The Tournament Poker Edge Podcast
The Tournament Poker Edge Podcast
July 10, 2026 -- Clayton Fletcher plays the Main Event!
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Clayton Fletcher (@claytoncomic) reviews several hands he played in the 2026 WSOP Main Event
----
Try out Jaka Coaching for seven days FREE: https://jaka.poker/TPE
----
Check out Clayton's YouTube channel and see all episodes with full visuals!
----
Sign up to receive Clayton's poker email updates absolutely free: https://claytonpoker.substack.com/
----
Get tickets to see Clayton perform stand-up!!! www.claytonfletcher.com
----
Join the Tournament Poker Edge discord channel:
https://t.co/JHEUIHrCrJ
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_02Hello, once again, everybody, and welcome to the Tournament Poker Edge Podcast. Sponsored by DOCA Coaching, where you can receive a seven-day free trial and 20% off of your membership just by using the promo code TPE. My name is Clayton Fletcher, and I am in fabulous Las Vegas. Happy to be bringing you yet another episode of the world's longest running poker strategy podcast. Wrapping up week number six here in Las Vegas. And yeah, main event is going on now. And I did play in the main event this week. We're going to be talking about some of my hands from day one of the World Series of Poker main event 2026. But first, I want to finish up some unfinished business from last week's episode. When we last left our hero, he was about to go play day two of an $800 Venetian tournament. That tournament, uh, 200 of us, about that number anyway, made it to day two and first place paid $147,000 or something for an $800 buy-in. This is the kind of ridiculousness that can really only happen in Las Vegas in the summertime, where you can pay a little and potentially win a lot. Unfortunately, I did not win a lot. I played well on day two, I thought. And I think possibly in a future episode, I might go over some of the hands from day two of that Venetian tournament. I lasted a while. I made a few pay jumps, ended up finishing, I think, 105th place or something like that. So I made about halfway through day two. So I profited like 1300 in that tournament, which is not exactly what we were going for, but obviously it's better than losing. That's kind of been the theme this summer, just not being able to break through. I've gotten a big stack in quite a few tournaments. I've been playing pretty well, I think, but unfortunate things have been happening at a higher frequency than one would normally expect them to. And as a result, my results have suffered. But I know that I'm playing well, and I know one reason I am playing well is because of all the study and hard work that I put in leading up to this World Series of poker using Jaka coaching. And I want to read a tweet that someone I don't know wrote about this website. Okay, his name is Serg Sakian, and this is a quote. Okay, I'm just reading a tweet that he posted yesterday. It says, I started with Jaka coaching, and I have to say the MTT crash course is exceptionally strong. By the fourth video, I genuinely started wondering why Farage Jaka is trying so hard to make the player pull tougher. There are concepts in this course that can genuinely change the way you think about poker. On the surface, it feels like these are topics everyone already knows, but he manages to dig much deeper into spots that seem like there's nothing left to explore. I think the course is honestly underpriced for the amount of insight it gives away. It feels like he's sharing too many valuable ideas and strategic nuances for such a low price. One thing is clear Faraz Jaca has a rare talent for making you look at poker from a completely different perspective after just a couple of videos. And guys, this person was not paid by anyone at Jocka Coaching. He is doing an independent comparison of all the most popular training sites. And it seems like he really likes this one. And you guys can try it out for seven days absolutely free, a seven-day free trial, and 20% off of either a monthly or an annual membership. And here's the link: jocka.poker slash TPE. That's jocka.poker slash TPE. Alright, well, before we look at my main event, day one hand, I want to go back and take a look at a spot that we talked about last week from that $800 Venetian tournament day one. This was soon after I had moved to another table. Ronnie Barda was there, and a guy that I jokingly said should have been named Vladimir. So this hand is against Vladimir. I'm calling him that because he's obviously from Eastern Europe somewhere, and he kind of looks like he should be called Vladimir, but he played pretty well. He was loose, aggressive, and kind of giving me fits three to my left, which is what we would expect. So in this hand, we have like 80 big blinds. I opened to 6500 when the blinds were 1500 and 3k with a 3k big blind ante. And I was in the low jack. Alright, so I just made it like one chip more than a min-raise. So I said 65. And then on the button, this