I know its an inevitable cooler but assuming you don't know Teddy KGB's cards, how should Mike really have played the hand?

In case nobody wants to go back and watch the movie or clips.

Hero (Matt) : Ac 9c

Fold, Raise 500 (Matt), fold, Call (KGB)

Flop: 8c 9s As

Matt Bets 2000, KGB calls.

Matt places KGB on a flush draw.

Turn: 9h

Check, Check.

River: 3s

KGB Bets 15'000, Matt raises 33'000 and is all in.

KGB Calls





In my completely non-expert opinion, while having just seen the movie earlier today:


Matt Damon knew his opponent better than we do. He knew KGB would believe he was bluffing when he bet more chips. Was it wise to not check to KGB? Maybe not as it pans out, but if Matt Damon was looking for value with his top two pair (aces and nines) then he's achieving the desired result.

Matt Damon's problem was placing his opponent on cards (not even really placing him) without giving himself time to read KGB. Instantly putting KGB on a flush draw is a bad idea and shows his inexperience at the beginning of the movie.


After KGB bets Matt Damon moves all in. In hindsight this is a bad idea. The problem is that the two nines are community cards, so "making" his full house is actually bad for the board if someone else could have the nuts. The only way Matt Damon could beat this hand is if he himself had two 9's in his hand and those 9's came out on the flop and the turn.

I think it comes down to cockiness and not thinking about his opponents hand strength. However, KGB opened this hand rather sneakily and I don't think any of us would've placed him on two aces.

It's a cooler, nothing else. Mike just calling KGB on the river would be really awful, missing all kinds of value. If KGB traps (by not betting turn,) with AA he is also trapping with 89 and 88. Mike has the 2nd nuts here in a heads up pot in a short handed game. He also can somewhat discount the first nuts from KGB's range considering he didn't play AA in a standard way pre.

Mike doing anything but shoving here would be a huge mistake. It's a fistpump shove for him. It's a complete cooler and nothing else.

overbetting the pot to make teddy think hes bluffing...and then putting him on a flush draw after saying that he was "too smart to fall into a bear trap" is an oxymoron, if hes smart enough to not fall into a trap, hes also smart enough to fold a flush draw getting bad pot odds, and probably not enough implied odds considering its likely hes only going to see 1 more card

Depends on the blinds, I suspect preflop is like a 10x raise. Nevertheless, Teddy should 3bet AA always.

No need to bet 2x pot on the flop, just half pot it.

Teddy should donk turn small.

Teddy's river sizing is meh, I can get behind having an overbetting range, but 3x pot is probably overkill and AA specifically should probably go into a bet small range due to blocker effects. Obviously A9 has to jam because what kind of idiot slowplays AA pre there?

Yeah. I think I would've had to put him on an ace. At the end of the movie we see how he plays aces. He actually plays it similarly.

Probably the kind of idiot that has the single most elaborate tell in the history of poker.

Lmao for real

The correct way would have been not at all as hes playing with his entire roll. I don't know why he doesnt bet the turn if hes somehow able to put KGB on a flush draw exclusively. As a side note Matt Damon is a much worse player in real life.

Not sure if Damon is worse in real life. From the evidence we've seen, his character in Rounders is just an unbelievably shocking player on a life heater.

for sure take a lower variance line when you deep with your whole life roll on the table and your up like what was it 15k against what im sure is a massive 1998 nit who has no three bet range.

i need to see rounders two , i think mike should look something like andrew robls gonna look like in 10 more years.

and worms trying to grind an honest living at 1/2 or in a ray bitar type scenario.

Here you go:

Eurorounders

I thought he said something like...

15k to call and I have another 33k to raise you... I'm gonna go all-in cause I don't think you have the spades...

So... He starts the night with three stacks of "High Society." And he has run that up to just over 50k total (since the start of the hand)...

KGB is not over betting the pot with a flush there... Not calling a shove with a flush there... So why is the Hero Shoving?

Oh yeah-It's a movie!!!

Haha, you forgot to mention Matt Damon puts 500 bucks in the pot preflop with A 9 off suit. It's a ****ty movie. The positioning is all ****ed up, and the protagonist is always dealing somehow.


I like this.

Isn't it a 50-100 game? 500 is a totally fine raise in that game. If it's 100-200 it's ok too, except should probably be a bit bigger actually. If it's 25-50 that's seemingly too big but really depends how deep the game is, and what 'standard' raises have been in it too that point. In certain 25-50 games that's not an absurd open.

Also this was 1998, of course if you look at it from a 2016 lens it's going to look awful.

So a 5x raise is normal HU but 2.5x is too small?

wot?

Depends on how deep the game is. In a deeper game I'm usually looking to raise more than 2.5x pre, yeah.

I understand you play strictly online poker, but I'm a live player and this hand is from a live game, in live poker 5x opens are pretty common/standard. Even in shallower games.

In a shallower game, from late position un-opened, sure 2.5x sounds good. I guess it's still ok as you get a bit deeper, but once effective stacks get a few hundred bb's deep, I'd be opening for more than 2.5x, even OTB where my range is it's widest.

But look, I know for a fact you've studied this subject a lot more than I have, any winning online player probably has, so if I'm wrong about all of that please do let me know, I'm always willing to learn.

I know different opening sizes are based somewhat on position and how wide or tight your range is from that position, but also (mostly right?) on stack sizes. So as stacks get deeper we want to make bigger opens, as they get shallower we want to make smaller opens, which is essentially why tournament opens are near min.

Doesn't matter.

If you are coolering the **** out of your opponent, the money is going in regardless.

Right. And in live cash games usually opening sizes are much larger than 2.5x no matter how deep or shallow the game is. That's what I was going off of in my earlier post.

The Definite Article is an online player, so he is thinking in terms of online sizing. But since I understand that over all online players are more fundamentally sound than live players I figured I'd make a bit of a concession to him and also take the opportunity to perhaps learn something to make my game even more fundamentally sound than it already is. Always something to be learned, always room for improvement even when you are a winning player and have been for many years. I'm not above learning something new.

I mean, I might go 3bb if we're >150bb deep but 5bb just seems immense and benefits our opponent in a number of ways: 1) the value of position is diminished because SPR is lower; 2) he can defend by 3betting more often as a portion of his overall defends, which significantly reduces the EV of the bottom of our range; and accordingly 3) our opening range has to be tighter.

Ok, fair enough. All sounds good and right. Seems on televised high stakes cash games, even very recent ones, they're opening pretty big preflop though. And this is from guys that are successful online players in many cases*. What's the story there? Just gambling it up for T.V. to some extent, or is it to do with Antes being involved, or what?

* Although some of those guys aren't cash game players online.

Antes do increase the correct raise size. I think up to 4bb can be justified without antes, with them possibly a little more.

EuroRounders.... I totally forgot that 2+2 already had the sequel!

1) No matter how 'correctly' you play you are always going to be caught up in hands where an opponent plays his hand 'incorrectly' or 'non-standard'. Slow played AA in this spot is extremely difficult to spot.

2) Anytime an opponent offers verbal information .. read into it. Generally an opponent only talks about hands he can beat. Suggesting that he doesn't think Matt has spades in that spot pretty much means that he can beat spades anyway.

3) The biggest issue here is getting greedy and (probably) overestimating what hands that you have beaten are actually going to call ... while having your whole roll on the table. (Although I just recently took advantage of this, it's one of the features of a 'match the stack' table that can ruin your day ... one hand can wipe out a whole session of good play) GL

The betsizes are really weird.

Checking back the turn with a boat is almost as bad as slowplaying pre with aces.