August 7, 2026 -- Monsters' Ball

Clayton Fletcher (@claytoncomic) reviews a 100+BB hand from the WSOP Monster Stack event.

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Transcript

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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.

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Hello, once again, everybody, and welcome to the Tournament Poker Edge Podcast, sponsored by DOCA Coaching, where you can get 20% off of your monthly or yearly subscription just by using the promo code TPE. My name is Clayton Fletcher, and I am your host here in Safe Socialist New York City. Happy as always to be bringing you yet another episode of the world's longest-running poker strategy podcast. I want to start off this week by thanking you all for the love you showed of my Aruba episode last week. I was in beautiful, sunny, breezy Aruba. I had such a great time out there. But I am never too busy living my best life to record a podcast for my faithful listeners. I cannot tell you guys how much it means to me that so many of you tune in each and every week. It is humbling and it makes me feel really good. I've got more travels coming up, including Maryland, Ohio, Connecticut, Canada. I'm going everywhere, guys. So I hope that I can see some of you either at the poker table or at a comedy show near you very soon. The World Series of Poker is officially over, at least the Vegas portion thereof. Of course, we still have Paradise in December, that I do not think I will be attending once again this year. I have never attended the WSOP Paradise. I typically end up at the win for the WPT Championship. That's just my personal preference. I don't want to reveal the winner of the final table of the main event because maybe some of you haven't watched it yet and you've got it on TiVo or whatever. Is that still a thing? I don't know. But I will say that there was some very good play and some questionable play at the final table that was finally returning to the original television home of the World Series, of course, ESPN. As for me, I'm back to my normal routine here in my home of New York City. I am working on my game, I'm playing some online poker, I'm doing some streaming on twitch.tv slash Clayton Comic, of course. And of course, I'm using Jocka Coaching. Faraz put out a series of videos called Every Hand Faraz Played. And so it's exactly what it sounds like. Day one of the main event, Faraz covered each and every decision that he had all day long. And he goes through it step by step and talks you through the day in the life of a very skillful world-class player on day one of the world's greatest poker tournament. So enlighten. Obviously, Farraz very insightful, excellent player, but he's also a really great teacher. And you guys can get access to this and so many other videos on Jocka coaching. I've got a link for you. It's jocka.poker slash TPE. And if you use that link, you can get seven days for free as a trial period. And then when you're ready to buy, you'll save 20% because you use that link, jocka.poker slash TPE. Alright, I want to go back and look at the hand we discussed last week. This was from my main event. This is a hand that Clayton played, so maybe not as exciting as seeing what Jocka had to say, but here's what I had to say about a hand that I played on day two of the WSOP main event. And this time I just want to use a solver and check some of my lines. So this is the same hand we talked about at the end of last week's episode. This time we're just going to get some solver input and see what we think. So it's day two, the blinds are 600, 1200. I've got about 50k about an hour before dinner break on day two. And I am in second position with pocket nines. And I raise the blinds are 600, 1200. I make it 2500. And a couple of amateur players call me, and then a really strong player from Greece, three bets on the button to 12k. Now it folds back to me, and I'm under the gun plus one. I've got a decision already. I remember saying on last week's episode, I wasn't 100% comfortable shoving 40 plus big blinds with pocket nines. Although I felt like doing so may be profitable. I decided to go for the call, and I hope that the solver doesn't mind the call. Well, the solver doesn't hate it. I mean, we do call 4% of the time, which isn't very much. We actually can fold the nines here about 13% of the time, and we are supposed to shove the rest. So the favorite play of the solver is definitely just 4-bet getting it in. And if the guy can beat Pocket 9s, good for him. It's just not my day. Of course, the solver doesn't know that it is the main event and how soft the main event actually is, in fact. So perhaps given some of those variables, the solver would change its robotic mind. But all things being equal, which of course they are not, shoving is strongly preferred to any other option. Although calling is not technically a blunder. That's what I did. I called, the other two guys got out of our way, and I was heads up against the Greek hero out of position with pocket nines, and the flop comes 10, 7, 6 with two hearts. I decided to check to the pre-flop three better, and he checks behind. So in my shoes, you're actually allowed to start betting a little bit here, even though I have about a pot size bet left in my stack, having just called the three bet here. If you think about it, this is a really good flop for my hand. I can win with a nine or an eight, so that's at least six outs, and that's assuming I'm behind now, which I may not be. So betting a small amount, maybe setting the price is solver approved. But I checked and my opponent checked as well, and the solver does check 91% of the time. So we usually check 9% of the time you can start leading out. This is a flop where we do have some leads from out of position. Alright, so we both check, and now the turn comes the King of Diamonds. I checked again, and my opponent bets 7,500 into 34,000. I called that, and the solver always checks on this turn. King of Diamonds, obviously, a much better card for the pre-flop three better than for the pre-flop razor. And then we never do anything facing this bet but call. So we've got a pure check and a pure call, so no issues with my play here on 4th Street. And now heading into the river, the pot was 49,000. I have only 31,000 remaining in my stack, and the river comes the tray of clubs. So the final board again was 10 of hearts, 7 of hearts, 6 of diamonds, king of diamonds, tray of clubs. And we've got pocket nines. I checked again, villain shoved, and I had a tough decision, but I eventually decided to make the call, and I it turned out I beat Ace Queen that was just continuing to bluff on all streets, which is really kind of how this guy, Iannis, was playing throughout the day. So I caught him here, and he ends up not recovering from this, and he ends up busting out of the tournament shortly thereafter. But let's check how the solver wants to play pocket nines facing this river shove. And