Tuesday, December 04, 2007
High Stakes Poker - Classic Sports Choke Job
Did you see High Stakes Poker on GSN last night? It was very exciting. The biggest pot of the night - and quite possibly, the biggest pot ever played, came down between Guy Laliberte and David Benyamine.
The game is no limit holdem with a minimum buyin of $500k. They were playing with $100 antes, and blinds of $300/$600/$1200. With a live $2400 straddle, they created a $50K pot preflop with 3 players.
David flopped the nut flush draw and Guy flopped 2 pair (Kings and 5s). David pushes all in and is called by Guy. They both have about $600k. This makes the pot around $1.2 million.
I guess at these astronomical levels, players heads start to go a little fuzzy or something. After turning their hands face up, David looked like he had just been punched in the gut. Guy could not formulate a coherent sentence.
Then something unbelievable happens. Guy offers to just take the $50k in the pot and end the hand right there. David insta-accepts the deal.
What?
This was about to be the biggest payday of Guy's life and he settles for $50k? The only thing I can figure, is that he was so nervous that he couldn't think straight. This must be one of those classic big moment choke jobs that we see in other sports (ala Chris Webber NCAA finals time out).
I think even I could have put together a little analysis in the heat of the moment that would go something like this.
David has 9 outs to make a flush with 2 cards to come. Then, even if he makes a flush on the turn, I could make a boat on the river. I'll give him 8 outs. That means he wins about 32% of the time (8x4). I'll round this a little to 35%.
That means I "own" about 65% of his $600k stack. Let's see - 10% of $600k is $60K. Times 6 = $360K plus a half = $390k. So. I "own" about $400k of David's stack.
Let's see. I'm willing to pay a "risk premium" to avoid variance with 2 cards to come. I think I'll offer David a deal. I'll pay him $50K to not see the turn and river. I'll ask him for $350k. If he refuses the deal, I'll offer to run it 3 or 4 times to reduce my variance a little further.
But, there is just no way in hell I'm going to "give" him $300k of the money that I now "own" to avoid playing the turn and river. After all, I'm a professional gambler. I can only dream of situations where I get to put $600k in action as a 2:1 favorite.
The game is no limit holdem with a minimum buyin of $500k. They were playing with $100 antes, and blinds of $300/$600/$1200. With a live $2400 straddle, they created a $50K pot preflop with 3 players.
David flopped the nut flush draw and Guy flopped 2 pair (Kings and 5s). David pushes all in and is called by Guy. They both have about $600k. This makes the pot around $1.2 million.
I guess at these astronomical levels, players heads start to go a little fuzzy or something. After turning their hands face up, David looked like he had just been punched in the gut. Guy could not formulate a coherent sentence.
Then something unbelievable happens. Guy offers to just take the $50k in the pot and end the hand right there. David insta-accepts the deal.
What?
This was about to be the biggest payday of Guy's life and he settles for $50k? The only thing I can figure, is that he was so nervous that he couldn't think straight. This must be one of those classic big moment choke jobs that we see in other sports (ala Chris Webber NCAA finals time out).
I think even I could have put together a little analysis in the heat of the moment that would go something like this.
David has 9 outs to make a flush with 2 cards to come. Then, even if he makes a flush on the turn, I could make a boat on the river. I'll give him 8 outs. That means he wins about 32% of the time (8x4). I'll round this a little to 35%.
That means I "own" about 65% of his $600k stack. Let's see - 10% of $600k is $60K. Times 6 = $360K plus a half = $390k. So. I "own" about $400k of David's stack.
Let's see. I'm willing to pay a "risk premium" to avoid variance with 2 cards to come. I think I'll offer David a deal. I'll pay him $50K to not see the turn and river. I'll ask him for $350k. If he refuses the deal, I'll offer to run it 3 or 4 times to reduce my variance a little further.
But, there is just no way in hell I'm going to "give" him $300k of the money that I now "own" to avoid playing the turn and river. After all, I'm a professional gambler. I can only dream of situations where I get to put $600k in action as a 2:1 favorite.
