i would put him on SQ too

ok value 3B mr.perfect...

this is just LOL bad strat. Chris gave Ivey a bad SPR for his set and he still calls the 3bet, was a very good PFR. Seriously and if you think the flop bet is bad your also very terrible, he has to bet with AA on a dry board and there is no way of getting away. Seems like you do not understand the concept of stack sizes and commitment at all. Also there are times when Chris has AK and QQ and gets away from the hand, further decreasing Ivey's implied odds. Maybe you should go over to the NL strategy forums and learn these concepts.

I agree with the part where Ivey doesn't play KK/QQ like that, unlike what Jesus said.
I actually think it's a fold to Ivey's C/R on the flop.
Jesus should know that everyone at the table knows what he has, KK or AA, and that the Jesus Ivey knows at this point is not folding that flop to a C/R. That's the key point here. You have to assume Ivey knows what he's doing in that spot. Since Ivey knows what Jesus has and Jesus is not thinking about folding, it should be clear that unless Ivey suffered recent brain damage causing him to drop 50 IQ points, he's planning on stacking Jesus, hence the fold, as ridiculous as it sounds. It's not about focusing on the fact that Ivey's the most aggro player at the table blah blah blah...
However, once it's out there that Jesus folds AA on that board, it's so exploitable his career is pretty much over.
I think he should have folded given the current dynamics at the moment the hand took place, and the fact that he should've known Ivey knew that he would call with AA. "when you know what the guy wants you to do, do the opposite"
After folding AA on that board on a major TV show (the most +EV play at that point), I think he would spend his time getting C/R bluffed by aggressive players thinking they have fold equity against even AA in that spot, but that's where he could use his newly created ultra-nit image, play his normal game and pick them off like nothing and stack the **** out of them repeatedly, knowing a huge part of their range for C/R just shifted towards pure bluffs after his "hero fold".
That way he would've made the best decision on that particular flop, saved himself 200k+, and could exploit that decision to make more money than ever playing the same style in the future.
Fwiw, Jesus is definitely not -EV in that game. At worst he's BE, even though I think he should've folded in that spot for the reasons mentioned above. Matusow is majorly -EV and would get crushed by Jesus HU, so are/would Hellmuth, Bloch, Elezra and Hansen. Durrrr, Ivey and PA are ripping these guys apart and feasting on the free money for our delightful enjoyment.

There are simply hands where you are destined to go broke.

You guys talk as if Ferguson couldn't have AK there, when he played AK exactly the same way in a previous episode of the same show. A 3bet pre, and a cbet on the flop. Then he gave up and Ivey could the pot away.

The preflop call by Ivey is extremely marginal. Over time, in that exact situation, I would guess it's probably a losing play.

100% correct. The commentators even said it.. 'Phil Ivey feels like gambling', while I thought the best players in the world are trying to do the exact opposite.

Phil has said in interviews before that what separates him from the best poker players in the world is that he's a better gambler. There comes a point where poker knowledge reaches its limit, if everyone is near equal, the one with the biggest balls makes the most at the end of the day.

hmm.. Technically the chance of flopping a set is 8.5 to 1. If Phil put in 10% of the effective stacks to win a stack with his pp flopped set, I think its a +ev play.

Besides we never know what goes on in Phil's mind. He's the chosen one, we can't critique his play.

phil ivey (or any reasonable player other than maybe durrr) would never run a big bluff in a pot chris ferguson put significant money into. chris HAS to know this. also, a 953 flop hits phils raise/call a huge reraise pre range perfectly. he didn´t even play it in a tricky way (except maybe on some kind of "this is such an obvious set line, so he can never have a set, right?" level LOL). i think it´s pretty ******ed to put ivey on a bluff on the flop, but insta-calling on a paired turn card is even worse. i guess it´s a pitfall of fergusons game plan: he only enters the pot with a massive hand, but there´s a massive difference between him getting paid off and paying off himself. i´ve never seen him make a superstar play/laydown. i´ve also seen him call off lots of chips when it was obvious he was beat (because "he had to"). phils call pre is actually fairly standard given that ferguson makes this reraise with a fairly limited range (AA-QQ maybe) and will go broke no matter what.

