fossil man wsop

Missing this years WSOP? Check Fossilman’s Run back in 2004

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The entire Poker world ground to a hault and this years WSOP isn’t taking place in Las Vegas for the first time in the 50 years since it was first played in 1970. We wanted to cheer you all up incase you are missing either playing out in Vegas or just the exciting rail action that you normally get this time of year with showing you the Run It Back WSOP 2004 Main Event edition, with Greg ‘Fossilman’ Raymer.

Bad Sport Josh Arieh

Arieh looked like a bit of an idiot during this whole WSOP stream and was painted as the villain continuously by the commentators and ESPN’s footage. Greg Raymer said they wouldn’t have had to do much to make this possible and with the was he acted in this pot it’s clear to see that he was pretty out of line. He raised pre-flop, flopped a flush draw and bet called off his stack with this draw against the better hand of Demetriou who flopped top pair and a gut-shot.

Arieh looked surprised that his opponent only had Ace Jack in this spot and said something along the lines of, you put all you money in with that hand? Even though he was the real gambler here… Josh managed to spike a heart on the River and then wanted to get even more mouthy.

The bratty poker player had this to say after sucking out “You’re gonna put all your chips in with Ace Jack like that huh? We can gamble, it’s on now!” Demetriou calmly replied with you got lucky and he wasn’t lying, he was a decent favourite when the money went in with his 57% edge.

Norman Chad stated: “No class from Josh here at all” and his opponent said “You should show a little humility” and rightly so, this is a good reminder to anyone that might be getting into poker or just a little glimpse of how bad you can look at a televised event if you don’t keep your emotions in check. Josh Arieh looked like the amateur here, not the cool, calm, collected Pro he was trying to say he was.

Josh later busted Demetriou with a suck out with A7 against the dominating AK, however, three sevens were enough to seal the Englishman’s fate and send him packing.

Back in the day

This pot is a good reminder of firsly what not to do when you’re deep in the WSOP main even trying to win $5M but secondly what not to do in any pot! Players used to just hit a decent hand and be willing to push all in with it, in this pot Anderson who had a huge chip stack himself, faced off against Raymer in this massive pot.

The action was raise from UTG by Anderson, Raymer smooth called and on the flop they both caught a piece, with top pair versus Raymer’s bottom set. Anderson bet out, Raymer raised nad Anderson shoved all-in! A huge overplay, whilst he might have bluffed out hands like AJ and AQ, he is always getting called here by AK, two pairs and sets.

I would have liked to see a check from Anderson and play a little pot control here, it’s always good to make these kinds of checks when you hit a board when out of position because this way you are protected for when you don’t hit. In this instance we could easily check call in Anderson’s shoes, however we will be balanced for when we have hands like 55,77, KQs, KJs etc and are just going to check-fold this board.

It’s important to play pot control when you are playing against a heavily stacked opponent that could knock you out of a tournament if things get a little heavy-handed, it’s also a good idea to pot control with your medium-strength hands like this pretty weak top pair, the upsides of doing so is that you trap against all the bluffs that Raymer could have here and lose a smaller pot when you are beat. All the money went in on the flop and Raymer had to sweat a backdoor flush draw on the Turn but Anderson missed the River and Raymers grabbed a strangle hold on the chip lead.

ICM punters

When on the Final Table bubble this hand went down against two of the most aggressive players, with neither wanting to give up their equity in the pot all the money went in, despite them being 2nd and 3rd in chips. This is just a huge mistake for both players when you have hands like this when you are in a crazy ICM position you are going to want to play small ball poker.

There would be nothing wrong with just floating here with either hand, I think the 4-Bet all-in against one of the only 2 players that covers you even with AK here is a little brash, we are looking at when 3-Betting ranges were so nutted it was ridiculous, I’m surprised Dean only had pocket Jacks in this spot and not QQ, KK or AA.

The way it all unfolded was Dean called the all-in, flopping Murphy nearly dead by hitting a set of Jacks and John Murphy from NewYork finished in 13th place for $275,000 despite being 3rd in chips just moments before. Try not to make huge errors like this when you get deep in tournaments!