D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

Anyone watch the US poker championships this weekend on ESPN2. I'm sure it's a rerun but did you see the way that D'Agostino behaved after Hoyt Corkins hit the mother of all suckouts on him? He took the big pile of his chips and just shoved them right into Hoyt's lap. I have to commend Hoyt for not pimpslapping him right out of the room...but he kept his cool and just acted like nothing had happened.

That was a rough beat, but D'Agostino made some real loose calls all day in order to deplete his stack to the point where that loss left him with 1 chip.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

I saw this tourney for the first time this weekend as well. D'Agostino's behavior was totally inappropriate; I can't say I've seen anything like it. Sure, he made some bad calls and got pretty unlucky in some spots to lose his massive chip lead, but he definitely crossed a line.

For all of Hellmuth's antics, his are at least constrained to verbal muttering and lying down on the floor.


Tom

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

He didnt make that many loose calls. He lost 10% of his chips with AA when a guy went all in with a flush draw. He lost a chunk of chips when he bluffed at a pot. With a bored of A 9 2 5 A and the gentleman called with QQ. THen hoyt went all in on a blind steal with trash and caught quads. While it was uncalled for Hoyt apologized to him. He would never say anything to John because he knows he did a real stupid thing. Again how would you act. If D'agostino wins that hand the tournament is basically over right there. Again a rude and immature thing to do but again he is 21. BTW i would have punched Hoyt on the flop.....JK

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

dags went to the final table with more than 3x the player in second place, chip-wise.

hoyt had pushed all-in from his small to steal johns big blind twice already at the final table before that third time with two under cards to dags TT. he ends up flopping trips, turning quads, and as they were figuring out who had more - hoyt requested the chips.

repeat, hoyt requested the chips. he knew he was getting them, but he said something anyway while john was still counting them out to make sure it was an accurate account - all this while still in shock.

i don't think him shoving the chips was right - but anyone who criticizes him for doing it is being moronic in my opinion. put yourself in his shoes for crying out loud. hoyt asking for chips while john was counting them out would have gotten them thrown at him by some people.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

John D'Agostino suffered so many terrible beats that day that I can't imagine anyone being able to take that with a smile. Poker isn't a sport for Mother Theresas sorry.

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and it would have gotten his ass kicked by some of them. Shoving the chips was way out of line, and he did it after he was done counting. Despite all of hellmuth's antics, it's still just verbal muttering, and walking around....i haven't seen him throw stuff at someone.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

he called some big reraies with kj, and called at least one all in with 10 10...up against AA or something like it. His last hand he's all in with 1 chip against KK and he's up against QQ and JJ and they both flop sets...that was rough.

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[ QUOTE ]
he called some big reraies with kj, and called at least one all in with 10 10...up against AA or something like it. His last hand he's all in with 1 chip against KK and he's up against QQ and JJ and they both flop sets...that was rough.

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almost each of your critiques of dags play are flawed. he was playing aggressive, in it to win it poker. and playing well i might add. and re-watch it - hoyt asked for the chips from john - it was lowclass. as lowclass as shoving the chips if you ask me.

again - i'm not defending the move - just saying you're being too hard on the guy.

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Oh, POOR John D'Agostino. Like nobody's suffered bad beats before. No way in hell Brunson, Greenstein, Ivey, Chan, etc. does a bush move like D'Agostino did there. Understandable that he was upset, but like every other pro hasn't suffered a crushing loss. Hellmuth gets butchered for laying on the floor against Leonidas, but that was nothing compared to D'Agostino's childish move. Thing is, I don't think Corkins really cared about what D'Agostino did. Like any of us, he was just happy to have won the chips.

BTW, Corkins is my hero for pushing from the SB there. He's got nothing to apologize for. That's poker.

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When I saw that on TV, I thought just knocking over some chips was relatively restrained. Imagine how Hellmuth or Mike Mattisow react.

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Of course he doesnt he made a play. Im just empahzing the fact the he himself was not mad at John. He new how horrible john must have felt as everyone gets horrible beats. All im saying is if Hoyt himself was not upset why would you dislike john for one act in the heat of the moment. He acted stupid and immature yes but i suspect many people would have had likewas bad reactions from critizing him to other things.

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The guy asked John to "PUSH" him the chips and by god thats what he did!

