POKER HAND #17

POKER SUPERSTARS UNITE: Like the Thunderbirds of poker, someone finally had the idea to put on TV what I'd love to see: 8 of the best players in the world going at each other. Here's who they included:

Between Eric Drache and me, we knew every poker player who had passed the test of time and every newcomer who had won the respect of the legends. In short, we were interested in poker superstars, not shooting stars (since the latter come in bunches and the former are few). We quickly came up with a list of about 20 players. The hard part was narrowing the field to only eight. We consulted with some of the players and came up with a game plan. First, we had to have some cash-game players, people who have been successful in megagames for many years. The names Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, and Johnny Chan are synonymous with such high-limit side games. Then, we had to add the player whom those three respected as being one of the toughest megacash-limit players for the past six years, so we got Barry Greenstein. Next, we decided to add players who had made the biggest splash in both tournaments and cash games in recent years. These players were the fresh faces, Phil Ivey and Gus Hansen, and the veteran, Howard Lederer. Finally, we wanted to pick one tournament player who had won the most tournaments, T.J. Cloutier, and see how he could hold up against this kind of firepower. We had assembled our superstars, tried and true, not passing fads or lucky Internet newcomers. These people were the best. And to the remainder of the great players who didn't get picked, we have to say: Your turn will come … soon, we hope.

What an awesome assemblage of poker players. Thinking of how these player's styles will mesh gives me a headache. I'd pick Chan as the strong favorite here because of his unpredictability, while Gus Hansen is and will always be my favorite poker player.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting article on how people overplay combination hands:

You have a combination hand when you flop a pair along with either a straight or a flush draw. A typical example (which I'll use throughout the column) would be the 8c 7c with a flop of Qc 8h 2c. You might have the best hand with a pair of eights, but even if you don't, you can still hit your flush and win that way. I think too many players get overly excited when they flop such a hand. If they stopped to think about it, they would realize that they could go broke by playing the hand incorrectly, which should make them more worried than excited.

Too often, players instinctively get far too aggressive when they flop a combination hand. They figure they don't want to be moved off their hand, so they either move all in or overbet the pot. There might be $50 in the pot, and they bet more than $100. They don't stop to think that no sensible no-limit player is going to call them with a drawing hand — the pot odds just aren't there. Most of the time, they will win the pot uncontested, but when they do get called, they are almost certainly up against a better hand. In all likelihood, their opponent has at least two pair, and maybe a set. So, once someone calls, their pair is usually worthless. Their combination hand has been reduced to merely a drawing hand. Now, they've overbet the pot, and the only way to win is to hit their draw. Not only are they getting horrible odds on their flop bet, but if they didn't put themselves all in, a smart opponent will make it expensive for them on the turn if the next card off does not make their hand. All in all, this is a pretty lousy situation.

POKER HAND #16

OUR FIRST HAND BY SUBMISSION: I turn it over to Colin Hartnett.

I stayed away from the poker craze, but now I am taking it up so I can take Nick's money when I go to LA.

This is my first-ever game of hold 'em... limit. I'm holding a 9s-10s,and I'm sitting right next to the big blind, so I play it as you'd expect before the flop... just call everything. Then the flop comes: Js-Qs-Ks. I did a quick double-take... couldn't believe I was that lucky with the junk hands I'd had up to that point. I slow-played the flop since it was 7-way action, letting the other players do all the raising and re-raising. Then after the turn I come out hard and do some raising, hoping to make anyone who made a flush think 4th Street helped me and they had me beat. Only a couple of players fold at this point. I kept betting hard after the river, and the action winds up head-to-head. After three betting rounds, my opponent checks, and I
flip the nut straight flush. It was pure bliss, baby, taking the biggest pot of the session.

NEXT STOP: AC.

POKER HAND #15

HOWARD LEDERER AND DOYLE BRUNSON ELIMINATED FROM THE WSOP: Phil Hellmuth's description follows.

