This Hand Changed EVERYTHING For Me!

Playing the bubble in any poker tournament can be one of the most stressful situations, especially when you have a medium or short stack. Nobody wants to leave empty handed when they are so close to the money! For Jonathan Little, this exact scenario played out in a $10,000 tournament during PokerGO’s Poker Masters. Facing the pressure of the bubble, Little found himself put to the test by Clemen Deng, who decided to check jam the river. The question is, with his straight, will Little be able to make the right decision?

When you are playing against strong, game theory optimal (GTO) players, their poker strategy will be very balanced in almost every situation. This means that whether they bet, raise, check raise, or move all in, they are doing so with both value hands and the right proportion of bluffs. As a result, they cannot easily be exploited by other experienced poker professionals.
However, at lower stakes, the dynamics are very different. If someone check-raises the river, it is most often with the nuts, which means you can exploit this tendency by folding at a higher frequency. In high stakes poker games, professional players will still be balanced, showing up with bluffs as well as value hands in those same spots so you would need to adjust your poker strategy accordingly against these types of poker players.

Jonathan Little ‘FieryJustice’,’Jcardshark’, ‘JonLittle’ is in the top 200 on the all time money list with over $9,300,000 in total live poker earnings. He has 2 World Poker Tour (WPT) titles, both of which were for over $1,000,000. Little has won 1 World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet, which came in the $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Freezeout online event, where he won $90,663. He also won the WPT Season VI (2007-2008) Player of the Year award. Jonathan is a professional poker player from the U.S.A. He is also the founder of PokerCoaching.

Clemen Deng is an American professional poker player from Oregon. Deng has a background in computer science and chess, which he has transitioned into a successful poker career. He has over $4,000,000 in live poker tournament earnings; his largest cash of $695,000 came from a 8th place finish at the 2025 $100,0000 buy-in Triton Poker Main Event in Jeju, South Korea.

The 2024 Poker Masters is a No-Limit Hold'em series of eight events that took place from September 11th - 20th at the PokerGO Studio, Las Vegas, U.S.A . The player earning the most PGT points is crowned the Poker Masters Champion and awarded a $25,000 PGT Passport and the Poker Masters Purple Jacket. The previous winners of the purple jacket are Steffen Sontheimer 'Goose', Ali Imsirovic 'AliImsirovic', Sam Soverel 'SammySlick', Alexandros Kolonias 'mexican222', Eelis Parssinen 'EEE27', Michael Addamo 'Imluckbox', Sean Winter 'WinterIsHere', Stephen Chidwick 'Stevie444'.

$10,000 - 2024 Poker Masters Event #4 - Results

1st: Jonathan Little ‘FieryJustice’, ’Jcardshark’, ‘JonLittle’ – U.S.A. – $226,800
2nd: Harvey Castro – U.S.A. – $145,800
3rd: James Collopy ‘Mr_BigQueso’ – U.S.A. – $105,300
4th: Sam Soverel ‘ApesSonIMHO’ – U.S.A. – $76,950
5th: Wayne Nowak – U.S.A. – $56,700
6th: Isaac Haxton ‘philivey2694’ – U.S.A. – $40,500

🔍 Preflop:
Jonathan Little raises to 45,000 from the button with QTo and Clemen Deng defends his big blind blind holding 97o.

💸 Flop - 9c 8h 7h:
Deng checks after flopping top and bottom pair with a backdoor flush draw on the wet connected flop. Little decides not to continuation bet with his open ended straight draw as he checks back and the two professional poker players head to a turn.

💣 Turn - 6d:
The 6 of diamonds on the turn makes a four liner to a straight on board. Deng checks with his now weakened two pair, and Little fires a delayed continuation bet of 65,000, having now improved to a ten high straight. Deng calls with the hope of filling up to a full house on the river.

🌊 River - 8s:
After the board pairing 8 of spades appears on the river, Deng has a higher two pair with nines and eights. However, Deng loses to even more hands that Little could have. Deng checks and Little opts for some value with his straight by betting 180,000. Deng chooses to use his full house blockers to bluff and check-raises to 660,000 to put Little all in and to the ultimate test.

Will Little be able to figure it out and pick off Deng’s bluff, or will Deng get one through against the PokerCoaching coach? Stay tuned for this entire video to find out 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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