Crazy Hand from Final Table of WSOP Pot Limit

[Scooterdoo]

Hi, guys. After getting knocked out about halfway through the limit tournament on Sunday I decided I had it with poker for the day and just watched the final table of the no-limit tournament and then stayed to watch the final table of the pot limit tournament (lasted until 2am!).

Anyway, two crazy hands came up back to back and I would love to hear your thoughts. Cardplayer did not really do the hands justice.

Lane Flack started off the table with a huge chip lead -- he probably had the entire table covered. Anyway, Tom Werthman, who was very impressive, gained on him and when they were 4 handed the two were about even with around 700k each and the other two players had 100k-ish each.

Lane makes it 60k to go and Tom raises an additional $120k. Lane thinks for a while and eventually just calls. The flop comes blank T Q (don't recall suits but I don't think it's relevant). Tom immediately pushes the remainder of his chips in and Lane immediately calls without hesitation. I don't think a half second went by before Lane called.

To everyone's surprise Lane turns over AT and Tom turns over AK. I can see Lane coming to the conclusion to call the bet, but how can he do it so quickly. I have discussed it with Gavin, Charley Shoten (actually Charlie just came up to me as I'm writing this in the coffee shot, so we just discussed it as I'm writing this sentence!) and Harley Hall and they are all convinced that once he made the preflop call he was committed to the pot if he caught any of the flop. What do you think of this? It's surprising to me that he would be committed since he would still have 400k-ish left he folded. I'm not suggested that he should fold, just that he had already decided before-hand. Thoughts?

Tom lost the hand and everyone started to applaud his 4th place finish. When they counted down the chips it turns out that he still had about 40k left. On the next hand he's in the SB and completes without looking. Lane is in the BB and checks (I'm not 100% sure that this is what happened but they ended up seeing the flop with Tom having about 5-10k left and he hasn't looked at his cards). The flop comes up high cards. Tom is first to act and pushes his remaining chips in, still without looking at his cards. Lane mucks his hand and says something like 'I owed him one'. Of course, Tom went on to win. What do you think of this move?

BTW, several people who didn't see the final table think that Tom was lucky to win. I disagree. Sure he was lucky, but he played to win whereas Tony Ma and Martin Green clearly were playing to move up. When it got heads up Tom didn't let Lane breath. He raised almost every pot and never let Lane play his game. Of course this would backfire if Lane caught hands, but the point is that he played the game the way he should play it and it worked out for him.

* Had fun taking some time off from poker (didn't play Monday either). Spent time with Gavin and Brandon. I unfortunately watched Gavin get knocked out of the limit tournament on Sunday night (just in the money). I'll let him talk about the hand if he wants to.

It was nice seeing Alan Cunningham win the No Limit event. I've played with him several times and he is a great player -- although he did knock me out of a $500 rebuy event last year when we were down to 12 -- his A9 beat my JJ <G>.

I'm off to the $2.5k no-limit short-handed tournament at 12pm today.

[IHateKeithSmart]

Scoot:

Did you see this hand:

"Tom Werthmann limps in. Tony Ma, in the big blind, checks. The flop come A-J-2. Both players check. The turn is a 7. Again both players check. River was a 4. Werthmann checked. Ma bets $20,000. Werthmann bet the pot, which put Ma all-in. Ma calls and shows his A-3 which was no good against Werthmann’s A-J. With the patience to check top two pair down all the way, he catches Ma and brings on heads up action."

[Scooterdoo]

[ QUOTE ]
Scoot:

Did you see this hand:

"Tom Werthmann limps in. Tony Ma, in the big blind, checks. The flop come A-J-2. Both players check. The turn is a 7. Again both players check. River was a 4. Werthmann checked. Ma bets $20,000. Werthmann bet the pot, which put Ma all-in. Ma calls and shows his A-3 which was no good against Werthmann’s A-J. With the patience to check top two pair down all the way, he catches Ma and brings on heads up action."

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure did! It was great. Reminded me of the famouse Seidel/Chan hand from the main event that was featured in Rounders. The kid was great. I was only 5 feet from the table and would never had guessed that he flopped the monster. As I said before, the kid played great. I saw Tony speaking to his friends after the hand and he kept saying 'he checked 3 times, how could I have known' or something like that. Great, great play.

[SpeakEasy]

[ QUOTE ]
Lane is in the BB and checks (I'm not 100% sure that this is what happened but they ended up seeing the flop with Tom having about 5-10k left and he hasn't looked at his cards). The flop comes up high cards. Tom is first to act and pushes his remaining chips in, still without looking at his cards. Lane mucks his hand and says something like 'I owed him one'. Of course, Tom went on to win. What do you think of this move?


[/ QUOTE ]

Possibly a good move only if Flack has complete junk (like 42o) and would likely be playing the board. Even then, the other random hand is just as likely to have junk. Did Flack see that he hadn't looked at his cards?

[Scooterdoo]

Lane knew. The point was that Lane had 1.5mm in chips and was getting great odds to call even if he was counting on his 6 remaining outs to pair up with low cards.

[SpeakEasy]

[ QUOTE ]
Lane knew. The point was that Lane had 1.5mm in chips and was getting great odds to call even if he was counting on his 6 remaining outs to pair up with low cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would have called. Some chance of eliminating a player would outweigh the few additional chips lost.

I guess this is a lesson to "show no mercy" at the table, regardless of how dominant your stack appears.

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Lane is in the BB and checks (I'm not 100% sure that this is what happened but they ended up seeing the flop with Tom having about 5-10k left and he hasn't looked at his cards). The flop comes up high cards. Tom is first to act and pushes his remaining chips in, still without looking at his cards. Lane mucks his hand and says something like 'I owed him one'. Of course, Tom went on to win. What do you think of this move?


[/ QUOTE ]

Possibly a good move only if Flack has complete junk (like 42o) and would likely be playing the board. Even then, the other random hand is just as likely to have junk. Did Flack see that he hadn't looked at his cards?

[/ QUOTE ]

you can't even discuss it unless you know how big the bet was.

[Scooterdoo]

my guess is that the pot had 32k in it and it was 20k more or so.

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
my guess is that the pot had 32k in it and it was 20k more or so.

[/ QUOTE ]

so you're calling 20k to win a total of 72k, so you need to win about 2/7. even if you're whiffed undercards are clean outs, you're 1/4, or 2/8. why on earth would you call?

also, as a monster stack, you like an uber-short stack around so that you can bully the other guys who are waiting for him to bust.

[Scooterdoo]

If I have the #'s right you're correct. At the time, it seemed like it was only a few thousand more. I came up with the #'s this morning for this post after thinking more about what the remaining amount must have been.