High Stakes Poker Season 3 Episode 10
By Glenn Cole | March 21, 2007
This episode starts out with some large pots and some, weird plays. And later on Antonio Esfandiari shows why he is one of my absolute favorite players in High Stakes Poker.
No new faces in this episode, so the lineup is the same as last week.
Seat 1: Daniel Negreanu
Seat 2: Illya Trincher
Seat 3: Dan Harmetz
Seat 4: Antonio Esfandiari
Seat 5: Phil Laak
Seat 6: Chris Ferguson
Seat 7: Mike Matusow
Seat 8: Dan Shak
This week starts with an interesting pot, which starts with Negreanu just limps with pocket jacks and 3 limpers will follow. The flop shows KT8 with two diamonds. This flop gave Chris Ferguson Top two, (KT) and Mike Matusow top pair, (K9). But both will check to Negreanu with his jacks, who bet. This is a standard play in my opinion, many times is his jacks the best hand, and he get some information about his opponents, which he will get in this situation. Because right after this Chris Ferguson raises the pot, with a $8.000 bet. Now the other players in the pot should understand something about the situation; the tightest player at the table check raises with a large sized bet. I don’t think Matusow took a minute thinking about who did the raise, because Matusow will follow up with a re raise to $15.000 total. This kinds of play is why he isn’t that successful as some others at High Stakes Poker. Well any how a awful play by Matusow, Ferguson re raises to $53.000 and Matusow quickly folds. Sometimes it feels like Matusow is trying too hard, and trying to make great plays just because the camera is there, and putting himself in hard situations.
Following hand Negreanu yet again picks up a real quality hand, QQ. Again he just limps unsuccessful when almost the whole table limps in. And yet again, Negreanu’s pocket pair gets cracked by another players rags, this time Dan Shak with his 65 off suit.
Negreanu is involved as well in the next hand; he flops a set with a weak kicker. (97 and the table is 99A). Harmetz limped in pre flop with AK and will lead out and betting the pot. The player after, Mike Matusow the same set as Negreanu but with better kicker. He will raise to a total of $15.000 and gets called by both Negreanu and Harmetz. But the action in this hand will die after the flop, because the turn and river is clubs, which means four clubs on the table, and no help to either Harmetz or Negreanu. Matusow makes a full house but didn’t get any more action in this hand.
Later on, there is a perfect example why not to slow play a hand. The pot is raised and Shak defends his big blind with K9 off suit. The flop is KQ9 with two clubs. This is a strong hand for Shak, but very vulnerable; it’s both straight draws and flush draws out there and hands like AK, KJ KT can easily crack his hand. But he chooses to check his hand any how and the other players behind him checks as well. The turn is a seven, which makes trip seven for Antonio which have pocket sevens. But this time Shak bets around 130 % of the pot, ($10.000 bet in to a $7.000 pot) and Antonio makes an instant call. The river is a blank to both of the players, and Shak checks but this time Antonio bets and Shak calls within a second, and Antonio takes home the pot worth over $50.000.
I think Antonio is one of the more intelligent players at the table, who will often play his opponent and his opponent’s card. A flop in the middle of the episode gives him top two pair and he bets the pot. I can add that the flop shows two diamonds. Ferguson calls, and the turn is another diamond and you can see in Antonio’s face that he is certain that he is beaten by Ferguson’s flush. This excellent read made it so he lost the minimum in this hand.
Topics: High Stakes Poker |