When he plays tournaments, Hellmuth probably don't win much if he wins and probably does not lose much when he loses. That's because he is mostly staked or sponsored, to his credit (having skillfully cultivated fame and notoriety from the boom years). His equity is in further name recognition, branding, and publicity, which means that in his case, going for first place overrides ICM because there is no added brand equity in laddering.

When he called his last 500k with Q4 with 2.5 to 1 pot odds, this unique reality has to be taken into account. He would have had a weak stack if he folded, dampening a rare chance to gain name recognition, branding, and publicity in a super high roller, which so far, he has never been able to achieve. Foxen's verbal and tonal tell (along with player history between Foxen and Phil) must have elimated QQ and higher as well as AQ or higher from Foxen's range, turning the 2.5 to 1 pot odds call into a close to Zero EV play. With ICM being irrelevant and branding dominant, it was a good call.

Hellmuth's mistake was in the three-bet that preceded the call of the 4 bet. He probably should have just dumped or jammed.

Come on now, Hellmuth doesn't deserve any credit for finding a tell on Foxen after he 3bet to that size.

The hand is fairly simple. Foxen is raising an absurd amount of hands from the Button to start the hand. A reasonable % of the hands in that range are probably shoves because Foxen is going to play too good not to have shoves in that range with consideration to ICM.

Hellmuth is smart enough to know that Foxen still has a reasonably wide min opening range and made a stance with this hand. He got his hands caught in the cookie jar per say and now he was forced to make a decision.

As pointed out before most parts of a normal expected counter strategy in this spot are shoving, calling, or folding from Hellmuth's position in the BB and stack. Hellmuth went with the put in almost 40% of your stack line so now he was faced with an hard decision with a bad hand that he choose to raise this amount too. It's debatable at this point what is the best decision but I'd argue he did consider ICM. He even pointed out the next pay jump was only 25K. He put himself in this horrible spot and went with it. He doesn't deserve any credit but at that point I'd argue calling was better than folding with consideration to future game, his name recognition, etc, etc.

Probably, but also he could have probably developed a strategy that 3bet to a smaller non committing size although it's also less likely Phil Hellmuth is able to balance such a strategy with the weaker parts of his range. He probably made it that size in his brain with Q4o because he knew that size was almost impossible for Foxen to call and then fold so essentially all he did was make a committing size to Foxen for whatever reason with a trash portion in his range. Likely all trash to this size as he probably calls and traps top hands, shoves them, or 3bets them to a smaller size. This size from the BB was sort of irrelevant. Foxen probably continues allin with almost everything that he would have originally called a 3bet allin with in this spot and I doubt he levels himself into thinking it is stronger than a shove.

Funny how people are making high-level strategy analysis of the play and how PH would split his range into raise small vs jam when what apparently happened is that PH looked at one card (the Q), and then decided to raise to 350k … per Polk’s reporting on the hand.

has phil claimed this to be true or what? i saw doug discussing the hand and jokingly(??) saying hellmuth only looked at the queen.

Hellmuth asks Foxen, "You caught me making a move". Foxen responds: "That's good to hear" in a tonality that has an upward inflection towards the end of the statement. It helped eliminate QQ or higher, and AQ or higher. Therefore, Hellmuth had approximately (but not exactly) 30% pot equity. 2.5 to 1 insta-pot odds was therefore a fair price for a call.

Foxen's wide range based on the game being shorthanded and based on Foxen being in steal position and on bully mode also contributed to thinning his likely range.

Idk DP wasn’t laughing when he said it.

“the elephant in the room is that he didn’t look at his cards, he looked at 1 card and made the move supposedly “

Could be an unsubstantiated rumor spread by Doug or it could be true. I don’t have sources.

you're getting trolled

He should have sized his 3-bet smaller so it would be an easy fold to a 4-bet. He could size his 3-bets with premium hands the same small size to induce. He could also 3-bet that size or shove with hands he was OK getting it in with but did not want to induce with. He could have 2 sizings. It also is not a call as played despite pot odds with the ICM situation late in the tournament. Pretty badly misplayed.

What if you buy into the fact that due to speech play PH could rule out a premium for Foxen? Does it become a call? Also, PH's ICM situation is pretty dire if he folds.

