In this in-depth hand review, we look at some spots from the latest deep run of tournament crusher Jon “Apestyles” Van Fleet. These hands are from the $5,200 CPP Day 2, deep run…
Going for two streets of thin value
This pot started off with Jon making a 4x raise, this helps define his opponents range a little for further streets of action as well as letting us get value pre-flop from worse holdings.
K K x flop is great for nearly every pocket pair to continue betting to protect, we can get calls from flush draws, Ace high and any 3x or worse pair like 22–55.
When the Turn card is pretty much as good as it gets for pocket sixes, Jon opts to bet around 50% pot, looking to protect against draws and get value. The River was a brick and Jon was going to go for some thin value, but opted to check.
Checking the River was a pretty good move, it will allow for any missed draws to bluff and we also don’t go value owning ourselves for when our opponent has a slightly better hand, as hands like 77–99 are still a possibility. As it happened, his opponent checked back and Jon dragged the pot.
Limp Jams in Range
Limp jamming against a 35BB stack is ideal, we close the action and we can look to win the pot uncontested, but we can get action from much worse hands too.
Joni ended up calling off with AJo and gifting Jon a huge stack, which is the problem with not giving Jon strong hands in his range in this spot.
Limping here with strong hands occasionally also helps us be balanced, letting us limp into pots with marginal holdings and realise some equity because opponents will no be scared to raise without strong holdings that they can call all-ins with.
Button Aggression
After calling a 3-Bet in position, Jon decides that this board is a good one to attack with many high card combinations in his opponents range that will not serve well under pressure out of position.
Another added pressure point that Jon mentions is that Patrice really has to decide if they want to play a 140BB pot, which he can only do if he has a tiny portion of his range in this spot.
Getting Aggro with Good Draws
Jon smooth calls from the small blind here, which he says is fine, given the late position open and the fact his hand is suited. This would be an easy fold against early position opens or if he was un-suited.
Against his opponent that has around 20BBs remaining, Jon is happy to play for stacks with the nut flush draw on this board. His opponent can have worse draws like QT and T8s as well as all worse flush draws.
Jon explained that having a hand like A6s here rather than say ATs is much better because it opens up many other flush draw combinations in our opponent’s hand like T8s, T7s, QTs, KTs and so on.
Floating then Block Betting
Jon chose to float this hand from defending in the Big Blind, with blockers to all the good Qx hands like QJ and QT and a draw to the nuts he decided to continue.
After hitting a pair on the Turn, he wasn’t planning on giving up, but his opponent checked back. Jon then went for a block bet, which can induce a bluff or even a wide call with his opponent getting great odds, he could even get looked up by Ace high here.
Picking up the lead with great blockers
Jon defended this QJo from the Big Blind in a three-way pot. Following the pre-flop aggressor checking back, he looked to get aggressive on this turn, blocking hands like KJ, KQ, QQ, JJ and flush draws.
Even regardless of having the dream blockers, this would be a great spot to reach out and grab this pot, with very little strong holdings in his opponent’s hands given the action in this threeway pot.
Another thing worth mentioning is given the board texture Jon now has a pretty good nut advantage on his side, with 24s and 47s well in his calling range and in neither of his opponents.
