Day started with something like 136 players and 20,000 chips each. I spend most of the day in good shape, never amassing a huge stack but maintaining near or above the average. Then I made a big move on Joe Sebok on the very last hand of the night:
Daniel Alaei was on my immediate right, with Joe seated to his right. The two had been openly joking about how ridiculously tight a youngish Asian player across the table from us was. That player caught the big blind on the last hand of the night. Joe made a joke about going all in blind pre-flop to steal from him.
Blinds were 400/800/100, and Sebok open raised to 2200 with 30K behind. I thought that especially on the last hand of the night with a super tight player in the BB he could have almost anything here. Alaei called, and I was pretty sure that since he knew Sebok knew he knew the guy was tight, he didn’t have a huge hand and didn’t want to get into a pre-flop leveling war. He was just calling to use his position and knowledge of Joe’s wide range post-flop.
Neither of them knew a thing about me. It seemed like a great spot for a squeeze play, especially since there’s a $5000 bounty on Joe, giving me an overlay in the worst case scenario where he has a hand. I make it 9000 with A3o, committing myself against Sebok but leaving room to fold to Alaei. Action folds to Sebok, who moves all in. Alaei folds, I call, and he shows me AKo.
The board comes out 7c 8c 9c Tc, and neither of us has a club. I have 15 outs to chop on the river and two to win, but it’s an offsuit 4 and I get busted down to 17,400 on the last hand of the night. There’s something like 50 left from today, and they are expecting close to 250 to play tomorrow.
The more I think about it, the more I like this play and think I was just unlucky that Sebok had a hand. I don’t know a lot about him, but based on the information I had, I don’t regret the squeeze.
Was a pretty fun day on the whole, got to play with Jerry Yang, Bill Gazes, Robert Williamson III, Maria Ho, David Pham, Annie Duke, Kenny Tran, and Freddie Deeb in addition to the guys I mentioned above. I’ll post a more thorough report tomorrow, then I play again on Wednesday.
Thanks for following along!
i like the play, especially bc of the tasty 5k overlay on sebok. too bad you couldn’t suck out!
“… and think I was just unlucky that Sebok had a hand.”
I like your thinking and the squeeze play, but after Sebok 4-bet shoves for 21K more, your assumption that he was just making a move is clearly wrong and you should not be calling with Ace-rag despite getting 2:1.
The reason being that Sebok must have a legitimate hand since he is shoving into two bigger stacks behind him, and his range is polarized to a big Ace or mid-PP+ and leaving you drawing to 3 outs.
I’m sure if not for the $5K bounty you would have folded to the shove, since you are still in great shape with 38K stack, but I guess bounties make players do uncharacteristic actions against pros.
Anon,
I didn’t assume that he was just making a move when he shoved. I agree that without the bounty, it would be a fold, a $5000 overlay has a pretty significant impact on the decision. Arguable, raising to something like 7500 and leaving room to fold to a shove could be the better play. That does give him room to make a move on me, but in actuality he probably wouldn’t have. In retrospect, that may have been the better play. But I don’t think folding is an option after I make it 9K.