Dewey's All In strategy

[rbenuck4]

OK, just finished watching the WPT Bellagio, and when it got down to two people (Paul Phillips and Dewey Tomko), Paul had a huge chip lead. He had somewhere around 5 million and dewey had under a million. At this point, Dewey employed a strategy where every hand he went all in on. No matter what two cards he got dealt, and no matter what Paul did prior to his action, Dewey just pushed his chips in. My questions are as follows.

First of all, was he really going all in every hand, or was it that the Travel Channel happened to show only the hands that he went in with?

Second, do you think this was a good strategy?

Things to consider. Paul was extremely aggressive and loose throughout the final table, whereas Dewey was much tighter and picked his spots. Therefore, Paul would've probably put a lot of pressure on him if Dewey tried to see flops cheaply. Second, was Dewey was so short on chips that he couldn't make a legitamite raise unless it was for all his chips? Finally, I've been told that when you think you are the weaker player, you should be willing to shove your chips in and let lady luck carry everything else out, cause you won't outplay the better player after the flop. Do you think that Dewey considered himself a weaker player (I don't think Dewey was the weaker player)?

[Nottom]

The question I have is whether Dewey would have continued his strategy had he won the K8 vs 77 hand.

[flopdanutz]

From what I saw on TV it seemed like PP is able to fold a decent hand heads up if the other player pushes in. In the hand where PP raised preflop (with J8), thinking about folding the hand to an allin (by Dewey with 99) shows weakness. Dewey must have been upset that PP did not call and must have asked himself, "If he is unable to fold the hand he just had with a large pot then what is he confident playing?" Probably only pocket pairs and Ace cards. With PP playing so few hands all he has to do is push him around and wait for the right time to switch gears to avoid traps or to trap PP.

IMHO Dewey knew PP did not want to double him up and took advantage of it. Also IMHO it is hard to outplay a decent player who has a huge chip lead and is patient.

[Rushmore]

When you've got Dewey Tomko outchipped 5-1, and he plays back at you when you're holding J8, I think a solid player folds. I think maintaining a 5-1 chip position is much more important than the 100K you just put in.

Pot odds might state differently, but I think solid tournament strategy likes this fold.

[Rushmore]

I'm quite confident he would NOT have. I'm pretty sure his thinking was that it was OK to jeopardize his tournament with raggedy hands in the interest of doubling up, and that he could then outplay his opponent.

But Phillips was playing well. I don't know that Tomko's superiority is exactly a given.

[LargeCents]

I think the final heads-up showdown was played perfectly by both players. None of these hands were hard decisions. The main issue at stake was the stack sizes. The only way Dewey could dig himself out of the 5-1 hole was to double-up. The only good way to double-up was to go all-in preflop. All of Dewey's hands were good enough to try this tactic. From Philips' perspective, he wants to avoid allowing Dewey to double-up at all costs. The Q, 10 suited was an excellent fold, only because allowing Dewey to double-up would have been such a disaster. In fact, the last hand could have went either way. I'd have liked to see Dewey double up on that one, and then we'd have an interesting situation. The strategies would change completely being down only 2-1. I guarantee Dewey wouldn't be quite as reckless with his chips. But, being down 5-1, heads-up, against any professional has got to be near impossible odds.

[Sarge85]

Curious - and I'm surprised no one has mentioned it yet.

Hoyt used the exact same "any two will do" all-in strategy last week to put preasure on the short stack.

What's the difference? How can you do the same thing with such different relative chip positions?

Much more playin the man than playin the cards i suppose.

Sarge /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

[CrisBrown]

Hi Sarge,

I think Paul Phillips had great respect for Dewey Tomko's ability, and didn't want to risk doubling him up. Yes, he might have picked up a big pot here and there by pushing in -- and if you watched the stack sizes, apparently he did, because Dewey hovered around 1.2M for several hands -- but in the end, he knew that sooner or later he'd have to have a hand when Dewey moved in, and when that happened, he would end it.

Cris

[rtucker5]

I believe Dewey was pushing all in so much to try and double up. My feeling was that if he doubled up once he would have enough chips to play with Paul. Without doubling up, he was too shortstacked to doing anything.

[TimTimSalabim]

It was a great strategy, in that situation. They said the blinds and antes added up to 170k, so Dewey was significantly increasing his stack each time, and at the same time, giving himself a chance to double up if called. Even the K8 v 77 gave him an almost even money chance to double up, which I think at that point would have brought him close to even with the other guy, and at that point I'm sure he would have shifted to a more conservative strategy. Dewey's a smart guy.

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
It was a great strategy, in that situation. They said the blinds and antes added up to 170k, so Dewey was significantly increasing his stack each time, and at the same time, giving himself a chance to double up if called. Even the K8 v 77 gave him an almost even money chance to double up, which I think at that point would have brought him close to even with the other guy, and at that point I'm sure he would have shifted to a more conservative strategy. Dewey's a smart guy.

[/ QUOTE ]

He was only adding 85K to his stack each time he did that cute move, hardly a drop in comparison to the result if he doubles up or loses. Remember half of the 170K was his to start with. He was still outchipped by a large margin on the final hand.

[J.R.]

Uh, once you put out the blinds they are no longer yours, you have to win them or the other guy gets them in a a headsup match.

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
Uh, once you put out the blinds they are no longer yours, you have to win them or the other guy gets them in a a headsup match.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree but how does this change what I wrote here: [ QUOTE ]
He was only adding 85K to his stack each time he did that cute move, hardly a drop in comparison to the result if he doubles up or loses.

