The WSOP Final table

mewso

Not sure where to post this but it's more of a hands discussion than the WSOP per say. I'm wondering what folks who followed the final table thought of the play. I thought it was like a $25 STT on VC the play was so bad.
First up you had Matusow who got unlucky to get KK v AA. Before and after his elimination he seemed to have nothing better to say than "You should see the poker I have played over the last 6 days. Best of my life". This of course means that most of his bluffs were not called which to Mike is genius play.
Anway key hands from our point of view would be the boat Andy ran into against a very weak player. Not sure what Andy had but I'm somewhat surprised he ran into it. Then the A6 that rivered Andy. I thought Phil Hellmuth was right. Putting your whole tournament on the line with middle pair is a strange move. What does anyone else think?
Finally the hand Andy went out on. There has been talk that he may have won the hand with a flat call pre-flop and bet on the flop. We'll never know but is it possible Andy was tilting a bit by now. Tired? 10 hours str8 of poker. Or do you think he was correct to move in?

RasTa

a 3 7 off suite won the tourney didnt it ?

careca

RasTa wrote:

a 3 7 off suite won the tourney didnt it ?

Good point. Hachem said the raise preflop was too small to let go . Personally I would fold it for any raise. I suppose it is a hand that you could never be put on.

Theres no doubt that Andy Black played the best poker at the final table. Everyone agreed with that. Some of the other players were ordinary alright. The hand that crippled Andy was a sickener, and I know Danneman raised allin but I reckon if he had raised only some of his chips, Andy would have reraised him all in and he knew that. It had happened on numerous occasion throughout the final table. He probably just thought, get all my chips in and I'll take down the pot. If he had called an allin with A6 I would have said terrible but the fact remains he was making a move, got caught and got lucky (very lucky).

The hand Andy went out on was unfortunate also and theres no doubt he could have played him off the hand post flop, but again its not that bad a play. Could have been still steaming a bit, hard to know.

kpnuts

yeah, but there was nothing wrong with that play by Hechem, he called a RELATIVELY small raise with the 73 (it was 700k but in the context of there being 56m chips in play and the blinds still well playable) and he flopped a str8 so that's perfectly reasonable. Off the top of my head, the truly shocking plays were one of them, I think it was Kanter, re-re-reraising all-in with K5o on a KT7 flush draw board ... with an honourable mention for Scott Lazar jumping on his sword in style after dinner break (helmuth reckoned Lazar must have had too much wine with his nosh) when on consecutive hands he called all-in reraises for millions more chips with just K9s and QTo ... you wouldn't see it in the thursday freeroll in the fitz!

... well ok, you might actually, but probably only while rebuys are still available

As for Andy's all-in reraise with the 10 10, well typical of Andy and the perfectionist that he is, it was the first thing he asked supporters at table side after being KOed, should he have just flat-called, then pushed on rag flop? But.... if the flop comes A-hi and he folds for his last 5 million to a bet on flop and then fails to get back into the game, he's left wondering did Danneman even have an Ace? if he had one, how strong was it? would Danneman have folded to an all-in pre-flop? etc etc etc... Andy played the best poker in wsop and deserved to win the bracelet, there's no doubt about that. Man is a genius and a gentleman, it should be noted here that he was very generous with his time and advice for us less experienced players out in Vegas. I'd say he'll take a little time out to de-poker his head for a bit, but I hope he comes back even stronger (preferably AFTER the upcoming Fitz festival!!!)

That's my tuppence worth for the day...

NickyOD

Defintely the worst play seen at a final table ever. Hachem did very little all night until deciding he should make a stand for his BB with Q7 against an unbluffable player. Walks into 99 and catches a Queen. Then gets the easiest HU player at the table is lucky enough to flop a straight against his paired Ace. The cards landed for him like a wet dream. As for Lazaar. what the hell was he thinking? Barch and Andy outclassed the final table. Matusow may have been unlucky but he played poorly. I can't wait to see what andy had in some of those hands.

PPP-Pit Boss

NickyOD wrote:

Then gets the easiest HU player at the table is lucky enough to flop a straight against his paired Ace. .

Hold yer pants now! Yes final hand Hachem got lucky but in fairness to him he played it well. Dannermann was holding A 3 os Hachem 7 3 os. Dannermann raised but only to $700 K (bb was $300k) this was not sizeable enough to force a fold from hachem who had more chips than he did and they were HU which is raise obligatory territory. Then Hachem gets really lucky after calling the pithy raise and flops the seven high straight. He checks it. Holding A high and a possible low straight Dannerman bets in for another $700k hachem then reraised to 1.7m and dannerman flat called. Dannerman then paired his Ace on the turn Hachem bet 2mil and Dannermann reraised then hachem came over the top in an allin raise which Dannerman instantly called. Lucky maybe.. but in fairness nicely suckered!

Rodge

Did Dannerman never stop once to think that his hand might just be up against a str8, trips, two pair, a pair of A's with a higher kicker.

not only a scary board but a check raise followed by leading out with a bet of two million. Fair enough Dannerman asked the question with his reraise but surely the all-in answered that question fairly brutally.

I dont think it was suckering him in. He gave off so much strength that it was extremely poor judgement by Dannerman to call the all in.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

there is also the extreme exhaustion to bear in mind. Its a bit like looking at how a marathon winner ran the last mile of a 50 mile race; and saying that they ran the last mile a bit slow. Of course play is going to be less than perfect at the final table; they are physically and mentally exhausted...

Hectorjelly

Roundtower2 wrote:

there is also the extreme exhaustion to bear in mind. Its a bit like looking at how a marathon winner ran the last mile of a 50 mile race; and saying that they ran the last mile a bit slow. Of course play is going to be less than perfect at the final table; they are physically and mentally exhausted...