This would be true if Ferguson always has aces and is always going broke when Ivey hits his set. There are many times that this isn't the case. Players do this all the time, but you have to realize Ferguson isn't always going to have aces. What if he had Q's or K's and an ace falls on the flop? You think he's getting stacked then?

What about set over set? Instead of getting 9 to 1 on your money, you're going broke.

This is definitely not a + EV play.

Having said that and having been there, I think Ferguson should have been able to get away from that hand. I've been lucky enough to be able to watch many hours of Ivey playing live poker and I doubt he is ever bluffing in this spot against that particular player.

I spoke to Ferguson about the hand afterwards and he thought he played it badly. Against an unknown player, he thought he'd go broke everytime, but against someone that he knows so well, he thought he should have been able to get away from the hand.

great hand nonetheless!

I couldn't help thinking throughout the hand that both players sort of telegraphed their hands although its obviously a lot easier seeing the hole cards!

Chris Ferguson can easily have AK here after the preflop action and a cbet but after he flats the flop c/r his range is like TT+. Phil knows this, and Jesus should know that Ivey is a class player and so should know his range is super strong here. Ivey shoves turn and I can't really see any hands that Jesus can beat, I think that if Ivey c/raised on a bluff/draw hoping Jesus has AQ/AK then he shuts down turn since he knows he is now pretty strong.

This is the trouble with being super tight against very good players, you're range is far too tight and it makes it much easier for players like Ivey to make optimal plays like this.

His call pre is pretty marginal I think but if he expects to stack Ferguson like 90% on a board like this then I think its fine. cba crunching the numbers.

I disagree. You just have to use your knowledge of how people perceive your image. It's an obvious fold to Ivey's C/R.

The raise on the flop probably confuses most people with aces.

Normally, we would expect to be called on the flop but raised on the turn if we suspect our aces are cracked, the so called Baluga theorem, and maybe we can throw away our aces. In this case, Baluga may not hold as Chris would have 2 pair on the turn.

When you have aces and people check-raised you on the flop on a dry board after calling your raise preflop, you are unlikely to put them on sets, more on a smaller overpair. Very hard to get away from aces there.

The fact that Phil also had only cold called a raise pre flop meant KK/QQ less likely.

aren't we only setmining tight players anyway? wat ITT?

Well, duh, aren't tight players the prime set-mining target? It's kind of hard to stack someone who raises with 97s.

thread title tilts me beyond belief

Alot of interesting stuff ITT but also alot of lol wat!? Ppl saying that Chris would take this line with AK, umm no. Yeah he might definitely threeeeebet AK but his raise amount was pretty huge, he would probably raise smaller with AK but mostly likely flats given his nittiness. So when the tightest guy at the table makes a giant preflop raise, umm i wonder what he might have? This allows a player of Ivey's caliber to correctly play vs. Jesus' entire range (like two hands) postflop. Thing is, ppl arguing that Ivey doesnt always stack Ferguson need to realize that a set vs Chris' range is always gonna = a stack. So Ivey is stacking chris a bunch of times, while Chris is stacking Phil NEVER with these hands. So Ivey's call pre is insanely profitable since everybody in the friggin building knew what jesus had. On the other hand, Jesus obviously knew he was never gonna fold his aces there..EVER. Soooo...why not check behind that ridiculously dry too good to be true flop? Ivey would probably lead the turn and then bet the river as well, but it would not cost him his entire stack. I say this because ppl might claim that chris is losing alot of value from JJ etc. but is he really? Ivey is never stacking off to Chris with JJ IMO. So maybe a check back on the flop for pot control would be good vs Ivey knowing full well that he is never gonna fold anyways. So just get in call down mode, unless Ivey is able to peg Chris on AA and decides to check raise the turn. If so damn you Ivey for being so good! lol There was a similar hand between Ivey and Allen Cunningham where Ivey hits a set of dueces on the flop but somehow that sicko Cunningham is able to fold the river. However that was a bit different, after all it is ALLEN CUNNINGHAM!!!