Party Poker Blog

"Pot odds are for morons when all the cards out."
Dutch Boyd

I don't do much hand analysis here on this humble poker blog. There are many others who do so, and much better than I would. I don't get too hung up on particular hands.

As someone once said, it's not about pots, it's about the sessions, winner or loser. I guess that's why I don't play many tournaments.

But I saw a bigass honking thread with a Q&A with Mr. Dutch Boyd in a hand he played at the recent WPT final table in Tunica.

Here ya go:

-----

Crazy Hand at the WPT Tunica!! What did Dutch Boyd have?

Today I drove down to the gold strike in Tunica Mississippi to watch the play down to the final table. The play was down to 8 players and the weirdest hand came up with Dutch Boyd. Boyd had about 250,000 chips (not exactly sure how many he had. And he got involved with a big stack.

With blinds at 8,000-16,000 Boyd made it 48,000 in EP. The big stack (Brett) called on the button, blinds fold.

Flop = 2-3-J two spades. Boyd bets 48,000, and Brett calls.

Turn = 9 of spades. Boyd bets 90,000, and Brett raises to 200,000, Boyd thinks for a long time and calls, leaving himself about 50,000.

River = 3 of hearts. Boyd checks, Brett puts him all in for his last 50,000, Boyd thinks for a long time and folds.

What could Dutch Boyd possibly have had that he wouldn't fold or committ on the turn? I can't figure it out.

What do you guys think?

BTW 2 hands later Boyd picked up A-A and had them cracked by As-Qs.

----

And luckily for everyone reading, Dutch hopped in and gave his post-mortem on the hand:


--------

Ok Waco... you're one of the few players on here I respect, so I'll bite. How can it not matter what I had to make the play bad?

Here's how it went down. I had 357k at the start of the hand. I had just dragged a nice pot with KJ against Freddy Deeb when he bet the river with Q high on an Ace Ten raggedy board and I called with the second-nut no pair. So now I'm under the gun... blinds are 8k-16k with 2k antes. I have AsQd and raise 3x to 48k. Brett calls in the cutoff with 88. One of them is a spade.

Flop comes J32 with two spades. I Cbet, which is something that I hadn't been doing much of if I missed the flop up until that hand, so I really kinda figured Brett would put me on a pair and fold his hand. 48k. He gets stubborn and calls. So far I'm not seeing anything wrong with the play.

Turn comes 9 of spades. So now there's three spades on the board and I have two overs and the nut flush draw.

I don't put Brett on a flush, because I think he would have raised on the flop. I don't put him on a Jack.

Really, I put him on a pair smaller than nines, or a set (22s, 33s, or 99s). I'm sure if I check that he's going to bet. But I don't think he's going to call if I bet. So I make the semi-bluff of 90k. I've got 169k behind. Still don't see anything wrong with the play so far.

Now he does something unexpected and raises... but he doesn't raise > my stack. He raises 110k more. I'm pretty sure I don't have the best hand. Worst case scenario is he has a flush and I only have 7 outs. 14% to win the hand. But he didn't. He had 88s with a spade and I had 13 outs (three aces, two queens, 8 spades).

So I'm a 3:1 dog. Not the greatest spot to put the vast majority of your chips in. But the pot is 522k. I'm pretty much certain if I hit the hand I'll get the 59k call on the river... so really the pot is 581k. So I'm getting over 5:1 to call. If I call and hit I'm in a good position to make the tv final table and take down the tournament. If I call and miss, I still have enough chips that I can fade the BB and SB one time and wait for a hand that figures to be best preflop or wait for the BB to come around the second time. If I fold, I'm sitting on 169k, which is still enough to maneuver and make some preflop blind steals, but really not the position I want to be in.

Anyway, I called. Maybe you think it was the wrong call? I guess if you're going all perfect-path, annette15 no-look style, it doesn't really matter that I was getting 5:1 on a 3:1. All that matters is that the majority of the time I'm going to be crippled. I don't consider myself such a huge favorite against the 7 that were left that I'm going to be shying away from pos-ev situations like this one. I would have shyed away from it, though, if he had put me all-in on the turn.

The spade didn't come. The Queen didn't come. The Ace didn't come. So I checked and folded when he bet... getting over 10:1 to make the call... but pot odds are for morons when all the cards out. I don't have a 10% chance of taking down this pot. I either have a 100% chance of winning it or a 100% chance of losing it, and in this case I was sure that my AQ wasn't good. I guess there's always a chance that Brett had something like 45 with a spade and is just flatout lying about the 88s. But he swore that's what he had and I believe him, and it makes perfect sense with the action.

I really don't think I played the hand bad at all. But maybe you'd care to elaborate a bit about why you think I did.

------