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Also he called a small bet in relative to his stack with 10 10. 90% of us would have made that call. Everyyhing looks easy on TV when you see others cards if you dont know hwat someone else has and oyu look down at 10 10 its worth risking 5-10% if your chips easy decision on his part. And he had the short end of it. It could have just as easily been a coinflip. BTW i think matasaw would have punched him and then gone on to cry like he always does.

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Hellmuth and Matusow get up and away from the table before they show their rage.

Hey everybody has a little rage in them.. Some people are born with it and can't control it at all.

People who get so worked up because somebody gets mad that they lost need to cool the hell down and pull the bowling ball out of their asses.

Some people are just born to handle it with class (Lederer, Ivey, Brunson), others just have different personalities (Hellmuth, Matusow).

I'm sure Hellmuth has worked on his rage since it is such a huge issue and obviously it hasn't worked! HE'S BORN THAT WAY! GET OVER IT!

Anybody who's met Phil can tell you he's an extremely nice person.. He's probably a much more nicer, and much more of a decent person outside the poker table than most of the guys with cooler temperments.

People who get worked up when Professionals show emotion at the table are at the top of my Dink List.

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After they were done counting, like 3 times, Hoyt, in a very polite and quiet voice, said something like, "Can you push me those chips." Because he couldnt reach.

Dags had a meltdown. Give him a pass if you want but dont blame Hoyt.

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not crucifying D'Agostino for it, but I don't think that Corkins can be blamed at all (for asking for the chips or whatever).

Now if Corkins had done a Mathias Anderson ("YAAAAAAAAH"), I wouldn't have had a problem at all with pushing the chips over.

In the case of Tony G and Surinder Sunar (Paris WPT) I would have liked to have seen Surinder knock him on his ass. I don't think Dags did the right thing, but I wouldn't put him in the douchebag category over one incident.

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BTW, Corkins is my hero for pushing from the SB there. He's got nothing to apologize for. That's poker.

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He went all in for like 20x the pot knowing that he's either going to win a small pot or be drawing very slim against an overpair in an enormous one. That's not a "play", that's suicidal.

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He went all in for like 20x the pot knowing that he's either going to win a small pot or be drawing very slim against an overpair in an enormous one. That's not a "play", that's suicidal.

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I'm not sure of this, but I don't think it was 20x pot. Either way, Corkins' style of play is to always put pressure on his opponents. If I recall correctly, he also put in a massive re-raise with KK against Ramdin's AK. Very different scenarios, I understand, but the point is that Corkins plays a very aggresive style and will put in a big raise with a monster as well as 78o.

Obviously it works very well for him, it was just bad luck that he ran into TT. Give him credit for having the stones to play the way he does.

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Obviously it works very well for him, it was just bad luck that he ran into TT. Give him credit for having the stones to play the way he does.

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Baloney. HUGE preflop overbet steals are bad, period. It's not an issue of "stones". Betting 650,000 to steal the blinds is garbage. Running into TT is not bad luck, in fact the precise reason this play is so bad is because the BB will occasionally have TT-AA and you will lose so much these times that you won't make up for it by successfully stealing the vast majority of the time. It just plain sucks, no matter of opinion.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

I thought it sucked because of who he was doing it against. Had, say, Colon, the tight player who was also in that tourney, been in the BB, I like it.

However D'Ag had shown that he liked to see flops, he had no problem playing marginal hands with or without position and most importantly he made big calls with marginal hands!

Earlier in the tourney he raised with Nines (I think) and got not one but TWO all-in calls that he relatively quickly called. Knocked out two players with it too.

The fact is that with your tournament on the line, you will probably NOT look at Tens and feel that comfortable yet D'Ag called Hoty's all-in in a second.

It seemed obvious to me, as a viewer, that D'Ag would not need an amazing hand to put a lot of chips at risk. I don't see how it couldn't have been obvious to Corkins or anyone else at the table.

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[ QUOTE ]
Baloney. HUGE preflop overbet steals are bad, period. It's not an issue of "stones". Betting 650,000 to steal the blinds is garbage. Running into TT is not bad luck, in fact the precise reason this play is so bad is because the BB will occasionally have TT-AA and you will lose so much these times that you won't make up for it by successfully stealing the vast majority of the time. It just plain sucks, no matter of opinion.

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I guess Corkins is just stupid. Hopefully he'll get some smarts so that maybe one day he can win a WPT event. Perhaps you should give him lessons.

Also, at that point in the game the blinds were pretty big, if I recall correctly. I really don't think he raised 20XBB, but I could be wrong. Whatever, that's his style and it works well for him.

