Is Messere’s $25k Heads-Up Turn Overbet GTO Wizard Approved?

The WSOP $25,000 Heads-Up Championship attracts a field of superstars, some of whom have played and specialized in the format for years.

The tournament can throw up interesting spots, regardless of how deep in the tournament you go, and in the latest GTO Wizard Hand Analysis we take a look at an interesting spot in the quarter-final match between Faraz Jaka and Owen Messere.

The Hand

The hand occurred in the quarter-final match between Jaka and Messere, with the blinds at 5,000/10,000.

Jaka opened to 25,000 from the button and Owen Messere called.The flop was 7♣5♠3♠ and Messere checked. Faraz continued for 25,000 and Messere check-raised to 80,000.

Jaka called and the turn was the J♦. Messere overbet 240,000 and Jaka called again.

The river was the 5♣ and Messere shoved for 736,000. Jaka called with K♦7♥ and ended up beating the 4♠2♠ of Messere.

Wizard’s Wisdom

Thanks to GTO Wizard, we’re able to analyze the two major spots in this hand: Messere’s decision to overbet the turn after check-raising on the flop, and then a brief look at the reasoning behind Jaka’s river call.

Messere’s Turn Overbet

According to GTO Wizard, the 114% overbet on the turn is not recommended. Here’s why:

When we decide to polarize our strategy, we want to bet the very best and the very worst hands which can still improve. These are some general guidelines to follow:

• When the out-of-position (OPP) player decides to overbet, this indicates a polarized strategy. A polarized strategy consists of betting large with your strongest equity value hands and lowest equity bluffs.
• This allows you to earn the most with your value hands, and when you face a raise, you don’t mind folding your bluffs…
  In this case, 4♠2♠ is happy to check-call a bet since it has enough equity to do that. Thus, it would be a disaster betting then getting raised, and potentially not realizing the hand’s whole equity.
• When we look into OOPs combo draws, the big picture is that the fewer outs our hands have to improve, the less they care about getting raised, and thus the more they want to bet

Jaka’s River Call

Although the main part of the analysis is centered around the turn overbet, it’s also worth looking at the snap-call from Jaka.

This may indicate that he’s aware of Owen being too aggressive. In this hand, Owen bluffs the turn with a hand that should check. Perhaps Jaka feels that Owen is frequently overplaying turns, and that’s why he made the call.