Calling With an Ace High for Over $400K?!

The World Series of Poker is in full swing, meaning there is much poker content to watch, digest and discuss.

As is the case every summer in Las Vegas, hundred thousands of dollars are earned and lost due to coolers, bold bluffs and tough bluff catches.

Today we’d like to introduce you to our new series of articles - Deepsolver Check, in which we will be analyzing popular, unorthodox and overall interesting hands that provoked discussions in the poker world. We’ve already produced a few videos in this format, and you can check them on our YouTube channel.

Without further ado, let’s examine the $400k call in the $ 700+300 No Limit Hold'em - Mystery Millions (Bracelet Event 3)!

How good are pros at following GTO poker guidelines?

Our first hand - a very tough bluff catch… or is it? You can watch the entire hand in the video below.

Two players gunning for their first WSOP bracelet are Tyler Brown and Guangun Chan. Chan covers his opponent by five big blinds, but the effective stack postflop is around 25BB.

The action starts with Brown (being on SB/BU) raising with A5o, which his opponent defends with the K9o. Both the raise and the call are standard actions.

The driest flop you could possibly think of

The flop is a very dry one - 233 without a flush draw. Such flops rarely shift the equity distribution. Usually, the raiser who is advantageous preflop remains advantageous postflop (as the defending player would 3bet almost all of their pairs and best Aces). That’s also the case in this hand, and as a result, Brown has a solid 57% to 43% equity lead on the flop.

Consequently, Guang has only one reasonable option viable - to check with his whole range, and so he does. On the other hand, Brown has a clear-cut value bet. His range is so much stronger than his opponent that he has to bet his whole range, preferably with a small sizing.

Even versus such a small continuation bet Guang has to fold over 40% of his hands - mostly disconnected offsuit combos. In this situation, his calling range should consist mainly of King highs and Ace highs. These categories are ahead of his opponent's bluffs and can hit strong top pairs later.

As for raises, BB should raise mostly pairs of deuces (which need a lot of protection and do not have many favorable runouts) and trips (which want to extract value from the opponent). The bluff raises come primarily from the suited middle cards, which can turn a pair or a flush draw.

As we can see, Guang went out of line with his raise. His combo performs better as a call. That being said, he puts his opponent in a tough spot. How should Brown react versus a raise?

According to the solver, he has two options to choose from. He should fold almost all of his offsuit combos that did not connect with the board and call all of the King highs or better and some of the suited overcards with backdoor potential.

Barring the fact that Ace high is often the best hand at this point, A5o has the additional value of having a gutshot draw, so it is a slam-dunk call. Let's take a look at the turn.

Queen on the turn opens the flush draw

According to the solution, Guang shouldn’t really have many Queens.

He shouldn't also have the exact hand he has, so let's look at similar hands - other King highs. Solver prefers to play them passively and bet with other holdings: pairs of deuces, trips and almost all of turned flush draws and worst unimproved flop check-raises.

To Guang's defense, we must admit that shoving here is generally a solid option (along with ⅓ bet), especially given how much pressure it applies on his opponent in the heat of the moment. There are simply better hands to choose from.

Being put all-in with the bracelet on the line, Brown has a decision to make. His most apparent calls are pairs and better. He also has to call all the combinations of high cards with a flush draw.

What about the offsuit/unimproved Ace highs? Solver mixes them, folding most of the combos. However, Brown's exact combination has an additional, crucial quality - a gutshot. It adds enough equity to make it a pure call.

Brown takes his time and correctly identifies that his hand has to call, and he puts the chips into the pot. The only thing left for him is to fade a King or a nine on a river. He manages to do so, winning the tournament's biggest pot and turning a $1,000 buy-in into a $1,000,000 payday.

GTO poker: key insights

Heads up, poker is played on very wide ranges, and it is essential to identify which hands perform better as a call and which would like to bluff-raise and why. Otherwise, you will turn profitable bluff catchers into unprofitable bluffs.

Guang's aggression paid off for most of the tournament, but this time his opponent withstood the enormous pressure, correctly identifying the right play and getting rewarded greatly. Well played, Tyler Brown!

If you want to find out what to do and not do in such tense situations, try Deepsolver. With our tool and our Discord community's help, you'll take your game to the next level in no time. And if you're not sure, you'll have seven days to try Deepsolver out!