Not really sure what some people's problem is with his interview. He was very open saying he used to dump money at Blackjack then one day it dawned on him that you can never win on Blackjack and he found poker, a skill game where it is possible to win at.

He admitted he didn't play well in the match, that Cate played decent and that he knew that the most optimal thing to do when card dead was to grind his short stack, play tight in other words, and wait for hands to give himself the best chance of recovery, exactly like he would do in a big buy in live MTT.

But he said he didn't do this because he was very frustrated by the hands he was being dealt and was trying to make something happen, even though he was fully aware it was a sub optimal strategy when short/shortish stacked.

He also gave Cate quite a lot of credit, saying that she was a good player but not a great player yet, but that he thinks/expects that she can/will become one because she is a very determined person who will continue to study the game and improve on an ongoing basis.

I thought he was modest about his income/wealth etc, putting it in a humble way that 30K is not a huge amount of money to him.

He also admitted that he was playing on tilt in the match, as opposed to being tilted but not actually playing on tilt, which is what he says is the case with him in MTTs if he gets tilted by something, in other words if he gets tilted in an MTT he controls himself so that he can dust himself down and still battle back and play well. If you look at his Hendon Mob results you will see that he must very often be playing well, as well as overcoming adversity within tournaments to have achieved the results that he has.

He also explained the two Q5 hands, which yes were both played wrong, the first one he said he was trying to stamp his authority in the first hand of the match to get into her head, and in the second Q5 where he bust in game 1, he felt her range was wide, including hands he may even be a 60/40 fav against (suited connectors) and she had been 3 bet shoving a lot and that he thought he had a bit less than 20 BBs. Obviously he was also a bit tilted by that point.

*My* only criticism of Mike in how he played is that some of his game plans going in to the match didn't fit the structure of the freezeouts very well, which I am sure he realises now. Specifically that if you try to get into someone's head early and it goes wrong, you can easily lose a third of your stack if they actually have a hand, when it's 15K at 25/50 and you are floating and leading, or barrelling.

So in principle it was a good idea what he did, but only if they were playing much deeper so that a much smaller % of his stack was risked to set the tone with.

I give Mike credit for putting his hand up to the mistakes he made in the match and for taking the time to explain the rationale behind how he played. Okay, he probably only admitted to ~75% of hands that weren't played great, but he did admit that he could have played better, and explained exactly why.

It's an absolute fact that it's rare for poker players to admit they didn't play certain hands well, or well overall. Indeed a lot of players, when you back them etc (no one backed him by the way), deceive you as to what really happened / why they busted out, or simply don't mention hands played really badly. So it is refreshing when someone puts their hand up as Mike did.

I think that most of the hate against him is because some people are intolerant of different personalities to their own. There are a huge range of personalities out there and Mike is one within the spectrum, and that's fine, we are not robots we are humans.

Underlying everything, is that he can afford to have a bad result at these buy ins, whereas most, probably virtually all of us can't. In fact he wants to up the stakes on his next HU match against whoever that may be. So let's see how he gets on in that one and what adjustments he makes.

After all, this is normal, you play a match and win or lose, playing well or not so well, and you learn from it and take it forwards to the next game.

I don't hate him at all. I didn't hate him before the match and after the interview I found him more likeable compared to his Twitter persona. He does say a whole bunch of douchey things...I don't hate him for it.

When asked to explain what the grudge was all about in the first place he goes into this gigantic backstory that includes something like "Im blessed with all this money. I lose tons in the casinos but it barely phases me. I see millions of people I know everywhere I go. I always have the nicest things, the hottest girls...".

Ok fine...but this is his big lead up to his reasons for his grudge against Cate which is basically boils down to: "she waltzes in here with all this rungood and doesn't have any grace or class or humility about it"

Ok...if he's right (and he might be I certainly don't know her) why is Mike Dentali serving as poker's grace and humility hall monitor?

And he admits he called her out on twitter right after she busted...he admits he started it...but she crossed the line by calling him a beyotch! Haha that was funny.

Tip: when you go out of your way to pick fights some people will Defend themselves and they might even call you unspeakable names like. *gasp* beyotch.

He doesn't seem like a bad guy. Just a hot head. I'm sure he's great for the game. This has all been very entertaining. Her interview will be interesting. I wonder if she'll try to defend the AT hand that started it all. Just curious not proclaiming I know better than her.

