[cbloom]

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What did everyone think of the way Shankar played that final hand? I thought it was pretty gross. I mean, how the hell do you stack off there with second pair? Am I way off here?

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Final table edited down to about 1 1/2 hours of air time and it took roughly 9 hours to complete. Plus these people may have played together for hours before the final table.

My point: Familiarity with a player and reads come into play. TV doesn't show that.


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Shankar seemed like one of the best at the table for sure, but that A8 hand was really bad regardless of any "read". Once you get to the flop like that, calling on the flop with middle pair is an insta-call, the bad thing is just calling that big reraise preflop. WTF are you looking for calling that raise? Then you hit an 8 and have to think? You have to either just shove or fold that preflop IMHO.

Beth actually seemed to play decent; obviously she's no poker genius and seemed to be playing a pretty basic "Kill Phil" style but she didn't make any giant mistakes. The AQ threeway was marginal at best but not horrendous since she had them both covered (would've been retarded if not).

IMHO the funniest thing was that that Ben guy seemed to be truly rattled by Phil and got talked off a few hands. When Phil opened his button with KT and then starded his talk, the kid folds A3s from the SB which is a total auto-insta-push. Phil was playing so retarded, opening for half his stack with rags that he doesn't want to call a raise with even though he should.