guy, whose name was not Vladimir, 3 bet me to 18,000. And as mentioned, we have about 80 big blinds effective, so right about 150k or so in the stack. And now the action folds back to me in the lowjack, and I put in the 4 bet to 45k and Vladimir folded to my smallish 4 bet. And guys, I remember last week I described this as a fun spot, like a cool hand. I was proud of this one. I just wanted to know: does the solver ever treat King 10 offsuit this way? And guys, King 10 is an open, obviously, from the Low Jack, but facing a 3-bet, King 10 offsuit is actually a pure 100% fold, as is King Jack offsuit, Ace 10 offsuit, Queen Jack offsuit, and half the time Ace Jack and King Queen. So guys, I'm here to tell you that the solver likes to be suited. By contrast, some of the hands that are pure calls of this three bet are King Queen suited, King Jack suited, queen 10 suited, Jack 10 suited. Most of the time, even 10-9 suited and 9-8 suited can call. King 6 suited is mostly a call. So when we're suited, we can actually continue way more often than when we are off suit. So then what is the range that a solver would forebet with? Well, of course, we have pocket aces, ace king suited, kings, queens, jacks, tens, at least some of the time, along with king 10 suited, king 9 suited, ace 5, ace 4, ace 3 suited, and ace jack offsuit sometimes. So that's basically your range for 4-betting. So King 10 does not appear in that range, at least in its offsuit form, but the King 10 suited is a mostly 4-bet hand. So I don't know. I thought that was interesting. I love to go back and look at spots that I played and just get some solver input. You know, guys, I I kind of knew that I was stepping out a little bit with the King 10 there. I wasn't sure that it was a pure fold, but I knew that it wasn't going to be a very common 4-bet. But I think these are the spots where once we have identified a mistake, quote unquote, mistake that our opponent is making. In this case, my friend Mr. Vladimir is three-betting too often and just generally playing a little too aggressively and a little too loosely. So I can then respond to that in an exploitative way by widening my four-bet range. However, I think I may have widened it a bit too much because King 10 is pretty far away from that for-betting range. Perhaps an adjustment I could have made would be just to always do it with King 10 suited, king 9 suited, and king 8 suited. Although, honestly, guys, I don't really open king 8 suited all the time from the low jack. And especially at a table like this one, I'm probably just throwing that hand away. So that would mean I could add a few more hands, maybe ace queen off all the time. Ace Queen off is supposed to be 50-50 between calling and forebetting. So maybe against this guy, I could literally always forebet it. And that would be enough of an adjustment to be able to exploit him without being too exploitable myself. Anyway, guys, I'm ready to talk about my main event day one. It was actually pretty darn eventful. There were three interesting players in a row. So I'm in the five seat, and on my immediate right is McKenzie Katz. And her father, if you recognize the last name Katz, yeah, her father is Carrie Katz, Mr. Poker Go himself. And I had never met McKenzie before, but you know, she's involved in poker. She works at the Poker Go studio, she's friends with a lot of the players, and she was just lovely, you know, really good attitude, fun to play with, and just a nice person. And on her immediate right is one of my heroes, Mr. Bradley Owen. So Brad Owen, for anyone who doesn't know, is a YouTube legend who is probably one of the original poker vloggers. And obviously, he's had quite a career. He's got a million followers on YouTube, he's fully sponsored and everything. So yeah, he's doing great. And I'd always wanted to play with him. I have met him in social settings a few times in the past, but this will actually be our first time ever playing together. And here it is on day one B of the WSOP main event. And on Bradley's right was a young lady by the name of Victoria Alud, who is young and vivacious, and she was very excited to be playing in her first ever main event. So we had Victoria, who by the way made the final table of this year's ladies' event here at the WSOP. So that's no easy task, of course. And then there's Brad, and then next to Brad was Mackenzie, who was also playing in her first ever main event, and then yours truly. So I didn't start from the very beginning. Had I known that I was going to be playing with this lineup, I might have gone earlier. I really wanted to play with Brad Owen for a long time. Yeah, but I got there in level three just a little while before dinner. So let's go to level four, where the blinds are 300, 500, and 500. And the player under the gun, who was a nice enough guy, but kind of a pain on my left, in this hand, I'm in the big blind. And this guy is British. He's paying a lot of attention to the World Cup soccer match that's going on. And he raises