Last hand in Aruba. Did Brenes play right?

[Smoothcall]

Last hand on the Aruba tournament. Blinds were 50-100k i believe. Layne raised with 99's up to something like 460k. Brenes moves in with pocket 22's. Is Eric's play good or bad?

[Michael Davis]

Not enough info. If there's any chance Flack has enough chips to warrant a fold sometimes, then yeah good play. If he doesn't, calling and pushing the flop might be better.

-Michael

[Sluss]

I believe they each had 4M behind with Brenes only having Lane outchipped by a few chips.

It did seem like Brenes did not want to see a flop vs. Lane. It might just be because that was the way it was edited. Seemed like his strategy was to wait for a big hand and push. So it was probably a re-steal that he figured he had big FE on and would be coinflipping if Lane woke up with a hand.

[zaxx19]

[ QUOTE ]
It did seem like Brenes did not want to see a flop vs. Lane.

[/ QUOTE ]


Lane Flack is arguably the best NLH player in the world(when he is on his game), I think this was a smart line. By line I mean forcing the issue preflop, not necessarily this hand.

[Rianna]

That's an easy one..terrible play because it was for 1/2 million dollars.

Horrible spot to make a move, rediculious with same chip stack roughly.

One of THE worst plays I've seen for that kind of money. He tried to give Lane $500,000 and couldn't.

Sorry Lane he's not in your league IMHO, horrible beat head up.

[zaxx19]

I doubt even Brenes thinks he is in Lane's league.

He mentioned in his interview that he plays "occasionally".

[TheJackal]

Bad push, if you get called you are in deep trouble. I don't know what hands he was hoping layne would fold, but to me when someone makes a massive raise/re-raise preflop or even on the flop, its usually means they don't want to be called (massive, not standard if you know what I mean).

[RowdyZ]

[ QUOTE ]
Last hand on the Aruba tournament. Blinds were 50-100k i believe. Layne raised with 99's up to something like 460k. Brenes moves in with pocket 22's. Is Eric's play good or bad?

[/ QUOTE ]

Eric's play here is great nothing wrong at all. Now Brenes pushing with pocket 2's.. thats another question.
At Best Brenes is a coin flip againist 2 overs at worst he is a huge dog to another pair I think wait for another spot. IF he was short stacked and the blinds were pushing him yeah it would be a good play but from what I have read in this thread that wasn't case.

[zaxx19]

Im sorry Jackal I hope you dont think I liked the move I did not.

I was just speaking generally, about his strategy HU...didnt seem like he wanted to get into post flop play very much, and in his place I would play similiarly.(though not that specific hand).

[Smoothcall]

While i like your style of play, as i play similarly. But being 22's may be too small. You can make a justification of pushing with a ton of hands if you can move with 22's. But i think its close because Layne raises alot. And brenes will be outplayed if he just keeps taking flops with Layne. So my answer is if your the better player it is a bad play to move there as you can find a better spot than this. If you are the worse its closer. They were both close to even in chips i believe.

[Smoothcall]

Agreed.

[Smoothcall]

I think your being a little hard on him here. He's playing headup and has a pair. While i think there are better spots, iv'e seen much worse plays. He could have been Mike mattusow and have 85 off.

[Smoothcall]

He is hoping Layne is on a typical steal raise and mucks his hand and he can pick up the 500k plus pot.

[Smoothcall]

E.Brenes also won a tourney at the hard rock in vegas main event with the big boys. It was small entries compared to other big events but he still beat alot of the best players there too. Not saying he's great but might be little better than they made him look on tv. His brother's are pretty good players who probably have taught him a winning strategy.

[Rushmore]

On its face, it's not a great play, because it really looks like he's over-valuing his deuces.

On further examination, I like it more and more for the following reasons:

His fold equity HAS to be higher than it would be against virtually any other player for two reasons: Flack is more likely to be speeding, and Flack might be more likely to lay down a marginally-callable hand, believing himself very able to outplay Brenes (and Brenes should know this).

The other reason should be obvious enough: Brenes shouldn't want to be trading jabs with Flack, he should be closing his eyes real tight and throwing big roundhouse punches in the hope of connecting, which is exactly what happened.

