Poker Hands - Greg Merson's Bold Play at the WSOP Main Event
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- Опубликовано: 4 июн 2024
- Doug breaks down one of the hands that contributed to Greg Merson winning the 2012 WSOP (World Series of Poker) Main Event for his 2nd bracelet. This is the big stage, where legends are born, and where every player dreams of getting their shot at glory and a large pile of cash. Doyle Brunson, Daniel negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and Stu Ungar all made their mark at this prestigious tournament series.
In this hand from 2012, Phil Ivey watches from the stands as Merson runs a huge bluff on Jake Balsiger for a massive pot. With only three players remaining, every pay jump is life changing. This is one of the more memorable hands in TV poker history, but how well did each man play it? Doug takes a break from his trip to Twitch Con give his analysis.
Poker Hands is a series in which Doug analyzes televised hands and shares his thoughts. New episodes are uploaded every Monday (and sometimes Thursday).
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#GrindNation
Great analysis. It made me learn something. I know the concept of blockers, it's pretty obvious. But I always considered them in a fashion such as "I'm blocking his strong hands so it's easier for me to bluff here". It's never occured to me that I can also block some of the opponent's bluffs.
He’s bluffing two pair & straight against an over-pair, and the pot size vs Balsiger’s remaining stack + risking his tournament life made the move brilliant.
I can’t come up with a better explanation, plus the sheer speed of Merson’s all-in at the end puts me in sheer awe of his abilities.
Amazing.
Absolutely amazing.
Thanks for these Doug! I'm learning a lot on advanced thinking post flop and especially turn and river play.
by far the best poker analysis on youtube. keep doing what you do - im sure the subscribers are coming!
Greg Mersons performance on that final table was sublime. Easily one of the best ever in a WSOP main event final table.
He came back from a massive coke habit to win it. Respect.
the best must be martin jacobson, by far!
Queen high like a boss!
These videos are really great Doug. Thanks for putting in the time to make these.
These are a huge value-add to The Lab, Doug. Thanks for the insights.
Doug, love the content as usual (I'm commenting on like every video lol)
It's awesome for you to put effort on RUclips because my schedule doesn't allow for me to watch live on Twitch often, crazy to see your channel grow every day
I'm blown away by the growth too. Thanks for getting in the mix, I enjoy all the feedback.
great video doug .. very interesting the way you break these hands down .. I thought I understood poker but the way you break these hands down show that there's definitely more levels to poker then most people think.. keep up the good work man.
I love your channel, Doug. You're the best poker RUclipsr.
This is a great theoretical breakdown, and extremely useful. The thing about this hand (particularly the river analysis) is that tourney players have so many dumb-ass airballs in their range (especially shorthanded) that it's really difficult to give them credit when they're repping narrow. Anyway, great stuff Doug. I love these videos very, very, very much.
Greg Merson was the most deserving WSOP champion ever, in my opinion.
Second most deserving, right after Jacobson
Given his struggles and jus won A bracelet b4 it, that 1 hand heads up with Keith for the 6max lol
Is that the Ben86 bed..? Lols. Great content again Doug, keep it up man!
keep it up doug .. great content!
I love this channel!
Doug, why would he bluff jam A3 If he has QQ-AA and missed flushesh/streights? Isn't it just a call the best play? Will he ever fold QQ-AA anyway and what do we accomplish by bluffing off the missed draws?
Which value hands do you think Balsiger would fold to the jam? Would he fold AA? (assuming Balsiger would take this line with his overpairs TT-AA)
@0:15 "without a-do lets roll the clip."
Doug, always you are with the do... the do be with you.
Great video, as always. Thank you!
I would recommend a raise on the flop. Since he has the two overs, the gut shot AND the back door hearts. That would slow Balsiger down normally and hero can buy the pot on the turn if he does not improve.
The issue with raising in my opinion is if Balsiger actually has an overpair and makes a big 3-bet on the flop, can you 4-bet shove with just a draw with like 20% equity? I think Merson thinks he can outplay Balsiger and not have to resort to that.
gr8 vid, btw any chance u review the 470k$~~pot between Andrew Robl and Matt Kirk sometime?
