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| Pokerazzi |
| Justin Shronk scours the Internet forums and deciphers the tournament trail scuttlebutt to bring you the best dirt and gossip professional poker has to offer. Welcome to Pokerazzi! |
| Hellmuth vs. Durrr: Hook, Line, and Sinker? |
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There is a concept in deeper game-theory known as “meta-game.” The basic idea being that, in a game of poker, making obvious decisions (aka decisions that are right in front of you) is considered “level-one thinking.” Anything past “level-one thinking” (taking notes on players, elaborate game selection criteria, thinking along the lines of “what does he think that I think that he thinks that I think he has”) are all considered “meta game” – meta meaning “transcending” or “a higher state of development”; meta-game therefore being “the game within the game.”
Although the seasoned rounders have no doubt been using meta-game for decades, it is only of late that the Internet poker scholars have quantified it as a solid theory within game theory.
A good example of meta-game, and one that I always cite, involves Brian Townsend and Phil Ivey. One day while playing Phil heads-up online, Brian accidentally entered an extra digit into an opening raise, making the amount much larger than he had intended it to be (i.e. $30,000 instead of $3,000). Phil picked up on the mistake and moved in, which forced Brian to fold.
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In his blog, Brian wrote that he had never forgotten that incident against Ivey, and few months later, when they were playing heads-up, Brian picked up two aces. The situation was similar to the first “mis-click” incident, so Brian purposefully typed in a bloated amount for his bet, mimicking his original mistake … Phil bit, moved in all his chips, and Brian snap-called with the aces; a play three months in the making. Meta-game.
This past weekend, meta-game may have been taken to a whole NEW level. Tom “durrr” Dwan had been playing against Phil Hellmuth a bit online in the days leading up to the NBC Heads-Up Championship, and it is rumored that Tom wanted to play higher, but Phil declined. In a coincidence that had us fanboy media-members licking our chops, Dwan and Hellmuth drew each other as first round opponents on day one of the event.
On only the third hand, following a series of pre-flop raises, Durrr moved-in with pocket tens and Hellmuth snap-called with two aces. Of course, we’re talking about Durrr here, so obviously he hit a ten on the turn, the crowd combusted, and Hellmuth lost complete control of his bodily functions. |
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In his post-match interview, Phil whined about how badly Durrr had played and how he “would not have played two tens like that.” As Phil continued the bash session, Durrr wandered over and interrupted the interview by saying something to the effect of, “So I’m sorry I got lucky, get over it. Play me heads up if you think I’m so lucky.” This was all caught by NBC cameras – whether or not it ever airs I am anxiously awaiting.
Now, the play with the tens is actually pretty standard in the NL cash games that Durrr plays. Everyone in those games is much more aggressive than Phil, and people are putting in a third raise a lot lighter than Hellmuth would be in that situation. Therefore, in Durrr’s usual online cash games, his play is probably optimal against most opponents (who would be calling his push with a range of hands a lot less strong than the strict range Hellmuth would call with)..
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This is one explanation for the seemingly overplayed tens, but another has been offered by Tom’s good friends over at twoplustwo. This is where the meta-meta-meta-game comes in. It’s rumored that Durrr has been trying to get Hellmuth to play higher and higher stakes for a while but to no avail. The theory suggests that Durrr purposely overplayed a hand he knew Hellmuth would see face up (like the tens) in order to change Hellmuth’s perception of Durrr’s game, therefore making Phil more willing to play at the aforementioned higher stakes (where Durrr knows he has a considerable edge). When you think about it in terms of real-world equity, it actually makes sense. Even if Durrr had a few hundred thousand dollars equity in the Heads-Up Tournament at that point (which is a very liberal estimate), he stands to gain MUCH more equity by taking $100k pots off Hellmuth a few times a day, until Phil gives up or goes broke (and honestly, with Hellmuth’s ego and Durrr’s needling ability, “The Poker Brat” going broke isn’t that farfetched). |
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| Jon Little Cut Down |
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“FieryJustice” we hardly knew ye. Yesterday, Full Tilt Poker announced the termination of its agreement with Jonathan Little, ending his brief run as a representative for the website. On March 4th, Full Tilt released the following statement on their poker forum:
Despite having a great year on the WPT, Jonathan Little is no longer affiliated with Full Tilt Poker. He violated the terms and conditions of Full Tilt Poker by allowing other players to play his account. While we encourage our pros to play as much as they can, we do not allow them to share their account with any other players.
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When a player on Full Tilt Poker plays against and chats with a red pro on the site, it is imperative that they be able to trust that it is really the advertised pro playing the account. Given that Mr. Little violated that trust, we have decided to sever his ties to the site, and close his account.
Full Tilt Poker values the trust of its players and will deal with any violation of that trust swiftly. We apologize to any of our players who may have been misled during the past few months by Mr. Little's actions.
Full Tilt Poker
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Full Tilt grew suspicious of Little after they discovered that he had “played” 1,227 sit n go’s during the first seven days of March, a number even more fantastic considering Little had also participated in the NBC Heads Up Championship during a portion of that time. So why would Little jeopardize his sponsorship with Full Tilt by loaning out his account? Well, the prevailing theory is that he wanted to take advantage of the privileges of his deal, which include a massive rakeback (most FT pros get 100%), and the additional $35 hourly rate. For those of you that don't understand how important the 100% rakeback deal is for pros who play online a ton (or get their friends to do it) - one poster on pocketfives.com figured out that in Jon's one week of SNGs, Little would have racked up over $30,000 just in rakeback (about $1.5 millon a year) - and that's just rakeback; there's still the $35/hour PLUS anything he actually makes playing.
While most people think it’s not uncommon for sponsored pros to let other people use their accounts (one twoplustwo poster told a story about the time he was staring across the room at a red Full Tilt pro while that same pro was also supposedly “playing” online), the brash and reckless manner in which Jon broke the rules made it much easier for Full Tilt to A) catch him red-handed, and B) make an example out of him. Railbirds and media members definitely scratched their chins at the timing of the announcement (just after Jon busted from Heads-Up), and wondered aloud if the same action would have occurred if he’d won the tournament.
2/1 he signs with Betfair within a week. |
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