Bigger Mistake: Phillips or Hansen?

[Daliman]

REAL simple.

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).

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.

[KJS]

This whole question cannot be analyzed based on knowing both hands, IMO. The real question is "in a 3 handed game, the button (and close 2nd in chips) raises 2.5 times the blind, you have AQ, what is your play" and then asking the question from the opposite point of view. You write it from the perspective of "you have TT and your opponent has AQ, what should you do". That is my inference at least. I think if you ask it only revealing the hand of the person whose action you are interested in, and no one had seen the show and knew both hands, you'd get a much much different set of responses.

KJS

[fnurt]

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.

[ChrisW]

> 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.

This reasoning is pretty silly. Let's say that Gus had committed half his stack to the pot already. Should he fold if he's "95% sure he's in a race"? Of course not. Racing is an equity decision like any other tournament decision. Here, Gus was calling about T2M into a total pot of T4.7M. He was 57% to win the "race." That makes his chip equity from the call T679K better than folding on the actual hands.

Of course, it's dollar equity that matters, not tournament equity, and there the decision is close. I'm not inclined to do the math, but my guesstimate suggests that calling and folding will turn out to be within a few percentage points of each other cashwise given Paul's actual hand. Perhaps Gus thought that Paul might make the same move with some underpairs but not with as many overpairs. In that case the call is probably correct at cash as well. It certainly wasn't horrible.

[Paul Phillips]

[ QUOTE ]
Nice refutation.

[/ QUOTE ]

What sort of refutation would you suggest for someone who says "I know I'm right that everyone made big mistakes on this hand" but does not tell us what the clearly correct way to play it is? I gave him a far, far more detailed refutation than was warranted.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, even though you don't agree with Vince on that point, would you care to comment on Vince's view that Gus played his hand less optimally than you played your hand?

[/ QUOTE ]

As I've written at length elsewhere, I think his calling the all-in was (easily) correct.

If I was going to take any issue with his play, I'd say that given our stack sizes and the large strength of his hand, he would have been better off limping the button. That would have pinned us perfectly. If dewey moved in (which he might do with random cards) gus could call him and figure to be a large favorite. If I raised him he could limp re-raise me off a hand like AQ. And if we checked it, TT is still a great hand to have three-handed with position.

Gus and I are pretty clueless though so I don't think you can learn much from me. We should wait to hear how vince would have played it so we can put all this uninformed speculation to bed.

[bunky9590]

Well, gus could have literally anything to raise the button 3 handed. Thats where he shines. Dewey is very tight for the most part and will probably wait to try to double up with a very good hand. Paul plays a lot of hands as well and is very aggressive with them.

Knowing gus the way Paul does, an raise is certainly in order. Question is, Is it worth an all in? Well, an all in will almost certainly knock out dewey, and gus will have to have a hand to call. As it sits. Paul's gross overbet all in clearly looks like a muscle play to Gus but its clearly not AA or KK. Probably closer to AK or AQ something that needs to see 5 cards if called. And should certainly be at least a coin flip to gus hand and possibly even dominate a hand that Gus may call with. Calling Gus raise is just a licence for him to steal the pot on the button when Paul misses.

Seems like a reasonabel line, especially if Gus is running over he table 3 handed. Gotta back him off somehow. I certainly don't like the call of the all in for Gus with Dewey still in with TT. Knock Dewey out first and then push the smal edges.

[Daliman]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[Daliman]

[ QUOTE ]
> 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.

This reasoning is pretty silly. Let's say that Gus had committed half his stack to the pot already. Should he fold if he's "95% sure he's in a race"? Of course not. Racing is an equity decision like any other tournament decision. Here, Gus was calling about T2M into a total pot of T4.7M. He was 57% to win the "race." That makes his chip equity from the call T679K better than folding on the actual hands.

Of course, it's dollar equity that matters, not tournament equity, and there the decision is close. I'm not inclined to do the math, but my guesstimate suggests that calling and folding will turn out to be within a few percentage points of each other cashwise given Paul's actual hand. Perhaps Gus thought that Paul might make the same move with some underpairs but not with as many overpairs. In that case the call is probably correct at cash as well. It certainly wasn't horrible.

[/ QUOTE ]

You say MY reasoning was silly, yet then refute it by using a hypothetical situation when a literal one exists. Gus had raised barely over 10% of his stack and called 2M more for a shot at ~2.6M.

And yes, the equity of calling vs folding given EXACT hands, not factoring that PP might have an overpair, is pretty close, but why make a high variance play with little actual difference in EV, silly?

[fnurt]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

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?

[MMMMMM]

My saying "Nice refutation" was partly tongue-in-cheek (especially when comparing it to your refutation of some of CrisBrown's posts), but I couldn't expect you to know that. Unfortunately I hate putting little smiley's after every minor attempt at sardonic humor (or any humor, for that matter) often tends to ruin the attempt (especially the weakest attempts).

I will say that I think Vince is a pretty decent guy if you actually get to know him a little bit. Don't know about the meds or the hotline bit.

I'll check out your web site; I've never visited it and didn't know you had discussed the hand in depth there.