Merson just knew he got tha reads.
Bullshit he thought he was bluffing on the river how is that a good read. If he was a boss at reads he would of called the river not shoved.
That wasn't a bluff! He had the best hand. Value shove.
U were right... !
It was a bluff. A value bet is when you are trying to get value from your opponent calling. You are never looking for a call with queen high in that spot, he wanted a fold - meaning it was a bluff. You can bluff with the best hand!
@@benonthemic r/woosh dumbass
@@anderspovirk7822 You clearly are clueless. Dumbass
If ballslinger has just bet 11m on the turn and then 25ish into 40 on the river merson can't really bluff raise, would also rep an overpair much better.
As far as choosing this hand, I think merson believed ballslinger would be folding an overpair most of the time given ICM of jesse being short (he was short right?) so blockers didn't matter as much.
Also sizing tells.
that's the shortest yet the best analysis of the hand in the comment section I have read. Too many pros here commenting way off the line
Thanks dude, check out my channel for more concise poker analysis!
he just needed to bet 25 mil on river imo... 13 mil was 'screaming that i can possibly fold to a shove type of bet... i seriously doubt merson would jam over if he did
Solid gold advice, ty
Great videos
Great stuff
Absolutely agree on this being almost nut-worst hand selection, but I wonder how much ICM lets you move the goalposts on the traditional thresholds math when you have your opponent covered. With his tournament life at stake and huge pay jumps on the line, it might not make sense to call just because you're getting better than 3:1 and his bluff frequencies are a little overzealous.
I know you have to make crying calls even with your tournament life on the line, but wanted to get your thoughts on how many more bluffs ICM can let you get away with.
Interested in your thoughts on what Balsiger should actually do on this river with his overpairs? Seems like a pretty poor one for his range and a pretty good one for Merson, so would you choose to bet JJ/QQ for value because they block hands that Merson could bluff with and check AA/KK because they don't and if he's bluffing all his missed draws he might well be over-bluffing? Or am I talking out of my ass?
I don't think he knew what to do, weird to say lol, he looked lost
i remember when i first saw this hand and saw that bluff i almost jizzed my pants
blown away? you made me laugh and respect you so much when your personality came out in the na na na nah song
So, in other words, since Merson holds the bluff cards that he wants to fold out of Balsiger's range, this makes it a bad spot to bluff-shove all in, since this makes it less likely that Balsiger is bluffing in the first place.
So what should he be doing? Bluff raise a small amount with the intention of folding to a shove?
he probably shoulnt be bluffing the river with this hand at all, no matter what sizing is used UNLESS he knows Balsiger is folding overpairs a good % of the time. It's probably better to shove the turn when he still has good equity or just call the turn and fold the river. Or if we feel like Balsiger doesn't bet the turn with med pairs or A and K high then maybe we can call the river knowing that his range is very polarized on the river
lol i disagree that it is a bad hand selection for him to use this hand as a bluff and if you run equities it is actually a very good shove in such a spot. vs the bet sizing etc and clearly i don't think over pairs choose the sizings he chose .
Life changing bluff with the best hand...and he didn't scratch his nose to indicate he was strong like so many other times though that could have been because he wasn't playing the hand against Jesse. ;)
merson is a great poker mind he also has a boss table presence and is fascinating to watch
He loses his hoody look, from the previous event ha, I guess the main event final table he did not want the old lady nightmare look ha,
WOW!
Perhaps the pre-flop limp and then flat call a pretty healthy raise was the real sowing of seeds for what took place on the river?
Lmao he thought he made a sick all in bluff on the river lol.
good stuff i just used my Amazon Twitch Prime to sub to your Channel.
2021
Hey Doug! Could you possibly make commentary videos over smaller stakes cash games? Like a hand review type thing when you playing cash game 6max or full-ring! (ex. you playing 50NL with commentary over your decisions). I think a lot of your audience would love it!
Cheers from Norway!!
He does this on upswing poker why would he do ti on youtube? Maybe he could just take a clip from one hand in his videos?
go to www.upswingpoker.com there you can find videos like that
Okay, thanks guys!