The best player does not always win, obviously, but if Brenes made his play for the reasons above, he is a better player than I gave him credit for.

If he made the play because "Hey! I have a pair!!" or "It's my lucky hand!!" then he's JUST a luckbox, and I guess God loves a luckbox.

[drewjustdrew]

One thing I don't like about the play is that this isn't the first time he reraised all-in preflop against Layne when they got heads up. If Layne gets suspicious that he is going to see a lot of this behavior, that opens up the number of hands he will be willing to call with. Granted, Brenes will be the favorite in a lot of those cases, but probably not worth the risk.

[riffraff]

I think the point is that there is virtualy no hand Flack can have where Brenes is a favorite. Other than an ace-duece or King-deuce it's either a 4.5-1 dog or 50/50. With equal chip stacks this is a pretty bad move.

[drewjustdrew]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the point is that there is virtualy no hand Flack can have where Brenes is a favorite. Other than an ace-duece or King-deuce it's either a 4.5-1 dog or 50/50. With equal chip stacks this is a pretty bad move.

[/ QUOTE ]

The point really is, he PROBABLY (not actually) isn't a huge dog if called and it is likely that Layne will fold more often than call.

[willie]

it was awful it's pocket douches for crissakes.


at best he's a coinflip if called


i really really don't like this play.

edit- meh

the push is ok, but i kind of think he was overanxious with a pair. that said he is up against one of the best nl players in the world, out of position with 22.

[Goodie54]

But can layne call if he doesn't have a legitimate hand? Even if he thinks that Brenes doesn't want to be called, he still can't call with something like 10 7 or K 6.

It was a good push, Layne just woke up with a hand.

Peace

Goodie

[SossMan]

I can't believe this thread has gotten this long without anyone putting Layne on a range of both opening and calling hands. On the face of it, it looks like the chip stacks were a little deep to be making this move, but it's probably fairly close if there is a big difference in skill level postflop.

What is layne calling with? Is he laying down AQ or AJs there? He instacalled with 99, does he lay down 55 or even 66? Probably. We should attempt to answer these questions before simply writing off Brenes' play as fishy.

-sossman

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
out of position with 22.

[/ QUOTE ]

well, his play pretty much negated his positional disadvantage, huh?

[Dynasty]

The real mistake in this hand was Flack's call with 99. Why the hell would Flack want to put his whole tournament on the line with a pocket pair that could be up against any of five overcards. Flack should know better than to risk his tournamnent in a possible 50/50 situation when he's so much a better player than his opponent.

What we saw of Flack's play heads-up was very poor. He should have known not to pay off Brenes' trip Aces. And, then he was putting in significant pre-flop raises with one junky hand (86o?) and 99 when he couldn't withstand a big reraise.


As far as Brenes goes, his all-in reraise with 22 is just as good as the one he made with KQs. Flack is going to fold in a pot Flack made big unless Flack's got a big hand or decideds to gamble against a weaker oppponent.

[SossMan]

If you put Brenes' range of pushing hands at something like:
AA-22, AK-AT, A9s-A6s, KQ, KJs
then the call is a no brainer.
5*6 = 30 combos of overpairs (80% dog)
8*6 = 48 combos of underpairs (80% fav)
5*16 + 4 (KJs) = 84 combos of overcards (55% fav)
A9s = 1 (70% fav)
3*4 = 12 combos of suited aces w/ kicker < 9. (70% fav)

175 total combos
17% of the time he is a 20% fav = 3.4% equity
27% of the time he is a 80% fav = 21.6% equity
48% of the time he is a 55% fav = 26.4% equity
7% of the time he is a 70% fav = 4.9% equity

that's a total of 56.3% equity vs. that relatively tight range of hands.

if the stacks are t4m each and the blinds were 50k/100k and LF made it t460k to go and AB pushed for 4m total, layne was getting 4,460,000:3,540,000 about 1.26 meaning he only needed about 44% equity to make calling correct from a chip EV perspective.

