I don’t think I mentioned it in the last post, but I didn’t win the tournament where I hit the straight against Greg Raymer. In fact, I was eliminated from the tournament by one of the other pros, Ali Nejad. In that hand I was dealt a pair of 5s. Ali had a big stack, and I had about 18000 in chips. The blinds were about 600/1200. Ali had raised preflop from somewhat early position, and since I had about 15 big blinds in my stack I shoved when it got to me. Unfortunately, the player right behind me called immediately and that’s what killed me. Ali was debating folding, and once he realized the price he was getting to call he made the call. The player behind me had Ace-Jack and Ali had pocket 8s. My shove was designed to get possibly a middle pair (like 8s) or maybe even get two over cards (like QJ, QT, KJ, etc) to fold. Ali actually told me he would have folded if the other player hadn’t called. As it turned out the pair of 8s held up and Ali knocked out me and the other player in the same hand.
Phil Hellmuth showed up for the second day of the poker academy, and he brought some really neat insight to it as well. Some of you may know that he was hired as Jeff Shulman’s coach for the 2009 Main Event Final Table. Jeff Shulman runs CardPlayer magazine and has been to the Main Event Final Table before. Phil actually went over with us some of the strategy that he and his team had worked with Jeff Shulman. It was actually some very interesting discussion.
When we broke out for our next “live” hand analysis Phil would go from table to table and play a few hands at each table. In this particular “live” scenario we were to act as though we were at the final table of a deep stack tournament. I was assigned a medium stack of chips and had already lost some chips because my A-J lost to someone else’s A-8 when he was raising from the cutoff (one away from the button) to try and pick up the blinds when the following hand came up at our table. Phil was in early position and raised to about three times the blind. The next player folded, and it was my turn to act. I looked down and found K-K! I paused for a moment, and since my stack was a medium / medium-short stack I just shoved, knowing that Phil would have the right “price” to call. Everyone folded and Phil called, tabling Ace-Ten. He actually stated that he was going to call, but “wasn’t happy about it”. I think he knew that from my position at the table I wouldn’t be reraising without having a hand that would be crushing his. Mike Gracz was the dealer and pro doing the analysis at our table at the time, and he ran the board and my Kings held up, so I didn’t have to “go Phil” on Phil…that might have been fun! If you aren’t familiar with Phil Hellmuth he is nicknamed “Poker Brat” for his tirades that occur when a bad beat is delivered upon him.
I hope if you’ve read these last two posts in particular that you realize I am kidding when I poke fun at Phil Hellmuth or Greg Raymer. I respect both of their poker games and am glad to have gotten some good analysis from them about various hands. I’m not a fan of Phil’s tirades, but he really is a nice person when you meet him and seems very genuine when you talk to him.
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