Welcome to the first in a regular series of articles using Octopi Poker to examine key hands from the world's biggest tournaments to celebrate great players making incredible plays. This time we look at a crucial hand in the $10K PGT Last Chance #3 event between Landon Tice and Brandon Wilson that helped crown the champion.
Brandon Wilson (above) recently had a career-defining moment, securing his first PokerGO title and a $297,500 prize in the PokerGO Last Chance Event #3 $10K No-Limit Hold'em. His success continued with a back-to-back win in Event #4 of the same series, solidifying his status as a rising star in the High Roller circuit.
The prestige of the PokerGO Tour attracts some of the best high-stakes pros in the world. What makes Brandon Wilson, a relative newcomer to the high roller circuit, so effective in these extremely tough fields?
Today, we’ll take a deep dive into one hand played during the final heads-up match vs. Landon Tice. It demonstrates Brandon’s signature traits: theoretical prowess, relentless aggression and fearless execution of big bluffs with the championship on the line.
You can find this hand, along with related preflop and postflop sims, in Octopi Vault (professional subscription is required).
The spot
We start the hand with blinds of 125K/250k and 250K ante. Brandon has 25.9bbs on the button with 
offsuit and is first to act, while Landon has 31.1bbs in the big blind with 
offsuit, covering. The payouts are $297,500 for first and $184,450 for the runner-up.
For Brandon, a $113,050 pay jump and a title are on the line, while Landon Tice, currently with a slight chip lead, risks losing control of the match if he loses a big hand.
Preflop action
Brandon begins the hand by limping, and Landon checks. We can analyze their strategies using the custom sim from Octopi Vault to determine if they played correctly and to glean insights into their ranges for post-flop analysis.
Brandon's button strategy
- Playing as the button, Brandon never folds. He leverages the pot odds granted by the big blind ante to play every hand in some way.
- The majority of the range plays as a limp. This allows the button to play every hand cheaply, while the stronger hands in his range protect the weaker ones from big blind aggression. He can respond to raises with calls or re-shoves and has enough strong hands to call an all-in.
- The remaining quarter of the time is played as a raise to 2.2bb, using our best hands plus hands that would be indifferent against a raise after limping, and then mix in a bunch of middling combos for board coverage.
Landon's big blind strategy, facing a limp
- The most common action (62%) is to check and see the flop with all sorts of hands. For more aggressive lines, three raise sizes are available to the big blind: 3.5bb/7bb/all-in for 26bb.
- The smaller raises (3.5bb) are reserved for premium hands like good pairs (TT+), suited Broadways, suited Ax and some frequency bluffs scattered around offsuit Kx/Qx/Jx/Tx and occasionally, complete trash.
- The big raises (7bb) are used for a mix of very good hands (AQo-AKo/A9s-AJs), some suited connectors (54s-T9s) and a sprinkle of hopeless 83o/72o.
- All-ins (18%) are fairly intuitive and primarily include low pairs, offsuit A2o-AJo and occasional K5o/Q6o.
Preflop range analysis takeaways
Brandon's limp range is uncapped, indicating a wide range of hands from strong holdings to trash. Landon's checking range suggests he is missing pairs, Ax, and premium Broadway hands, all of which would likely raise rather than check.
The Flop
The flop reveals itself — a pivotal moment where equities take shape and both players must recalibrate, weighing the texture of the board against their opponent's perceived range.
Landon, BB: check
Brandon, BTN: bet 1BB, 33% of pot
Landon: call
The flop is three broadway cards, and it favors Brandon’s range over Landon’s in a big way. Let’s use Octopi’s Side-by-Side range explorer to study the flop strategy in more detail.
We can see that Landon is expected to check his entire range, while Brandon should bet frequently, about 82% of the time.
Why is Brandon ‘allowed’ to bet with high frequency in this spot?
- The Octopi Range map illustrates that Brandon's range (13% top pair+) is significantly stronger than Landon's (2% top pair+). Brandon's range includes a full frequency of sets, straights, and pairs+ as a result of balanced limping strategies preflop.
- Landon's range, however, lacks Broadway cards and pairs that are unlikely to check behind a limp preflop. Over 1/3 of Landon's range has very little equity and must fold.
