Poker Hand of the Week Setup
This insane hand comes from the HKD 250k Short Deck Ante-Only tournament at 2019 Triton Poker Montenegro, which was a tournament series of high roller events and took place in Budva, Montenegro.
As the Triton Series is organized by Asian high rollers and there preferred game is Short Deck, also called Six-Plus Hold’em, we chose a hand from this upcoming format between poker legend John Juanda and Russian high stakes player Sergey Lebedev.
Both players are among the bigger stacks at the table with the effective stack size at the start of the hand being 48 big blinds. Lebedev has Juanda covered.
Poker Hand of the Week Action
Preflop Action:
Daniel Dvoress open-limps, which is common in Short Deck, and four players call behind him including John Juanda with 6♥6♠ and Sergey Lebedev with K♦J♦. Pot size: 275,000
Flop:
The flop of A♥A♦6♦ is an absolute sick one as Juanda flops Quads, while Lebedev has the nut flush draw. Just to clarify, in Short Deck a flush beats a full house, which means this is a very strong hand.
It checks to John Juanda, who due to the enormous strength of his hand chooses a small sizing of 27% pot by betting 75,000 into 275,000.
Lebedev, who sits in UTG+1, check-raises to 225,000 with his draw and Juanda loves to see it and calls. Pot size: 725,000
Turn:
The A♣ on the turn is a very interesting card as now every Ace has Juanda beat and every Pocket Pair also makes a higher full house, but he doesn’t slow down and bets another tiny 75k after being checked to.
Sergey check-calls again and we go to the river. Pot size: 875,000
River:
The 6♣ on the river is a sick card as it makes John Juanda Quads! In addition to that, Sergey Lebedev could represent an Ace here and that is exactly what he does. If you have an Ace, then you want to go very small or really big and Sergey thinks a mere 200,000, which equals 23% pot is the most credible amount.
John Juanda indeed starts tanking and mumbles: “This is such a sick hand”. After almost a minute, he does fold Quads!!!
Lebedev shortly after asks Juanda: “Folded two Sixes” and John replies: “Yeah” followed by a “Really? from Sergey. At this point Juanda almost falls of his chair as he realizes that he just got bluffed off Quads!
Poker Hand of the Week Analysis
What an unbelievable hand! Now the question, which is to be answered here is: Is this fold as bad as it seems at first glance or is it even the worst fold in poker history?
To come to a worthy conclusion, we go through the hand step by step. Preflop is absolute standard and there is not much to say, except for that KJs is a pretty strong preflop hand in Short Deck and that Sergey could have raised here.
I like Juanda small bet on the flop with the full house as well as Lebedev’s check-raise with the nut flush draw as the board is very dry, he gets better hands to fold and has the chance to win a massive pot, when his draw comes in as a flush beats a full house in Short Deck Poker.
The Ace on the turn is where it gets interesting as it is a scare card for John Juanda. Now every Ace and bigger Pocket Pair beats him. After Sergey checks, he assumes to still have the best hand, but should be a bit worried when the Russian check-calls again.
The Six on the river is a sick card as it makes Juanda Quads. However, every Ace still beats him and Sergey tries to represent it with a small bet of 23% pot, which is intended to look like a value bet. And this sizing is it, what makes this fold by John Juanda so bad!
Yes, an Ace beats him and yes the hand strength in Short Deck does go up as there are less cards in play, but folding the Second Nuts on the river against a single, small bet of only 23% pot is a huge mistake.
Scared money don’t make money!
Watch the Poker Hand of the Week here:
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