DogFace, thanks for the analytical look at how I played this. I concur with everything you wrote.

I was close to pulling the trigger on the 9-7. Given that the blinds just went through me, the question I asked myself at the time was, do I think I will find better than 9-7 between now and the next time the blinds come back to me. I felt it was more likely something better would come around (as in, anything with paint or an ace). I actually took some time on that decision at the table. It was not an insta muck on my part.

And as for preferring to be first in the pot as opposed to going all-in over an initial bet, that is certainly the case. That said there are a lot more combinations of unpaired over cards than there are pairs. As short as I was, I wasn't looking to get it in as a massive favorite (although that would have been nice). I was looking to get it in on a coin flip. As played I knew I was getting called, which is what I wanted. What I didn't want was to be facing a better pair.

I felt there comes a time when you have to gamble. I had enough chips where if I did double up, while I wouldn't be flush with chips, I would have some brief breathing room. I didn't want to fold my way down to the point where even if I double up it's for so few chips that I am still dead man walking.

Neither 9-7 in an unopened pot or 3-3 in an opened pot feels good to go all-in with. I just felt like I needed to get it in pretty quickly while a double up would still mean something.

I am very receptive to people's opinions on how I played this and what they would have done.

I'm not someone who has memorized all the charts, so I don't speak as an authority. Just offering an opinion. These seem like close spots to me and it's likely that the difference in EV between the various options is minimal. Mostly you're just hoping to get lucky in these spots, either in terms of everyone folding or in terms of holding at showdown.

A big variable that I think we have to consider is how many players are left behind us. In a full ring, a hand like 97 on the BTN may perform better as a shove than a hand like A5 UTG. The more people behind you, the more likely it is that somebody will wake up with a real hand. That's an argument against waiting for a better spot.

Looking at these charts from Jonathan Little's site, the range on 8BB is vastly wider in the SB-BTN than UTG or MP.

https://pokercoaching.com/blog/push-fold-charts/

However, he does NOT have 97o as a shove on even 8BB from the BTN, so you were probably right to lay it down. The hand is just a little too dusty.

Even just the marginally better 97s would've been a shove according to those charts. That's how thin the margins were.

As for the 33, I think pros probably lay it down under the logic that it's better to open jam a random hand and perhaps win uncontested than it is to knowingly take the flip and have to hold, but it's not some crazy misplay. Jamming there with 33 is probably still a +chipEV play. As you said, there are a lot more not-pairs than pairs that Chess is going to have there. You were unlucky to be up against a bigger pair and yet you're still supposed to win 18% of the time, which is not nothing.

My memory says I was UTG or UTG+1 on the 9-7 fold. But given that I was just in the blinds, it seems more logical to think I was in late position in which case I maybe should have jammed into the unopened pot. So I'm not sure if I should trust my memory (which probably wants to have the benefit of the doubt as to the fold) or logic (which says I must have been in late position in which case perhaps I should have jammed).

As I think this through now, I don't trust my memory, in which case I perhaps should have happily jammed it all-in to an unopened pot. It's still close. Much closer than I thought at the time when I still did consider it.

This is why I wish I had poker friends at the WSOP. What seems like a possible mistake on my part thanks to DogFace talking it through with me here on 2+2, did not get discussed in the immediate aftermath of my bust out in real time, because I was a solo road warrior on this journey.

I just edited my last post like four different times in the course of 10 minutes as I kept trying to work my way through the problem.

I think it is a tough decision. I remain curious what other people think now that I believe I was in late position in an unopened pot with nine big blinds and holding 9-7 unsuited.

Yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with them myself. On one hand, it takes away some of the skill edge of the pros and throws in some extra variance with the fast structure and in this case the freezeout element, so you've got a decent shot especially if you feel good about your push-fold game. Not to mention the shorter time commitment . Of course it doesn't mean the variance is going to work out in your favor either; you have to make hands at some point and you're pretty much a lost coin flip/suckout/cooler away from being SOL.

I played a few of the 8pm deepstacks which were essentially the same structure as this and yeah, the variance thing didn't work out.

Great writeup as always - I think you played it fine at the end.

They set it up so you don't lose any time barring mistakes.

The horseshoe clock starts first and is ahead and it accounts for the 5-7minutes it takes to get there. Usually paris is anywhere 5-10minutes behind. So sometimes you actually gain time but it's usually neutral.

