The Tournament Poker Edge Podcast
The Tournament Poker Edge Podcast
July 17, 2026 -- WSOP Main Event (continued)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Clayton Fletcher (@claytoncomic) continues his review of key 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. Here's your host, Clayton Fletcher.
SPEAKER_02Hello once again, everybody, and welcome to the Tournament Poker Edge Podcast, sponsored by Jocka Coaching, where you can get 20% off of your annual or monthly membership using the promo code TPE. My name is Clayton Fletcher, and I am in fabulous Las Vegas. Happy as always to be bringing you yet another episode of the world's longest-running poker strategy podcast. Yes, I am still in Vegas, although the World Series of Poker has concluded. I still have one more day until my flight, and I am very much done with this. It's been an epic fail of a summer. I'm going to review all of my results from the last seven weeks in a future episode, and it's not going to be pretty. The bottom line, guys, I just haven't had good luck. Anytime I needed to hit a miracle card or even a fairly lucky one, it seems like it doesn't come. My very strong hands haven't particularly held up well, and I only went three for nine in significant coin flips this summer. So that is not a winning combination. But you know what? I still love this game. I will always love this game. Sometimes poker is cruel, sometimes the cards don't cooperate, and the poker gods smite you for whatever reason, and that's kind of what's been going on here this summer as my bankroll has been dwindling. But you know, I'll be back next year and every year until I die. Now, last week we talked about some hands that I played in day one of this year's WSOP main event. I want to go back and use a solver to look at one of those hands. You guys might recall this hand from last week's episode. The blinds were 300 and 500 with a 500 big blind ante, so very early in day one. And there was a player that I had pegged as an amateur, a recreational player, who opened, he was wearing a Buffalo Bills t-shirt and Buffalo Bills hat. And so I astutely surmised that he was from Houston, Texas. Obviously, anyone could figure that out. Anyway, this guy didn't seem to be fooling around. I believed him, but I still couldn't fold because I had top pair. And you guys might recall that he opened from late position, and I was in the small blind holding the Queen of Clubs, Jack of Clubs. And I may have said last week that I typically would three-bet this hand, but I thought that it was okay to mix it up a little bit and just call with it once in a while, particularly in a very slow structured tournament, such as the best tournament ever, the main event. So I decided to just call pre-flop. So let's look at what the solver thinks of my decision, and already it's an epic fail, guys. The solver literally always three bets from the small blind with all combos of Queen Jack suited. Other hands that will be three betting include Jack 10 suited all the time, Queen 10 suited, King 10 suited. The solver, as we've learned by now, loves these suited Broadway combos, ace 10 suited, king jack suited. These are all three bets. And then sometimes with a hand like 10 9 suited, 8 7 suited, obviously ace 5 suited, and for some reason I don't understand, King 6 suited are also in that three betting range from the small blind. Now the hands that can call sometimes are hands like Ace 7 suited, King 7 suited, queen 9 suited, Jack 8 suited, ace tray, ace deuce suited. Those are the calling hands, and there aren't that many calling hands that are offsuit, but ace 10 off all the time, king 10 off about half the time, King Jack off a little more than half the time, and Queen Jack off pretty much all the time, very seldom three betting. So where we always want to three bet with our queen jack suited in this situation, the queen jack offsuit is a call. So for the rest of this hand, I'm going to pretend like that's what I had, since in Solverland, I will literally never have the two cards that I have in this situation. So here we go. Heads up, we see a flop, and it's Queen of Diamonds, Six of Clubs, Four of Diamonds. So Queen Six Four. I've got a backdoor flush draw to go with my top pair, and I checked and I wanted to fold when my opponent bet 2000. I'm sure that we can never fold in this spot, but how would the solver play Queen Jack offsuit in this spot? And it turns out we do raise sometimes with it. We never fold, of course, but Queen Jack can call 90% and raise 10%. So it's okay that I called, I guess. Even though in my blood, in my bones, I wanted to fold because I just thought this guy is not fooling around on day one of the main event. The turn came the six of hearts, no help to me, pairing the board, and I checked once more. And this time my opponent bet 5,000. What do I have to do now