Anyway, reasons I haven't recapped until now: 1) been very busy, 2) HSP has been...eh, kind of a dud so far this year. I'm sure it will heat up before the season ends, but there haven't been that many interesting hands, the new show segments of Kara Scott interviewing the players and Daniel Negreanu telling stories from poker history a) aren't entertaining or worthwhile in and of themselves, and worse, b) take away from air time that could be allocated to showing more hands. I understand that some viewers want to "get inside the heads" of the top players and have them explain their reasoning, but often it's difficult to relate all these reasons even to another top player, much less a lay audience and an interviewer asking unspecific questions. And that's even if the player being interviewed wants to convey information, which they have every incentive not to do. I think it's best just to show the hands and let viewers decide for themselves what's going on, perhaps with help from the commentator (although I often find myself disagreeing with Gabe Kaplan, so listen to him for actual poker analysis at your own risk - he is pretty funny though. His shit about Hoivold saving up for some new shirts at the Army/Navy depot in Oslo and Hellmuth not owning any clothes that aren't black was hilarious).
As for the hands shown, Phil Hellmuth is still pretty awful, although he might be slowly realizing it if his decision to not re-buy is any indication. The chatter around the tables recently has gotten a little too overt in terms of calling Phil out, and he might be getting the hint that when they say that he sucks at cash games, they aren't kidding. It does provide for high comedy though...check out this clip starting around the 7:40 minute mark:
Daniel Negreanu has gotten a little better, but not much. Durrrr still pwns, and Ivey runs like a Hellenic deity. He also seems to be quite fond of floating and barreling, sometimes multiple streets, on dry boards in limped pots. Sample hand from first episode:
Hellmuth open limps AQs, as is his wont, Ivey completes in the SB with T6o and Hoivold checks J8o. The flop comes out a bone dry K43r and Ivey bets half-pot into both players. Hoivold folds, Hellmuth calls with his ace high and they see an 8c turn, completing the rainbow. Another Ivey bet forces Hellmuth to fold. You could see similar hands in each episode. Ivey is just extremely comfortable in his ability to outplay some of the other players on later streets. The entire point of his flop bet there is to get heads-up with Hellmuth so he can just crush him on the turn and river all day long.
Another Ivey-pwns-Hellmuth hand from the first episode occured when Hellmuth made an oversized open to $4k with AJo (btw, if you listened to the pokerroad live radio broadcast of the ME FT this year, how funny was it to listen to Hellmuth talk about his genius advice to Shulman that he should make his opens be 5x the bb "so they can't set mine against you"? Yikes....). Ivey pops it up to $15k with QQ. Inexplicably, Hellmuth then raises to $55k. And then folds to a shove. Of course he can't call the shove given stack sizes (I think Hellmuth is something like $190kish deep at that point)...but then why raise to $55k? Really, Hellmuth should probably just be folding to the Ivey 3-bet because he's just going to get crushed by Ivey. But then extending the logic of backwards induction, Hellmuth should just quit the table before the game gets started.
Then he loses a big pot to Esfandiari and starts to straddle. Why not just announce to the whole table that you're steaming? Everybody knows that Phil never wants to straddle, so him deciding to do it unilaterally is just telling everyone that he's off his game, such as it is. Unsurprisingly, he ends up losing his stack to Ivey. Don't worry though, eventually Hellmuth will beat Ivey "for a million...or two."
Episode 2 included an interesting hand between durrrr and Dario Minieri (who can really play IMHO). Daniel Negreanu opens in early position with 54s (a little bit loose, but not way out of line) and gets called by Gus with AKo. I'm not sure what Gus's plan is for this hand, but for most of his plans for the rest of the hand after calling, I think I like re-raising better. The problem is that he'll get squeezed by some player at the table a fair amount of the time if he just calls. If they were all 100 bbs deep, he would probably then be in a profitable spot to just 4-bet shove, but given that all the players are way deeper than that, this option is less attractive. So then he will have to just call and be out of position for the rest of the hand with AKo, or fold, which is pretty weak. If he raises, he probably gets rid of everyone else, and also could easily get some value from Daniel, who as we have seen doesn't mind calling pre-flop re-raises with speculative hands. Nor do I think he has to worry too much about getting 4-bet by Daniel as a bluff.
Sure enough, he durrrr squeezes with K5s (spades!). As we see here and in the next episode, durrrr likes 3-betting UTG raisers. He knows that they know that they're supposed to have a big hand there, and so when they have anything less than a monster (like not AA/KK), it's a pretty tough spot, especially deep. K5s is a pretty good hand to do it with, as it has some card removal value (having a king makes it less likely that the other players have KK or AK), and some monster-cracking power with its suitedness and big-little-ness. The big-littleness is often a disadvantage since it means it's not connected at all, but if you want a non-premium hand that has card-removal value, it has to be disconnected (unless it's ace-little, which has the added value of wheel potential). But you make up for it somewhat by the possibility of making two pair, which has more value for K5, when the opponent can flop top pair with AK, or have AA or a worse two pair (say, on K65 or K54) but think that you are value betting with AK. Two pair is less valuable with a suited connected hand like 89, because most of the boards that have and eight and a nine don't look too great for the opponent.
