than the one I just left. Anyway, there's a Russian guy. Uh, he opens under the gun. He's got a long beard. He looks like his name should be Vladimir, but it's not. He opens under the gun. Uh at the blinds at this point were 1,000 and 2,500. So he min-rays to 5k, and he's got about 200,000 in his stack. Ronnie calls and somebody else calls. And now I'm in the small blind with my favorite hand, or one of my favorite hands, the ace five suited. I've got ace of diamonds, five of diamonds, and I've got 240,000. So I've got everybody who's in so far covered. Um I I have a decision here. You know, I can certainly use this as a three-bet bluff, right? But the reason I chose not to, guys, is because I don't know my opponents that well. I have not been at this table for very long. I'm in the small blind, so I'm going to be out of position if we happen to see a flop. And also, you know, the rays came from under the gun from another chip leader. So, with all that in mind, it just didn't feel like a good time for me to get aggressive and start kind of, you know, doing acrobatics without a net when I don't really even know what kind of situation I'm in. So, because of all of those factors, I decided to play this one slow. I just call to try to see what's going to happen on the flop. And the big blind folded, but five of us total saw the flop. And the flop was King of Spades, Five of Spades, Deuce of Hearts. So King Five Deuce with two spades. I've got the ace five of diamonds, so middle pair, and some backdoor straight possibilities. I check, and now the original razor bets just 10,000 into this 35,000 pot, and everyone folds back to me. Now, this is the first pot that I've played against this guy. He doesn't know me. I don't know him. We're feeling each other out. I called and the turn comes the Queen of Clubs, and I decided to check again. I think it's a better card for his range than it is for mine as the caller. Uh he decides to check behind. So possibly respecting another chip leader, maybe just feeling like he's okay with whatever he's got in his hand, maybe not wanting to build the pot any bigger. I don't know. But he checked behind, and I thought he might have something like pocket tens. I don't know. But it felt like my fives were no good when he checked behind. That might seem counterintuitive. He could have a hand like Ace 10 and just kind of be giving up. But I don't know. In my experience, players from the eastern part of Europe don't tend to play passively and cautiously. So when he checks back, I think he's actually got a strong enough hand to show it down. So I put him on maybe pocket tens. That was my best guess. Uh the river was a beautiful five of clubs, giving me three of a kind. And now I'm hoping that he has a king, of course. As I bet 30,000 into the 55,000 pot or whatever, and he calls. And so I turn over my lucky winning hand and he flashed a king on the way into the muck. So that was pretty cool. And the next thing I knew, there were 134 players remaining in my flight, and the average stack was 127,000, and I had 315,000. So I was probably in the top 10 in chips at that point. And then I had a chance to become the overall chip leader, probably in the whole tournament, including all six flights, when I got it all in with my queens against somebody's ace king for a pot that was almost 200,000 in chips. If I had won that pot, I would have had almost 500,000 in my stack. But I lost the flip. But that's okay. It was only 25% of my stack anyway. It wasn't the end of the world. I was very healthy. I had 285,000 with 109 players remaining, when the average stack was only 156,000. And then came a bit of a fun spot with that same Russian player. I opened from the Lowjack with the King 10 off suit, and he was on the button, and he decided to 3 bet me. I had made it 6,500 when the blinds were 1,503. And so he 3 bet to 18k, and we both have lots of chips at this point. It's folded back to me, and I'm out of position with the King 10 offsuit. So you're probably thinking, Clayton, what the heck are we doing here? We're not gonna call. Of course, we're not gonna call. I 4-bet to 45,000, and the reason why is because I just felt that my opponent was getting sick of me. He wanted to assert dominance. You know, there's so much war when you are at a table against a professional player who is aggressive by nature, and you kind of need to fight fire with fire sometimes. So I made it 45,000, which I think is plenty big. The fact that I forebet at all is what's relevant. You know, yes, it costs him another 27k to call, and he's already put in 18k. So you might think my sizing is too small, but this I think is totally fine. It's the fact that I'm for-betting and that he will have a lot of three-bet bluffs in his range, right? Maybe like a hand like Queen Jack suited, a suited ace, maybe a small pair. These are hands that are going to not really want to play a huge pot against somebody who can actually hurt the stack. And so he folded, and that was a fun pre-flop spot. Towards the end of the day, only 62 players remaining in the field, and I had 440,000 when the average stack was 274,000. The blinds were 4K and 8k with an 8k big blind ante, and one of my all-time favorite players was at my table, Kenna James, and he opens to 20,000 from middle position. I was in the hijack holding the ace of hearts, seven of hearts. Now, Kenna had about 200k in his stack. I didn't really want to three bet and have to fold to a shove. I could fold myself, it's probably a decent idea at this point, but you know, I had position, I have a suited ace. I called. So I I called for 20k, and the small blind was an old guy from another country. I want to say maybe Argentina. He had a Hispanic sounding accent. So he called from the Small Blind, and he's got like 300,000 in his stack. I don't know what's going on with this guy. He's just running like God today. By the way, this is a new table. And the big blind also called. So four of us saw a flop. The big blind had only about 150,000 in his stack. Now the flop comes seven of diamonds, five of diamonds, deuce of clubs. So seven, five deuce with two diamonds. I've got the ace seven of hearts, so top pair, top kicker. And the old guy checks, the young guy checks, Kenna James checks, and it's on me. I've got top pair, top kicker, and of course I'm gonna bet it. I bet 50,000, and only the old man in the small blind called. So the two of us are heads up to the turn, which is the king of diamonds, which brings in that front door flush, and he checks to me again. I'm not betting this card, no thank you. I think my pair of sevens could be good, but he called me with something, and it could be a flush. So I check behind and I'm hoping no more diamonds peel off. The river comes the ace of clubs, giving me two pair, and now the old man bets a hundred thousand. I don't know what to do. I haven't been at this table for more than 15 minutes, and now I've got a huge decision with two pairs for a lot of chips. I don't know, probably I should just fold. But you know, he's Argentinian, he might be old, but he is Argentinian. He could be value betting worse, like maybe he's got a worse two-pair. I don't know, guys. It just felt like uh flip a coin. But I decided to call, and I was very sorry I did because the old man had pocket sevens, so he had the last two sevens, and that gave him a set, and so that one took a big chunk out of my stack. Is that a bad call or not? I don't know, but I managed to win a couple more coin flips and bag 401,000 for day two, which I'm about to play as soon as I finish recording this podcast. There's 147,000 plus for first place and only 215 players returning. I will be updating my substack within the next 24 hours to let you guys know how I ended up finishing in this tournament, but I'm already in the money and the drought is over, and I'm hoping that we can really make some noise today. And that'll do it for this episode. I really appreciate you guys listening. If you enjoyed it, please make sure that you give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever else you might be listening. Don't forget to check out our sponsor at jocka.poker slash T E T. And for everyone here at Tournament Poker S, I'm Click Clutch. Thank you so much for listening.