WPH #560: How DIRTY Is THIS??????

pokerstrategy #tritonpoker #highstakespoker

During a $125,000 buy-in high stakes poker tournament at the 2024 Triton Poker Series Montenegro. Alex Kulev’s dreams come true when he gets dealt pocket aces on his first hand at the table and PokerCoaching.com coach Chris Brewer decides to 4-bet him. But by the river, Kulev’s pocket rockets are no longer the best hand. How dirty is this? Will the online poker wizard be able to fold the best starting hand in poker?

When playing a game theory optimal (GTO) strategy with a very deep stack in tournament poker, pocket aces should rarely be part of your 5-betting range preflop. Aces play better as a trap preflop, therefore you should include them into your 4-bet calling range instead. A hand like pocket kings should fall into your 5-bet for value range, while ace-five suited is typically used as a 5-bet bluff.

Chris Brewer is an American professional poker player. He has over $25,100,000 in live tournament earnings putting him in the top 40 on the all-time money list. He has 2 World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets, one of which came from the 2023 $250,000 buy-in event for $5,293,556. He is also a PokerCoaching.com coach with a fantastic advanced course on how to crush cash games.

Alex Kulev ‘FutureofMe’ is a professional poker player from Bulgaria. He has almost $14,100,000 in live tournament earnings which puts him in the top 100 on the all time money list and 1st on Bulgaria’s all time money list. He has 1 WSOP bracelet which came from a $50,000 buy-in event at the 2023 WSOP. He won $2,087,073 for his first place finish. Triton Poker was founded in 2015 by Paul Phua and Richard Yong; their aim was to attract a healthy mixture of recreational poker players and seasoned poker professionals. Part of what makes the Triton Series so special is that it’s open to a wide range of poker players – not just a select few. They envisioned Triton as a series of poker events providing excellent entertainment value for audiences passionate about poker. Some of the most famous poker players to have appeared at Triton events have been Phil Ivey ‘RaiseOnce’, Tom Dwan ‘Durrr’, Patrick Antonius ‘The Finn’, Michael Addamo ‘imluckbox’, Chris Brewer, Jason Koon ‘JAKoon1985’, Tony G, Dan Cates ‘Jungleman’, Doug Polk ‘WCGRider’, Stephen Chidwick ‘stevie444’, Linus Loeliger ‘LLinusLLove’, Isaac Haxton ‘philivey2694’, Mikita Badziakouski ‘fish2013’, Timofey Kuznetsov ‘Trueteller’ and many more.

This was during the Triton Montenegro Series at the Maestral Resort & Casino – Budva, Montenegro; it had 16 poker tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $25,000 up to $200,000 in No Limit Hold’em (NLHE) and Pot Limit Omaha (PLO), and ran from May 12th – May 26th, 2024.

$125,000 – 2024 Triton Poker Series Montenegro Event #9 – Results

1st: Mikalai Vaskaboinikau ‘feelingip’ – Belarus – $4,737,000 2nd: Dejan Kaladjurdjevic – Montenegro – $3,196,000 3rd: Aleksejs Ponakovs ‘APonakov’ – Latvia – $2,200,000 4th: Phil Ivey ‘The Tiger Woods of Poker’ – USA – $1,795,000 5th: Igor Yaroshevskyy ‘IgorKarkarof’ – Ukraine – $1,430,000 6th: Samuel Ju – Germany – $1,098,000

Preflop: Chris Brewer raises to 40,000 from under-the-gun+2 with pocket kings before Alex Kulev 3-bets to 120,000 from the hijack with the best hand in poker – pocket aces. After the cutoff, button and blinds fold, Brewer 4-bets to 320,000 with his Cowboys. Kulev chooses not to 5-bet as he slow-plays the pocket rockets and just calls.

Flop – Kc 4c 4h: Brewer flops top boat and currently has the second nuts, only behind to an extremely unlikely quads. He continuation bets for 150,000 and Kulev just calls with the only possible overpair and a backdoor flush draw.

Turn – 6c: The flush completes on the 6 of clubs turn, which sees Brewer fire a second barrel, this time for 200,000. Kulev picks up a backdoor flush draw and decides to just call again.

River – Qc: Kulev improves to the ace-high flush but is still behind to Brewer’s full house holding kings full o