To the surprise of no one, Isildur1 was back at the tables last night, this time taking on Patrik Antonius and Phil Ivey. The results were not very uplifting for the Swede, but there were certainly a lot of memorable hands for the railbirds to observe. Antonius and Isildur1 four-tabled 1911 hands until Antonius felt sleepy and headed to bed with a $437K win, while Ivey played several short sessions winning $705K in just 679 hands.
Antonius rivers a straight and catches Isildur1 betting with only two pairs. $784K pot.
While we were half expecting to see the first million dollar pot in online history last night (at one point both players had almost $600K at one table), we had to settle for the second largest pot ever, and it was a very interesting hand from a play perspective.
When Antonius raises Isildur1’s continuation bet on the flop, the latter knows that, since he flopped three pairs, it is very likely that his opponent is raising with a draw. In this case it makes sense to play like Isildur1 and just call Antonius’ raise and see what the turn brings. In an all-in confrontation, it is unlikely that Isildur1 would have more than a coin flip, and in fact, on this hand Antonius was a 53% favorite after the flop.
The turn card is a bit difficult to interpret from Isildur1’s point of view. On the one hand, Antonius did not hit a flush or a straight, but there is a possibility that he happened to hit a higher two pairs. However, I am sure that Isildur1 had decided to bet the turn if he thought that Antonius missed the draw, and more likely than not, the king did not help Antonius. Antonius, on the other hand, was still looking at a lot of winners, so he had a sufficient odds to make the call here. At this point, Isildur1 is a 3-2 favorite to take this monster pot.
On the river Antonius hit his straight, but this winner was well hidden from Isildur1’s read. The bet on the end is probably not because he expects to be paid off by a lesser hand, but mainly in the hope of getting Antonius off a better two pair hand if he should have happened to stumble into that along the way. If he checks the river, he will have to call in order to catch Antonius bluffing, so he might as well move in himself. For Antonius, it is a straight forward call. Sure, Isildur1 could have hit the runner runner flush, but the pot is way too big to lay down the nut straight.
Antonius flops top set and gets paid off all the way to win a $775K pot.
We also saw the third largest pot in poker history, but unfortunately we were not shown Isildur1’s cards in the showdown. This makes it impossible to make any good comments to this hand, but it would be interesting to see which hands you readers would put Isildur1 on in this spot. I am fairly sure he doesn’t have a set, because he would probably move in on the turn over Antonius’ raise. The first thing that springs to my mind is AK with a drawing hand on the turn, but we might never know.
Isildur1 wins a $486K pot with a pair of nines.
The most bizarre pot of the day was this one. It is not every day that you see a PLO hand where both players put in well over two buy-ins and the winning hand is a measly pair of nines. Even more rare is it to see this happen in a pot where no one is all-in. Obviously it can happen when two players go all-in on the flop and both hold drawing hands, but the way it happened here is unusual to say the least.
There was, of course, some logic to why the hand ended up this way. Antonius made the semi bluff on the turn, and isildur1 felt he had enough outs to warrant a call. When Antonius missed everything on the river, Isildur1 only had a little more than $67K left, so Antonius assumed there was no way he would get his opponent to fold when Isiildur1 would have gotten 8-1 on the call. I wonder, though, if Isildur1 really would have made the call in this spot. Somehow, I don’t think so, but for Antonius it was impossible to see this. A bluff in this spot would definitely not be profitable, it just happened to be one of the few times where Isildur1 would consider folding the best hand.
On a COMPLETELY different not, I would like to announce that I have set up my Twitter account, and that I am planning to come with frequent updates there. The first thing I will do is to do some live twittering as I play some of the ECOOP events at BETnGO.com in the coming few weeks. If anyone wants to join me for those tournaments, there will be bonuses and special offers for those who play any of the main events. Among other things, they will offer to pay for your take out food while you are playing the tournaments ;-) So start following ‘bvdahl’ on Twitter, and you will not miss out on anything.
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