poker etiquette

[Christian8898]

Hello guys,

I played the Odyssey mtt this Sunday (25/10/20) and I was at the same table with two of your ambassadors, David Lappin and Dara O'Kearney. I respect the guys and I've listened to many episodes of their The Chip Race podcast, but this time I was dissapointed with the two of them, for two specific plays. I would like to know what Unibet thinks about this 2 hands:

1st: http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/10180377

Bubble time, last 12, first 11 paid. 

2nd : http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/10180375

Last 8, already in the ITM. 

Cheers,

 

 

[Dara]

Hand 1 is the money bubble. Lappin covers me so ICM is extreme for me: I need a considerable equity premium to get all in at any point as a result. My hand looks stronger than it is on the river (losing to better tens, all the houses etc). If I bet and he shoves I'm in a horrible spot since he's capable of both checking stronger hands to me in this spot (as he did in this case) and turning a worse hand into a bluff. Under normal circumstances, in position river value bets have to be ahead of a bit more than 50% of the calling range (not the overall range). With ICM they have to be ahead even more often, and I didn't think my hand was ahead often enough when he calls in this case considering ICM.

Hand 2: I had A8 with the ace of diamonds. Had he shoved at any point I'm obviously calling. When he does what he does, I might as well just call. It's minor but there's a non zero probability he has a better hand than mine but checks it down to the  (for example a better ace and we both miss) so I preserve the few extra chips. Additionally, there were still two tables so there's value in taking time to play out the hand rather than sticking it in pre. Only when the ace came and he checked was I convinced I had the best hand over half the time. Even though the number of chips is tiny relative to the pot, this rule still applies to my value bets. He said on the Unibet stream later he had "a bad queen". I won't call anything worse pre, so unless he makes a pair he has the worse hand 100% when I bet, so even though he's getting an astronomical price, his fold is correct.

[DavidLappin]

Hi Christian, I was alerted to your post by a colleague and obviously you have requested a Unibet response which I'm sure they will deliver but I want to assure you that I played my hands with only my equity in mind. 

In the first one, I was obviously intending to check-raise both turn or river.

in the second hand, I put most of my chips in pre with queen high- the reason I do this rather than shove is a strategic one that I actually explained in real time on twitch at the time ( Ian Simpson's stream). Once that run out plays out I literally beat nothing and I know Dara has no hands that call the preflop bet that I beat. Therefore my best scenario is to fold and hope that there is a bust out and i ladder before commuting my last few chips. 

I believe that Ian has this stream recorded so me speaking my thought process is on show

[Andy-Relax]

---

@Christian8898 wrote:

Hello guys,

I played the Odyssey mtt this Sunday (25/10/20) and I was at the same table with two of your ambassadors, David Lappin and Dara O'Kearney. I respect the guys and I've listened to many episodes of their The Chip Race podcast, but this time I was dissapointed with the two of them, for two specific plays. I would like to know what Unibet thinks about this 2 hands:

1st: http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/10180377

Bubble time, last 12, first 11 paid. 

2nd : http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/10180375

Last 8, already in the ITM. 

Cheers,

 

 

---

Hi @Christian8898,

I've sent both hands to Relax, the software developer, so their fraud team can have a look at the hands and play in general. Once I have the results of their findings I will post it here. 

[Groggy]

The guy renowned for his books on ICM plays a hand ultra nitty on a bubble, who'd have thought!

 

I can see why you shared these hands though, from the outside they do look pretty strange. Seeing the QT river check back actually hurts my soul a little bit.

 

Dara is an ICM expert. It would be pretty off-brand for him to risk his ambassadorship and reputation in the poker community for a few euros. I think he would figure that might be slightly -ev.

[CuteRaven]

Of course now there is more time to analyze these hands now than in real time, but I will attempt some analysis on the first hand.

Apparently Lappin can have 44 here (3 combos), but probably also the following hands in the potential river calling/raising range:

- 99 (3 combos), A9 (12 combos), K9 (12 combos), Q9s (of which you block 1 combo=2 combos), J9s (3 combos), T9s (of which you block 1 combo=1 combo), 98s (3 combos), 97s (3 combos), 65s (3 combos), 67s (3 combos), A6 (12 combos), K6s (3 combos) JT (4 combo), QT (3 combos), KT (4 combos), AT (4 combos), A4s (3 combos), 54s(3 combos), K4s(3 combos), pocket pairs JJ-AA (24 combos)

By hand category this is:

Tx or better: 22 combos

JJ-AA: 24 combos

9x: 36 combos

6x: 21 combos

4x: 9 combos

Maybe some hands would often raise pre (like AT, A9s, A4s, 99, JJ-AA), some might bet turn (e.g Tx and AA-JJ) and some might not cbet flop (e.g 6x). Removing some of the combos in these hand categories leaves:

Tx or better: 10 combos (removed 2 AT combos and then combos halved)

JJ-AA: 6 combos (combos halved twice)

9x: 30 combos (removed six A9 combos)

6x: 10 combos (combos roughly halved)

4x: 5 combos (removed a few combos of A4s and a few more incase 4x checks flop)

So we are left with 53 combos that you beat (including 2 combos of JT that are left), one or two QT that you chop with and about 6 or 7 combos that you lose to. This means that you beat/chop with about 85% of the potential continuing range when holding QT here. Would Lappin call all these hands against a moderate e.g 3/4 pot bet? Maybe not, but still a lot of hands to call with.

