Barch's famous squeeze play bust out hand

[betgo]

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Hand 226 - Steve Dannenmann has the button in seat 8, he raises to $750,000, Hachem calls, and Barch moves all in for $5,650,000, pushing his chips out in front of him.


The action is back to Dannenmann, who says, "Call," and then Hachem tells the dealer to wait, before he calls as well. (Neither of the big stacks raised, so all three players are in for $5,650,000 each.)


The players must be as tired as the spectators (and the media), unless they all woke up to great hands. There is still a side pot at stake, so the hole cards won't be revealed yet.


The flop comes 10c-3d-2d, and both players check the side pot. The turn card is the Qh, and they check the side pot again. The river card is the 9c, and they check again. Time to see what they have!


Hachem shows pocket jacks, Dannenmann has pocket sevens, and I heard that Barch had A-6. (I couldn't see the cards on the monitor.) Hachem wins a pot worth over $16,000,000, and Tex Barch is eliminated in third place, earning $2,500,000.

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From Card Player.

Hachem's play is interesting. Clearly the reason he flat calls Dannenman's initial raise with JJ 3-handed is that he does not want to play a big pot with Dannenman. He hopes Barch will bust out soon. He wants to then beat Danneman gradually with small pots or by getting Dannenman to call against the nuts as in fact happened. For similar reasons, Hachem checks the hand down after Barch pushes, as was discussed on the other thread.

But what was Barch doing pushing here? Obviously he misread Hachem. But why push with A6o? He may have the best hand, but if he get calls he is likley to be way behind. Granted, this kind of play gets a lot less attention when it picks up the pot. However, it seems like Barch picked a bad hand and situation with which to try a squeeze play.

The actual result Barch got was not that bad, playing A6o 3-way allin against JJ and 77, since he had reasonable odds to hit his ace.

[ansky451]

Blind sizes.
Previous table action.
Payout structure.
Stack sizes.
Reads players would have on Barch
Reads Barch would have on the other two.

That is all the information we are missing.

[Exitonly]

yea blind info would be good. but taking the pot would be a 30% increase in his stack if he takes it uncontested.

I'm assuming he went with a read, and it backfired. His hand selection wasn't so hot, but i'm sure to him he didnt think his hand matter much. I think it was a pretty balsy call by Dannenmman.

If Hachem's idea w/ flatcalling the first raise was just to not play a big pot w/ Dannenman i dont think i like it, but if it was just for deception, which is very possible, i like it

[ansky451]

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If Hachem's idea w/ flatcalling the first raise was just to not play a big pot w/ Dannenman i dont think i like it, but if it was just for deception, which is very possible, i like it

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Yeah I def think it was more for purposes of deception than anything else.

I agree that A6o is one of the worst hands for a squeeze. However, a squeeze with A6o is certainly correct sometimes (A2o or K2o or 22 is even doable). A squeeze play is way more situation dependent than anything else.

Here, there is a rather loose player (I only watched a little, but I think he was loose if I remember correctly) raising into a very tight player who just calls, which is great. Also, (perhaps most importantly) he's giving (very roughly) 1.4:1 odds to call, which makes the raise pretty hard to call (if he were slightly shorter and were giving 2:1, this play would be horrible). So, in a vacuum, I like the play.

Of course, the fact that Hachem had JJ suggests that the raise from a loose player, call from a tight player argument goes out the window since the tight player is clearly willing to call with a strong hand. (It's possible that Hachem only does this a small % of the time, but I seriously doubt he was randomizing his play at this point in the tournament, although he may have been acting rather randomly due to stress factors, etc.) Throw in the fact that the other big stack called with 77 with Hachem left to act, and I think the play was also no good.

P.S. The payout structure in the final three of the WSOP is very similar to that of the final three of an STT. So, if someone wants to spend a little time, these questions can be answered by screwing around with ICM and pokerstove.

[Exitonly]

we weren't talking about his 2nd smooth call, but his first.

Dannenman raised, Hachem called, then Barch pushed, Dannenmnan called, then hachem called w/ the intentions of checking it down. The 2nd call didnt have anything to do with deception, just trying to lock up 2nd or better.

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we weren't talking about his 2nd smooth call, but his first.

Dannenman raised, Hachem called, then Barch pushed, Dannenmnan called, then hachem called w/ the intentions of checking it down. The 2nd call didnt have anything to do with deception, just trying to lock up 2nd or better.

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Oh. Sorry for idiocy, hopefully I can edit that out.

[betgo]

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If Hachem's idea w/ flatcalling the first raise was just to not play a big pot w/ Dannenman i dont think i like it, but if it was just for deception, which is very possible, i like it

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Yeah I def think it was more for purposes of deception than anything else.

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Deception may be part of it, but I think Hachem was concerned that Dannenman might reraise and he would have to go allin. Hachem is not eager to risk 3rd. Plus, once Barch is gone, he probably thinks he has an excellent chance against Dannenman. So I think the main reason for the first flat call was strategic.

[Toro]

Remember last year Harrington made a similar move against Ariel and Raymer with absolute rags. Harrington's move worked because neither Ariel nor Raymer had anything great.

So Barch I think was just the victim of bad timing on this hand. Remember, the tape is highly edited. Can you imagine how many hands are raised preflop 3 handed where the initial raiser has crap? Just bad timing.

I'd just like to add that, during the Cardplayer final table broadcast, I remember a hand from earlier in the night in which there was a raise, a call, and then Barch made a big reraise, and everyone folded. I remember Negreaneu (who was announcing the broadcast at the time) speculating that Barch was making a squeeze play (Negreaneu called it a "decoy" play). So Barch is capable of making a squeeze play. And Hachem had seen Barch make a squeeze play earlier in the night. This might have been a factor in Hachem's decision to just call Dannenmann's raise with JJ, because it might induce a squeeze raise from Barch.