Dwan certainly played well the second week in getting back to profit.

But let's be honest-- most of his recoupment came from a huge stroke of luck-- not ONLY getting set over set but getting it against a deep stack (Antonius)-- felting Viffer on the same hand wouldn't have gotten Dwan all the way back.

Further, I want to criticize one aspect of Dwan's play. I really think he was pressing his luck, A LOT, to try and get back to even. He was ignoring Sklansky's wonderful statement that life is one big session. He didn't want to be stuck.

And pressing your luck, in ANY form of gambling (not just poker) is a very bad strategy. Yes, he was able to run people over with his 3-bets and raises and caught some lucky cards. But if he hadn't have gotten lucky or his opponents had caught cards, he would have dropped another $100K, easy, with that strategy trying to win the $500K back.

So while I think there were aspects of Dwan's play that were fantastic this week, I am not sure that, overall, he was thinking clearly when he was stuck big.

I know i'm stupid but I'm watching PAD on youtube and I don't remember which episodes i have seen/not seen yet.

The last one I saw was when Meltzer said he'd leave the table and Laak took his place. Can anyone tell me (link me) the episode please ?

Would be really appreciated.

In the directors cuts, is Dwan actually able to recall everything about all those hands? Or is he given the hand histories before asked to explain his thought process.

I've seen most of Dwan's televised hands, and I'm not sure what most of the most recent posts are getting at.

When he's stuck, winning big or even, Dwan:
1. 3-bets a lot with garbage.
2. Wins pots with big bluffs.
3. Loses pots with big bluffs.
4. Triple barrel bluffs and wins.
5. Triple barrel bluffs and loses.
6. Gets paid off on huge hands when people call with marginal holdings.
7. Pushes people off marginal holdings with air.
8. Makes marginal calls on the flop s to either outplay someone later in the hand or bink the turn/river.
9. Makes some hero river calls when his opponent's range is polarized.

The two weeks on PAD weren't really out of the ordinary for him, except for the fact that he split two of the biggest pots in televised poker history; made one tilt call with Ace-high and got bluffed by Gabe mostly because he doesn't give him credit for a bluff there.

I am a pretty careful viewer of these things, and I can tell you he was both folding a lot less and raising a lot more when he was stuck $500K. By the way, Ali Nejad noticed it too and mentioned it a couple of times. Some of it was strategic (nothing wrong with raising Alan Melzter's limps until he fought back) but most of it was just the desire to play larger pots to get out of the hole.

My guess is normally at a 6-max table Dwan runs about 45/35 and 3-bets 10-15 percent of the time. He was running at least 65/50 and 3-betting 30 or 40 percent of the time when he was stuck.

While we are being honest can we have a decent memory so that we can remember he took 2 beats , one being the result of the worst call of the history a la Daniel Negreanu. Also don't u think drawing to two overs while running the turn and river twice and missing twice is unlucky?
If you add those up, it's around a 500k swing. Unless you believe strongly that someone should be unlucky forever, you shouldn't be shocked that half of his comeback came from coolering the big stack. Also note that a significant part of the comeback was from big bluffs and steals.

On another topic, did you guys see Alan Meltzer's interview in the director's cut?
He says: "I improved a lot and I think the results speak for themselves". I think this is a common quality of the fish, he fails to realize here that he would be $150k stuck right off the bat if he didn't put a bad beat.

WOW sick LAG style....
He is crushing every 24/20 TAG and 12/9 NIT out there who isnt able to adjust to this...

deep short handed with antes is not 40-100bb poker.

You are so right on this. By the way, I am sure Meltzer HAS improved. Obviously, you play more poker, you are going to get somewhat better. He did some things right the past two weeks (I especially liked the hand where he check-called his bluffcatcher pair, I believe against Antonius. That was perfect.)

But there's no way anyone who understands poker variance should be saying anything other than "these guys are great players, but I ran insanely good, and the wonderful thing about poker is that if you run really good, anyone has a chance to make a profit in the short term" or words to that effect.

http://www.*************/

Dwan is certainly cultivating more Elezra cash games. He's no dolt.

Thank you sir, you should run above EV for the next few days.

... which happened only after he called a 4-bet from a nit with KQo OOP.

Alan Meltzer's a nit? I thought he was a megawhale who stacked off with KK on an AJJTx board

I knew someone was going to ding me on this. I wanted to edit my post, my was lazy.

I shouldn't have said he was a nit (he's a loose passive call station), since nit generally means more of a tight passive rock. What I meant was, his 4-bet range is very nitty (keyword: passive). He's not making a move there with 74s like Dwan or Ivey or Antonius or Seiver would be. He's got TT+/AQ+ like 95% of the time, which KQo is doing terribly against.

But this is Dwan's MO: put huge amounts in preflop in terrible spots, then get there.

Which is why I asked if people thought Patrik would fold if it wasn't Durr?
Against Durr I think most people agree you pretty much have to call.
Against someone else I think it is an interesting spot.

The smartest thing Alan did was leave. he knew he got lucky, and he knew the longer he stayed the more likely he would lose it back.

How do you know he didn't just have stuff to do?

wtf does meltzer think he's doing showing his hand?

I wish they'd just abandon the tournament style once and for all and just play cash games. So much more interesting IMO. I could watch cash games on TV 30 hours a week if I could find them.