Two hands from a World Champ - What was he thinking?

[Goodie]

A couple of hands from the WPT Borgata on travel last night. Both of these hands left me scratching my head as to the skill level of 2001 World Champ Carlos Mortenson.

First hand:

Against sixth place finisher and resident newbie. Carlos open raises with A 10 and newbie calls with A J. Flop comes A x x and Carlos checks, newbie bets 75,000. Carlos Calls, turn comes 9, Carlos checks, newbie goes all in for 101,000. Carlos calls. I can't imagine a worse way to play this hand. This is a monster laydown normally in a six handed game, but anyone with half a brain could tell newbie was as tight as could be and didn't like aggression one bit. If he's betting, he's got the goods, no doubt. Carlos knew it and check called anyways. My feeling is if your checking that flop with A 10, you damn well better be raising or folding to your opponents bet. Terrible play.

Second Hand -
Against Noli (the eventual winner), a very aggresive, tricky, and talented player. Noli raises with J 8 of clubs from the Small Blind. Carlos just calls from the BB with K J offsuit. The flop comes A 7 7 and noli bets 100,000. Carlos calls again. The turn comes the King of clubs, putting two clubs on the board and Noli goes all in. Carlos folds. I can't think of a worse way to play this hand either. I don't mind the pre-flop call too much, but if your going to call 100,000 on the flop with king high, you must think it's the best hand, or you think you can push Noli later in the hand, if that's the case, push now for God's sake. Calling here can't be right, can't be right at all.

Anyways, was anyone else thoroughly unimpressed with Carlos' play or was it just me?

Peace

Goodie

[Easy E]

or if his mental game was still thrown off.

I was surprised by his play on those hands, but as Randy Burger posted on wptfan.com, there's a lot that we don't see on the telecasts that may influences some of these moves.

[Senor Choppy]

[ QUOTE ]
A couple of hands from the WPT Borgata on travel last night. Both of these hands left me scratching my head as to the skill level of 2001 World Champ Carlos Mortenson.

First hand:

Against sixth place finisher and resident newbie. Carlos open raises with A 10 and newbie calls with A J. Flop comes A x x and Carlos checks, newbie bets 75,000. Carlos Calls, turn comes 9, Carlos checks, newbie goes all in for 101,000. Carlos calls. I can't imagine a worse way to play this hand. This is a monster laydown normally in a six handed game, but anyone with half a brain could tell newbie was as tight as could be and didn't like aggression one bit. If he's betting, he's got the goods, no doubt. Carlos knew it and check called anyways. My feeling is if your checking that flop with A 10, you damn well better be raising or folding to your opponents bet. Terrible play.

Second Hand -
Against Noli (the eventual winner), a very aggresive, tricky, and talented player. Noli raises with J 8 of clubs from the Small Blind. Carlos just calls from the BB with K J offsuit. The flop comes A 7 7 and noli bets 100,000. Carlos calls again. The turn comes the King of clubs, putting two clubs on the board and Noli goes all in. Carlos folds. I can't think of a worse way to play this hand either. I don't mind the pre-flop call too much, but if your going to call 100,000 on the flop with king high, you must think it's the best hand, or you think you can push Noli later in the hand, if that's the case, push now for God's sake. Calling here can't be right, can't be right at all.

Anyways, was anyone else thoroughly unimpressed with Carlos' play or was it just me?

Peace

Goodie

[/ QUOTE ]

First hand: Give him credit for checking to the guy to see if he shakily bet his hand like he did his 3 jacks. I think this was an excellent move on his part, assuming he could follow through and act on his read. I think he probably realized, wait a second, I just showed complete weakness here after raising, why shouldn't he be betting it and trying to steal it from me here. We all make bad calls, at least he did have the instincts to potentially make the good laydown here.

Hand 2: I think the flop call was another excellent play. If the turn is another blank he probably steals the pot without committing his entire stack and forces Noli to make a decision, one he couldn't have made. He got horribly unlucky when the club fell and now Noli moves all-in with Carlos covered. I think he thought he could push Noli off a hand on the flop, maybe something like a small pocket pair if that's what he had. I don't think he planned on calling all-in and hoping to show the best hand. When Noli moved-in, I think he worried he might've read him wrong on the flop and was no longer confident enough to risk being eliminated and wanted to wait for a better hand. Considering the competition, I think Carlos knew he should be able to win this barring any horrible luck and didn't want to go out on a hand where he wasn't confident of his read and/or hand.

I really don't like the guy and wasn't all that impressed by what was shown of his 2001 play in the WSOP, but I really liked his thought process for both of these hands, as well as the 66 hand later.

