Comments on episode #6 WSOP 2003

[Easy E]

Nice opening shot of Phil Ivey yawning- you getting bored watching, Phil?

Some strange play, at least to me, in this episode. Maybe it's a function of the missed hands (and possible order changes, given ESPN's history.... one hopes that the final table is in cronological order, if not in exact hand order)

1) First, Sam Farha opens with AdJd, David Grey calls with Q9off... and NO ONE bets the 8-high flop? I was also surprised after Sam bet the Ace turn that David allowed the Q on the river to suck him into calling.


2) Next questionable play- Sammie has 22, makes it 60K, Lester calls with 77, Dan Harrington comes over the top with 200K more holding KK. Sammie smartly folds (though the 2 on the flop must have been a knife in the guts), and Jason L CALLS?

Flop comes 2d9cJh (tough break, Sam!) and Jason goes ALL-IN in FRONT of Dan?

Someone explain the thinking here. Jason sees Dan, a known tight/conservative player (if the announcers are to be believed- based on Dan's play during the shows, I think they were right) come over the top of a caller AND a loose dangerous player who could have a lot of hands. What is Jason putting Dan on, at this point? Overcards? Specifically AK? Does he really think that Dan Harrington is putting a fair portion of his stack in play without a big pair here?
He must have assumed (or hoped, more likely?) that Dan had AK, when the two overcards flopped and he decided to go all-in into Dan.
I don't know what Jason's chip count was, but it seemed a less-than-optimal analysis process was behind it. It should be obvious, shouldn't it, that his bet represents a "please don't call me" which Dan won't, unless he beats him. Would a smaller bet into Dan do just as good, or does putting Dan all-in wield that much clout?

3) I noticed a lot of the opening raises, at least early on, were 60K. Is there something special about that number at the final table, or were raisers just trying to keep people from thinking too much, and just calling instead?

4) Sam Farha opens for 100K with AcQs, Chris Moneymaker calls with 8c6c. Flop is AsKd7c, both check. Turn is 5d, Chris bets his open-ender (and representing a flush draw?), Sammie raises 300K and Chris calls?!? Is he going to make money if he hits on the river, against Sam F?
The river is Ad, Chris bets 400k to represent the flush. Isn't that amount the wrong amount here? I was thinking it would have to be more, unless that also would be seen as a bluff? At what percentage of Sam's stack (or Chris's) does this bluff carry enough weight to be credible?

5) CM bets 44, 100K.... A Vahedi goes all-in with AQoff. Chris doesn't read AV for the same play that Dutch makes earlier? Or it's worth going all-in on a pair, but not doubling someone else up? I wasn't sure how to interpret his fold, given that he'd gone all-in earlier in the tournament (we all remember that)

6) *#$)(*#$( time lapse- Sammie went from 3.2M to 2.5M during the commercial break and we have no clue how he went through 20% of his stack...

7) Sammie opens with 80K on A5off, Vahedi calls with 6h4h? Over 10% of his stack? AQ9 flops and Vahedi goes all in?!? How could he think that Sam didn't have part of this flop, given the number of Ace-x hands that Sammie showed down on television? Were there a lot of crazy plays by Sammie that we missed?
I also think that, whatever AV said to Sam Farha, he convinced Sam to call and bust him out.

FINAL SQUAWKS FOR PART I OF FINAL TABLE
While we didn't get to see a lot of poker played, some of that poker was very head-scratching... unless some of y'all clear up my ignorance.

[sweetjazz]

Interesting comments. Just a clarification:

1) One the first hand (Sammy's AJ vs. David's Q9), they both checked after the turn. Sammy bet after the river came up, so David must have felt that there was a good enough chance Sammy had completely blanked and was trying to represent queens on the end.

And a comment on Chris' 4s:

5) Moneymaker's decision to lay down the 4s was before the flop. Unless Vahidi went all in with a deuce or trey in his hand (very unlikely, though not impossible I suppose given his later play /images/graemlins/wink.gif ), Moneymaker was at best a slight favorite. And he could have been a huge dog if Vahidi had an overpair. So this was a no-brainer, in my opinion. As chip leader, he had no need to gamble and play marginal hands.