Her back raise with ATo was totally ridiculous IMO, with the exception of her deliberately trying to get it in all in pre with a known super aggro player like say Ludovic Geilich. Even then she would have to be very lucky that a player like him has 3 bet squeezed/pressurised with a suited A5 (Ace wheel) hand playing his Ace blocker, as they are the only hands that she is well ahead of when it all goes in. The opponent was not Ludovic Geilich, I believe it was Barry Hutter who I don't feel is 3 betting to pass to a 4 bet as it would be too exploitable. I doubt he ever flats there either as it is -EV and not GTO. If he is ever folding to the 4 bet in that spot I reckon it is a very small percentage of the time, would only be based on a very strong live read, and would be less likely against Cate Hall who he knows is not a tight player generally speaking.

It is much more likely if a super aggro player is doing this in position in that actual spot, in that buy in and with that slow structure that they have KQs or a small or medium pair, so to back raise to deliberately try to get it in with a LAG player is kind of pointless to be on average ~flipping as a LAG is never folding to your 4 bet, they are either peeling or 5 bet shoving.

So the back raise was frankly awful, although I can see where Doug is coming from that you might be almost committed equity wise to calling the shove with ATo having made the original terrible back raise.

It's obvious that Cate wasn't trying to get it in with a LAG when she back raised because she would have snap called the 5 bet and not tanked for so long.

I agree with Mike that unless she was just having a bad moment or a brain fade in that hand, which we all do have from time to time, that she botched the hand really badly. The other possibility is that she was just over confident and had been button clicking left, right and centre in comps and it had been working, but I think that is unlikely as the back raise with ATo was just so fundamentally poor.

P.S. For those of you that don't know the full hand, Barry Hutter had Jacks and they held.

By the way, I don't profess to be a NLHE MTT expert (I am just okay(ish)), and there may be some nuances as to why back raising was a justifiable play, game dymanics / history between the players etc. Overall though, in a live comp in that kind of structure I think you just lay it down and then adjust your ranges upward so that when he next 3 bets you, you are more likely to be ahead of his range and have some degree of fold equity when you 4 bet, or are ahead of him or flipping when you call the 5 bet all in.

Did you people watch the same interview I did? There is nothing humble about Mike, and it's absurd for him to call Cate out for her supposed lack of humility. Note that he said he believes "one thousand per cent" he's a better NL player than Cate. And one of his criticisms was that she didn't "snap call" with A high in a spot where he bet. She did call and his criticism appears to be that she just didn't do so faster. His analysis of that hand is internally inconsistent and literally moronic.

After getting crushed and making several very questionable plays, it is a colossal joke to assert you're the better player. It just defies reality. He's sort of like the LaVar Ball of poker.

I definitely find him likeable and I like his attitude about being social and active in-game.

Even though I didn't watch the match, I watched this entire interview. It was the most complete and detailed explication of fish poker logic I have ever seen. Dentale is the exact stereotype of the sort of player I would love to see at the table back when I played a lot of 2/5 NL in AC, and also the reason why AC is a such miserable place in general.

I agree with him that the AJ on a 777xx board was an obvious call and she should have called it way faster. Also she was only facing like a 1/4 or might have been 1/5th pot sized bet, and she had the chip lead so IT IS a snap call.

The thing is he may still be a better player than her in full ring game live MTTs. We simply don't know. She had great hands and flops compared to him, was seeing his previous hole cards, got coaching which he out of a misguided principle IMO refused/didn't want to get himself, and he has admitted that he was playing on tilt and was knowingly playing the wrong strat when he was short stacked, which is both times in both games.

Unless someone really knows exactly how she has been playing in live MTTs and has access to loads of hand histories, then no one else can possibly know at this stage whether she is stand out good, or just a decent competent player. My instinct is that she is an ABC solid player currently who is progressively adding on higher level theory, but not at a lightning speed rate of progress, and that she has a good table presence, good bank roll management, doesn't tilt, and has run at worst pure and at best very well.

All of the above is good enough to get an ROI of ~40% in the short/short medium term, which is what I roughly estimate is what she has achieved. I analysed this earlier in this thread I believe.

I used to play ABC poker myself in live MTTs in a poker club, but had some good reads on people, never ever tilted and was playing massively under my bank roll and I was making like 30% of final tables and finished 2nd in one of my first tournaments for a very decent score. Then as I played more and more tournaments the ABC worked far less, because I lost flips, rand bad, made some mistakes now and again, and started getting owned by players as soon as I started playing £200 to £500 buy ins as opposed to the £50 to £100 ones I had started out at. I also know some ABC players who have had big scores in live NLHE comps and do to this day have a good ITM% that continues. They are just solid players who make very few bad errors, and that's it.