14:20 I think by this point if the callers range was two random cards QTo is behind. Lose to all king and ace highs, any pair, any 3,8,9,4,6, and straights. I think that is most of hands that have you beat.
Edit: yeah not even close, if the callers range is two random cards the range is 85.808% favorite to win
This play by merson is so over my head lol. I see similar hands play out all the time playing online, and the standard play with QJ high is to call or fold facing a river donk. Don't MTT crushers pick off this jam with K10 and AJ like 40% of the time
Hey Doug, Ive never really understood why we need to be betting sufficiently large on the turn to set up a river jam. Why do we want to play for stacks all the time, and why cant we just overbet the river when we do? Good video as always
because if your aim is to 2/3barrel with draws/air and remain balanced(strong holdings as well as air), you want to put as much pressure as possible on your opponent at each street. betting less than 1/2 pot each time on the flop and turn doesnt achieve this, especially when deeper stacked. by betting around 60-75% on each street, you put much more pressure on floats, overcards, mid pairs, top pairs with average kickers etc, whilst we can continue to rep strong holdings by betting strong. sizing on the turn should be enough for a river jam or a slight overpot bet, to continue to rep strong holdings and put the maximum amount of pressure on villain. only problem is you need to have a very good read on the opponent, as it can obviously end very badly lol.
Best hands to bluff with on the river 67/87 right? But then the thing is they are decent bluff catcher too cos they don't block any missed straight draws.
But I guess it's hard for Merson to call 2 street without a pair unless he picks up a combo draw on the turn like the exact hand he had, so I guess turning a pair in to a bluff some % and calling with them some % seems good.
67 seems like the best paired hand to bluff with but this might fold turn, so yeah if you get here with 67 and obv 87 as I said.
Then call all A9/A8/K9/K8 and mix between call/ fold with Q9/Q8/J9/J8/T9/T8 cos obv you block bluffs as Doug said so don't bluff jam these hands prob fold them a little more than you call maybe like fold 60% call 40% then call 100% A9/A8/K9/K8 and mix between jam/ call with 67/87 and perhaps also 9/7.
Plot twist: Merson moved all chips to the center of table and prays "please call bro, please!"
Looks like Balsiger will X/C overpairs on this river so when he bets this size he never has anything except 99 88. Also the ICM implications of busting before Sylvia + Mersons huge range advantage on this board means Balsiger would likely fold AA here if he had it
I sometimes feel like you're putting too much weight on combinatoric blockers aspect when it's a HU pot in NLHE. I'd advocate that in this spot the range advantage and ICM play a much bigger role.
The way I see this hand, is that when the river comes about, a 6s is actually one of the worst cards for Balsiger's range, all semi-bluffs like AhKh, KhTh, JT, QT, QJ miss it and there are not many value hands that are barreling, most of his value range will be trying to get to showdown by check-calling. On the other hand, Merson's range contains a lot of T7's, 86's, 96's, 36's. So when Balsiger bets he's representing extremely narrow value range, Merson picked up on this and made a move.
Was this not a HU or did I miss something? How is ICM a consideration here
How is icm consideration?! Rly? Main event 3 handed?! Every payjump is millions? And third guy is small stack so it means a lot
I love the subtitles before I get the chance to switch them off. "Dog pole care"
2022
I mean if he had a read on him that he was bluffing triple barreling with AK or smn then the play makes complete sense you can't discount him probably having a strong read. Sometimes thats more important than your cards
Where can I learn all the fundamentals? There's too much information
look for splitsuit videos. perfect for the most players (and all beginning players).
my favorite part was over on Jamie staples vlog you guys made him sweet $1k dinner lol....u wipe your crack with 1k...hell you flip $100k just to get off lol....love the video's and reads
I really think raising turn is better than just calling. If you just call, the only thing you're doing is hoping you hit your draws and giving the bluffer another street to.. bluff. Then you don't hit your draws on river, the dude bets, you know he's bluffing but there's nothing you can do about it because he either shoved river or bet an amount that left him pot commited. If you raise him though, he's folding most of his bluffs and if he's calling, you still have lots of equity.
That's why I believe raising turn and jamming river (doesn't matter if u hit your draws or not) is better in this spot.
