There’s a thread at 2+2 on this hand. In it, Shaun Deeb makes the following statement about Yakovenko’s actions:
W/o that info, I’d say the TD made the right ruling, as I thought Yakovenko verbally stated he was all in, and I feel he should have been held to that. With Deeb’s statement, I’m now not sure.
Crazy that this hand jacked up play for so many other tables besides their own, and yet didn’t attract the attention of other WSOP staff until Deeb called for the TD.
Also, isn’t As AJ5ccc still an easy call of the 4-bet pre-flop in PLO? (What two aces wouldn’t be? Monotone? Something like AAT5 no suits?) Especially with as aggressive a table as I’m sure that crowd was? Does he need to wait for AAKQds?
I am not sure if AsAcJc5c is an automatic call in that situation considering that there was three other players limped in the pot before the betting escalated. Good chance that the other two aces were dead inside the limpers hands.
Down to the final Five at the 50K. Michael “the Grinder” Mizrachi has the chip lead with a 40% of the chips. Andy Bloch has more than 25% and Chris Klodnicki has about 20%. the other two players are on a severe short stack.
They are certainly not playing for chump change as this is the remaining payouts.
And Phil Hellmuth only called a river bet when he had AQ and the board was AQ2-Q-6.
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Players started with 3 million chips but the antes/blinds started at 100/3000/6000. It does not do any good to start with that many chips if the blinds are going to start that highs. Unless if there was supposed to be something symbolic with those antes and blinds.
So far as I can tell, based on the way they edit the shows, even all these years later, their target audience is people who don’t really know anything about poker. If everyone started with 10k chips as is standard, there would only be 480k chips in play. The final table stacks would be in the 50k range. That just doesn’t sound nearly as impressive as the final table of the main event with chip stacks in the million range. It doesn’t actually matter, of course - you could start everyone off with 500 chips and 1-2 blinds and it’d be practically the same thing (ignoring antes for demonstration) - but even though tournament chips are monopoly money, the goal is still to impress the audience with large numbers.
Maybe someone should come up with a competing tournament series where everyone starts with 10 billion in chips with 50 million chip blinds.
As to the specifics of those two hands, I hope the first guy really did have a straight flush, cause on the broadcast that Russian will look like a fucking ninja.
It’s hard to comment on hands without the feel of the table or how everyone has been playing, but you can find ways to fold second nuts in certain situations. Poker should never be “omg I have quads, that’s massive, call!” automatically. Reading descriptions of the hand, KK is very unlikely there, and the guy is probably just going to call down with a flush there in most situations, and the split boats are gone since the other guy has all the 8s, which leaves JJ and T9s. However, even if you can safely eliminate the hand down to JJ and T9s as a range (and you can never be that sure), it’s still a worthwhile call because JJ shows up more often and certainly by an amount that the pot odds would dictate. I wonder if the guy is already rich, and would rather take the chance to make a historic laydown than he cares about the money. More likely he’s not rich and he’s playing scared.
I don’t think TV was covering the hand, so I don’t we will ever know for sure what Morgan had.
IMO, Morgan would not have over bet the pot and not gone all-in with the straight flush. He would have nearly min-raised and hoped Smirnov came over the top All In. I think Morgan had AT or A9 spades. I think he would have three bet pre-flop with JJ or KK.
Smirnov has recovered quite well and is 12th in chips and Watson is one of the shorter stacks 29th. 37 players left.
Some big names in the top 10 of chip leaders. Hellmuth, Hanson,Esfandiari, Lamb, Sexton, Dwan.
Jean Robert Bellande was supposed to be in this event. Guess he could not raise the cash
John Morgan (the guy who forced Quad 8’s to fold) just donked off most of his chips with the second nut flush draw on a TsTc8c flop. Morgan had Kc-9c. Opponent had T5 off.
he busted on the next hand.
By moving all in with a draw, and not a very good draw, I think it is entirely possible that he did not have the straight flush against the Quad 8’s.
The only thing he has said thus far is “he made the right fold” which is vague IMO. Right fold for who?
You don’t have enough informaton to make these sorts of assumptions. I don’t mean to sound elitist, but at this level the thinking that goes on about these things is entirely different than it is at lower levels. You need more information about players and situations to be able to assume that they’d do something as funky as a min-raise on the river, especially when that would be a strong signal that you wanted to be called - you’d be polarizing yourself into nuts or post oak bluff type territory, the latter being very unlikely given the previous action.
Three betting preflop with JJ or KK is a more reasonable assumption, but if I read it correctly, Dwan was still to act behind him, so he may have been trying to give him the chance to raise. Whether he’d 3 bet or try to limp-reraise here is something you’d have to know more about a person to assume.
ATs/A9s isn’t a bad guess, but what range does he think will pay him off there that makes raising preferable over just calling? What’s the other guy overbetting the pot with? Some weird random hand with an 8 is unlikely, and even then it’d be a check/call situation. Most hands that call at the end beat you. If he’s just got a flush on a paired board, he’d have to have a specific reason to think the other guy would try to snap up a bluff or otherwise call weak.
Lots of hands. I think Morgan could have thought Smirnov might have had a straight or a weaker flush, or even a weak Boat (8-7 or 7-7) (rather than the Quad 8’s).
The way I read Morgan was the last caller pre-flop. He could have been the button and SB and BB still had a chance to act.
FTR, they were not assumptions, I prefaced my post with a IMO.
A part of me wishes Bobby Baldwin still had his afro. A different part of me is happy he’s a little more “modern” when it comes to fashion and style, even if only because he doesn’t have much hair to grow into an afro anymore.
Also, is afro supposed to be capitalized? Firefox seems to think so.
Seat … Chip Count … Player
1 … … 21,700,000 … Guy Laliberté
2 … … 11,350,000 … Brian Rast
3 … … 10,925,000 … Phil Hellmuth
4 … … 39,925,000 … Antonio Esfandiari
5 … … 7,150,000 … Bobby Baldwin
6 … … 37,000,000 … Sam Trickett
7 … … 7,475,000 … Richard Yong
8 … … 8,375,000 … David Einhorn
“Nearly live” coverage on ESPN2 at 4 pm today and 8 pm on ESPN today (ET). I expect to see Hellmuth throw some fits at the final table with Esfandiari (and his big stack) right behind him. Hellmuth and Antonio have some history on Poker After Dark.