Galen Hall

[Catherine Rampell @crampell]

Hear me out. What if instead of selling food below cost to all comers at taxpayer expense, and then using more taxpayer dollars to subsidize private companies that can't compete with those prices, we had a program that targeted nutritional assistance just to the people who needed it, as a supplement? We could call it, I don't know, supplemental nutritional assistance

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Agree that by far the most important facet of this hand is that on drawy boards that you can naturally double barrel, many players hit the right bluff frequency, but bluff too much with draws and not nearly enough with air, and then when the draw hits on the river, they realize that they don't have nearly enough bluffs in their range

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Congrats to @LukeJu22. Dude really knew his customers. A lot of the most interesting hands from the F2T on down involved him making the exact right play against the player he was facing. Shout out to Saaskilahti, who played absolutely fearlessly from the jump. Can't coach heart.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

@FarazJaka I would bet every dollar I have to my name that Saaskilahti has AKs more frequently than he has A4s here.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Yeah... the entire point of playing poker is to try to understand who your opponents are, what they are thinking, and then to try to outplay them. We know Lauri is a (quite good) amateur player, and we know he is unafraid, and he playing to win. We have seen him run triple barrel bluffs, we have seen him float K7 oop on an ace high board, turn a pair and then bluff with it, we have seen him 3b light several times.

We know Han Feng is also unafraid, we have seen him run big bluffs, 4b jam pre light. We just saw him raise/fold on like 10bbs. We saw him raise AJ and fold to an 8bb big blind jam.

There are some players who minraise here and never, ever, ever have anything but AA. Han isn't one of them.

Then type of mistakes might a good, fearless amateur player like Lauri make? This is the exact type of weird corner case spot where this exact type of amateur will not understand how distorted Han's range is. Many amateurs of this ilk will barely even distinguish a minraise from a jam - they think "oh, he's basically jamming, but he's just giving himself an option to fold if there are several allins behind him" - especially since that type of play has already happened twice at the FT.

When Lauri effectively jams 20bbs, which I doubt he is supposed to do often, you just know for sure that he is too wide here, and you can probably even discount AA substantially and KK somewhat. He has something a lot closer to a rejam range if Han jammed than what he's supposed to have vs a Han minraise. You crush that range. Also, Han could have something like ATs intending to call a jam, but if you jam he can fold and ladder.

To me, it just seems like a spot where like, the entire point of being good at poker is so that you're able to know that you should get JJ in against these guys in this spot.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

That's what I am saying - He starts out with zillions of combos of air (54o, J2s, 89s bdfd, etc), but the odds that he plays any of those combos like this (check raising big when greg can have an ace, then barreling turn after Han calls strong, then potentially jamming a brick river after Han calls again) are very low.

And then on the flip side, if he has a value hand, xr flop, barrel turn, jam river is a totally conceivable way to play the hand, but there are just so few combos of value on the flop.

Based on everything we'd seen from him up to this point, I'd be surprised if most aces don't go in pre - certainly aces strong enough to bet 3 streets for value, and Id be shocked if 77 doesn't go in pre.

So that leaves him with 6 combos of A7, which I would also have guessed he jams pre quite often. Maybe he likes to peel the middling aces to keep in dominated suited aces.

And I have no idea how this is supposed to go in theory. I suspect Han should very rarely be flatting here, which then puts us on a rare node. You'd think Han also jams a lot of his strong aces. And then I feel like Juma should in theory rarely xr A7 because with only one ace left, he needs to let FBT bluff, but then FBT hasn't bluffed once.

I have no idea what this spot should look like in theory once Han flats TT (as I said, I think he should jam), and even if I did, I suspect at least one if not two or three of the players are playing substantially different than theory, and even then, I think this particular line would be extremely rare, so all in all it just feels as close as you can get to a classic "look 'em in the eyes and guess" game.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

@MrJesseJames4 @SamGreenwoodRIO Zillion combos of air * extremely unlikely he would ever blast off like this (versus) extremely likely he would play value like this * close to zero value combos. That's why it's a fun bayesian problem, like the Robbi J4 hand.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Yeah... the entire point of playing poker is to try to understand who your opponents are, what they are thinking, and then to try to outplay them. We know Lauri is a (quite good) amateur player, and we know he is unafraid, and he playing to win. We have seen him run triple barrel bluffs, we have seen him float K7 oop on an ace high board, turn a pair and then bluff with it, we have seen him 3b light several times.

