Final Table Takedown: Jay Farber Lives Every Non-Professional Poker Player’s Dream at the World Series of Poker’s Main Event Final Table

Jay Farber was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Santa Barbara, California, where he attended Santa Barbara City College and the University of California – Santa Barbara to study business administration. He now resides in Las Vegas. Farber has been playing poker recreationally since he was 14. Farber consistently worked on improving his game by playing cash games in Las Vegas, reading poker forums on the Internet, and talking about poker with his very successful professional poker network of friends. Today he mostly plays mid-to-high stakes live cash games. Farber’s full time job is as a VIP host in Las Vegas. He competed at the 2013 WSOP Europe in the no-limit hold’em main event, finishing in 34th place for €20,250. Farber took home $5,174,357 for his second-place finish in the 2013 WSOP main event in Las Vegas.

Event: 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event
Players: 6,352
Entry: $10,000
First Prize: $8,361,570
Finish: 2nd

Hand No. 1

Key Concepts: Using your image to your advantage; blind versus blind; knowing your opponent’s capabilities

Craig Tapscott: What advice had you gotten from friends who are professional players before you came into this huge final table for the championship?

Jay Farber: J.C. Tran and I had talked a lot before the final table. I really respect him as a player and as a person. We had a conversation in the car on the way to the airport in Paris about adapting and how he thought whoever adapted the fastest and the best was going to win. I tried to take that piece of advice to heart.

CT: How else did you prepare for this final table? Give as much detail as you can, because non-professionals who love poker dream about reaching this final table.

JF: I honestly didn’t prepare very much at all given the scale of the table. I talked a bit of strategy with Ben Lamb, Shaun Deeb, and a few others. We covered things like ICM (Independent Chip Model) and leverage points, but for the most part, everyone agreed that how I played got me to where I was, and trying to change that wasn’t going to help me any.

CT: Excellent. How did you think the rest of the table perceived you as a player? And how did you plan to use this against them?

JF: I’m pretty sure everyone thought I was a super nit who was just going to play for the pay jumps. I felt like people sort of expected to run me over because I’m am amateur player, which was fine by me. Everyone who made that final table was an accomplished professional, so they should feel like they have an edge over the unknown guy. I was happy to be the underdog so to speak; it’s a lot easier to play if there’s no pressure on you. I really wanted to open my game up a bit and take advantage of the fact that everyone thought I was a nit.

Tran raises to 1,400,000 from the small blind holding A Q.

CT: Any reads on Tran at this point?

JF: I figure J.C. is going to open pretty wide against me given that we’re six-handed and I’m second in chips. He knows, or at least thinks I’m very nitty, since I’ve been playing that way all tournament. But I had been playing back at him a little bit and opened up my range in general.

Farber raises to 3,100,000 from the big blind holding 6 6. Tran reraises to 6,400,000.

CT: Can you really continue now?

JF: At this point I think he’s strong, but after looking at him for a while, I figured he wasn’t at the top of his range. I was pretty confident he had a hand like pairs eights-to-tens, or A-J suited, or A-Q. I really didn’t think he had jacks plus, or A-K, but I’m pretty sure he’s planning on calling me if I shove.

Farber raises to 10,000,000.

JF: When I made it 10,000,000, it was one of the few times I think I verbalized a bet. Given the general perception of my play and the fact that I didn’t think J.C. was super strong, my almost-min five-bet looks like I have to have the absolute top of my range.
CT: So shoving was not a choice you considered?

JF: I felt like just shoving would seem a bit weaker, and I think he reraised me with the intention of calling a shove. I was pretty confident I could get him to fold most of the hands I thought were in his range. And at this point, I can’t fold if he shoves.

Tran folds. Farber wins the pot of 9,950,000.

Hand No. 2

Key Concepts: How easily momentum can swing

CT: Once you were heads up with Riess, what was your plan of attack?

JF: Once I got heads-up with the chip lead, I sort of expected to win. Being a cash-game player, the plan was to see as many flops as possible.

CT: And this hand?

JF: I think this hand was very close to a tipping point in my heads-up match with Ryan. I was pretty card dead and it definitely influenced my play later on, as well as a few hands later when I bluffed him with the 6 5. We had been going back and forth a bit, but hadn’t played any real big pots.

Farber raises to 2,000,000 from the button holding 7 4. Riess raises to 5,000,000 holding A K. Farber calls.

Flop: A 8 4 (pot: 10,300,000)

Riess bets 5,000,000.

JF: I’m not convinced Ryan has the ace here, I’m pretty sure he’s going to continuation-bet (c-bet) a flop like this a ton. I don’t think he’s going to double or triple-barrel me this early on that much, so I decided to peel one street to see if I couldn’t luck box a backdoor draw and hit a gin card.

Farber calls.

Turn: 7 (pot: 20,300,000)

CT: Great card for you.

JF: Yes. Obviously a gin card for me, as I now make two pair and Ryan can’t really think that card helps me.

Riess checks.

JF: When he checks to me, I wasn’t sure if he was giving up or giving me the chance to hang myself. There are a lot of potentially dangerous river cards for me so, I opted to go for the noose and bet…

Farber bets 8,200,000.

JF: I am betting thinking that he’s only going to call me with an ace and or a backdoor draw he picked up. When he thought about it for less than a minute, I was sure he had the ace and that I had gotten pretty lucky on the turn. But I still think he puts me on a weaker ace. I know if the river blanks out that he’s going to call a pretty sizable bet. This gives me the chance to take a pretty big chip lead. Looking back on it, I know that in heads-up play anything can happen. There’s so much variance. The best players in the world only win about 54 percent of heads-up matches. But I felt like I was chasing the chips after this hand for the rest of the match.

Riess calls.

River: A (pot: 36,700,000)

Riess bets 15,000,000. Farber folds. Reiss wins the pot of 36,700,000.

Hand No. 3

Key Concepts: Image; bluffing

JF: The big bluff I pulled on Reiss was obviously the most talked about hand of the final table.

Reiss raises to 2,500,000 from the button holding Q 7. Farber calls holding 6 5.

JF: It was a pretty standard starting situation of continuing my strategy of trying to see flops and outplay him postflop.

Flop: 7 3 3 (pot: 5,300,000)

Farber checks. Reiss bets 3,000,000. Farber calls.

Turn: 2 (pot: 11,300,000)

Farber checks. Reiss bets 5,000,000. Farber raises to 13,450,000.

CT: What’s your plan and what do you think Reiss is holding?

JF: I’m pretty much representing a three or a three with a flush draw as well, and the sole combinations of 6 5 or 5 4. Ryan is representing a seven, and I didn’t think he had A-7. I really was card dead and I felt like the only way I was going to get ahead was to make some big plays.

Reiss calls.

River: 9 (pot: 38,200,000)

Farber bets 24,500,000. Reiss folds. Farber wins the pot of 38,200,000.

JF: I wasn’t giving up on this pot. I knew he had a seven. My range is so polarized in this hand I’m representing a three or air only. I think with a weaker seven Ryan can try to find a better spot to pick off my bluff, and after this hand you could see the impact it had on him. He really wanted to catch me bluffing him again, hence his call a few hands later with only queen-high against me. ♠