Very Controversial Hand; PAD Hellmuth vs Mouth
I think this is sooo bad for the game and I don't like that they put Jetten on the spot after they pushed him out of the pot by asking if he was "ok with it".
Friends or no friends, I can't think of even the most poorly run of homegames that would allow this and it really shows how much of a farce the game can be when made for TV.
Holloway nailed his points. A must Read IMO
http://unabomberpoker.com/blog/post/2011/08/25/Thoughts-on-a-Controversial-Hand-from-Poker-After-Dark.aspx
Try this one, has to be browser issues, some can see some can not.
Thoughts on a Controversial Hand from Poker After Dark
Friends or no friends, I can't think of even the most poorly run of homegames that would allow this and it really shows how much of a farce the game can be when made for TV.
Holloway nailed his points. A must Read IMO
http://unabomberpoker.com/blog/post/2011/08/25/Thoughts-on-a-Controversial-Hand-from-Poker-After-Dark.aspx
Try this one, has to be browser issues, some can see some can not.
Thoughts on a Controversial Hand from Poker After Dark
Comments
It seems it was removed from the unabomber blog.
Lol at Matusow......"I don't want to play a 200k pot on a coin flip." Then why call the shove??
Guy Laliberte and David Benyamine basically the same thing on HSP for a lot larger pot.
I have no idea why Mike would have ever offered/agreed to this deal. Not only is his hand a favorite to begin with, but Peter is a lot more likely to be sharing hold cards w/ Hellmuth than he is to have a Jack.
Given that this isn't a case of collusion, once Peter folds, it's irrelevant what they do. If taking money out of the pot is a problem, so should running it twice, insurance, equity chopping. Since this is a cash game, and the deals are made straight up in front of everyone, this seems more than fine to me.
My biggest problem was that there was a third person in the pot. What you say makes sense, but the action in the hand influenced Peter to fold. Than that action was in a sense "taken back".
All of this is accepted practise depending on the game, but if they aren't going to play poker for the stakes they are, why not just let it fly in front of the cameras and return it all to friends latter. Not much different.
It's like a pity party. How many of us wish that we hadn't put money a pot one second too late? How many would even dream of asking for something like this.
It is what it is, the "elite" seem to have thier own rules anyway...
With Mike's five bet, I don't think Mike thought about all that. Watch the clip again, and if you can't tell that Phil never has aces or kings, you need to pay more attention. Mike is very good at reading his opponents and he goes with his instincts.
Mike is raising, hoping to take the pot now. There's a possibility that both his opponent folds. Just look how long it took Phil to shove with ak. It's not like he knew Peter would fold for sure. How else are you going to play jj oop, when Phil basically never has a hand that dominates you?
Had Peter shoved and Phil calls, I think Mike would have offered a similar deal to Peter.
For people not liking that money was taken out....that's basically what happens with insurance and running it multiple times. And in the end, it's basically no one's business but the players involved. Once you fold, you have no say in the matter at all. If you think this is unfair to Peter, then, you should think it's also unfair to th big blind.
This happened a few years ago with Guy and David on HSP where Guy took what was already in the pot prior to all the huge chips getting in the middle. I'm sure it was more than a heads up pot....it wasn't ever an issue then....why is it now?
And hellmuth plays AA or KK the same way, if you dont think so you need to watch him play cash more. Obv after theres an all in and he thinks about it he doesnt have it but before the 5 bet occured its definatly possible
This particular hand, the hand is more standard. Had they just ran the hand out normally, no one would think anything of it. The two players in question have no history of being shady. They have done absolutely nothing wrong.
As for the hand itself...if you are playing this online...then yes, Phil can have aces. And I know how nitty Phil can be. Watch the hand when it gets back to Phil before he four bets...if you can't tell he doesn't have aces or kings here...you're not paying enough attention in live poker.
I would say heads up for rollz but.......
Phil himself says at 4:40 "I play aces or kings the same way."
And laughably both within seconds want to find a way out of the pot.
If you have guys working together in a poker room, the hands they turn up won't be ak and jj. Had the floor seen one hand being j5o...then we can start talking.
For the hand...I'm sure Phil can play AA or KK this way...but his reaction and speech are genuine. People with the nuts don't react this way.
And this is why I doubt you would find a card room that would rule in their favour if the third man did object, which of course without cameras and tv, this would end in security quickly coming to the table 9 times out of 10. If allowed, it creates a grey area that gives the oppurtunity for collusion and since this is just tv, anything goes.
At deerfoot this weekend the dealer called the house just to make sure he could run it twice and wasn't going to.
I have seen the exact case senerio play out before. A TV pro down on his luck is thrown 5k to reload in the game, cause they are all friends and everybody wants to see him have an honest shot at getting unstuck. The very next hand they get it all in, staker vs pro. Pro asks to pull back half and run it twice, top set vs wrap or FD, can't remember, basically same type of flip. No, money stays in, run it twice.
You want insurance, a loan, run it a few times fine, but when it goes in the middle, it stays there and the cards talk.