with Queen Jack? The solver calls 100% of the time. And largely because of the bigger bet sizing here on the turn. We don't have any raises, but our hand is too strong to fold, so we call. Now on the river, it was a deuce of spades, and I checked again, planning to probably fold to a large bet, but instead my opponent made a small bet, 12 big blinds, 6,000, and the solver never makes this bet in villain's shoes. So I don't know what I'm supposed to do against a bet of 6k because that's not a bet the in-position player would ever make. Typically, on the river, we want to bet bigger if we bet, not a very small bet that's similar to what we did on the turn. And I knew that at the time, and I just felt like he was probably trying to milk me, and I did want to fold. Well, we can actually start to fold Queen Jack like about 20% of the time if the opponent bets about 10,000. Even in that case, though, we want to be calling 80% of the time and just folding the other 20%. But you know, my opponent bet much smaller, offering me much more attractive odds than that. And so I just didn't know how to fold, even though my instincts were telling me to do so. The solver, it's a bit inconclusive this time, but I still hope that you guys find these exercises uh entertaining and informative and enlightening. You know, there are many times when somebody goes off of solver standards and practices, as I have done here with the Queen Jack of Clubs. And so because of that, I had to kind of fudge the rest, but I think there's not much difference materially between Queen Jack of Clubs and Queen of Clubs Jack of Spades on this particular board. I want to move on. I want to give a shout out to all the players that are students of Farraz Jacka and his team of coaches at Jocka Coaching. Many of them have done quite well in the main event. Many of them had untold successes this summer, and everyone is singing the praises of this easy-to-use website with very short videos that are meant to be digested in small portions so that you can really understand. There are hand quizzes to help you determine how well you are learning the material, and just some of the smartest people in poker working for Jocka coaching. And guys, I have a great deal for you. You can save 20% off of the complete product, whether you go month to month or pay for a year all at once, which is actually even cheaper. But either way, you can save 20% off the basic rates by going to jocka.poker slash TPE. And by the way, when you do that, you'll also get seven days, no obligation, to try it out for yourself. And I promise you, you're going to agree with me that this is the coaching site. Jocka.poker slash TPE. Alright, now I want to move on and continue our discussion of my main event, starting with a few hands that I played on day two, which was actually day two ABC, because they have a whole separate day too for everyone who does just the final day one flight. So I was kind of nervous about being at a what looked like it was going to be a fairly tough table. I had Andrew Lucky Chewy Lichtenberger at my table, and I also had my old friend Scott Ball, who you guys may remember me talking about from last summer's World Series of Poker, where I played in the $3,000 Mid-Stakes Championship at the WSOP. And Scott Ball sat to my left and literally just put me through the ringer all day long, giving me fits, three-batting me, four-batting me, doing everything to make my life difficult. So he was going to be to my left again at this table, but a bit farther away, not to my immediate left. I had three players between us, and Lucky Chewy was on my immediate right. So I felt like I had a decent seat at a bad table. There was also a famous Greek player, Ionias. I don't know how to say his name, Angelou Konestakis. I don't know. Anyway, but he's a very well-known Greek pro. He's very aggressive. He's got two million in lifetime earnings. And I thought that he would probably be tough as well. But I was very happy to have him across from me. He was actually seated two to Chewy's right. So I thought I had a pretty decent seat with a lot of the tough players on my right and most of the players on my left being relative unknowns. Which by the way doesn't necessarily mean that they're not any good at poker, but you know, given the choice, I'd rather have somebody with a $3,000 Hendon mob than somebody like Lucky Chewy with over $8 million on his. I start off the day with about $92,000 in my stack. The blinds were just $400,000, $800 with an 800 big blind ante. So what a structure we've got. Over 100 big blinds, and no reason to go too crazy. There was a player at my table named Antoine Winfield, who had been quite active early on here on day two in this 400-800 level. And after a while, I decided to try to fight fire with fire a bit. So he opens to 2000 from early position, and two