Thursday, April 17, 2008

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Benyamine and ICallSoWhat coin-flip for $169,000

As long as I have outs…

By Martin Östman

David Benyamine played the leading role in many huge pots at Full Tilt yesterday. PokerListings takes a deeper look at one hand he was involved in.

But first, let's investigate the nature of Omaha and compare it with Texas Hold'em.

In Hold'em, two pair on the flop is usually a straightforward hand to play unless the board consists of three suited/consecutive cards. There aren't many situations where you can possibly lay it down. If your opponent has an unfortunate set, it's just bad luck.

In Omaha, on the other hand, two pair is one of the toughest hands to play. If the pot is raised, re-raised, and you push all-in on the flop, one of the two following situations is likely to occur.

1. Your opponent has a draw, and depending on the strength of it, you'll be somewhere between 10% ahead and a slight underdog.
2. Your opponent has a set and you're a big underdog.

Consequently, you rarely want to push all-in on the flop with a bare two pair - at least when the stacks are deep and you know that your opponent wouldn't risk his stack with a speculative holding.

But in Omaha, you can have additional outs to your two pair, which makes the hand a lot more valuable. The closer to the nut draw your extra outs are, the better your hand becomes. And even if your opponent has a better draw, your hand might block a few of his outs, which improves the chance of the two pair holding up.

This is exactly what happened in a hand between ICallSoWhat and David Benyamine at Full Tilt yesterday.

On the flop, ICallSoWhat held top two plus a flush draw and David Benyamine had only king-high, combined, however, with a truckload of outs. And since Benyamine had the better flush draw, he was actually ahead when the money went in.

Full Tilt Poker Game #6059198672 TABLE : Eginton (six-max) $200/$400 - Pot-Limit Omaha Hi - Wed Apr 16 2008 - 3:26pm (ET)

Table Setup

Seat 2: ICallSoWhat ($84,396.50)
Seat 6: David Benyamine ($129,168)
David Benyamine posts the small blind of $200
ICallSoWhat posts the big blind of $400
The button is in seat #6

Pre-flop

David Benyamine raises to $1,200
ICallSoWhat calls $800

Flop A 3 T

ICallSoWhat checks
David Benyamine bets $1,200
ICallSoWhat raises to $4,800
David Benyamine raises to $16,800
ICallSoWhat raises to $52,800
David Benyamine raises to $127,968, and is all-in
ICallSoWhat calls $30,396.50, and is all-in
David Benyamine shows Q 9 K J
ICallSoWhat shows 9 A T 7
Uncalled bet of $44,771.50 returned to David Benyamine

Turn A 3 T 5

River A 3 T 5 3

David Benyamine shows a pair of threes
ICallSoWhat shows two pair, aces and tens
ICallSoWhat wins the pot ($168,792.50) with two pair, aces and tens

Summary

Total pot $168,793 | Rake $0.50
Board: A 3 T 5 3
Seat 2: ICallSoWhat (big blind) showed 9 A T 7 and won ($168,792.50) with two pair, aces and tens
Seat 6: David Benyamine (small blind) showed Q 9 K J and lost with a pair of threes

For more big hands from this session, and more of the biggest pots won over the last day, week, month and year, jump to the MarketPulse section.

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