In our Poker Hand of the Week we anaylze the Stone Cold Bluff by businessman Michael Brinkenhoff vs. Alex Foxen at the Poker Masters.
Poker Hand of the Week Setup
We are on the final table of 2022 Poker Masters Event #2, a $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em, There are only five players left with YouTuber Ethan “Rampage” Yau, Alex Foxen, Steve Song, Dylan DeStefano and businessman Michael Brinkenhoff.
The blinds are 30,000/60,000 with a 60,000 Big Blind Ante and Brinkenhoff has Foxen slightly covered at the start of our Poker Hand of the Week.
Poker Hand of the Week Action
A♠5♣3♥3♦.
Preflop:
Alex Foxen open-raises from the Cut-off with Q♠10♦. Michael Brinkenhoff picks up A♥J♥ in the small blind and just calls. Everybody else folds. Pot Size: 360,000
Flop:
Heads-up to a spicy flop of 10♠3♣8♥ gives Foxen top pair, while Michael whiffs. Alex makes a standard continuation bet of 175,000 into 360,000 (approximately half pot). Surprisingly, Brinkenhoff check-calls, which means he plans to take the hand away on a later street. Pot Size: 710,000
Turn:
The 6♥ on the turn is a very interesting card, since Brinkenhoff picks up the nut flush draw to go alongside his two overcards. Alex Foxen fires a 350,000 second barrel and Michael check-calls again. Pot Size: 1,410,000
River:
The board pairs on the 8♦ river and all of Michael’s draws bust. That means he has to bet, if he wants to win the hand.
And bet big is what he does as he sets Foxen All-In. Alex goes into the tank for more than two minutes before folding his hand and Michael Brinkenhoff wins a huge 2,205,000 pot with just Ace-high!
Poker Hand of the Week Analysis
Great bluff by Michael Brinkenhoff, let’s go through it step by step.
The preflop raise with Q10o by Foxen from the cut-off is standard 5-handed. However, the call from Brinkenhoff from the small blind in pretty passive and I would prefer a 3-bet here, since AJs has a clear range advantage here and doesn’t play that well out of position.
And it gets worse for the businessman, when Alex flops top pair and he whiffs the flop. Foxen makes a standard cbet of 50% pot and now the hand starts to get interesting as Michael decides to float.
The turn is an interesting card, since 97 gets there and Brinkenhoff picks up the Nut Flush Draw. Now he shouldn’t fold to a bet and it consequently goes check – bet – call.
The river is a pretty spicy card as well as it pairs the board, making Trips and a Full House possible. Michael Brinkenhoff has missed all his outs, but realizes that this is a decent card to bluff and he puts Alex Foxen All-in.
The call is for Foxen’s tournament life and the question here is would Michael play a set or Trip Eights like that and the answer is yes.
Nevertheless, Alex Foxen has to call 795,000 in order to win a massive pot of 3,000,000 giving him very favourable pot odds.
Poker Hand of the Week Conclusion
Very nice bluff by the amateur, who manages to make one of the top tournament players in the world fold top pair.
However, folding top pair here is in my opinion a mistake simply from a mathematical perspective. Alex Foxen has only 795K behind and is basically pot-committed.
He gets great pot odds of 3.78 to 1, which means he has to be good only every 4.78 time in order to make the call profitable. Given the strength of this hand this is a fairly clear call.
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