WSOP Legend Hellmuth Pwned Spectacularly

Much of the humor from this hand is actually derived from the reaction of the other players in the game but not in the hand. Daniel Negreanu and Tony G in particular seem to be having a whale of a time.

Check it out, it’s an epic hand and we know you’ll love it. You never know – you might even feel sorry for the Poker Brat…

Visit PokerListings.com

Boris Becker trying his hand at the World Series of Poker – Las Vegas Sun

Las Vegas Sun

Boris Becker trying his hand at the World Series of Poker Las Vegas Sun For the last three years, Becker has traveled around the globe playing poker as a PokerStars.net-sponsored professional. He's in Las Vegas this summer for … and more »

Durrrr-watch 2010: Rosenkrantz Gets "durrrr" Wet at WSOP

Smiling at his friend, durrrr went for a traditional high-five greeting but as their hands connected, his smile dried up and was gradually replaced with a look of disgust as it sunk in that Rosenkrantz’ hand was dripping wet!

As Durrrr wiped his now-sodden hand on his shirt, Rosenkrantz’s and his buddies burst into laughter and there was backslapping and merriment as their assorted friends took pleasure in durrrr running bad for once.

Exactly why Rosenkrantz’ hand was so wet we can only speculate.

Broken dryers in the restrooms? A practical joke that hit the spot?

For durrrr it was simply a case of “2 months, 2 million, 2 damn wet!”

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day, Tom…

Visit PokerListings.com

Scene at the Rio shows a winning poker hand is a lot of luck – Las Vegas Sun

Poker News Boy

Scene at the Rio shows a winning poker hand is a lot of luck Las Vegas Sun The 2000-player-maximum tournament included several players who surely dream of becoming the next Joe Cada. Cada, then 21-years-old, bested 6493 players to … 2010 World Series of Poker Event #6: $5000 No-Limit Hold'em ShootoutPokerNews.com 2010 WSOP update: $1k NLHE update & O8 beginsPoker News Boy all 3 news articles »

A Hand Matchup From 2010 Pokerstars NAPT Mohegan Sun – CardPlayer.com

A Hand Matchup From 2010 Pokerstars NAPT Mohegan Sun CardPlayer.com Final table, three-handed, with the blinds at 50000-100000 and a 10000 ante, Woods raised to 310000 from the button, Selbst called in the small blind. …

A Hand Matchup From 2010 Pokerstars NAPT Mohegan Sun – CardPlayer.com

A Hand Matchup From 2010 Pokerstars NAPT Mohegan Sun CardPlayer.com Final table, eight-handed, with the blinds at 25000-50000 and a 5000 ante, Mike Beasley (4.9 million) raised to 125000 from the cutoff seat, Woods reraised …

High Stakes Snapshot: The Old Triple Straddle

The hand in question starts off with David Benyamine posting his $400 small blind. Next is Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, who posts his $800 big blind.

Then Daniel Negreanu puts on the $1,600 straddle. Eli Elezra posts the $3,200 straddle and, last but not least, Tom Dwan re-re-re-straddles to $6,400.

When you add in the $200 antes it adds up to $13,800 in the pot before the cards are even dealt.

Doyle Brunson, the first non-blind, looks down and sees A♥ Q♥. With the $6,400 straddle on, Doyle effectively has 24 big blinds.

With a solid hand and 24bb he chooses to just make the unexploitable play of moving all-in. Doyle would be more than happy win the blinds, antes, and straddles, but his hand is good enough that it has decent equity if called by anything but aces.

By moving all-in Doyle is guaranteed to see all five cards and can’t be forced to fold like he may have been had he made a smaller raise.

When Doyle moves in, he and the entire table burst out laughing, except for Mike Matusow. Matusow, directly on Doyle’s left, wakes up with K♠ K♣ and announces that he’s all-in too.

Doyle immediately stops laughing and let’s a hilarious “Oh no” slip.

The biggest nit at the table, who’s folded all but one hand, wakes up to kings when there’s three straddles and a $150,000 shove in front of him. Easy game.

