Daniel Cates Analyzes His $15 Million Win vs Ossi Ketola

These days, Ossi Ketola is playing against regulars every day at the Triton Series in Jeju, Korea.

He initially lost $6 million to Wiktor Malinowski, but then won $3 million in two days against Alex Foxen. In fact, his profit was even greater; sources say that Foxen pays out 20% more in the event of a loss.

You can learn more about the conditions under which the matches are held in our review of the session in which Ketola lost a record $15 million to Jungleman.

A few days ago, Cates broke down the main hands of that confrontation.

What up, homies?

A few days ago, I came out on top against Ossi Ketola—possibly the biggest heads-up match ever of all time—via a bunch of sit-and-goes or shootouts, starting at a €1 million buy-in and escalating to €5 million and €6 million buy-ins. And I came out on top, winning over $15 million USD.

I had to figure out if this was actually the biggest buy-in I’d ever played, because I’ve played some very large games in Asia—ring games. It might have even been bigger, but it wasn’t streamed. And actually, I’ve played some very massive pots before this. I played one where we both had at least $50 million on the table—I think it was more. I knew that over $10 million was in the pot.

As far as this game’s concerned, I had quite a small piece. I’m still playing for an enormous amount, don’t you worry. But I’m not crazy—or rich—enough to... well, I am crazy enough, but not rich enough to play for €2.5 million or whatever. You’d have to be, like, I don’t know... having $50 million or so to play for that, especially laying some juice on the side.

It wasn’t the most clear-cut edge ever. And definitely, Ossi Ketola is a smart guy, and there were some clear signs that he was learning. And I like to pay attention to that when I’m playing against everyone. From my experience, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is assuming people are stupid. And then, of course, they prove you wrong eventually—and then you lose your ass. Don’t do that. Not everyone is as stupid as you think. Although... people definitely could use some work.

Anyway, let’s get to the hands.

In one of the first hands we were dealt V .

Loads of skill. All the skill came into play. Just jams all in, which actually is kind of meaningful.

I wonder if he's going to have a 4-bet range, or if he’s just going to jam all in in this spot, especially with the roughly equal stack sizes. But other than that, there’s not a whole lot to say here. It’s just a cooler. There’s not a whole lot he could really do. There’s some argument for calling, I guess, but in this case, he probably wants to increase variance.

I should’ve tried to run it twice or more so I don’t bust, because that actually matters in a shootout.

So, moving on from this—I started off kind of killing him in the €3 million shootout, which he wanted to play. He made a big raise when he was low on chips with offsuit. I called with . I’m trying to keep his worse hands in.

At this point, I hadn’t 3-bet that much, and he hadn’t shown that he’d peeled 3-bets really light yet. I thought it was quite reasonable, especially since he made a bigger sizing.

The flop was .

Very foreboding flop—at least from my perspective. And I actually have a great hand. My hand is good enough to check-raise. It’s so good.

I just check-call and try to keep dominating hands in. But check-raising is totally a viable thing to do moving forward, especially if he peels check-raises reasonably light. If we had a reasonably developed check-raise strategy on this board, I could totally do that.

But anyway, I check-call against his 75% c-bet—which is not that big. He’s actually supposed to bet bigger, because this board is very dry. He doesn’t have something a lot. I don’t have something a lot. And he wants to put pressure on a lot of my capped ranges.

Turn is a , which I think is a good card for me.

I’m not going to fold top pair against almost anything he does, basically. He tanks, tanks, tanks... he bets $150k. I think this is quite a small bet. Instead of betting a little bit on the larger side—which he’s done with some good hands—I thought he might be on the weaker end. And he’s also a bit shallow. He bets less than half pot.

So I decide to go ahead and give him a raise—$400k. This is an obnoxious raise size. I could do this as a bluff as well. It puts a lot of his weaker hands in a really annoying situation where he has to call or get exploited.

Yeah, that’s pretty much all I’m doing here. I’m going to follow through on the river a fair bit as well with my bluffs. And I just have it. So I’m just trying to get thin value from , if he’s got that—these kinds of hands. And he figures it out—surprise—and calls.

River’s an .

That’s a really weird card, because he could have improved. But I just think to myself—well, I’ve got to get value somehow. I could’ve bet smaller. That’s an option—betting like a third pot or something.

At this point, I’m repping, like, a rivered ace or quads, to be honest. It’s still like a two-thirds pot-size bet. It’s $800k-ish into $1.2 million, which is not that big, though it may seem big. Because we’re basically playing a tournament, and in cash, it’s not that big. And it doesn’t really work out to play much differently from a tournament because of the fact that we’re heads-up and the only way to ladder up is to knock out the other guy.

Anyway, I was hoping that he calls with—whatever. He just has like pocket kings somehow and calls, or pocket eights—not really rare, to be honest.

Anyway... he jams all in for like $35k more. I’m not folding for that price.

