Short Stacked Mistakes at the WSOP Final Table

Like most of you, whenever the World Series of Poker was being broadcast on PokerGo or ESPN, I was in front of my TV. There was lots of exciting poker and many great plays, as well as some plays that were not so great. In this article, I am going to explain two mistakes that were committed late during the main event final table that resulted in one player losing over $166,000 in equity. If you diligently study situations like this, you will be better prepared to make profitable decisions when you are fortunate enough to make a deep run so you don’t spew equity all over the place.

To set the stage, the payouts when there were three players remaining at the final table were:

1st: $8,150,000
2nd: $4,700,000
3rd: $3,500,000

As you can see, the payout jumps are quite significant, which should lead the shorter stacks to avoid calling off for all or more of their chips without being a sizable favorite.

The chip stacks and positions were:

Button: Benjamin Pollak (17.9 million)
Small Blind: Daniel Ott (68 million)
Big Blind: Scott Blumstein (275 million)

In the first hand, with blinds at 1,200,000-2,400,000 with a 400,000 ante, Pollak pushed all-in from the button for 17,900,000 with J 4. Right off the bat, using the program ICMIZER, you can see that pushing this hand results in an $8,233 loss. The chart below outlines how much you win or lose with each hand in your range. Navigate to J-4 suited to see the result. Ignore the A-5 suited that is selected, as that is just the default hand for some reason. To watch me work with ICMIZER, search Jonathan Little and ICMIZER on YouTube.

After Pollak went all-in, Ott decided to call with A 2. While the math isn’t exactly as precise, due to him being nowhere near all-in, you can see that calling is a slightly losing play.

This is an interesting spot because Pollak was clearly pushing wider than he “should” which should lead Ott to call a bit wider than normal. However, given Blumstein has a giant stack in the big blind, I think Ott should actually call a bit tighter than normal because…

Blumstein pushed went all-in with K 10, resulting in Ott folding away all of his equity. Of course, Ott may flat with his entire range, meaning that he will often be able to easily call Blumstein’s all-in with hands like A-A, 8-8, and A-J, especially if he expects to frequently face a push. However, he could be using perhaps the worst strategy of pushing his best hands and calling with his marginal hands, making him easily exploitable.

In the next example, where the $166,000 blunder takes place, the stacks and positions were:

Button: Benjamin Pollak (35 million)
Small Blind: Daniel Ott (46 million)
Big Blind: Scott Blumstein (279 million)

With the same 1,200,000-2,400,000 with a 400,000 ante blinds, Pollak went all-in with Q 10, another error:

Ott then went all-in with K-9, the $166,000 mistake:

The reason calling is so bad in this situation is because despite looking like a decent hand, K-9 fares quite poorly against any reasonable pushing range. Also notice how Pollak is pushing for 14.5 big blinds, which means that he simply must have something decent. Even if Pollak turned his Q-10 face-up, K-9 is not thrilled to call.
After the two all-ins, Blumstein woke up with A-Q and gave it some serious thought before calling. As you can see, calling two all-ins with A-Q is barely profitable (which means that if he thinks he can find better spots in the future, he should likely fold):

Final table math is difficult, but if you spend a lot of time away from the table studying it, you will get a better handle on when you should be pushing, calling, or folding. In general, when you have about 13 big blinds or fewer, you can push with a somewhat wide range when the action folds to you, but if calling an all-in requires a decent amount of your chips, you need a sizable edge to justify calling. This often results in calling ranges that are much tighter than many amateurs expect.

As a side note, if the players put some sort of value in winning the WSOP main event (as opposed to the pure monetary value), then perhaps the somewhat loose calls were not so bad. For example, if in your mind third place and first place pay exactly the same because you view third place money as essentially infinite, then you are essentially playing to win because there is no difference in prize money between first and third. If you adjust the settings on IZMIZER to a winner take all setting, you will see that calling with the K-9 becomes much more reasonable (but still a losing play). That said, most of us play poker to win money. If you find yourself thinking “I am playing to win the tournament” and you then act on that thought under all circumstances, you might as well light your money on fire. ♠

Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT champion with more than $6 million in tournament winnings. Each week, he posts an educational blog and podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com, where you can get a FREE poker training video that details five things you must master if you want to win at tournament poker. You can also sign up for his FREE Excelling at No Limit Hold’em webinars at HoldemBook.com/signup.