#gameofgold #pokerstrategy #ggpoker

Charlie Carrel and Maria Ho are both seasoned poker professionals when it comes to the live felt. So, when they had to battle against each other heads-up during GGPoker’s Game of Gold, there were sure to be fireworks! In this poker hand, both Ho and Carrel find themselves with trips on the river, but it is Carrel’s kicker that gives him the best hand. He shoves all-in and it looks like Ho is destined to get stacked — until Carrel decides to open his mouth!

When a flop contains two to a flush or two to a straight, you should often use larger bet sizes with hands that are strong but can be easily outdrawn. This is because many turn cards will cause you to slow down your action and force you to check. Therefore, you should get as much money in the pot as possible while your hand is still very strong & will often be the equity favorite.

Maria Ho is a professional poker player from America. She has over $5,400,000 in live tournament earnings, putting her in the top 350 on the all-time money list. She is well known for commentating on a wide variety of poker shows including the US Poker Open, Super High Roller Bowl, Poker Masters and the World Series of Poker.

Charlie Carrel “Epiphany77” is a professional poker player from England and has over $9,600,000 in live tournament earnings with his biggest cash of £1,600,000 coming at a Triton Poker Super High Roller Series London in a £50,000 tournament. Charlie is a strong believer in live reads & live tells at the poker table and regularly explains his decision-making that often uses this ability to help guide his decisions. He is widely known to be against the Game Theory Optimal (GTO) approach to poker, often saying ‘F#&K GTO’ in his YouTube videos. Instead, he focuses on developing & executing exploitable poker strategies. Charlie’s big break came in 2014 when he took down the PokerStars Sunday Million for over $200,000. He is good friends with high-stakes tournament poker player Ben Heath.

Filmed in Seoul, South Korea and hosted by experienced poker broadcaster Ali Nejad, Game of Gold combines high stakes poker with survival reality TV. Over the course of the 12 episodes, the sixteen participants competed across various poker formats, including Sit & Go’s, Heads-Up games, Indian Poker and a standard tournament poker game.

The poker players on the show included Daniel Negreanu “KidPoker”, Jason Koon, Fedor Holz “CrownUpGuy”, Kevin Martin, Kyna England, Josh Arieh, Daniel Cates “Jungleman”, Lukas Robinson “RobinPoker”, Nikita Luther ‘HiiiBarbie’, Charlie Carrel “Epiphany77”, Johan Guilbert “YoH ViraL”, Olga Iermolcheva, David Williams, Andy Tsai “Andy Stacks”, Michael Soyza and Maria Ho.

Round 2 was the heads-up team battle part of the show – There were 4 teams with three players on each team. After one match, the losing team would put up their next poker player. After one team had lost 3 matches, they would be eliminated to the losers bracket with the winning team advancing to the winners bracket. The 3 players on the losing team from the losers bracket would be eliminated from the show.

The final six players competed in a winner-take-all format Sit & Go (SNG). This was unique as it meant there was no Independent Chip Model (ICM) pressure on any of the poker players.

Game of Gold Results
1st: Maria Ho – U.S.A – $456,000
2nd: Daniel Cates ‘Jungleman’ – U.S.A – $0
3rd: Johan Guilbert ‘Yoh Viral’ – France – $0
4th: Fedor Holz ‘CrownUpGuy’ – Germany – $0
5th: Kyna England – U.S.A – $0
6th. Josh Arieh – U.S.A – $0

Preflop:
Maria Ho raises to 40,000 with Q4 of clubs from the button, which is also the small blind in a heads-up format. Charlie Carrel 3-bets to 140,000 with KQo and Ho calls with her dominated queen.

Flop – Qh 9h 5s:
Both players flop top pair, but Carrel has the better kicker. He fires a continuation bet of 110,000 with his pair of queens and a backdoor straight draw. Ho calls with top pair, and they head to the turn.

Turn – 6d:
The 6 of diamonds on the turn brings in a possible straight. Carrel doesn’t slow down, putting out a second barrel of 350,000. Ho calls again, needing only a four on the river to win the pot.

River – Qs:
A board-pairing queen of spades on the river is a disaster for Ho, as she improves to trips with a worse kicker. Carrel now unloads the clip and decides to overbet shove all-in for 1,400,000. Surely, Ho can’t get away from this heads-up cooler, right? Stick around until the end of this poker video to see what happens!

Jonathan Little analyzes live poker hands from TV poker shows such as Poker After Dark, Hustler Casino Live, The Lodge Poker Club & PokerGO. He also analyzes popular poker vloggers such as Rampage Poker, Brad Owen, Jaman Burton, Ashley Sleeth, Wolfgang Poker and others!

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