I think Merson thought Balsiger was bluffing, because he didn't believe Balsiger would 3-barrel even with a high pair. With the weak sizing it seemed incredibly bluffy. He went all-in to fold Ace high type hands.
Do you think he would folds kings or aces in this spot ?
never
he was bluffing with the best hand. Bold. But it's only commendable if he gets someone to fold a winning hand. Other guy played the hand quite well too.
but are blockers as relevant here. I mean if that's the case, balsinger bricked the river anyway and merson has some showdown value. he can just call. is it not so.
Sick value shove that’s why we suck
I asked greggy about this hand when he used to do a twitch stream, he said he shoveled the river thinking Jake wouldn't call his tournament life with just one pair, in which he felt Jake might have kings
I'm pretty sure venessa at the time said she didn't like the bluff as he wasn't representing very much other than 107, with even 2 pairs being thin given how polarised balsinger seems by the river. Not sure he would even bet AA here for value. Thoughts?
If balsiger all in on the river? Is Merson gonna call???
Obviously not.
Would have been more impressive if the Q10 jammed the river and he called
Raymor McMoneymaker
Cha'alt!
I don't know if I like the analysis. Questioning Merson's decision to limp when he's a crusher. Also saying raising QTo pre is bad cos you're in a tough spot if Merson re-raises. He does that almost never.
he said that
if Balsiger jams on the river, he wins.
Ofc, but he didn't, and the mistake is punished and the better guy won. Sport ehh
I think Merson thought that Balsiger would fold every hand in his range if he moves all in
the best play here was the fold. not the raise all in. he was ahead. he shoulda won
and couldn't balsiger have pockets that converted to sets..
Great Ballslinger of Fire didnt bet near enough... ever.. 1 thing i have learned,, up the bets.. "soft" bets inviting your opponent to come along, doom you more than anything else I have seen..
13 M into 45 M ??? W the actual F ??? 20-25 M... or just all in.. only way he wins it..
put Merson on chasing, and just shove.. he loses to a pair of 2s... if you are all in.. what else can Merson do but fold..
instead,, Merson pulls out the big cajones,, shoves.. wins 100 M..damn risky.. but. awesome..
I'm a human GTO solver. Kappa
"BaldSinger".
Jst wnt watch ,no nid much talk on background.
This a horrible bluff by Merson. Point blank.
i challenge u 1 v 1
ok, what stakes u wanna play? Gr
michelle?
First 😆
Really bad bluff. He blocks the bluffs Balsiger has. Calling literally would've been a better play. Everyone always praises Merson as the best Main Event winner, but this hand isn't a great example of it.
interesting angels...do you not think a lot of what is going through merson's hand here is simply that he's put this guy on QJ KJ AJ+ 10s or better....often times I'll see strong poker players get a player with an inferior stack to fold due to the risk of exiting on a single pair. On this board I feel merson knowing that it's unlikely he has two cards less than 10..he's essentially putting bolsinger on an overpair here....I mean everyone sees the game different...but rather than thinking about 50 different permutations of "possible" hands...that's cool and all but I really don't think it's the prevailing factor here...especially when were talking about this amount of money....basically like I have better than one pair, and call me and potentially risk millions on a pair
Merson has stated on twitch he put his opponent on king's on this hand which makes the bluff a tad gutsy. "What a read by merson" was wrong lols
hey doug im a big onlline grinder just won the big215 :) but i wanna say u kno alot bout poker i know that but you just dont you just dont get it totally boy ur like i rather wanna raise a had thatseither stronger or easyer to fold ofcourse stronger u raise but the limp on the beutton suggests primarly that he wants to see the flop for the price of the bb its not always trapping or whatever and i f he does reraise u can fold and rather u raise have him call with a mediocre hand like 55 and u can still get somewhere with q10 instead of having 83 why the hell would u only bluff if its a total bluff no. u kinda get the game totally i love ur crazy vids and everything u got a big sack f money so it dont matter u just gamble alot and get the weirdest folds andshit in 10k tournament u finishd 2nd but no just no sorry. i eat u fr breakfast boy
Jesus this is one of the most incoherent ramblings I've ever read.
Thanks?:)