The real takeaway from the KK hand should not be whether it was a genius fold or dumb fold. But how complex the whole spot is. Most people only talked about the KK, ignoring other decisions. Because KK was the best hand preflop and it folded = scandal. Only some of the better regs pointed out that hey, maybe the JJ jam was a mistake too. And it was. Once you know that, folding KK doesn't look like the blunder of the century anymore. Ranges are really really tight here.
Another thing is that in most of the written reports about the hand and in shortened viral clips, there was no info about the other stacks on the table. You can see them in the original non-shortened Triton clip, but only for a split second and I doubt there were many viewers pausing the video to really consider what stacks the BTN, SB and BB folded. That can get very important here. In my initial sim I didn't know exactly what the other stacks were and had to approximate based on how the final table started and make sure the total sum of chips checks out. I gave the SB larger stack and even though he wasn't even VPIPing, it still makes the spot slightly less ICM heavy and makes everyone very slightly looser. So the EV of jamming KK is gonna be lower than in that sim. Is it a fold? Hardly so, especially considering some FGS and exploitative reasons, but it is pretty close, especially compared to QQ/AK which a lot of people considered as bottom of the range or maybe borderline decision, yet those would be massive $150-250k blunders to jam.
But there could be a 5bb BTN instead of 31bb BTN behind us, 95 % of people would not pay attention to it because the SB didn't play anyway, they would write exactly the same comments, yet KK would actually be a clear ICM fold losing roughly around $80k EV by jamming.
Also:
- What do I mean by exploitative reasons to play looser? While common spots are often overplayed by some players and underplayed by other players, extreme spots will almost never be played as even more extreme. On the flop where the largest cbets are supposed to be used, most people will bet too small, hardly anyone will bet too big. On the most donkable turn card more people will donk less than GTO and few will donk more. And in extreme rare ICM spot, most people will probably underestimate the risk premium instead of overestimating it. And this is not just a potential 4way all-in on a final table. It is a potential 4way all-in that started with UTG9 and continued with UTG8. Those spots don't happen very often. So if you ask me for over/under for what LJ is gonna do, be tighter than GTO or looser than GTO, then I am guessing looser than GTO at least 90 % of the time for majority of players.
- ICM is not perfect. It only considers the current hand and assumes everyone will have equally good and bad opportunities to make chips in future hands. That is not true. Not just because of the obvious "some players have edge" reason but chipleader on FT will have better spots than everyone else. That is why chipleaders should never take ICM deal and always ask for more. And if you are a middle stack and you are stuck between two huge stacks and there are shortstacks on the other side of the table, you should probably take ICM deal even if you are the best player on the table. What does it mean? Generally you should play wider than what ICM says. How much exactly? Nobody knows, we can't calculate that. That effect is the most significant if your aggressive high-risk action could make you a chipleader and give you a load of chip printing opportunities for possibly several orbits. Even a 4-way all-in here wouldn’t give us the chiplead, as Tollerene would still have the largest stack. So I wouldn’t expect a major change in ranges, but yeah, they could all be a little wider.
- I talk about FGS, so why didn't I run FGS (future game simulation) to fix the shortcomings of ICM? Because it's not really possible. There is an FGS option in HRC but it only simulates future hands as push or fold and even doing that for 1-3 hands ahead takes a lot of time and solid hardware. Push/fold FGS can be useful for a hyper turbo final table, maybe interesting in speed racer sims and potentially super significant in a specific satellite bubble setup with ultra shortstack player on the UTG going to BB the next hand. But useless for a deepstacked spot like this one.
TLDR: We are all stupid monkeys, poker is very complicated and nobody really knows how to play it. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Here goes a sim:
-QJs jam standard, makes around $6k EV
-TT call also standard, makes around $22k EV, jam would be clearly worse around $12k EV. We want the option to fold if there is action behind us.
-JJ are losing around $8k EV, QQ are mostly jamming but basically breakeven.
-KK are a call, making around $45k EV.
To put it into perspective - AA would make $478k EV calling and QQ would lose $157k EV. AKs loses $171k EV and AKo loses $226k EV.
(This is normal ICM sim, so it's not perfect, FGS might change it slightly. I set up the 4 relevant stacks exactly, the others I had to guess from limited info but I think it is close enough. Chipleader is on the Big Blind I hope, right?)
♣️¡VUELVEN LAS ENTREVISTAS!♣️
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@CristhianBall19 Lamentable. Esto no es feedback sino un intento de tirar mierda. Está muy mal filtrar info que alguien da en un coaching privado.
Supongo que pretendías dejar mal a Kane, pero lo único que has conseguido con esto es demostrar que eres una persona en la que no se puede confiar.
Voy a formar un grupo nuevo de coach (4 plazas) para empezar en febrero.
Si juegas NL200/NL500 y te interesa, escríbeme por dm para más info.
Paz y mucho rap 🧠🫡
Para despedir el año vamos a hablar del resultadismo, para así empezar 2026 enfocados
Ese de la imagen soy yo hace 12 años. Y reconozco rápidamente mi mentalidad en ese momento ➡️ Resultadismo puro
Un día malo y mi cabeza entraba en modo alarma.
“Estoy jugando peor”
“He perdido la confianza”
“Me están haciendo magia”
“Tengo que remontar”
¿Os suena, no?
Lo más peligroso es que esa narrativa no se quedaba en pensamientos. A veces, mi juego se infestaba de ella.
💵Valuebeteaba menos
🔴Faroleaba menos
🪨Me volvía más conservador
🤬Era más reactivo
En definitiva ➡️ El resultado me cambiaba el juego
Ahí está la trampa del corto plazo en póker.
Te hace confundir varianza con mal juego, te hace creer que una sesión define tu nivel, y te empuja a “arreglar” algo que quizá no está roto.
♠️El póker es un juego raro, de vacíos y grises, ya que el feedback es imperfecto:
Puedes jugar bien y perder. Jugar mal y ganar.
Si lo que te guía es la gráfica diaria, vas a vivir en un ciclo de euforia y frustración constante.
Tu juego va a depender del miedo y del ego, más que de tomar decisiones basadas en una estrategia.
🔄 Con el tiempo aprendí varias cosas:
El objetivo no es ganar hoy.
El objetivo es tomar decisiones de calidad, repetidas, incluso cuando las cosas no funcionan.
📈Aprendí que el winrate no se construye con picos de motivación, se construye con estabilidad separando resultado de la decisión
🧠Aprendí a tolerar la varianza sin que afectara en exceso a mi forma de jugar. Leer y hablar con gente es lo que más ayuda.
🧘Aprendí a mantener mi agresión correcta aunque esté en una racha de resultados negativa. A veces es inevitable, pero si la mayoría de las veces eres capaz de controlarlo, ya es una victoria.
🙇♂️Mi versión actual sabe que un día no dice nada acerca de tu nivel, ni siquiera un mes. Enfócate en dar tu mejor versión y los resultados acabarán llegando.
En póker, madurar es entender la varianza, saber que lo que importa es el largo plazo… y que proteger tu mente es proteger tu EV actual y futuro.
🟩 ¿Cómo vas a mejorar eso en 2026?
Feliz año a todos familia ♥️
A year long battle to top the PokerStars Live League is over. Congratulations to:
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Estoy traduciendo las entrevistas PS League para el Blog Internacional. Anbilievabol 🫡
La primera, la de @grubi125 , a quién conocí en mi primer CEP (mi 3° torneo) mientras él ganaba su primer 🏆 (Mini CEP Donosti). Anforguetabol
🪙 Golden Boy. Líder Medium 👇