Bigger Mistake: Phillips or Hansen?

[Daliman]

All covered in my initial post, sir....

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You "flip a coin" because you are a favorite in the hand, and because there is money in the pot already.

This emotional hand-wringing about "I didn't play good poker all day just so I could settle for a race now" really doesn't seem to have much to do with playing good poker. If you fold, it should be because you expect to win more prize money by folding, not because you stubbornly insist on only winning a certain way.

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I think you answered your own contention.

Also, flipping a coin is BEST CASE SCENARIO. That HAS to be factored. It's not good poker, period.

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If you made the case that Gus wins more prize money by folding, I didn't hear it. All I heard is how a real poker player wouldn't settle for a race, yadda yadda.
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Paul's raise= overaggressive but good, especially vs a player like GH. Word is/was out for more than a few pros on how to play Gus; play back at him strong. The first couple WPT's he won, you didnt see really any insane KJo calls of 8-10x allin reraises like we have been on PSI. Not alot of hands for PP to worry much about, plus the added incentive of Most people folding there, not wanting to bust before the much smaller stack. TONS of hands most fold, only slightly fewer GH does. "I play for first place, not second" does not apply here,(and rarely does anywhere,as it is usually said after someone makes a bad tourney position call).


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Is being a 55-45 favorite REALLY the best-case scenario? Paul would never make this move with, say, AT 3-handed? How about 99?

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Gus's call= Bad. At BEST he has to figure he is a coinflip, unless the very small chance PP reraised with a smaller pair happens. Sticking all your chips in on something you are 95% sure is a race at best is simply weak poker. Why spend all that time outplaying people, accumulating a stack, protecting that stack, and making high-level plays when you're just going to flip a coin when it comes down to the big $$$? From his chatter, you know he thought he was racing. Bad call, and he got what he deserved.


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The above is why I said 95% chance.

[Vince Lepore]

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I sure wish he would so we could all learn how the real pros do it.

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The real pros I know, and I don't claim to be a pro, tell me that they don't play tournaments and call it "poker".

I admit it, I made a mistake. I should never have used the word "mistake" concerning your play in this hand. I should have guessed that you would take offense solely on the assumption that others would believe you were capable of making mistakes. Unfortunately my command of the english language sometimes causes me to burp when I should swallow. So, I continuously find myself apologizing especially to very sensitive ego's.

Now, as to how I would have played the A,Q in the hand in question.

First, when I play tournaments I am in the same mode as when I play live. I play to win money. I do not have the luxury of playing for fun. The difference between 3rd and second in a major tournament is usually a significant amount of money (at least to me). For example, I believe that the difference between 3rd and second in the 2004 WSOP was well over 1.5 million dollars. To me thats "WoW". I do not play WPT events because I cannot afford to lose the buy-in(s). However, I am confident that properly bankrolled I would show a profit over a significant number of tournaments.

Now as for the hand. I would not like to find myself in the position that Philips found himself. A,Q is a powerful holding three handed but it is still just Ace high. In this situation Philips is out of position against an unpredictable mediocre player who could have anything and has proven that he is willing to gamble. As I've said, I am looking to move up in addition to winning the tournament. I do not want to easily give up my chip lead and find myself in a weak third place. I want to avoid, if possible, a run out against a stack that can really hurt me. I also understand the strength of A,Q when playing 3 handed. For this reason I would like to see a flop with an A,Q before committing a significant amount of my chips. In poker and in tournaments information is extremely valuable. In this case Gus's raise was right in the category of insignificant to Philips stack. By that I mean that calling will not significantly affect his chip position. But raising all in will only significantly change his position if he is called! He either moves into a commanding heads up position or puts himself into a weak third place. But I believe that he is only called if he is beat! Sure, I know that Hansen will call with a wider range of hands than a solid pro but even Hansen would be hard pressed to call without a pair or A,K or A,Q. If Hansen has a pair, any pair, Philips is at best a slight dog, if he has A,K he is a big dog.