players folded to me, and I was in middle position with the ace of diamonds, jack of hearts. I think this is a pretty clear three-bet. I made it 5,500, maybe a bit smaller than what would be standard, but I really don't mind action. I felt like I could probably outplay Mr. Winfield a good bit after the flop, and I just wanted to discourage anyone, like for example, Scott Ball, from trying to crash my party. Anyway, I was happy to see that it folded all the way back around to Antoine and he makes the call. And now the flop comes eight of diamonds, eight of hearts, tray of spades, and he checks to me. You may be surprised that the solver doesn't actually have us betting this flop 100% of the time. Obviously, any paired board is going to be a little better for the pre-flop three better, but because Antoine actually called my three bet, I think we're going to find next week that he actually has some eights in his range, and I probably don't have many or any really from middle position. And he's also got a lot of pairs that are not going to be folding anytime soon, like sevens, nines, hands like that. So we don't want to do 100% range bet, C bet on this board, but I did C bet, I bet 4,000 into the pot of about 13,000, and my opponent called. The turn, ace of spades, gives me top pair with a jack kicker on a board of eight of diamonds, eight of hearts, tray of spades, ace of spades. So it also brings the backdoor flush draw, and Antoine checks to me. I decide to check behind for a lot of reasons, uh, mostly for deception and to try to get paid on a value bet at the river. The river comes the king of clubs. So our final board is eight eight, three ace king, and no flush, and my opponent suddenly leads for 7,000, which is about one-third of the pot. I didn't really see anything else to do but call. I was like, wait, what's going on here? Does this guy have an eight somehow? Is my how is my ace jack not good? I made the call and I lost the pot to Ace King. So I guess Mr. Active was maybe getting hit with the deck early on, and I had a bad read on the situation. So that one cost me a little bit, but thankfully I did check behind on 4th Street, which I think saved me a good amount of chips. Later on, I'm in second position, Chewy folds, and I've got pocket tens. I raise it just the minimum, 1600. I know the solver wants to do more like 2000 or maybe even a little bigger because the effective stack is so deep, but you know, most of us were just doing the minimum, and I think in the main event that's pretty normal, and I don't think it really hurts our EV that much. If anything, it might give us even more post-flop play ability, which we always want. So I just made it 1600 with the tens, and I got four callers. The flop comes king of clubs, nine of spades, tray of diamonds. So king nine tray, and the big blind, who was one of the callers, checks to me. So I'm the second of four players to bet. And I didn't want to check again. I still felt like there was probably a decent chance that no one had a king. And if so, my tens are probably good, and maybe I can get a little value from a hand like 9-8 suited, or perhaps pocket sevens might not believe me right away. But another reason I want to bet here, and it's just as important, is that I don't want to give a hand like Queen Jack or Ace Jack a chance to beat me for free. Right? If anything higher than a 10 hits on the turn, it's going to hurt my chances of winning this pot. So a bit for value and a bit for protection, I bet 3,500 into the pot of like let's say 9,000-ish. Only this very polite amateur player from the Midwest on my left, older guy, probably in his early 60s, he makes the call. Now the turn is the ace of spades, and that was exactly what I didn't want to see if I had to check through. But the fact that he called me on the flop kind of told me this player is very unlikely to have an ace, right? Unless he had specifically ace nine suited, which I'm not sure he would have called my raise from relatively early position pre-flop anyway, if he did have that. So I really felt good about this card and that it hit my range better than it hit his, and that I might be able to get him to fold if he has a king now. Maybe not on 4th Street, but certainly if I fire again on the river, effectively turning my tens into a bluff. But I wasn't convinced he had a king. I thought it was probably more like a nine or maybe a pair of eights or something like that. So I thought this bet would work. I bet 5,000, about a third of the pot, a little bit less, and my opponent did fold. So my best guess was that he had a nine. If he folded a king there, that's a pretty tight fold. Although in the main event, you do see players being very, very tight at times, especially the recreational players. So with 60 minutes left in the first level of the day, I was right around where I started. Now