I wouldn't call it a collapses by any means. He sucked out for his tournament life twice and then lost a coin flip. He never had many chips to work with

The biggest hand of the HU...

Both HU players played decently and I'm sure playing a long time under alot of pressure takes its toll on you. That said...

This is probably fairly obvious to most but.... Stazko's play in the big pot of the HU match was ugly imo. First he limps and calls a 5x or whatever raise preflop with Q9s. Not terrible but I'd prefer to see him take the initiative and raise that hand.

His big mistake was on the flop where he flopped a gutter and a flush draw. Heinz led out for half pot and he basically min raised. With that draw he should either have called Heinz's bet in position, or better yet, raise bigger so that Heinz can't jam over him with any sort of fold equity. If Stazko's gonna call off a flop shove anyway, he should have put in a bigger raise to force heinz to fold unless he's got it. After all, Stazko is only holding Q high.

Maybe he was just tired and didn't properly figure out the stack sizes before he made his play. I don't love heinz's reshove with AQ either without a read as he often has at only 7 outs at most and often only 4.

Heiz made a really big bet on the river, and Antonio Esfandari said:" I think Heiz is very weak. I don't think he wants a call here." Staszko then called, and Heiz showed his set of As.
After Heiz bet the flop (9 2 3) and then checked the turn, and Antonio Esfandari immediately said:" I think Heiz is weak. 100% he cannot beat a pair of 9s." The camera then showed Heiz had 9 10.
Heiz raised pre, and bet flop and turn. Staszko raised Heiz's 8.4m turn bet to 18.4m. The board was A 9 2 A. Heiz tanked and then called. Antonio Esfandari said:" Heiz called the raise, so I am sure he has an ace now, and I don't like staszko's move here." I almost shouted out:" shut up! Antonio." There was no way for Heiz to just call the raise with his trip ace. Camera showed Heiz had 5 6, and Staszko had A 9.
AND there were lots, lots of those kind of examples. I don't understand why they kept bringing him to do the analysis. He is wrong every time, but he is so narcissistic. I think even phil hellmuth is much better than him. Phil hellmuth is a really good tournament poke player, but antonio is just an average poker player. His level is way below tom dwan on cash game and below hellmuth on tournament.

FYI I heard Stasko folded 60 str8 hands at money bubble

Please don't tell me you suggest he folds after raising there.

Props to Heinz. ABI of $45 dollars online and played w/ big balls when 9 milli was on the line.

i heard he has unicorns on his farm and eats children for breakfast

My FT Performance Analysis

1. Heinz - He never seemed flustered, kept being aggressive, and in the early stages was not afraid to mix it up - he was the least afraid to bust in 9th. Did he make mistakes? Yes of course he did, but all in all his mixture of fearlessness, aggression, composure and skill means we can confidently say the best player over the course of the FT won.

2. Gianetti - He never put a foot wrong. Was solid, difficult to read and never put himself in any danger unless he had a significant edge. Would have been very tough to beat if his JJ held.

3. O'Dea - Showed incredible level-headedness even when things stopped going his way. Went from 80bbs to 10bbs and you would have never known it from his demeanour. His shortstack game was awesome and his A9 call vs Lamb was great. If he holds there he makes a serious run. The big hand against Heinz was played great by both players IMO. He had Heinz seconds away from folding QQ overpair with the flush draw. My one questionnark about his approach is whether he needed to make moves early. Stazko and Gianetti were content to keep it low variance, maybe O'Dea should have taken that approach too.

4. Stazko - Steady, unspectacular, low variance, solid, Stazko showed that you don't have to be super-aggro to succeed. He sat back early and made some money, but he really started to struggle from 5-handed onwards. His short-handed game wasn't expansive enough, and his stack dwindled to the danger zone. He doubled with A8 and was able to push on from there. He made a few mistakes heads-up, raise-folding the flush is absurd, but all in all a solid grinder ran good and played good and made an amazing score. Wp to him.

5) Ben Lamb - Mixed bag for Benba. I though his full ring performance wasn't great, and he came off as nervous. He was super upset when Collins sucked out on him and he lost his way a little. After he got lucky against O'Dea however, his shorthanded play was great and he really bulldozed. Heinz vs Lamb heads-up was the real vintage matchup that we never got to see.

6) Sam Holden - Played without pressure and got some very nice pick-ups. AJ from the BB was way too thin full ring against UTG+1 open though IMO.

7) Anton Makievskyi - played with real fear from 14 players on down. When he lost his big chiplead 2 tables out he panicked and stopped playing. He openly admitted folding every single hand on the bubble. Unlike Heinz (who he was often compared to) he didn't want to take any risks at all. He started the table with 26bbs not 10. He just did nothing. Who knows what would have happened had he win his flip, but he was never able to cope with not being a big stack anymore.

8 - Collins. What. The F. Was that? Did he get coaching off Hellmuth? He has years of experience using aggression and putting people to decisions and suddenly he's open limping JJ 35bbs deep??? Open limping A8off from the h/j and folding when Lamb takes advantage and shoves worse??! What was going on? He started limping deep into Day 8 and most people interpreted it as a bubble variance reducer. We get to the FT and the most experienced and best MTT tourney player continues the open limp strategy. It's a but like when Hellmuth convinced Shulman to do 5x opens.

9 - Bob. As bad as we knew he was. He had 7bbs and limp/folded KT in the SB vs O'Dea. On the opening clips he says "I'm playing perfect poker right now." Facepalm.

Flame away.

