I’m not much for watching televised poker, but from what I’ve seen, if you’re going to watch anything, High Stakes Poker is the show to watch. Although I didn’t see this hand go down, I heard it discussed quite a bit by Aaron “aejones” Jones and Rob “Bobbfitos” Eckstut on the latest 2+2 Pokercast. PokerNews commentator picks up on just about every complex detail that Aaron and Rob covered on the show, so I don’t have much to add to his commentary. It’s just a fascinating hand that shows how a total sicko like Dwan can run circles around event world-class players like Barry Greenstein and Gabe Kaplan (who, from what I’ve heard of his commentary on the hand, didn’t seem to get that Dwan was turning his pair into a bluff). So I definitely recommend that you have a look at Daniel Skolovy’s recap and commentary:
“Now although even an amateur could read Barry’s hand, it takes a real pro to have the stones to bluff into seven people and continue on the turn.
durrrr is that pro and Barry should know that, and thus should know that when his hand is as faceup as it is, durrrr has the potential to recognize this and bluff him off of it.
Which means you get into a leveling war of he knows that I know that he knows and he should be thinking just high enough to know that durrrr knows his hand and can thus bluff him off it, which could turn this from a fold to a call/shove.”
Barry Greenstein dissects the hand in his March 9 podcast.
I think his analysis is just as fascinating as the hand itself.
/j.
I did my own recap a couple of days ago as well if you want to check it out:
http://spritpot.blogspot.com/2009/03/high-stakes-poker-season-5-recap.html
One thing I’m unsure about is why Barry says in his pokerroad posts that he’s not worried about durrrr having TT. He thinks durrrr just auto-3bs Barry’s UTG raise with TT?
@spritpot: I happen to agree with Barry in that respect; with a table ahead of him, Durr is moving to isolate the original raiser (in this case UTG) if he has TT. I said that in my post on your site. The analysis from Barry’s perspective is that the only combo of cards he can have is the Ad2d to make a call from UTG+1 with potential action ahead of him. Barry also points that out in his podcast.
One thing is for certain; this hand will be talked about for a long while.
Meister,
I can’t say I agree with that analysis. There’s really no reason why durrr should want to play his TT heads up against Barry’s range for raising UTG and calling an UTG+1 re-raise rather than play a smaller pot pre-flop against a wider field.
Youtube vid of the hand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SKwhb_nJVQ
Yea, I agree with Andrew…I’m not sure why Barry says he isn’t worried about Tom Dwan having TT….