Well, it's just not the same without durrrr. But there were a couple of interesting hands in this week's show. First of all, let's say that Joe Hachem played extremely well, redeeming himself from his recent bad fold.
In fact, he exploited a similar mistake made by Howard Lederer. I promise this hand happened because I saw it when I first watched the show, although for some reason I can't find it on the current YouTube videos available, so my recap of the details of the hand is only approximate. In any case, Howard opens from early position with TT (one of his T's is a spade). Hachem calls in position with JJ (no spades). The frop comes K76 all spades. Howard bets, Hachem calls. The turn is an 8s, Howard checks, Hachem bets about half-pot, Howard puts in a big raise, Hachem 3-bets, and Howard folds. Howard's check/raise/fold on the turn is a big mistake IMHO. To review, the main two reasons for raising are: 1) getting value from a worse hand, 2) getting a fold from a better hand. I can't imagine Howard would really expect to get a fold from a better hand here. MAYBE Hachem folds JJ/QQ/KJ/KQ with one spade...but it would be a pretty tight fold. And moreover, he would probably be raising those hands on the frop pretty often. It's pretty thin to put in that much money as a bluff right there.
Getting value from a worse hand is an even more desperate proposition. I don't think Hachem would be bet/calling there with a straight,set, or two-pair. Or a lower flush. And then as if the raise wasn't bad enough, Howard also folds to a re-raise, meaning that even when he induces a "mistake" by Hachem, he can't capitalize because he folds. Some people might call Howard's raise a "raise for information", but that is some pretty goddamn expensive info. I can't imagine this could possibly be better than check/calling twice, which would be the more standard play. Check/calling the turn and bet/calling the river would be less standard but almost surely better than check/raise/folding the turn. Anyway, Hachem soul-owns him by three-betting and getting him to lay down the better hand. Maybe Hachem has seen Howard either check/call, check/raise smaller, or lead out again with a flush or other monster in a similar situation, I don't know, but his read was good in this hand.
The other big hand featured the first donkey squeal I can remember on any HSP show. Daniel Negreanu started the action by limping Q7s in early position (not making this up...Daniel still limping crappy suited hands like it's his job). Antonius limps behind in middle position with 96o, giving Phil "Unabomber" Laak the opportunity to punish them, raising to $6300 from the cutoff with Ts2s (obviously an expert...he knows the power of spades). Sam Simon makes a good read that Phil is isolating limpers and 4-bets. But he gheys it by MIN 3-betting. 200 bbs deep and out of position against a better player, this is never a good idea, and particularly not with T4o. In any case, it folds around to Laak, who makes the easy call of $5500 into an over $20k pot. The frop comes J98 with two diamonds. Simon makes his second mistake of the hand by overbetting the pot, $30k into $27k. If small bets are "please call me" bets, this is a "please fold to me" bet. A player as good as Phil Laak is not going to fold on this flop with anything at all, including an open-ended straight draw (the same one that Sam Simon has), because he has position, a big stack to threaten with, and a lot of scare cards that can come to give him good bluffing opportunities.
One of those scare cards is the Ad, which peels off on the turn. Simon checks to Laak, who bets $50k, forcing Simon to fold his half of the pot over to Laak. Just shows you how important position is when it's combined with a player who has balls to use it fully. If you're up against such a player, it really pays to try to end hands early. Having made his read that Laak was weak, Simon really needs to raise to $18-20k instead of making this min raise that Laak is sure to call, because Laak will pwn him with position so often.
-BRUECHIPS
The one hand that I would like to discuss is the hand where Daniel opened in LP with 89dd to 2,500 and PA 3b’s to 11,000 OTB. I really like his bet sizing here…considering all the antes and the original open size by Daniel – they are deep and he wants to start applying maximum pressure IP.
The frop comes down KsTd3d and they both whiff. However, this board texture hits PA’s 3b’ing range much better than it does Daniel’s 3b calling range. Throughout the season, Daniel has shown a propensity to play a pretty wide range of cards to 3b’s. Daniel checks, PA sticks in a 17k bet into 24k with his J high and two backdoor draws, and Daniel calls. The turn is the 5h and Daniel checks again. I REALLY would have liked to see PA fire again here (and I am VERY surprised that he didn’t) – his hand has zero showdown value and two obvious draws (QJ and diamonds) have bricked off. A bet here will also probably fold out any pair of Tens or worse. The river brings an off soot Q and Daniel, realizing he can not win at showdown correctly bets 26k and gets a fold from PA.
-BRACKCHIPS
5 comments:
Brue,
What do you think about the value of a min-3-bet in position as a bluff against aggro PF raisers? I mention this b/c I've wondered if I haven't been exploited by similar maneuvers. Basically, my reaction to being min 3-bet PF is twofold: 1) Opponent is a donk trying to squeeze every last drop out of a big PP, or AK, and 2) I'm getting an awesome price to call, try to flop big, and bail out otherwise. The end result is that I treat the min 3-bet as a stronger move than a regular sized 3-bet, and give up on more flops as a result.
I kinda hate it OOP, but think it could be a cheap way to steal pots from in position.
I was under the impression that Simons min-3bet it because he wanted to put in a raise, but wasn't aware that Phil Laak had already raised it. Kinda similar to Peter Eastgate's faux pas against Eli raising with the wrong colored chip. Anyways great analysis and keep up the good work.
Yeah that first hand is pretty bad by Lederer. I used to implement the "raise for info" in my game, but it really is just a spewy strategy with the long term result of unprofitability.
Oddly enough, I learned that poor strategy by listening to the advice of old school live pros. So I wouldn't be surprised if that was a part of Lederer's thought process.
Ah, Tilt, I think you are right. I wasn't listening to the audio when I watched the show, so I didn't catch that. I like his overbet on the flop even less now...
noldmax, I think this strategy can be employed profitably against the right type of players. Obviously you have to balance your range somewhat to be effective. I think it works best vs. TAGs a bit on the nittish side, especially those that play a whole bunch of tables and therefore will be slow to recognize that you're doing it too often to have AA/KK every time.
Vs. donks, I don't think it's going to end up being more profitable than making a normal-sized 3b. They're less likely to give you credit for some kind of huge hand and fold when they flop some weak but half-decent hand. You're just making it easier for them to call you down by controlling the size of the pot, which is what they want to do anyway, so I would just make a full 3-b to punish them to the max.
-bruechips
I miss durrrr. Big time.
The Lederer / Hachem hand was interesting solely because I don't think Hach makes that move against anyone who was in the first couple of HSP episodes (except maybe Barry or Doyle). Goes to show you how much the dynamic has changed with a couple of non-pros (Simon and Cassavetes) and a couple of tight-boxes.
Post a Comment