I had 88,000. So we played for an hour and I'm just kind of treading water, playing a lot of hands, but really getting a lot of good starting hands to play with. Now here's the first hand I played against Lucky Chewy. He opens to 1800 from late position, and I was in the cutoff with the Ace of Hearts Queen of Spades. I decided to go for a three-bet here, and I made it 5600, which is just about 3x his bet. So I'm happy with this sizing. He called, and I was kind of nervous to play a pot with a player that I've always respected and who has been crushing this game both online and live for many, many years. But you know, this is the world championship of poker, and here we are. The flop comes 10 of clubs, tray of clubs, deuce of spades. So 10 tray deuce with two clubs, hero with the ace of hearts, queen of spades. And Andrew checks to me, and I decided to go for a C bet here, you know, put on my big boy pants and see if I can bluff this guy. I bet 4,000 into the pot of about 12,000 and take it down. Now this felt really good. I should mention that Andrew started the hand with only 50,000 in his stack, which is still obviously a lot of big blinds, but I don't know. Perhaps the hand would go slightly differently if he had me covered and we were both deeper. I don't know. Anyway, I was just glad to get the first one against him out of the way, calm my nerves a little bit. Okay, and this was the only other interesting hand from that level. There was an amateur player, I already mentioned him, the older guy. So he opens under the gun. And now there's a brand new player who just joined our table, and he's got like a hundred thousand in his stack, and he three bets. So it's first position open, second position three bet, and the action folds to me. I'm on the button, and guys, I've got the queen of spades, queen of hearts, and normally I'm pretty happy to put in a four-bet with this hand, but when the three-bet came from second position, I don't know. I think it might be a mix. I decided to just call maybe I was being nitty, maybe just trying to, you know, make my chips last longer in the main or something. But I think that these two recreational players raising it up from early position, they're very unlikely to be, you know, getting out of line with like ace five suited or six five of diamonds or anything like that. So I wasn't sure the queens were any good, but at least in position in a smaller pot, uh have a bigger SPR and I can figure out what to do post flop. So I just cold called and the original razor called the three bet, and the three of us saw a flop of King of Spades, Ten of Clubs, four of spades. So King 10 4 with two spades, hero with the queen of spades, queen of hearts. The original razor checks, and now the brand new guy that no one knows anything about bets 13,000 into the pot of like 17,000, and the action's on me, and I've got this other guy waiting to act. I just threw my queens away, guys. I'm not sure I would do that like in a super turbo bounty or anything like that. But this was getting a little too murky. Yes, there are some cards that can hit on the turn that would improve my equity, such as a spade or a jack, but I just didn't really feel like calling this large of a bet from the guy who three bet the under-the-gun razor. So I folded and so did the original razor. So I'll never know what happened with that one. But I think that hand kind of demonstrates how we play differently in the main than we might in other tournaments. Anyway, the blinds go up to 500 and 1,000. And my old pal Scott Ball, who really hasn't gotten much going today, he's still right around the starting stack of 60,000. One fold to him, and he opens from second position to 2200. And the action folds to the other pro at my table, Andrew Lichtenberger, and he calls from the cutoff. And I am now in the small blind with the eight of hearts, eight of diamonds. And I decided to just call. I know I can definitely three bet, and maybe it's better from out of position to just three bet and try to take this down pre-flop rather than having to play out of position against the two best players at the table. But I decided to call, and my plan was just to flop a set and go from there. And the big blind, who was a really nice guy named Sam, he called as well. So the four of us see the flop, and it comes Queen of Hearts, ten of diamonds, eight of clubs. So Queen Ten Eight. So I've got bottom set in a four way pot, and I checked my small blind, the big Blind checked as well. And Scott Ball bets 3k into everybody. There's about 10,000 in the pot at that point. And so he bets 3K about a third of the pot. Chewy folds and the actions on me. I decide just to call, guys. I'm sensing a ton of strength from Scott, and I'm worried he could have Jack 10. He could also have queens or 10s, by the way. But you know, how often do you get set over