Game: WSOP ME 2013

Players: JC Tran, Matt Reed, Carlos Mortensen

Why Is It Interesting?:

Preflop: The commentator says “the min-raise brought JC in with the weak, suited Ace”. I don’t think this is true, I think Mortensen’s call of the min-raise brought JC in with the weak, suited Ace.
Anyone have any idea what his plan was, limping with AJ from that position? It’s not a play I can make work, and given the credentials the commentator lists about Mortensen, I have to assume I’m the one who doesn’t get something.

Flop: Look at Reed on the flop; isn’t it obvious that he hates his life but has a flush draw? Look at how his face scrunches up, but he has a hopeful head-tilt, like a child who has to do his homework to get an ice-cream. Stuff to notice if you don’t have top two pair, I suppose.

Why does the flop play out the way it does? How does the flop play out the way it does? I understand Reed’s call, although I prefer a raise. However, Chan’s bet does look like a value bet.
Again, Mortensen has confused me. He looks back at his cards, as if to check for a diamond. Why does he call? I think Reed’s call of Chan’s flop bet looks strong, and I cannot see how Mortensen thinks a call plays well against the range of hands Reed would call Chan’s valuey looking bet with, even if he thinks he’s got Chan’s value range crushed (not sure how he’d think that!).
I think Mortensen should have been out here? Am I mad? Even a raise would have been better than a call, at least it’s trying something against the only hands he should be involved with anyway!

Turn: Ha! Check Reed out, he may as well have stood up and shouted “oh for fuck’s sake I never hit a flush on the damn turn!”.

Chan was always betting this turn, wasn’t he? If he was bluffing on the flop, he’d be having another go on the turn. Reed has to fold, firstly, it’s getting expensive and unlikely, secondly, he’s got Mortensen wafting about in the pot behind him. What can the guy do? He has no option. His only time to fight was on the flop, and he had Mortensen in the way then too.

Then Mortensen folds and I’m even more confused. Was his entire line in that pot a tournament-meta-move to just get in the way of a guy with a big hand, mess up his pot and stop him becoming a monster stack? I have no clue. Anyone who can enlighten me as to Mortensen’s thinking will save me some sleep hours.

After The Action:

The commentator implies that he thinks the flop play was weird with his final comment: “Everybody did the right thing on the turn, I guess.”

In the “pro-analysis” at the end, Estfandiari and Laak totally lick Reed’s balls about how great a fold it was, how super-disciplined, but I think the fold on the turn was a no-brainer. Reed was never getting paid if he made the flush, and Tran made it expensive enough for it to be a mistake for Reed to call.
Neither Laak nor Estfandiari address how the pot got to where it did, and that’s what I want to know about/understand.

In retrospect, I think Reed should have raised the flop, the call on the flop meant that he had nowhere to go if he didn’t make his flush, and was unlikely to get paid if he did. If he raises he folds out a lot of hands that Chan might value bet on the flop. Of course the turn fold was a good fold, but, by then, it was also the only option.

At the end of the hand, Reed articulates, more to himself than anything, “I think I played that badly.” I agree, but I don’t really know why, given the annoyance that was Mortensen in this hand, I’m really not sure what else Reed could have done here.

Geeky Considerations:

Sometimes it’s easy to watch videos like this and attempt to directly apply what I see to my own game. It’s worth being careful of structures and stack sizes though; the one day live games and on-line turbo structures that I play don’t allow for me to play massive pots, lose and carry on with 500 big blinds.
If you’re laying down KK on an A-high board with 80% of your stack in the pot already, you’re making a bad fold; if Reed had only had 1million chips left, he’d have called Tran’s turn bet.
If you’re paying a £3 reg fee, they’re not gonna give you enough chips to play beautifully nuanced poker for four days, keep that in mind.

Loved the poetic irony of Chan wearing a hat with Kings written on it during this hand, LMAO.