These days Cyprus is the center of the world stage high stakes, with the Onyx High Roller Series having drawn the most highly rated professionals from every corner of the globe to the Mediterranean island.
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Event number 3 of the series, the $50,000 NLHE Grand Slam, saw Johan Guilbert finish in second place. On his way to cashing for $870,000, the French-Italian played several hands worthy of note.
Among them, today we delve into a rather particular one, in which Guilbert slowplays pocket aces preflop only to (correctly) fold on the river.
The Hand
The fifty-thousand-dollar buy-in tournament is already in the money, and the players have secured a minimum prize of $120,000.
On blinds of 40,000-80,000 with a bb ante, Gha Iakobishvili, a player who has shown himself capable of making extreme bluffs with little regard for ICM, opens to 170k with Q 10 from UTG with a 5.5 million stack.
On the big blind, Johan Guilbert has 6.2 million chips and simply calls with A A .
Flop Q 10 10, Guilbert check-calls Iakobishvili’s c-bet sized at 120,000.
On the turn 4 , another check-call, with the Russian’s second barrel at 430,000 chips.
On the *7 river, Guilbert checks for the third time, Iakobishvili fires a pot-sized bet of 1,625,000, and the Frenchman folds his pocket aces!
A Size That Reveals?
Guilbert’s play in the hand is heavily influenced by the lack of a preflop three-bet, which with the strongest starting hand in the game would have been the standard play for value.
Up to that point, Iakobishvili had proven capable of making bluffs without fear, so it’s likely that the Frenchman limited himself to a call partly to avoid making him fold with a three-bet, and partly to let him attack postflop.
Consistent with the preflop just call, on the flop and turn Guilbert sticks to the call, as a potential raise from him would likely lead the opponent to call with hands better than his pocket aces, and make him fold all weaker hands.
Intuitively, we would say that the opponent’s bet size played a significant role in the Frenchman’s river fold. If Iakobishvili had used a more contained size on the last street, Guilbert would have had an easy call because he would often have been up against an AQ or KQ playing for value.
The pot-sized bet polarizes the Russian to bluffs or hands from trips up. Some loose players play aggressively in the early streets, but with more caution when they have to bluff a big pot on the river.
It’s likely that for Guilbert, the opponent fell into this category of loose players, and his fold is all the more justified given that with his A , the Frenchman blocked several flush draws with which the opponent could have made a triple barrel bluff.
How often does ‘Yoh.Viral?’ have to be good?
On the river, facing Iakobishvili’s pot-sized bet, for pot odds, Guilbert needs to be good slightly more often than one time out of three to break even. Let’s recall the formula:
1,625,000 / (3,200,000 + 1,625,000) = 0.336… = 33.6%
Obviously, since he decided to fold, Guilbert was evidently persuaded to throw his cards in the muck rather than call with a higher frequency.
What Guilbert Said After the Fold
Guilbert’s fold is greeted with ‘wows’ of approval from the commentators of the stream.
“Great fold Yoh.Viral! – they say into the microphone before the Russian turns to the Frenchman.
“Did you have a queen? – Iakobishvili asks provocatively, but then adds – I had better”.
“You had better than a ten? I’m telling you, I know you had at least a ten – Guilbert replies – I trust my read. I had to believe you”
The Video
Is this the fold of 2026?
— CoinPoker (@CoinPoker_OFF) February 6, 2026
Johan ‘YoH Viral’ Guilbert lays down AA in a single raised pot, losing the minimum v Gha Iakobishvili.
The 🇫🇷 poker phenom went on to win $870k for 2nd in Event #3 of the Onyx High Roller Series, also repping the CoinPoker hoodie: pic.twitter.com/3o5ZmChKjp
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