Now, there may very well be some other factors that could push it one way or another:
how many hands Alex was pushing that we didn't see
how much control layne felt that he had postflop over alex
how often layne was raising on the button heads up (this would widen the range of hands that alex would push with)

it's my gut feeling that Layne was likely raising nearly every hand on the button, so he needed to loosen up his calling if alex had been pushing back. The way that he instacalled made me think that he thought that alex put him on two cards.

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
If you put Brenes' range of pushing hands at something like:
AA-22, AK-AT, A9s-A6s, KQ, KJs
then the call is a no brainer.

that's a total of 56.3% equity vs. that relatively tight range of hands.


[/ QUOTE ]

It's not a no-brainer simply because your equity is > 50%. If Flack avoided these confrontations completely, don't you think he would win this heads-up match more than 56.3% of the time?

Flack's call is a mistake becasue even if he stumbles into a 4:1 advantage like he did, it still may not be an improvement for him.

With even and deep stacks, if Flack doesn't get into pre-flop all-in situations, do you think he can beat Brenes more than 81% of the time? I think he just might be able to do it.

So, why is he taking any big risks at all?

[Beavis68]

Erick and Brennes are the same person.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Last hand on the Aruba tournament. Blinds were 50-100k i believe. Layne raised with 99's up to something like 460k. Brenes moves in with pocket 22's. Is Eric's play good or bad?

[/ QUOTE ]

Eric's play here is great nothing wrong at all. Now Brenes pushing with pocket 2's.. thats another question.
At Best Brenes is a coin flip againist 2 overs at worst he is a huge dog to another pair I think wait for another spot. IF he was short stacked and the blinds were pushing him yeah it would be a good play but from what I have read in this thread that wasn't case.


[/ QUOTE ]

[J.Brown]

Dynasty,

Normally I agree with you, but you are a touch off on this one. I talked to Layne in length about this play and this hand and especially the hands that weren't shown.

Did you forget about all of those, they are the ones that really show the flow of play. Layne felt like he set this play up and "knew" that he was a big fave in this hand, not flipping a coin, of course he could of been wrong, but he wasn't, was he??

No one, as Fossilman and Paul Phillips have repeatedly pointed out, can turn down 4.5 to 1 and hope to win a tournament. I don't think that Layne is that big of favorite heads up to be turning down the spot he got his money in, but I didn't ask him that.

A small aside that adds some validity to my point, did you see how he turned his hand over after he instantly called the all in? He even looked a 100% sure that he was in a dominating position..........and he was. Just my 2 cents.

cheers. J.Brown

[Vince Lepore]

I haven't read anyone elses post. Brenes's play was his typical play. He played like this during the entire final table. I personally think that he wagered his chips on what was at best a coin toss and at worse a 4 to 1 dog (as it turned outhe was a 4 to 1 dog). The blinds were not very high considereing his stack size so I think he should have waited for a better situation to move all of his chips in. The bottom line, however, is this "if it ain't broke don't fix it". Playing very (overly in some instances) aggressive got him heads uo so why should he change now. If he had tried to spar with Flack I believe Flack would have eaten him up.. It is usually to the weker players advantage to take the play away from the more experienced and stronger player. Brenes's move-in did just that.

Vince

[Sluss]

[ QUOTE ]
The real mistake in this hand was Flack's call with 99. Why the hell would Flack want to put his whole tournament on the line with a pocket pair that could be up against any of five overcards.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's say the 5 out of the last seven times Layne opened up on the button Brenes pushed. Would that change your opinion?

[Vince Lepore]

Dynasty,

Your position is right in line with the way I viewed Flack's play when I first saw the hand. The problem is that somewhere Flack has to make a call like this, else he will find himself in a move in contest with no or little edge. Brene's through his play said to Flack " Hey if you want to beat me come and get me. And this is how I'm playing the rest of the tournament." If Brenes tries to Spar with Flack, I believe Flack will destroy him. So it is to his Brenes' advantage to move in on close situations. Flack found himself in a situation with what figured to be the best hand and could very well be a huge favorite. Consequently, even though I don't think it's a slam dunk call, I believe that Flack made the correct play by calling.

