Koray Aldemir and Alejandro “Papo MC” Lococo played the most controversial hand of the 2021 WSOP Main Event Final Table, which ended in the biggest ICM Suicide ever seen.
Poker Hand of the Week Setup
We are at the 2021 WSOP Main Event Final Table and only seven players are remaining. The payouts are very top-heavy and money jumps are slowly but surely becoming huge.
Another important fact to note is that the two big stacks are clashing in our Poker Hand of the Week and Koray Aldemir has Papo MC clearly covered.
Poker Hand of the Week Action
Preflop:
At Blinds of 500K/1M with a 1M Big Blind Ante, Papo MC picks up 10♠10♣ UTG and min-raises to 2,000,000. Koray Aldemir finds 9♥9♦ in the cutoff and 3-bets to 5,600,000. Papo MC calls and everybody else folds. Pot Size: 13,700,000
Flop:
Heads-up to a flop of J♥9♣J♣, which is absolute gin for Aldemir, who flops a full house. Pocket Tens don’t look so bad either though and Papo MC therefore check-calls the rather small cbet (28% pot) of Koray. Pot Size: 21,500,000
Turn:
The 8♥ on the turn is another potential trouble card for Lococo as he now also has an Open-Ended Straight Draw. He checks again and Aldemir sizes up by betting 11,400,000 into 21,500,000.
Papo MC check-calls again and we go to a river with 44,300,000 already in the pot.
River:
The 3♦ on the river is an absolute blank and Papo MC has only a little bit over pot size behind. All-In is the bet from Koray Aldemir, who goes for it all after being checked to for a third time.
Papo MC makes a surprisingly quick call and Koray Aldemir wins the biggest pot of the tournament worth a whopping 136,500,000.
Poker Hand of the Week Analysis
This hand is the definition of ICM Suicide, but let’s go through it step by step.
Papo MC’s preflop raise with Pocket Tens is standard, while Koray can either call or 3-bet here. Being the massive chip leader and in position he decides to put the pressure on with a reraise, Lococo calls.
The flop is an absolute dream for Aldemir, since he flops a full house and Papo MC also look pretty good here. Lococo understandably check-calls Aldemir’s small 28% continuation pot.
If Alejandro liked his hand on the flop, he will love it on the turn as he adds an Open-Ended Straight Draw. Time to size up for Aldemir, who obliges and fires a 53% second barrel. Lococo check-calls again.
The river doesn’t change anything as all the draws bust and after being checked to for a third time Aldemir decides to go for it all.
Papo MC is blocking the straight and Koray doesn’t have too many Jacks in his range, maybe this was the reason why he called rather quickly just to be shown the bad news by Koray.
Poker Hand of the Week Conclusion
This hand teaches us three very important things: Learn ICM, big stacks in tournaments should avoid each other and take your time when making a big decision for all of your chips.
In addition to that, it shows the difference between a recreational player and a seasoned pro the hard way. I highly doubt that any of the top pros would have played such a big pot against the chip leader and called All-In here.
Before the start of the hand, Papo MC was second in chips, which would have been worth $4,300,000 and now he busted in 7th place cashing for “only” $1,225,000 making this a multi-million mistake and one of the worst ICM suicides in history.
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Watch the Poker Hand of the Week here:
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