The hand in question comes from episode two of series five of High Stakes Poker (see, we have our finger firmly on the pulse). The table minimum is $200,000 and the blinds are at $400 and $800 with no ante.
The starting line-up is as follows:
Seat 1: Daniel Negreanu
Seat 2: Peter Eastgate
Seat 3: Doyle Brunson
Seat 4: Barry Greenstein
Seat 5: Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan
Seat 6: David Benyamine
Seat 7: Eli Elezra
Seat 8: Ilari ‘Zigmund’ Sahamies
Although nobody has doubled through or been felted, the table has been a relatively loose one preflop, predominantly due to Dwan who has played a large percentage of hands. On one occasion, the table commented on how much time he was taking over his decisions.
With the exception of Dwan and Elezra, who has made the odd loose limp with hands like 9-2 suited, the rest of the table has played a relatively conservative game, only making the occasional move. Greenstein in particular appears to be playing very few hands.
History: Elezra recently lost 85,000 after two barrel bluffing Doyle Brunson and conceding on the river. Negreanu, $200,000, has been uncharacteristically quiet. Dwan is about even for the session, but started with more money than most.
Eastgate straddles for $1,600
Dwan raises to $5,600
Elezra (button) calls
Sahamies (sb) calls
Negreanu (bb) has Ah-Qh
What would your move be if you were Negreanu?
Channing says:
“In this first hand, the most important thing that stands out – it’s something that’s obvious, but worth remembering – is that TV poker is often all about ego. This hand simply reeks of it. Negreanu is playing a deep stack cash game situation against some of the world’s best players, there ought to be times during this hand where he remembers that fact and goes back to some poker basics.
Firstly, ego is not going to let Dwan, who certainly thinks he’s the best player in the world, fold for a reraise when he’s already decided he has a raising hand. The money is deep, he has position and he thinks he’s better than Daniel so he’s never going to fold here. With Dwan calling, Elezra will also call. He tends to be someone who calls too much anyway and he also has an ego which will tell him his position makes this a good spot to play a hand. If they both call then Sahamies may call too.
I think Daniel could easily have predicted that he couldn’t pick up the pot and therefore it would be better to just call and take a flop with the suited A-Q out of position. If his stack was much shorter (maybe $50,000 or less), he could have gone all in, and if the cards were unsuited, he could fold. I have no idea what the purpose of his raise was but I make that a very bad error.”
Colclough says:
“Fold is obviously not an option as this is tremendous value for such a quality hand. (Even I’m not that tight!) I would expect a standard pot or a three quarters pot size raise to be called by Dwan because a) he is deep enough and b) he has position. Although Dwan may pass just because Elezra has called behind him, Elezra may well be slow-playing a hand trying to catch Dwan. It is unlikely that Sahamies has anything he can call a 20,000 bet with, because he would have popped it himself.
Therefore a raise of 20,000 or so will probably only take the pot down about 20 to 40 percent of the time. So the major reason for raising would be to build the pot or to eliminate the opponent from three down to either two or one.
I don’t want to build the pot out of position against Dwan and Elezra, and of course I don’t want to open myself up to a reraise, so, for me, it’s a straightforward no-brainer call.”
Negreanu reraises to $27,000
Dwan asks, “How much you bring today?”
“200,000, sir,” replies Negreanu. “If you bust me, I’m gonna need to borrow 200,000 by the way.”
Dwan pauses before making the call
Sahamies folds
Elezra pouts, waits 25 seconds and declares, “Ah, let’s play it like gentleman, I’m all-in. I think 60 something more.”
Elezra is all-in for $99,700
“I predict he’s not folding,” adds Elezra as the action returns to Negreanu.
What would your move be if you were Negreanu?
Channing says:
“Having made the error of putting $27,000 in and with Dwan calling, Negreanu is looking at a pot of $160,000. Given that Dwan did not reraise when it came back to him originally I think Negreanu could reasonably conclude that Dwan is not holding a premium hand. Let’s look at Negreanu’s options:
(1) Fold. There is $160,000 in the pot and if it were heads-up, Negreanu would have to call $60,000 and would therefore be getting 3:1 with A-Q suited. I think he will feel that Elezra doesn’t have a premium hand here but most likely the kind of hand he has changed his mind about. Originally, Elezra was going to just take a flop calling the $5,600, but now his hand has grown to an all-in four-bet shove hand. Assuming Elezra hasn’t very cleverly predicted Negreanu’s out-of-position three-bet, then Negreanu will probably put Elezra on a middle pair making a fold heads-up very bad. The only argument for folding is if Negreanu thinks Dwan will continue with his hand.
(2) Reraising all in. For me, this is way the best play now. Given Dwan’s image and the fact that he has only called the $27,000 originally, Daniel must reject the idea that he has a premium hand and raise to push him out of the pot and isolate.
(3) Calling. I don’t see how he could possibly just call for half his stack with Dwan behind him.”
Colclough says:
“Wow, I hate this. I could easily see Elezra smooth calling with A-K trying to catch/out-kick Dwan or something, and then pushing all in when he can see the right amount in the pot. One thing is for certain, A-Q isn’t beating anything. We do not have Elezra dominated.
So, do we call 74,000 hoping a) for a coin flip and b) ignore the fact that Dwan is sitting behind us with another potential 100,000? However, 74,000 to win around 150,000 currently in the pot is a very tempting 2:1 for a coin flip. What I’m going to try and calculate is whether I think I am at least 35 percent to win the pot for value.
Obviously, A-Q versus J-J, T-T or lower is in the high 40s. However, factor in the possibility of Q-Q, K-K, A-K and A-K and I think I’m way down below 30 percent. There’s also the fact I don’t want to double Dwan or Elezra up and make them ‘comfortable’. I want them edgy, even, or behind.
Snap-fold.”
Negreanu calls, Dwan folds.
The two players agree to play two boards.
What is the purpose of playing two boards?
Channing says:
“I guess that they ended up in a race and they ran it twice rather than play a coin flip for nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Running it twice here should take away some of the variance. I still haven’t seen this hand and I don’t know what Elezra had, but if I was correct and he had eights or nines, I like his play about a 100 times more than I like Negreanu’s.”
Colclough says:
“The theory behind playing two boards is to balance out the luck element/variance in poker so that theoretically the best player will win in the long run and not the luckiest over a smaller amount of flops.
I don’t do it though. I believe that if an opponent knows that you play ‘deal ‘em twice,’ then you are much more likely to get called, thus your fold equity diminishes. I can’t believe they did it. I clearly know nothing.”