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This might've been posted already, but I'm pretty sure Hoyt said something to the extent of, "Just shove 'em on over."

And I think Hoyt kept asking for a count over and over right after the huge suckout. Not easy to take when you've counted your stack like 3 times and realized you have 1 chip, and the guy who just pulled a monstrous suckout keeps asking you to check and see if the last chip is his too.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

NYC, you make a good point, but if I recall correctly, when called the all-in with 9s, he had a huge chiplead and was getting proper odds to call after his initial raise.

In the hand with Corkins, the blinds were getting pretty big, and he only had Corkins covered by ONE chip. So to say that he would call off his whole stack with less than a premium hand would be incorrect. Hoyt had the guts to make the play, got unlucky that Dags had TT, then got lucky and sucked out.

I don't see how the play was so horrible. Anybody who's seen Corkins play knows that this is his style. The man has one WPT win and another 2nd place, I believe, so give him some respect.

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I guess Corkins is just stupid. Hopefully he'll get some smarts so that maybe one day he can win a WPT event. Perhaps you should give him lessons.

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All indication is that he is a great tournament player. Excuse me for not being starstruck into thinking every move the guy makes is perfect. His play was a mistake, I'm not taking that back just because he's Hoyt Corkins. I would guess that even he realized this in retrospect.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

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So to say that he would call off his whole stack with less than a premium hand would be incorrect.

[/ QUOTE ]He called them all off (essentially) with Tens. Without much thought. That pretty much proves my point, I'd say.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

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I guess Corkins is just stupid. Hopefully he'll get some smarts so that maybe one day he can win a WPT event. Perhaps you should give him lessons.

[/ QUOTE ]

All indication is that he is a great tournament player. Excuse me for not being starstruck into thinking every move the guy makes is perfect. His play was a mistake, I'm not taking that back just because he's Hoyt Corkins. I would guess that even he realized this in retrospect.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's worse, making an aggressive move on the pot, trying to force a fold, or calling for "all" your chips against the one person who can do this to you when you are tied for the chip lead (with a strong, but still vulnerable hand)?

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

You're just being results oriented. The play turned out to be "bad" because Dags had TT. Fact is, 90% of the time, Corkins picks up the blinds (substantial at that point) and of the 10% that he's called, occassionally he gets lucky too. Ever consider that his tournament record is so good because he makes plays like this?

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

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He went all in for like 20x the pot knowing that he's either going to win a small pot or be drawing very slim against an overpair in an enormous one. That's not a "play", that's suicidal.

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I'm not sure of this, but I don't think it was 20x pot. Either way, Corkins' style of play is to always put pressure on his opponents. If I recall correctly, he also put in a massive re-raise with KK against Ramdin's AK. Very different scenarios, I understand, but the point is that Corkins plays a very aggresive style and will put in a big raise with a monster as well as 78o.

Obviously it works very well for him, it was just bad luck that he ran into TT. Give him credit for having the stones to play the way he does.

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It was an awful play. Don't attempt to rationalize it, because once you run the numbers, you'll realize just how bad it was. He runs into calling hands that have him ~20-80 quite a bit, and ~40-60 even more than that.

This play gets worse and worse every time you use it, as calling standards become thinner. It is passable as a setup play for a later push with a decent hand, however. That is.. if you like sacrificing the value of your better hands by having your opponent fold to your monstrous bet. So I'll take that back, it's worthless there, too.

-kyo

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

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He called them all off (essentially) with Tens. Without much thought. That pretty much proves my point, I'd say.

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NYC, you're a regular on the STT forum. The point is that Corkins was unlucky that Dags had TT. The blinds were not chicken feed at this point. I don't have the exact number in front of me, but they were pretty large. Corkins was using an aggressive strategy and got caught. To say that the play was horrible is way off, IMO. Not the style of some players but not horrible either. What makes Corkins so scary is that he would make this play with MUCH better hands as well.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

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He called them all off (essentially) with Tens. Without much thought. That pretty much proves my point, I'd say.

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NYC, you're a regular on the STT forum. The point is that Corkins was unlucky that Dags had TT. The blinds were not chicken feed at this point. I don't have the exact number in front of me, but they were pretty large. Corkins was using an aggressive strategy and got caught. To say that the play was horrible is way off, IMO. Not the style of some players but not horrible either. What makes Corkins so scary is that he would make this play with MUCH better hands as well.

