Hand from the team event.

[pables]

I am loving this thread

Ty Brendan and Mark in particular

NEVER STOP learning FTW

[Fatcatstu]

i just wish i had the feintest idea what they were on about Ian

[TheSnapper]

What range can we profitably reshove here vs a 3% calling range?

ATC has 25% equity and +930 cEV

On reflection, thats kinda misleading. Problem is the ATC range includes AA,KK,AK and those hands pick up the slack in the equation for 72o for example. That said, 72o on its own has equity of 19.92% and is only negative by 203 chips.

The problem here is that from our perspective, we only ever need to evaluate EV for an exact hand, our decision, jam or fold, is never about a range of hands, we can only ever shove with two exact cards so to assess the spot based on a shoving range is flawed and futile.

So to answer correctly, you can profitably shove any hand other than 72o. I do however stand corrected Noble, that there are 3 players yet to act will drag a couple more hands into the negative EV bracket but quite revealing nonetheless.

[TheSnapper]

The implications of "the surprises" revealed in this thread got me thinking of a poker dilemma I've often discussed but never really got anywhere with.

Is Phil Helmuth a great player, a good player on a heater or a fish on a heater?

We see a lot of  PH hands and we often see, what appear to be and are widely criticised as, very flawed decisions. Yet! His results to date and especially recently are second to none. Why is that? Is it possible to play a truly flawed game over many many top end tournaments and succeed as PH's results suggest.

Early in this thread I suggested....

If you consider that you have an edge over the field, which is hard to gauge and usually overstated, then you probably should take the lower variance option since your tourney life and stack equity have more value.

Apologies for arrogantly quoting myself  

Does PH get the balance just right, does he shun high variance and exploit his edge optimally?

Or

Is he a fish who runs good and gets paid handsomely with his big hands?

[SirPercival]

The only people who should be entitled to call Phil Hellmuth a fish are those with a better record than him.

Great player IMO (also a very nice guy if you see past the showbiz image).

[TheSnapper]

The only people who should be entitled to call Phil Hellmuth a fish are those with a better record than him.

Great player IMO (also a very nice guy if you see past the showbiz image).

Just to clarify Stuart, I"m not calling him a fish, though lots of respected players do just that. I see him more as an enigma tbh and suspect that while he is prone to some plays that are described as fishy and lacking advanced understanding, those weaknesses are abundantly compensated for by the stronger attributes of his game. That is the conundrum afaic.

What part/parts of PH"s game are responsible for those phenominal results?

As far as his record, it"s undeniably phenomenal tbh. But, is it possible that record is more the result of run good?

[George2Loose]

The only people who should be entitled to call Phil Hellmuth a fish are those with a better record than him.

Great player IMO (also a very nice guy if you see past the showbiz image).

That"s ridic thing to say Stu. Course you can pass judgement. Not saying he can"t play but he won the majority of his stuff when the game was unsolved. And some of his play is terrible. Just because I haven"t got the silverware he has doesn"t mean I can"t give my 2 cents

[SirPercival]

The only people who should be entitled to call Phil Hellmuth a fish are those with a better record than him.

Great player IMO (also a very nice guy if you see past the showbiz image).

That"s ridic thing to say Stu. Course you can pass judgement. Not saying he can"t play but he won the majority of his stuff when the game was unsolved. And some of his play is terrible. Just because I haven"t got the silverware he has doesn"t mean I can"t give my 2 cents

I"m not saying people can"t give an opinion and of course some of his play is terrible, as is some of yours, and most of mine.  

I just think that the label of "fish" means he is a poor player which he isn"t. With regard his recent results is 3 2nd place finishes in WSOP events not enough to stop the "he was good 10 years ago" arguement?

BTW - his WSOPE Final table play was terrible.

[TheSnapper]

I just think that the label of "fish" means he is a poor player which he isn"t. With regard his recent results is 3 2nd place finishes in WSOP events not enough to stop the "he was good 10 years ago" argument?

BTW - his WSOPE Final table play was terrible.

I certainly didnt post this so we could discuss if PH is a fish. I will change that word in my post if you so wish

Was sorta hoping we could get beyond the "look at his results" or "He"s a dinosaur fish"

Anyone care to suggest some traits/skills of his we can call expert?

[WYoung83]

Cant think of any skills of PH that are expert. But i do love watching him in televised cash games.

[AMRN]

Cant think of any skills of PH that are expert. But i do love watching him in televised cash games.

Thread"s gone off track, and funny how often threads turn into Hellmuth bashing threads.   Clearly he is not the best cash player around, but his tournament record isn"t too shabby - and as for him getting all his bracelets when the game was unsolved.... he was desperately unlucky to not get at least two bracelets this year.   IMO if Phil wasn"t so loud and brash, and didn"t draw the wrong sort of attention to himself, we wouldn"t be having this discussion (again) - we would simply accept that he is a consistently good tournament player.

As for the OP, and despite all the statistical analysis from various contributors, with a stack of ~20x, and in this position and at this stage of the tourney, I still can"t turn down the opportunity of shoving with 99 (and worse).

[Mikeyboy9361]

Thanks for getting thread back on track Steve! And as you say, after having read the replys and seen all the stats, I am still quite happy with my play, thanks for all the detailed responses. What amazes me is that you guys can think all this stuff through before making a move, particularly on line! Don"t think I"ll ever get to those levels.

[TheSnapper]

Thanks for getting thread back on track Steve! And as you say, after having read the replys and seen all the stats, I am still quite happy with my play, thanks for all the detailed responses. What amazes me is that you guys can think all this stuff through before making a move, particularly on line! Don"t think I"ll ever get to those levels.

Thats not how it works unfortunately Mike, doing all the sums away from the table is helpful in consolidating your current, in game thought processes and can internalise new understandings which hopefully after time we can intuitively rely on with little effort.

Consider it like this, the work away from the tables, posting hands for advice, reading, doing EV calculations etc. thats the swans feet paddling hard beneath the surface.

[TheSnapper]

Thread"s gone off track, and funny how often threads turn into Hellmuth bashing threads.

I don"t consider it "off track" but can understand how it could be construed that way, if, you see it simply as an attempt at Hellmuth bashing.

Having established ( correct me if I"m wrong here ) that jamming 20 bb"s was a positive cEV move. It seemed logical to me to question whether it was our best option in £ EV and what factors we consider before opting for a high variance play.

I suspect that this is where Hellmuth excels and why I asked....

Does PH get the balance just right, does he shun high variance and exploit his edge optimally?

Is that a pertinent question? or off track Hellmuth bashing.

Clearly he is not the best cash player around, but his tournament record isn"t too shabby

Exactly, we are talking about a tournament specific scenario here.

As for the OP, and despite all the statistical analysis from various contributors, with a stack of ~20x, and in this position and at this stage of the tourney, I still can"t turn down the opportunity of shoving with 99 (and worse).

Has"nt all the statistical analysis suggested jamming was +cEV?

Do you think PH would jam 20 bb"s in this spot?

[AMRN]

Wasn"t having a dig Brendan - and fwiw I agree with everything you posted.  The thread was def going into a Hellmuth bash though, and my point about his cash game play was specifically directed at the post which I quoted.