EPT Monte Carlo Trip Report (3rd and Final Part)

[MEJG2]

If this hand happened in the Stars nightly $150 and PA was a 2+2er and the caller was an unknown... It would have shown up here titled "Satellite player can't fold AJ"

[A_Junglen]

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If this hand happened in the Stars nightly $150 and PA was a 2+2er and the caller was an unknown... It would have shown up here titled "Satellite player can't fold AJ"

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Very possible.

Many people do the mathematically correct thing for the wrong reason.

[betgo]

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The way PA played this hand, it makes Adam's hand nearly impossible to play profitably. For those of you saying shove PF with that read, well if PA can get you to shove AJo for 300BB effective stacks, then he has already outplayed you. If he can get you to flat call PF and call a 600BB pot with no equity and A high, you are at a big disadvantage. If there is anything to learn from this hand, it is that ego has no place in poker. Why would you play for so many chips against PA?

[/ QUOTE ]

It was corrected to 150xBB.

Did Ivey outplay Black when he got Black to 5-bet allin with A2s? You have to consider the situation CO vs. button with tight blinds.

I like the flop call.

There is a lot to be said for reraising allin rather than flat calling.

It would also have been reasonable to just flat call the first preflop raise with position. Why play a big pot against the other big stack and good player at the table? Granted, maybe PA folds a lot to the reraise, although I am not sure what his folding range is. I kind of would rather reraise a speculative hand or a stronger hand than AJ.

[MEJG2]

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Someone mentioned "Patrik would do this with 52," yea...you're wrong. The same goes for 85, Q7, etc.

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My pre-flop action looks incredibly strong. I have AA or KK most of the time here.

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Why? If he puts you on AA or KK, wouldn't a push with 2 pair be his best line? If he puts you on KK and an A hits the turn it would kill his action.

I think he pushes 2 pair here often.

[A_Junglen]

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Someone mentioned "Patrik would do this with 52," yea...you're wrong. The same goes for 85, Q7, etc.

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My pre-flop action looks incredibly strong. I have AA or KK most of the time here.

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Why? If he puts you on AA or KK, wouldn't a push with 2 pair be his best line? If he puts you on KK and an A hits the turn it would kill his action.

I think he pushes 2 pair here often.

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A+

[terrellk11]

You're at a table you've been able to completely dominate for the entire day. There's only one player at the table with any real skill to worry about and you've got position on him. You've built a sizeable stack well above the tournament average. You're 30 minutes away from the end of the day, which means you will have a redraw and likely not have to worry about that dangerous player anymore.

With these conditions, you did the one thing you really shouldn't have done: Got involved in a huge pot with the one player capable of playing at your level with what was, at best, a marginal edge in the hand.

Even if you could see his cards - he turns them over after making the bet and dares you to call him - you should fold. You have a 47% chance of losing a huge portion of your stack and losing the biggest advantage you've had over your table - the threat of being able to knock them out with your big stack. Winning the hand does very little for you since the day is about to end and you wouldn't be able to use that momentum to your advantage.

Poker isn't about ego
Poker isn't about knocking out famous players
Poker is about winning

Plays like this let the first two get in the way of doing the third.

[A_Junglen]

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Even if you could see his cards - he turns them over after making the bet and dares you to call him - you should fold.

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[Cornell Fiji]

I just wanted to chime in and say that the latest flurry of posters knocking this flop call, given the information presented, just don't get it and they will probably never get it.

Having 53% equity is a HUGE edge with 19,000 dead money already in the pot. Given the rationale that PA's preflop range was heavily polarized, and that the top portion of that range would not shove the flop, the only hands that AJ really had to worry about on the flop were AcKc and mid pairs. I think that AJ may be too heavily discountig the prevelance of midpairs here but I was not at the table so who am I to judge.

Given his reads of PA's range AJ's flop call is superstandard. Anyone who is willing to give up on a coinflip when you only need 39% to call with the pot odds can not be optimizing their results.

Now... obtaining the reads that AJ had and using the level of logic that he did to determine PA's range is an elite skill but after he laid all of this information out in these three theads I can't fathom that people are disputing the simplicity of this call given the information that he had at the time.

Now, while I disagree with this point, there is some legitimate justification for the argument to simply call the first time around preflop and to protect your stack for times when you have a greater edge. AJ made the maxcEV decission on every street but that does not mean that his decissions were max$EV.

I disagree with those who say that PA is so good that AJ should have avoided him entirely. In my mind, AJ's point that:
1) he knew how PA plays
2) PA didn't know that AJ knew how he plays,
3) AJ knew what PA thought that he was capable of,
4) PA's assessment of AJ was way off.
means that there is nothing wrong with AJ seeking to play pots against PA as these assumptions give him a huge edge.

AJ,
Is this an fold or a shove if PA leads out for 12k?

[PleaseSignal]

[ QUOTE ]
You're at a table you've been able to completely dominate for the entire day. There's only one player at the table with any real skill to worry about and you've got position on him. You've built a sizeable stack well above the tournament average. You're 30 minutes away from the end of the day, which means you will have a redraw and likely not have to worry about that dangerous player anymore.

With these conditions, you did the one thing you really shouldn't have done: Got involved in a huge pot with the one player capable of playing at your level with what was, at best, a marginal edge in the hand.

Even if you could see his cards - he turns them over after making the bet and dares you to call him - you should fold. You have a 47% chance of losing a huge portion of your stack and losing the biggest advantage you've had over your table - the threat of being able to knock them out with your big stack. Winning the hand does very little for you since the day is about to end and you wouldn't be able to use that momentum to your advantage.

Poker isn't about ego
Poker isn't about knocking out famous players
Poker is about winning

Plays like this let the first two get in the way of doing the third.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed, if your having such an easy time and dominating the field, push PF or move on... IMHO

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
You're at a table you've been able to completely dominate for the entire day. There's only one player at the table with any real skill to worry about and you've got position on him. You've built a sizeable stack well above the tournament average. You're 30 minutes away from the end of the day, which means you will have a redraw and likely not have to worry about that dangerous player anymore.

With these conditions, you did the one thing you really shouldn't have done: Got involved in a huge pot with the one player capable of playing at your level with what was, at best, a marginal edge in the hand.

Even if you could see his cards - he turns them over after making the bet and dares you to call him - you should fold. You have a 47% chance of losing a huge portion of your stack and losing the biggest advantage you've had over your table - the threat of being able to knock them out with your big stack. Winning the hand does very little for you since the day is about to end and you wouldn't be able to use that momentum to your advantage.

Poker isn't about ego
Poker isn't about knocking out famous players
Poker is about winning

Plays like this let the first two get in the way of doing the third.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree with some of this. I like the flop call when you get there. However, it seems like OP played the whole hand with the idea of knocking out a top player. Everything, the initial reraise, the flat call to the 4-bet when most people would push or fold, and the call on the flop, were all geared to busting out Antonius.

With all the weak/tight fish at this stage in the tournament, why not just keep picking up the small pots. These are the kind of conditions that Sklansky had in mind when he said a good player shouldn't take big even gambles early in a tournament.