PokerGo
Alex Foxen is one of the most feared poker players on the felt. The poker world knows this but Foxen’s rise to stardom in his field came after the ‘Poker Boom’ driven by ESPN so he hasn’t benefitted from TV coverage like his older peers.
Foxen recently won the 2023 PokerGO Cup Event #6 for $317,040. At that final table, Alex executed the poker bluff of the year.
Like a shark that smelled blood in the water, Foxen sensed weakness despite being beaten. But Foxen knows that in Poker, the best hand only wins (24.3% of the time) if there’s a showdown.
His only chance here was to execute the perfect poker bluff and get Aram Oganyan to fold.
Alex Foxen Pulls Off Poker Bluff Of The Year
Anyone tuned into the poker world shouldn’t be surprised by this incredible bluff from Alex Foxen. He is a 2-time Global Poker Index Player of the Year. And he is currently ranked #6 in the world according to the latest GPI standings.
Last June, Foxen went wire-to-wire in the $250K buy-in Super High Roller event at the World Series of Poker. In doing so he won his first gold bracelet despite being one of the highest-earning players in the game.
Foxen Sends Hellmuth Into A Meltdown At The Poker Table
Here we have a hand from event #9 of the 2022 US Poker Open where Phil Hellmuth eventually finished in second place to fellow Poker Hall of Fame member Erik Seidel.
Hellmuth has a reputation for blowing up at the tables and that’s exactly what we see here, him losing his mind. I have also included another hand from this tourney down below (via the PokerGo YouTube channel). The profanity is beeped out below, by the way.
I was able to interview Phil Hellmuth a few months back during his epic run at the 2021 World Series of Poker. We talked about his reputation as the ‘Poker Brat’. I asked him if that reputation has ever overshadowed his career success at the tables and if that’s something he ever thinks about. Here’s that portion of our interview…
The Poker Brat Reputation
Cass Anderson: “To that point though, I sort of came to know poker the way many people did during the ‘Poker Boom’ driven by ESPN’s coverage and the explosion of online poker.”
“At the time, ESPN had sort of built all of these personalities around you guys on television, and your nickname is ‘The Poker Brat’ which has clearly worked extremely well for your career and branding. But I personally think that has a little bit overshadowed all of your WSOP records, and I don’t think ESPN ever did nearly as good enough of a job emphasizing those records to the public at the height of the ‘Poker Boom’.”
“Is that something that you ever worked on personally, trying to emphasize the bracelets and records more when you’re on camera? Or does it not matter to you ’cause you’re the best?”
Phil Hellmuth: “Yeah, I mean, when they first came into poker they (ESPN) didn’t talk at all about who the all-time greats were almost at all.
And so I did too much talking about myself and too much promoting. I wanted credit. I wanted to say “hey, I am the all-time leader, I am this, I am that.” And then you get kind of known as a braggart. So then in the last three or four years, I’ve tried to kinda sit back and let other people judge my legacy.”
Q-4 Off-Suit Can’t Lose!
He then went on to discuss a recent feud with Daniel Negreanu which was a fun topic at the time. You can click here to read that interview in full but don’t leave before you check out this hand where Phil gets his chips back.
In the hand above, the blinds were 25,000/50,000 and here they’ve been bumped to 30,000/60,000. There are still five players at the final table at this point and Phil chose Queen-Four off-suit as his spot to make a move….
If there is a perfect way to get under someone’s skin at the poker table it’s to take your chips back during a hand that you 100% should’ve lost. I talked extensively about Phil Hellmuth’s Q-4 off-suit hand here. Was it a terrible play? Probably not because it worked…
Another Legendary Poker Bluff From A Recent Tournament
This all-in bluff from Sean Winter took place during event #11 of the 2022 US Poker Open, a $25,000 No-Limit Hold’em event. This isn’t the final hand of the tournament.
At this point, there are still three players in the tourney including Sean Winter, Ali Imsirovic, and Jake Schindler. But this hand features the two players that would go on to knock out Schindler and play heads-up for the $440,000 1st place prize.
Let’s watch the hand being called the ‘Bluff of the Year‘ before I spoil too much. After that, make sure to watch the now-legendary Q-4 offsuit hand from Phil Hellmuth.
Sean Winter would go on to beat Ali Imsirovic heads-up for the $440,000 first-place prize. Ali Imsirovic took home $288,750 for second place and Jake Schindler went packing with $192,500 in the $25K buy-in event. Not too bad for two days of work!
I’m torn on whether or not shoving all-in with just Ace High on a mixed board showing a King is genius or madness. But I always fall back on ‘did it work?’ If the answer is ‘yes’ then it was genius, if the answer is ‘no’ then it was madness.