He Said, She Said

Apparently this is their 3rd appearance, but I just happened to come across my friend Tony (Bond18 to the online poker world, George Dunst to the federalis) and his girlfriend Celina Lin in a new feature called “He Said, She Said” on Poker News. In today’s edition, they discuss a hand played by internet phenom Adam Junglen at the 2007 EPT Monte Carlo:

“Blinds: 150/300 with a 25 ante.
Patrik’s Stack: ~45,000
Adam’s Stack: ~ 60,000

Adam holds Ac Jd, Patrik 5s 3c.

Preflop: It’s folded around to Antonius on the cutoff. He raises to 1,000, Adam (on the button) three-bets to 3,200, the blinds fold, Patrik reraises to 9000, and Adam calls.

Flop: (Q-Clubs)(2-Spades)(4-Clubs) (Pot 18,375)
Patrik moves all in for 34,475, Adam ponders, then calls.

Turn: 8

River: A [Antonius wins the pot with a wheel straight.] “

I was hoping there would be some back and forth between Tony and Celina, but they seemed to agree on pretty much everything. I’m in the camp that says Adam should just move all in pre-flop if he thinks Antonius is full of it. Tony claims 150 BB is too much to move all in pre-flop, but the pot has already been 4-bet, so at this point the all in would be less than 2x the pot.

Especially with a vulnerable and tricky-to-play hand like AJ, there’s a lot of value in folding out junk hands like, I dunno, 53o. Antonius is one of the best NLHE players in the world, he’s not going to spew massively post-flop. I imagine he’s checking and folding if he doesn’t flop the draw, and once he does, he’s no longer making a mistake to get his money in, and Adam would have much preferred to have taken the pot down pre, even if his call was a good one, which I agree it was.