Cate is probably ABC+ along with her other qualities, but for me she has proved little else so far and how she played in the HU match was average and no more.

Haven't you noticed that where Mike comes from they use exaggerated language?, such as "I've seen it a million times", or as he used "1000 percent". A thousand percent in his language means 100% or yes.

And he could be right, he might be a better live MTT full ring player than Cate. He seemed to also suggest that he thinks he's better than her but that she may well overtake him through her study and determination to succeed and because he is not a full time pro, so for me, that is showing some humility.

He also didn't say he has x millions of the dollars in the bank, in stocks, in assets or whatever etc, he said that the buy ins ($30K) is not what it is to others, and his tales of big Blackjack losses in the past came across as a little sad like he was hurt by what had happened to him in Blackjack, rather than as degen stories for effect or to impress the audience.

I had to laugh at the bit where he had to apologize to the people who bet on him heavily.

Seems like Mike is of the belief that the better poker player is the one who's most capable of making fancy plays (big bluffs, hero calls, hero folds, etc.), and that he has less respect for someone playing a more solid, but less intuition-driven, game. This is a pretty common view among a lot of players. I think it's incorrect, but Mike seems to be saying "sure, Cate played more solid than I did, but that's because she studied, got good cards, not because she's capable of making these sick bluffs or calls that I am capable of".

Again, we simply don't know about if he is great at making great calls , bluffs or lay downs, in comparison to Cate, as there were very few if any spots in the games that fitted those scenarios.

A hand I can remember is where she bet 2.8K into 3K on the river with air on a board of something like KJ973. I'm pretty sure the board got progressively worse for him, went higher and more straightening, (he had 55) and that he had check called flop and turn.

He did give it a lot of thought about calling with 55 and you could see that he was close to making the call. I believe it was in game 2 and he was 2nd in chips, and I guess by that point his thinking was not as sharp as it may have been due to what had gone before, but if you watch that hand back you will see an indication of one of the things that Mike claims to be superior in which is live reads.

I mean maybe this isn't a call, technically speaking, but playing live is not all about GTO play, so if you do pick up something that shouts out at you bluff such as a physical tell or bet sizing and over a period of time your reads are profitable then you should factor these into your live game.

This was also a hand where Cate had already been told during game 1, in the interval, and during game 2 that Mike had folded hands like 2nd pair on the river to her, so she had the green light to bet air on the river.

Had she not been fed the info of his folding ranges/tendencies the hand may have played out differently.

I can't imagine in real life,
People were dumb enough to bet Dentale for the win ?

I was thinking about betting on him but I don't like betting on things generally, whatever it is, unless I think the market has it potentially very wrong rather than only 10% to 20% wrong, so yes I did bet on Trump, as the volatility of each party's voter turnout was underestimated by the market, exactly as it had been in the Brexit vote before and to a lesser extent in the UK General Election before that.

Had I bet on Mike, I would have been disappointed not so much in how he played, because frankly the cards for the most part were tilting and it was a known fact that he can sometimes tilt, but I would have been disappointed to see a fresh player who looked like she had come out of 8 hours solid sleep playing against an opponent on little or no sleep.

I was also unaware that $30K was not exactly pocket change to Mike, but as it turns out, not it seems an enormous buy in or life bank roll risk to him.

I kind of assumed that $30K might be a figure that was like 2 or 3 months worth of his poker bank roll.

I would like to see a Dream Team assisted and Dream Team (see my earlier post) certified Mike play his meanest, baddest, A game, wearing his signature tank top in a $125K (5 x $25K) best of 5 HU against a top whizz kid or other top known player.

Imagine if he could win a match like that and win it well, it would be a massive coup for him in a number of ways. You could also maybe get (3/1) +300, or more, on him winning which are much more attractive odds in a 2 horse race.

You will also get action at 3/1, +300 or better from wealthy GTO poker players who love betting $3000 or $4000 to win $1000 because they think sports betting is like poker and therefore KKvJJ must win or else it is just unlucky, so it was a great bet even when it loses. The news is that sports betting and its associated volatility doesn't work like that which is why it appears most of the big hitting clever poker players did their absolute coconuts on Clinton.

Am I allowed to say bang bang in this thread?

I think I'm making a slightly different point. I'm saying that it sounds like Mike places value on these things above and beyond their effect on the bottom line wins or losses.

