Hey guys,

I noticed there's no thread for the most recent podcast, and even though it was a few weeks ago now I thought I'd start one as I listened to it for the second time today. I had some thoughts about a couple of the hands:

– The T7cc hand played by Elisabeth Hille vs Andras Koroknai. I can understand the logic behind both those suggesting a shove, and those suggesting a raise. However, I strongly think this hand is a flat-call from Hille's position. Reasoning is as follows:

– I don't like a shove because it turns Hille's hand face up. Hille has no overpairs to the 865hh board in her range as she would 3bet 99+, there are almost no combinations of low flushdraws that she can have, and all high flushdraws would be folding out lower ones with a shove, so she wouldn't be shoving them. Most of the other 7x hands in her range would have at least a pair as well as the straight draw, so they'd have enough showdown value to just call, as would A7 most likely. It's very unlikely Hille would risk losing value by shoving a value hand when Koroknai calls so rarely, so it basically makes it really obvious to Koroknai that Hille has a weak draw. Once that happens it's simply a matter of how often Koroknai has a hand strong enough to call, and I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that he would call with 6x seeing how unlikely it is that she would shove a higher pair. He's obviously snap-calling all 8x hands and overpairs, and probably all combos of overcard hearts too, plus sets, 2pairs and the nut straight, ALL of which are in his very wide range. The only factor working in Hille's favour in terms of FE would be the bad odds he was getting on a call, but considering that when he does call we probably have between 25-35% equity (sometimes lower) and we risk a workable 30bb stack in a really crucial spot, I think a shove is a very high-variance and unbalanced play in a really unnecessary spot, and Koroknai is a capable enough player with a big enough stack to call off lighter than we think in that spot.

– I don't like a raise either, but not for some of the reasons people have suggested. I think a raise is better than a shove, but raising to around 1.8M or 2M (I can't remember exact pot size) would force Hille to fold out her equity if and when Koroknai shoves over her, because she's obviously not raise-calling with ten high deep in the main event. Stack sizes are also such that if Hille were to raise to 2M or so, Hille would have around one pot-sized bet left on the turn. I'd suggest that vs a raise of that size (or pretty much any other size other than a shove) Koroknai literally does not have a flat-calling range. He's not going to bet-call a weak draw OOP because that's just bad and he's not incompetent, he's going to want to get all in with his strong draws for Hille's 30bb stack, and he's also going to want to get all-in with his value hands to protect them on such a wet board. This means a raise is only okay if we think it wins the pot more often than we would ever be able to win it on future streets, which as I'll explain, I don't think is the case.

– I like a flat-call here, because it's just a really tough flop for Koroknai to double-barrel on with his wide range. Any 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 or heart has got to hit our range very often, plus an ace or other broadway card might hit us sometimes too when we have hearts or float overcards. I don't know whether Hille had backdoor clubs or not, but if so that's even more of an argument for seeing a turn and responding. I think Koroknai check/folds the turn a ton, not to mention the times we hit the nuts – even if we get the feeling that he's not going to check/fold for whatever reason, being in position gives us the chance to take a free card and try to hit something. There are a lot of boards where Koroknai would be trying to put a lot of pressure on Hille's stack – she's in for some tough decisions if the flop comes K97 or AQT – but this board is just going to make the turn really sticky for Koroknai a lot of the time. Heck, if we really think Koroknai is going to be double-barrelling often even on this board, there's an argument for calling turn specifically so that we can rip it in his face on literally any turn card if he bets again.

Basically, I think shoving makes it obvious we have 7x and 7x only, raising wins the pot very often but forces us to fold pretty often too, but calling makes it super difficult for Koroknai on the turn. We still have enough chips behind to give us some options, and we can expect him to check/fold turn really often.

– The hand where Jesse Sylvia 4bet the T5o. I love the play too, I think it's awesome. What I also like is Jake Balsiger's flat-call with AK. It seems they were around 50-60bb deep. If Balsiger were any more than 40bb deep vs Russell Thomas, I can completely understand him believing that if he were to 3bet/5bet all in vs Thomas' UTG raise/4b/calling range on the bubble of the main event final table, he'd be very lucky to be in a flip. I would even go so far as to say to get 50bb in UTG+1 vs UTG at the final table bubble of the main event vs a player who had shown himself to be fairly tight up to that point would be extremely spewy, and I'd be virtually certain if you were to run it through an ICM calculator then putting 50bb at risk in an extremely marginal situation like that with a 17bb stack still there in Gaelle Baumann would be absolute ICM suicide. If Balsiger 3bets to say, 1.9M as suggested in the podcast, and it folds around to Thomas again, and Thomas 4bets to say, 4.5-4.8M, what is Balsiger going to do? He can't flat the 4b for a big chunk of his stack, 3bet/folding AK is terrible, and it's not like Thomas is going to get it in with JJ in that spot for 50bb UTG vs UTG+1. Even if he gets it in with QQ he's not that happy. I don't think I can imagine a spot where two players would have tighter ranges than two guys without aggro images playing UTG and UTG+1 50bb deep on the bubble of the final table of the main event with a 17bb stack at the table, especially given that there's such a high likelihood that the bigger stacks behind like Merson and Sylvia will try to take advantage of these awkward ICM spots, exactly like Sylvia did in the hand. I think flat-calling AK is absolutely the right play here, and I think given the likelihood of action behind him once he flats, I think it'd be a pretty awesome spot for Balsiger to have no three-betting range at all and plan on flatting a lot of strong hands and backraising anyone behind him whose range is wider than Thomas', once Thomas folds of course.

This is just my very long-winded take on these two hands – there were a bunch of interesting hands at the final table, though, and I look forward to hearing thoughts on those from the TPE guys.