Tom Dwan, in the online poker world known as Durrrr, has been a force to be reckoned with for the last 15 years. Since he reached the highest stakes in online poker and live cash games, he has been on the top, captivating poker fans worldwide.
Admittedly, it has been a bit quieter about him over the past few years. The situation changed in 2023, and Tom Dwan is again on everyone's lips, mainly due to this hand.
While Durrrr has always been primarily a cash game player, he's no stranger to poker tournaments - over $6M in tournament winnings should not be scoffed about. Given his style and fans' affection for him, it's no surprise that Dwan's appearance in the 2023 WSOP Main Event was closely watched.
While his bust-out hand might've disappointed his admirers, his aggressive style caused a few headaches for his opponents along the way. In this article, we'll look at one such hand.
Opening the bottom of your range can put you in tricky situations
The hand we're going to cover comes from day 3 of the 2023 WSOP Main Event. You can see it in the video below; the hand starts at 2:11:12.
The action starts with a cutoff open from Ibanez with Q4s. While this open is technically fine, as Q4s should be the worst suited Queen to open here, it's not a mandatory raise. Especially if there are competent players, like Tom, with a big stack left to act.
In Tom's shoes, his hand is a defense, as KTo should be the worst offsuit King to defend.
On the flop of the Q68 rainbow, the in-position player has a 53% to 47% equity lead, which is not surprising. As a result, Tom should check the entirety of his range.
On the other hand, his opponent should bet quite a lot, primarily using small sizing. His exact hand likes to check, but the vast majority of top pairs strongly prefers betting. Since he chooses to bet, it is likely that Ibanez bet almost all his top pairs in this spot.
Versus such a bet-heavy strategy, Tom's exact combo prefers folding, but given his reputation, it's fair to assume that he pressures his opponents and raises more often than not. While the game theory does not suggest raising KTo often, it's likely that Tom's overall game plan is to bully people out of the pots as often as possible.
It's also worth noting that KTo:
- has some potential turns that will allow Tom to continue his aggression, which justifies his line to an extent.
- unblocks all of the Ace highs, which are the best hand on the flop, but won’t continue often versus a raise.
Facing a raise, Ibanez can, and in fact should, implement the call-or-fold strategy. Solver raises only 5% of its holdings, so it's better to skip this option and simplify the strategy to the two most prevalent options.
In this scenario, Ibanez has to fold his worst hands and all of the King highs and Ace highs that do not connect with the board (i.e. they do not have at least a backdoor flush draw with two overcards to a six).
Holding a top pair, CO has no other viable option but to call since his hand is way too strong to fold.
The turn opens quite a few new draws
The turn is a nine of clubs opening quite a lot of draws. As a result, Tom has three options here: check, bet small or shove. In this situation, the solver checks quite often (over half the time), but both bet small and all-in are viable options (around 30% and 16%, respectively).
Tom keeps the pedal to the metal and shoves, putting Ibanez to the test. To his credit, Tom correctly identifies that his exact combo likes to bluff in this spot (not necessarily by shove, though).
Visibly unhappy, Ibanez folds his top pair without much thought, and he is correct. The worst Queens to consider calling are Q7s and QTo. It is worth noting, that even if Tom would jam all of his KTo at full frequency along with worst pairs with a straight draw, Q5s and Q4s would still fold.
While folding the top pair to a very capable and likely over-aggressive player might seem like a stretch, CO has many good hands to call with: strong top pairs, overpairs and even quite a lot of two pairs. Such a strong range means there's no need for a lot of hero calling.
Identifying that in-game is a great skill, and Ibanez showed it in this hand.
GTO poker: key insights
Although Tom bluffed his opponent quite easily, it was a well-played hand from both players. What can you learn from it?
Whenever you're looking for a bluffing combo, you should choose hands that do not block hands you'd like your opponent to fold.
Even if you are pitted against an aggressive player, you do not have to always stack off with all your top pairs. Take a moment to think about how many better hands you could have in a particular spot!