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Close your mind 45, you'll get along better in this forum that way. Although your poker results will likely suffer.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

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This play gets worse and worse every time you use it, as calling standards become thinner. It is passable as a setup play for a later push with a decent hand, however. That is.. if you like sacrificing the value of your better hands by having your opponent fold to your monstrous bet. So I'll take that back, it's worthless there, too.


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At least you realized this is not a good set up play. A set up play would risk smaller stakes now for larger stakes later.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

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The point is that Corkins was unlucky that Dags had TT.

[/ QUOTE ]You keep saying that. I ask again - are Tens a premium hand? I think they're a very good hand and one I love to push all of my chips in with, but I am less enthused to call off my chips with it. And I'm generally not known as a tight ass.

[ QUOTE ]
The blinds were not chicken feed at this point. I don't have the exact number in front of me, but they were pretty large.

[/ QUOTE ]I remember Norman Chad saying that he could have made a standard raise to win the blinds there and not rish his whole tournament on a crap hand. Whatever the blinds were, I doubt the game had reached the level of push-fold.

Sorry, I cannot be convinced. If D'Ag calls with Tens really quickly, his calling standards are fairly loose which makes that a really risky play.

You say that it's a quality play. I agree that it is - READ DEPENDENT. And the read I saw was that D'Ag would play big pots with less than premium hands. His call with the Tens was indicative of this. A lot of pros do not make that call or at least do a lot of anguished thinking. D'Ag did it immediately. Makes me think he would have called it with a lot worse, don't you think?

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

Norman Chad said it was a bad play. I stand corrected.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

This really shouldn't be that tough to figure out. Can someone post/repost the hands, blinds, positions, etc...

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

But to answer your question, Dags had made calls as the huge chip leader where he could afford to gamble. He had Corkins covered by ONE chip at the time Corkins pushed.

The whole point of pushing is that the VAST majority of the time, Dags doesn't even have a hand that requires any thought before an auto-muck.

The same group of guys that are all into blind stealing suddenly want to rag on Corkins for making a play that 90% of the time will win substantial blinds. That's the man's style for crying out loud.

Think about it in terms of an SNG. You know that a 2+2er is on your right. Just because he open pushes every time from the SB doesn't mean that, if he is the only guy at the table who can cripple you, you're going to call when you wake up with KJ or AT or whatever.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

[ QUOTE ]
Norman Chad said it was a bad play. I stand corrected.

[/ QUOTE ]Yeah, that's all I said. Hoyt is having trouble sitting with you so far up his ass, by the way.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

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Obviously it works very well for him, it was just bad luck that he ran into TT. Give him credit for having the stones to play the way he does.

[/ QUOTE ]

Baloney. HUGE preflop overbet steals are bad, period. It's not an issue of "stones". Betting 650,000 to steal the blinds is garbage. Running into TT is not bad luck, in fact the precise reason this play is so bad is because the BB will occasionally have TT-AA and you will lose so much these times that you won't make up for it by successfully stealing the vast majority of the time. It just plain sucks, no matter of opinion.

[/ QUOTE ]

The guy must be the ultimate luckbox. He made the same play against me at the Foxwoods WPT, raising to 40K with 1K BB. I called my whole 38K stack with QQ to his 48s and he flopped the flush.

I was boiling inside but just shook his hand and left the table.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

I didn't say that it was the greatest play ever, just that you guys can't say that it was horrible, either.

For everyone who can so smugly say with total certainty that the play was terrible, I have one question for you:

Would you want Hoyt Corkins sitting directly to your right raping your BB all day? Let's see you make those "easy" calls for all your chips.

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

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Think about it in terms of an SNG.

[/ QUOTE ]Okay, how's this: In a SNG, I generally will make my steal attempts with hands that I don't positively HATE to get called. And I need a big hand to try and take the blinds from someone who I believe will make loose/spite calls.

Seems to me that Corkins did the opposite of me on both respects.

That's not to say that he's not a wonderful player who can beat the pants off of me every day and twice on Sunday. But he made a poor play there.

Graig Nettles was my favorite baseball player when I was growing up. He was a great fielder. But he still committed errors. So did Corkins. Why is this difficult to comprehend?

Re: D\'Agostino\'s antics
 

IIRC:

Blinds 10K-20K Ante ?

SB is second chip leader Hoyt pushes for 650K from small blind with 87o
BB is chip leader Dags with ~675K