Wait, but... wha... huh? Hellmuth knowledge.

[otnemem]

Yes, I understand Phil Hellmuth is a world class, world champion tournament poker player. No matter what you think of him personally, he's a damn fine texas hold 'em player. But I was just reading his first WSOP 2004 article on his Web site (or you can find it at cardplayer.com) and he offers this gem after picking up queens.

"(I) open for $1800... Incredibly, the big blind moves all in! This time I feel like my opponent has J-J or worse, but I still fold my hand face up. The big blind shows 7-7. I don't mind this at all. After all, I could have gone out if he hit a seven."

This marks the first time I've ever heard of a professional poker player say that he was happy that he folded a 4:1 favorite, even while sensing that he HAD the favorite, because his opponent could have sucked out a two outer to win.

Wha-wha-wha-what?

[PoBoy321]

Well, I haven't read the article, but I guess his reasoning would be that at that point in the tourney, he didn't want to be getting involved with pre-flop all-ins when he could wait for a flop and evaluate after that. If his standard opening raise was $1800, I'm guess that the blinds were somewhere around 300-600, so it's still in the survival stages rather than the build up chips stage.

[TStoneMBD]

this is one of the things some of the large tournament pros ridicule hellmuth for. hellmuth thinks that he has such an advantage over a player that he is willing to fold a 4:1 advantage, which is simply absurd. i think hellmuth is by far one of the most overrated players on the tour.

[DonkeyKong]

This has been discussed before but I don't know why Hellmuth talks about these embarassing laydowns. I would understand him laying down for reasons other than poker -- ie, his outside businesses suffer if he exits the tourney too early. He NEEDS to make a respectable showing. This would be understandable... but then he talks about laying down 4-1 favorites --- it is so absurd.

[drewjustdrew]

I HAVE to think he made the laydown because he put his opponent on a bigger hand. The statement about catching another 7 was just a weak rationalization. If he didn't take chances he would never be near the leaderboard and would probably cash more often than he does. Since he has been on leaderboards and doesn't cash that often, I'm guessing this was just an isolated incident/excuse.

[Beavis68]

it is interesting to see Phil's attitude compared to that of the great cash players like Negreanu, Ivey, and even our own Paul Phillips.

I don't even think that TJ or McEvoy could rationalize this play.

[SossMan]

snore....old news...snore

[otnemem]

If you're not interested, why even waste your time replying?

[illguitar]

Hellmuth almost certainly had to put the other player on jacks or better. By my calculations, there are 6 ways to make jacks, kings or aces. There is only one way to make queens here beacuase he holds the other two. There is 16 ways to make AK as well. That means that Hellmuth can expect to have the other hand dominated 6/35 times. He can expect to be dominated 12/35 times and break even with Qs 1/35. He can also perform a symbloic coinflip for all of his chips 16/35 times. This means that Hellmuth could expect to double up 6*(.8) + 12*(.2) + 1*(0) + 16*(.5) = 4.8 + 2.4 + 0 + 8 = 15.2/35 or about 43% of the time. Even if this percentage was higher...say 55%, he still may have been right to fold. This is because he is one of the best players in the tournament and it is -EV to risk all of your chips preflop when you are one of the tournaments best players.

Think about it...if you can outplay 75% of the tournament field postflop, why would you want to jeopardize your tournament life getting only 55% odds? However, sometimes in tournaments it is not only appropriate to take these odds, but necessary. The key to being a great tournament player is understanding when to take advantage of +EV, and when to fold when you are getting the worst of it, and sometimes even the best of it when the chance of loss is too great. For a better discussion on this read Tournament Poker for Advanced Players. David gives a few excellent involving coinflips and rolls of the dice.

-Daver

[otnemem]

I think you misunderstand the point I was trying to make. There's absolutely nothing wrong with folding queens in that spot. I was really commenting on two things. One is that Mr. Hellmuth, self proclaimed soul reader, read his opponent for jacks or worse. Still, I understand, if you don't want to put all of your money in if your read is off, and its very possible that you're a huge dog to an overpair or a slight favorite to AK. But the fact that he said he was perfectly glad folding queens to sevens because his opponent could have hit a seven is ridiculous. That's like saying if he KNEW that his opponent had sevens preflop to his queens, he still wouldn't put his chips in, because there's a one in five shot he'd be sucked out on. That sort of defies any logic in poker.