One of the most talked about hands from the World Series of Poker 2009 Main Event final table was a monster pot that took place between Darvin Moon (who held the chip lead) and former Bear Stearns executive Steve Begleiter.
The blinds were 200,000/400,000 with a 50,000 chip ante when Moon dipped into his 61m stack to raise to 1.3m from under the gun. Begleiter looked down at a very healthy As-Qs and three-bet to 3.9m – a fair chunk of his 24m stack. Moon called out of position and both players went to the flop.
With 8.75m in the pot Moon checked the 3s-4s-2d flop to Begleiter, who made it 5.35m to go with a huge drawing hand. Moon quickly check-raised to 15m, effectively putting Begleiter all-in for his tournament life… or so you’d think. Begleiter grimaced as he presumably felt he was flipping for his tournament life, but made the inevitable all-in shove with Ace and King overcards, the nut flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. With 44.75m in the pot and just 6m to call, Moon was being given 7.5-to-1 on his money, which should be a snap-call in pretty much any pot. Moon, who admits that he doesn’t know the numbers behind the game, opted instead to pass, much to the amazement of everyone.
Lessons to learn
As it turns out, Moon was just 7% to win the hand with his Kh-Qc, but he couldn’t have known that and against the range of hands he could have been facing he had to make the call. If Begleiter was holding Queens, Moon wins 13.3% of the time, justifying the call. If he was facing a smaller pair he wins almost a quarter of the time.
That aside, the real mistake is in the check-raise. If Moon believes Begleiter is making a continuation bet and wants to take him off the hand he should either move all-in – a very high-variance play but he will go to showdown and keep his equity in the hand – or raise to a smaller amount if he knows he’s not going to call Begleiter’s shove. It would save him a few million chips in the process and get the same result from Begleiter.
Of course, he could fold but where’s the fun in that, eh Darvin? The key point here is that Moon didn’t think through the repercussions of his action, which led to a painful fold in a very juicy pot.
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