"I flopped a pair, stole a pot or two, and had $45,000 when the big hand came up between Doyle and me. By the way, this hand will definitely be on TV. Although some might think Doyle's play odd, I happen to like the way he played this hand. He opened from middle position for $3,500 with the Ks 10s, and everyone folded to me in the big blind. I looked down at 7-7, and called $2,500 more. Now, there was about $8,000 in the pot, and the flop came down 7s 4s 3d. I checked, and was debating in my mind how to play this powerful hand. Was I going to check-call or check-raise, and if I check-raised, how much? Then, Doyle announced, 'I'm all in.' Decision time was over, and I nearly beat Doyle into the pot. The second he said, 'All in,' I said, 'Call.'

"Then, Doyle said, 'Uh-oh.' He knew by the speed of my call that I had a superstrong hand. The K came on the turn, which meant that we would have played a big pot anyway. And then, the 6 came on the river. Boom! I was gone — the agony of defeat! I mean, one second you're comfortable and playing in the biggest poker tournament in history, and the next second, you're gone. The finality of it all is really something. As I said, I like Doyle's play here. I mean, if he bets $8,000, what's he supposed to do, fold for my all-in $30,000 raise? He can't, so why not put the maximum pressure on me and any pair that I might have, like J-J, 10-10, 9-9, or something similar."

Since I couldn't reach Doyle by my column deadline, Howard told me the unbelievable scenario behind Doyle's exit in 53rd place. Howard said, "I was needling Doyle the next day after he busted me out about his verbal declarations. I was telling him that he was too lazy to put his chips in the pot. Unbelievably, day five rolled along and the following hand came up between Bradley Berman — Lyle Berman's son — and Doyle. Doyle was down to about $100,000 in chips, with the blinds at about $6,000-$12,000. Doyle verbally announced, 'I'm all in,' but it was extremely noisy in the building at the time, and everyone folded around to Bradley, who was in the small blind.

"Bradley thought that everyone else had folded, and that he would be raising the big blind only. So, he announced, 'I raise,' at which point he was told that Doyle had already moved all in, and that he must raise Doyle's $100,000 bet. The big blind folded, and Doyle flipped up pocket tens. Bradley, with a little egg on his face, sheepishly flipped up his A-7. He flopped an ace when A-5-5 came, and it was over for Doyle in an instant.

"Can you imagine if Doyle had made it to the final table? At 70 years of age, moving through 2,576 players like a surgeon, what a feat that would have been."

POKER HAND #14

TRUSTY SUPER-SYSTEM: Doyle Brunson's "Super-System" is absolutely the best poker book ever written. Here's a particularly cogent section, with my thoughts. This is from Mike Caro's section on draw poker:

ILLUSIONS:

Since the main fault of recreational Draw players is that they call too much, naturally you want to exploit that weakness. Previously I explained how simply calling with nothing, rapping pat and spreading the hand without betting creates a bizarre image. This sort of "insane" maneuver is highly cost-effective in bringing a deluge of calls when you do have the best hand.

Sometimes I even give away "prize" money:

"Look, I'm really getting bored. I haven't had a pair in three hands, so here's what I'm going to do. Show me the six of spades and I'll give you ten dollars."

Someone exposes the Six of Spades and collects the $10.
 
"Anyone who has a pair gets a free ante."

That costs me about three antes on average, but once I had to ante for all seven opponents. No matter, they're more than willing to give it back in multiple doses for these reasons:

(1) They think they must call anyone too crazy to care about money.

(2) They feel obligated to give me action in return.

(3) They can now freely yield to their gambling compulsions without embarassment, since playing a Pair of Fours seems like a trivial sin in comparison to my deed.

(4) They can call me without any damage to their egos because the atmosphere is fun and frivolous.
 
This passage isn't entirely typical of the book. Mike Caro's section is full of good ideas like this stuff.

POKER HAND #13

FROM THIS EVENING'S GAME: I picked up J-J in the big blind and raised to three dollars. I got one caller and the flop came down Q-J-4 rainbow. I bet out and got raised. I assumed my opponent was probably playing with the nuts or the nut straight draw. I raised and got called. The turn was the last J, giving me the nuts with quads. Naturally I got all my money in and my poor opponent called with the Q-Q. She never quite recovered from that horrible beat. My apologies Raquel, you'll be back at 'em soon.