set? Especially in the main event. That would really be something. So we can't worry about everything, but at the same time, I've played with this guy before, and I've seen a lot of his showdowns, and there was just something about the way he was behaving that made me wonder if my eights were no good. Still, we're not folding a set, are we? But we can control the size of the pot to the extent that we can control it just by calling. But he felt very strong to me. Uh Sam folded the big blind, so I'm heads up with my old nemesis, Scott Ball, and the turn comes the five of hearts. So our board is now Queen of Hearts, Ten of Diamonds, Eight of Clubs, Five of Hearts. We've got a set of eights. And I check to him again. He's not slowing down. He bets 10k, about 60% of the pot. And, you know, he's getting pretty close to pot commitment now. Remember, he only starts this hand with 60,000. So I'm not loving this. I'm worried he's got Jack 9. I'm worried he's got Pocket Queens. He seems incredibly confident. He doesn't seem like he's acting. I believe that Scott likes his hand a lot. So what hand should he like this much? Pocket Aces? I don't think Pocket Aces is even that happy getting called on this board. I call again, and I'm kind of hoping we check check the river, believe it or not, with a set. I really don't want to face a huge bet on the end, but the river comes the four of spades. So final board, queen of hearts, ten of diamonds, eight of hearts, five of hearts, four of spades. So the very unlikely seven, six did get there, just in the interest of being complete. I don't think he has that at all. I check and Scott still won't slow down. Now he bets 22,000 into the pot of about 37,000. And he's only got like 20,000 more behind, but I don't shove with my set. I am scared that I'm beat, but I can't fold. And I call and Scott Ball turns over so proudly the Ace of Diamonds, Queen of Spades. So he just had one pair, but I guess that shows you how little he respects my game, even if he remembers me at all from last year's 3K. He did not have any fear that he could possibly be beat in this spot. And frankly, I'm insulted. Anyway, he went bust not much later after that, and I was not unhappy to see him go. That guy gives me the willies. So for much of the early part of the day, there had been an empty seat between Chewie and me. I remember this now. That seat was eventually occupied by a player named Adi Abu Ghazal, and he showed up at our table with about 65,000 in chips, and at this point, I had 120,000 after winning that big pot from Scott Ball. So I was feeling quite good about myself. And Adi opens to 2200, and that was under the gun. And I am in second position next to Act, and I've got pocket kings. So I'm gonna three bet here all the time. I make it 7k, and the action folds all the way back to Adi, who calls, and now we're going to see a flop. Hero is in position holding the king of spades, king of diamonds. And now with 17,000 in the middle, the flop comes seven of spades, four of hearts, deuce of clubs. Have you ever seen a better flop for pocket kings in your life? I mean it's beautiful. Seven four deuce rainbow. So I he checks to me, and now I bet 5,500 into the pot of 17,000 or so, and he check raises me to 18,000. Now he's only got about another 40,000 behind, so this is kind of the moment of truth. Like if I call this, do I have to call the river? And if I shove here, can I get called by worse? Like I'm hoping he's got a pair of jacks or a pair of tens or something like that. But would those hands call a shove after having check raised on the flop? I'm not sure. I don't know Adi. I don't know how he plays. He has no resume. I looked him up. There's no information about this guy whatsoever on Hendon Mob, and he's only been at my table for just a few minutes. So I just called, and I'm hoping that he slows down on the turn because clearly I have something, right? My three betting range includes aces, kings, right? So what are we doing here, Adi? Uh the turn comes the five of hearts, and so our board is now seven of spades, four of hearts, deuce of clubs, five of hearts. And almost instantly, Adi shoves 40,000 into a pot that has a little more than that in it. And I don't know what to do here, guys. Maybe in any other tournament, I just call and bemoan my bad luck. But here in the main, I don't know. I'm just trying to dodge bullets and survive the day. Do I really want to play such a huge pot with one pair? Even if that one pair is pocket kings. I mean, this guy could have pocket sevens, he could have pocket aces, right? I mean, I just don't know what's going on. It's very unlikely that this guy just showed up at my table, came from some other table on day two of the main event, and decided to raise under the gun and then call a three-bet and then check raise and then shove with a hand that can't beat pocket kings. