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

Negreanu Folds the Winner on High Stakes Poker – CardPlayer.com

Negreanu Folds the Winner on High Stakes Poker CardPlayer.com Mike Matusow and Bertrand 'Elky' Grospellier both made their first appearance of the season in this week's episode, though they played pretty close to the …

UK Pokernews Guide to Winning Satellite Tournaments – PokerNews.com

UK Pokernews Guide to Winning Satellite Tournaments PokerNews.com Mike Matusow once famously said that Chris Moneymaker should be given a cut from every poker tournament due to the Moneymaker effect after he qualified …

Poker In Twitter: The NAPT Bounty Shootout, Matusow Versus Bellande And … – Poker News Daily

Poker In Twitter: The NAPT Bounty Shootout, Matusow Versus Bellande And … Poker News Daily “The-Toilet” was responsible for knocking out all three ladies and top pro JC Tran on his way to the final table. One player who tweeted his way to victory … and more »

« Previous Page