Lex Veldhuis Poker Strategy

Lex Veldhuis has it all. He's a sick degen with an insane work ethic. He likes to watch speedruns of Zelda, and he can also knock you out with a vicious head-kick if you call him a nerd. He doesn't have a bracelet but his WSOP performance in 2009 was far more memorable than the faces of many main event champs whose career began and ended with binking a donkament.

Lex was successful at both no-limit hold'em and PLO cash games. He has and extremely entertaining Twitch.tv stream and he successfully transitioned from a multiple supernova elite cash game grinder into a competent online MTT pro.

Where it all Started

2009 WSOP Main Event was the seminal moment for Lex's career. Poker fans around the world had the chance to witness his extremely aggressive playstyle and that in turn led to the popularity Veldhuis enjoys to this day. Let's break his performance down hand by hand and discuss the subtleties that made his 2009 WSOP performance so impactful and memorable.

In the first hand against Eli Elezra, Lex managed to put a bit more preflop pressure on his opponent than most players would be able to in the same situation, by adding a small verbal needle to a light 3bet. "I can make you the chip leader of the whole tournament" was a great way of bringing Eli's attention to the stack to pot ratio and gave RaSZi, even more, leverage to use while bluffing. The flop cbet with backdoor equity seems standard but it's important to point out that Lex picked a rather large betsizing given the tournament setting, continuing with the theme of putting as much pressure as possible on his opponent.

In the next hand against Simon Munz, Lex employed a very aggressive flop line. Instead of giving his opponent good odds to call his cbet in position on a board with a metric ton of possible draws and combo draws, Lex used his marginal backdoor equity to check raise and put the maximum pressure on his opponent's range. He then continued his aggression on pretty much the best turn card possible and punished a somewhat capped range of his opponent (many value combinations would raise the turn given the board texture) by making a small river bluff.

Another hand shows exactly why Lex's approach was so successful. His aggression might seem relentless, mindless even, especially to someone with the untrained eye but in reality, Veldhuis was always aware of board textures and table dynamics, utilizing them to make the success rate of his bluffs higher than that of an average aggressive player. A 432 board is a good one to stab at in a multiway pot because 4x, 3x, and 2x combos are among the least popular in any player's range. It's also important to point out that the board develops in a way that was pretty horrible for Munz perceived range (medium pairs) because both flush, straights and even A-high bluffs got there. Lastly, RaSZi had some backdoor equity in the hand with K6. 

The penultimate hand of the YouTube clip explains why the fact that Veldhuis insisted on intimidating other players by showing his hand after each successful bluff. was so powerful. Players were bound to second guess their decisions based on that fact, "surely, he's not going to bluff every time?". Lex managed to dissuade his opponents from bluff catching light and he continued to use the coordinated board and lockdown boards to his advantage.

And lastly, the final hand of the tournament for a player with arguably the most traumatic experience during 2009 WSOP final table. It's really hard to defend a preflop call with K4s for 60 big blinds using strategy, alone and it has to be explained with Lex's superior awareness and the ability to read the table dynamics.

Live by the Sword... Kill with a Sword!

While Lex exploded in popularity due to his amazing bluffs he's actually a very well-rounded player, and he's capable of using his amazing game sense when he's on the defensive. In this amazing hand for the PokerStars Big Game against Daniel Negreanu Veldhuis showed that he's not only amazing at dishing out the aggression, but he's also exceptionally good at punishing those who overuse the aggression.

The flop play by Negreanu was extremely confusing, for a multitude of reasons. First of all, the fact that he had the recreational player still left behind to act behind it made it so Daniel should in theory call with all of his strong hands. Also, while similar logic should've applied to Negreanu's preflop hand selection, it's really tough for him to have a hand worth raising with on a AJx board in a single raised pot. Another ace showing up on the turn made the perceived range of Negreanu even weaker and his river bluff attempt even more perplexing.

More Top Rated Content

Articles

• Procrastination and Poker
  
• How to Make a Poker Schedule - Tools You Can Use
  
• Mindful Breathing | Mental Poker Strategy
  

Coaching Videos

• Nutrition: How To Improve Your Mindset & Productivity
  
• Optimizing Sleep for Poker Success
  
• Personality & Poker