https://youtube.com/watch?v=CCsZy6W5_IY&t=389s

It’s time stamped but if that doesn’t work for you it’s at 6 minutes 20 seconds.

By the way, considering how high the stakes are, the players seem terrible but maybe I’m missing something.

LOL, hoping that was a misclick. He (would have) flopped quads.
Inexplicable.

I think his cat knocked over a bottle of wine and he had to go clean it up.

I think folding is fine without reads and not sure how much better it gets with reads. It's a hand that doesn't flop great thus it's not easy to realize equity even IP, BB is 20bb so there is also some threat of 3-bet. If you seriously have trouble understanding folding this in a tournament, spend some time running sims in propokertools. Opening QQ96s is beyond horrible of course.

You ain't trying to flop ****!! 3b pot this hand all-day every day 38BB deep, especially in a tournament, where more often than not in everyone is folding. PPT says this hand is 50/50 vs the top 5%, 60/40 vs top 1% and your worst outcome is running head long into AA23 ds (66/34 dog). You are a favorite against A234 at 53/47.

If you are worried about flips at the end of a tournament, it's because you only got there by luck boxing a big hand against another player. This is a crappy fold and a must raise hand here (*)

(*) The only exception here is an awkward bubble spot where you really need to get in the money. Outside of that, anything but a pot sized raise is bad

I just kept watching the video and plplaya was obscenely tight. Open folds AAQJss UTG 6-handed @ 34:15. The hand right before that, 4 way has nut-low + k hi flush for 2nd nut high, and checks turn AND river trying to trap. That's a small river bet for sure, even up to 1/2 pot to convince some one with 3rd or 4th best hi or low to think they are good for their half of the pot.

I agree with him missing big time by checking 2nd flush, nut low on a suited flop. I think he checked 2 streets and missed out on value as another player flopped a set and his blinds neighbor made a good straight in river.

what a clown

where did he finish?

Naturally the guy opening QQ96 won it. plplaya got 2nd. Agree with amok.

Yes, of course AAHH has decent raw equity against even some rather strong hands. You'd much rather fold than get it in 50/50 though. Presence of a really weak player should make him lean towards fold a bit more.

OP says that "the players seem terrible". Having watched over an hour of the footage, there is one clearly bad player, the rest are decent or good. I think plplaya is clearly the best player of the table. Warrior24 thinks he was obscenely tight, but barring two AAHH-folds pre I see nothing supporting the claim. How is trying to trap labeled as "tight" btw? I think both checking and betting have merit there, though against some opponents betting should be preferred as they like to call with many hands that they wouldn't bet with. I don't think these villains were bad though and should have hands that like to bet a decent amount of the time to make the greedier play (checking) at least OK.

My least favorite plplaya-play was in this hand: https://youtu.be/CCsZy6W5_IY?t=4678 and no, it's not the flop check.

This isn't a cash game where players are calling 3b's light. This is the final table of a SCOOP, in a tournament where there is almost NO 3 betting after watching an hour of the final table. AAxx is a 3b with the expectation that you are almost never seeing the flop, let alone GII in that spot.

In the 50 minutes I've watched, everyone else was playing reasonably, except GravityPilot who was just playing LAG but not stupid. He was opening wide but tightening up considerably on unfavorable flops.

The min-raises PF were killing me though, or more so the lack of blind defenses to them. After all PLO8, more than PLO, equities run even closer.

Up to the point I'm at in the video, I'd say Egption had what seemed to be the most coherent PLO8 strategy at the table.

Amok, that last hand, I'm not sure I wouldn't do exactly as he did. At an SPR of just slightly greater than 1, in a tourney, you sometimes take the chips that are there. His problem is ironically tied back to his tightness: because he is too tight he's never getting called in that spot.

There was some 3-betting and I don't recall any folds to 3-bets. There was a hand where bloodflood opened CO 9542ds and called the 3-bet. I haven't played with him, but certainly a nick I've seen at the top of big tournaments. Goes to show how big part variance plays...

If you can expect villains to fold to 3-bets, sure, just start 3-betting and print chips.

GP was definitely playing plain stupid. Smashing every other flop with a nonsensical hand helps quite a bit.

ICM, equity realization. If people fold to min-raises, there is no reason to raise bigger. This is the final table of SCOOP, not your kindergarten game.