Vince

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
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The real mistake in this hand was Flack's call with 99. Why the hell would Flack want to put his whole tournament on the line with a pocket pair that could be up against any of five overcards.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's say the 5 out of the last seven times Layne opened up on the button Brenes pushed. Would that change your opinion?

[/ QUOTE ]

My opinion is part of an overall criticism of Flack's play. Flack shouldn't be making such large open-raises on the button with hands like 86o (or whaterver it was earlier) becasue it forces Brenes to move in with stuff like KQs. Then Flack feels compelled to call with 99.

Flack shouldn't want to create situations where he's got 99 and Brenes is deciding push all-in with KQs. Flack needs to keep the pots manageable and avoid these big confrontation.

[willie]

that was what i was clarifying with my edit


he had a pair, and probably did not want to try to play the hand postflop out of position, hence his push


i still kinda hate it, a lot though.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
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The real mistake in this hand was Flack's call with 99. Why the hell would Flack want to put his whole tournament on the line with a pocket pair that could be up against any of five overcards.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's say the 5 out of the last seven times Layne opened up on the button Brenes pushed. Would that change your opinion?

[/ QUOTE ]

My opinion is part of an overall criticism of Flack's play. Flack shouldn't be making such large open-raises on the button with hands like 86o (or whaterver it was earlier) becasue it forces Brenes to move in with stuff like KQs. Then Flack feels compelled to call with 99.

Flack shouldn't want to create situations where he's got 99 and Brenes is deciding push all-in with KQs. Flack needs to keep the pots manageable and avoid these big confrontation.

[/ QUOTE ]

i agree with you there, but that doesn't make his call bad given the context.
as far as being better than 4:1 to win the heads up match with relatively deep stack (they were only 40x, though, so not that deep), i really doubt it. Even a WCP wouldn't win more than like 60 or 70% vs. a competent player (which brenes is).

Your point about Layne playing a different style vs. this opponent is well taken though...i'm just not sure that layne has a brake, and we know that he certainly has the gas petal working.

[gergery]

[quote The real mistake in this hand was Flack's call with 99. Why the hell would Flack want to put his whole tournament on the line with a pocket pair that could be up against any of five overcards.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think getting his opponent to put all his chips in as a 4:1 dog is HOW Flack outplays his opponent. Even being a 7:3 favorite vs. a A3 type hand is probably just fine with him. He presumably manipulated Brenes thru the prior series of hands to get to this point.

[ QUOTE ]
Flack shouldn't want to create situations where he's got 99 and Brenes is deciding push all-in with KQs. Flack needs to keep the pots manageable and avoid these big confrontation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed, but that is differnet than the 99 call being wrong. And Brenes may have been trying to minimize that via his pushing.

--Greg

[MicroBob]

mostly agreed with dynasty.

if the stacks are still relatively deep (as I believe they were) he should be sharp enough to slow down.



As I recall....he had a big chip-lead over Jerry Buss in season 1 and was still smart enough to slow-down (don't remember it to clearly though).

With almost 50/50 in chips against Brenes why does he need to take so many chances?


Sexton's comments on Brenes NOT wanting to drag it out too long were pretty valid.

[bobby rooney]

Heads up pocket 99 is a MONSTER, after putting in a huge raise, there is no way he could fold 99.

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
Heads up pocket 99 is a MONSTER, after putting in a huge raise, there is no way he could fold 99.

[/ QUOTE ]

A good analysis above said 99 should expect to have about 56% equity. That's not even close to a MONSTER.

[Rianna]

I thought Brennes played a fine tourney EXCEPT for those two hands:

Went over the top against Mike up front with an 8 6 and hit a 5 outer to survive.

the 22 hand against Lane. He was TRYING to give at least $250,000 away and couldn't IMHO. Terrible place to go all in (the situation).

those two hands for Sooooo much money ($250,000 and $500,000) were IMO HUGE mistakes that any of the top pros would not make. Both times he had plenty of chips.

Poor Lane, he should clearly have had that Championship IMO.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Heads up pocket 99 is a MONSTER, after putting in a huge raise, there is no way he could fold 99.

[/ QUOTE ]

A good analysis above said 99 should expect to have about 56% equity. That's not even close to a MONSTER.

