In this post we are going to look at a hand from the Final Table of the WSOP Main event, we pick up the action with just 3 players remaining and one of them is the wild card, let’s take a look.
Let’s look at the ChipStacks
283M for Ensan
121M for Sammartino
109M for Livingston
Blinds are 1M/2M with a 2M Big Blind ante when we start the hand
Sammartino folds his Button with 9♠ 3♦
Livingston Limps with 6♥ 6♦ from the Small Blind
Ensan checks his option in the Big Blind with 9♣ 4♥
Flop
6♠ K♣ 9♥
Both players have a piece with Ensan flopping a weak second pair, but that’s a decent holding in a limped heads up pot.
Livingston has an absolute stranglehold on the equity in this pot though, with a set of six’s he will take this down around 98% of the time!
Livingston starts with a check, a good line he can allow his opponent to bet much worse hands, leading here wouldn’t be terrible too, there are plenty of hands that could find calls or floats especially being up against the table maniac.
Ensan bets 33% Pot, placing 2M in the middle and Livingston gets to spring the trap and make it 7.5M to go…
Ensan isn’t buying what Livingston is selling just yet though, he reaches for a large stack of chips and then just calls.
Let’s look at this hand a little from Ensan’s point of view, he is choosing to bet when checked to on this board, which could be good for some protection against his opponents range when Livingston has overcards. However Ensan can’t look to get value on three streets here, so this would make a perfect holding to check back and try and get to showdown with.
We could maybe bet some of our stronger nine’s in this spot like A9 or Q9 but 94 here is just too low in our range to want to bet and we get in bad spots when our opponent raises us, even if they are bluffing we will have to give up on nearly all turns that are going to be bad for our hand.
Off to the Turn Card
Q♦ Hits the turn, so now the board reads 6♠ K♣ 9♥ Q♦
JT is now the nuts, however, this is just one hand and hard to imagine Ensan bet calling so confidently with just a bad draw on the flop… So Livingston’s plan of check-raising the Maniac on the flop worked and the pot is nicely bloated to 21,000,000 chips, so what next?
Livingston continues the pressure looking to be able to play for all the chips betting 13.5M
This is where things get a little Spicy from Ensan…
Instead of Mucking his weak pair of nines on this worsening board for his hand he chooses to Min Raise making it 27M to go…
If we are going to have hands to bluff on this turn card with on a rainbow board we would at least want to have blockers to the straight with a hand like QT or AJ, giving us a redraw and blocking some of our opponents nutted range. However many of these types of hands would have a fine just call on this turn, so it’s very hard to figure out what Ensan is doing here.
One possibility is that he is trying to buy a cheap showdown by raising the minimum here and stopping any more action on the river from Livingston, however, just calling the turn with his bluff catcher and deciding on rivers would be a better solution than raising.
This opens up the door for Livingston to pile all in here with his 100% lock on the hand, he isn’t to know that the best line for him would be just to call the turn and check on the river and hope for Ensan to bet again, he wants to get his money in whilst he has the best of it and before any more dangerous cards come on the river like a Jack or Ten.
Ensan ends up mucking his hand in this needlessly bloated pot.
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