We know Han Feng is also unafraid, we have seen him run big bluffs, 4b jam pre light. We just saw him raise/fold on like 10bbs. We saw him raise AJ and fold to an 8bb big blind jam.

There are some players who minraise here and never, ever, ever have anything but AA. Han isn't one of them.

Then type of mistakes might a good, fearless amateur player like Lauri make? This is the exact type of weird corner case spot where this exact type of amateur will not understand how distorted Han's range is. Many amateurs of this ilk will barely even distinguish a minraise from a jam - they think "oh, he's basically jamming, but he's just giving himself an option to fold if there are several allins behind him" - especially since that type of play has already happened twice at the FT.

When Lauri effectively jams 20bbs, which I doubt he is supposed to do often, you just know for sure that he is too wide here, and you can probably even discount AA substantially and KK somewhat. He has something a lot closer to a rejam range if Han jammed than what he's supposed to have vs a Han minraise. You crush that range. Also, Han could have something like ATs intending to call a jam, but if you jam he can fold and ladder.

To me, it just seems like a spot where like, the entire point of being good at poker is so that you're able to know that you should get JJ in against these guys in this spot.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Lauri is a stone cold lock to be too wide here, and given his sizing I'd probably discount AA substantially and even KK a little bit for Lauri. I also think if Han has something like ATs he will fold if FBT rips, because Lauri and FBT have almost exactly the same amount of chips, FBT has him absolutely crushed, and he is basically guaranteed to ladder?

My reaction in the moment is that given the specific opponent and everything we've seen him do over the past few days, FBT just has to get JJ in here.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

I mean yes, I also think it is a clear jam pre and I would have jammed. I am certain he also knows it is a clear jam. I respect and enjoy the fact that he likely conciously chose to deviate from solver outputs in order to make a risky play that he thought was good, attempting to induce Juma into jamming wide and make a big step towards win the tournament. I have no idea if the play was actually good or not.

I also enjoy Juma not jamming 77 there which I guess is probably because he read Han's flat for exactly what it was, and then I think the rest of the hand is also interesting because both preflop plays give us some clues as to what the players may have been thinking.

Fun hand.

[FPL_1990 @1990Fpl]

@galenhall @SamGreenwoodRIO its just a jam pre

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

@trade27now Saaskilahti and Han Feng were both getting after it hard. FBT is getting cut to pieces. I don't think he's won a single chip post flop since... I don't even know when? 15 left?

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Fearless: Saaskilahti, Han Feng, Jumalon. Absolutely fucking terrified: FBT

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Who I'm rooting for tomorrow:

1. Literally anybody who says 'fuck it we ball' and tries to win $10m instead of hanging on for $250k payjumps.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

@RyanPaganetti truly the lord's work

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

@SamGreenwoodRIO If he snap calls he wins. Tank call, he's drawing dead. He's clearly inexperienced at timing the rng

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Well, I know who I’m rooting for now. #TeamScarf

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Can anybody who watched the stream tell me who I'm rooting for at the FT? Traynor was #1 and seemed like he was going for it (and Savas, Deeb and Brock who busted earlier).

Mueller was playing ridiculously tight. Gags is an OG, so he's my default. Was anybody else notably going for it?

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

This has to be a lifetime record for the number of times I've read the phrase "hog tied" in a 24 hour period.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

I think he's v likely to have and to call nearly all the combos of AQ AJ AT, as well as A8/A7/A6 cc and hh, and very likely to have a million combos of 9s, and I imagine he'd call a lot of them (this seems like the key question here)

If you look at the last few years of WSOP Main from 18 down to 9 is the most overly tight short handed poker ever. I bet you can probably count the number of check/raises on one hand and the number of check raise bluffs on one or two fingers. I think we get xr here pretty rarely, and if we do, we aren't that torn up about folding.

