Poker Strategy -- Jose Luis Velador Knocks Out Phil IveyVelador Talks About the Hand that Propelled Him To His Second Career Bracelet |
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Jose Luis Velador entered the final day of event no. 33 ($2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Omaha) with the chip lead and a good shot a winning his second career bracelet. The only thing standing in his way was a superstar field of notables such as Kevin MacPhee, Josh Tieman, Burt Boutin, Rob Hollink, Victor Ramdin, David Chiu and Phil Ivey.
Ivey was making a run up the leader board when Velador found himself in a fortuitous situation, wondering how to extract the most value out of a flopped full house. Thanks to some table talk and a curious Ivey, Velador picked up a crucial pot and knocked out his biggest threat at the table. Velador went on to defeat the rest of his competition and claim his second bracelet along with a $260,517 first-place prize.
In this interview, Velador takes us through the hand that sent Ivey to the rail.
| Event – Blinds | Pot-Limit HA | 4,000-8,000 |
| Players | Jose Luis Velador | Phil Ivey |
| Chip Count | 349,000 | 325,000 |
| Hand | J J 10 9 |
A A 8 2 |
The Hand
Jose Luis Velador raised to 18,000 and Phil Ivey reraised to 66,000 behind him. The action folded back around to Velador who decided to make the call.
The flop came down J 4 4
and Velador checked to Ivey. Ivey continuation bet 80,000, leaving himself with 179,000 behind. After about a minute of thought, Velador check-raised all in for 283,000, putting Ivey to the test for the rest of his stack.
Ivey went into the tank for several minutes, coming up occasionally to ask Velador questions. “I guess you could have aces too, right?”
After a few more minutes, Velador told Ivey that he’d show his hand, no matter what Ivey decided. A few moments later, Ivey made the call and turned over A A 8 2 for the overpair. Velador immediately rolled over his J J 10 9 for jacks full of fours, leaving Ivey drawing to two outs.
The turn and river fell 7 K and Ivey was eliminated. Velador boosted his stack to 686,000 in chips.
The Interview
Julio Rodriguez: You raised just over double the big blind. Was that the standard at the time or were you seeing more pot-sized raises?
Jose Luis Velador: It was my standard preflop raise for those limits. I had double-suited jacks with some straight cards, so my hand definitely had a lot of value. I considered reraising him preflop, but the chances that he is raising me with aces are so high that I just wanted to take a flop. With his stack size, I knew that he’d have trouble getting away from a big hand if the flop hit me right since he’d have to continuation bet almost 100 percent of the time.
JR: It seemed like an all or nothing flop making it pretty tough to get much value out of your hand.
JLV: That’s the problem. The flop is so dry that when he bets, he is either way ahead or way behind. There are no draws and I’m not going to get that crazy with queens or kings in my hand. I either have jacks full, some kind of four in my hand or I’m completely bluffing.
JR: What was going through your mind when he bet the flop? Did you consider a smaller raise or perhaps just flat calling?
JLV: When he continuation bets there, it’s my job to convince him that I’m trying to move him off of aces, since he knows that I know what he has. At that point, the whole table knows what he has. I thought about just min-raising him, but I think that would have made it easier for him to fold since it screams strength. So I decided that the best chance to get more chips was to put him all in and put him to the test.
JR: He made a comment about you possibly having the other two aces. What did you think of that analysis?
JLV: It’s possible, yes. But I don’t think that I would play aces in that way. I think that if I had aces, I would have just repotted preflop and tried to get all of the money in there. So for both of us to have the same hand is unlikely, but I guess I can see that maybe he thought I was getting tricky.
JR: Once you knew his hand, what were you doing to try and get a call?
JLV: Well, I definitely did my best to look nervous. When he mentioned that I could have aces too, I told him that if that was the case, the best he could hope for was a chop. I thought that’s what someone who wanted a fold would say.
JR: You also told him that you’d show him the hand no matter what he decided to do. Was that an example of some table talk to get him to call?
JLV: I like Phil and I was being genuine when I said that. No matter what his decision was, I was going to show him the hand. I had shown him other hands as well. I showed him A K when he was beat earlier in the day and I showed down some other strong hands to the rest of the table as well. I hadn’t shown him a single bluff the entire tournament. I guess when I said that, it made him more curious. Eventually he decided that I was bluffing, or maybe chopping with him and he made the call.
JR: I know you were hoping for the call, but were you surprised when he actually did it?
JLV: I was very surprised. The guy still had plenty of chips behind had he folded. He wasn’t in the heads-up tournament anymore, so I know he wasn’t in a big hurry to get somewhere else. I think he just made a mistake and saw something that was not there. I can see how a bad player or a beginner could make that mistake, but for Phil, that’s usually an easy fold.
JR: Did you see a lot of players getting married to aces in pot-limit Omaha throughout the tournament?
JLV: No matter how much you are told not to overplay aces in pot-limit Omaha, there are still going to be players who do it. It this type of tournament, where there are going to be a lot of no-limit hold’em specialists, you are going to see a lot of guys get married to their aces. I’m just surprised that it happened to Phil at such a crucial point of the tournament.
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