Final Table Takedown -- Harrison Gimbel

Harrison Gimbel, 19, started playing poker in home games in 2003 after being inspired by Chris Moneymaker’s fairy-tale World Series of Poker main-event win. Gimbel graduated from high school in 2009 and attended the University of Alabama. After only two weeks at school, he caught what the doctors believe to have been the swine flu, and he missed classes for a week. During this downtime, he decided to play poker professionally online. Last year, he won an event at the Isle Casino in Florida for $67,800. He has cashed for more than $800,000 in online tournaments, and recently banked $57,300 for second place in a PokerStars $1,000 Monday no-limit hold’em event. He qualified for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event in a $1,000 satellite the day before the tournament began.

Event: 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure
Players in the Event: 1,529
Buy-in: $10,000
First Prize: $2,200,000
Finish: First

Hand No. 1
Stacks: Harrison Gimbel – 8,000,000; Barry Shulman – 7,200,000; Aage Ravn – 5,000,000; Benjamin Zamani – 1,400,000
Blinds: 60,000-120,000
Antes: 15,000
Players at the Table: 6

Hand No. 1
Key Concepts: Paying attention to each player’s interest in the pot; knowing an opponent’s tendencies

Craig Tapscott: Set the stage for us. Going to this final table, what was your basic strategy to start the day?

Harrison Gimbel: I didn’t really have a strategy going to the final table. I was fourth of eight players in chips, with about an average stack. There were two short stacks at the table, so it seemed like everyone was waiting for those two players to bust out.

CT: In this hand, the table is down to six players. What’s your read on the players in the hand, since you’ve played with most of them for several days?

HG: Barry Shulman is pretty aggressive overall, and doesn’t seem to be afraid to play a lot of pots. Ben Zamani has a very unique style that seems to work for him. He plays in a very unorthodox way compared to your typical player, and I knew that from playing with him online. He minimum-bets a lot, and bets small on the flop. He also limps periodically from any position and can be very tricky. I hadn’t played too much with Ravn in the past. The only hand I played with him was when we were down to three tables, but I knew from watching his game that he had the potential to reshove pretty light.
Shulman raises to 300,000 from under the gun. Zamani shoves all in for 1,385,000. Ravn shoves for 4,985,000 from the small blind.

HG: I looked down at the J J in the big blind. The first thing I did was to look over at Barry Shulman, and he looked completely uninterested in his hand. So, I was pretty sure that he would fold.

CT: Can you actually consider playing this hand after all of the action ahead of you?

HG: Well, Ravn took a few minutes to get a count on Zamani. Ravn has reshoved light in the past, and I don’t believe he would tank-shove Q-Q+ and A-K, so I can take them out of his range. I believe that if he had those hands, he would have gotten it in quicker. Given Ravn’s range being a lot wider than J-J, I felt like it was a good spot to pick up a lot of chips.

Gimbel moves all in from the big blind. Shulman folds. Zamani flips over the 8♠ 8♥, and Ravn reveals the A Q.

Flop: 8 7 5 (pot: 11,745,000)
Turn: 2 (pot: 11,745,000)
River: 6 (pot: 11,745,000)

Zamani wins the main pot of 4,545,000. Gimbel wins the side pot of 7,200,000.

HG: I’d like to talk in a little more depth about what I think the keys to this hand were. I think one of the major keys to this hand was that Barry Shulman seemed uninterested in the hand once Zamani and Ravn shoved. Knowing this, I can confidently discount him from calling. The other key concept in this hand is that Ravn took a while deliberating about what he should do once Zamani shoved over Barry. Normally, Ravn was a pretty quick player. I believe that he gets it in much quicker with Q-Q+ and A-K than he did, knowing his playing style. He wasn’t the type of player to Hollywood with a big hand. With the awareness of Shulman folding and Ravn not having a huge hand, I was very confident about getting my stack in.

Hand No. 2
Stacks: Harrison Gimbel – 24,650,000; Ty Reiman – 16,650,000
Blinds: 120,000-240,000
Antes: 20,000
Players at the Table: 2

Key Concepts: Metagame; knowing what hand you’re representing to an opponent
Reiman raises to 520,000 from the button. Gimbel calls with the A 4.

CT: So, what are the heads-up dynamics between the two of you at this point?

HG: In our heads-up match, he would three-bet me more often than I would three-bet him. I would flat-call a lot of Ty’s button raises, and he would flat-call a lot, too. Going into heads-up play, Ty had 28 million and I had 17 million. However, I was able to take the chip lead. This was one of the first big hands we played after I took the chip lead.

Flop: 6 5 4 (pot: 1,080,000)
Gimbel checks. Reiman bets 630,000. Gimbel calls.

HG: My thinking is that Ty will give up a lot of turns and just check it down, so my pair of fours may be good. I can also win this pot with a check-raise at some point. I also have the A, so I know that he can’t have the nut draw.

Turn: 10 (pot: 2,340,000)
Gimbel checks. Reiman bets 1,800,000. Gimbel calls.

HG: I decide to see if I can take it away from him on the river after I check-call in this spot.

CT: Please explain this in a bit more detail. This doesn’t seem to be a very profitable play unless you have an insane metagame soul read on Reiman.

HG: If I were to play this hand over again, I would fold the turn. My thinking at the time was that if a good card came on the river, I would be able to check-raise all in, and he would have to fold a lot of his pairs, two pair, and some straights. If the river was a blank, I was done with the hand and wasn’t going to put any more chips in the pot.

River: 7 (pot: 5,940,000)
Gimbel checks.

HG: The river card is a perfect-looking heart. I check again, fully planning on check-shoving this river. I think I’ve represented a flush draw a lot by flat-calling the flop and turn.

Reiman bets 4,200,000. Gimbel moves all in. Reiman folds. Gimbel wins the pot of 10,140,000.

HG: He folded 8-7 offsuit faceup — he had flopped the straight — and I won a nice pot, which gave me a big chip lead. This hand gave me all of the momentum in the match, and I ultimately took it down.