guys, it turns out the solver calls 65% of the time and folds the other 35% of the times facing this shove with pocket nines. So I do feel vindicated. That was one of my favorite hands from the entire summer. I thought it was a hero call, but now seeing that we actually supposed to call 65% of the time, I feel a bit less heroic having done it. But if you guys have never played the main event, I need you to understand it is unlike any other tournament. Alright, let's talk about the monster stack. This was a tournament that this year they did much earlier in the summer, and they changed the format, much to the dismay of many recreational players, mostly around the area of re-entry and whether you can buy in on day two and play again and all of that stuff. So there was a lot of controversy around this tournament, but I decided to play it. I wasn't sure if I was gonna enter it once, twice, or three times. I ended up only playing this tournament once, and I got into a pretty interesting spot early on day one. The blinds were 300 and 500 with a 500 big blind ante, and I had 65k in my stack, just a little bit up from the starting stack of 60,000, and the action folds to me on the button hero with the ace of clubs, eight of spades. Now, regardless of what type of competition I'm facing in the blinds, I am going to open ace eight off suit, even against the two best players in the world. On the button, give me an ace eight, I'm happy to get involved, especially with 100 plus big blinds in my stack. So I made it 1200, and the small blind, who was a tight lady, she folded, and the big blind, who was a somewhat aggressive, I'm guessing German, but he might have been Swiss uh pro. I thought he was a pro. And he had me covered, he had about 88k, so he was having a very fine day one himself. And now with 3200 in the middle, the flop comes King of Spades, 10 of Clubs, 4 of Hearts, King 10 4, Rainbow, and my opponent check to me, as I think he will always do on this particular flop, and I decided to go for a C bet. I put in 1000 into the pot of 3200, and I believe this is the type of flop where we are going to be doing a range bet. Anytime you have two Broadway cards out there and your head's up against the big blind, this is just a really good flop for all the hands in my range, although it's not that great for my particular hand, which again is ace of clubs, eight of spades. But I did bet 1k, kind of expecting to take it down a lot. My opponent made the call, and now with 5200 in the middle, the turn comes the ten of spades pairing the board. So now it's king of spades, ten of clubs, four of hearts, ten of spades. So now there are two tens and also two spades out there, and my opponent checked again. I didn't really love this card. I wasn't really sure where I stood. I thought that probably my opponent's calling range would include quite a bit of 10x. It could also have a lot of other hands, like possibly a gut shot, or maybe even just a four or some other small pair. So I'm not sure that he has a 10, of course, but I just didn't see much reason to bet. I am still beating hands like Queen Jack, Queen 9, and the like with my ace high. So I checked behind, and now still with 5,200 in the middle, the river comes the deuce of clubs. So our final board, guys, is King of Spades, Ten of Clubs, Four of Hearts, Ten of Spades, Deuce of Clubs. King 10, 410, Deuce, and no flush came in, and now my opponent bets 1,000 into the pot of 5200. And I was not sure what to make of this other than I was annoyed by it. I hate when the out-of-position player makes this tiny little blocker bet into me and I don't know what to do. I feel like one of two things is happening on this bet. The first and more likely possibility, in my opinion, is that my opponent has a four. Remember, the flop was King 10 4. It doesn't make sense to me for him to bet this small with a pair of kings or trip tens or anything better than that. And I don't think too many players would make this play as a pure bluff with a hand like Queen 9, for example. I just don't think too many players are just gonna stick in 1,000 and hope that I fold for such a tiny amount, especially when I have this guy down as an experienced European professional or semi-professional player. I can't really put him on a bluff here. It's very uncommon nowadays to see what they call in Doyle Brunson's classic strategy guide super system the post-oak bluff. And I don't know where that term comes from. It's an old-time Texas road gambler thing. A very small bluff on the river is known as a post-oak bluff. So here this guy is betting less than 20% of the pot, and it just feels like this is not a bluff that you see very often uh nowadays in the modern world. So I kind of ruled out the possibility of a pure bluff and thought that it was more likely a four or maybe I don't know, pocket threes, some tiny piece. And he's trying to do a defensive bet, a blocking bet. So if he bets a thousand, hopefully I won't raise, and then he can see the showdown and set his own price. So that's what I thought was most likely happening. The other possibility is that my opponent has a 10 or similar, like a very strong hand, and he's trying to simulate a blocker bet and see if he can get me to take the bait and raise it. And this is a play that would probably work against me a lot more than it works against other people because these kinds of bets actually offend me. Like I will always attack these kinds of bets. Not always, but I do it way more than I probably should, way more than GTO ever would, and more than most of my opponents do. So this is a strategy that would work well against me, but it's unlikely this opponent has ever heard of me or knows how I play well enough to exploit me with a little make-believe blocker bet that he wants me to raise. So given that I thought he most likely had a four or similar, I decided to try to push him off of whatever it was that he had. Assuming that my ace high is never good, then I need to turn it into a bluff if I'm going to have any hope of winning this pot. Now, in the big scheme of things, it doesn't really matter whether I win this pot or not that much. This is a small pot compared to our stack sizes, compared to the average stack in the tournament. This is just kind of the nitty-gritty, just getting in there and finding a way to win a pot that, in all fairness, I have no right to lay any type of claim to. And so that's what we're trying to do here. I raised it to 5,000, so almost a pot size raise from me, and my opponent folded very quickly. I stand by my belief that he had something like a pair of fours. And that'll do it for this episode. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Feel free to let me know on Twitter at Clayton Comic or in the TPE Discord. There's a link to everything in the description of this podcast. And for everyone here at Tournament Poker Edge, with special thanks as always to our sponsor, Docka GPOClash T Pop. I'll click the fledgling. Thank you so much for listening.