yeah no looking forward to joe being the world champ. but whatever.

Doesn't look like Stern had some crisis of conscience before last night. Looks like he was stalling on Sunday because there were 3 short stacks to start the day. He wanted to get to the higher blinds "faster" and play as few hands as possible where McKeehen could run over the medium stacks. Last night he was 4th out of 5, closer to being one of the short stacks himself, so he'd rather get more hands in.

Antonio is good at always suggesting the straightforward play vs the opponent's actual hand.

This kind of happenned with Dennis Phillips, who came 3rd but got tons of TV time in the next couple of years.

There's no way the final table is played with timed blinds. Surely it's being done by number of hands, right?

It's timed blinds. 2 hours per level I believe.

How is steinberg not getting crushed right now? i thought he played the worst other than neuville

Huh? Did you not see his poor post flop play w A5o vs Mckeehan's JTss? How do you not C-bet that flop after 3betting pre? He gave up control of the hand w check, check fold. Poor post flop player that needs big hands to feel confident enough to c-bet the flop or he needs an all in and a call to avoid post flop play.

no he didnt show skill
maybe he showed skill in dressing properly but he just played terrible and weak

There is such a big money jump from spot to spot at the final table, it's no wonder everyone plays so nitty. It's the nature of this particular tournament. It's the reason why it would be amazing to have a couple established pros make the table that are more concerned about the hardware than the money, because THEN some real pressure would be applied to the chip leader.

But as things stand, buttered toast is just coasting. He was always guaranteed top three and is nearly guaranteed heads up. Now, an early double up through him by Blumenfield could make things really interesting.. but at this point that'll require a bad beat or a major cooler.

On another note, I'm interested in posters here that say things like Blumenfield is "awful". I don't get it...he's one of the only players actually bluffing and four betting a couple times. He made at least one excellent fold, as well. He has some skills and quite frankly EARNED his way to the final three. It's not as if he's been card catching like buttered toast. Buttered toast has been playing very well and like I said.. coasting his way to heads up.. but besides him, no one played this final table better than Blumenfield. We always talk about 'good for the growth of the game' around here, and he clearly is. I'm hoping he can at least put a scare into buttered toast.

I have a feeling unless coolers happen, this final three will last a lot longer than last night. Should be interesting.

3Betting A5o vs Joe and not cbetting on a K high board with a gutshot and bdfd is just awful.

The Limon/stealthmunk simulcast would have been GTO if that tattooed bitch hadn't almost stuck a naxalone shot into munk's daydream.

This McKeehan dude's a clown. Bro, your on national TV and your about to be a millionaire. The least you could do is make yourself at least minimally presentable. Maybe shave your face or run a comb through your hair too. Gonna be sad to see a slob like this ship the main.

Ah, right, missed that one. Looks like McKeehan was three-bet eight other times in non-all-in situations, with five folds and three calls, so he wasn't four-betting light.

It would be hard for 99.9% of us to bust there when you are only going to bust ~80% of the time there. So the max % that could bust would be ~80%.


Bah, you beat me to it.

Not cbetting that flop is fine as he obviously knew he could not take the pressure of a reraise bluff from the big stack, but not betting that turn with the gutshot after the checked flop was bad. As noted, he is an amateur so what can you expect.

It would, however, be best for growth of the game if he won over the other two (and over one other in particular). Anyone that does not see that is a moron.

This is basically what I was saying a few post ago. I don't mean to say that he is flat out horrible but... no post flop play ability is def a glaring weakness. Especially if you are playing big stack poker w 40-50+ BB.

lol so in your mind he didn't play perfectly.. so, do you feel that warrants calling the guy an 'awful' player? Jealous much?

I didn't say he's an awful player, but that play was awful.

He seems really awkward to me.

Well, you responded to a post where I was challenging people that called him an awful player. I never once said he played perfectly. So your response was easily interpreted as a defense of anyone saying he was an awful player.

I was not overly impressed with Steinberg given his track record, but mostly I don't mind that he played "weak." He really was in an awkward ICM spot with agro chip leader on his left, a stack that didn't give him room to play much postflop, but a stack that was still larger than multiple short stacks. So in some ways, he did well to ladder up to 4th.

However, I feel like he plays MTTs like it's 2010 still, and the flaws in that style were present. His 3x opens and larger 3-bets cost him more chips when it didn't work out than smaller sizings that would have worked the same given the general play at the table was to overfold to opens and 3-bets. Also, I really don't get his button fold of AJo versus Blumenfield's BB 3-bet. He's getting over 2 to 1 in position, with ~40 BB (?) effective stacks, against a guy who's not going to double barrel without a strong hand or draw and who has already 3-bet weak aces multiple times at the final table. That was pretty weak in a spot that ICM should not have affected.

100% agree. This is going to be one of the biggest moments of your life and oversized tshirt with sweat-pants with unkept hair probably isnt the look you want. You dont have to go all Steinberg but a general clean look wouldn't hurt. And it is not about being a poker ambassador or whatever - it is just common sense.

So much this. It reminds me of Jim Jefferies saying that he "dresses like a bag of **** when he flies business class". It's supposed to be nice so he just looks like a ****ing slob. Giving credence to the neckbeard grinders out there too. Not a good thing.

If somebody doesn't want to dress like somebody they're not in order to satisfy the expectations of strangers, I can't hold it too much against them even if it's not what I would do.

Still, it would be amazing if he showed up tonight fully styled and wearing a suit from Max Steinberg's custom shop.

brad mcfarland. he was on last night. pretty hilarious dude. another well known pro DMd on twitter with some fun facts about one of the final 3 im trying to get him to call in but hes shy. lol.