In the Triton Jeju Main Event, Kristen Foxen took 4th place for $1,449,000.
With 9 players left in the game, Kristen folded her kings preflop.
Blinds 75,000/150,000/150,000.
Felipe Ketzer shoved 8 big blinds from under the gun, Elton Tsang called with 36 big blinds, Philip Sternheimer in the middle announced a re-push of 25 big blinds, Tom Fuchs in the high-jerk with 23 big blinds folded, and Kristen in the middle, the second-lowest stack (19 big blinds), hesitated. Behind her were Sean Winter (31 big blinds), Xu Yang (27 big blinds), and the huge chip leader Ben Tollerene (88 big blinds) in the big blind.
Commentators Bryn Kenney and Randy Liu initially didn't even consider that Kristen might fold. While she was thinking, they were speculating on what Elton might call three all-ins with.
"She's just thinking about Vegas and the Mirage right here," Bryn Kenney suggested.
Randy agreed. "She wants to make sure that if Elton has something like , , or , he never folds. She needs to balance this range."
But after Foxen had taken up a lot of time, it seemed to dawn on the Randy.
"Is she really thinking about a fold? She might actually be quite worried here."
"What?!" Kenny couldn't believe his eyes when Foxen finally threw it out. "That's what happens when we think about ICM too much. But we can't forget that the real big money is at the top."
"Of course, Elton doesn't think she threw away the kings. Jacks, queens or … I can’t believe my own eyes.
Tsang thought for a moment and threw it out, Ketzer took 9th place.
"Did you fold queens?" Sternheimer asked.
“Better,” Kristen nervously chuckled.
“Aces,” someone joked off-camera.
"Kings"
The distribution, as expected, sparked a lively discussion on social media.
Beruzy recalled how a couple of years ago, Giraf Ganger was absolutely sure on stream that his opponent had aces, but with the words "real men aren't afraid to lose with kings against aces" he made the call.
"Real men lose with Kings"
Some Twitter users were sympathetic to the ICM considerations, but most still agreed they'd be putting the chips in anyway.
“Foxen fumbled WSOP Main Event and now this. How many $ millions has she cost herself, for not being able to handle pressure?,” one commenter recalled another of Foxen’s notorious hands.
Read ReadThe author of the MTT Database Review channel calculated the distribution in software :
Here goes a sim:
-QJs jam standard, makes around $6k EV
-TT call also standard, makes around $22k EV, jam would be clearly worse around $12k EV. We want the option to fold if there is action behind us.
-JJ are losing around $8k EV, QQ are mostly jamming but basically breakeven.
-KK are a call, making around $45k EV.
To put it into perspective – AA would make $478k EV calling and QQ would lose $157k EV. AKs loses $171k EV and AKo loses $226k EV.(This is normal ICM sim, so it's not perfect, FGS might change it slightly. I set up the 4 relevant stacks exactly, the others I had to guess from limited info but I think it is close enough. Chipleader is on the Big Blind I hope, right?)
If you want to run your own hands, pick up software at the lowest prices on the internet through the GipsyTeam Shop.
“I am going to say the thing everyone is thinking,” Sam Greenwood said as he joined the discussion . “Elton has a really tough spot with TT as does Sternheimer with JJ.
A little later he added:
"I am running it and will write about it. My guess is that KK is too tight a fold, but calling QQ or AK loses more money than folding KK.
Elton's call is close and 99 is a fold. Sternheimer's shove is good because he can get Elton a lot and get HU with dead money."
ClubWPT Gold supported Kristen with a meme:
UpswingPoker also took a playful tone :
– LucidPoker says tough spot. Could go either way.🤷♂️
Scott Seaver took on the role of Kristen's most ardent defender :
There is something so beautiful (disgusting) about this innate thing in humans to be so confident on things they don't know. SO much arrogance and hubris from so many people that have no reason to have ever earned any respect. Everyone loves an opinion, everyone loves feeling smarter than someone who is clearly smarter (and far more talented) than them, if only for a moment. I'd have to see every single stack and also really need to be there in feel to comment, but I guarantee this at worst is an unbelievably close spot, and KK here is wildly closer to anything than QQ is, but a lot of armchair idiots would have said the same had she folded QQ vs QJ JJ and TT.
All the conversation I've had to see about this today is truly a microcosm of everything I find so sickening and disgusting with our world today. Just the confidence of people that know absolutely nothing and the inability to ever realize it.
"You don't understand, Scott. The most important thing is that the kings would have won in the end," Joseph Cheong explained to the general outrage.
"I admire Kristen's courage," Dylan Linde agreed. "She wasn't afraid to play like that on poker's biggest stage. Greatness in these kinds of competitions comes from trying your best and accepting that sometimes you're going to look like a complete idiot."
"So you're only angry because some people didn't like the fold? That's insane," one commenter said, surprised.
"There's a big difference between 'I think' and 'I know.' There aren't even 150 people in the world qualified to draw conclusions about this hand. If someone I respect does something I would never do myself, my first thought is 'I don't understand,' not 'they don't understand.'"
"In other words, Scott can be bluffed, he can even throw away kings 📝," TexasMike noted.
– I would really throw it away against you, because you would never dare to bet against something worse.