It's pretty damn bad. Pre is a fold the first time and the second time. Daniel's so happy about how he got in as the money favorite but as he says, the flatter has AA a bit of the time. His equity in the main pot when 4 betting is +119,950 chips and in the side pot is -81,200 chips so this was +ev for 38,750 chips. And again, that's only against those exact hands. This is usually going to be a gigantic punt. The open is just god awful.

edit: It's a 50.1k +ev play if other person folds. The risk/reward is not there for a MTT

honestly thought the previous hand he broke down was the bigger punt

villain has sooooooooooooooooooooooo much AA with just the ace of hearts there

The PLO hand looks fine. He potted to isolate versus the short stack allin with a double suited one gap rundown. The other player repotted with a high rundown. He was about even and lost the flip. Against AAxx, he would also be close to even. I am not sure I like his opponent's repot from an ICM point of view.

Not ds

It was not double suited. Its not an open pre, and its a fold after the guy pots too as you probably wont get rid of the third guy. Its just terrible to end up getting your entire 40BB in while not even covering both players. Fold equity isnt good enough in a PKO to go for the "pot iso raise to push the third guy out" play when theres already a lot of money and a bounty in the pot AND hes covering your stack for another bounty. Daniel thinks "Im gonna have decent equity if Im HU against AA and doing fine if its 3way". Thats kinda correct but the third guy is gonna think the same thing about his equity and he has more bounty money in the pot. So hes very unlikely to fold once hes shown he likes his hand enough to call once.

But remember Daniel has 5 cashes in PLO this WSOP so he probably knows best.

He calls that river but won't 4bet rip AKs with 15ish bb or check rip a SF not deep when he peels with 97s 4 ways

Just call it off with ace high on the river but don't rip good hands with fold equity nowhere even near the money when short

They do. They're called GG.

Bounties shouldn't be important at this stage of the tournament.

How could anyone critique this hand?

He legit doesn’t explain the action just says he squeezed and ran into AAxx when he didn’t even run into AAxx. His equity ends up being great once the cards are turned over but probably not a good idea to get it in w 8 high rundowns in tournaments, easily dominated and your fd might not be live.

Never mind it’s a trivial fold.

I haven't had a chance to watch his vlog or see his reasoning, but based on the hand history.

From a PLO perspective his hand is pretty much at the bottom of the range of playable rundowns, generally I'd prefer to not dip below having my lowest card be a 5, but at least his gap in the hand is at the bottom and not the top.

If he believes he's up against AAxx then his hand plays ok there so I can understand him trying to push the third player out and play headsup with some dead money.

As the hands lay, Dnegs actually had almost 40% equity three-ways in this spot because his opponents were both blocking each others outs. If he's headsup against the short-stack shovers hand it's a 48/52 spot for him with some dead money, so not terrible.

What I don't like is that Dnegs is opening with a raise from EP here with a relatively weak hand overall. Generally if you're going to make a stand you'll want to have higher card strength because there are instances where neither player pairs up and you want to have strong hole cards that have a chance on their own to win the pot when neither of you makes a hand.

I'd likely have waited for a higher hand-strength type holding before committing myself, but the hand history doesn't show starting stack sizes so it's hard to say how close to the danger zone dnegs was in having to go with the first relatively coordinated hand he came across


edit: I also remember him bragging about what a great PLO player he was, but then he's getting involved with JJ22 when generally you don't want to play pairs below 7's as you're either going to make a set that isn't top set, or if it is top set, oftentimes you'll need to be worried about made straights being possible. When I first started playing PLO those double paired hands with 5's and below were real traps.

He had 45-50BB, nowhere near the danger zone.

Oh I didn’t realize he broke the hand down later..,

Ya it’s a trivial fold

Wow both hands are utterly atrocious.

But to go back further the hand he flops quads he thinks that on

AA10 low low board

His opponent should triple barrel a ten when my grandma knows he has an ace and he's never folding it.

Yet he thinks some Brazilian might give up the river with the flush blocker?

Absolutely amazing.

There are people who literally only bluff in PLO with the blocker. And be thinks a capable player will just give up?

Thinking he can just outplay the guy who even thinks likely has a good double suited hand with kqj4 badugi is comical.

And despite what he thinks the only boats he can credibly rep on board pairs are when he actually hits his 4 outer and boats.

If his opponent actually has the flush he's check calling the lower board pairs.