to 1400. So almost a full 3x there. And the action folds over to Victoria Aloud on the button, and she makes the call. And now it's up to me in the big blind after Brad folded. And actually, this is before Mackenzie had arrived at the table. She came soon after this hand. So I was the big blind and Brad was the small blind. So Brad folds, and now I look down at pocket aces, and they are the ace of spades, ace of clubs, and I go for a three-bet. We're not gonna slow play our aces in a multi-way pot on day one of the main event. So I three bet, I said 5,500, you know, kind of a smallish sizing for being out of position. I wanted to make sure that I got some action though. The original razor figured it out and folded, and Victoria in position on the button makes the call. So I'm going to play this pot against her. Heads up, hero with the ace of spades, ace of clubs, and the flop comes queen 77. There's about 13,000 in the middle, and the actions on me. And I decide to see bet very small. I just bet 3,500, and very quickly, Victoria raised me. She made it 10,000 on this Queen 77 rainbow flop. So now right away I have a decision, right? She's on the button. She could have called with 7.6 or 8.7, and right away now I'm starting to think about all of the different things have gone poorly, how many big hands I've lost with pocket aces this summer. And you really can't do that to yourself, guys. Whatever happened yesterday has nothing to do with what happens today, especially in matters of randomness. So I can't worry about this. I just got to try to figure out what exactly is going on here. Why is Victoria raising? Is she trying to see where she's at? Is she maybe just not believe me? Or maybe she has a small pair and she's putting me on Ace King and she's trying to get me to fold it to protect her equity. I don't know her well enough to know what exactly this means, but I decided to play it cautiously. I'm, you know, starting here with about right around the original 60,000 starting chips. So, you know, after I call this 10,000, another big bet, and I'm gonna be pretty pot committed with my aces right here in level three of the main event or level four, whatever it was, right? So I'm a little nervous, but I can't fold my aces just yet, can I? So I call, and now the turn comes the tray of clubs, putting two clubs on board. So Queen 7 7 tray with two clubs, and I check to the flop aggressor, and Victoria does something very strange, and into this pot that now has like 35,000 in it, she bets 7k. So I'm thinking, you know, is she trying to milk me? Does she have a seven? Like, and she's just trying to get a few more chips before I fold on on the river. And am I going to fold on the river if she shoves? Like, what are we doing here? This is just brutal, but I can't fold for 7,000, guys. I'm still here. I call another river. Four of hearts does not complete the flush, but it does complete a very unlikely six-five. Hard to imagine anybody raising me on the flop with six five, but stranger things have happened. Anyway, I'm not gonna bet. I'm gonna check and hope that Victoria doesn't put me through the ringer with a river shove. And I was actually thrilled when she checked behind, and my hand is good. So, right off the bat, the first major pot that I played in this year's main event was a pretty big one where I won with pocket aces. Perhaps it's a sign of things to come. Brad and I got along really well. Um, you know, he had a great sense of humor and just a great personality. He was not doing well by any stretch of the imagination, but still, whenever he picked up Pocket Jacks, you know, he's really famous for having like a love-hate relationship with what he calls the jiggade's. You know, he made jokes about the jacks, and if people wanted to like get a picture with him or an autograph or anything, he's very happy to do that, even when he's not having a good first day of the main event. At one point, I check raise bluffed him. I had the ace four of clubs, and I smooth called from the small blind. So Brad had opened from the cutoff and McKenzie folded on the button, and I was in the small blind with the ace four of clubs, and I just called. I figure I can play this hand okay from out of position, and it's nice to have a few aces in my calling range just in case the flop comes ace high. So I mixed in a call. Normally I do three bet this. Um, in this spot, the big blind folded, and so I played this pot heads up versus my hero, and the flop comes six of clubs, six of spades, deuce of clubs, and I checked, and Bradley made a small C bet, and I check raised him, and I took it down. There was another spot where Brad had opened and I three-bet him when I had the button, and he folded to my three-bet, so he just seemed like he kind of couldn't get anything started. But you know, just a true professional, being nice to everybody and not letting the results affect his mood too much, even though obviously this is the tournament that we all want to win. I am sorry to say Brad did not