Darkened Poker

This episode was rather confusing.  First Phil Hellmouth re-raises Phil Ivey and gets moved all in on.  At this point he starts talking about how he is thinking of making a stand against Phil Ivey.    The problem is he is trying to do table talk mind games against Phil Ivey.

What could he hope to accomplish:

• Is Phil Ivey really going to stop raising him as much or respect Phil H’s next re-raise because he says he is thinking of coming over the top?
• Is Phil Ivey going to start raising him more since he is only thinking 1 level ahead and Phil H is thinking 2 levels ahead so he thinks it will be easier to trap him?
• Is Phil Ivey going to not respect his re-raises as much in the future and pay him off more now that it could be Phil H making a stand?

Not likely, Phil Ivey is aggressive against all the other players and it seems unlikely that anything anyone says is going to change his strategy.  Phil H really needs to just fold and hope that Phil Ivey keeps it up so he can re-raise or trap him.

Hand starts around 1:30 mark

Then a little while later he play very well and manages to not go broke against Antonio Esfandiari higher flush and you think for a moment that Phil H might survive this table.

But eventually he gets into a hand with Phil Ivey again and goes broke by moving on in on the turn a flush and str8 draw which by itself is often not a bad move but in this case he should have known it was well over 50% likely he was getting called and he was only about 33% to win at best and getting < 2-1 on his money if called.

Big mistake in my mind was after Phil Ivey asks for a chip count and then just called the re-raise on the flop he either has a pretty high flush draw or is slow playing a set or maybe top pair to see a safe turn card.  So moving all on the turn after the K comes just means that he is now going to get called by all sets, flopped straights and now King high flush draws.  The only thing he might get to lay down is the Ace high flush draws.  Even top pair would have to think about calling that all in given all the draws out there.   Kind of a bad play in my mind and he gets stacked, what is even more odd is he only came with 1 buy in and leaves right after.

Hand starts around 6:30 mark

All in All another good start to another season.

♣♥♦

Darkened Poker

High Stakes Poker Season 5 Episode 13

Final episode and they made up for some of the bad episodes earlier, there was lots of people getting stacking which makes for good poker.

Eli Elezra stacks Phil Laak, both played the hand right so there was nothing that could have been done there.  Phil just got really unlucky that Eli had 2 pair and could not fold to his all in re-raise.

I really like that hand were Doyle takes a big pot off Tom Dwan with Trip Aces.  Tom starts to go on tilt afterward and starts talking to himself.  Nice to see Tom Durr is human after all.

The first really poorly played hand came with Minieri and Peat.  Peat put on the 1.6k blind strattle, Meltzer called with A 8 and Minieri re-raised to 10k with AA.  Peat flat calls with T 8 and Meltzer gets out of the way.

I like the raise size by Minieri, he made it about 1/10th his stake which was is making it a hard call even for small pairs.   I am really not a big fan of Peat flat calling another 8.2k with a suited one gapper.  In the article “Stop misplaying suited connectors” I did the math for suited connectors and you really need about 25 – 1 odds to make them work against over pairs.  And since Minieri only had 110k behind and Meltzer was likely to fold, Peat was not get near enough odds to call.

Flop 5 T T

Minieri bets 10k and Peat re-raises it to 30k at which point Minieri announces re-raise and moves all in for 110k which Peat quickly calls.

Not much could be done here, Peat is kind of a fish and when the fish really hit you are going to pay them off.  Since Peat would have most likely also called that re-raise with JJ – KK, I do no mind Minieri going all in there.  He just got unlucky that Peat hit that time.

Meltzer then manages to pick up KK on the last two hands, first time he plays them well re-raises Tom Dwan to take down a nice pot.  Sadly this sets him up to plays them pretty wrong the second time and manages to get stacked giving Tom Dwan a nice double up gift.

Phil Laak raises to 3.1k with 55, then Tom Dwan re-raises to 14k with Jc Ts and then Meltzer re-raises again to 30k with KK.  Phil Laak fold and Tom Dwan  calls.

With it only being a min raise Tom Dwan is getting 3-1 on his money and really has to call with a min connector and see the flop.  Meltzers raise was not enough to make Tom define his hand but the act of re-raising does give away his hand.  For that reason alone I do not really like Meltzers re-raise, either make it 3-4 times Tom’s bet or just flat call and play slowly after the flop.

Flop: 3 A T, Pot 68.4k

Meltzer bets 30k, Tom thinks for awhile and calls.

I really hate this bet, it is only 1/2 the pot and it gives Meltzer’s away his hand even more, nothing says scared of the Ace like a weak 1/2 pot c-bet.  Tom had to call, he has 5 real outs ( 3 J’s and 2 T’s ) plus 9 hearts that might show up and allow him to take the pot away.

Turn:  J

Meltzer checks, Tom bets 46.2k and Meltzer finally calls.

I really hate this call, at this point if he believes Tom is on a flush draw he should re-raise all in.  If he believes Tom might have the Ace then he should fold.  In effective stack sizes he is to close to pot committed so calling does not buy him much there.  If there were a lot deeper then calling might be an option to see a cheap relative show down, but in this case he should know he is calling all in if he is beat or it will go check check on the river if he is ahead.

River: J Pot 220k

Meltzer checks again and Tom goes all in for 146k. Meltzer thinks a rather short amount of time and calls.