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying it seems unlikely to me. And I folded. Is this a bad laydown? I want you guys to tell me the truth. Do you think I made a bed lay down with my kings? Throwing them away for a pot-sized bet on the turn, a little bit less, in the main event on day two. I really need to know what you guys think about this. Anyway, I did see a ridiculous shove. Guys, I'm not gonna tell you the whole hand, but there was a an amateur player, like an old guy with a loud mouth. I had Ace Queen, the board was Ace of Spades, King of Clubs, Ten of Clubs. The turn was the four of clubs, bringing the flush, and the river was the seven of spades, and I bet 6,500, which is about half the pot on the river, and he shoved, and I thought, how can Ace Queen be good in this situation? He shoved for like more than I had. I would have to call off my entire tournament with just a pair of aces on this somewhat scary board. And remember, I don't have a club, so I just folded because it was such a ridiculous bet. It was like I bet 65 and he bet like a hundred thousand. It was kind of crazy. But it turned out to be ridiculous because he showed the Ace of Hearts Queen of Clubs and was just talking about his blocker, how he blocked the straight and the flush. So he thought he was pretty smart for making that play. So that's another example of people taking blockers way too far. Anyway, I won a few more pots. I went to dinner with 152,000. I was feeling great. So have a nice meal, come back from dinner. The blinds are now 1k and 1500 with 1500 big blind ante. And I was in late middle position, I guess the lowjack, and I had, like I said, 150,000-ish. I had pocket sevens and I opened to 3,000, so just the minimum. And then the nice guy on my left, Sam, great guy, he three bets. It's the first time I've seen him three bet. I've been playing with this guy all day. He makes it 8,000, and the action folds back to me. And I immediately think this guy's probably got aces, kings, queens, or jacks, maybe ace king, and that's about it because he's been pretty happy to play passively pre-flop, much more aggressive post-flop, but definitely more of a passive style pre-flop. So I was pretty happy to just call and see a flop with him. He made it 8k, so I called, and the flop comes King 7-6 Rainbow. And I checked to him and he bets 5,000. So I'm pretty excited because he's probably got like Ace King or maybe Pocket Aces, and I'm thinking, let's go. I check Ray's to 17,000, and now he goes all in for 77,000 chips. And I can't wait to call with the second nuts here on King 7.6. And if you haven't figured it out by now, yes, my opponent did have pocket kings, and that hand left me a bit more down to earth. I was close to my starting stack after that one, and the average stack was about a hundred thousand. Lost a few more small pots, and the next thing you know, I'm down to 26,000 with the blinds at 1k and 1500, and they're about to go up. We're about to play the last level of the day. And I shoved under the gun with pocket jacks. So I've got about 17 or 18 big blinds here, 26,000 when the big blind is 1500. So I don't know, it's a bit of an overbet shove, but I didn't really want to play post flop with such a short stack and pocket jacks. And I thought I could get called by Ace King, Ace Queen, Pocket 10s, Pocket 9s. So that's the action I'm looking for. So three folds to my friend who showed that ridiculous ace queen and talked about his blocker, who, by the way, has been regaling us with awful stories about strip clubs in Greece and giving way too much information. And then he looks at me and he says, What did you do? You went all in under the gun? Hmm, there's one hand. It would take aces for me to call you here. And so then he looks at his cards and then he sits up in his chair. He looks at me again. He looks at his opponents and makes a little speech. He's like, I'm not worried about you. I'm worried about these guys on my left talking to me. So obviously, I know what he has. He does his little Hollywood thing. What should I do? What should I do? And eventually he just calls the 26,000. Everybody at this table can tell what this guy's doing. Everybody folds and leaves me heads up facing the pocket aces with my jacks, and I do not get lucky. And that's how I bust it out of the 2026 World Series of Poker main event. And that'll do it for this episode, guys. If you haven't given us a rating or a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and you enjoy the podcast, that's something you can do right now for free. That would really help us a lot. We are trying to climb the ranks in the ever increasing world of poker podcasting. Also, don't forget to check out our sponsor, Jocka.poker slash TPE. For everyone here at Tournament Poker Edge, I'm Clayton Fletcher. Thank you so much for listening.