Hand Reviews WSOP Main Event 2024

Level 16 – Covington v Ponakovs

After the money bubble burst, we found an interesting hand that took place between UFC fighter Colby Covington and high roller Aleksejs Ponakovs where Ponakovs took out Covington with two pair. 

This hand perfectly illustrated playing the player versus playing your hand, and while Covington is not a high roller like Ponakovs, Colby does have over 30 recorded cashes for just under $200k in lifetime poker earnings.

• The blinds are 4k and 8k with an 8k BB ante with Covington in position and raising pre-flop with Ponakovs calling.  
• The flop came 2 Q and there is a c-bet and a call.
• The turn brings the 9 where Covington bet 125k into a roughly 100k pot.  Ponakovs shoves and Covington tanks before calling off the rest of his stack.
• The river is a brick – the 3
• Covington shows AQo while Ponakovs tabled 9 2 , KO’ing Covington and sending him to the rail – with a $17,500 payday in hand.

This might not be the flashiest hand of the series – we’ll get to some of those – but let’s play the hand from Ponakovs’ perspective:

Out of position but heads-up with two suited cards that are not likely to be in Covington’s hand given his raise pre-flop.  Two suited live cards against two over cards heads-up has over 35% equity and Ponakovs most likely felt that his skill could make up the difference vs someone who doesn’t play poker full time.  

The flop bringing a flush draw and one face card, Ponakovs would have known that either a) he was ahead with bottom pair against two higher cards, or b) that he was behind, but a third diamond would be a scare card for Covington.

Once the turn brings two pairs to Ponakovs, given Covington’s stack at that point after his 125k bet, he knows he’s ahead and decides to go for it knowing that if Covington has a queen, he would call, which he did.  In Covington’s defense, as someone in the money, with top pair top kicker, he is probably putting Ponakovs to a draw and not two pair which is why he called.  He would have had some info on how Ponakovs had been playing up to that point, but 92c most likely wouldn’t have been in his range.

The lesson here to amateur poker players – pros are not waiting for premium hands to put you to the test; they are also going to have you on a much smaller range than you would like and use that against you in a hand.

Griff v Astedt

With the WSOP Main Event down to 3, we saw one insane hand between Griff and Astedt.  Blinds at this point were 2 million and 4 million with a 4 million BB ante; Griff has 212.5 million while Astedt has 212 million and Astedt is on the button.

• Pre-flop action: Astedt raised to 8 million; Griff 3-bets to 28 million and Astedt calls.
• Flop: 10 9 3 : Griff bets 25 million and Astedt calls.
• Turn: J : Griff shoves 159 million and gets called by Astedt – the pot is one of the biggest of the tournament at 432 million chips
• River: K
• Astedt showed KJo for a rivered two pair, but Griff flopped a set of 9’s to scoop the pot and get heads-up with Tamayo.

The payouts were $10 million for first; $6 million for second and $4 million for third and the money absolutely came into the thought process of Astedt here when we look back at this hand.  Playing three handed, hands like KJo are going to be more powerful than they would playing at a full table, but the ICM implications of this call were massive – the winner of the hand was going to have a significant chip lead and heads-up for the main event title, and one must wonder how that impacted Astedt’s decision.  Calling off 212 million chips with only top pair might seem like a rushed decision, but one needs to consider the range that Grill would have had in this moment.  It is very unlucky for Astedt to run into the top end of Griff’s range in this spot, but there would have been a lot of hands that Astedt would be beating – especially considering that Astedt improved to two pairs on the river.

At the end of the hand, it feels like Astedt balanced folding and maintaining a solid stack with over 50 big blinds three handed with taking his shot at getting a massive chip stack and to get heads up for the main event title and the latter won.  His passiveness after getting three-bet may have been a factor; the board texture being what it was could have been a factor, but being in that spot it would be a difficult decision regardless of how you look at it.

Salhab v Pak

We find this hand on level 16, just off the hard money bubble with blinds at 4k and 8k with an 8k BB ante. 

• Pre-flop: Budwey Salhab raised to 16k UTG and Edward Pak 3-bet him to 48k from middle position, with the rest of the table folding.
• Flop: Q 10 9 : Salhab checked; Pak c-bet 65k and Salhab called.
• Turn: J : Salhab checked; Pak bet 175k and Salhab check-shoved to 341k.  After tanking and asking for a count, Pak called off.
• River: J
• Salhab tabled A K
• Pak tabled J J
• Pak put his money in with a set of jacks but way behind to Salhab’s turned broadway street and a re-draw to the nut flush.  Pak had 10 outs to hit to make a boat or quads, and somehow found the case jack in the deck to make his daily quads and send Salhab to the rail just shy of the money.

As Salhab walked away, he uttered a profanity at Pak, then followed it with the comment “That was the worst call in history”.

Was it??  Obviously, it wasn’t but how bad of a call was it?

Let’s play this hand from Pak’s perspective: Pak three bet with jacks from middle position pre and got called which makes sense to ensure he is heads-up and in position. The flop coming QT9 all clubs is a blessing and a curse for him – on one hand, he has an open-ended straight flush draw and there are situations where jacks are good – as they are in this case.  The turn however is where things go horribly wrong for him – the jack completes a four card straight on the board – to which he doesn’t block any straight, but he may feel committed with a set of jacks.  However, one must also review the stack to pot ratio, or SPR to know if the call was in fact bad.

From the hand review, Salhab started the hand with 454k and had 341k back when Pak bet the turn, pushing the size of the pot too 401k – meaning that Salhab did not have a pot sized bet behind when he shoved.

Pak on the other hand only had to call 166k to win the 742k that was already in the middle.  Pak was getting almost 5.5 to 1 to make the call, or roughly 18%.  If he assumed he was behind and needed to make a full house or better, he still had 10 outs to get there, giving him about 21% equity in the hand – and that’s assuming he was behind to begin with.

One can make the argument that cashing a 10k poker tournament needs to enter the conversation as you approach the bubble, but at the end of the day, unless you are a true amateur poker player where a min cash of $17k changes your life significantly, poker players are playing to get to the final table and not limping into the money.  With that, Pak’s call wasn’t the worst call in history – in fact, it may have been correct.