[gergery]

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There is no way Farha could have calculated that at the table and been confident enough that he hadn't made an error to say it was barely, but surely, +EV.

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Yes, there is no way he calculates that at the table. But very good experienced players can get pretty close. i'd be willing to bet that Sammy figured something like "9:1 for my set with no better set, I can read this guy for sure, so I'll make a little money on a call here".

I'd also guess that Sammy thinks that having 30k in chips 1x and 19k in chips 7x is better than 20k in chips every time. I'll also guess that he thinks he can make a set under set read with 95% accuracy here, and with his experience and that guy's obvious bet he might be right.

Note: I also did not include in here things like sammy outplays the guy on montone flops, or if the guy actually had 10,900 in chips, etc. so the EV of +63 is just under one set of assumptions, but sammy could well have had slightly different ones that increased the actual EV.

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In fact, if he knew with 100% certainty that his EV was exactly 63, I think he would have folded before the flop - too much risk for too little gain.

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No, you have it backwards. Sammy would be more willing to gamble with small edges early on. He wants to get a big stack very early so he can bully others around, and so he has better chances of making it all the way. He believes his win-rate at the ring games is high enough so that the worst possible outcome for him is chilling out a long time in the tourney and winning back 2x his buyin over 6 days or something. He wants a good shot at millions or to bust out and play cash games. And that means gambling early on with any EV edge.

--greg