And the final table of the 2018 WSOP Main Event is set! Congratulations to everyone that made it, especially Nicolas Manion with a near triple-up to soar into the chip lead. That being said, my heartfelt condolences go out to both Yueqi Zhu and Antoine Labat. Zhu got eliminated with Kings in the grossest FT bubble spot I’ve ever seen. Labat is still in it, he is just a distant ninth place with a lot of work left if he wants to win the title. Oh, he had Kings too. He lost over 80% of his chips in that last hand.
And it was a
TERRIBLE CALL.
As an MTT player, it is so important to be ICM aware. As you approach a final table, ICM pressure becomes very real. You need to be aware of the stack constellation at your table: who are the big stacks, who are the short stacks, where does your stack fit on that spectrum? ICM affects everything about how you play these tables where the prizes and the pay jumps really start to matter. One chip is no longer worth one chip. Chips are all intensely more valuable, in this case worth millions of dollars based on where you can expect to finish with your current stack. Using software like Holdem Resources Calculator or ICMizer, along with the payout structure of your tournament, you can calculate what
IS or
ISN’T a profitable all-in or call of an all-in. Labat had good reason to fold his Kings and hopefully you will all agree.
I entered in all of the payout information for the final ten spots along with chip stacks. Nicolas Manion is UTG, Antoine Labat is MP2, and Yueqi Zhu is MP3. As you can see, Labat is second in chips with over 51 million. Manion is fifth with 36 million and Zhu is in seventh with 24.7 million. Zhu is the effective stack with just over 40 big blinds. This is
SUPER important. ICM pressure is very high mid-stack vs mid-stack with shorter stacks likely to bust before you. This is important later on…
Blinds are $600k/$300k with $100k ante. The action of this hand starts with Manion openraising pocket Aces from under-the-gun to to $150,000. Labat gets sneaky with Kings and just flats. Directly behind him, Zhu also wakes up with pocket Kings. Rather than flatting or 3betting smaller, Zhu casually flicks in his
FORTY BIG BLIND STACK (WTF???). If any of you were watching the action, Manion was probably the nittiest of all the remaining players, rarely getting out of line. After thinking for only a few seconds, Manion casually rejams his
SIXTY BIG BLIND STACK (HOLY SH*# !!!!!!!).
This is the spot Labat finds himself in. Currently being in second place which pays out $5 million, and being faced with insane action from two players, including the tightest one left, on the biggest final table bubble of the year, Labat calls off with Kings.
Manion’s Aces hold and he becomes the overwhelming chip leader. Zhu is eliminated in 10th place for $850,025. Labat does make the FT but with a life support stack of $8 million, not even fifteen big blinds. He locks up $1 million by making the FT, but likely lost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars by calling off Kings.
Enough with the recap. Let’s calculate.
This is my 14.3% UTG opening range for Manion. Honestly in this spot, being the tightest player by far, this is an intensely
OPTIMISTIC opening range. He could easily be opening a 10% range or less on the FT bubble of the Main Event, the most important poker spot of his life. I gave Manion as wide a range as I did to help illustrate just how bad Labat’s call with Kings is.
Labat is the next one to put chips in the pot from MP+2, electing to flat Kings. I gave him a 10% flatting range, but this is also a little difficult to gauge. Against the nittiest player left he may be flatting even tighter. Labat will also three-bet some of these hands, trying to put pressure on the tightest player. KK+, AK are only 50% flats precisely because Labat is three-betting these on his own a fair amount of the time. Here he flats though, and this is the range I gave him.
Finally, this is Zhu’s 3bet jam range. Once again, this is incredibly
OPTIMISTIC. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for Zhu to have a 3bet jam range of QQ+, AKs or
TIGHTER, especially with a massive
FORTY BIG BLIND STACK (WTF?????). What Zhu does here is ICM suicide with hands that basically aren’t QQ+. Once again, I am choosing this wide range just to help show how bad this call is.
After setting my ranges for the first preflop betting actions that are largely subjective and range-dependent, I ran my HRC calculations to see what is profitable for the following actions.
This is Manion’s profitable 4bet rejam range. Repeat: this is
MANION’S range, our UTG friend holding pocket rockets. A profitable 4bet jam for him is KK+, so Aces are an easy get in here.
To re-emphasize, Manion is the
TIGHTEST PLAYER ON THE TABLE. By jamming his 60BB stack, he not only puts two-thirds of his stack on the line, he is putting his entire Main Event on the line should Labat call. To be fair, he likely isn’t expecting Labat to show up here with a monster after only flatting pre. Despite that, he has still put forty big blinds on the line with barely ten seconds of thought put into it. Manion is not showing up here with garbage.
And that is why this spot is so sick. Labat was dreaming of bracelets and is suddenly living a nightmare. To his credit, it looked like he understood how sick the spot was. The ICM pressure is absolutely massive. Facing the action he is, with all of the shorter stacks at the table and ability to run deep, he needs to call off way
TIGHTER. Here is Labat’s profitable calling range of both Manion and Zhu facing a Manion KK+ rejam.
Yes, Labat can only call Aces. This is because of ICM. Labat’s stack, starting the hand with over 80 big blinds, is worth
MILLIONS of dollars. Kings might be good here, but he loses often enough that it is not worth getting it in in this spot. Kings are
BURNING money. You are better off calling 54s in this spot.
Alright, maybe Manion rips it in a little lighter, lets say QQ+ as best case scenario. What is Labat’s profitable calling range then?
Kings are doing a lot better but are still absolutely torching money. Let me remind you, this was calculated using optimistically wide ranges for both Manion and Zhu. If they are both playing tighter than I gave them credit for, Kings are performing even worse in this spot. Labat just has to find the fold button.
This is all based on my personal, flawed, man-made ranges. If Labat thinks Manion is rejamming a little wider, let’s say QQ+, AK, then Labat would be making a profitable call. Now, is Manion rejamming that wide in this spot?
Not a ****ing chance.
Give credit where credit is due though. This was absolutely one of the sickest spots I’ve ever seen. Biggest tournament of the year, biggest poker moment of all of these guy’s lives (unless you’re Joe Cada). Just a sick cooler, but that’s poker.
Yes, Labat made a bad call. But it’s easy to sit here and say that he made the wrong play. Could you lay down Kings in this spot?
(I’d like to think that I could
)