Everyone wants to be a hero, and in one recent hand on the new Venetian Poker Live stream, it could have been Brian Okin.
He folded trip eights in what could have been a $100,000 chip pot, believing that his opponent Dr. Phil — no, not that one — could never be bluffing.
One person who’s never afraid to chime in on social media about the latest poker discourse is GTO Wizard Ambassador Joey Ingram, who posted a detailed video on X using GTO Wizard’s solvers to gauge what Okin should have done in this scenario.
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The Hand
Let us remind you if you haven’t seen the hand yet. The blinds were $100/$200 with a $200 big blind ante in the brand new Venetian Poker Live studio.
With a $400 straddle live, Dr. Phil opened to $1,400 with Okin defending his big blind. The flop came 8♦8♠K♣. Dr. Phil bet $1,500 into a pot of $5,200, having flopped top pair, and Brian raised to $4,500 with his trips. Dr. Phil then three-bet to $16,500 and Brian called.
The turn was the 3♣ and Dr. Phil shoved for $35,100 or around pot. Brian sat with $61,400 behind. He ultimately tank-folded and was shown the ace-king.
“Oh, I’m so bad! Wow, I’m going to get roasted for that one,” said Brian. “I folded an eight.”
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Running the Simulation
Ingram says when running the simulation, deciding what range Dr. Phil is raising with on the flop is the most important thing.
“If he’s a more GTO kind of player,” he explains. “He’s going to have some trips and some of the strong hands like full houses. But [GTO players] will also have their bottom of the range bluffs — typically, your backdoor straight and flush draw hands.”
According to Ingram, against this range, Okin has an easy call on the flop. However, the turn is much more dependent on coming to a more concrete conclusion of what your opponent has and what they’re moving all in with.
“Let’s say, hypothetically,” continues Ingram. “On the flop, they raised the wider range; would they always bluff those hands here on the turn?”
Ingram says there are lots of things to ask yourself. Would your opponent shove flush draws while checking other hands? And what does the bottom of their range look like? Is it nut-flush draws, or is it hands that include the nut-flush blocker?
“Best hands are going to be the eights,” says Ingram. “And full houses with pocket kings. That’s a big question — how often are they betting kings on this turn?”
So what should Okin do? According to GTO Wizard, the decision is a slam-dunk call.
Changing the Parameters
Ingram says that when he asked Okin what he thought Dr. Phil had, he said he didn’t think he was ever bluffing and didn’t believe he had hands like the flush draw semi-bluffs. Therefore, in another simulation, Ingram says he tweaked the parameters.
“Let’s say this guy is never bluffing with a flush draw. He only bets the turn with value. He doesn’t have any bottom of the range at all. It’s full houses and better eights.”
Against that tight range, you can actually see 8♣4♣ is a fold 81.9% of the time.
Ingram also posed two further questions that have an impact on the numbers:
- How often does he have aces?
- How often does he have ace-king?
Using the GTO Wizard nodelocking feature, and saying that Dr. Phil shoves his aces on the turn an additional 10% of the time, 8♣4♣ becomes more likely to call. And if they bet aces 50% of the time on the turn, then it really matters.
“Just by bumping up that one hand, and now it’s actually at 45.4% call,” says Ingram, who then used the GTO Wizard software to add in more and more hands to show you’re a massive favourite against players who are over-valuing ace-king and has flush draws in that spot.
“It really comes down to how long they have aces and flush draws,” he concludes. “The more they have these hands the more you can never fold. The less they have, the more you can fold.”
Watch the full second episode of Venetian Poker Live below.
Managing Editor