WSOP final table

Well, it was a shame that we left Vegas on the 7th and the final table was on the 9th. It would have been cool to be there, but as is usually the case watching it on TV is so much better because you can see their hole cards.

It always amazes me when I see the kind of "moves" people try to make. If you have over 20bbs there is no reason to make wild plays all-in with not even a semi-bluff. Phillips was so luck that he recovered to finish 3rd after really playing two hands very poorly. First off he gets involved with A9 in early to mid position and raises. okay, not terrible. He gets called and then misses the flop. Instead of just checking and saying okay, let this one go. He bets out a big chunk of chips and then has to fold by the aggressive reraise from Schwartz who barely had an over pair. Then he limps AK in EP and gets raised by Ivan who has AQs. Great, the trap is sprung. Phillips reraises and then Ivan reraises him right back. I think at this stage you either have to fold, or shove. If you push all in at this point you have represented that you had AA and set a perfect trap, or KK for that matter, but either way the value of your hand is in seeing all five cards. He calls the reraise giving up control of the hand and then throws out an incredibly weak bet on the flop. He missed but had a gutshot. Why not check instead of betting so weak. Ivan does the correct thing with his semi-bluff, and shoves all in with a double-belly buster draw and phillips folds making him a short stack. If he had raised to begin with, this hand would have played differently more than likely. I think he should have shoved when it got back to him instead lf just calling the reraise to 8 mil.

Next comes a series of moves that were totally unnecessary and ultimately very costly. Suharto comes over the top with A8o to a raise in the BB and is dominated. Next comes Ylon Schwartz who bluffs off his entire stack with A high, why, oh, why. There was zero reason for this play.
Now we are down to three and Phillips bluffs off his entire stack for no apparent reason with T9 and nothing.

It is mind-blowing to me how people play some of their hands. They are on the biggest stage in the world and are making these wild over the top plays when they are simply uncalled for, period. They might have finished exactly where they finished but at least they might have had a shot at the glory of first. Ivan Demidov and Paul Eastlake absolutely deserved to play for the title. They played beautifully and put themselves in position. Ivan owned philips twice which cost phillips dearly.

There is a time and a place for making a move, but 5 handed at the final table of the WSOP is a time for calculation and pause. If you have chips to play hands, don't throw them away on a wild bluff. Let's not forget Montgomery's wild all-in reraise agains Demidov either. 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd place guys all bluffed off their stacks making moves and only the 6th guy had a somewhat shortstack at the time, but still chips to play with.