These hands come from the nosebleed high stakes games that have been going down on GGPoker recently, with Tan Xuan being the main reason all these big pros are coming out to play this game that has seen straddles getting the game up to $500/$1,000/$2000/$4000.

One of the biggest winners in this game and on the internet, in general, is Wiktor ‘Limitless’ Malinowski, the fearless Russian that has battled his way from freerolls all way to the biggest games around the world and online. Let’s take a look at how he makes winning $500k look like child play in one of these sessions of heads up poker.

Why raise this Turn lead?

We will only drive out our opponent’s bluffs, like this gutshot, that could fire a bluff on the River and then we win a much smaller pot, or we could be bloating the pot in the times when our opponent has a King in their hand.

You would see poor players or bad regs raise this spot fairly often, looking to protect against draws, but Wiktor knows better than that and opts to smooth call.

Repping only quads

Tan does a great job of sizing up here, and if Wiktor was in here with a lesser hand like 66–88 or A5 for instance, this may well have got the job done, however, Wiktor is just way too high up in his range, he can raise with Quads, but with Kings full of Aces here there is little value in raising, his opponent can sometimes have an overvalued 9 in this spot, but they are usually polarised to bluffs of quads.

Wiktor makes the easy call and gets $110,000 more than some players would have with a trappy just call on the Turn.

Betting quarter pot

This is a big trend we see from the highest stakes players, the 25% bet. Why is it so popular? Well on boards like this Wiktor can use this sizing because it’s a pretty lockdown board, there is only one flush draw and we have a hammerlock on the board other than that.

Now in this case 25% can get easily floated by worse hands even King highs in some cases, allowing our opponent to make huge errors, but this will also make for a profitable sizing for bluffs, so if Wiktor can ever bet this sizing and get hands like King high to fold when he has airballs, then it’s a massive win here!

Calling one bullet and assessing later streets

A recurring theme in this match is Wiktor calling one bet on the flop and then Tan shutting down. This makes calling a single bet with almost any hand very profitable for Limitless, if Tan is never following through on bluffs he can easily fold to further aggression on Turns and Rivers with his weaker holdings.

In this pot Tan takes a stab with 6 high on the Flop and then checks both Turn and River, giving up on the pot completely. It’s worth noting that if you get to the River with 6 high and your opponent has not shown much strength in the pot, it’s worth trying to put a bet out there to win the money in the middle.

Playing in position

There aren’t many pots that get bloated in this heads up match when Limitless is out of position, which is another reason why we should remember that position is everything in Poker.

This is yet another spot where Tan took one stab at this pot with his equity on the Flop and then gave up when he missed the Turn and River.

Although he missed a big draw I would have liked to see another bet either on the Turn or River here, after having the betting lead pre-flop, you then hold the range advantage, these are the key spots where you have to apply some extra pressure with your bluffs to get the job done to balance out the spots where you will go for value with good hands.

Epic Float Going right

After calling a 3-Bet pre-flop, many players might just give up against a bet on 994 flop with 8Ts.

However this is where the real players come alive, they know that there are some Turn cards which they can pick up a nice chunk of equity and there’s always some steal opportunities too.

Wiktor floats the flop bet, looking to improve with a spade or straight card and does exactly that when the Jack hits the Turn, giving him an open-ended straight draw and an easy call of a 25% bet here.

Sizing is everything

I think Wiktor knew exactly where he was at with this hand, putting his opponent on a hand much like what he has with 77, 88, TT all in his range.

Against better players Wiktor might go for the full overbet jam all-in here, however, playing against VIPs is about shearing them and letting them live sometimes.

Here he goes for a 2/3rds sizing that is nearly always going to get looked up, Tan makes the call on this bad run out for pocket Tens and sees the bad news that the River got him.