There was quite a lot of action all around yesterday, but the main event was undoubtedly the $500/$1000 PLO match between Ziigmund and Phil Ivey. Even though they didn’t play that many hands (71), a heads-up duel between two players of this caliber will always attract loads of attention. And even if it was a short match, there were plenty of interesting hands and in the end Ziigmund took off with $120K of Ivey’s money.
As has been the case over the last couple of weeks, the seven game is where most of the action have been, and Ivey recuperated his losses and then some winning close to $245K there. The most successful player of the day, however was Patrik Antonius who is building on a string of good results in April and is now up $852K for the month, second only to durrrr who has won more than $1.5M.
Ziigmund flops a monster draw and wins a $396K pot.
You don’t normally find yourself with better than 86% equity when you are drawing, but then again you are rarely ahead on the flop with ace high when all the money goes in the way it does here. Considering how much money went in before the flop, Ivey was always going to get his money in on this flop. He has a very good draw in his own right, but when Ziigmund’s hand appeared on the screen he must have felt a bit deflated. I am hard pressed to find any hand that Ivey would like less to see than the one Ziigmund holds here.
The turn all but decided matters as Ivey was drawing to three outs to split the pot, but the diamond on the end ended any illusions he might have had to hit a miracle on the river. This was, by the way the second largest pot so far this month.
Ziigmund makes a very nice valuebet on the river and gets paid off. $307K pot.
Knowing when to valuebet is an art in poker, and one that is not that easy to master. Firstly, you need to be pretty sure that your hand is good, and secondly you need to think that there is a pretty good chance that you will get called by a worse hand. Valuebetting can certainly be the difference between a good player and a losing one, and in this hand, Ziigmund shows that he knows when this type of action is called for.
When Ivey checks the river, Ziigmund has good reason to think that his hand is good. Ivey would bet any two pair hand that contains an ace in this spot since Ziigmund has showed little strength at any point during this hand. There is a chance, of course, that Ivey is putting Ziigmund on a busted draw and is trying to induce a bluff, so Ziigmund’s hand is by no means a lock to win the pot. Also, it is difficult to put Ivey on many hands where he would call the river bet and be beat. These factors makes it a very difficult to justify making a valuebet here, but kudos to Ziigmund who found it and managed to get paid off. He shows that he knows his opponent and also shows why he is one of the best PLO players in the world.
Antonius rivers a flush to beat Ivey’s set. $135K pot
Ivey’s kings holds up in a threeway preflop all in hand. $210K pot.
wtf is going on here...? Ivey wins the strangest hand seen in a while. $195K pot.
Ivey flops the second nut flush and Ziigmund is almost drawing dead. $182K pot.
A real cooler for Antonius who rivers the second best full house against Ivey. $165K pot
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