Daniel Negreanu says O8 is Barry Greenstein's worst game

[Vee Quiva]

Daniel's Poker Forum

Daniel has been blogging about the big game recently and had a story where an "unnamed" player made a very dubious check raise.

He then decided it would be fun to run a little contest to see if his readers could figure out who it was.

It definitely looks like a bad play by Barry. I was just wondering what Barry was thinking and if he would care to comment.

Others comments are appreciated as well.

[TGoldman]

Here's the hand in question from Barry's POV...

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David Benyamine raised in first position. Negreanu called in second position, and Eli Elezra called on the button. Barry defended his big blind with J-J-7-3 badugi (meaning no flush draw). The flop came down Q-10-6 rainbow. Everyone checked to Eli who bet from the button. Barry decided to raise...

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Of course I'm way out of my league critiquing the big game, but whatever. I don't think it's so bad. No one has showed any interest in this hand post-flop. The button's bet doensn't necessarily mean strength due to his position and the fact that no one else has bet. Barry might think a raise was worth the risk since it's a raised pot and no one other than the button has shown interest in the pot thus far. Barry has the JJ blockers, if it folds back around to the button then Barry has a decent chance of outplaying the button on the turn or river if a scare card folds. A lot of things have to go right for this to work so it's definitely a gamble and a risky play, perhaps -EV but I don't think it's terrible.

[Vee Quiva]

I think the better move (if you're determined to bluff at it) is to lead out with a bet. It's a high card flop with only one low. So go ahead and put pressure on the low draws.

It just seems that investing two bets on this bluff is -ev. If he bets first and runs into resistance he can still get away from the hand.

[TGoldman]

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I think the better move (if you're determined to bluff at it) is to lead out with a bet. It's a high card flop with only one low. So go ahead and put pressure on the low draws.

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The problem with leading is that Barry's hand has just about no value. Nor does he know yet that the pre-flop raiser nor anyone else doesn't like their hand enough to bet. Leading out for a bet will offer his opponents something like 10:1 to continue. Barry's hand is pretty miserable and betting out has little/no fold equity. I don't like that play at all. I assume Barry would have check-folded if the flop action had transpired in any other way, and he decided to get a little tricky and check-raise only because everyone else checked to the button who bet.

Edit: I'm only saying Barry's play is not terrible because I'm assuming the players in the big game are solid enough to fold a lot of hands for two bets cold. The crux of the play is the fold equity his raise generates from the players in the middle and also the button. If this was a PartyPoker $0.50-$1 table, then check-raising is suicide. In the big game, I'm guessing it's reasonable.

[randomstumbl]

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I think the better move (if you're determined to bluff at it) is to lead out with a bet. It's a high card flop with only one low. So go ahead and put pressure on the low draws.

[/ QUOTE ]
The problem with leading is that Barry's hand has just about no value. Nor does he know yet that the pre-flop raiser nor anyone else doesn't like their hand enough to bet. Leading out for a bet will offer his opponents something like 10:1 to continue. Barry's hand is pretty miserable and betting out has little/no fold equity. I don't like that play at all. I assume Barry would have check-folded if the flop action had transpired in any other way, and he decided to get a little tricky and check-raise only because everyone else checked to the button who bet.

Edit: I'm only saying Barry's play is not terrible because I'm assuming the players in the big game are solid enough to fold a lot of hands for two bets cold. The crux of the play is the fold equity his raise generates from the players in the middle and also the button. If this was a PartyPoker $0.50-$1 table, then check-raising is suicide. In the big game, I'm guessing it's reasonable.

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It's worth noting that even if this play is slightly -EV right now, it will probably pay dividends on future hands where he actually has a hand and the same action occurs.

I'm not sure that's the case, but it's something to consider.

[Wintermute]

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It's worth noting that even if this play is slightly -EV right now, it will probably pay dividends on future hands where he actually has a hand and the same action occurs.

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Bingo. Daniel's thorough categorization of Barry being a weak O8 player based on just a handful of hands where he sees Barry's cards is IMO a great example of how advertising can be beneficial in poker. Although Barry probably did not think to himself "I think I'll make a crazy play here because the long-term advertising will make the whole thing +EV" at the time, I'm sure he intuitively had something like this in mind.