POKER HAND #12

ESPN COVERAGE: Didn't like what I saw when I finally got a chance to see the ESPN coverage of the WSOP. I watched the 3,000 no limit hold 'em final table, and it was all basically a bunch of showdowns. Here was one notable hand.

Sean Rice picked up 9-9 and raised to 36,000. The big blind, David Chiu called with Q-3 suited. The flop came down 9-7-9. I don't know what David Chiu thought he was bluffing into out of position, but Chiu bets medium sized and Rice just smooth-called. That should have been been a huge indicator as Rice obviously wasn't on a draw. So Chiu checks and Rice check right behind him. An ace on the river, which could have only helped his opponent, and Chiu check again. Rice bets medium-sized and Chiu stupidly calls, losing a quarter of his money.

POKER HAND #11

TOM MCEVOY PLAYIN' OMAHA: Omaha is second to only hold 'em when it comes to my favorite poker games. But since everybody plays hold 'em, and nobody plays Omaha, I am starting to gravitate towards the latter. I especially enjoy Omaha Eight-or-Better. Here's Tom McEvoy's tournament story:

After battling my way to threehanded play, the limits were $8,000-$16,000 with $263,000 in play. One player had about 60 percent of the chips, and the other two of us were close, although he had me covered. In my final hand, the second-place chip leader raised from the button before the flop and the chip leader folded in the small blind. I looked down at A-K-J-4 in the big blind, a reasonable hand with which to defend my blind threehanded, so I called. The flop came K-Q-4 rainbow, giving me top and bottom pair. I bet, the button raised, and we got it all in. I was hoping that all he had was a straight draw, but alas, he had A-K-Q-X, leaving me with only two fours or one of the four tens for a straight. I didn't catch any of them, but Vince was right: I still felt that it was my day.

POKER HAND #10

CONDOLENCES: to the family and friends of Andy Glazer. Andy was a great poker writer and from all accounts a decent person so it's sad that he died, and so suddenly at that. Here's some of his writing:

Although we didn't discuss too many specific hands from Arieh's WSOP, he did touch on a few. "Here's an example of one I figured out," the handsome father of two said. "In one hand, I made a king-high flush on the river, when the board came J 6 2 Q Q. My opponent bet, and I folded instantly, even though you'll see me calling with all kinds of weak hands in other situations. I knew I was beat there; I knew that because my flush card had paired the board, I was nowhere, and I was right. I can't wait until that hand shows up on TV, so I can find out if my reads were as good as I thought.

"My strategy throughout was to play small pots," Arieh continued. "I'd play those small pots and win — chip up, chip up, chip up — and then sooner or later I'd play a big coin-flip hand. If I lost the coin flip, the little pots had given me enough chips so that I was back where I started, and if I won the coin flip, I was off to the races with a big stack.

"I felt like Gus (Hansen, the terrific Danish player) was inside me," Arieh added. "I know how he plays, and it can be devastatingly effective."

I wanted to know if there was a particular point — other than the obvious, his bust-out hand — when Arieh felt the tournament get away from him. He remembered the candidate clearly. "Without taking anything away from David Williams, who played great," Arieh began, "my big trouble hand was when the blinds were $30,000-$60,000, he made it $120,000 with what turned out to be two fives, and I made it $620,000 with my A-K. It's hard to call half a million with a small pair like that, but he did, and when both an ace and a 5 hit the flop, he doubled through me.

"Never mind my winning that hand," Arieh explained. "Forget about my winning that extra $500,000, or even just his $120,000 if he throws it away. If I just don't lose that hand, I'm OK with about six million. But losing it, now I have only four and a half, David has the same amount instead of one-third as much as me, and Fossilman has eight million. So instead of a small lead on me, he has almost twice what I do and can play much more fearlessly. If there was one big moment, that was it, but it wasn't like I never got lucky in this tournament. At one stretch a couple of days earlier, I'd been all in with a short stack ($20,000) and held A-Q against an A-K with the flop already K-Q-2, and somebody said, just before the turn, 'I had a queen.' Bang, a queen on the turn, the old one-outer. If I don't get lucky there, there's no story to talk about later."

