August 21, 2026 -- Millionaire Maker's Mark

Clayton Fletcher (@claytoncomic) has to choose whether to keep barreling in one of his favorite WSOP events.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Tournament Poker Edge Podcast, brought to you by Tournament PokerEdge.com, the only podcast dedicated exclusively to poker tournament strategy. Now here's your host, Clayton Fletcher.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello once again, everybody, and welcome one and all to the Tournament Poker Edge Podcast, sponsored by Jocka Coaching, where you can receive a seven-day free trial and 20% off of your membership by using the promo code TPE. My name is Clayton Fletcher, and I am in Rustic, Sylvan, Deep River, Connecticut. Happy as always to be bringing you yet another episode of the world's longest-running poker strategy podcast. Yes, I'm enjoying some time in the woods. You know, after a long summer in Las Vegas, sitting in those air-conditioned casinos and being surrounded by avarice and capitalism everywhere I look, including within myself, by the way. It's nice to just finally take some time to be with people who mean something to me and also spend some time alone in the woods of Connecticut, kind of on a lake, staring out into the water and meditating and contemplating life. I think this is really important. It might sound like I'm being sarcastic because I am a city slicker myself. I love New York, I love Las Vegas, I like going to big cities, but every so often, for me, just kind of getting close to nature, maybe swimming in a lake or taking a hike in the woods, is so therapeutic. So I haven't actually been playing poker since I left Ohio last week, but I did get a chance to work on my game a bit with former podcast guest, Sylvan Losley, who uh did a really enlightening session on Jocka coaching this week, and the topic was bubble play. I would call this a deep dive into how to play a short stack on the bubble. Now, you guys know me, I like to be the big stack bully on the bubble. So this was kind of a nice opportunity to work with Sylvan and my fellow classmates on being on the other side of the coin. Like when someone is bullying you and you've got one of the biggest ICM considerations of all. Like, do I want to get involved in this pot here on the bubble? Or is it so important to make it into the money that should I fold this decent hand? Or are there any bluffs in my three-betting range in this spot with a short stack? Things like that. And what I really love about these interactive webinars is that they're just that, they're they're live. You can ask questions in the chat, you can go straight to the source and say, hey, what about this, or what about that? It's so much better to me than just reading a book or watching a video passively because you're in the mix. And if I'm being honest, I actually learn a lot from the teacher's answers to my classmates' questions. So I want you guys to get a chance to experience this for yourselves. I have an affiliate link. You can get seven days free. Go to jocka.poker slash TPE. Jocka.poker slash TPE. Yeah, lots of travel these days. And this weekend I'll be in Long Island. McGuire's in Bohemia, Long Island, in my home state of New York. Well, actually, my home home state is Maryland, but I've been living in New York for so long, I kind of feel like New York is my state. Uh, plenty of other shows coming up, by the way. Tampa, Florida, Toronto, Canada, Newport News, Virginia. You can get tickets for any and all of my shows at ClaytonFletcher.com. Alright, let's take another look at last week's strategy hand. And this time I'm going to use a solver to check the lines. You know, make sure I didn't do anything that was too out of whack in terms of game theory optimization. Just to refresh your memory from last week, it was an $1,100 tournament at the Venetian. 671 entries and 270 players remaining with 100 to be paid. The blinds were 1K and 2K with a 2K big blind ante, and I had 97,000 in my stack, which was about average. So around 50 big blinds and M of 20. Under the gun, a decent player, an Asian guy, opened big to 5,500 with 60,000 total. The action folded to me in the small blind with the ace of clubs jack of clubs. And I contemplated three betting with this hand, but decided instead to just call. And the big blind, who is a big stack, also called, and he had 250,000, which was kind of ridiculous at that point in the tournament. So let's take a look at my call here with the ace jack suited. Get this, guys. The solver 100% calls. There are no three bets with this hand. I could not believe it. I thought this was surely a mix, and I thought I might even get in trouble for just calling because maybe