Doyle realizes that once Matusow shoves he probably has AA or KK or sometimes QQ and that his A♥ Q♥ is in rough shape.

Each of the remaining blinds does his best to try and squeeze out AA to no avail.

When the dust clears Doyle and Matusow agree to run the whole board twice.

The first board’s flop comes out 3♣ 3♥ J♣. The turn brings the 8♥ and a backdoor flush draw for Doyle.

The river binks the 6♥ and the Grandfather of Poker sucks out with the backdoor flush to guarantee himself half the pot.

The second board’s flop comes K♦ J♦ 4♠ and this time Matusow has to dodge the gutshot.

The turn comes A♣ and the river bricks off the A♦ and Matusow somehow dodges and wins the second half.

After all that excitement the two end up splitting the $319,000 pot – a fairly anti-climactic ending to a pretty interesting situation.

If you haven’t seen the episode it’s worth it just to hear Doyle’s “Oh no” when Matusow moves in. It’s the best thing since his Ivey impression.

 

More Strategy Snapshots from High Stakes Poker Season 6:

Episode 9: Big Mistakes Benifet Benyamine
Episode 8: Ivey Fivebets Light
Episode 7: Negreanu Bluffs Into The Nuts
Episode 6: Good2cRaSZi Bluffing
Episode 5: Welcome to Ivey World
Episode 4: Ivey Goes Vegetarian
Episode 3: Negreanu Bailed Out by River
Episode 2: Hoivold Sent Packing

Episode 1: Hellmuth Felted

Visit PokerListings.com

High Stakes Snapshot: Big Mistakes Benefit Benyamine

The Setup:

Stack sizes:

Daniel Negreanu $340,000~

Doyle Brunson $300,000

David Benyamine $200,000

Daniel Negreanu raises from middle position to $3,000 with the blinds at $400/$800.

Doyle Brunson makes the call in the cut-off and David Benyamine calls in the small blind.

Three-handed to a 9♣ 3♠ 8♠ flop. Benyamine checks and Negreanu fires $8,500 into $11,400. Doyle flats in position and Benyamine thinks and calls as well.

The turn comes Q♠ and the all three players check.

The river comes A♥ and after Benyamine checks, Negreanu fires $26,200. Doyle calls and Benyamine check-raises to $101,200 after a bit of thought.

Daniel Negreanu disgustedly folds, and Doyle Brunson disgustedly calls.

Benyamine shows 5♠ 7♠ for a flush and Brunson mucks his three queens with the Q♣ Q♥.

Benyamine’s $101,200 check-raise managed to fold out Daniel Negreanu’s better flush, 9♠ T♠, to get heads up with Doyle’s worse set of queens.

A questionable play, maybe, but it worked to the tune of a $265,500 pot.

The Breakdown:

When it’s folded to Negreanu in middle position he’s basically raising any two marginally connected cards when they’re suited, obviously T♠ 9♠ more than meets that criteria so he sticks in $3,000.

Doyle Brunson elects to flat call with his Q♥ Q♣ in the cut-off.

Doyle is almost 400bb deep with Negreanu and just calls both to keep the pot small and to keep his range wider in order to trap Negreanu on a later street.

It’s perfectly fine thinking but Negreanu has shown a propensity for calling three-bets both in and out of position. Since Doyle is in position he can control the size of the pot post-flop so a three-bet for value should be the more +ev play.

Benyamine is last to call with the 5♠ 7♠ in the small blind.

He’s $200k deep effective and is guaranteed a multi way pot but he’ll also be out of position for the remainder of the hand.

The flop comes 9♣ 3♠ 8♠ and Benyamine checks his gutshot plus flushdraw to the preflop raiser.

Daniel Negreanu also hit the flop and fires $8,500 into $11,400 with top pair plus a flush draw.

Doyle Brunson elects to just flat call with his over pair.

Looking to avoid a seriously difficult spot he calls and plays small ball hoping Negreanu will continue betting into him.

Benyamine chooses to just flat call with his robust draw.

