A big stack can look to keep short stacked players on a final table or a Sit & Go when there are significant ICM implications in play. By keeping them in the tournament they can bully the middling stacks who have to play extremely tight as they wait for the short stacks to bust.
Dan Cates also known as Jungleman is a 33 year old from the USA and is regarded by many as one of the best poker players in the world both online and live. He has played in all the high stakes poker cash games around the world for many years. He has over $12,000,000 in live tournament earnings, putting him in the top 80 on the all time money list. He famously won the World Series Of Poker (WSOP) $50,000 Players Championships (regarded as one of the hardest poker tournaments to win) in 2021 and again in 2022.
Fedor Holz “CrownUpGuy” is a German professional poker player and a regular in high stakes poker tournaments all around the world. He has over $40,000,000 in live tournament earnings, putting him in the top 15 on the all-time money list. He also has 2 World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets.
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, Charlie Carrel “Epiphany77”, Johan Guilbert “YoH ViraL”, Olga Iermolcheva, David Williams, Andy Tsai “Andy Stacks”, Michael Soyza, and Maria Ho.
In Round 1, a four-tier Sit & Go poker format, each team (spades, diamonds, hearts, and clubs) put a poker player into a separate round of four-handed poker action, with Game of Gold coins on offer for finishing first, second, third, or fourth. The rounds increased in the amount of coins that were offered, until the fourth ‘mystery’ round, where no-one knew how many coins were on offer. The team with the least Game of Gold coins at the end of all four Sit & Go’s would be eliminated.
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: Fedor Holz opens to 120,000 from the cutoff with KJo. He finds one call from Dan Cates in the small blind with K9 of diamonds, and the two online poker legends, Jungleman and CrownUpGuy, head to the flop.
💸 Flop – As Kh Kc: Cates doesn’t know it yet, but his trips are dominated on this board by Holz, who holds a higher kicker. Cates checks to the preflop aggressor Holz, who decides not to continuation bet and checks it back to head to the turn.
💣 Turn – 6s: The 6 of spades on the turn introduces a backdoor flush draw. Cates bets 270,000 with his trip kings. Holz decides to just call with his trips, and they head to the river.
🌊 River – Tc: The ten on the river brings in the broadway straight possibility. Cates didn’t improve to a full house and will lose this pot if it goes to showdown. He bets 780,000 into Holz. How will the German professional poker player respond to this big bet? Will he fold, call, or raise to put Jungleman to the test for all of his remaining chips?
You have to stay tuned for this entire poker video to find out!
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!
You will also find many poker hands on this channel that contain some of the biggest names in the poker world such as; Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Doug Polk, Garrett Adelstein, Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan, Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates, Fedor Holz & many more!
#pokerstrategy #gameofgold #ggpoker
