Month: September 2020

The Grid 047 ft. Kelly Minkin – King-Eight Offsuit

September 25, 2020 Jennifer Shahade 00:53:48

Professional poker player and lawyer Kelly Minkin enters the GRID with a hand she played with King-Eight Offsuit at the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event. It was her second deep run in the Main, having finished 29th in 2015. 

She fielded a big stack for most of this event, where she earned the nickname “Machine Gun Kelly” for a particularly sharp calldown. She also encountered some setbacks, and at the time of her king-eight hand, she was down to 18 big blinds. She opened on the button with K8o. The big blind defended and the flop came A hearts Q hearts and an offsuit three. Kelly put out a small cbet when the stakes suddenly escalated. “I felt I could read his mind”, she told me as her opponent put in the check raise, “and that he didn’t have anything.”

Kelly elaborates on how she reads people at the table, and how it can pay off in the courtroom as well. She also explains her commitment to studying math despite her very intuitive play at the table. She also talks about her work outside poker and law, from her charity work with the Landen Lucas Foundation to painting.

Kelly has over 1.5 Million Dollars in live tournament earnings and was the 2015 GPI Female Player of the Year. She’s also a partner at the VerStandig Law Firm, which specializes in gaming related law.    

Her insightful and popular twitter account is @The_Illest and she’s also @the_illest on Instagram.

Now that Kelly has covered king-eight offsuit, there are 122 combos left on thepokergrid.com.

Subscribe to the GRID here, and look for video replays for most episodes on Jennifer’s YouTube channel. 



The Grid 046 ft. Michael Acevedo – Eight-Deuce Offsuit

September 10, 2020 Jennifer Shahade 00:57:06

Author, coach and poker pro Michael Acevedo enters the GRID to talk about a hand that changed his life. The hand, in this case, was played by high roller beast Stevie Chidwick. Michael was a last minute invite to a study group that went over a high stakes sit and go hand history of Stevie’s. In the critical hand, Stevie called with 82o in the big blind against a button open. He faced a bet on a flop of Queen-Seven-Eight two tone, along with turn and river barrels. “If you’re folding there, you’re folding too much”, Michael blurted out. The room went silent. Later, Stevie and Michael independently confirmed his gut instinct, and Michael was invited as a regular, and core member of the star studded study group, which also included Apestyles and Elio Fox.

Michael’s background in physics and infographics allowed him to both learn the math behind poker game theory quickly, and to represent it beautifully for effective study. Michael and Jennifer discuss his concept of “equity buckets” and an iconic blind vs blind spot where eight deuce gets a rare chance to shine. They also discuss why Acevedo asserts that the essence of game theory is exploitation, and why he doesn’t think you can learn modern poker by “trial and error.”

Michael has over 2 Million dollars in online cashes and is the author of a renowned poker book, Modern Poker Theory: Building an Unbeatable Strategy Based on GTO principles. You can find him at @GTOPoker on twitter and Instagram and at twitch.tv/gto_poker.  

Now that Michael has covered eight-deuce offsuit, there are 123 combos left on thepokergrid.com.

Subscribe to the GRID here, and look for video replays for most episodes on Jennifer’s YouTube channel.