I also don't think that the advertising applies only to O8... I get the feeling from much of DN's banter that he eagerly seeks reasons to believe Barry is a weaker poker player than most give him credit for. Barry would be wise to foster DN's habit and reinforce his perhaps misguided evaluation of Barry's skill level, because this should be beneficial for Barry in a range of games he plays with DN.

[sy_or_bust]

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I'm assuming the players in the big game are solid enough to fold a lot of hands for two bets cold. The crux of the play is the fold equity his raise generates from the players in the middle and also the button.

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I'd be careful about this. It's more likely that these players are good enough to do the opposite - call 2 cold with 'mediocre' hands, understanding exactly what is happening to them a fair % of the time in a 4-way raised pot. The DN analysis linked even estimates that either he or Grey will call 2 cold ~50% of the time - fairly staggering. Grey did call - getting ~6:1 for high with a gutshot, one pair, and a backdoor flush draw.

To make the raise Greenstein did, you have to assess the situation in a completely different way. The Button needs to be betting a huge range of hands, and your raise needs to make it heads-up (or win the pot outright) a much larger % of the time. This is a huge discrepancy, so it is logical that one would call the other's play non-optimal in this spot. Without knowing nearly enough about all the players and head games at this level, I wouldn't delve too deeply into the play here - little of it will apply to small/middle limit O/8, IMO.

[Mendacious]

Hmmm. I do think Daniel disrespects Barry for some reason, but I really don't see this as purposeful false advertising. Wasn't this in "the big game"? Moreover, I think these two have now played at least 3 of Negreanu's $500k challenge matches, (with Negreanu winning twice) so its not like Dan has only seen a few of Barry's plays. I expect through both television and much more live play Dan has seen tons of Barry's plays. Moreover, it doesn't make sense for Barry to advertise solely for the purpose of perpetuating Negreanu's mental impression of him at a full ring game, when they have played 3 half million dollar matches already heads-up.

I think it was just a case of taking a shot, missing, and hoping your low was good, (which it was). Pretty LAG for Barry, especially in a limit game, but you have to mix it up or you won't get paid.

[Wintermute]

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Hmmm. I do think Daniel disrespects Barry for some reason, but I really don't see this as purposeful false advertising. Wasn't this in "the big game"? Moreover, I think these two have now played at least 3 of Negreanu's $500k challenge matches, (with Negreanu winning twice) so its not like Dan has only seen a few of Barry's plays. I expect through both television and much more live play Dan has seen tons of Barry's plays. Moreover, it doesn't make sense for Barry to advertise solely for the purpose of perpetuating Negreanu's mental impression of him at a full ring game, when they have played 3 half million dollar matches already heads-up.

I think it was just a case of taking a shot, missing, and hoping your low was good, (which it was). Pretty LAG for Barry, especially in a limit game, but you have to mix it up or you won't get paid.

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Your last sentence is exactly what I'm talking about. Advertising is a consistent thing, it's not a one-time shot, and it's not necessarily directed at a single player. (I mentioned this in the context of DN since that's where the discussion started. However, the value of a play like this is certainly because multiple players see a weird mistake-play.)

I mean, if you truly think that Barry mistakenly thought that this was the best EV play he could make in this particular hand (which I don't believe you are, but it sounds like DN just sees this as an isolated poker *mistake*), I think you're fooling yourself.

[Mendacious]

Well that begs this question-- How often do you concientiously make clearly -EV moves STRICTLY to mislead players at the 1000/2000 level? And in this case, for the move to achieve its alleged purpose as "false advertising", it commits Barry to seeing this crappola hand to showdown AND showing it when he loses, for no apparent purpose.

This means Barry has already committed to dumping probably $20K into this hand for this "ad" when he makes his retarded -EV re-raise. Seems like very little bang for his buck to me. Moreover, if for instance no low came and a straight or flush was made and Barry showed his ridiculous JJ hand, nobody would take that at face value. Honestly I don't think you have thought the ramifications of what would be involved in this particular ad at all WM.

PS Smash says "good luck"