Of course this analysis is highly speculative (I may have made math errors too, I counted combos in my head), I don't know the dynamic or ranges or play styles here, but on the surface checking back QT seems like a strategic error even with extreme ICM pressure. I'm not implying anything about player intentions, could be an honest strategic mistake, I'm just pointing out that the logic from @Dara on the first hand does not seem to make a ton of sense objectively. At worst you probably beat 70-75% of the continuing range, and you are still pretty deepstacked by the river.

Edit: I'm not an ICM expert, so maybe there is a chance that you really need to beat about 75% range to bet??? IDK, I would be surprised though

 

 

[Dara]

---

@CuteRaven wrote:

Of course now there is more time to analyze these hands now than in real time, but I will attempt some analysis on the first hand.

Apparently Lappin can have 44 here (3 combos), but probably also the following hands in the potential river calling/raising range:

- 99 (3 combos), A9 (12 combos), K9 (12 combos), Q9s (of which you block 1 combo=2 combos), J9s (3 combos), T9s (of which you block 1 combo=1 combo), 98s (3 combos), 97s (3 combos), 65s (3 combos), 67s (3 combos), A6 (12 combos), K6s (3 combos) JT (4 combo), QT (3 combos), KT (4 combos), AT (4 combos), A4s (3 combos), 54s(3 combos), K4s(3 combos), pocket pairs JJ-AA (24 combos)

By hand category this is:

Tx or better: 22 combos

JJ-AA: 24 combos

9x: 36 combos

6x: 21 combos

4x: 9 combos

Maybe some hands would often raise pre (like AT, A9s, A4s, 99, JJ-AA), some might bet turn (e.g Tx and AA-JJ) and some might not cbet flop (e.g 6x). Removing some of the combos in these hand categories leaves:

Tx or better: 10 combos (removed 2 AT combos and then combos halved)

JJ-AA: 6 combos (combos halved twice)

9x: 30 combos (removed six A9 combos)

6x: 10 combos (combos roughly halved)

4x: 5 combos (removed a few combos of A4s and a few more incase 4x checks flop)

So we are left with 53 combos that you beat (including 2 combos of JT that are left), one or two QT that you chop with and about 6 or 7 combos that you lose to. This means that you beat/chop with about 85% of the potential continuing range when holding QT here. Would Lappin call all these hands against a moderate e.g 3/4 pot bet? Maybe not, but still a lot of hands to call with.

Of course this analysis is highly speculative (I may have made math errors too, I counted combos in my head), I don't know the dynamic or ranges or play styles here, but on the surface checking back QT seems like a strategic error even with extreme ICM pressure. I'm not implying anything about player intentions, could be an honest strategic mistake, I'm just pointing out that the logic from @Dara on the first hand does not seem to make a ton of sense objectively. At worst you probably beat 70-75% of the continuing range, and you are still pretty deepstacked by the river.

Edit: I'm not an ICM expert, so maybe there is a chance that you really need to beat about 75% range to bet??? IDK, I would be surprised though

 

 

---

In game I estimated I'd need about 70% to get it in, and having just put it thru an ICM calculator now, it confirmed that's roughly the figure. That doesn't mean I need to be ahead 70% on the river: it means when I call a check raise all in I need to be that far ahead. Bet folding my hand is a disaster, and bet calling could be if Lappin constructs his range properly (if he's bluffing less than a third of the time), so I decided to just avoid the spot. Also bear in mind I'm 16 tabling at this point in my session, so I could very easily have got this wrong (I didn't have time to start counting combos) but having run a lot of postflop ICM sims in PIO recently I'm keenly aware how nitty you have to be in these spots.

[CuteRaven]

@Dara Fair enough! And yeah, I don't believe that there was anything malicious going on here either way, just added my 2 cents to try and figure the hand out, because probably the hand looks quite weird to most people and therefore I think getting more concrete/technical benefits the discussion and the easing of suspicions here for people 😃.

Yeah you for sure know ICM much much better than me then, I have played around a bit in ICMIzer and seen that in some extreme bubble spots, the "bubble factor" value dictates that you need about 70% or 75% equity to get it in, but rarely more. 

Probably getting raised happens rarely though, but maybe it is significant enough to decrease the EV of betting a lot, and you know the reads/player dynamic there anyway. Much closer spot than I initially thought then.

[Andy-Relax]

Relax fraud team have checked the gameplay and found no suspicion of collusion or softplay during the tournament.