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Ben “ProfessorBen” Yu is an accomplished multi-table tournament player with three WSOP final tables to his name across a variety of games. He talks to us about ditching school to play poker, ditching poker to play Magic, and learning to play a variety of games. We also consider the possibly perverse nature of PLO tournaments, including strategy discussion of a key hand from the bubble of a WSOP event.
You can follow Ben on Twitter @professorben and read his articles in Cardplayer.
Timestamps
0:30 hello and welcome
6:00 strategy w Cyrus
43:21 Ben Yu
Strategy
$2/$5 NLHE. Two limps in early position, one limp in late position, Hero makes it $30 with AJo in the BB, all call.
Flop ($115) J86r. Hero bets $70, first limper raises to $210, second limper calls all-in for his last $85, folds back to Hero, Hero calls.
Turn ($620 in pot) 2. Hero checks and folds to $150.
Edit: Corrected flop, should be J86.
Great podcast. I noticed the hand that you discussed on the podcast was slightly different than what is posted above. Namely an 8J6 flop as opposed to AJ6 flop meaning far fewer draw hands in opponents ranges. Obviously the turn fold would have been even more disastrous on the AJ6 flop but my question is is there ever a scenario where you might consider folding top two in this situation? Obviously player dynamics come into play big time but let’s say unknown Villian just bombs all in overbet for 75-100 BB on blank turn is there any point where you consider folding or is that just overthinking? Seems terrible to lay down but one of those cases where I feel like I’m almost always calling down a set of 6’s and lamenting my luck. Good stuff as always.
Good catch, thanks. Folding AJ there would definitely be exploitable, in that you’d be losing money to an opponent who is making that shove with more than a very few bluffs (if he jams 66, he does get to jam the occasional bluff and it can still be correct to fold AJ against range). So you’d just need a damn good read that your opponent had exactly 66 (or better, but one of the reasons AJ is so good for calling is that it blocks so many combos of AA/JJ). In practice, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a read that good, especially as even if I’m sure Villain is strong it still can be hard to exclude A6 from his range.
Thanks for the mention, I think. You guys are definitely a model to aspire toward, but mine is more of an occasional effort.
Nate, if you do get around to it, you might recognize who I stole my opening lines from.
Really enjoyed the strategy hand this week. Looking forward to finishing the episode and hearing the professor.
Both were great strategy hands this week.
In the PLO discussion, in the case where he flats and Ben raises to 12, if cut-off calls all-in for 8 BB, then I think he could call – side-pot will be only 8 BB’s vs the main pot of 24 BB’s, so isn’t there some protection in that there isn’t much for Ben to gain from stealing with air on the flop?