I know that some +90% of the players would play the turn like he did and think there wasn't a real alternative even. If he is never getting called there, raising must be superbad though. And yes, somehow villain folds 2nd nuts, so there must be some truth in what you say.

I have been playing with plplaya since year 2006 I think, so maybe I have some extra information on this alleged tightness though.

I’m watching that turn and pleading for him not to raise…. Then GP taunts him with the “lol kk33” in chat afterwards ha ha.

So you want to mash pot with random AA hands because of a 3% equity edge against “too-tight” players at a Scoop FT but then raise turn here when you have the nuts after a donk bet and the only loose player still in the hand?

Meh this works both ways though, the opener shouldn't want to get it in either and you have two of the aces. They should simply fold all sorts of A2 hands to your 3 bet...and if the guy is a loose fish who isn't going to fold then you might get in AAQT vs QQ95 lol. I'm with Warrior24 on this one.

Should fold some hands, true, continue with ones that play well against a range that is somewhat face up. We don't know what kind of info the table had on say GravityPilot. While there are arguments for 3-betting the weak player more liberally, there are also arguments for letting him just do his thing and spew the chips away with nonsensical hands post-flop, when his equity is very low.

Just to be clear I wouldn't call 3-betting, calling nor folding a mistake in that spot and I think I lean towards folding. All plays make sense which is something that many people don't seem to grasp or simply disagree with me. It feels a bit funny to me to pick that exact play from an over hour long footage with lots of plays that are either more interesting or simply bad.

This statement I agree with wholeheartedly. The question was posed by OP, and my gut said 3b, and then I ran some simulations that proved my point! Not biased at all!

But the fun part about PLO8 is the ability to choose different lines and have a variety of options. I think it's raise>call>fold, but it's going to be close. And the lineup will certainly affect which option is best at any given time.

Pre is really tough. You're in a really bad ICM spot with a middle stack and all of those really shorties. The lack of antes also makes laddering in PL particularly easy. I'm not sure what's right.

Can we talk about the river fold by the 7542 hand. I think it's really bad. His hand is not easy to win more than half against, and with the original raiser folding on the end and, thus, only very rarely having an ace, the BB should be weighted very heavily to aces full.

Hey Trips, you have the time stamp on that particular hand? I think I vaguely remember it being a borderline hand where I really asked myself if I'd call in that spot thinking I was safe for half

It's the same hand from the OP; he stamped it

Ok, so the AAxx fold pre hand, but this time Egption is our hero.

pre: I prefer folding. Yes it's a decent hand and only 2bb open, but still. OOP against 1-2 opponents with a hand that flops a lot of 2nd best. If he had a good idea that the opener shows up with a lot of nonsensical hands I can accept calling.

flop: I strongly prefer folding. Opener should just have an ace so often, a player behind.

turn: well, at least he didn't lead here.

river: I agree that this should be called. It's actually one of the best runouts for him (that doesn't include a 3 or a 4).

pre: Only reasons I don't flat
- I know BB to 3b wider than most
- I know opener is as tight as plplaya shows himself to be over the course of the next hour

It's definitely higher variance to play this hand in this position, but I don't think that necessarily means that it is -EV to do so.

flop: Folding is best play here. BB left to act puts you in a terrible position

turn: Folding to any action is a must

river: It is a call. BB polarized himself to be strong, but most of the time that's a "I have a one way hand" bet, so calling will be profitable here. I would have assumed that, at this stack depth, at this stage of the tournament, if he had A23, he'd have 3b PF or raised flop, which pretty much eliminates it from his hand

You are correct in that something being a high variance play doesn't necessarily make it a minus EV play, even taking ICM into account. It's not the variance itself that makes me want to fold here pre, it's the fact that you won't be realizing your equity very well. The actual course of the hand is a decent example of that.

Earlier, you said that "Egption had what seemed to be the most coherent PLO8 strategy at the table." I know that this is just one hand, but IMO the mistakes in this hand reveal that his understanding of the game is not of very high quality.

Part of the ambiguity is that a +EV high variance play in cEV can be a very -EV play in $EV. Therefore when people say to avoid variance and pass on thin edges in tournaments, they're not wrong, rather imprecise.

It may sound pedantic but we should really all try to be clear about which we mean.

Yes. I always start from cEV, because that's where you need to start unless you are just guessing. Me saying that something is +cEV doesn't mean that I mean that it's +$EV, which has certainly caused confusion in the past.