BTW, if you weren't impressed by Carlos' play, what did you think of the other jokers at the final table? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Goodie]

Very faulty thinking you have for both these hands. Your giving him credit in the first hand for having the insight to check a hand he could have easily folded to a raise? Checking and calling is by far the worst possible play he could have made. You don't get credit for almost making the right play. He knew he was making a mistake and still made it.

The second hand, your thinking is also faulty. He called 100,000 dollars on the flop. If he was planning on taking the hand away, why not do it then? Is 100,000 not enough for him? He wanted to build a pot to steal? What exactly are you talking about here? If he thought he had the best hand and was hoping Noli would bluff the rest of his chips, then the fold on the turn is riduculous. Again, he made the worst possible decision he could make on the flop. You tell me how raising or folding could possibly have been worse.

Peace

Goodie

[JARID]

I agree that some of the play last night was a little odd. As for your comments on the play of Carlos.

First Hand:

Given who he was playing against he had to know he was in bad shape. Especially after the turn produced a 9. If his 10 was not out kicked it would mean that this guy either had two pair or was showing this sudden aggression with A8? It was clearly evident that Carlos sensed he was beat and played on anyway, so yes, very bad play, but he got lucky and caught the 10.

Second hand:

This one is a little tougher. Carlos could have been thinking several things with the flop call. First, maybe he thought he would represent trips later in the hand, maybe he didn't think Noli had an ace. I think he was looking for a chance to show aggression later in the hand. He caught the King and had to fold to an all in, so he looked a little silly, but I would prefer to give Noli credit for a ballsy all in bet.

Finally, even though it didn't work out in his favor, moving all in with the 66 was a solid play. He was a slight favorite in the hand getting 2-1 odds on his money.

Another question:

Remember the hand that David Oppenheim and the 2nd place finisher played. Can anyone explain why he did not bet his trip 9s?

[SossMan]

Hand 1:
He was in steal position preflop on this hand. He knows that Burger would call with any ace and probably raise w/ any better ace. His misread was due to the fact that Burger didn't reraise preflop w/ a better Ace after raising in steal position. After checking and showing weakness, he knows that Burger will bet alot of hands that he could beat. I think calling and seeing if a scare card comes on the turn is fine. As for the call, it's tough, but I still think it was played fine.
Again, there was alot that we didn't see.

Hand 2:
He was going to steal on the turn when Noli checked or underbet the pot on the turn. He didn't call the flop expecting Noli to go all in on the turn, obviously.

[Goodie]

I know we didn't see the whole broadcast, but I think we all know this type of player. Newbie's don't know how to show aggression and I think it's painfully obvious that berger was not going to re-raise with a better Ace. But, even if that's what Carlos is thinking, check calling twice is still by FAR the worst play available to him.

Again, if he was going to steal later on in the hand, why in the world didn't he steal on the flop? This thinking is extremely faulty and makes no sense. Raise or fold is the only play on the flop that makes sense. Calling is horrendous.

Peace

Goodie

[unfrgvn]

One thought I had about the hand where David called Carlos's all-in, I think with K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] Q [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], second pair with flush draw. If Carlos hadn't shown David a couple of bluffs earlier, does David call? I don't think so. I think Carlos got exactly what he wanted when he showed the bluffs, he got somebody to call him with a lesser hand and then got outdrawn. I guess in the long run that may pay off, but that's why I don't like showing bluffs.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Jarid,

[ QUOTE ]
Remember the hand that David Oppenheim and the 2nd place finisher played. Can anyone explain why [the 2nd place finisher] did not bet his trip 9s?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think checking there was the right decision. David Oppenheim is a very skillful post-flop player, and I think the 2nd-place player knew this. The only reasonable bet he could have made was all-in, because he was short-stacked. Given that, if he bets his set all-in, the only hands with which David would call are likely to be hands that beat a set of 9s. And with that board, there were many possible hands that could do that (e.g.: Q9, 98, or 97 would've been a full house, JT or 65 would've been a straight).

I think he didn't want to overplay a set vs. a scary board, knowing his opponent wouldn't call an all-in bet with a hand that was beaten, so he just checked it off.

Cris

[Goodie]

I have to disagree with you here, Cris. I believe all in was not the only move that he could make. He could have bet 75 or 100 thousand and hoped for a call. In this situation, you must think about which is more likely:

1.) David is checking a hand that you do not beat.

2.) David will pay off with a hand that you beat.

I think number 2 is much more likely. Why in the world would David check a monster in this spot and risk not being paid off? That makes no sense. It's extremely likely that he's checking a hand that can't call, but because of the chance he's a got a hand like QJ or KQ, you have to bet. Checking is a very weak play.

Peace

Goodie