This call was a pure gift, there is nothing but a busted flush draw that Meltzer could beat and although Tom Dwan does bluff a fair bit, it is usually not for all in on the river.  Given that Tom had been called down to this point and the pot would be laying him 2.3-1 odds to call it is just crazy to think Tom would be bluffing at this time.  Maybe he was worried about getting bluffed on the last hand of the season or something like that.

High Stakes Poker Season 5 Episode 12

First Daniel Nagreanu was got stacked and started playing scared.  Now it seems like Phil Laak has taken over that role.  He has been folding heads up with mid pair when he should re-raise and he decided to bet 50k pre-flop with AA instead of playing the hand post flop.

The first great hand was Metzer calling 800 with A 8, Elezra raising to 1,600 with K T and Menieri re-raises to 9600 with 6 4.  Metzer with the best hand folds and Elezra with what is now the best hand calls.

Think this was just either a bad read or bad move on Menieri’s part, he most likely read Elezra’s min raise for weakness but re-raising him with a bad hand like that is not smart.  Elezra is not know for laying hands down once he has money in the pot, its like Menieri has not watch even a single episode of this show.  This would have been a good play against a non pro, but is bad against someone as aggressive as Elezra.  Elezra quickly makes a good call, not sure if it is because he read Menieri for making a squeeze play or he just does not lay hands down against aggressive players.

Flop: 6 10 4

Elezra check, Menieri bets 14k into a 22k pot and Elezra thinks for awhile and just calls.  This suprised me quite a bit, I expected Elezra to check to someone as aggressive as Menieri so he could check raise him.  There is not a lot of value in calling re-raises, hitting a vulnerable hand and then just calling a bet so you can be drawn out on the turn.  He must have picked up a tell of strength and just want to call on the flop to see if Menieri bet again on the turn.  Again this would have been a good play against a newb, but was a bad play against someone as aggressive as Menieri.  It is very unlikely he would not fire two shells so calling now is wasted money as he is unlikely to learn anything new on the turn.

Turn:  A

Menieri thinks and then bets 37k into a 50k pot.  Elezra thinks for awhile then folds, this was a good fold at this point as there was really nothing he could beat.  If Menieri had a big ace like he was representing pre-flop then Elezra was now beat.  One of the last hands that he could beat just got there so folding is the only option.

Very oddly played by both parties but it worked out for Menieri.

HIGH STAKES POKER SEASON 5 Episode 6 Part 2

This was a interesting hand because it was a massive 900k pot plus after all the money was in Barry Greenstien said he thought that was the hand that Tom Dwan had.  But if that was what he put him on then Barry really misplayed the hand so I have to think he was just saying that for TV.

First Eastgate raised to 3500 with AK and then Barry G ( 600k ) re-raised to 15k with AA at which point Tom Dwan ( 450k ) calls with KQ and Eastgate calls to see the flop.

Flop:  4 2 Q ( 45k pot )

Dwan bets 28.7k, Eastgate folds and Barry G raises to 100k.  If he put Dwan on the flush draw then maybe it is best not to let him name his own price for the draw.    That is the more aggressive way to play it which is Barry’s style.  If he put him on a Q then why re-raise and move him off the hand, let him bet his money away.   Given that Tom just called pre-flop he could also be holding small pair and Barry is re-raising a set.

2 cases he is behind – 1 case he is ahead, i really thing a smooth call would have been a lot better here.

Even if he put him on a flush another way would be to just call, wait for a safe card on the turn and then since he is in position he can really put pressure on the turn.  Since they are both deep stacked he needs to be concerned about building a really big pot with only an over pair.  I have been stacked more times than I can remember by betting hard trying to drive the flush draws out, only to find out I was way behind.

Dwan thinks for awhile and then re-raises against to 244k.  I really do not like this raise as it now has him which has totally pot committed him and in a coin toss for all his chips.  He knows he is not good right now and has 11 outs, but he just put himself in a position were all the money will be going in now or on the turn if a Spade does not fall so he will be racing for his entire stack.  The only thing this bet does it let Barry know this hand is for all his chips, but given there is 245k in the pot there is no way Barry can fold.

Now Barry G has a bit of an issue, this hand is too good to fold and not good enough that you want to be all in on the flop.  But what can he do.

• Just calling is pretty bad, if the Spade comes on the turn are you really going to fold a 750k pot for another 150k more.  That would be a monster lay down and people would suddenly have phantom outs against you.
• If he calls and pushes on the turn when no spade comes Tom Dwan will be getting the right odds to call anyway.
• Re-raising is also just bad, the draw wants to get all the money in with two cards to come and the made hand want to get to the turn and then apply really bad odds.

Barry chooses to push and re-raises to 436k putting Tom Dwan all in.  He has to call and they agree to run it once which is also Barry style.  Given that is was a 50-50 draw and for such a massive pot I think Barry would want to run it more than once but he does not.

Turn: Q
River: 7

Tom pulled down a nice 919k pot.  Although that was classic Barry style of making big pots, I really think he should have just smooth called and let Tom bet again on the turn.  He could have then got away from the hand when the next Q dropped or at least lost the min instead of his whole stack.  Also not sure why Tom Durr wanted to it all in with the draw, there was easier ways to make money at that table.

Some how I have been listening to Poker Face by Lady GaGa for quite some time but had not seen the music video.  It is worth checking out.