97o is a fold. 9 BBs is a lot in a turbo to shove it that light.

Yeah I think 97o is a fold with 9 bb. If I had 3-5 bb and I was first in from late position, I’d be shoving almost any 2 just because a late position shove is worth so much to you if it gets through.

With 9bb, though, you can fold rags, and at least start with reasonable cards.

Thanks everyone for the 9-7 feedback

2024 WSOP: June 4, Event 14 Super Turbo Bounty NLHE (Part 9 of 9)
Mike Matusow almost runs me over with his scooter … Hellmuth and Negreanu seated next to one another in Dealer’s Choice 10K and their table talk is not what I expected

I have just busted.

As I walk out of the Paris ballroom, Mike Matusow comes flying toward me on his scooter. I jump out of the way. He slightly clips the door that I just exited and is now driving Mach 10 with his beard on fire. People are scattering to get out of his way. He comes to a stop at the late reg line. Obviously, I am not the only one who has just busted. I am curious, so I walk back to where Matusow is in line, and he is complaining to the person next to him how pro heavy a table of his was either just now or maybe at some other time. Probably just now given how animated he tells the story.

I now walk out of the Paris one more time, and in the hallway I hear two guys speaking very enthusiastically in a foreign language. One of them says something like this, “foreign language, foreign language, foreign language, foreign language, donk bet.”

I find this to be funny. I just got knocked out, but I still have my sense of humor.

I walk over to the Horseshoe poker main room with the Final Table TV set up to see if anything interesting is going on there. As I get near the entrance to the main room, Daniel Negreanu is walking out talking and looking into his phone for what sounds like it is for his daily WSOP video. Fans of his (a half-dozen) trail behind, racing to keep up. Negreanu is talking nonstop and very fast. We pass each other. He goes his way, I go mine. I look up WSOP.com and see that he has 192,500 chips in the 10K Dealers Choice 6-handed. There are still 66 players left (only 22 will cash), so it’s a long way until the money. I also check on Erick Lindgren who I just played with in a tournament at the same table, and he has 217,000 chips.

In the same room, there are two Final Tables going on. What is weird about them, as well as the other Final Tables I have briefly observed this trip, is the rails are virtually empty. There are like 5-10 people on the rails or in the stands. For many of these players, this is the crowning achievement of their poker life, and no one is watching. It makes for a very mundane, unexciting backdrop. Poker has a long way to go before it is a mainstream sport.

Eventually, the 10K Dealers Choice tournament returns from break. I go over to take a look. Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth are seated next to each other at one end of their six-handed table. This should be interesting. Only it’s not. Hellmuth rushes back to the table holding a plastic to-go type container of food. He is devouring his food like he hasn’t eaten in a few days, while he is also playing hands live at the table, handling chips and watching a video/Internet surfing on his cell phone. Eventually the multitasking gets to be too much, and his container of food starts to fall off his lap. Somehow, he grabs it out of the air, but maybe 15% of his food spills onto the ground. Now Phil is on clean-up detail between hands. He scoops up the fallen food when he is out of a hand and races to a garbage container to dispose of it. He runs back to the table so as not to miss a hand. Then, when he is out of a hand, he takes a napkin to clean up the remaining spill on the carpet. He puts the napkin in his pocket. The next time he is out of a hand, he races to the garbage container and tosses the dirty napkin. Then he races back to the table, to avoid missing a hand.

Surprisingly, Negreanu has not given Hellmuth any grief over this. From what I have seen of the two of them in poker videos/programming in the past, this seems like the sort of thing Negreanu would kid Hellmuth about. In fact, Negreanu and Hellmuth are stone silent. Absolutely no conversation between the two of them. And Negreanu is not playing to the crowd of fans on the rail like I saw him do the other day. The other side of the table is nonstop chatty amongst themselves. But Negreanu and Hellmuth are not saying a word.

After watching them not talk for 10 minutes, I have seen enough because I have not heard enough.

97o is a fold for 8bbs -- charts say it's a fold for 4bbs on the button, too.

I also think the 33 is a fold vs an open, but given how short you are + the bb ante coming and the structure, it's also probably fine to just jam.

Looking forward to MORE ... I think there's at least one more tournament on the horizon, right?

More than one tourney remaining