Win the A-Q hand he did, though, and a story did develop. "The first few nights, I didn't sleep well," he said. "I stayed almost as focused as I was at the table, because I didn't want to lose focus. Finally, my wife, Angela, came in, and I was able to get seven or eight hours of sleep … but I'd wake up with my mind racing, thinking about situations.

"The relative lack of sleep wasn't too bad," Arieh explained, "because I have a lot of practice playing eight hours a day, four or five games at a time, mostly Internet tournaments of all kinds. That's a learning tool that the new generation of poker players has that lets them get experience much faster than players used to be able to.

"Besides," Arieh said, "I was just watching the NBA playoffs the other day, and some reporter asked Kevin Garnett about fatigue. I loved Garnett's answer: 'I'm a pro. You don't get tired in the Western Conference finals.' The guys who step up when adversity or fatigue sets in are the players who make names for themselves.

"I was in great shape after day one, but after day two, I had almost exactly the same amount of chips, and, of course, par had changed a lot," Arieh said. "I wasn't worried, though, because the structure is so good that I knew I had time. I was on a real roller coaster ride. First, I felt great from my day one, and then I called home and found out Angela was in the hospital, and I was ready to go home. She assured me she was OK; I was still skeptical about staying and playing, but she convinced me, and obviously she was OK, because she came to join me a couple of days later.

"Before day three, Erick and I talked about Abe Mosseri for two hours, because he had chips and was going to be at my table," Arieh explained. "We knew Abe was a backgammon player and idolized Gus Hansen's play, because Gus was also a backgammon player, so we knew Abe would play situations like Gus.

"One hand, I raised from up front with J-9, wanting to isolate the blinds, because we had decided they were players I could outplay," Arieh continued. "Abe reraised from the button. The flop came A-5-4, and I led out for $40,000. Abe just called. A queen came on the turn, and I fired $140,000; I was trying to get him to fold a weak ace, and he folded his hand. Then, I showed the bluff, and for one moment, regrettably, the old Josh came out a bit. I said, 'Come on, Abe, we're not playing tiddlywinks.' Most people are going to freeze after getting called on the flop, so when I fired again, I wasn't surprised he let it go. Even though I regret the trash talk, I don't think he was able to play the same after that.

"Finally, I got down to $1.5 million," Arieh recalled. "Raymer made it $250,000, and Williams flat-called. I saw two nines and pushed all in, and Raymer had enough chips to call me with A-Q. That hand had saved me before when I had it, but now it was Greg's turn; the flop came Q-Q-J, and I was dead to a 9 and didn't get one. I felt like I let everyone down. I hadn't come to edge up in the money; I wanted to be the world champion. I felt like I owed it to anyone who had ever done anything for me."

POKER HAND #9

THE IMMORTAL NICK FREILICH: plays at the Hustler Casino in Los Angeles. Here's his story, with a good tip for playing against casino dead money:

There was this barely-legal Phil Ivey clone sitting at the end of a table, next to this japanese trophy wife of yore. With my A-X suited combo, I flop the nut flush. Not only that, but by the time all is said and done, I'm a 10d away from a royal flush. But meanwhile, Phil Ivey and the trophy wife are betting into me, raising, re-raising: and I am announcing to the entire table that I have the nuts. I am telling everyone that there is no way they can beat my hand. But the two keep raising me. He, predictably, has a straight to the Ace and she has one pair. I've found that if you're playing really raw rookies, you'll get more action if you act crazy and talk up your hand because they get this 'I GOTTA SEE THE HAND' sort of mentality.

On one hand i want all these fanboys to go back to playing madden on PS2 and stop coming here with no necks and raising with pocket 2s because they saw T.J. Cloutier do it. On the other, I like taking their money.