[/ QUOTE ]

well, having 56% equity getting a 1.25 price to call probably shouldn't be passed upon, but he probably shouldn't have put himself in that spot to begin with.

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]

well, having 56% equity getting a 1.25 price to call probably shouldn't be passed upon,

[/ QUOTE ]

When you're a significantly better player than your opponent, it most certainly should. Why take 56% when you can fold and have a greater than 56% chance of winning the tournament?

[Vince Lepore]

[ QUOTE ]
Why take 56% when you can fold and have a greater than 56% chance of winning the tournament?

[/ QUOTE ]

Even if Flack is a significantly greater favorite to win a prolonged match than %56 he probably should take a chance of winning or losing it all. I believe that Flack has and advantage over Brenes but somewhat less than 11%. This is a no limit holdem tournament and both equal in Chips. In a Heads up NLH Tournament the better players edge can become minimal or even nullified by the weaker player by just moving in. "See the Sklansky System". A %56 edge becomes significant against a Guy Like Brenes that is willing and has shown a propensity to move in.

vince

[Tyler Durden]

[ QUOTE ]
The real mistake in this hand was Flack's call with 99.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm surprised this post has been entertained so heavily.

Layne Flack had a read, went w/ it, turns out to be 100% dead on the money w/ the read, yet he gets faulted for making the call? This statement should be retracted or modified b/c it is laughable in its current state.

[Beavis68]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't believe this thread has gotten this long without anyone putting Layne on a range of both opening and calling hands. On the face of it, it looks like the chip stacks were a little deep to be making this move, but it's probably fairly close if there is a big difference in skill level postflop.

What is layne calling with? Is he laying down AQ or AJs there? He instacalled with 99, does he lay down 55 or even 66? Probably. We should attempt to answer these questions before simply writing off Brenes' play as fishy.

-sossman

[/ QUOTE ]

You forget, this is the WPT forum.

[Voltron87]

I don't think Eric's play is bad as long as he realizes that:

1. 22 is a coinflip/teeny edge with most of Layne's holdings here, and his push holds good FE.

2. That Layne will eat Eric alive if Eric does not start playing preflop poker.

If fact, if Layne is speeding, it's a pretty good move since Layne will fold a lot here since Layne knows he has an edge and will not call what he thinks is a 50 50.




Kind of reminds me of Philips Hanson AQ/TT. Which was on earlier today.

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I can't believe this thread has gotten this long without anyone putting Layne on a range of both opening and calling hands. On the face of it, it looks like the chip stacks were a little deep to be making this move, but it's probably fairly close if there is a big difference in skill level postflop.

What is layne calling with? Is he laying down AQ or AJs there? He instacalled with 99, does he lay down 55 or even 66? Probably. We should attempt to answer these questions before simply writing off Brenes' play as fishy.

-sossman

[/ QUOTE ]

You forget, this is the WPT forum.

[/ QUOTE ]

duh, thanks for reminding me...

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
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The real mistake in this hand was Flack's call with 99.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm surprised this post has been entertained so heavily.

Layne Flack had a read, went w/ it, turns out to be 100% dead on the money w/ the read, yet he gets faulted for making the call? This statement should be retracted or modified b/c it is laughable in its current state.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a crappy argument. Everyone in this thread is being way to results dependant except for dynasty.

Take Brenes's two push hands, the KQ and the 22 and swap them so that Flack folds his trash to the 22 and calls with 99 against the KQ and we aren't even having this discussion.

[Tyler Durden]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The real mistake in this hand was Flack's call with 99.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm surprised this post has been entertained so heavily.

Layne Flack had a read, went w/ it, turns out to be 100% dead on the money w/ the read, yet he gets faulted for making the call? This statement should be retracted or modified b/c it is laughable in its current state.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a crappy argument. Everyone in this thread is being way to results dependant except for dynasty.

Take Brenes's two push hands, the KQ and the 22 and swap them so that Flack folds his trash to the 22 and calls with 99 against the KQ and we aren't even having this discussion.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are times when it's okay to be results oriented. For instance, a time when you have your opp. dead to rights as a 4.5 to 1 favorite. wtf.