The hand happens on the final table of the big one for One Drop, which was a $111,111 buy-in tournament in the WSOP series in Las Vegas, the field gets high rollers and rich amateurs alike and is a real spectacle to watch when it comes to how the best of the best play their holdings.
The hand begins with blinds at 120k/240k with a large 40k ante meaning there is 720k in the middle before any action…
The action starts with Swedish 888Poker Pro Martin Jacobson raising from UTG+3 to 525,000 with
K♠ J♠ Doug Polk is in the Big Blind with 240k invested in the pot and has an easy call with his A♦ T♦ and it’s off to a flop we go…
Big flop for both Players
The board brings some fun for everyone with K♦ 4♦ 2♠
This gives Doug Polk one overcard and the Nut flush draw, whilst Jacbonson has flopped Top pair with back door spades.
So how does the GTO master continue on this wet board with his huge draw…
Well, it begins with a check from Doug, playing in flow and Jacobson goes ahead and bets small with 450k, less than his initial preflop open raise and less than one-third of the pot size with that being at 1,530,000.
Let’s talk about this sizing for a second, this allows weaker holdings that Doug may have stay in the pot allowing Martin to gain value from holdings like worse pairs than the King on board and draws like wheel draws from hands like A5s for example that may take a card off of just any combination of two diamonds in Polk’s hand.
If Jacobson bets larger, his range is going to be only super strong hands or bluffs and would be pushing out some of Polk’s weakest holdings that can’t call a larger bet. Try to remember this whilst playing your opponents, bet smaller to keep worse holdings in the game and they may make mistakes further down the line…
Polk has flopped a great deal of equity here and is still ahead of some of Jacobson’s bluffs, so he sticks around getting a great price and it’s off to the turn card…
Turn up the heat on the Turn
The 3♠ hits the Turn, making the board now K♦ 4♦ 2♠ 3♠
An action card giving Polk a straight draw and giving Jacboson the second nut Spade flush draw.
Doug Polk once again checks to Jacobson, possibly letting Polk see a free card if Martin were to check back with a holding less strong and with the stack to pot ratio allowing a good check jam opportunity to apply maximum pressure against a bet.
Jacobson does go for some value with his Top pair, betting 1,000,000 chips into the pot of 2,430,000.
A tough spot for the Jacobson as he wants to realise his equity here and get to showdown, however, his hand doesn’t play well against hands that could check jam this turn card.
Doug Polk puts his money where his mouth is and puts his opponent in the absolute grinder by moving all in for 4,645,000 chips, covering his opponent and applying huge ICM pressure.
Let’s look at Jacobson’s Holding against Polks expected Range
So we have constructed a range of hands that Polk could have and we are going to see how much equity Jacobson has against this range.
So if we give Polk credit for having a bunch of conceivable flush draws as well as a bunch of strong hands like Sets and straights Jacobson still has around 50% equity against this range, which in this case he is getting the right price to call off as he needs around 30% in this spot to be profitable. However this is the power of ICM pressure, Jacobson has to risk his whole tournament on being live in this spot and Polk is never going to be doing this with a low equity holding, so it’s always going to be a gamble even when the pair of Kings is managing to be ahead.
Let’s look at the Spot from Polk’s point of View
We have constructed a Range for Jacboson here so we can view what kind of equity Polk’s Semi-Bluff All in wager will have in the long term.
Because Jacobson has KJs in this specific spot, he won’t always have that, he has a range of hands and we need to find a good line to play against the range of his holdings.
So in creating this range, we eliminate some hands like QQ, JJ, TT for example, as there is no chance Jacobson bets twice with these holdings, he would either C-bet check back turn or Delayed C-bet with a vulnerable holding like these on King high boards.
We include hands that can be completely nutted like A5s, 65s, KK as well as strong top pair plus hands that may look to bet to protect, such as a hand in the same vein as Jacobson actually has AA, KTs, KJs, KQs, AKs and KQo.
We also give Jacobson credit for having a few, not too many, double barrel bluffs like T9s, JTs, QTs and QJs as this would be the absolute bottom of Jacobson’s range in this spot, but we need to give him credit for some bluffs on this board, he is not always going to have a nutted range when betting twice as he is a solid professional player that will have a balanced range and sometimes just be looking to bet his opponent off their equity.
So how does Polk’s equity match up against this pretty solid range from his opponent, well it’s still looking pretty good! With his hand roughly having 45% equity even when Jacobson’s range can include some absolute monster hands like Sets, Straights and Overpairs.
So why does Doug Polk move all in with this holding?
He is looking to make the most +$EV play possible, calling is not too bad, he was getting a good price, however if he can push his opponent off their equity by turning his hand into a bluff jam with his 30% equity he can win a bunch of times when his opponent has him beat currently and his opponent is so up against the ropes with the ICM pressure of the situation that he will need the top of his range to call in this spot and whilst a pair of Kings with a Jack kicker and spade draw is fairly high up in his range, this disciplined pro realised how close this race might be and decided to air on the side of caution and make a tight laydown.
The problem with calling for Jacbobson is that he could be crushed and even the times he is ahead Polk is going to show up with a bunch of equity.
The biggest thing we can learn here is in these high equity spots, make sure you set up the pot to stack ratio so that you can get the last bet in on your opponent! If Jacobson had just Jammed the turn here, Doug would have had to fold his hand along with giving up his equity in this pot, but because Doug could get the last bet in Jacobson ended up not realising his equity.
Now the advice here is not to check back in spots like this if you have a hand like Jacobson’s he made a good move in trying to protect his hand against Doug’s range in this spot, it just so happened that Doug was high enough in his range to make this move. All in all, this was a very high-level hand of Poker played by both players.