Wednesday
July 14, 2010
There was an interesting heads-up match being played yesterday when two of the most successful online players in history, theASHMAN (Asthon Griffin) and Brian Hastings met for 193 hands of $100/$200 PLO. Hastings took the lead early, but the match hovered around even until the half way point where Griffin took control and proceeded to win four buy-ins over the last 100 hands or so.
Both players flop the same hand, but theASHMAN103 hits a backdoor straight to win a $52K pot.
Hastings must have liked his chances when the cards were turned over on this hand. There is a good chance (41%) that the pot will be split, but he must have felt as though he was freerolling with his flush draw. In reality, Griffin only had a 12% chance of scooping the pot against 47% for Hastings. The turn did not change these odds significantly, but when Griffin hit the straight on the river, Hastings probably figured it wasn’t his day. Two hands later, the match was over.
theASHMAN103 flops bottom set which holds up in a $45K pot.
This hand is a really good example of the kind of hands the top players are willing to get their chips in with. Hastings only has top pair with a gut shot straight draw and a back door flush draw, and still he is willing to come over the top of his opponents raise even though he can’t expect to have much in the way of fold equity since his opponent is getting almost 3-1 on the call.
It is very difficult to put theASHMAN103 on an exact range, of course, but to me it seems that Hastings might have been a bit too eager on this hand. Assuming that theASHMAN103 will not fold here, Hastings needs to have about 47% equity for his move to be correct, and I don’t think this is a realistic expectation. In this specific situation, he only has 21%, but even against ‘only’ two pairs he is a 7-3 underdog. Even against a completely unpaired hand like QJT3, Hastings only has 53% equity, so in all I am pretty sure that this is a play he shouldn’t have made. I am not sure how often theASHMAN103 will be on a stone cold bluff here, but I don’t think he will do it often enough to justify the shove from Hastings.
Riyyc225 flops top pair and fades Big8E’s flush draw. $48K pot.
theASHMAN103 flops two sets, but Hastings turns a flush to win a $44K pot.