High Stakes Poker thread (9/10)

Safai should have expressed himself like this, would have cause the same efect, but more classy.

quote:

Gabe: In case you missed that, Bob Safari just said that Phil "relaxed himself" by looking at a picture of himself under a shower.

unquote

[NicksDad1970]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Mike Baxter is imo the best amateur on the show yet. I also like how he behaves at the table. He didnt say anything when Hellmuth started whining after the JT vs 27 hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

I went to grad school at Stanford with Baxter. He's a very smart, likable guy...excellent math mind (Brown undergrad, I think)...low-key but a blast to hang out with. Went on to working at a big money management firm here in LA. Cashed out big, started his own hedge fund and now runs a bunch of his own and institutional money. He's known as a very intuitive and savvy trader, makes size bets for a living and has beaten the market for the better part of 20 years through some brutal swings. For Mike, Hellmuth whining over 50 dimes is like one of his kids whining about staying up longer. This is fun to watch.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great post. Thanks for the input

[PayTheSnucka]

The quote would have been less distateful if he didn't elaborate on where PH's jit ended up, thus causing a shower.

btw - Since when does distateful = bad?

[RobDoral]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems that half the posters do not even get why Safai's comment was clever and hilarious...

[/ QUOTE ]

To the players at the table it was obvious that Phil had taken a shower and sure, he holds a high opinion of himself?

But come on, does it really take a world class player like Phil an hour and a half to rub one out? I figure he whips his picture out and BAM!!! Not even time for little Phil to leave the hangar. I bet he even has his #11 eleven bracelet on his action hand.

Phil deserves the crap he gets (the grid stuff is pretty funny) but I guess it just seems to get old, at least to me. But hey, I'm closer to 40 now than 30 and the highschool jibes have lost their luster for me. Sigh... when the poop, fart, and jerk off jokes stop being funny it means I'm too old right?

[Janis N.]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
a) good call by Baxter though table talk helped; I really thought he did that because he read Hellmuth's beat on river as weak (he had promised a small bet but bet big) instead of being a station. Pretty impressed that Hellmuth called his hand though.

[/ QUOTE ]I agree its a rather good call because Phil seems awfully nitty and really will almost never valuebet three times unless he has a monster. But I think Baxter just called because he is bad, had a pair and could beat AK.

[/ QUOTE ]I don't think so, but we can agree to disagree. I don't think there's enough hands on Baxter to know for sure yet about what level of thinking Kevin is.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
b) interesting that Baxter checked TPGK behind on river against Matusow; must have picked up a read that wasn't true

[/ QUOTE ]

Lol he had two pair, flop was AQJ. Lol read, he was just scared that Mikey was slowplaying and "he isnt gonna call with any worse hand anyway".

[/ QUOTE ]True, I forgot he had two pair. That was a bad river check.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
c) really nice to see Hellmuth lose; though the flush hand wasn't that bad considering how short they were.

[/ QUOTE ]Yes they only had like 100bb since the shove was for 56k and the pot was 4k on turn. Great play, no way to get rid of the flush its just a cooler. Way to put 55k into a 4k pot with like 48th nuts.

[/ QUOTE ]No. It was straddled to $1,200 so 56k stacks work out to an equivalent to just 29 "normal" big blinds.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
d) AQ hand by Matusow was played really bad if he really gave up on the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]That was actually quote well played. There is a very strong chance his AQ is beat.

[/ QUOTE ]lol. Near-minraising flop and leading turn smallish in order to give up on the river isn't well played with TPGK.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
e) AK read by Matusow against Q8o was unbelievably good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cmon he had AK and AK is the nuts, there is no other way to play it.

[/ QUOTE ]There are other, more standard ways than min-4betting or whatever it was he did. OK maybe MM was just a donk, but it looked like he didn't even bother with obtaining FE from lower PPs as he read Voulgaris for air.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
f) Baxter's a likable fellow, even if quiet. Cannot yet say that a good player, but better than most of the amateurs postflop so far.

[/ QUOTE ]If by good you mean calling station.

[/ QUOTE ]First, I didn't actually say good. I said better. Who from the amateurs do you find better than Baxter?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
g) The donk who donked Q5o TPNK on flop and turn was pretty bad though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed though worst part was calling preflop.

[/ QUOTE ]OK, agreed.

[FGators]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
They shouldn`t invite Phil Laack anymore to HSP. That guy played exactly one hand in Episode 3. Give that seat to someone who wants to play and not comment every single play and never be involved in a pot...

[/ QUOTE ]

You do realize the show is edited, right? I mean, they play for like 8 hours. Have you ever thought that maybe Laak played a bunch of hands that weren't televised?

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought that and yeah, I'm pretty sure he didn't.

[FGators]

[ QUOTE ]
Personally, all the antics (constant babbling, 72 game, etc.) are taking away from the show for me. If I wanted to hear a bunch of people talking like idiots, I would watch another show. I want to watch some poker, but now all I'm seeing is people bluffing with 72. Sigh.
As I said before, the 72 game is okay in moderation, but I've seen a season's worth of them already in these first three episodes.

I just watched a few episodes from the first season and enjoyed them much more than any from this season.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. When Laak leaves and with Antonio gone from his initial sitting I hope they retire the 72 prop.

It was fun at the beginning (the first three episodes) but I hope the 500k table, when they get together, isn't filled with all 72 hands.

[EdmondDantes]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Mike Baxter is imo the best amateur on the show yet. I also like how he behaves at the table. He didnt say anything when Hellmuth started whining after the JT vs 27 hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

I went to grad school at Stanford with Baxter. He's a very smart, likable guy...excellent math mind (Brown undergrad, I think)...low-key but a blast to hang out with. Went on to working at a big money management firm here in LA. Cashed out big, started his own hedge fund and now runs a bunch of his own and institutional money. He's known as a very intuitive and savvy trader, makes size bets for a living and has beaten the market for the better part of 20 years through some brutal swings. For Mike, Hellmuth whining over 50 dimes is like one of his kids whining about staying up longer. This is fun to watch.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great post. Thanks for the input

[/ QUOTE ]

More color...

http://www.pokerpages.com/tournament/result18099.htm

Edmond

[Torello]

My read on the Baxter JT vs Helmuth 72 is that the talking and calling out of his hand is a pretty standard way to induce loose calls from a normal amateur player, a player likely to be on the first level.

So Helmuth did a great job of manipulating Baxter into calling a lot of money with a very marginal hand. He might have wanted to work on the timing though to where he could you know, actually beat a marginal hand.

[TonyLA]

It's pretty evident that Baxter spends a majority of his time playing high stakes cash games, and as a result he inherently will have an advantage playing at any table full of pros who spend a majority of their time playing tournament poker. While solid cash game fundamentals can translate well to tournament poker, tournament fundamentals don't necessarily translate all that well to cash games.

It's the same reason cash game players gravitate to whatever casino is hosting tournaments - they hope the tourney players will bust out and move to cash games and keep playing with a tournament mindset.

Baxter has a definite advantage over Hellmuth specifically because of this - and it shows.

- T