Perhaps realizing that durrrr likes to squeeze UTG raisers, or just giddy at the prospect of being dealt two tens (a pair!), Dario cold 4-bets to $36.6k, maybe a touch big, but a very nice bet. Definitely better than cold calling (which I think he'd almost never do with a super-premium hand) or folding, given how wide durrrr's range is. Of course, then you have to bother with playing in a big pot post-flop with durrrr, and durrrr is always capable of 5-betting air. But this time durrrr just calls. The flop comes down Q76 with two diamonds, Dario bets half-pot and durrr folds quickly. It's kind of unfortunate that this flop came down, as I'd really be interested to see what would happen if an ace or king flopped, or even something like Q53 with one spade where durrrr might be a little more likely to try a float. All we know is that durrrr had some plans for some flops, and Q76 with two diamonds wasn't one of them. Or maybe durrrr thought that Dario would be giving up on the flop without c-betting a fair amount of the time?
Looks like this post got long kinda fast, so I'll wrap up with just one more hand from Episode 3: Eli limps QTo in early position (BTW, I've mentioned this before, but that guy HATES folding...I'm not saying he's a bad player, but he does probably call than any other player at that table), Ivey raises it up to 5k with T9o, and gets called by Daniel in the cutoff with 9d8d and Gus on the button with As3s. Of course Eli isn't going anywhere and puts in the extra $4200 to close out the action. The flop comes JdJh7d and it checks around. Ivey doesn't c-bet, presumably because he's against 3 players, none of them like to fold, and this is a board where he's probably not folding out any 7 or better, any straight draw, any flush draw, probably gets floated by some ace-highs, and called by some underpairs sometimes too. But Daniel not betting is strange to me. There are so many great reasons to bet in Daniel's shoes. First, you can fold out Gus a lot of the time and buy yourself position on the other two players for the rest of the hand. Second, Ivey has already checked, which means he doesn't have a great hand most of the time, as we've already gone over the fact that he'll get called a ton if he bets here. Third, you avoid some cooler situations because if a better flush draw or a jack raises you, you can fold and you don't risk losing a bigger pot later to a better hand. Daniel's draw looks great on the surface, but it isn't going to be that profitable to him to make a flush or a straight, unless it's a straight flush. Can you think of many ways for him to win a big pot? I can't. I'd much rather use the draws as kind of an insurance policy, and generate most of my profit off fold equity of betting the flop now and potentially the turn as well, rather than trying to just check down and trying to maximize showdown equity. Anyway, Daniel checks and Gus lets a turn card come off, which is the 2h. It again checks to Daniel, who again fails to bet, even less explicably in my view. All the reasons for betting the flop are only amplified on the turn. Check-calling a bet from Gus is just the nut low. Gus could be drawing to hearts, which kills the Th for Daniel some of the time. Also if Gus is drawing to hearts, they're probably higher than Daniel's nine, and so a check/check on the river and Daniel loses. But Daniel does call a healthy-sized bet from Gus. The river rolls off a 7h and it goes check/check, sending a $60k pot to Gus with ace-high at showdown. Which has to make you sick if you're Daniel.
Well, here's hoping for more interesting hands and more frequent recaps in the future....
-BRUECHIPS
I berated bruechips for not including a hand from episode 3, so now it’s on me to put together a little summary of it.
Gussie opens in the 3 hole for $4,200 with the ole’ 46 (not one but TWO spades FTW!) and gets called in two spots. DURRRR with A7cc (the second nut soot) and the K8hh in the BB by the biggest station ever to set foot on HSP. Oh and that is not an opinion btw…its pretty well documented. The guy simply DOES not fold. I wish I could back this up with some empirical evidence but bruechips and myself have had many discussions about his inability to dump a hand. I feel like if he ever played somewhat seriously online, he would be in deep shit because clicking “call” is SIGNFICANTLY easier than actually placing the chips in the middle.
Frop comes down K93r ftw. From Gus’s perspective, this is a great frop to C bet. It is bone dry other than the gutterball. Despite having 6 high he represent AA, Kx, and the occasional set. As soon as I saw this frop I thought to myself, its going to take A LOT to make Eli fold his hand given this board. Eli Checks the frop, Gus bets $9,900, DURRRR folds, and Eli calls. Pretty standard stuff here.
Turn is a brank offsoot 3. Once Eli xc’s the turn, I think that Eli’s range is capped to KQ other than the occasional boat. I think that when Gus bets this turn – he’s going to bomb most all rivers. He has zero showdown value and Eli will sometimes fold hands the likes 9x, JT, QJ, TT to a river bet.
River is the almighty A of spades. Eli again xc’s ftw. As Gus mentioned, the A is a terrible card for him. Gus was attempting to rep a big Kx type hand and now all medium Kx hands will chop vs him. Also, if that is the hand he is representing, there is really not much of a reason to bet when the ace hits, other than to try prevent the pot from being chopped. I wonder if Eli calls a river overbet shove…who knows.
One thing to note is the bet sizing. I think that given the board texture, Gus can definitely get away with betting SIGNIFICANTLY less on the turn and pull off a “triple deke” (phrased coined by OMGCrayaiken which involves triple barrel bluff with a twist of a tiny sized turn bet). The 3 changes essentially nothing and it is unlikely that either of them have one given card removal. I think that Eli’s response to Gus’s turn bet regardless of size will be the same. Gus bet 74% pot bet on the turn, and I’m pretty certain that he could have made a cheaper turn bluff in the neighborhood of 25-35%.
For all of you playing HSP, please burn this into your head. ELI DOES NOT FOLD! C’mon, let’s see some razor thing VB’s vs this guy!
-BRACKCHIPS
