Wow, Mike Sexton is currently among the top 3 chip leaders in the $10k Pot-Limit Hold’em Event at the 2008 World Series of Poker. We’re all familiar with the amiable Mike Sexton from watching him host several events during the World Poker Tour. It’s pretty easy to forget that this ‘ambassador of poker’ also just happens to be one hell of a poker player himself. He already holds one World Series of Poker bracelet and was once in the top ten in career earnings. Good luck on the felt Mike!
$10k PLHE as of June1, 2008, 13:00 EST.
Chip leaders:
1. Andy Bloch 2,115,000
2. Nenad Medic 1,200,000
3. Mike Sexton 1,130,000
4. Mike Sowers 675,000
5. Amit Makhija 525,000
Here’s a replay of Mike playing some no-limit hold’em vs Mike Matusow:
[Here’s a sick call on a pair of tres.]
Here’s a very interesting hand from the FTOPS online tournament with Mike Matusow vs an amature player. The amature player makes a 4-5x bb raise from mid posiiton preflop. Mike Matusow simply calls on the BB with AQ diamonds. The flop looks quite benign with 7d4d4s. Mike Matusow is first to act, out of position after the flop, and dives all in on his flush draw and 2 overcards. Hm, it’s quite an aggressive play by Mike to shove his entire stack all in out of position. If the other player had pocket sevens or fours, it’s an insta call for sure. Unfortunately for Mike, he ran into a monster hand–quad fours. If the other player had maybe a hand like AK, pocket 55-99, they would probably consider folding. Usually, when someone shoves all in out of position on a flop like this, they are either: 1) diving the flush draw 2) shoving on a low to mid pair to protect against the flush hitting or an overcard or 3) rare naked bluff. If Mike had actually had a hand like 10/10 to A/A, he might’ve bet for information, bet to protect his hand (pocket 10/10 to k/k), or made a value bet.
Daniel Negraneau slow plays a flopped nut straight to watch it crack to Sammy’s nine deuce of spades. He makes the right read and lays down the hand to a large bet on the river.
Sammy Farha might have been disingenuous when he seemed to be surprised almost bordering on incredulous in his reaction to Daniel’s fold.
Nice read again, Negraneau! Watching how Daniel plays this hand is a great example what a pro poker player’s philosophy to playing strong hands. An amature player would’ve played the hand more aggressively to protect themselves from the potential flush draw whereas a professional player is more inclined to risk letting their hand crack in the hopes of extracting more value for their hand. Of course, this requires the ability of knowing when it has cracked and the ability to make the right play.
Okay, this replay that I found on youtube is pretty amazing. Annette_15 is apparently playing “blind” in this tournament which means that she’s not looking at her hole cards. Watch her unknowingly fold hands like pocket kings or suited ace six, and raise the action with seven four off suit and bet the flop. Surprisingly, she does quite well without even knowing which cards she has!
Annette_15 recently took down a Pokerstars Sunday Hundred grand tournament. I watched the replay, and she ran pretty good. I recall that she had pocket AA/KK/and QQ within the first sixty hands. She mostly pushed pocket pairs which held every single time and payed off nearly every time too for a good double up. Other than that she stole a few blinds in position without any significant resistance and won nearly every horse race with high aces vs. smaller stacks pushing with ace rags. Later on, she caught a few crazy suckouts for her tournament life including JK (pair of jacks on flop) vs pocket KK with a jack on river after calling all in on flop. She also won a three way horse race for her tournament life with bottom pocket pair vs two over pocket pairs (all in preflop and flopped a set). Well, you can’t fault her for being lucky, so all the best to her. Maybe we’ll see her on a live table in the near future.
Phil Ivey had losing two mosters Omaha pots against Finnish online supernova Ilari Ziigmund Sahamies. Ivey and Sahamies were playing heads-up Pot Limit Omaha at the highest possible level at Full Tilt Poker, $500/$1,000.
Phil “Unabomber” Laak dissects a classic hand from High Stakes Poker Season 3 where he has position on Mike “The Mouth” Matusow. What forces Phil to push-out and show strength?
Gus Hansen is currently on a sick roll. In a 42-hour period starting 2007-11-12 Gus managed to win over $1.4 million, playing $200/$400 PL Omaha on Full Tilt Poker.
Wow, watch Gus Hansen play suited 4/5 vs pocket 8s. Gus Hansen shows you how to bluff from a pair of fours on the flop to a set on the turn. I wish that I could do this 🙂
Mike Matusow moves all in after flop, out of position on a nut flush draw. Watch to see what he runs into. As an added bonus, along with the replay, you also get some interesting commentary.
Though the commentary is fairly critical of Mike’s play, I’ve seen people make this play all day long during on-line poker tournaments and though he was unlucky, it’s not as bad as the commentator suggests. Often on 5-6 bb raises, both players miss the flop and whoever bets first takes it down.
Mike: AdQd
other player: 44
Mike’s on the BB, and the other player
Flop: 7d4c4d
Mike is first to bet which means has it’s pros and cons. Realistically, unless the other player had pocket fours or sevens, mike would still have possibly up to 15 outs. The advantage to betting first is that if the other player missed the flop and doesn’t have a decent pocket pair, then he can’t call if you bet enough.
Unfortunately for Mike, the player made a 5-6x BB raise on pocket 4’s and got an extremely lucky flop. One thing that is clear is that mike was in a pot vs. a fairly loose-aggressive player who simply got lucky. Preflop, they had nearly a coin toss either way in terms of who would win. After the flop, poor mike was drawing dead. Regardless of how he played it, it would have been pretty hard to put a loose-aggressive player on flopping quads.
What’s worse, is that when you watch the replay, you see that though Mike didn’t catch his flush, he did catch an Ace on the turn. Realistically, the only hand you could really put the guy on that you would have to worry about is maybe pocket sevens, AK, or maybe AA. Even if Mike had checked the flop, the other player would likely have done the same. Then Mike would have paired his ace and probably made a pretty large bet.
Again, when your in a tournament and you are first to bet after the flop, and you’ve got a nutflush draw as well as a few overcards, if you simply check, then the other player regardless of his hand can make a large enough bet that you can’t rationally make the call in terms of pot odds. After all, it’s far different play to be the one moving all in with the hand that mike had than it is to call someone else who goes all in when you only have a flush draw and a few overcards.
Canadian Aces 