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.
Tom Dwan tries to outplay Phil Ivey and gets a slapped down. Tom Dwan raises under the gun to 2.2k with 87 suited, Phil knows that he likes to raise light under the gun so he re-raises him to 9k with T8 offsuit. Tom Dwan then thinks for a little while and then asks for a chip count from Phil Ivey before raises him back 29.6k. Although this bet was just over 3x the amount Phil bet it was an odd bet.
Given that he just asked for a chip count and they were both about 250k behind the bet is not enough to serve as protection for a big pair. I think Phil picks up on this and re-raises again to 84k which is enough to get Dwan to lay down his hand. At that point Tom has no leverage to move all in with as Phil’s bet puts him on the edge of pot committed so he has to fold.
Right at the 3 min mark.
Short stacked, the 3 bet usually has all the leverage.
Deep stacked, the 4 bet usually has all the leverage.
In this episode Howard made a really good bluff and turned over the title of amateur moves to Sahamies who makes a crazy & desperate bluff against Phil Ivey.
In this case Phil flops 2 pair and Sahamies flops an open ended str8 draw. Phil shows nothing but strength in this hand by re-raising Sahamies bet on the flop and betting almost the full size of the pot on the turn. Then just because Phil checks the river Sahamies suddenly thinks he can pick up the pot and bets 51k which is almost a pot size bet.
The hand begins at 3 min.
I am just not sure what Sahamies was thinking here, the river card was not really that much of a scare card to Phil Ivey unless he just put him on only top pair. Given that Phil had shown that much strength it seems pretty crazy to put him on a hand that weak. The bluff amount was kind of stupid to as he was risking 50k to win the 25k he had dumped in there on a draw. Given that I do not believe Phil Ivey has a pain threshold in poker anywhere near those stakes his pot size bet was just giving money away as it had the same chance of working as a 1/2 pot size bet.
I really like Phil’s check on the river, if he put Sahamies on the str8 draw or just a pair he has little chance of his river bet getting called. But checking does give Sahamies the chance to hang himself which he did.
Episode 2 was mostly uneventful but #3 is worth checking out as Howard Lederer continues his tradition of betting bitch slapped, this time by Phil Ivey. I know Howard Lederer is a force in limit poker, but I am getting the idea that he does not spend nearly as much time at the no limit tables. I am just not sure that on TV, for these limits and against this line up is where I would be learning even if I could afford to.
In this episode Howard teaches us how important it is to have a plan for your hand before you commit way to much money to the pot. The hand starts at time 5:30 in the video when Eli puts on the $1200 straddle, Sahamies puts on the $2400 double straddle and Ivey continues it with a $4800. It gets to Lederer and he has pocket 88′s which is a pretty good hand against 3 blind straddles but can play pretty bad after the flop unless you flop a set.
Like an amateur he raises to 19,800 or about 2x the pot which declares to the table that although he has a decent hand he is playing scared and wants to take it down right now. Seems like Phil Ivey picks up on the problem with Howard’s bet size and moves all in for another 100k. He correctly deducts that Howard will not call his all in with anything less than AA or KK and if he had either of those hands we would have only made a pot size bet to begin with. Although in this case Ivey had 99 and really had the best hand, I believe his cards did not matter and he would have done it with any 2 cards. Howard is now in a bad situation as he has about 1/6th his stack in the pot pre-flop and is being put to the test for the rest of it.
Howard then confirms his amateur status in NL by going into the tank for over 2 1/2 min before finally folding. His table was very understanding by not calling a clock on him, I wonder if they were thinking they did not want to do it and risk upsetting the fish. One of the most important things in NL is having a plan for what you will do at any point if you get raised all in.
If he has thought about about how his bet would be interpreted ( looking desperate ) and that he might face a re-steal which he was not willing to call. He most likely would have taken a more conservative line that would be easier for him to play, like just call pre-flop and play that pair for set odds on the flop. Since everyone had 20x over the blind straddle bet behind in their stacks he would be getting more than enough odds. Even a min raise would have likely ensured he was most likely heads up were pocket pairs are easier to play.
Poker after Dark is having their ” Top guns Cash game” and it is finally some pretty good poker TV.
In this episode Howard “The Professor” Lederer shows us how not to play AA as he gets stacked by Eli Elezra’s set of 8′s. So many mistakes in this hand it was like a gift that Eli Elezra did not even have to work for.
Howard does not pick a way to play his AA, just calling Phil Iveys raise of 3k he could play them small ball and exercise pot control. Re-raising big he could play long ball poker and either take down the pot or really maximize the amount of money he put in while ahead. But instead he only re-raises to 10K and puts 10% of his stack in pre-flop ( started with 100k ) which told everyone he had AA or KK, pot committed him and still gave small pairs the odds to draw at him. Just calling the 3k to trap Phil Ivey or re-raising to 20k would have been a much better option, if your going to announce your hand strength with 2 people still to play make sure the information is useless to them. Also given that he is out of position I would raise even more to compensate for that fact, I sure do not want to be playing out of position for the rest of the hand against Eli and Phil.
On the flop there is both a str8 and flush draw which is never what you want to see with over pairs. At this point he he bets 2/3 the pot which means 1/3 his chips are in the pot and he can be all in by the turn. This bet is even worse than the pre-flop bet as 2/3 the pot is not enough to chase 2 people out with that many draws. If he wants to drive people out a pot size bet would be proper, but in this case I do not think that is the right way to go. Problem with betting the pot is he would only get called or re-raised with a Set or the combo Str8 and flush draw. Since he is out of position I would check this hand, see what they do and use it as a bluff catcher if the situation is appropriate. Most likely call Phil all the way down if he bet and Eli folded on the flop. Maybe call one street if Eli bet and Phil folded but dump it past the turn if he is still betting as Eli could only have odds to call pre-flop with pair type hands.
The turn play is even worse, Howard hums and haws and then goes all in for a pot size bet of 70k. Is anyone at that table really believing your acting job? One good thing about getting all in on the turn is you are not put to a hard derision on the river if the draws get there. It would be the right move if he was playing against fish that would call a bet that size on a draw. But no one at that table is going to call him unless he is crush so he is just asking to get stacked. Sadly he has committed so much pre-flop and on the flop that even if he just switches to check calling down now he would most likely get stacked anyway. At this point he could just check and call down Eli if the flush or str8 does not get there. It is not a great move and kind of weak but at least then his hand has some bluff catching power.
Hand in question happens at 9 min point.
Have not been a big fan of the Poker after Dark but these are getting almost as good as the High Stakes Poker shows.
