WSOP poker event 1 - common mistake

[curtains]

Here is a mistake Ive seen a few times on televised events and I've never yet seen any of the commentators critisize it whatsoever, yet its a terrible error.

I forget his name, but I think it was Nguyen....called preflop against Vogl with J9s...Vogl had 55. Flop was AT6 with 2 clubs. Nguyen was shortstacked and checked and then called when Vogl (big stack) went allin, and then Nguyen called.
Checking is a really terrible mistake, and Nguyen must push allin himself in that situation. Paul Darden made the same mistake in the WPT , heads up vs Bigler in season 1, and ended up having to play a queen high flush draw against Biglers King high, because he didnt bet him off the hand.

[jwvdcw]

If what you're saying is that if you have a marginal hand that is around 50/50 and you plan to call an all in bet, then you should just go all in yourself, then I totally agree.

[B Dids]

I was just thinking that. You HAVE to push there.

[Rushmore]

Obviously, you're right.

I think the problem is that we are all so poker-oriented here that we forget that plays like the one you are talking about, while rudimentary to us, are fairly esoteric to the viewing audience, and probably to the ineffably vacuous Mr. Chad.

Trying to listen to Norman Chad explain the point you are making just doesn't sound like great TV.

Great TV is about pots being contested, draws being chased, and some guy cutting a pickle in half with a winged playing card.

Math and probability just ain't got no sex appeal, baby.

[curtains]

I understand that these commentators don't understand these ideas most likely. My main point is that people who are making it pretty far into tournaments, and even winning them, are making this error a lot.

[Rushmore]

Having gone back and re-watched the play, I suppose you could make an argument that Nguyen intended to check-raise Vogl allin, but that Vogl beat him into the pot, leaving Nguyen the unhappy option of simply calling the allin.

I see your point, but if Nguyen's plan was to move him in with a check-raise, then I suppose it wasn't a "terrible mistake."

It is, of course, possible that he figured the likelihood of Vogl moving in behind him was negligible, yet the likelihood of him betting was very high. If he reads Vogl for a player who can fold a lot of hands to an allin check-raise, and he believes it's very unlikely that Vogl is about to push allin, then the play isn't really all that terrible.

Hmm.

[Ghazban]

I agree that he made a mistake there but, in a 9-hour final table cut down to one hour with commercials, they're really only going to be showing the hands where someone gets knocked out. In this case, he made a mistake that cost him the tournament so of course they'll show it. Had he pushed in and gotten Vogl to fold, the hand wouldn't have made it off the editing room floor.

I guess my point is just that everybody makes playing mistakes from time to time and, when that mistake knocks a person out of the final table, of course that'll be what you see on TV. You see this error a lot because it is a catastrophic one (and is therefore TV-friendly), not necessarily because its that common.

[Michael Davis]

"ineffably vacuous"

What does unspeakably empty mean?

-Michael

[fsuplayer]

I would CR here almost everytime if I thought he would bet. Which the kid was doing everytime we saw him, i dont think he checked more than once.

I am not folding this draw with that stack anyways so I would rather Vogl put more chips in, regardless of his hand.
As it was the Asian guy got Vogl to put in his money as an underdog, which is all you can hope for.

BTW I think that ESPN's percentages were way off for that hand. They had the asian as a 55-45% underdog after the flop...isnt it the other way around?
Flop: A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]10 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]6 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Asian:J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
Vogl: 5 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
Asian has two overs and a flush draw (not that he knew the overs would be good at the time), i count 15 outs twice=30, minus the very small% of the time when he hits a J or 9 and then the five hits the river. It sure looks like the asian guy was the clear favorite on the flop. I think that twodimes.net is still down, anybody able to find the exact %'s?

fsuplayer

[fsuplayer]

Result
http://twodimes.net/h/?z=386006
pokenum -h 5s 5h - jc 9c -- ac tc 6d
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing Ac Tc 6d
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
5s 5h 406 41.01 578 58.38 6 0.61 0.413
Jc 9c 578 58.38 406 41.01 6 0.61 0.587

I play goot!

[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

fsuplayer