The last hand is really bad.
He has a single suited low rundown with a low gap.

And he's trying to isolate what he thinks is either aces or a good double suited hand that has his hand smashed.

With 30 left you shouldn't be playing for bounties anymore and he absolutely doesn't care about the 500 making it even more atrocious.

I'm not gonna pretend I'm some well studied tournament guy but his thought process in PLO hands just as far as the actual plo part goes is really bad and in many cases totally backwards.

Yeah that was odd. Not only does villain have to have the Q6 J6 or whatever, but he has to be deciding to bluff DN who is pot stuck and has to call with any piece. That one can go on the oopsies.

My belief is that literally no one is actually good at PLO.

The pot with the rundown is fine. He usually isolates with dead money. If the other player repots or whatever, it is usually close to a flip against a big pair or a rundown.

it's awful.
He won't 4 bet shove AKs for 15 bb in a game with fold equity but he'll try and iso a single suited 8 high rundown for no reason completely opening himself up to having to commit his stack with it for no reason. It's hard for both of these plays to be from the same player.

Arieh? Lamb? Deeb? Seems like some guys are adept at consistently getting down to the big spots in PLO.

As far as Negreanu goes, I know he hates armchair psychologists critiquing his game ("Daniel! Daniel!"), but I wonder if he isn't pressing in some of these spots. He had piles of chips in this tournament with like 4-5 tables left and then didn't even sniff the FT. Feels like once he loses a critical pot or two, he is prone to spiraling as he tries to win it all back immediately. Maybe a symptom of the WSOP drought and just getting frustrated and impatient when he hits adversity. Then he gets it all-in in a thin spot and does the "nothing I could do" bit.

I think he gets way too much hate for someone who is pretty harmless and innocuous, so I'd like to see him ship one of these things and get the monkey off his back. However, with the volume he's been putting in over the years and the lack of fresh bracelets, it's likely that he has some process-related flaws that are hamstringing him. He's a victim of his own success to some degree because doing the vlogs and being a big poker celebrity adds a lot of attention and pressure.

I don't think that was such horribly played hand if and when his only target is to win a bracelet. I don't know the chip counts but I would assume he would have been the chip leader or close to it if he scooped that hand. It's ok to take that flip especially when he probably doesn't have an edge to the rest of the field.

There have been a lot of really badly butchered PLO hands in his vlog past years but this was not one of them imo.

Where he was wrong here is the flat caller has actually more AA hands than the big blind. But still it's ok.

Yeah just saw the video and he had around 900K and something like 40-50 bigs like you said.

I think his biggest mistake is when he chooses to open with such a weakish holding from earlier position.

I get his thought process in trying to isolate the short stack who only had 250K and he put him on Aces there, but he ran into a monster rundown behind him that wasn't going anywhere.

So yeah, just like his JJ22 hand, I think Dnegs is playing too loose and wide in these spots and doesn't understand PLO as much as he thinks he does.

My belief is that literally noone should listen to anything u say then.

I’m not even sure myself how seriously I meant my “no one is good at PLO” comments.

However, I think those three are all excellent poker players. And an excellent overall poker sense will serve you well in all poker variants. But I wouldn’t say they succeed because of their knowledge of PLO specifically.

Isoing w 8 high is not a good play it’s not really a thing. Ironically his hand plays better multi-way. If there was an iso and the shorty called then he could close the action I can get behind a call w some chips behind.

As played he actually has multiple chances to get away.

In a normal bounty where the $500 means something maybe I could see isoing 8 hi. But this late in mtt and his bankroll it makes no sense.

Even playing to win this is just a bad unnecessary spots. In cash it’s a bad spot when you can reload in a tourney it’s a punt.

The sad part is he will defend it to death bc “look at my equity”. But this is one of those unnecessary spots to take.

I’d like to hear dumbos take he’s a crusher I trust.

I agree it is probably better to 4! light with FE. However, if somehow the guy who covered him had AAxx, DN's hand would be about 40% to win against the bigger stack. This is real results oriented thinking. There isn't that much ICM issue at that stage. The iso probably gets through 80% of the time against the flat caller.

80 seems high but so what if it does work that often. he's isoing against a better hand for no reason that at best with the dead money he might be break even equity wise and runs the risk of running into a real hand. what's the real upside? he obviously couldn't care less about the bounty.

and this is a preflop spot. his post flop takes on plo are atrocious.