I was REALLY REALLY hoping Stazsko was going to pull it off when I finally got to a tv about an hour and a half into it. He ended up having that 3 to 1 chip lead and turn super passive though or he probably would have pulled it off...folding pocket pairs (even if it was 22 pre), A 7 hearts with 2 hearts on the flop on an otherwise safe board, on and on. He had all the momentum and became way to conservative until the stacks would be around even again then he would catch a hand or get aggressive.

Overall Hienz definitely deserves it with his play. For someone who plays 75% of his poker heads up online (according the commentary) Stazsko was way to passive to pull of the win without catching the nuts against another monster and getting lucky.

I didn't see how it ended as I finally gave up around 1:45 am and went to bed.

Best yet? They got to go over hole cards during breaks, what a shamble the WSOP is turning into.

I was really impressed with the coverage and the analysis of Antonio. I'm very happy we have another under 25 champion. I relate to him much easier than Stazko. Stazko doesn't even have twitter, I doubt he'd make a good ambassador for the game

They said a trillion times how Staszko was a mathematical man but when he called with 77's to Lamb's shove I am pretty sure that this is -EV because 77's are only way ahead of the bottom of lamb's range here.

I'm pretty sure it's +ev. He shoved A7 on sunday for quite a bit, and was recless in his play overall. I'm sure Staszko looked into how these two players played on sunday, and knew Ben is going to come in swinging. For sure Ben is shoving 22-66 as well, he has to call. Especially after 3-betting there is no way he can let it go against a player like Ben Lamb. Correct call, flipping, Staszko won. Bye Benba. Nothing more to it. I think it's fine from both players, but I really think Ben made a bigger mistake here. I dont know how often ben expects Staszko to 3-bet fold, but I dont think that happens too often in this spot.

stopped reading thread when multiple ppl called a standard 3 handed reship with KJ a blowup/biggest blow up of all time....lol NVG

Pius played v well, constant aggression but didn't over value hands like I thought he would late, as much as he was known for crazy pre play, i thought his post flop play was excellent... hated Phildo's play he just played weak overall whether it was l/f pre with A8, or the way he played A10dd, didn't mind the j10limp and qj limps, it was more so his late position play that I thought he just out thought himself and didn't win enough small pots noshow.....Lamb just played std. imo and binked in some high variance pots..Gianetti played well I thought, played a wide range of hands both in and out of position well....Stazko surprised me the most and I think he deserves a ton of credit for his play with such little high stake experience, he adjusted well, mixed it up well, and read opponents well....that Q6 hand tho wtf, he just had a mindslip due to pressure is all I can think.....O'Dea played very well I thought too, std but smart with well timed aggression.....his turn bet with AQ was stone f'n cold v Pius....just so sick Pius read that spot right, I honestly think he might have folded JJ, and with the way he played pre his range was 99-QQ heavy IMO, real sick bet

hindsight is 20/20

I liked lambs play had to figure staszko going to fold a lot of the time and if he ran good could battle heinz like a boss. Great game though heinz very well played.

That fold was bewildering. Hell he could have been ahead of 9Th, 78h etc, 5T lol.

I expected Gianetti and Heinz HU. I may be nutso here but did anyone notice that Gianetti played this more like a ring game instead of a tourney? I can't remember specific hands but I remember telling myself that a couple of times during the broadcast.

lol strat in nvg

false

Wow, are you serious about the math not granting a call on the first hand with 7s? I seen ivey call there vs the tall 6"7 guy headup with a pair of 7s. Ivey said a pair is the nuts right there. So the math was right on staszko part. The mistake was made by lamb. He should have minraise 4bet. If staszko shoves he could fold and wait for a better spot. KJo is not a good hand to 3bet shove vs the tightest player in the tournament. He is calling with 55+ and any Ace.

Have I managed to miss every single occasion where this guy plays super agro like he makes out? Every time I've seen him he sits on his arse waiting for the nuts. Lol at his comment about if it was him and Heinz HU it would be an agro war - what a wanker.

I thought Staszko could be proud of his effort for sure, showed great concentration. In his defense, where everyone says he flopped 2 pair multiple times it was check, bet, fold or bet, fold on the flop a couple of times.

But yeah, best player one.

What about all of the paired, suited flops in the first hour, must have been 1/2 a dozen like Qs 7s 7h or something.

"Lol at his comment about if it was him and Heinz HU it would be an agro war - what a wanker."---agree with you. When he made that comment, I thought I heard it wrong. Now I can't believe he actually said that. What an idiot. Shut up, Antonio. We're not blind, and we know how you play!

Actually I am as close to your opinion of all nine as I can be to any. Agree with most of your post. Couple of thoughts in red.

I didn't see the match and not that i trust nvg hand analysis in general but lol at how many people are calling his KJo shove bad play. From not even having seen it and knowing that he got CALLED by 77 shows he probably had a good read on his opponent and feel for table dynamics. Please tell me there is more to this "blowup" that some folks are saying is the worst ever.

Yeah, once it got heads-up, I was kinda pulling for Stazko. But the way Heinz kept chipping back up and catching Stazko every time he took a hit, and never lost his cool, I thought Heinz was the better player.

I went to bed around 2AM here in Atlanta and told my wife that Stazko is leading again with about a 45M chip advantage, but Heinz would probably win. Heinz was relentless, and Stazko would eventually get impatient. I felt Stazko would need a bit of luck to finish off Heinz.

-Z

Wow Heinz won it!! Good job, no bias either way for me, but up to when I went to sleep early, Heinz had been behind for hrs, at one time being down to 20 BBs.

I thought there wasn't much chance of a comeback with the body language and the solid Stackzko play, but wd Heinz.

Love the live aspect, please do again next year ESPN!