WPT Poker Corner: The Matt Matros A5 hand & Game Theory

[DonkeyKong]

Matros apparently wrote a book on Game Theory & Poker...

In the hand he went out on:
3-Handed
Chip Counts:
deKnijff $10.5mm
Habib: $4.1mm
Matros: $2.5mm
Blinds 80k/160k
Ante: $15k

Matros had the button and first to act:
A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
Bets $500k

Habib mucks
deKnjiff Calls with K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Pot $1,125,000

Flop: 2 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Check
Check

Turn: 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

deKnijffe bets $500k
Matros moves all-in
deKnijffe calls

River: 2[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

----------------

On WPT Poker Corner, Dan Negeanu called this a donkey-play as he should not have put one more chip into this pot. He left himself with 3 outs on an all-in...

WPT had just run a little vignette about how Matros used game theory.

So clearly, it looked like Matros was using the 9 as a bluff card given that he thought it was unlikely that deKnijffe had enough to call him....

Donkey play or proper game theory play and just unlucky???

[Sent]

I didn't like the move at all, seemed very desperate

-Sent

[Trainwreck]

Bad to try to bluff the BIG stack especially with this much $ involved this late FOR ALL your chips.... at least IMHO...

Patience!!!

>TW<

[SpeakEasy]

[ QUOTE ]
Donkey play or proper game theory play and just unlucky???

[/ QUOTE ]

Bad move. deKnijff knew that Matros probably would have bet the flop if he was on a draw. The all-in after the check-check on the flop and turn looks too much like a steal. The only hand this likely completes, given the raise pre-flop, is KQ, which Matros should have bet on the flop. This just doesn't look like a Q8 hand.

[jaeon]

i may not be remembering correctly, but hadn't matros tried a bluff a few hands before and failed at that one too?

[jacksup]

I think it was a bad play, and I suspect a game theory analysis of the hand would confirm it.

Matt

[eh923]

Matt,

If it makes you feel any better, it wasn't bad enough that I noticed prior to them dissecting it on the Poker Corner. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

eh923

[AngryCola]

There is a lot about this hand that makes it a fairly poor play. Of course hindsight is always 20/20, but I wouldn't have made the play, regardless of the known outcome.

A lot of the reasons its not a good play have already been mentioned by a few posters. I'll just add my 2 cents.

A big point against Matt there is that it is quite hard to believe he would've played a made straight that way, 3 handed. I know there were 2 clubs on board but you can never live in fear of a backdoor flush in a heads up pot during a 3 handed game. Obviously, deKnijff knows that.

He also could not have called (to better represent the straight) in the hope of taking it away on the end. deKnijff probably would have been committed to the pot at that point, given how much Matros had left. It would still have been a significant call, but I can't see him folding there. Nonetheless, if Matt was set on bluffing, that would have been the better way to go about it.

Matros only had one good option in that hand.
Fold, and move on. [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[Vince Lepore]

If game theory worked as the ultimate strategy, poker could be played by rote!

Vince

[Sponger15SB]

Who names their son Matt when your last name is Matros.

sheesh.

That is all I want to know