Those neural pathways are already deeply grooved. If you can’t self reflect, which he clearly can’t, they just keep getting deeper.
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I’m terrible at PLO, is this really a terrible fold for all your chips?
Obviously earlier streets are important, but why could the dude not have JJ or 44 here?
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edit: this shows the Hellmuth PLO hand from the start.
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Jeremy Ausmus won his 6th bracelet and fifth since Negreanu’s last one. Granted two of them are online but DNegs play those too.
Don’t play a ton of PLO, but the more I think about it, I hate the raise by Ray D more than I hate Phil’s fold. Phil has the nut flush blocker, so he can rule that out, and there are several fulls that beat him. It’s probably the type of fold that Phil has made correctly tons of times. For Ray on the other hand, I don’t like the raise because it’s hard to get value from anything worse.
That being said, from Phil’s perspective, when you know the guy doesn’t have the nut flush AND that getting raised is going to make you sick, maybe just go full nit and check the river in that spot. [ETA: I guess he was hoping to get paid off by enough flushes and the smaller full that it would make up for the times he got called or raised by better boats? Or, more likely he just bet because he had a full house, correctly read Ray D as having a strong hand, and decided he was beat]
He made a 20% pot blocking bet on the river. This isn’t an inherently bad bet sizing if you are capable of making similar bets with stronger hands and may be a good exploitative strategy if you can get crying calls from non-nut flushes.
I can’t really say much more without knowing how the betting on previous streets went down.
I linked above the video starting at the hand.
Pre - pot/BB calls.
Flop - check/check
Turn - check/bet 1/2 pot/call
River - check/bet 50k/raise
Not a blocking bet on river as PH had position. Feel if PH knew he would fold to a check-raise, checking it back probably right play - especially from an ICM perspective.
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Bet-fold river is probably right if you think you don’t get check-raise bluffed and get called by worse, especially if he calls with flushes. Feels like Hellmuth’s range is KK/K2/nut flush/bluffs and the other guy blocks K2. Maybe discount KK. Maybe include 42. A value c/r seems bad, but I can make a case for a c/r bluff, especially if you think Hellmuth doesn’t balance his small river bet sizing with KK.
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Hellmuth’s river bet size IMO is terrible. I haven’t studied PLO but in NLH an in position small river bet is not a thing that happens in GTO solver land. It’s purely an exploitive play however I do think ICM considerations do make it a good time to size down in general. Making a real river value bet size or checking are >>>>>>>> than bet small/folding river. Re-opening the action and allowing yourself to be bluffed is very bad.
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Phil played a razz hand right before his exit so awful it’s like how does he make it that far in tournaments all the time.
That PLO fold, well you really don’t expect someone to turn bottom boat into a bluff like that. or value raise in his mind that can’t really be called by better but phil is exploitable and probably is just trying to get paid off with that small bet and rarely if ever has 44, that just leaves KK/JJ and wouldn’t he bet bigger with those?. phil has to bet it though and he wants some dumb flush to pay him off so he bets small.
from ray’s perspective I guess unless phil has KK/JJ/K2 42 is good and it’s for value. J2 isn’t really something you should have from UTG, possible but not that many combos.
Ya Phil shouldn’t have many 2s in is range. I wonder if he shouldn be even opening this hand at all considering he doesn’t even have the suited A to go along with that 2. I don’t know PLO UTG opening ranges so maybe it’s fine.
It’s funny tho, if Phil just makes a normal river bet size he wins a nice size very important pot instead he found a way to lose.
there is no mistake that somehow his style works on some people and there is also no mistake that he plays some hands so f’ing bad sometimes that it’s just unfathomable that he wins as often as he does
I guess he just prints with casual players spazzing off to him in non high rollers b/c he’s Hellmuth combined with running extraordinarily hot.
I mean it’s live donkaments. How many hands has he actually played, lifetime? 350?
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Also, the chance thread on Martin is exactly correct.
I think Martin was cheating. But, even if he wasn’t, he’s trying to make the other players think he is. At that point, you have no game integrity.
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8 left in a 50k PPC and someone comes back from a break and sits at the wrong seat and looks at the cards before realizing it
that actually makes sense now. he made some attrocious folds yesterday near the bubble
Phil’s best results in recent years came in relatively high buy ins. He went deep in the 10k secret bounty and 50k ppc this year. Last year he ft’ed both 10k 2-7 events.
Two years ago he came 2nd in the 50k PLO and 10k dealer choice, 4th in the 10k stud, 5th in the 10k O8 and 6th in the 10k HORSE.
It’s truly hard to explain when you see him play. I do think he had some good ideas in regard to stack preservation earlier on. I think if you watch some shortstack play near the bubble in the past that were considered standard, they are clear mistakes now. But how did he dominate the WSOP 2021 so hard? No f’ing clue.
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