We took a look at this poker end boss in our article on his rise, fall and comeback so if you didn’t check that out yet, take a peek.
It’s good to see this dude settling into some online poker grinds, check out his first steam where he final tables the $530 bounty builder on Pokerstars and crushes people the whole way.
We are going to take a look at some interesting spots that came up during the tournament…
1BB Block Bet
Here Jon defends from the Big Blind with an offsuit connector, a reasonable play facing a min-raise, getting good odds to continue and with the added incentive of the bounty on the line if he stacks his opponent.
Jon flops middle pair with a backdoor straight draw and calls a small bet, the Turn checks through and with a marginal hand that wants to realise equity, Apestyles busts out the block bet of just one blind.
This could normally backfire, however, with his opponent having the stack to pot ratio that’s in play, they could get blown off their hand if they go for a thin value raise. The bet gets called by his opponent with Top pair, top kicker, but Jon’s plan worked well and he got to showdown cheaply with his pair.
Don’t Get Too Greedy
Apestyles wanted to overbet here, but his opponent could only really ever call that bet with a straight, so instead, he goes for around 90%, still looking to get big value, but not overplaying his hand and missing out on getting the last bet paid.
I feel like this something that too many players do, they are in a bounty tournament so with all their strong hands they look to play for all the chips, but you still need to bet appropriate sizings based on your opponent’s possible holdings.
Bad River, But Going For Value Anyway!
This is a fun one, Jon ends up rivering two pair here, with straights and flushes completing this is spot most players would snap check behind and look to drag the pot, for fear of a check-raise.
However Jon looks at this in the sense of his range, he can have all the strong flushes here because all the hearts on board are low cards. He looks to get a little more value from his hand, whilst declaring that he is bet folding to any more aggression.
He ends up getting called by top pair and wins a pot around twice as large as many competent players out there would have.
Bet Geometrically
This is one of the staples of the BBZ poker teachings, Jordan stresses this point greatly in many of his coaching sessions and although Jon just missed the mark on here, he told us after the hand that he was a little distracted with some other games, which happens to us all!
This bet left a little over a pot-sized bet to go in on the River, however, look to size on all three streets with the same percentages, so here for instance, with 17BBs in the pot and his opponent with 61BBs behind, Jon could have bet around 15-16BBs, for a near pot-sized bet to make sure that the River Jam to get the bounty isn’t an overbet!
To learn a little more about this theory, check out our full post on the principle here.
Leading With Good Cards for Your Range
I like this line a lot from Jon, he flat calls a raise pre-flop, being out of position against the only player that covers him, so looking to play some small ball poker and not make any ICM mistakes.
Check-calling the flop with his over-pair to this low board and then looking to gain control of the pot on the Turn and deny some equity from overcards and gain a feel of how good this holding is.
The reason this is a good play is that Jon can have all the 5’s in his range, whereas his opponent has very little, maybe just A5s and 55. So this isn’t exactly just to do with the fact he has an overpair, but Jon is playing his range on this runout and will often have two pair or better with these low cards.
No Spoilers
We don’t want to spoil how this ends up for Jon Fleet, but let’s just say it’s pretty entertaining! Check out the highlights of his first-ever Twitch Stream!