Stephen Chidwick is one of the most accomplished multi-table tournament players in poker history. During his career, he has amassed almost $50 million of winnings in live poker tournaments, with a personal best of over $5 M!
Stephen has been a regular in star-studded high roller fields for the last few years. However, lower buy-in tournaments, with hundreds or even thousands of entrants - like WSOP Main Event - have different dynamics from the small high roller fields, where people start recognizing each other after a few events.
It's always interesting to see how the best of the bests adapt to the games more accessible to us, mere mortals. One might assume that top pros should sail smoothly to the top prizes crushing people left and right. Well, as with most things in poker, it's not that simple.
When they raise on the river, they always have it, right?
Hand we're going to analyze took place in Las Vegas during the 2023 WSOP Main Event.
Not many people can lay the moves on Stephen Chidwick.
— PokerGO (@PokerGO) July 11, 2023
But Andrew Wu did just that in the biggest tournament of the year.
📺 - Watch live here: https://t.co/u3bvuaS9Jn pic.twitter.com/s1cduucNDk
The action starts with a loose raise for over 3BB with JTo from Andrew Wu on the LoJack. The raise itself is reasonable, but the sizing is not. In most instances, in the middle phase of a live tournament, there's no reason to raise more than standard 2-2.5BB. Such an idea is even worse when there are top pros on the table.
Stephen's defense is standard. Facing a bigger-than-usual size of the raise, he's inclined to be more selective with preflop holdings he'd like to continue with. That being said, AJo is a great candidate to flat - it plays decently postflop, keeps the dominated hands in the opponent's range and can be a decent bluff catcher in many instances.
The hand seemed over on the flop
While the Ace high flop favors the raiser, it would be safe to assume that after flopping a top pair against a Jack high, Steven would win this hand in an overwhelming number of cases. Not this time, though!
Despite hitting a top pair on an Ace high flop, Stephen should never lead. Of course, he must be well aware of that, so he checks. On the other hand, Andrew should be able to bet a lot of his range in this spot, but given his choice of over 3x open preflop, Chidwick's range is stronger than usual, so Wu can't make a profitable continuation bet as often as usual.
Still, JTo - Wu's exact hand - is a decent candidate for a cbet. This combination has great blockers, Jack and a ten, significantly reducing the number of the most common calls - AJ and AT - in the Small Blind's range.
Since Chidwick happens to be holding one of the hands mentioned above, he has an easy continue. Solver prefers calling over raising, and Stephen obliges.
The turn hits both players but slows down the action
Due to the preflop sizing and ranges, despite being a face card, Jack of spades strengthens the Small Blind's range. However, the equity shift is insufficient to encourage a leading range, so checking the whole range is still the most sensible strategy. Once again, Stephen concurs.
What should Andrew Wu do? Right now, he should be betting around 60% of the time. He has a lot of strong top pair+ to choose from, and the second spade provides him with plenty of reasonable hands (flush draws) to bluff with.
His exact holding gained significant showdown value, so the solver prefers checking, and so does Wu.
The river changes a lot, and the fireworks start
The river is a decent card for the Small Blind, at least equity-wise. In practice, Stephen cannot bet often, as he can't have many flushes (which are essentially the nuts, therefore, the in-position player has the nuts advantage). Despite that, Chidwick, probably wishing to prevent his opponent from checking back with medium-strength hands, bets ⅔ of the pot.
According to the GTO, Wu shouldn’t raise much either. If he elects to, his value range is clear - two pairs and better. What about bluffs, then?
Since Stephen SHOULDN'T bet often, this node does not have many hands; however, if you ever find yourself in such a spot, you should bluff with hands that block two pairs, straights and flushes.
And in this instance, the combos that meet those requirements are QJo and JTo!
After being raised, Stevie is in a tough and rarely occurring spot. How to decide what to call in such unlikely situations, according to the theory? The best bluff catchers are AT and AQ (with a spade) since they both block straights and flushes.
After a long deliberation, Stephen decides to fold, as he probably assumed his opponent might be underbluffing. It's hard to blame him; it takes a lot of courage to pull such a bold bluff at the TV table against one of the best players in the world.
During this hand, Andrew Wu correctly utilized the combination of having the right combo to bluff with and the overall perception of MTT fields to be mostly honest on the river. His courageous play resulted in scooping a nice pot. Hats off!
GTO Poker: key insights
We can’t fault Stephen Chidwick for trying to exploit his opponent by squeezing additional value from his hand. This approach will often be correct in softer MTT fields, but it may backfire, as it did in this case.
Remember that whenever your opponent has a nut advantage, you must respect that; otherwise, you allow the villain to push you around, putting you in tough spots.
Learning to visualize who has more nuts than others takes time and practice with poker tools. If you are willing to develop that skill, Deepsolver is a poker software for you. Don't take our word for granted; check Deepsolver yourself, now seven days free of charge!
Also, see our other Deepsolver Checks:
- Deepsolver Check #1: Calling With an Ace High for Over $400k!
- Deepsolver Check #2: What to Call When Durrrr Puts You All-in?