survive level four, and he was replaced by a guy in a Buffalo Bills t-shirt and a Buffalo Bills hat. And what made me laugh was that the player to his right actually asked him at some point, so where are you from, sir? Because I was like, I'm guessing Buffalo. Anyway, this guy played like a guy who doesn't play a lot of tournaments. I didn't think that he would be getting out of line. There are certain players in the main event that when they bet, you just know they have it. They're not going to bluff. They would never forgive themselves for blowing it on day one of the main event. So this was the personality type that this guy had. And with the blind still at 300 and 500, uh, he opened to 1200 from the cutoff, and it folded to me in the small blind. I've got the queen of clubs, Jack of Clubs, and I called. So this is something I was doing a little bit more in the main event than I do in most tournaments, which is smooth calling from the small blind. I used to be one of these guys that says if I'm going to play from the small blind facing a raise, I'm always going to three bet. And to be fair, I do still three bet the vast majority of the hands. But, you know, on day one of the best structured tournament in the world, I don't think it's necessary to build big pots from out of position with hands that we're not sure are good. So let's just smooth call and see what happens. And once again, the big blind, who was that British player I described, he folds. So I'm going to be heads up, out of position with the queen of clubs, Jack of Clubs. And the flop comes queen of diamonds, six of clubs, four of diamonds. So I've got top pair and a backdoor flush draw, and I check, and my opponent bets 2,000. So a significant bet there, more than half the pot. And I swear to God, I just wanted to fold. I mean, I've got top pair with a jack kicker. My first instinct told me it's no good. And this is where we really have to think how much do we trust these instincts? You know, I'm just, am I seeing a monster under my bed? Is it really impossible for this guy to have Ace King here? Right? Does he need to have Queen Jack of Clubs beat on a Queen 64 board? Like, really? I don't know. I wanted to fold, but I wasn't able to. I called and I'm kind of hoping for more clubs to come off. I mean, the guy seemed very fast, very confident, and like he's just not experienced enough to be as sure as he seemed. So I'm wondering, would he ever have Queen 10, right? If it folds to this guy in the cutoff and he's got queen 10 or maybe queen 9 suited, he'd get in there, right? So anyway, I wasn't sure where I stood, but I had top pair and I couldn't fold yet. So I called the 2k on the flop, and now the turn pair is the board, it's the six of hearts, and I check, he bets 5,000 this time. I wanted to fold, but I couldn't bring myself to fold because I know theoretically I should never fold. But in real life, sometimes you just know you're beat, guys. So I called and I'm I'm thinking, why am I still in this hand? I know I'm behind. The river is the deuce of spades. I checked once more, and now he bets 6,000. Into a pot that now has what like 17k in there. I wanted to fold so badly, but I just couldn't bring myself to throw it away. I called and lost to Ace Queen. That was a hand that I will never forget because the whole time I was playing it, I was going against my instincts. Except for pre-flop, I did not want to be in that hand once my opponent started betting. Alright, the last level of the day is 300-600 with a 600 big blind ante. And uh the British guy and I have developed a bit of a dynamic, shall we say, because there have been many times when it's folded to Mackenzie on the button and she has not been opening probably as much as she's supposed to, or maybe she's just getting really terrible cards on the button, but she has not been playing very many buttons. And as a result, there have been a lot of hands throughout the day where this British gentleman and I have found ourselves in a small blind versus big blind situation. And in each and every one of them, and there have been, I think, six or seven of them throughout the few hours that I've been playing, I limped, whether I had a big hand or not. My plan was to always limp, and I never really had a big hand, and each and every time my opponent raised. So I would limp and then he would 3x and I would just pretty much have to fold because I just didn't have good enough cards to continue. So I told myself, when I get a strong hand in this situation, I have to limp in and finally spring my trap, even though he's clearly gotten the best of this deal. So she folds her button, and it's up to me in the small blind, and I've got the ace of spades jack of spades, which is a premium hand heads up in the blinds. I limped in and I'm ready for my man to fall right into my trap, and he checks. Guys, he checks for the first time all day, and that's okay, but I was just kind of like, this is my luck, right? Anyway, the flop comes Ace of Hearts, King of