For a moment he contemplates a raise but eventually thinks better of it. In a threeway pot he doesn’t want to checkraise only to end up getting all-in vs a better flush draw, leaving him with only a gutterball.

The turn comes the Q♠ which hits everyone, yet everyone chooses to check.

Of all the checks Negreanu’s is definitely the worst.

Negreanu has no reason not to bet his turned flush three-way. He’s the pre-flop raiser and there are a ton of worse hands his opponents can call with.

Furthermore if he checks through and a fourth spade falls he’s in pretty rough shape. But he checks and Doyle checks through praying for the board to pair.

The river comes the A♥.

Benyamine checks for a third time and Negreanu bets $26,200. Obviously once Negreanu doesn’t bet the turn with his flush he has to bet the river when it changes nothing.

Doyle calls thinking his three queens have to be good. But here’s where the hand gets interesting.

Benyamine check-raises to $101,200. He doesn’t call, which would be the “standard” play.

When the hand is over he explains to Kara Scott that he knew his raise would make Negreanu fold the best hand and allow Doyle Brunson to call with the worse hand.

Now, that is what happened but it’s tough to believe that was his intent.

It doesn’t make much sense, he expects Negreanu to fold a made flush with all of the calling station tendencies he’s shown in every season of High Stakes Poker?

Not likely.

Furthermore the point he made about Negreanu having to worry about Doyle’s river call is moot.

Chances are if Doyle could beat a ten high flush he would have either bet it in position on the turn or he would have raised with it on the river. He’s just not going to play a bigger flush that passively.

Negreanu doesn’t need to worry about Doyle’s call at all and should realize that if he calls the check-raise the action is finished, Doyle will very seldom overcall.

Which brings us back to Benyamine’s river check-raise, more likely than not Benyamine put Negreanu on a hand like A♠ K♥, A♠ Q♦ or even A♦ A♠, any hand that was a pair with a redraw on the turn and pot controlled three way. Of those, almost all of them improve on the river with the A♥.

Benyamine’s check-raise was more for value vs Negreanu’s two pair+ range than a bet to get a flush to fold.

Benyamine likely felt Doyle had a one pair bluff catcher and was a non issue in the hand. Of course what ended up happening was Negreanu folding his ten-high flush.

A fold that, looking purely at perceived ranges, isn’t very good.

When Negreanu checks the turn there probably aren’t a ton of flushes in his range, more likely Negreanu has a pair plus draw hand that he’s pot controlling.

So when he checks and then bets on the river he’s actually near the very top of his range given the situation.

The bulk of his range however are two pair or set type hands which Benyamine can checkraise for value with his small flush.

Negreanu probably just over-thought the hand, and believed he had to worry about Doyle acting behind him.

The end result was him folding the best hand.

Finally, Doyle calls Benyamines check-raise. The last mistake in a mistake-filled hand.

Honestly, there isn’t too much explanation for it other than he was angry how he played the hand up until this point and now was too angry to fold.

Add in to the fact that the whole hand was confusing as hell and he just stuck the money in and hoped for the best.

He wasn’t good of course, and Benyamine’s raise looks like one of the most unbelievably sick plays ever, successfully getting a player to fold a better hand, yet still getting action from a worse hand.

But that’s results oriented thinking, it was a a bad read that ended up working 100x better than he could have hoped.

On the bright side it did make for an interesting hand.

 

More Strategy Snapshots from High Stakes Poker Season 6:

Episode 8: Ivey Fivebets Light
Episode 7: Negreanu Bluffs Into The Nuts
Episode 6: Good2cRaSZi Bluffing
Episode 5: Welcome to Ivey World
Episode 4: Ivey Goes Vegetarian
Episode 3: Negreanu Bailed Out by River
Episode 2: Hoivold Sent Packing

Episode 1: Hellmuth Felted

Visit PokerListings.com

High Stakes Poker Snapshot: Ivey Fivebets Light

The Set-up

At the time of the hand the game was playing six-handed with the blinds $400/$800 with a mandatory $1,600 straddle AND a $200 ante.