And yeah—he’s got quads.

Maybe he could’ve gotten a little bit less if I had check-called. Knowing him, he does like to overbet lots of rivers. So there’s a chance I could’ve just check-called, check-called, and saved a bit of money.

I thought he would’ve hero-called me down some percentage. But if he doesn’t, then he kind of owned me here and got the full stack instead of getting the partial stack—as I would have liked.

But yeah, this hand doubled him up in the €3 million buy-in, and shortly after, I got coolered again with two pair against two pair.

Not a great situation.

This one also took place in the €3 million buy-in. He raises preflop with . I think I had . Yeah, but I should have 3-bet .

Alright, so he flops open-ended on .

I was totally going to call down on a lot of different runouts here. But fate had another plan in mind for me.

He bets the flop. You don’t have to bet the flop here, by the way. It’s a min-raise preflop. He bets 70k into 120k, which is a larger sizing for this board. Whatever—I’m check-calling him, calling him all the way down.

Turn’s a , giving me a lot of potential trips.

I have quite a few of those against a min-raise—and not that many , since I 3-bet most of my . Excuse me, I have a little bit less, just because we’re shallow. I probably shouldn’t have had this combo. But here we are.

He thinks about it forever. And he does not pick the GTO size. He picks a near pot-size bet—240k into 260k. The GTO size is... well, in this case it might be whatever, but a little bit deeper, it actually is a very big size or a very small size. It’s not this size.

Anyway... yeah, I’m not folding. I’m actually supposed to call quite a lot of here. Pretty easy decision at this point.

River is a .

I’m thinking to myself: if he bets reasonable sizes, I’m just going to call him. I’ve seen him play some hands where he overplays some things.

Anyway, he goes into the tank, and he decides to jam all in—this pot—1.14 million into a 740k pot. That’s pretty spicy. I did not want to see that. That was not what I was looking for, guys. Now I have a total bluff catcher. The is useless—other than blocking some bluff draws, if he picks those hands. Apparently, he does.

And I have to decide if he’s bluffy enough. I just decide... I don’t really think so. And I didn’t think he would bluff for this size. I actually thought he’d bluff for a little bit less. But I stand corrected—and made the incorrect fold.

Now, I actually did sim this. And according to the simulation, I don’t really lose by folding this hand. However, I am supposed to call some , which is part of his jam range. It takes away from his sets-of-seven combinations.

So I am supposed to call —which I would have called, because I’d be thinking that he might have, you know, a similar hand and overplay it.

My general rule of thumb is to not fold things that can break even against what they shove. Because then you can actually tie the hand against part of their value range. That rule has worked really well for me. I’ve had loads of situations where I folded such hands, and people just show me some weird hand I didn’t expect—or some overplayed hand.

GTO-wise, I could totally fold here and it’s fine. But if I had the or whatever that I’m supposed to hero-call, I probably would have folded that as well. So he should be making some kind of money here with this jam.

Yeah, it’s not really the GTO size, but whatever. Seems like he got me here. Really frustrating. I’ll have to keep that in mind. And sometimes there’s nothing you can really do when people have the right combination of bluffs—the right amount of bluffs—which I suspect he may have, or at least somewhat close.

You’ve got to get bluffed sometimes, guys.

The match ended with a hand in which he 3-bet with kings.

I open . He’s 3-betting me a lot. He’s putting the pressure on. I’m calling versus 3-bet—that’s how that works. Not folding offsuit.

And the flop is queen-high. I’ve got around 1 million behind. Can’t quite see it. Pot’s 450k. He decides to bet 100k into that.

I just decide: best to raise and get it in against a lot of his value—like , , maybe . Maybe he gets sticky with , I guess. Pot’s already kind of big.

He just says, “Kings.” Not telling me if my play is good or not. We just get it in. And I don’t win.

It would tell me a lot more if he had and got it in—or folded . But the result of the hand doesn’t tell me much. It’s basically just a cooler. I could have called and waited for some safe turns, but he’s 3-betting a lot at this point. There is some value to protecting the equity of overcards. Not to mention... that I clearly was way ahead of his range. He was squeezing a lot of hands.

I felt dejected. I lost my friend’s money. He was pretty far into the lead at this point—like maybe over €4 million into the lead or so.

But then he decided to raise the stakes and play a €5 million buy-in.

Moving on to this hand. He 3-bets me—he’s been 3-betting a lot. GTO Wizard isn’t folding . I don’t like to fold it. It’s a little bit underrated. And here we are.

So he checks to me on the board.

I’ve got a flush draw. I decide to bet a little bit bigger because he should have quite a few hands that peel here. I think he’s got quite a few high-card Broadway-type hands that tend to do this. I bet 450k, he calls.

The turn is a .

Pretty innocuous—unless he has suited, suited, very few combos. Or suited. All those collectively are six combos, by the way, guys. Anyway, I just decide—I’m going for it. He can have a lot of things that just turned a pair plus draw. And I’ve still got a flush draw.

