Dan Harrington play with the 99

[Easy E]

Anyone else thing that Dan should have raised Mattis with his 9's boat on the turn, when the flush came, rather than wait until the river when it was too late?
Or was Mattis' turn bet too small to expect him to call any significant raise?

[JARID]

I thought about that too, but Mattias probably folds the minute Dan raises no matter what, so perhaps better to see if he will take another stab on it at the river. Or, if checked to on the river he could bet fully expecting Mattias to call.

-Jarid

[Cleveland Guy]

I think this is a classic case of too little information on an isolated hand.

We all know that Dan is super tight, but what was Mattias image? He seems to be a bit of a risk taker, and might have been pushing a guy like Dan around a lot.

Without knowing the previous hands, and what led up to this hand I think it's tough to say. I think the bet on the river was begging for a call from someone who had a King.

[West]

It's not often that you flop a hand that has your opponents likely to be drawing so dead, so when you do, and you have an opponent betting in to you, becoming a calling station gives your opponenent the maximum opportunity to give you chips - one raise and the party could be over. The flush card/overcard on the turn makes the board extra scary - Harrington knows that a lot of hands Mattias could have liked on the flop he will now likely fold to a raise on the turn. He's got to give him a chance to bet the river. He knows that Mattias has two outs at most, if he has any (unless by some miracle he is holding KK or 22), and could even be drawing to a 4 card flush. As it turned out, what if a 6 came off on the river?

[SpeakEasy]

I think waiting for the river to raise was smart. But here’s something I’ve wondered about Dan’s play on the end...

On the river, Andersson bets. Harrington thinks for a bit. As I’m watching, I’m thinking that Dan’s thinking: “What raise will this kid call? Options:

A. Minimum raise. He’s most likely to call the smallest possible raise, because it’s the cheapest.

B. 2-3x raise. If I make the minimum raise, it looks too much like a call, so I have to raise 2x or 3x his bet.

C. Big raise, like half the pot or more. Might look like I have a low pocket pair and I’m trying to overplay my second-best hand.”

So Dan pushes all-in. Maybe his all-in raise was equal to option B or C -- ESPN doesn’t give such trivial information... I wish Dan would post on here and tell us about his thinking on this final bet.

Anyone know how the size of the final bet compared to the pot and Andersson’s final bet?

[West]

Don't know what the amount was on the end. Sometimes a situation may be such that you're trying to figure out how much you can value bet and get called. But sometimes an additional consideration is that you don't want opponents to be able to distinguish between a bluff and a value bet by virtue of the fact that you aren't likely or as likely, to go all in a particular situation (or bet it too strongly) if you aren't bluffing. I think there's also a benefit to putting your opponents to a tough decision whenever possible - let's them know they can expect you to do that to them, and thus, maybe they'd be better off messing with somebody else. The cost to that approach of course is the chips you don't get when a smaller bet would have received a call.

Of course as it so happened to be in that particular situation, Mattias wasn't likely to call any raise there. But if he had been holding flush cards, and had made a flush on the turn, he may have called anything on the river.

[SpeakEasy]

[ QUOTE ]
But sometimes an additional consideration is that you don't want opponents to be able to distinguish between a bluff and a value bet by virtue of the fact that you aren't likely or as likely, to go all in a particular situation (or bet it too strongly) if you aren't bluffing.

[/ QUOTE ]

This sentence made my head spin.

I think I see what you're saying, but I'd still like to know what Dan's thought process was. From what we've seen, Harrington is the last person in the tournament that needs to build an image. So, it seems like Goal #1 here would have been to get as many chips as possible from the kid because he had a nearly absolute lock on the hand (could still lose to quad 2s). Wouldn't a smaller bet -- anything less than all-in -- have been more likely to induce a call?