Poker Strategy -- Dwan Discusses Poker After Dark Hands

Last week, NBC began airing the Poker After Dark season-ending cash games, and viewers everywhere were stunned by the lineup, the gambling, and the high-stakes poker action. On Saturday, a special Director’s Cut episode aired which recapped the week’s action and also provided player insight on a few of the biggest hands.

With Tom Dwan’s propensity to play a tonof hands, he found himself in a number of interesting situations, and he discusses a couple of the big ones.

The Lineup:

Seat 1: Patrik Antonius
Seat 2: Daniel Negreanu
Seat 3: Gus Hansen
Seat 4: Phil Ivey
Seat 5: Tom Dwan
Seat 6: Phil Hellmuth

Review of Hand No. 1:

The Game:

Stakes: $200-$400 with a $100 ante
Game: No-limit hold’em

Preflop Action: Hansen raises to $1,800 with A 9. Dwan calles on the button with 5 3. Hellmuth calls from the small blind with K Q. Antonius reraises to $9,400 with A K. Hansen folds, and Dwan calls. Hellmuth also folds. The pot is now $22,600.

Tom Dwan: I looked down at 5 3, and I was definitely going to play my hand. Most of the time, I’d choose to call with that deep of stacks, and sometimes I reraise. That time I called. [After Antonius reraised] I didn’t really want to fold my hand for less than $8,000 more with stacks of $250,000, because I can win a big pot, I have position, and I just felt like it was a profitable call, so I called.

Flop Action: The flop comes 10 7 7. Antonius bets $16,000. Dwan raises to $43,300. Antonius folds, and Dwan wins the pot of $38,600.

TD: With my raise size here, it’s going to be just about the same with all of my hands. It’s something around $44,000, so I made it $43,300, because I think Patrik knows my game well enough to know that I have good hands here a lot. I also have air, but it’s a very tough spot for him to continue if he doesn’t have a pair. And even if he does, he can’t be too happy with the situation, as when I’m raising I either have kings or better or I have some draw or some complete air hand, so if he looks down at two jacks, he can’t be too happy. He probably would call, but he can’t be very happy about it. I have position the rest of the hand. I might choose to fire more, depending on the cards that come, what kind of hand I think Patrik has, and all that. So, I felt like it was a good spot to put in a raise and hope just to take down the pot a lot of the time. Patrik folded, and I made a nice little profit from a bluff.

***During play, Negreanu, Antonius, Ivey, Hansen, and Dwan decided to “flip” for $100,000. All players put the money into the pot blind and were dealt cards normally. The player with the best hand at showdown after the river was the winner. Antonius won and was up $400,000, while the others were stuck $100,000. All of the players except Antonius decided to flip again for $100,000. This time, Hansen won, leaving Negreanu, Dwan, and Ivey down $200,000.

Review of Hand No. 2:

The Game:

Stakes: $300-$600 with a $100 ante
Game: No-limit hold’em

Preflop Action: Ivey raises on the button with 6 4 to $2,500. Dwan calls with 7 6 from the small blind, and Hellmuth calls with K Q from the big blind. The pot is now $8,100.

TD: Reraising wasn’t that much of an option, because Phil Hellmuth was a little bit tilted and had a stack of about $50,000, which was just the perfect stack to shove over a reraise. He’s going to be doing it with a good range, so I don’t think it’s a good time to reraise with 7 high.

Flop Action: The flop comes Q Q 8. Dwan bets $5,700. Hellmuth raises to $13,700. Dwan calls. The pot is now $35,500.

TD: I have a flush draw and 7 high, so it seems like a good spot to bet to try and take down the pot. If not, I have a chance of hitting a hand. Hellmuth made it $8,000 more. It was a really scary raise. I feel like he has a queen a lot of the time when he makes that raise size, but it’s still relatively cheap to see the turn for such a large pot, and I figured I had a large number of outs. Also, if he has complete air, he might check behind on the turn and give up, and then I could bluff some rivers.

Turn Action: The turn is the A. The board now reads Q Q 8 A. Dwan checks, and Hellmuth checks. The pot is still $35,500.

I thought about open-shoving and just going all in, because I would do that with a J-9 with a jack of diamonds kind of hand, and I wouldn’t have minded the play at all. I definitely would have been called with the hand Phil ended up having, but I decided to play it a little bit trickier, so I checked, and Phil checked behind.

River Action: The river was the 2. The board now reads Q Q 8 A 2. Dwan checks, and Hellmuth goes all in for $30,700. Dwan calls. Hellmuth wins the pot of $96,900.

TD: Basically, he had to have either Q-2, 2-2, or the king of diamonds plus a diamond or a queen in his hand. I’d assume A-K would reraise preflop, Q-2 would usually fold preflop, and 2-2 probably wouldn’t raise the flop, and I just don’t see him playing any other hand this way and value-raising the river. So, I decided to call, and he flipped over K-Q with the king of diamonds, and I felt really dumb.

I guess I just don’t see him taking this line with that many hands for value. For all I know, he might never be doing it as a bluff, so my call might be totally terrible, but I don’t think there are that many hands he can get to the river with that are shoving for value. Maybe he’s never bluffing, maybe he’s bluffing a lot. I’m not really sure, but I just decided to pay it off, because I don’t think he can have a hand to value-shove there that often. It might be that he’s almost never going to shove after I check, and he’s only going to do it with his good hands, but I think it’s more likely that he’s going to do it with bluffs a decent amount and with his good hands every time also. Unfortunately, this time he had me beat, and I kind of regret the decision. I’m not sure.

The six players redrew for seats and continued cash-game action this week on Poker After Dark. The episodes have been airing weeknights at 2:05 a.m. on NBC and there will be another Director’s Cut episode this Saturday night at 1 a.m.

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