[/ QUOTE ] in response to this here: [ QUOTE ]
It was a great strategy, in that situation. They said the blinds and antes added up to 170k, so Dewey was significantly increasing his stack each time,...

[/ QUOTE ]

In case you missed my point in an attempt to nit-pick an imaginary faux paux it was that the gain in stealing the blinds and antes was not at all significant when compared to the chance of being called by a dominating hand and going bust.

[J.R.]

Final table chip counts from pokerpages

Paul Phillips 1,220,000

Abraham Mosseri 1,374,000

Gus Hansen 1,484,000

Dewey Tomko 767,000

Tino Lechich 811,000

Mel Judah 665,000

Roughly 6 million in chips. With a 5-1 edge, Paul had about 5 million and Dewey had about one million. The 170,000 in antes and blinds each hand is roughly 1/6th, or a little more than 15% of Dewey's stack. Any preflop raise Dewey makes more or less renders him pot stuck, so he goes allin in the first place to put maximum pressure on Paul Phillips.

Either Dewey wins and doubles up, loses and is out or wins uncontested and adds 15% to his stack (some of which has to come right back out to cover the next round of blinds and antes so the marginal increase is less than 170,000 but if Dewey folds preflop he still has to post the blind and ante so he is still roughly 170,000 ahead by winning the blinds than he is by folding preflop after posting the next round of blinds). Yes, its not always a marginal gain of 85,000 because the small and big blinds rotate, but its not nitpicking to point out that the blinds and antes were about 1/6th of Deweys stack, which is a significant amount.

[Wake up CALL]

Good post JR, yes the percentage gain to Dewey's stack was not marginal but the gain compared to all the chips left in play was, which is all that is significant in this instance. So Dewey increases his stack by 15%, so what? My two points were that the increase was insignificant in two ways:

1) The percentage of increase compared to all outstanding chips
2) How this small increase would affect his chances of winning an all-in confrontation. (pretty negligible)

[jdl22]

Was anybody at this event to see the final table? My guess is that Dewey was not going all-in every single hand. The main reason I suspect this is that when PP had the QTs he said something like "I dominate half of what you could have but the other half dominates my hand." Since QTs is a monster compared to any random hand it seems that he must not have seen Dewey go all-in every time. Maybe he did it half the time or so but given the reaction to his all-ins and this comment it seems like maybe they just edited it to seem that way.

[cferejohn]

Dewey did not go all-in every hand. They just showed us the ones where he did. If you watch the chip counts between these hands, its pretty obvious that Phillips is getting some of his chips back somehow or another.

That said, he was clearly going all-in quite often. The only total trash hand he did it with was the 53s.

Dewey had roughly 10x the BB, and that's all-in or fold territory, especially against an aggressive opponent who has you outchipped (i.e. you don't really want to play a flop with him after you've already put in 1/3 of your stack). If I was in Dewey's place, I'd stick to all-in/fold until I either busted or got to ~2 million chips. Perhaps this was his plan, perhaps not, but I definitely liked his short-stack heads up strategy here (it was probably particularly effective early since he had been ultra-tight up to that point, having shown down AK and umm, some high pocket pair I think).

Dan Harrington has a rep for getting similarly maniacal when down to 2 or 3 players (which can throw people because he is largely quite conservative up 'til then).

[Army Eye]

[ QUOTE ]
Hoyt used the exact same "any two will do" all-in strategy last week to put preasure on the short stack.

What's the difference? How can you do the same thing with such different relative chip positions?


[/ QUOTE ]

I think the difference is, Hoyt's strategy sucked. Letting the short stack have the total freedom of choosing when to try and double up seems like the absolute worst way to go about things to me. And just to win the blinds?? He won but he did needlessly double up Mohamed a couple times.

[brassnuts]

I think Dewey was doing about all he could do in that situation. If he had doubled up, he woulda been about 2:1 if not a little better. I actually might have put him as a slight favorite here.

Also, Phillips was, IMO, a little too happy with 77. I mean, yeah its a pair, but it's not that great. As it was, it was close to a coinflip.

[Stew]

[ QUOTE ]
I think Dewey was doing about all he could do in that situation. If he had doubled up, he woulda been about 2:1 if not a little better. I actually might have put him as a slight favorite here.

Also, Phillips was, IMO, a little too happy with 77. I mean, yeah its a pair, but it's not that great. As it was, it was close to a coinflip.

[/ QUOTE ]

What? A pair head to head is a monster, omg. Especially against a guy who has gone all-in several times in a row, you have to call, just to try to put a stop to it at the very least.

[TwoNiner]

He definitely had seen Dewey go in with one of his cards below 7 before, so yeah I would let the 7's play.

[Nottom]

Actually, he hadn't seen Dewey go all-in with anything because he hadn't called yet and Dewey certainly hadn't been showing.

[brassnuts]

I'm sorry if I gave away the wrong impression. I definately would have called too. His reaction was just really little over joyous, because there was a decent chance that he was still just slightly above 50% to win, which he was.

[tewall]

I didn't realize the blinds were that high at that point.

15% is a very large chunk of your stack. Assuming his odds of winning the tournament are in proportion to the number of chips he has, each time it goes all-in fold, he is significantly improving his chances of winning.

[tewall]

It depends on the pair. A pair of 7's is pretty good, about a 2 to 1 favorite against a random hand. A pair of 2's is only 50/50.

[tewall]

There was no way Dewey could double up in that situation because there was only a couple of minutes left of the show.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
There was no way Dewey could double up in that situation because there was only a couple of minutes left of the show.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yet another reason I love Tivo.