WSOP spoiler Dean vs. Arieh final table hand

[Rob Blackburn]

I play with Matt in a reg. 1/2 Pl game here in Houston, he has started to answer questions about hands and stuff on a board I moderate for the Houston area poker scene.

I asked him about the hand where he did battle with Josh Arieh and raised 1.1mil only to have Josh comeback him allin. Thought some of you may be intrested in it.

This was his response:

"On the hand where I raised Arieh to 1.1 million and then he put me all in on the turn with a board of K453 I had A5. Arieh had outplayed me (and most of the table) for a couple of days by being super aggresive. I truly believed that I had the best hand. Arieh though knew how to lay down a hand. I had watched him lay down huge hands time and time again following a huge reraise. When he put me all in I assumed I was in big trouble. I felt at first I had to call because of the enormous size of the pot. I didn't even think he had a king. As Hellmuth would say: What was going on here? I then picked up a huge tell that screamed he wanted me to call. He was shaking his head and muttering to himself. Could it have been a reverse tell? Sure, but I didn't think so. I then folded and later heard from friends that the 3 on the turn made him a straight (according to Arieh). I guess we'll find out on the ESPN broadcast! To be honest, I didn't play very well at the final table and some of my plays the day before were questionable at best. I will say that I couldn't have been more pleased with my play through the first three days. I did get tired and wasn't mentally prepared for this sort of tournament. I put myself in a position to win though so there are no complaints from me!"