The hand starts out with Barry Greenstein raising to $5,500 in the cut-off.

Phil Ivey immediately makes it $18,000 on the button and the two blinds fold.

Lex Veldhuis tanks in the straddle and cold four-bets to $51,600.

Greenstein turbo folds and Ivey thinks before moving all-in for $197,200.

Veldhuis folds and Ivey picks up the $77,500 of dead money.

The Breakdown

This hand is an excellent example of short handed No-Limit Hold’em and the leveling that takes place.

There are a few factors that contribute to this being such an interesting hand. The game is short handed, there’s forced straddle, and every one of the six players are aggressive and thinking.

With the forced straddle and the $200 ante, there is $4,200 in the pot before the cards are even dealt.

Dennis Phillips folds UTG and Barry Greenstein raises to $5,500 in the cut-off with the Q♣ T♦.

QT is a fine hand on it’s own to raise in the cut-off in a six-handed game, add in the dead money before the flop and it’s a no brainer.

Phil Ivey, directly on Greenstein’s left, immediately three-bets to $18,000 on the button with the 5♠ 2♦.

Ivey three-bets on the button as a bluff. He knows that with so much dead money in the pot Greenstein is going to be raising a much wider range than normal.

Ivey treats Greenstein’s raise as even more dead money and attempts to steal all of the dead money with a re-raise.

Now the 5♠ 2♦ probably isn’t the best hand to use as a three-bet bluff. Generally you want to have a hand that at least has some equity if called.

52o has basically none, but the fact that Ivey’s in position and playing three-bet pots out of position is so difficult and because the situation is so, so good Ivey can basically three-bet 100% of his range in this spot profitably.

The two blinds fold and Lex Veldhuis tanks and eventually cold fourbets to $51,600 with the K♥ J♥.

Veldhuis four-bets for the same reason that Ivey three-bet. He realizes there is so much dead money before the flop and that Greenstein is going to be raising very wide, and thus Ivey’s three-betting range is wider than normal as well.

So he elects to cold four-bet with K♥ J♥ as a bluff. It has to be as a bluff because neither Greenstein nor Ivey are ever calling a cold fourbet in that spot with a worse hand.

Chances are there will never be a flop. They will either both fold or one of them will move in.

Though K♥ J♥ is a pretty hand it really doesn’t matter what Veldhuis’ cards are because the chance he plays a flop is basically zero. The only thing the K♥ J♥ is good for in this spot is card removal.

Greenstein folds and Ivey thinks before moving in.

Now we’re on that comical crappy sitcom level of thinking.  The “I know that you know, that I know, that you know, that I know…..”

Ivey knows that Veldhuis knows that Greenstein was likely raising very wide pre-flop, he knows that as a result Ivey’s three-bet range is wider too, which of course makes Lex Veldhuis’ four bet range wider.

Long story short, Ivey believes that Veldhuis is light, which he is. All that’s left is to find out if Ivey has enough fold equity to make him fold.

Ivey asks how much Veldhuis has left ($140,000ish) and then shoves when he gets his answer.

Ivey feels that when he shoves $200,000ish into the $77,500 pot that Veldhuis will not be priced in to call with his bluff and will have to fold his re-re-re-steal hand.

Veldhuis does muck and Ivey’s correct on all accounts, which seems to be a running theme.

More Strategy Snapshots from High Stakes Poker Season 6:

Episode 7: Negreanu Bluffs Into The Nuts
Episode 6: Good2cRaSZi Bluffing
Episode 5: Welcome to Ivey World
Episode 4: Ivey Goes Vegetarian
Episode 3: Negreanu Bailed Out by River
Episode 2: Hoivold Sent Packing

Episode 1: Hellmuth Felted

Visit PokerListings.com

A Hand Matchup From 2010 World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star – CardPlayer.com

A Hand Matchup From 2010 World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star CardPlayer.com Seth earned $521200 for his runner-up finish, along with $20000 in bounties (JC Tran, Jerry Yang, Scotty Nguyen, and Phil Hellmuth). …

Next Page »