Bluffing on the button: BBZ vs C. Darwin2 [poker hand analysis]

The best in the game often do things that surprise us. That was certainly the case when Jordan “bigbluffzinc” Drummond–a.k.a. BBZ–squared up against one of the best online tournament players of all time.

Simon “C. Darwin2” Mattsson is undoubtedly one of the MTT GOATS with an incredible $17.6 million in online cashes, plus $1.4 million won on the live felt. He has been the no.1 ranked player in the world for a total of 67 weeks, according to PocketFives, which trails only his fellow legends Niklas “Lena900” Astedt and Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy.

From Sunday Millions to SCOOPs, high rollers to super high rollers, you name it and C. Darwin2 has probably won it.

A player of such calibre can make you question your own poker plays. The hand that we’re going to look at today actually prompted a BBZ study session.

“I played this hand against C. Darwin2, who is very fucking good,” explains BBZ in a video from the BBZ Bundle. “He went into the tank and burned half his time bank [on his river decision]. Someone suggested [this was because he was] multi-tabling but he had acted quickly on the previous streets.”

There’s nothing strange about a player going deep into the tank for a tough decision. So what did BBZ find so intriguing?

“I thought his hand was an instantaneous call,” he says. “But C. Darwin2 went through half his time bank so I [started questioning whether] I understood these spots very well as he’s very good.”

Here’s the hand.

BBZ vs C. Darwin2

On an eight-handed table, action folds to BBZ on the button who picks up J♠7♠. The blinds are 25K/50K and he opens to 110K (2.2x) off a 45-big-blind stack (2,288,923).

It folds to C. Darwin2 in the big blind with 40 bigs (2,013,522) and he defends, bringing a flop of 2♥6♦Q♣.

What would you do when it checks to you? Would you always c-bet this hand?

BBZ was yet to review the sim he ran on PioSolver, but he gave his thoughts. “I think there’s probably 15% checking but I think it’s a very high-frequency c-bet,” he says. “It’s very difficult to c-bet all the time when you open the button.”

BBZ does in fact c-bet 88.5K into 295K (30% pot) and C. Darwin2 makes the call.

The turn is the A♦ which should be a good card for BBZ’s range. While button opening ranges are wide, BBZ’s range should still have more aces in it, particularly ones with strong kickers. After all, C. Darwin2 didn’t 3-bet preflop, which he’d certainly do with strong aces and some suited ace-x combos.

So, what should our c-bet percentage be on this turn?

“I think that something like 65%-70% is a good guess,” says BBZ, who highlights that the c-bet frequency would be different if he had 30 big blinds instead of 40 big blinds.

“[With 30 bigs], I think the c-bet frequency would rise to 100% on this turn,” says BBZ. “It sounds easy to understand until you have to c-bet pocket eights and pocket nines. But we have 40 big blinds and the difference is that ace-x gets stripped out of the big blind’s range for the most part, because it steals preflop. Because ace-x is absent, we end up smashing the turn.”

But in this situation, BBZ believes a 70% c-bet/30% check-back strategy is reasonable and he opts for the former, firing again for a pot-size bet (472K into 472K).

“The solver is probably going to c-bet J♠7♠ 85% of the time or something,” says BBZ. “You usually see that the solver doesn’t go to a 100% ‘black or white’ strategy where it c-bets spades and completely gives up with hearts and clubs. But hearts and clubs are worse than J♠7♠ so I’m going to higher-frequency check hearts and clubs and I’m basically going to pure bet spades.”

C. Darwin2 sticks around with a call and the river is the 10♥.

What’s the river strategy with this hand?

“It’s pretty much always going in,” says BBZ. He rips it, betting 1,343,022 effective to set C. Darwin2 all in.

C. Darwin2 then used half of his time bank on this decision before calling all-in with A♠8♠ for top pair.

“It seems absurd [to tank] as that hand is an automatic call,” says BBZ. “I didn’t think this hand was a real big thinker.”

But when a player as skilled and successful as C. Darwin2 does something that seems odd to you, perhaps they’re on to something that you’re not.

“When I saw him tank I thought maybe I butchered this whole spot,” admits BBZ.

So he ran the sim.

The solver says…

According to PioSolver, J7-offsuit is a pure c-bet on the flop, while J7-suited is mixing. J♠7♠ specifically is 50/50 between c-betting and checking.

“In terms of shortcuts for understanding what’s going on, it’s helpful to think in terms of c-betting from the bottom of the range up when you’re bluffing as this is a spot where you’re using a semi-polarized strategy,” says BBZ.

“You’ll remember I mentioned 15% checking on the flop. When using a polarized range and bluffing from the bottom of the range, I’d be betting a lot of 89, 108, J8 etc. but once you get toJ10 I’d be checking more.”

The solver shows it’s helpful to have king-high hands on this board, particularly king-rag combos as you can still suck out on later streets should your opponent have a queen. “K3, K4, and K5 would be relatively high-frequency c-bets for me,” says BBZ.

But what does the solver say C. Darwin2 should do?

“My opponent has to check-call a lot of king-highs, while all ace-high hands should call the flop,” says BBZ. “When the ace hits the turn, the big blind should check their entire range.”

On the turn, BBZ guessed he should check back 30% of the time, but interestingly the solver is checking back 36% of the time. “66 is checking often, J7 in general is mixing. J♠7♠ is the highest frequency c-bet of all J7 combos.”

Onto the river. “We do have some give-ups,” says BBZ. “Some K8 and other king-high combos we were bluffing with on the turn are not bluffing the river. There’s also some jack-high give-ups, like J9. You’re not just shoving the whole range.”

As for C. Darwin2’s river decision…

“You mostly just have to call with ace-x on the river,” says BBZ. “You don’t have to do much more than that.”