POKER HAND #8

WSOP, NOT THE BIG ONE: From Daniel Negreanu's great website, fullcontactpoker.com:

With the blinds at just $4,000-$8,000, I expected a long, drawn out match, considering our respective styles of play. Just six hands into the heads-up match, however, we played a monster pot: Phil limped in on the button and I checked from the big blind with Q-8 offsuit. The flop came Qc 8h 2h. In other words, I flopped gin. Hoping that Phil would bluff at it, I checked, but he checked behind me.

The turn brought the 5, putting three hearts on board. I decided to try for the check-raise once more, hoping Phil might see my double check on the flop and the turn as weakness. Phil bit this time, betting $30,000. With three hearts on board and several straight draws out there, I decided not to get cute with the hand, so I made a substantial raise to $130,000.

Phil didn’t seem shaken however. He didn’t seem to mind very much that I’d just raised him. “Uh-oh,” I thought. “Phil just might have the flush.” Phil’s check on the flop didn’t rule out that possibility to me at all, as he is more than capable of checking the flush draw on the flop behind me.

I was getting that sinking feeling in my stomach … I was trapping Phil here, but it looked like I might be the one getting trapped. Yep, Phil reraised me my last $117,000. As much as I hated to call, I really didn’t feel like I had much choice. Sure, I was probably beat, but there were several hands Phil could have that didn’t beat mine, and the pot was laying me too big a price to fold. He could have A-Q with a heart, a worse two pair, or even just top pair with a flush draw. I called.

Phil turned over the 4h 3h and I wasn’t able to snag a miracle queen or 8 on the river. Oh well, I’ve had worse days, I guess.

I’ve gone over that hand in my head several times, and I realize there were alternate ways to play it, but I’m not disappointed with the choice I made. Sure, I could have just called on the turn and then check-called the river and saved some chips. Sure, I could have listened to that old saying, “You can never be too careful,” but the truth is, living by that statement while playing tournament poker will keep you on the outside looking in. There comes a point in every tournament when it’s imperative to take some risks. This seemed like one of them.

I’m rarely, if ever satisfied with a second-place finish, but considering the fact that my final two opponents are two of the truly great no-limit hold’em players of our time, I can honestly say it was a happy second, and I consider that finish one of my more memorable achievements.

POKER HAND #7

MORE ERIK SEIDEL: Our first non-hold 'em hand over here at PHOTD. Here's Phill Hellmuth in Card Player in the year 2002:

Anyway, on day two of Bellagio's pot-limit Omaha event, with eight players left in the tournament and the blinds high, the following hand came up between Jim McManus and Erik Seidel. Erik remembers calling a small raise before the flop with Q-Q-X-X from one of the blinds. The flop came down Kh Qh 4s, and Erik checked. Jim bet, and Erik called. The next card off was the 5s, and Erik checked, Jim bet, and Erik just called.

The last card was the 4, for a board of Kh Qh 4s 5d 4h, and Erik bet out with his queens full of fours. Jim then moved Erik all in. When Erik bet on the end, he planned to fold if Jim raised him his remaining chips. Now, staring at an $11,000 call all in, with a ton of chips already in the pot, Erik went into the think tank. He was initially convinced that Jim could only have kings full of fours. Then, he asked himself, "Could Jim really have raised me all in with fours full, or merely a flush?"

Although Erik was convinced that Jim had the best hand, he just didn't have enough chips to lay down his queens full. So, he called the raise and Jim said, "I have the nuts." Seidel was standing, ready to exit stage left, but for the mere formality of Jim showing him his four fours or kings full of fours. When Jim flipped up the Ah 6h-X-X, for merely the nut flush, Erik thought, "Holy cow, I actually won this pot." You see, Jim didn't notice that the 4 had paired the board, and thus thought he had the nuts with his ace-high flush.

What a swing; Erik was already resigned to an eighth-place finish, and all of a sudden he was not only still alive, but was the chip leader, as well. Erik now says, "The funny thing about it is that Jim did think he had the nuts, and my read was right! Also, I would like to credit the U.S. Army, because they had captured Saddam Hussein only hours before, and that had left Jim in such a state of euphoria that he wasn't paying close attention to the hand." (Jim himself wrote, in a recent Details magazine article, that the "Saddam capture" distracted his play in this hand.)