Strategy Snapshot: Dwan durrrrowned by River

Published by: Daniel Skolovy

Posted In: The Poker Reporter Blog, Strategy Snapshots

Today's snapshot comes to us from another six-max session on every railbird's favorite table, RailHeaven.

It involves two online poker giants - Hac "trex313" Dang and Tom "durrrr" Dwan - and an unfortunate cold deck.

Game: $500/$1,000 No-Limit Hold'em, Full Tilt Poker, RailHeaven

Players:

Hac "trex313" Dang - $257,491

Tom "durrrr" Dwan - $380,562

Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond- $239,137

Patatino - $504,735

regista8 - $354,554

The Setup

Hac "trex313" Dang raises to $3,500 from under the gun and OMGClayAiken folds. durrrr makes the call on the button and Patatino and regista8 make the call from the blinds.

They take a flop four ways of 5 J 9. The two blinds check and Hac bets $11,200. durrrr once again just smooth-calls on the button, and the blinds fold.

Heads-up to a 2 turn. Hac checks and durrrr bets $24,600. Hac makes the call and the river comes Q. Hac checks and durrrr overbet-ships all-in; Hac makes the call of $218,191.

When the cards are flipped durrrr has J J for a set of jacks, but is no match for Hac's rivered bigger set with the Q Q.

Thanks to a fortuitous river card Hac's set of queens are good in the $521,979 pot.

Hac Dang has stacks of cash too. But he calls them "pillows."

The Breakdown

Hac makes an easy raise under the gun in a six-max game with his Q Q. It's then folded to durrrr, who elects to smooth-call on the button with J J.

It's plays like this that make durrrr such a tough player. He can literally have any hand at any time. He calls in a spot where he would normally three-bet in order to keep his range balanced and to keep his opponents guessing.

Both the blinds make the call with unknown hands. Likely they were drawn into the already-growing pot with random suited connectors or pocket pairs.

The flop comes 5 J 9 and the two blinds check. Hac bets $11,200 with his overpair, an obvious value play. He would like to get value from any worse pairs that want to peel this flop.

durrrr, however, is lurking in the weeds with his disguised flopped top set. He elects to flat-call because the board is drier than a Brit's sense of humor.

The blinds now fold and the turn comes 2. Hac decides to check.

Now it should be noted that Hac and durrrr are pretty good friends and have played with each other a great deal. They know each other's games better than most people know their own. He may have decided to check here to allow durrrr to bet had he been floating.

durrrr, of course, was not floating, and bets $24,600 with his top set for value.

Hac makes the call because well, it's durrrr and he could have everything from his pocket jacks to a hand like 7 3 that was looking to float. Hac has an overpair and if they play this hand a hundred times with durrrr's cards changing each time, he would be ahead a huge percentage of the time.

The river comes the Q and Hac checks with his freshly minted three of a kind. Hac checks because he knows durrrr ... he knows that if durrrr had nothing on the turn, he is perfectly capable of betting that nothing again on the river.

Me again? Doesn't anyone else play nosebleeds?

He's also aware that durrrr loves to make thin value bets and often doesn't like to check through on rivers. He knows that any bet durrrr can make, he can come over the top of him.

Hac senses that if durrrr was bluffing, then he is likely going to fold if he bets. Thus, he chooses to go for a check-raise so that durrrr can bet the entirety of his range.

durrrr, however, is at the tip-top of his range with a set of jacks and overbet-shoves all-in ... again showing why he is such a difficult player to play against.

His overbets can mean either the nuts or nothing. His range is always so balanced he always leaves his opponents guessing.

This bet, of course, is for value. durrrr hopes to get paid off by any sort of top pair, overpair, or two pair type hand.

Unlucky for him, Hac Dang just two-outered him, and makes an easy call with his top set.

This is just another example of a hand that was played extremely well given the circumstances and the players' history with each other, but which was ultimately decided by who ran the best in the one hand.

Unfortunately for durrrr, that player was Hac this time around, so trex313 finds himself e-stacking up the $521,979 pot.

To see more pots from RailHeaven, or more of the Top 100 biggest pots online over the last day, week, month and year, jump to the PokerListings.com MarketPulse Biggest Pots section.

To rail any of the action and take advantage of PL.com's exclusive $10k new-depositor freeroll, hit up Full Tilt Poker here.

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