In other words, take two hypothetical players. Player A plays a tight game, never tilts, never gets out of line, but doesn't bluff much, doesn't make sick calls, won't fold the top of his range despite some tell he may be beat, etc. Basically a good, TAG/ABC player. Player B plays looser, is involved in more hands, mixes it up more, bluffs more, can make some sick calls (though obviously also gets taken to value town more), etc. They play the same games. Player A has a slightly higher win rate than Player B (assume we can know their "true" win rate). I think Mike would say that Player B is still the better poker player, due to his style, because "anyone" could play like Player A, while Player B is using some innate natural poker/people reading ability to allow him to play the wilder style.

Yes I totally agree with all of the above. Mike is definitely a people person by the very nature of his life, his history, and the business he runs, plus he is a street smarts guy so it stands to reason that he would be much, much, better at reading people than most other players.

So he is player "B" in your example above but also has some but not all of the qualities and skills of player "A".

Player "A" on the other hand by playing, learning and studying more can become an even better version of "A" as time progresses, but probably will only progress a small amount in learning or gaining the skills that player "B" has, so is capped in their learning ability in that area, because as you say player "B"'s skills are more innate than learned and/or are partly learned through environment and not through academic studying.

So one could argue that player "B" has the ultimate potential advantage and edge over player "A" because player "A" will never be able to learn all of the skills that player "B" possesses, whereas for player "B" it is possible that they could learn everything that player "A" knows................ which is where in Mike Dentale's case The Dream Team comes into play!

If he can make himself into an A+B player he could have an edge over almost anyone. Even a 75% A + 90% B version would be very dangerous.

Dentale stated something to the effect, "I knew what she had, i knew she had A high, she should have snap called when i bet".... If you knew what she had, knew it was a snap call I don't understand why he bet. He made the mistake, he either A didn't know her hand/range or B didn't know the player as well as he thought thinking that he could get her to fold A high for 1/4 pot on this board. He comes off as though he was testing her, "i know she has A high let's see if she knows to snap call"

There are definitely mistakes that Cate made or hands where she could have taken better lines, but his critique of you took too long to call this is weak.

What does this mean?

It was a snap call because it came running 7s. On the flop I think it was a flushing, straightening board which his combo draw then totally bricked. He may have missed a bet on the turn but perhaps he didn't bet the turn because he was short stacked, so took a free card instead, plus there was a very, very small chance that he may not have been drawing live, it now being a paired board.

I agree that if he knew she had Ax then betting the river wasn't the right move, so I think this was a function of basically everything going wrong for him, so he took a stab at it with a small bet.

As I've said, I think anyone would have tilted even just a little bit in that match with his cards, flops and run outs all going badly, and then of course if it starts affecting your play you get an even shorter stack so you have not much scope to bet your way out of trouble with in pots and things generally just get worse and worse for you.

I meant that $30K felt to me pre match like it was the max he could afford to invest or lose if running bad in 2 to 3 months of poker had he only been playing his regular schedule of $1K to $3K comps and the occasional cash game.

But it transpires that this is most likely not the case and his potential poker bank roll is way bigger.

If one wants to be philosophical from Mike's point of view about the outcome of the match, then maybe it is a blessing in disguise for him how it turned out. Because imagine if he had a much better run of the cards, then also made some good bluffs as well and some good soul read calls, all of which naturally would have been much easier to do with the chip lead instead of a chip deficit, then he may have walked away from the game perhaps over rating some of his own technical skills.

But because the match went in a lop sided way in many respects, it gives him a great opportunity to evaluate everything in more of a balanced, and take a step back from it manner. So, some things learned from -$30K now, may improve winnings by +$300K in the coming year or two.

Is there a bounty for correctly identifying one of Ben86's troll accounts?

SageDonkey is my nomination.

I'd nominate digitalfox too

Mike's analysis of the match was in no way balanced.

Would that it were.

....................................

This is me on Twitter: @sagedonkey

haha fair enough, unless its an even more elaborate troll than i suspected!

I only have one troll/gimmick account which is Mikey_D and which I set up for fun after the HU match was announced.

Here is the thread http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...hlight=mikey_d

It fooled jungleman for a while, so that's a minor achievement and Mike himself
thought it was funny after I revealed it was me and Tweeted to him about it.

https://twitter.com/catehall/status/845455720585859072

Dentale classy as always

Honestly the 500k was never in doubt

yeah but in the end it's fun to watch/hear/read mike squirm for excuse after excuse, explanation after explanation.