Some of the mistakes were just very bad play that you would expect from beginners.

PPP-Pit Boss

Rodge wrote:

Did Dannerman never stop once to think that his hand might just be up against a str8, trips, two pair, a pair of A's with a higher kicker.

not only a scary board but a check raise followed by leading out with a bet of two million. Fair enough Dannerman asked the question with his reraise but surely the all-in answered that question fairly brutally.

I dont think it was suckering him in. He gave off so much strength that it was extremely poor judgement by Dannerman to call the all in.

Bit suspect all right. One of those moments where you say... why? why did I call that. He MUST have made a bad judgement call. He must have thought Hachem was representing the straight. I guess it didnt help that they had been playing for 14 hours or more straight? I called an allin yesterday in a tournament that started off with 540 players and was down to 32. I was in 3rd place with a very comfortable stack. Pocket queens in front of me teasing.."who's your momma".. Why? Why did I call the allin raise... ;0(

DeVore

The rererererererereraise with K7 and the call (!) by K5 stand out as the worst hand imho. Lazars utter implosion sent the media hacks ducking for fear of shrapnel, I mean, QT... wtf? A6... nuff said.

It *was* exhausting and I felt the organisers should have come back for another day on the saturday. I also felt Andy's play suffered from tiredness as plotting his chips all day he would increase from morning to afternoon and the lose some before the end of the night almost every day he played.

DeV.

MadsL

Question:
The hand Andy went out on.
Would you have called Andy's reraise holding AK, or dropped it especially not being pot-committed?

Personally, I probably would have called, I'm not disciplined enough to make the laydown, but at the wsop final table I would have expected more than to get involved in worst side of coin flip possibly facing AA for most of my chips.

Anyone?

bohsman

Andy had been going over the top off people for days so its not that difficult a call, Danneman must think theres a very good chance hes better than 50 50.

The second Andy got knocked out he was straight over to us saying he fked up, that he should have flatcalled and won it on the flop, but youre always going to beat yourself up after getting knocked out

DeVore

He could have flat called and then pushed on the flop and he would have gotten through. That said he knew he was ahead and he pushed because.
1. He's ahead.
2. He has folding equity (albeit not much for reasons Bohsman gave).

I think the Stop-n-Go approach would have been better but in the situation with the extreme tiredness and with that hand, I would probably have pushed too. Pity it came down to a race

DeV.

Hitman Actual

bohsman wrote:

Andy had been going over the top off people for days so its not that difficult a call, Danneman must think theres a very good chance hes better than 50 50.

The second Andy got knocked out he was straight over to us saying he fked up, that he should have flatcalled and won it on the flop, but youre always going to beat yourself up after getting knocked out

I think Oscar is spot on... the fact that Andy was so aggressive throughout the event made it an easy call, even for a weak player like Dannenman. And the stop-and-go is also tricky here: most flops will have overcards to your tens. And even if there are no overcards on board, there's still a chance that Dannenman might call the all-in... I think he was a really poor player, tbh. His friends were quoted as saying last week that he is the fish in their regular home game!

NickyOD

lenny_leonard wrote:

His friends were quoted as saying last week that he is the fish in their regular home game!

Well that's ****in' says it all. Dannenman was truly awful throughout the tournament. There's hope for us all next year lads.

mewso

Actually his success would imply that there is no hope for the likes of us.

DeVore

"And the stop-and-go is also tricky here: most flops will have overcards to your tens. "

Actually statistically 99's are on the verge of seeing overcards or not on the flop. You are less then 50% likely to see a flop with JQKA on it with TT at least, afaik....

DeV.

califano

i dont think the other players on the final table got as much credit as they deserved. nobody gets to a final table of a wsop without being very good. all those players are good players. dont you think that these players along with andy black made terrific folds, calls and plays throughout the tournament.

Hitman Actual

DeVore wrote:

"And the stop-and-go is also tricky here: most flops will have overcards to your tens. "

Actually statistically 99's are on the verge of seeing overcards or not on the flop. You are less then 50% likely to see a flop with JQKA on it with TT at least, afaik....

DeV.

I actually think it's a lot more. For example, with QQ it's about 40% that you will see an Ace or a King, so it should be much higher with TT.

BTW, I agree that the stop-and-go is a better alternative. Unfortunately I also think it was one of those hands that Andy Black was destined to lose (and I dont believe in superstition in poker!).

Hitman Actual

rounders123 wrote:

i dont think the other players on the final table got as much credit as they deserved. nobody gets to a final table of a wsop without being very good. all those players are good players. dont you think that these players along with andy black made terrific folds, calls and plays throughout the tournament.

There were four players at the final table who I think were excellent players: Black, Matesow, Barch, and Hachem. From following a lot of the play over the last few days, the other five were merely average/good. Lazar expoded in two hands, Kanter made some terrible moves (he was the one who got lucky against Raymer), Dannenman was also very lucky throughout the last couple of days. I'm not sure about the other two, but they definately did nothing inspirational. I think that the boards guys who were there are better players than those five.

If you listened to the card-player audio commentary, one of the quotes about those five guys play was "it's amateur hour now at the WSOP". Some quotes on 2+2 included "better play in a $5 STT", etc.

Another example is Tiffany Williams. I dont mean any disrespect to her because it was a brilliant achievement, but she got as far as she did using a pre-flop all-in strategy.

Just my opinion, and probably made worse because I'm still a bit sore that Andy Black played better poker and still got knocked out in 5th. (But yes, "that's poker"!)

bohsman

He used the stop and go on Arron K with a mid pair running into a set of trip Kings