Against Dutch Boyd, the all-in bet came after the flop. Now Moneymaker is a big favorite (~75%) if Boyd has two high cards. Thus calling the bet could be right if you were reasonably confident in your read. Whether he actually had a read on him or merely thought he did and was fortunate that Boyd had the hand that he put him on -- that beats me. Also, if he was playing to win the entire tournament, this chance to double up moved him from a good chip position to overall chip leader at that point. He may reasonably have felt that this hand would offer him his best chance to double up.

So, from my vantage point, Moneymaker's too low pair hands were very different other than what he happened to have as his hole cards.

[MaxPower]

The thing that confused me the most was that the dealers were wearing green visors. Outside of bad movies, I've never seen a poker dealer wear one of those and I've never seen them at the Horseshoe. Something tells me it was ESPNs idea.

Also, were Sam Farha and Ben Gazarra seperated at birth?

[Wake up CALL]

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Also, were Sam Farha and Ben Gazarra seperated at birth?

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Ben Gazarra was born on August 28th, 1930 in Ny,NY. I believe that Sam Farha is much younger was born in Gedidet, Lebanon, is of Syrian decent and immigrated to Kansas so you are correct, they were seperated when born. /images/graemlins/smile.gif I believe Sam now lives in Houston, TX.

[CrackerZack]

Another play I wasn't sure about, but is probably more a function of me not understading NL, but when Vahedi got smacked by AK vs KJ, when he put Lester all-in, Lester was so pot committed that there is no way he would fold that raise. Now if he puts him on AQ or AT or something which seems reasonable since 2 Ks and 2 Js are accounted for to him, that could make sense, but after calling the open, I would think a big raise on the flop would make more sense. If he calls, you have 2 pair, if he folds, you have a nice pot anyway. This could be my misuderstanding of NL though.

#5 I thought was a very smart play, he's either a small favorite or a big dog, why double a very short stack up?

#7 I don't like the play at all, but if Sammy doesn't have an ace, I don't think he calls and doubles up Amir so I don't think its terrible. Ill advised PF call though unless he planned to bluff at the pot no matter what on the flop.

[Rushmore]

Y'know, the one thing that all this tells us is this:

There's hope for us all.

Because some of these plays are just plain abysmal:

I mean, Jason Lester is clearly a player, yet he turns around and makes that play with pocket SEVENS against DAN FRICKIN HARRINGTON??! What?! It's a pair of sevens. Fold your hand preflop to the reraise, or at worst muck it when you don't flop to it. Good lord, the chances of DH having an overpair here are just too great.

What the hell is MM thinking about calling a big preflop bet with 8/6s? Then he compounds the mistake by playing it, well, badly. Calling $300K on the turn is inexcusable. I won't go too far into why, because it should be pretty obvious to anyone reading this.

Lastly, Vahedi decides to just give his entire stack to Farha. Isn't there some rule against passing chips at the WSOP? Because that's what it amounts to. "You know what? I'm tired, and I've done better than I thought I would, so I think I'll just give this guy all of my chips. I realize that now is the PERFECT time to get out of the tournament, because if I'm called (which I'm likely to be, based on any number of factors), I have no outs. If he mucks, well, I guess I can just give them to someone else later, OK? Great..."

I know. I'm just some schmuck at a poker forum, yapping about how I would have done this, or would NOT have done that, and what the hell do I know, these guys are top professionals, and yadda yadda blah blah blech ad infinitum.

Bollocks. They make bad plays. Call them bad plays. Take solace in the fact that there's hope for those of us who are at the very least capable of making this assessment.

OK. I've said too much. Where's the low-limit holdem section? Can I get a comp to the noodle bar?

[MaxPower]

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Also, were Sam Farha and Ben Gazarra seperated at birth?

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Ben Gazarra was born on August 28th, 1930 in Ny,NY.


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I hope you looked that up.

Actually, according to the IMDB, in "If It's Tuesday, This Must be Belgium," Ben Gazarra played the role of Card Player. Hmmm.