The bottom line is that given the situation and my goals of winning as much (real) money as I can I believe that calling Gus's raise is Philips best play. I do not believe that moving in is a horrible play but I do not believe that it is the best play (nor even second best play), but it is why I rate it as a better play than Hansen's call. I retract my "mistake" comment. Sorry.

Vince [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Ghazban]

You make no mention of the folding equity of pushing with AQ out of position here. Sure, IF CALLED, the AQ is probably going to be a small dog (to a pocket pair less than queens) or a big dog (to AA, KK, QQ, or AK). However, Gus would be likely to fold the smaller pocket pairs and almost definitely 2 unpaired cards other than AK or AQ. If you just call with AQ, you have no idea where you stand on the flop even when you hit top pair because Gus could literally be raising with any two cards (and when he hits a weird two-pair, it will be well-concealed). If Paul reraises less than all-in and Gus comes over the top, Paul will have a tough decision to make and will have already committed a lot of chips to the pot. By doing the pushing himself, Paul puts Gus in the position of having to make a difficult decision. Gus should fold many hands that are slight favorites against AQ (for example, there's absolutely no way Gus calls all-in w/22) and, even if he does decide to call, only QQ, KK, AA, and AK hold a great advantage over AQ.

[morello]

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unpredictable mediocre player

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ha ha ha. This coming from the guy that cannot afford to buy-in to WPT events. If mediocre players like Gus are doing so well, why isn't an expert like you able to even get in to the tournament?

By the way, you said you would "call and see a flop", yet you fail to mention what you would do after the flop. There will be 550k chips in the pot, and 2/3 times you don't make a pair. How do you play it now? Are you really going to suggest that you check-fold every time the button raises 3 handed and you don't make a pair on the flop?

[knucklehead]

Of course, now I'm unsure and have to watch again...

[BarronVangorToth]

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In this situation Philips is out of position against an unpredictable mediocre player

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While I will say that I believe most people on this forum are FAR more mediocre than they would care to believe, I would further point out that anyone who believes Gus Hansen to be mediocre has absolutely no idea what he is talking about and that simply including that statement automatically makes the next 1,000 things you say irrelevant, you are that far in deficit.

There are thousands of people who participate in these forums. I'd wager that, at best, only a few of them are better than Gus Hansen at poker ... and that anyone ACTUALLY better than him would realize he is anything but mediocre.

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

[West]

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Why spend all that time outplaying people, accumulating a stack, protecting that stack, and making high-level plays when you're just going to flip a coin when it comes down to the big $$$?

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Because

A) You think you have the best hand,
B) there's dead money in the pot, and
C) You're playing against Paul Phillips and Dewey Tomko, not your brother in law and his neighbor

It's 3 way, and he's Gus Hansen raising from the button - Paul Phillips all in in no way means he has a monster. And TT three way IS a monster. I definitely wouldn't be 95% sure it's a race in that position.

[Paul Phillips]

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By the way, you said you would "call and see a flop", yet you fail to mention what you would do after the flop. There will be 550k chips in the pot, and 2/3 times you don't make a pair.

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People keep getting the numbers wrong: we had 50K-100K blinds and Gus made it 280K preflop. So if I'd just called there would have been 660K plus the antes -- I forget what those were but let's say 15K. So over 700K in the middle.

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How do you play it now? Are you really going to suggest that you check-fold every time the button raises 3 handed and you don't make a pair on the flop?

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It seemed apparent that was going to be his "improved" strategy, call and check-fold. You can see why gus does well in tournaments.

[Vince Lepore]

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ha ha ha. This coming from the guy that cannot afford to buy-in to WPT events

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By the way, you said you would "call and see a flop", yet you fail to mention what you would do after the flop.

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If you do not feel confident that you will make the correct play after the flop then you should by all means move-in before the flop as Philips did. I say that as the same guy that can't afford "to lose" the WPT buy-in(s).

Vince

[PITTM]

gus hansen doesnt make big laydowns...har har

rj