Hearts, Six of Hearts, and I checked, expecting him to bet, and he did. He bets 1,000 into the pot that now has 1800 in it, and I call, you know, I have top pair with a jack kicker, so I have to call that. The turn is the four of hearts, putting four hearts on the board, and I decided to check once more. This time my opponent bets 3,000, and I should probably just fold now. You know, it's pretty rough trying to imagine that this guy doesn't have any hearts. I mean, he's probably got some kind of heart, right? So I don't know, I couldn't get away from it yet. This is bad, but I called, and now the river is the queen of hearts. So the whole board is hearts ace, king, six, four, queen, all hearts. So my hand is moot. I'm playing the board, and I checked, and now my opponent bets 10,000 into a pot that has just a little more than that in it. And I decided to fold, but I'm thinking it might be better to check raise this river. I don't know, or maybe I'm just overthinking everything, and you don't have to play really creatively on day one, B. I just think that he was pushing me around. You know, he's representing the Queen of Hearts, and then the Queen of Hearts shows up on the river, which basically tells me that my opponent was not betting that hand. Remember, the ace and king of hearts were both on the flop. So his whole story just kind of got debunked, but I still folded because 10,000 just too much to call for a chop. And what if he turns over some stupid like five of hearts or something? I'm never gonna be able to let that go. So I guess maybe at some point I should have been aggressive, but I had my reasons not to do that. Anyway, I you know, kind of hung around the uh starting stack. I think I got up to like 72 at one point, maybe down to like 47 or 45 at one point, but just kind of doing what you normally do on day one, which is just kind of hang in there and don't force things too much, right? Yeah, I wrote down with 30 minutes left in the day, I had 68,000. The blinds were still 300, 600. So almost at the very end of the day, like 15 minutes left in the day, I have the ace tray of clubs. So ace of clubs, tray of club. I'm in early position. I think I was in third position, and I just min-raised it to 1200. And the player from Buffalo that we talked about already, he called from the small blind. And in the big blind was a new player who was a long-haired European guy. He's only been here for a little while, but he's been pretty active, let's just put it that way. So he calls from the big blind. So it's me and the blinds, and the flop comes, ace of diamonds, four of diamonds, deuce of diamonds. So another monotone board that's ace high, and they both check to me. I can absolutely check this back, but this time I decided to take the bull by the horns. I've got top pair and a gut shot, although I could be drawing close to dead if someone has a flush already. We're going to just cross that bridge if and when we come to it, because I bet 2500, and both of my opponents call. The turn is the five of hearts. So our board is ace of diamonds, four of diamonds, deuce of diamonds, five of hearts. So now I have a straight, and out of nowhere, the European guy, after a check, he bets 6,000, which is about half the pot at the time. So what do you really have a flush? I call. The small blind folds, and the river comes the four of hearts, pairing the board, but not bringing in any more diamonds. So it's ace four deuce five four. So three diamonds, two hearts, and now my European friend leads again on the turn. He bets 6k on the turn. Now on the river, I should say, he bets 10,000. And it's very close to the end of the day. I was worried that my hand was no good. Maybe this guy flopped a set and now has a full house or even quads. What did he lead out with on the turn? I don't know. But I called and he showed the ten of diamonds, five of spades. So he kind of made a pair of fives on the turn and had a 10 high flush draw and just decided to go off with it. I mean, I guess it's okay because you do block a turned set, and he definitely blocks a lot of my flushes. That when I raise from early position, I'm going to have that ten of diamonds very often when I do have a flush. And I think the problem for him was how can I have a three? And I did, and that's why he was unable to bluff me. I was trying to think how I would play like just a normal ace jack or something with no flush in this spot. And it might be hard to call 10,000 there on the end. By the time all was said and done, I ended up bagging 92,700 chips on day 1b of the main event. And then I had two days off and got to come back to play day two. And that'll do it for this episode. I will continue my discussion of the World Series of Poker main event next week. And I've got a lot of other tournaments to tell you guys about in the coming weeks and months. For everyone here at Tournament Poker Edge, with special thanks to our sponsor, Jocka Coaching. Use the promo code TPE. I'm Clayton Fletcher. Thank you so much for listening.