High Stakes Poker Recap, S5Ep08

The best thing I can say about episode 8: it looks like durrrr will be back in episode 9.

Daniel got a little bit back into the swing of things, winning a couple of decent-sized pots off Patrik Antonius, although some of his plays continues to confuse me.

In his first hand, Daniel raised preflop with 6s5s and was called by Antonius in position with AdTc. The frop comes 8h4d3c, Daniel c-bets, and Antonius floats him with A-high. I think I might do a post entirely devoted to froating soon, but I think this is a good call by Antonius because 1. he is ahead a significant % of the time, 2. Daniel doesn't seem to run too many huge multi-barrel bluffs out of position, so there's a good chance he can get to showdown fairly cheaply with the best hand, and 3. Daniel will call down light in situations where the other guy is put in a good bluffing spot. So say a Td comes on the turn, Antonius could get some nice value from Daniel if Daniel had a lower T, pocket sevens, A4s, something of that variety.

In fact Antonius does improve on the turn with the As (prettiest card in the deck!), giving him top pair and Daniel a frush draw to go with his straight draw. Daniel fires another 2/3 pot bet, which Antonius calls again. As Gabe Kaplan says in the commentary, it would take a huge raise to get Daniel to fold, and the group of hands Antonius can get value from with a raise is somewhat limited. it's basically spade draws and straight draws. Furthermore, there's very little chance of Daniel folding a hand better than AT. So the raise would have to be purely for value. And there's always the chance Daniel could put in another raise with a big draw, forcing Antonius to fold the best hand, since there are some big hands Daniel can represent (52s, 43s, aces up, sets).

The river comes a 4s (was there ever any doubt that spades would get there), giving Daniel the best hand with a frush. I have no idea why Daniel checks his frush here. Is he afraid of a full house? Seems kind of unreasonable as you'd expect Antonius to put in a raise on either the frop or turn with two pair or a set. Is he afraid of Antonius having ALSO runner-runner'ed a frush that's better than his? Again seems pretty unlikely...maybe he thinks Antonius could have a missed straight draw himself and bet as a bluff when checked to? I don't know...but I'm pretty sure Antonius calls off $27k on the river if Daniel bets again. Instead Daniel checks, Antonius makes a pretty good value bet of $18k (good value bet because Daniel is a payoff wizard), and Negreanu just calls to rake the pot.

The other hand between the two started with Antonius raising pocket sevens from what looked to be early position (note to HSP producers: your show is awesome, but you could make it way more awesome if next to the hole cards graphics you showed the players' position and stack size...the hand isn't complete without these things), and gets called by Daniel in the big blind with KcJc. Daniel frops gin as it comes JJ2 rainbow. Antonius makes a standard cbet of $5500 into the $9k pot. This might seem kind of like a pointless bet as no better hand will fold and only a few worse hands will call (actually Daniel probably calls with a good A-high here, so maybe it is a good value bet), but there are a lot of hands that Antonius wants to fold even though they're behind, such as a hand like QTs. Daniel probably instafolds these to a bet on the frop, but if he pairs on the turn or river, it'll be hard to get it out of hands. So you might as well bet now and take the pot down.

In any case, Daniel certainly isn't folding trips, and raises to $17,500. Antonius decides to float again. I think his reasoning here is: Daniel does not normally make thin value bets like this, and the only real hands out there are deuces full and trip jacks. Since these hands are rare, and the rest of Daniel's range is total air like 65s, he can continue with the hand, especially since he has position.

The turn brings an ace and Daniel checks. Gabe Kaplan criticizes, but I kind of like this check by Daniel. Antonius is probably floating with ace-high on the frop a fair amount of the time, and knows that Daniels knows that, and therefore thinks he can represent an ace on the turn by betting when Daniel checks. Daniel calls the $27k bet from Patrik, perhaps trying to represent an ace himself or something of the TT/QQ variety.

The river brings a nine of hearts, compeleting a runner-runner flush. Daniel checks again, hoping to induce another bluff from Antonius, who doesn't bite. Daniel rakes in a nice pot, managing to squeeze some pretty good value from a mediocre hand.

-BRUECHIPS