If you have AA here in Foxen's shoes and Phil Hellmuth puts in almost 40% of his stack and then faces a four bet shove from you and says "you caught me I was making a move." you are happy to say, "That's good to hear." or whatever Foxen said in this hand. The whole point is Phil Hellmuth basically put in such a high percentage of his overall chips that it doesn't really matter much what Foxen says after he puts Hellmuth all in. Of course Foxen realizes that Phil Hellmuth wasn't strong or didn't have an easy decision once he was put all in after that 3bet and now has to decide what is the best action to do now.

That's something that would be good to hear with anything Foxen holds after putting the four bet all in. Phil Hellmuth either folds away ~40% of his chips to Foxen uncontested or he calls and Foxen is doing reasonably well to great against whatever Phil Hellmuth is holding in the hand. Both of those situations are great to hear from Foxen's perspective in the hand.

Hellmuth should not be 3-bet bluffing with 16xBB. If he is going to do that, he should make a small sizing, like 4-5xBB, which could also be used with QQ+ or something like that. The decision to call is beside the point. He shouldn't put in 40% of his stack and then need to decide what to do to a push. He could effectively shove fairly light, but not with such a weak hand, as he is committed to getting allin with it. As usual, he has no understand of short stack tournament issues.

I'm sure Helmuth would admit he played this hand poorly but once he makes the initial mistake it's super close as to whether or not he should call it off-and he's playing for first not to ladder up.

I really disagree with what Foxen said not being important. While I think Helmuth is a crap cash game player and total dbag, people still somehow underestimate how good he is in tournaments and in making reads. It was a genuine reaction from Foxen and I'm sure there were other things Helmuth is going to pick up on that frankly 99.9 percent of other players won't which will at least let him know if he's totally dead with q4 or if it's close enough to call. When someone has off the charts results for a very long period of time, doing so in an unconventional manner chances are they doing things well that other people just don't understand. That doesn't mean he never makes mistakes, but the mistake in this hand isn't the call and it's pretty funny that's what everyone is focusing on.

I like how galfond meme’d that phil made a good play using live tells and now people are actually using his meme logic as if it’s real.

When your opponent says “you caught me making a move,” that’s good to hear with 100% of your range. The idea that what foxen said indicates anything about his range is pure results-oriented thinking. In a 3-handed spot, 99 is much much closer to aces than it is to A5s.

Agree @borg23. Foxen probably assumed Hellmuth was pot committed and never folding and gave a genuine reaction. That allowed Hellmuth to eliminate QQ+, which made it an easier decision to call with Q4s. Foxen may have thought Hellmuth could have all premium hands, and sometimes a lower pp, Axs, and fairly marginal high card hands. However, it did not occur to him that Hellmuth would do that with a hand as weak as Q4s and then have a decision to make.

The idea that Helmuth doesn't make live reads and eliminated the top of Foxen's range is pretty mind boggling.

This also isn't good to hear with 100 percent of your range. If he's got a premium pair for example he wants helmuth to have a real hand so he calls. While 99 is a strong hand, he obviously wants Phil to fold hands with 2 overs and he's genuinely surprised Helmuth has real garbage.

Helmuth isn't exactly know for perfect fundamental play... it's almost like there's something else you could attribute a lot of his tournament success to....

If you have aces and your opponent makes a move against you with q4 offsuit, how is that not good to hear? lmao

Because he is more likely to fold and not give you more action

exactly

Which means you pick up a huge pot uncontested and they fold away their equity. This is actually a good thing for them to put in 50% of their stack and fold.

Approximately 50% of communication is body language; 40% is tonality; and 10% is the words that we use like Foxen's "That's good to hear".

Foxen said those words with a tonality that conveys relief. Hellmuth - a very "talking/hearing" oriented live reader - surely noticed.

This Q4 Hellmuth Episode could be a historic moment in the evolution of the study of poker in that it happened at the moment when hard stuff like science, theory and math had reached saturation and a catalyst (Hellmuth's Q4 play) may have ushered in a new era of the return to soft stuff like tell reading, intuition, and street smart poker psychology.

Then you still lose because Phil hit trip queens.

he put in 40 not 50 and you don't want him to fold q4 offsuit when you have aces for the other 60

Then you still lose because Phil hit trup qq*.

FYP