Variance is just a way of saying sometimes you run good, sometimes you don't. That's freaking poker. If they don't want to play by the laws of probality etc, get a job, very little variance.
The main concern seems to be collusion. The problem with that is that there's a lot better ways to collude. If two people were working together here....the Phil Hellmuth player would never 6 bet shove. Instead, he could just fold there...and do the math later to chop up the dead money. That would be a lot worse situation than what occurred.
The other concern seems to be about them not willing to play a huge pot. If they don't want to deal with the variance...and one wants to make a bad deal to ensure they lower variance, that's up to them. You can't blame Phil for wanting that deal. Of course if the other player doesn't want to deal, they will have no choice. All the money was at risk. There's no guarantee that Peter folds, and no guarantee that he will deal if it did get in.
I'm not sure if it's the two personalities involved, or the situation, but basically the same situation happen with David Benyamine vs Guy Laliberte....for a lot bigger amount. People were fine with it then...how is this situation any different?
Yes mathematically running it a few times is pretty much the equivalent, but would this be like running it 8 or more times? Too lazy to work it out, but sure I am not far off.
If Mike didn't think he wanted to Flip, what was he hoping For? Would he have left it in if Phil showed eights? If his reading ability is what you said, he put it in knowing exactly what he was up against, then got cold feet and got let off the hook. He is a solid enough player to knowdav the best he could hope for, so it also makes sense that based on this, he would know that he might have a back door. aka soft play?
If me, my buddy and my wife are in a pot, we are all sitting deep and we play it out like this, then decide to pull out a bunch leaving us both deep no matter what, how would it look. Guaranteed even though he folds, he knows at least one of us will be much easier to bully later after needing to reload or flustered by losing a good sized stack.
If a couple of players stack a bunch of randoms who come and go from the main game and are ow well above average buy in stack sizes and then said, "you know what boys, there is a lot of money on the table and someone could really lose a big pot here. What say we go south with our profits and bring it back to a fresh game in size?"
Wouldn't that be similar "in theory" to removing money from a pot in play? The deal is out in the open and everyone agrees, and it will reduce variance. The players who lost the money to them already lost, so why not?
Which, honestly, is way more of a legitimate concern in the higher stakes than lower IMO.
What they did is actually better than running it twice, as it takes less time away from other players not involved with the pot. People can also decide to do equity chops. How is this any different than that situation?
Since we agree that there is no collusion involved here, their actual hand doesn't matter now. The deal they make is really no one else's business. As an example you will see players make atrocious deals at the final table of MTTs all the time. How those players decide to conduct these deals are entirely up to them.
When I'm referring to Mike's play...I'm talking about his 5 bet. If he thinks he has the best hand here....5 betting seems like his best option. By 5-bet calling, he gives his opponents a chance to fold. And he would win the pot outright here. I don't think you can say, Mike's plan here now is to 5-bet, hope Peter folds, and when Phil gets it in, hope he has exactly AK/AQ, and purpose a deal to take money out of the pot, and hope he accepts...because I'm giving him a good deal. That five different variables. We've already said this isn't a soft play....think that needs to drop out of the conversation entirely.
Trying to tilt a player is irrelevant. You can't guarantee someone tilts if they have to reload, you can't guarantee they even will reload...these factors should have no baring to this discussion. Just like if the two players were both fishes, and busting one...and having him leave the game is bad...it's irrelevant to this discussion. Running it multiple times also decreases the chance one goes broke - but that's an acceptable deal. Once the money goes in, the players left in the pot can do whatever deal they like.
Don't know if I follow this correctly, but if everyone at the table agrees to go south...then I don't see why that's an issue either. It's unethical to go south at a table, because when a player loses a big pot and people go south, there's no way they can win back money as quickly.
If everyone at the table agrees to switch tables to lower stack sizes, then there's nothing ethically wrong with it at all.
Had Phil and Mike decided to just take just 10k each out of the pot, is it ok then? 20k? 30? At what point does it become a problem?
If they had decided to do an equity chop, is that ok?
Is it ok for them to run it 8 times now?
Should deals be allowed to be made at all?
As for the EPL, backing/staking/swapping agreements are really none of their business. The only concern is to maintain the integrity of the game. Even if they knew of all the deals of players, it should not affect or change how any tournament is run or supervised....how does this rule improve your chances of a detecting collusion? How will you ever know I was backed by so and so, if we never tell you?
wall
bang
Jetten raise 1,400
Phill Call 1,400
Matusow raise to 5,300
Jetten call to 5,300
Total 12,700
Jetten invested 5,300
Final pot 21,600
So finnally Phil and matt only invested ~ 10k ea
So for +4.7k jetten would have call if he knew it was an open all in.
If you dont wanna risk all your chips dont call.
This exactly. Helmuth is VERY unlikely to have a bigger hand than J's since he only called Jetten's raise in the first place. As you said Peter was likely holding similar cards thus reducing Hellmuths chances.
Hmmmm. Didn't know Mike Matusow had an account on here.