Tuesday, September 23, 2008

2008 WCOOP Final Thoughts

I didn't reread this post after writing it so sorry for the typos!

This years WCOOP was filled with some major highs and lows. I was going to be super pissed if got blanked on the last day and ended up winning only a few thousand dollars. But happily I played well, got a few key breaks and ended up winning a solid amount. Before the WCOOP I said I wanted to have 4 cashes and make one final table. I had 5 cashes and one final table, so in that sense it was a major success. I also had 5 cashes in the second chance tournaments, and one major satellite win which is also very satisfying.

So what was the final number! Well I ended up winning $16,484!!!! BOOM!!!

More than anything playing the WCOOP has made me really look forward to going back to the WSOP. Hopefully I've generated some good will with my backers and I can roll up a huge pile of money to play 10-15 events.

Now on to a comment response (WARNING: HEAVY POKER CONTENT!) It's regarding a hand in the $530 with rebuys and in order to refresh your memory here's what I wrote about it:

With blinds of 25/50 the first player to act raised to 150 and got called by the next player to act. Then it was up to me and I had KK (I had about 25,000 chips)! I made it 600 to go and Griffen (who had about 20,000 chips) just called out of the small blind. My first thought was "Shit, that looks like AA." The other two players called as well and the flop came down J 9 7 with two spades. Griffen checked and then the original raiser went all in for 7,500 into the 2,500 chip pot. Right away I knew that was a draw. My only decision was how sure was I that Griffen had AA. Could I really lay down KK here?After a short moment I decided my hand was too good to fold and I went all in for 25,000. Griffen called and turned over AA! AHHHHHH! The other player had T9 and after no help I was down to 5,000 chips.

Now here is the comment:

Did you consider just calling the 7500 bet? If Gavin had a worse hand than you (AK, QQ,) he would almost certainly fold and if he pushed you could fold assuming he had either AA or JJ and still have 17,500 chips. I don't think he ever folds a better hand than you so I don't see the point of making the big reraise.You didn't mention this possibility in your recap so I'm guessing you don't consider it to be the correct play. Can you explain it in some depth? Thanks.

This is a great comment! Thanks to whoever wrote it! I did briefly consider just calling the 7,500 chip bet, with the plan of folding in Griffen moved all in, but I don't think it's the right play.

I've actually been thinking about his hand quite a bit over the past few days and while at the time I thought "Oh shit that looks like aces" I think that was just a bit of pessimism coming though. Even though I was right it wouldn't be fair to say it was a spot where he just about had to have AA. Making that call Griffen was only risking 3% of his stack in a pot that was clearly building up for major action. In retrospect I think he is capable of making this call with a fairly wide range of speculative hands like medium suited connectors or most pocket pairs. I feel like I could rule out QQ or JJ since he wouldn't want to take a flop vs 3 opponents out of position with one of those hands. No doubt he would have reraised to clear the field with either of those hands. But he easily could have had 99 or 77 hoping to hit a set and snap off a big pair. Obviously if I had to pick something to put him on, I would have chosen AA, but he could have had other hands.

With all that said I think folding was the best option here. By calling I'm risking 7,500 to win about 9,500. Not only do I have to worry about griffen moving all in after me, I have to worry about beating the guy who's already in the pot! I was all but positive that KK was the best hand at that point, but I was sure he was drawing very live. I was guessing I was about a 2 to 1 favorite (I figured he probably had a flush draw - it turns out he had a pair and a straight draw which also put me at about 2 to 1 to beat him).

Let's assume I'm going to win the 9,500 in the pot 2/3 of the time if I don't get reraised. That means every time I call here I have an expectation of +3,833 chips (two times out of three I'm going to win 9,500 and one time in three I'm going to lose 7,500 - so I average a net of 3,833).

But every time I get reraised I lose 7,500 chips! I'm getting a little screwed up on the exact math here, but to round off if I get reraised a third of the time I lose 7,500 one time in three and gain 3,833 two times in three which is pretty close to break even.

So in order to make just calling 7,500 a profitable call I need to assume that I'm going to get reraised significantly less than a third of the time.

And this is all assuming that I'm 66% to beat the guy who bet 7,500 which is a big assumption.

What I did was even worse than calling! I risked almost 20,000 to win 9,500! How stupid!

Of course the one big plus to moving all in is I'll never get blown off my hand by a reraise from something like AJ or a flush draw and more importantly about one time in ten that I do move all in and get called by AA, I'll spike my king and win a huge pot!

Anyway I should have folded. I hope this put a little light on the subject and I welcome further discussion.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the reply.

One thing you didn't mention is: How does Gavin think you play? Have you played together before or were you at the table for a while before this hand came up?

From Gavin's perspective here's my read on the hand: utg raise and a call, now a reraise from a solid player. Maybe you make this raise with a bit wider range but I would think you have something like 10's-AA's, AK, maybe AQs.

In a typical shortstacked sng his call there is almost always AA but I agree that with risking only 3% to possibly snap off a big pair and double up he's calling much wider. I'd call with any pair here.

(Warning, heavy math content by an idiot at math). I know these numbers are wrong because of the 2 other players but hopefully they're in the ballpark. Since you have a pair, there are 64 possible pairs he can have and you lose to 15 of them and tie 1. So, you are about a 3/1 favorite over him. If he calls preflop with some suited connectors or hands like AK, AQs then your equity goes up even more and helps offset the mistake from rounding off I made above.

Since we don't know his calling range it's hard to know how often he will go all in but I would think it's about 20%...far less than 1/3 of the time.

I can't see him making a play on you here. I wouldn't call your re-raise with AJ but maybe he does and then there's a chance he would push all in, but what would he put you on? You re-raised preflop and called a big overbet on the flop with a player to act behind you. You almost certainly have AJ beat. Since there's no side pot I doubt he tries to knock you out with a flush draw since he has to beat the other player who pushed all in. Also, he didn't have a ton of chips and you would have had about 4/1 pot odds if he pushed. Unless he really knows you I doubt he can push with a weak hand hoping to get you to make a big laydown when you already called a big bet and are getting good pot odds to call the push. I think if he pushes you are beat at least 95% of the time and can safely fold.

Unless my math is way off, considering the size of the pot and with you being a solid favorite to win I don't think folding is right. I guess I need some more convincing!

Congrats on the strong finish to the WCOOP!

Scott

My WSOP 2023 Plans and Missions

After four and a half years working for StubHub I wrapped up my time there in March. I've been at the poker tables 3-4 days a week since...