I recently wrote about how the mighty Deuce-Four would have cracked pocket kings if Gabe Thaler had played it on the first World Poker Tour of this season. Well, now High Stakes Poker joins the fun. Deuce-Four was all set to crack aces, until Peter Eastgate blew it.
We start with Barry Greenstein raising and a resultant family pot:
Eastgate flops trips--par for the course with deuce-four. Greenstein makes the continuation bet. Tom Dwan raises with top pair, and both Eastgate and Greenstein call. So far, so good for the strongest hand in poker. It is poised to win an enormous pot:
But on the turn, Dwan pours on the pressure with a huge second bet. I actually gasped out loud when first Eastgate folded...
...and then Greenstein did the same.
The Deuce-Four did its job--nobody can fault the hand. But you've gotta have faith in it.
All kidding aside, if you're going to be playing a hand like that, I think it doesn't make much sense to go halfway and then abandon ship. Your entire purpose is to flop something like trips or two pairs under great disguise. When you do, if you're not going to go with it, then it's pretty silly to have even gotten into the hand. That doesn't mean that you steam ahead under every conceivable set of conditions, but I can't understand the call on the flop followed by a fold. If Eastgate thought he had the best hand on the flop, the turn card should not have altered that assessment. If he didn't think he had the best hand on the flop, he should have folded then.
Interestingly, Dwan pretty clearly knew that Eastgate had thrown away the winner, while Eli Elezra, Daniel Negreanu, and Doyle Brunson all opined that Greenstein had folded the best hand. In fact, Dwan will pick up a side bet with Brunson on that point, with the show's airing.
Gabe Kaplan commented on Dwan's play, "Dwan got himself caught in the crossfire there on the flop, but then he just brilliantly played his way out of it with an exceptional move. The only other player I know of that would have made a move like that, maybe the late Stu Ungar." I don't know if that's literally true, but it's quite a compliment. It does seem that Dwan figured out right where both opponents were and correctly calculated that neither could take the heat. Very, very impressive.
Of course, had he known that Eastgate held not just any old deuce, but the Deuce-Four, he would never have dared go against it. He would have crumpled up his cards and run screaming from the room in terror.
As an aside, John Vorhaus recently wrote a nice column for Card Player magazine concerning the need occasionally to bet yourself out of a problem that your betting got you into. See here. He concludes, "When you bet yourself into trouble, sometimes the only thing to do is to bet yourself back out. Fortune favors the bold. You needn't be reckless or careless, but if you fear betting when betting is called for, you probably shouldn't be playing the game." Dang--I should have made that into a Poker Gem.
Addendum, March 10, 2009
Listen here for Barry Greenstein's detailed (17-minute) dissection of the hand and the decisions of all the players involved. Fascinating stuff. (Hat tip to Ted at Red Bull and Poker.)
Monday, March 09, 2009
Deuce-Four on High Stakes Poker
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6 comments:
Deuce-Four isn't just for NL.
Was playing .25/.50 limit online on the weekend. Recieved the Mighty Deuce-Four UTG.
I know a sign when I see it. RAISE!!. I get called by SB.
The flop is a total whiff. But this is the Mighty Deuce-Four. BET!! I get called.
I miss the turn. The Mighty Deuce-Four got me into this, it shall get me out. BET!! and call.
Blank on the river. The Mighty Deuce-Four speaks to me. BET!! and FOLD!.
YES!! You need not actually hit the Might Deuce-Four for it to carry you to victory.
MDF forever!!!
I think your analysis is WAAAAAAY too simplistic. I understand that simple is probably the correct approach in $1-$2, but not in this game.
Eastgate's call on the flop is not the worst. Putting in the second raise will accomplish one of two things: either he'll win the pot right there, or he'll lose a huge pot (because if either Barry or Dwan call the raise or re-raise, they will have Eastgate beat almost 100% of the time).
On the turn, however, I am sure Eastgate was thinking "How can Dwan bet again without having me beat?" That's what makes his line (call, fold) reasonable.
There's an argument to be made that Eastgate should have raised the flop to better define his hand and drive the action, but given that he flat-called Dwan's flop raise, how can he think his hand is any good when Dwan fires again on the turn for 104k? Eastgate has to know that Dwan has to know that Eastgate is strong.
That's why I think your statement, "[when you flop trips], if you're not going to go with it, then it's pretty silly to have even gotten into the hand" is a bit too simplistic (even given the caveats that you tack on in the next few sentences after it).
Yeah, Eastgate played that hand terribly. It made zero sense to call Dwan's flop raise, then fold to his turn bet when there's almost no way that card could have helped Dwan.
Eastgate should have just reraised Dwan big after the flop. There was plenty of money in that pot already. I'm not even sure what Eastgate's call meant. Was he slowplaying but then lost his nerve on the turn? Or was he worried he was already behind and hoping to improve on the turn?
Strange hand.
Just watched the ep. -- a fascinating hand, for sure.
F-Train:
After I had published the post and was reading it for typos, I had a thought along this line: "Somebody is going to point out that my comment isn't taking into account the additional information that Dwan's turn bet represents. It's perfectly reasonable to re-evaluate where one stands when one gets additional information." Then, because it was late, my next thought was approximately, "Ah, eff it." So it was left as is.
I still think Eastgate was wrong (and that's even after trying my best to discount the advantage of knowing all the cards and the outcome), because I think that if Dwan had a hand that beat Eastgate's, Dwan would not have put in the flop raise, but would have tried to allow callers and induce Greenstein to bet again on the turn.
As I think your comment implies, though, the decision critically relies on what the stack sizes were at the time, and we weren't told that (at least not that I recall), which hampers our backseat-driving ability.
There's also the interesting factor of it being Tom Dwan. This kind of cuts both ways. First, he's insane enough to be in there with something awful like J-2 offsuit. But, OTOH, he'll bet and raise with air as freely as with a monster. How does that consideration weigh in the decision? I'm not sure.
Finally, it's interesting to think how their confrontation the previous episode affected both of their thinking. Eastgate was perhaps remembering that Dwan played fast with trips/bad kicker. Dwan was surely remembering that Eastgate had been extremely conservative and cautious with trips/top kicker. Yet *something* was different, because if Dwan put Eastgate on A-2 (the equivalent to what he had had in the previous hand), he would not have imagined that he (Dwan) could push him (Eastgate) off of it. There's a dynamic there that I haven't figured out.
This is Tom Dwan we're talking about. Is there any way he's slowing down on the blank-card turn and not firing again, regardless of the two cards in his hand?! When neither Eastgate or Greenstein reraised after the flop, they had to expect Dwan to bet again on the turn. I'm not sure how much more information they could glean from the fact that he did just that (other than, this guy's committed to this hand, whether he's got a deuce or not).
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