Also, I think gags is unlikely to have this particular leak, but players who river a strong hand in a huge spot after the turn checks back lead way too often because they're scared of not getting value. It's ALSO a spot where they might be tempted to lead a 5 because they can comfortably play for two bets (and, as was the subject of Sam's whole post yesterday, both of the bets will probably be too small) and are disinclined to xr because they don't know if they can play for 3 bets.

Furthermore, you (Luke) seem like a guy that is going to open wider than solver on the button here as the tournament chip leader in the MAIN EVENT (I am also such a guy), so I can think of all sorts of combos that will b55 this flop just to get an immediate fold and move on, check back a turn that seems bad for our range, then blast a river that we might have a lot of aces and try to get gags to fold all his 4s, 2s and bad 9s. If we are gonna be blasting a lot here with hands like JT, Qx, T8, 78, maybe even some hands like Kx or deuces that have some showdown value, then we surely have to be betting AK as well.

In summary, I'm just not that worried about getting xr, I'm even less worried about getting xr bluffed, I think there are plenty of worse aces that call us, and then the real question mark is what he does with all his nines. If he often calls nines, then it feels like we should clearly value bet, and (I know this is circular logic), if he's gonna be folding a lot of nines, then there are so many hands I'm gonna want to be bluffing here, that it feels like I've also gotta bet AK just on principle as well.

In his reply @SamGreenwoodRIO said "If you want to tighten up value betting ranges as two of the chip leaders this is a good place to start" and Luke said that you'd rather play a smaller one vs gags, but I just don't get that mentality at all.

There are 12 or 13 people left in the main, there is no spot and never will be a spot in poker where people play tighter, we are a reasonable chip leader, we should be stepping on the gas and blasting both in general, and in this spot, and if we get raised we just fold.

Gags seems like the exact kind of player we want to target. We want to avoid blasting against guys like Savas (recs who don't understand the magnitude of ICM and have the "I got in this thing for $500, I am so over the moon, this whole thing feels like a freeroll, I have on fear or pressure") or guys like Martirosyan or Chidwick or Mateos (or Sam!) who are seemingly immune to fear and are probably exploiting us in ways we don't understand. Gags is a pro, he understands ICM, he has been watching the WSOP FT his whole life dreaming of being in that spot, and now he's almost there. I don't think he is gonna go crazy against you.

Even furthermore, think about your image here. You are 22 (too young to really feel the impossibility of this moment, which I can say as someone who also won the first major tournament he entered), you just won a monster pot to vault into the chip lead, your confidence is at infinity, you've already shown down a Q high hero call, your boiz are on the rail getting sloshed and cheering you on, and you feel invincible. Do you really think a seasoned vet is gonna pick YOU as the guy to run a big bluff on right now? If you were to rank the remaining players from "person gags would most want to bluff right now" to "person gags would least want to bluff right now," you would be in last place by a mile. I think people will somewhat overcall vs you and underbluff, both of which favor vbetting AK here.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

@SamGreenwoodRIO Was surprised not to see this hand:
6 handed Jumalon (103) 2bb bt AKdd, gags (79) def T9cc
5.5 9s4c2h x 3 c
11.5 3d x x
As x x?

I feel like just about every meta in this spot makes me want to bet river:
- bb probably xr way less than gto
- bb might lead strong value (and air that might otherwise xr) too frequently on river
- bt probably overbluffs river

AK just seems like a slam dunk vbet?

https://t.co/VAZtLLv40R

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

@2pacnrw16 I know he's a rec. He made multiple plays that I thought were pretty bad. But from what I saw, he wasn't afraid of or overwhelmed by the moment, and he played fearlessly and tried to win rather than clam up and make payjumps. Those are the players that I root for in the main

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Can anybody who watched the stream tell me who I'm rooting for at the FT? Traynor was #1 and seemed like he was going for it (and Savas, Deeb and Brock who busted earlier).

Mueller was playing ridiculously tight. Gags is an OG, so he's my default. Was anybody else notably going for it?

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

Who I'm rooting for tomorrow:

1. Literally anybody who says 'fuck it we ball' and tries to win $10m instead of hanging on for $250k payjumps.

[Galen Hall @galenhall]

@LukeJu22 @WestsideLAGuy good luck