In this post, we review some hands from the recent WCOOP Main Event which was a tournament held on Pokerstars a little while ago where the eventual winner walked away with a cool $1,665,962!

BIGBLUFFZINC is a stable owner and poker player that plays the highest stakes games around, quickly gaining a large following as a streamer with constant deep runs and interesting plays at the table.

Today we are going to look at a few hands from this Canadian Pros deep run in the WCOOP event…

Checking Back the Flop

Here the action is raised pre-flop on the button with a fine hand to raise that will play well in position in a single raised pot KTo.

The flop gives Hugh “BIGBLUFFZINC” a good hand with two pair, however betting this flop could leave him open to attack from bluffs and make the rest of the hand a little tricky if his opponent puts huge pressure.

So he checks back the flop which accomplishes a few things:

• The pot is under control and realising equity will be easy
• Villian might choose to bluff the turn
• Villian may hit some equity and be able to call a bet

The turn card brings a possible straight and more straight and flush draws and the Villian leads out for a fairly small sizing, betting just over a third of the pot.

This is where Hugh decides to charge his opponent. He can get value by raising here from flush draws, worse two pairs and any gutshot straight draw that may choose to continue… a nice line from this high stakes crusher in this pot, I think I simply would have bet to protect my hand on the flop, but considering a line like this seems much better!

The Villian simply folds, but that’s one more bet gained than if the Villian is just check folding the flop.

Checking Twice

Having a protected checking range is a huge part of the High stakes players game, in this hand, we see BIGBLUFFZINC complete from the small blind and then check the Ace high flop, then check again on the turn…

We then see the button who limped into the hand take a stab betting around one-third of the pot, which they would do with a huge range after being checked too twice here!

Rather than just call this bet though Hugh takes the aggressive line of getting some more value from all the draws that are possible and puts in a sizeable check-raise.
The Button calls this bet and then on the River Hugh decides that his best bet for getting extra value is to use his hand a bluff catcher and allow all the missed straight and flush draws to have one more stab at betting… so he checks and the Button does go for a bet themselves with just eight high.

The Button’s play is a little poor here I feel, calling with just a gutshot on the turn is a little wide and following through with a weak bet on the river that is always going to get looked up.

BIGBLUFFZINC does it again though, getting huge value from just a raggy Ace on this board really shows you how good some player are… not only this though, but he protects his future ranges by having strong hands in his check twice range on this board. So in another pot when he is just looking to get to showdown with say, third pair, his opponents will have to think carefully if they can stand the heat of a check-raise before betting.

Max Pressure on the River

In this hand Hugh opens the button with T9s a perfectly playable hand from late position, the flop is checked through and Hugh calls a small bet on the turn with his second pair looking to get to showdown or improve.

Then we have this River action, where his opponent bets a tiny 15% pot, which looks very much like a block bet screaming “Please Don’t Raise Me!” So where as many players would take there now third pair and make a crying call getting huge pot odds just on the off chance that our opponent has a missed draw… BIGBLUFFZINC antes up and lives up to his name and puts the Villian to the test for all the chips.

Part of his rational must have been that the Queen on the river completes a lot of hands and having a 9 blocker adds a little weight to the move too.

The Villian was not in the mood to fold with a rivered two pair, only loosing really to a few straights and beating all the missed draws, worse two pairs and random one pair hands turned into bluffs.

The weight of value shoves on this card was vastly outweighed by bluff hands, so I’m not 100% if this is a play that Hugh was entirely happy with, stating after the hand that he could have just called, however, you have to admire the heart to go with this line and try and take his opponent off their hand when they show weakness.

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