it was going to be a hundred percent three bet. But no, guys, we never want to raise in this situation from the small blind with this hand. We can raise with ace jack offsuit, ace 10 offsuit, king jack suited, king 10 suited. So hands that are kind of around this particular hand strength, the ace queen suited, right? They all raise at least sometimes, if not always, but with my particular hand, the ace jack suited, it's a pure call. So I was surprised, but I happened to luckbox my way into making the ideal theoretical choice. And then with 18,500 in the middle, the flop came King of Hearts, Jack of Diamonds, 10 of Spades. So King Jack 10 Rainbow. I've got ace jack of clubs, and I checked, the big blind checked, and under the gun checked. So we all checked it through. Let's see what the solver thinks. Yeah, okay, it's approved. The solver says we can check this hand about half the time and bet mostly small the rest of the time. But in this particular instance, we all checked. So let's go to the turn, which paired the board, the king of diamonds. So our board is King Jack 10 King, and now backdoor diamonds coming in. And I let out for about a third of the pot, 7,000 into 18,500. And the big blind called and the original razor folded. So let's take a look at what the solver thinks about my lead. Guys, it is a pure bet here, but as it turns out, the solver does not like my sizing one bit. Guys, we never bet this small. The sizing is always bigger, 75%, 100%. So where I was betting 7k into 18.5, the solver wants to do more like 14,000 all the way up to a full pot, 18,500. So my sizing is way too small, but hey, at least I didn't check. So now with 325 in the middle of the river comes the four of diamonds. So our final board is King Jack 10 King Four with the backdoor flush coming in. And I decided to go for thin value. I bet 8,500 into 32.5, so right around a quarter pot. And my opponent called and beat me with the eight of diamonds, five of diamonds. So he made a flush on the end, and he just called my dinky little bet. Let's see what the solver thinks about all this. Actually, the solver bets tiny a lot here. Like 1.5 big blinds into this 16, 17 big blind pot. 88% of the time. So a blocking bet, a defensive bet, whatever you want to call it, basically what I did, but more to the extreme. And one thing I'm learning the more I work with Jaka coaching and different solver programs and whatnot, what I'm learning is that my big bets are often not big enough, and my small bets are often not small enough. Like I have the right idea, but I don't go to the extremes in many spots where I should. I mean, to be clear, the solver does my sizing occasionally, but less than 1% of the time, so I don't really want to give myself too much credit, but at least my play was not negative EV. I probably want to give myself about a C overall for this hand. But I have to give my opponent an F because he's supposed to shove with any flush in this spot, partly due to the amount of King X I have in my range, where I'm supposed to be absolutely beat by his flush the majority of the time, but probably I need to call off with some bluff catchers, and all of my king X would probably be a big part of that. Now I'm just speculating here, and you guys know that I don't exactly have a great track record of figuring out exactly what the solver is trying to teach me, but that's why I'm doing all the studying that I'm doing because I'm trying to learn. And I hope you want to learn too. Visit jocka.poker slash TPE. Alright, guys, let's check out a new hand. One I have not discussed on the podcast before. This one comes from the Millie Maker tournament. I love the Millionaire Maker. It's one of my favorite tournaments of the summer. It is a $1,500 buy-in with multiple starting flights and a guaranteed first place prize of at least $1 million. And many times second place also gets a million dollars just because that's how popular this tournament is. So this hand comes from relatively early on day one. The blinds are 300 and 600 with a 600 big blind ante. And I've got about 36,000 in my stack, so about 60 big blinds. And the action folds to me on the button. So 10, 7 suited on the button, and I opened to 1500. Now, many times you guys know I like to do the minimum, but in this spot I went for the 2.5x because of my stack size and from having ultimate position of being on the button. So yeah, I made it 1500. The small blind folded, and the big blind, who was a fairly decent European player, had me covered, was sitting with like maybe 48,000 or so in his stack. Youngish guy, like 35 years of age, and uh he made the call from the big blind. So the two of us are going to see a flop now with 3,900 in the middle. The