Triton Jeju II $15K, four left: the button called off 15bb with A♠T♠. The solver folds it.

A pilot of a new format: one hand from a stream that aired in the last day, checked against the solver's own ranges for that spot. No opinions, just what the ranges say, with the caveats stated. If you want more of these, the newsletter is where they will land first.

The hand

Triton Poker Series Jeju II, $15K NLH 8-Handed, final day. Four players left from 206 entries, playing for a trophy and a first prize north of $600,000. Blinds 250,000/500,000 with a 500,000 big-blind ante.

• Button: Kiat Lee, 7,350,000 (14.7 big blinds), holding A♠T♠.
• Small blind: Alex Theologis, roughly 9,700,000 before posting (19 big blinds), holding A♣8♣.
• Big blind: Victor Chong.

The cutoff folds. Lee min-raises to 1,000,000. Theologis moves all in for 9,450,000, covering. Chong folds. Lee calls for his last 7,350,000, and the pot is 15,700,000. Lee is a 74% favourite when the cards go on their backs, the board brings an eight and no ten, and Lee leaves in fourth. Theologis goes on to win the title.

That is the hand as the broadcast showed it. The interesting part is not the result. It is that three decisions were made in a row, two of them exactly what the solver does, and the third one it never does.

The spot in the solver

The library has this table: MTT, 4-handed, 15 big blinds effective, big-blind ante, final-table ICM. The solver's payout ladder for four left is 19.4% of the prize pool for first, 14.3% for second, 10.6% for third and 8.1% for fourth, which is close to the shape of a real Triton payout. Two honest caveats before the numbers: the solver's spot has four equal stacks of 15bb, whereas in the hand the small blind covered the button by about four big blinds, and the button's 14.7bb is rounded to 15. Neither changes the direction of any conclusion below, but they are why this is a review and not a verdict.

1. Button, first in, with ATs: min-raise

Folded to the button at 15bb, four-handed, the solver's button strategy is 65% fold, 12% min-raise, 23% jam, with a sliver of limps. Ace-ten suited min-raises 97% of the time and jams 0%. It is one of the hands the solver deliberately raises small rather than shoving: it wants worse aces and worse suited hands to come along, and it is strong enough to stand a re-jam from some of them.

So Lee's raise is the book play. Worth noticing what the solver does with the small blind's hand in the same seat: A8s jams first in, 100%. The weaker ace shoves, the stronger ace raises. Keep that in mind for the next decision.

2. Small blind, facing the min-raise, with A8s: jam

Facing the button's 2bb open with 15bb behind, the small blind's solver strategy is 84% fold, 1% call, 15% all-in. A♣8♣ is a 97% jam (3% call, never fold). The whole small-blind jamming range at this node:

44, 55, 88, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, A2s through A9s, ATs through AKs, A4o, A5o, AJo through AKo, K4s, K5s, K8s, KTs, KJs, KQs, KJo, KQo, QTs, QJs.

Two things stand out. Every suited ace jams, right down to A2s, because an ace blocks the button's strongest continuing hands and the button folds most of its raising range to a shove. And the middle pairs are not all in: 66, 77 and 99 mostly fold here, while 44, 55 and 88 jam. That is not a typo in the data, it is the solver weighing fold equity, ICM and blockers at a four-handed final table, and it is the kind of row worth opening in the solver rather than memorising.

Theologis's jam was the play, and by the solver's EV it is the best of the three options for A8s: jam 0.11, call 0.09, fold 0.

3. Button, facing the jam, with ATs: fold

This is the decision. After min-raising and seeing the small blind shove for 15bb, the solver's button calls with 24% of its raising range and folds the rest. The calling range is 88, 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, AJs, AQs, AKs, AQo and AKo. Ace-ten suited folds 100% of the time. The solver's EV for calling with ATs is −0.29 against 0 for folding; for comparison AJs, the weakest suited ace that calls, is +0.29, and TT is +0.66.

Why does a hand with 74% equity against A8s fold? Because it is not up against A8s. It is up against the 15% jamming range above, against which ATs is roughly a coin flip, and at a four-handed final table a coin flip for your tournament life is not worth taking when calling wins 8bb of dead money and losing costs the difference between fourth-place money and a run at the title. The ICM pressure does not tighten the small blind's jam, it tightens the button's call, and that gap is exactly what Theologis's shove exploits.

What to take from it

• Min-raise and fold is a real line at 15bb. The solver raises ATs from the button precisely because it can fold to a jam and still show a profit from the times it takes the blinds and antes uncontested. The mistake was not the raise; it was treating the raise as a commitment.
• Suited aces are jams, not calls, from the small blind. At this depth the solver re-jams every suited ace over a button min-raise. If you are the button, expect it.
• Equity against the hand is not the number. Equity against the range, priced in tournament dollars, is. 74% against the hand you were shown was about 50% against the hands you were facing.

Drill it

The library has every seat of this table solved, and the drills deal it to you until the fold is automatic. Open the spot: 4-handed, 15bb, final-table ICM. For the same decisions with eight at the table, the final-table ICM push/fold charts show the first-in jam ranges by seat, and the 15bb button opening range shows the raise-or-jam split in chip EV. Hand pages: ATs and A8s.

Source: Triton Poker's official Day 2 highlights of the Jeju II $15K NLH 8-Handed, published 5 September 2026. Stacks, blinds and cards are read from the broadcast graphics; player equity figures are the broadcast's. Solver figures are from the BeyondGTO library spot named above; the closest available structure to the hand is stated, and differences from the live stacks are noted in the text.