Hand 2 Hand Combat - Arnaud Mattern Catches Unabomber Bluff

Arnaud Mattern: 10♥ 10♦
Phil Laak: A♣ K♣
Board: 5♥ 4♥ 2x 9♣ 6♠ (If you really need a suit for the two just make it a spade to be safe)

Event: WPT Festa al Lago 2010
Buy-in: $10,000 + $300
Entrants: 335
First Prize: $831,500

Chip Counts:
Arnaud Mattern: 53,025
Phil Laak: 49,025
Kyle Bowker: 70,000

Arnaud Mattern: An interesting hand occurred at the World Poker Tour Festa al Lago main event this year.
Rebecca McAdam: What were the blinds when it occurred?
AM: 200-400 with a 25 ante.
RM: Ok so what happened?
AM: Phil Laak raises under the gun to 1,025, and is called by Kyle Bowker (a very strong thinking player, third place finisher at European Poker Tour London in 2010). I call on the cut-off with a pair of red tens, and the blinds fold.
Flop: 5-4-2 with two hearts.
Pot: 3,900.
Laak bets 3,000, Bowker folds, Mattern calls.
Turn: 9♣
Pot: 9,900
AM: Laak bets 12,000. It’s a weird overbet, so I call.
RM: What do you think he has at this point?
AM: It doesn’t make a lot of sense. I know it was probably something like… recently I’ve seen a few players make over-bets because of Isildur1, it got quite popular, but I don’t think they do over-bets for the right reasons, and I think this pot was probably not a good spot to do it. The thing is it’s also very difficult to put him on a hand with an over-bet like this, because even if he had a set I don’t see why he would try to overprotect his hand, and he wouldn’t try to over-bet the pot also with, for instance, an overpair because if he gets action, he’s probably almost drawing dead. I thought he might do it with a draw but that would be a bad play also because he would get pretty bad odds if I raise him or if I shove. Betting a small double barrel on this one, with a draw, could be good, or a check-raise could be good, but over-betting is not great.
RM: Did you think that he definitely didn’t have anything?
AM: Yes, most of the time it’s going to be something like a complete bluff.
River: 6♠
Pot: 33,900
AM: The river completes the straight (any 3 makes a straight). And now, Laak shoves all in for 33,000. It’s like 80 big blinds, a pretty huge bet. I have 37,000. If I call and lose, my tournament is screwed. Nevertheless, his line is not very coherent. He doesn’t represent anything. A high pocket pair (A-A, K-K, Q-Q) would probably not bet the three consecutive streets, if you consider the connected and scary board texture. A set would be strangely played too. Two pairs? It doesn’t make sense, not only from his preflop under the gun range, but from his post-flop betting action too.
If he really had a 3 in his hand, why would he over-bet the turn? And why wouldn’t he try to get some value and make it an affordable amount for me to call on the river? Something is wrong with the whole story, so I decide to call the all-in shove with my tens, which are merely a bluff catcher. Laak turns over A♣ K for a complete bluff, and I finish the day among the chip leaders.
RM: Have you played with him much before? Would you know how he plays?
AM: I know he’s very erratic. He has a very unorthodox style and many people from the online community have sometimes trouble understanding his betting patterns. I’ve also seen a lot of footage from some cash games he’s been playing in Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker and I know he’s a little bit scared-money sometimes, he’s going to pot-control a lot, and he’s never going to value-bet thin. I’ve seen some hands, like one against Patrik Antonius where he has aces and he decides to check behind on the river. I think it was a very, very clear value bet here and he decided to check down, which means it’s not the same style as say, Phil Ivey or Durrrr, they’re going to value bet very thin and very aggressively, and sometimes they’re going to value bet with the worst hands, rarely, but sometimes it can happen.
Phil Laak, I know, is much more conservative. When he shoved the river, I know he’s not going to shove with an overpair, maybe not with two pair like 5-4 or something. I know he wouldn’t do this on a 6 river, it doesn’t make sense. Maybe a guy like Isildur1 or Dwan is going to triple barrel like this with a set of fives or a set of fours but Phil Laak is just not the type of guy who is going to do this.
Actually I did play a hand a little bit similar to this when I flopped a set against Daniel Negreanu at EPT London, just on the bubble. I bet three-quarters the pot on the flop, I bet four-fifths of the pot on the turn, and the river comes with a four-card straight, but I know he never has a 5 in his range (because he needs a 5 to make a straight), and I make a pretty strong bet, like 75 percent of the pot, because it’s the bubble and he might put me on a bluff, and he called. So I had the set and won the hand. He had top pair. But the thing is Phil Laak is not the type of player who is going to be capable of making a very thin value bet. So, it didn’t make a lot of sense.
RM: Do you think that this might have been an okay move if it was against someone else, or do you think it just looks like a bluff no matter what?
AM: I think that’s what it looks like from the outside. I’m not a big hero caller. I don’t make hero calls that often. The situation has to be perfect, especially if it’s for my tournament life, so I have to know the player a little bit, and the story he is telling me with the betting pattern on the different streets has to be really, really bad for me to call. I’m usually not very often going to make a hero call if all the details are not going the right way. In this one, everything was like, “Yeah, it has to be a stone-cold bluff, but let’s see what else it could be!”
RM: Do you think he just felt he had to keep representing?
AM: Maybe. The whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense. When you make an elaborated bluff, especially against someone who is going to be able to read your hand, it’s very important to represent a big range. Like, for example, if I raise and you call and the flop comes Q-8-6 with two hearts, and I bet and you call, and an ace shows up on the turn. I put in a second barrel and you call, and now there’s the 3c, and I shove all in. I could have A-A, K-K, Q-Q, 8-8, 6-6, A-Q, A-K, etc., so it’s a coherent bluff as you represent a lot of possible hands.
RM: So, it was an easy hero call against Laak?
AM: Yeah! Because I don’t make really tough hero calls. If for example the board runs 6♠ 7♠ 8♠ 9♠ K♥, if someone shoves all in, the only hand he’s representing is the 10♠ which is the nut straight flush — it’s only one hand. So, usually those bluffs aren’t very good because the guy knows that it’s very rare you have the 10♠ in your hand.
So if the board is paired or there is a flush out there and high cards, and the board didn’t change consecutively on different streets, and you keep betting, then this is much more believable than if it’s just a connected board, and the guy bets, and then bets the turn which is a complete brick, and now the river makes a four-card straight. He bets again, an overbet, I mean, it’s just not right. It’s not representing anything basically.

Team PokerStars Pro member Arnaud Mattern is well-known and well-liked on the international circuit. This is largely because he is at every single European Poker Tour event there is, in the hopes of becoming the first player ever to hold two EPT titles. He came painfully close to achieving this feat last year when he finished fifth at the EPT Polish Open for €72,724, and then an excruciating third in EPT Tallinn for €160,000. Despite his near-misses he maintains a positive attitude which goes hand-in-hand with a long list of very positive results. ♠