flop comes ace of diamonds, eight of hearts, six of clubs. So ace, eight, six, rainbow, hero with the ten, seven of diamonds. So I've got a lot going on on this flop. I've got a gut shot, or as we used to call it, an inside straight draw. So any nine will make me a straight, which is especially nice when there's no flush draw yet. So if you hit that nine, you don't have to worry about it giving somebody else a flush. So there's a little bit of extra value in that here. But also I've got a backdoor flush draw and diamonds. So a pretty good flop for my hand and an excellent flop for my range because I'm going to open pretty much every ace I ever have in this situation. So I will have all of my ace X for top pair in this spot. So I might as well represent that hand. Uh villain checks, I bet 1100 now into the pot of 3900. So a very small bet by me, just over one quarter of the pot. And my opponent called rather quickly, now with 6100 in the middle. The turn came the Queen of Diamonds. So our board is now ace of diamonds, eight of hearts, six of clubs, queen of diamonds. Another very spicy card for me because now, in addition to that gut shot, I've got the flush draw. And my opponent checks again. Not only did I pick up a flush draw, but this queen is a better card for my range than it is for villains. So even in those instances where I don't pick up a draw or gather any extra equity, I think I'm probably still supposed to barrel this card quite a bit because it's just a really good board for the pre-flop razors range with these two Broadway cards out there and all of that. So I probably go ahead and barrel just about any queen, but this Queen of Diamonds, that's the best one in the deck, so I'm really happy to bet again. And now with 6,100 in the middle, I fire for 4,000, so two-thirds of the pot. And, you know, my opponent seemed pretty happy to call. He didn't seem particularly worried. Now he is uh presumably a professional or at least a semi-professional player from Europe somewhere. I don't think too many people make the trip all the way across the ocean and then all the way across our country just to play in the World Series of poker if they don't think they have a shot of winning some serious money. Generally speaking, the Euros that you face during the WSOP are relatively tough players. So he does make the call here, and at that point I decided he probably has an ace, and I just wanted to give up if I didn't make a hand by the river. And also I can beat some hands that my opponent could have still, hands like 7-5, 9-7, but I kind of discounted those hands a little bit just because I have one of the sevens myself, so it's harder for Villain to have these hands. I'd really like him to have, so I can just check it back if he checks the river and win with my 10 high, right? But yeah, I decided to give up unless a really good card came on the end. And the river, now with 14,100 in the middle, the river came the six of spades. So our final board is ace of diamonds, eight of hearts, six of clubs, queen of diamonds, six of spades. I decided, and some of you will be surprised by this. I decided to give up. I went with the give up read that I had on the turn, and I lost to ace 10 off suit. And you know what? Part of the power of betting big on the turn is when you get called, you can pretty much rule out that he's fooling around with a gut shot or some other very speculative, minor hand. He always has something strong when he calls 4k on the turn. So that's another good reason to make a bet like that, is it does help, as Harrington used to say, it helps to define your hand. But my question is, do I need to shove here on the river, do something crazy on the river? Maybe not shove, right? We have too many chips for that. But do I need to make another big bet? Do I need to overbet this river because my opponent never has ace queen or ace king, right? I still have a nuts advantage, I think, or at least a range advantage, right? Maybe he has more sixes than I do, right? And that six did pair the board at the end. But it just felt like such a terrible card for me to barrel, and especially when his call on the turn felt so strong to me. I don't know, but like if I don't bluff when I have ten high, what are my bluffs on this river? Is this just a river that I'm always supposed to shut down on? I doubt it, but I guess we'll find out next week. And that'll do it for this episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you did, please give us a good review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And for everyone here at Tournament Poker Edge, with special thanks to our sponsor, Jacka.poker slash TTE. I'm Clayton Fletcher. Thank you so much for listening.