I bet, setting myself up for a river jam. Not quite geometric, but close. I probably should’ve bet a little bit bigger—but whatever.

Anyway, he tanks forever... and he does call. I bet 700k into 1.4M.

River is a .

Also an innocuous card—unless he has a 7 suited. Which, apparently, he does. He checks to me.

Apparently, this was one of the biggest pots I’ve ever played. I didn’t really think about it like that. I just thought, this is the move. I’m going all in.

He can fold , , , if he has it. , you name it. And he probably has quite a few of those. I bet 1.8 million into 3.1 million.

He had quite a difficult situation with his stack, deciding if I’m bluffing enough. And he does, in fact, decide to fold.

I actually took a look at this in GTO Wizard, and it surprised me a little bit. The solution is, in fact, you’re supposed to fold a lot of even on the turn, and call a lot of as hero calls down. type hands. So actually, his play is kind of okay. And he should just pick me off with or whatever.

So things were looking pretty good for me in this €5 million buy-in.

Alright. Here’s a pretty interesting hand. It was a weird one, because I had actually improved—and then my hand had gotten not better.

So I had raised—this was in a €6 million buy-in. Actually, I had won a couple of the €5 million buy-ins by this point.

He 3-bets me. He’s been 3-betting a fair bit. I decide to 4-bet the . There had been no 4-bets in any of our matches, ever.

He has a bit of a difficult decision with . He does call.

And the flop’s pretty terrible for me: .

I have no draw, no equity, and he can hit this board quite a lot. So I decide to check.

Turn is a . He checks—which surprises me a little bit, like 10%. I would have thought he’d bet and bet kind of thin. But yeah—apparently he wants to slow play it, or thinks it’s not good. I don’t really know what’s going on here.

Anyway, I decide to make a stab. He can still fold quite a few things. He can fold like or , suited, offsuit, things like that, etc. This play is a bit questionable, but at least at the time I thought it was okay—and against him it might be okay.

He does make the call—rightfully so. He shouldn’t fold here. Folding would be quite bad—for 1.2M into 2.8M. It’s pretty hard to have him beat. And I could totally have a .

Anyway, the river was an , giving me top pair.

I thought at first this was a good card—until he starts counting his chips. Sure enough, he jams all in for about half pot. Which is not at all what I wanted to see—because now my hand is a total bluff catcher. I might, you know, fold top pair on the river in a massive pot.

So here, my whole thought process is:

• Does he have any bluffs?
• How many hands can he have for value?
• What are the hands he can have for value?

For Value:

• He could have with the or . That’s actually a lot of combos—that’s like half the combos, almost. Well, I don’t have to count. I’ve got one of the offsuit aces. It might even be more in this case.
• He could have a slow-played flush. That’s a possibility. There are quite a few flushes.
• He can have —which he did have. There are quite a few combos.
• He could have offsuit, I guess. That’s maybe a thing—if he’s going to make a very questionable peel on the turn.
• He could have with a —that’s quite a few combos as well.
• He can have suited—wait, but not diamonds. Or offsuit, I guess.
• He could have suited.

For Bluffs:

• He can have , with a —there aren’t that many combos of those.
• through , or even, with a flush draw—probably.
• He could have J♠10♠ suited, I guess...

I decide, basically, I don’t think he has those hands as much as he needs to in order to bluff. And he may not even bluff with them.

So I think about it, and I end up folding. I make the correct fold.

He wins the pot.

He does not win the session.

I’ve got , facing . I remember at this point, he’s just 3-betting me a lot.

Not folding any to someone who’s 3-betting me a lot heads-up. That’s not how that works.

Flop is .

Actually kind of decent for me. He does decide to bet. He could potentially have some pure bluffs, depending on how aggressive he wants to play—or some semi-bluffs that are very close to pure bluffs, like or whatever.

He bets 400k—about one-third pot. That’s fine. I call. Two million in the pot.

Turn is an .

Great news... well, maybe not great, but I do improve against his range if he had . So he checks to me. Takes forever.

I snap check. But you’re actually supposed to bet this about 50/50. I don’t think it matters too much, but if you’re really trying to play seriously, you need to know this stuff.

River’s a .

That’s pretty innocuous.

Now he bets 1.4 million into 2 million. I tank for a long time.

I don’t think he has loads of bluffs here—but he might have some. He’s shown the propensity to bluff like this before. I think for a long time, and I realize... he can actually have worse hands. Playing against him, he does overplay hands sometimes. Bets very thin.

And I almost run out of time—and at the very last second, I call. And he’s got —which is fantastic news. Could also have , actually. Or . So it’s pretty clearly a good call.

That about wraps things up.

From this point, I just went on to keep grinding him down and eventually stacked him, winning the biggest amount ever won on a poker stream...

In the biggest game ever played on a poker stream.