- Conversely, Brandon can confidently bet most of his range, using a mix of small and big bets. Additionally, he should check approximately 18% of the time - high frequency checks are pocket pairs 55-99, while low frequency checks consist of a large mix of suited and offsuit combos.
- Brandon’s hand,
, should bet 33% pot 75% of the time, an action he executed in-game.
When facing a small range bet of 1bb:
- Landon should defend 61% of his range, essentially everything except the weakest holdings due to the excellent pot odds.
- This means that only low offsuit combos without straight draws are folded, along with non-paired suited hands that lack gutshot straight draws or backdoor flush draw potential, specifically in diamonds.
- Due to the large range disadvantage, Landon should only check-raise 7% of the time, mostly top pairs, straight- and backdoor flush draws at a low frequency.
- K-4 offsuit qualifies as both a high card and a gutshot draw to the nuts.
Once again, both players have made the correct decision, and the game continues to the turn.
The turn
Landon, BB: check
Brandon, BTN: bet 5.6BB, 112% of pot
Landon: call
The turn card is a 4, which brings a backdoor flush draw and gives Landon a pair. Landon checks, Brandon barrels with an overbet and Landon calls.
Overbets should generally be used with either very strong hands or well-chosen bluffs. The goal is to apply maximum pressure, forcing folds or extracting value. They are especially useful when the opponent's range is capped and lacks strong hands.
We can see that Landon has to continue with a range check since the 
did not improve his range. Brandon’s range wants to choose a more polarizing strategy on the turn, checking 62% of the time while incorporating overbets. The give-ups and the bluffs are all mixing, including Brandon's hand , given the blocker to the flush draw.
Brandon once again chooses the most aggressive option and nails the sizing. Landon should be folding over half of his range in response, yet still defend some, and K-4 makes the cut for a pure call. Both opponents are playing tough and perfect GTO poker.
Here comes the river.
The river
Landon, BB: check
Brandon, BTN: bet ALL-IN, 116% of pot
Landon: fold
River is the 
, completing a backdoor flush. Landon checks, and Brandon responds by shoving his remaining chips for 116% of the pot. This move completes a three-street, no-equity bluff. Landon folds.
With the PGT title, money, and glory at stake, was Brandon's play reckless or brilliant? Did Landon miss an opportunity to claim his first High Roller PGT title by failing to call? Let’s find out.
Brandon's hand has no showdown value. This spade blocker is a key factor in determining whether he should bluff on the river. His goal is to block Landon's flush draws, which represent 9% of Landon's range and are the calls with the highest expected value (EV).
For Brandon to get called sufficiently with his top-range hands (primarily two pair and higher) and to prevent Landon from making exploitative folds, Brandon needs to jam his no-equity holdings with the correct frequency. This is true even if the bluff itself is a low-EV move and risks losing his entire stack. We can see the solver prefers to jam with 
rather than , but this ‘solver logic’ is incredibly nuanced.
Meanwhile, Landon's hand represents one of the lowest possible holdings with showdown equity. K-4 offsuit mixes folds and calls, although his specific hand mostly folds at equilibrium (98% folds/2% calls).
Once again, both players executed their strategies flawlessly. Brandon balanced his range perfectly, leveraging strong value hands present in the range while ensuring that his bluffs had the right blocker effects, making it nearly impossible for Landon to find an exploitive play in this spot.
Landon's offsuit without a spade was at the very bottom of his calling range. It lacked the blockers to disrupt Brandon's most credible bluffs. Folding to the pressure was correct in the GTO sense, even though, had he called, he would have claimed the title and the glory.
The conclusion
Poker tournaments are unpredictable, thrilling contests of skill, psychology and the inherent uncertainty of chance. Poker history remembers the champions who can remain strategic and composed during moments of masterful bluffs, miraculous comebacks, or critical turns of fate.
Brandon Wilson’s fearless and theoretically plausible bluff leading to Landon Tice’s disciplined but ultimately incorrect fold showcased poker at its highest level. It also led to a well-deserved triumph for poker’s rising star.
When two elite minds collide, every decision becomes a masterpiece.
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Featured image courtesy of PokerGO.
