Strategy Snapshot: Suck-Out at the Deathmatch

With the bulk of online action happening in the Omaha games, we turn to a past hand for this strategy snapshot. This hand is from the fifth-biggest pot of the year so far; in it, Phil Ivey turns the screws on seda1 yet again.

(Hand history and stats from PL.com MarketPulse Biggest Pots section.)

Players: Phil Ivey and seda1

Game: Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em, Cash, Full Tilt Poker

Situation: $500/$1,000 blinds

Stack Sizes: Phil Ivey $378,944; seda1 $127,496

The Setup

Phil Ivey raises to $3,000 from the button/small blind. seda1 makes the call out of the big blind. The flop comes down 3 J 3.

seda1 checks and Ivey bets $4,000 on the flop. seda1 check-raises him to $18,000. Ivey elects to smooth-call and see a turn.

The turn brings the 5; seda1 bets $42,000, and Ivey goes all-in. seda1 makes the call for his last $64,496 and turns up A 2, which is trailing Ivey's 5 7. The river brings the 6 and seda1 gets shipped the $254,993 pot.

The Breakdown

Ivey opens the hand up with a raise on the button with 5 7. A suited one-gap is a great hand to make a button raise with heads-up. seda1 elects to smooth-call with his A 2. A more aggressive player would almost certainly reraise, but true to form in his battles with Ivey, seda1 is playing passively.

The flop, 3 J 3, brings flush draws for both players. Holding the smaller draw, Ivey c-bets two-thirds of the pot: $4,000 into $6,000. seda1 now comes alive and check-raises with his nut flush draw to $18,000. Ivey decides to flat-call and see a turn.

The turn is the 5. seda1 continues his aggression with a bet of $42,000. Still with the nut flush draw as well as an overcard, and after check-raising the last street, seda1 feels that this bet will likely take down the pot for him.

Much to his chagrin Ivey now shoves all-in. Ivey has a pair and a flush draw, which is normally a big hand.

However in this case it's actually much weaker. Usually it's a big hand on the flop because it can hit two pair, trips or the flush. Thus it has lots of equity in the pot.

But on this board it is already paired. So any jack already has two pair, making Ivey's second pair a moot point if he were to hit it.

Ivey: You have a flush draw again, don't you?

This leads me to believe that he reads seda1 for the flush draw. After playing with seda1 for a week online he must know that seda would not raise a jack or a three here... meaning the only logical hand he could have is a flush draw.

With Ivey also holding a flush draw and now a pair as well, he has the best hand and seda1 is less likely to hit his flush. It is with this in mind, I believe, that Ivey shoves all-in.

seda1 now has to call $64,496 to win a $254,993 pot. Getting 4-1 odds, he feels priced in to the call, and thus makes it. Luckily for him the river brings the 6 and he is bailed out and wins a quarter-of-a-million-dollar pot.

This goes to show that even the best players in the world both suck out and get sucked out on just like anyone else. (Take that lesson to heart, kiddies.)

It also shows that you should never be consistent with your play. Throughout the week seda1 never check-raised the flop with a made hand, so when he check-raised in this hand, it made it obvious to Ivey that he didn't hold a 3 or a J, which made the turn decision easier for the Tiger Woods of Poker.

So remember kids - vary your play. Not all your opponents are going to be mouth-breathing droolers. Some might actually pick up that you always raise your button or that you never raise out of the blinds.

Once you've finished digesting these nuggets of poker wisdom, you can see the full hand history, as well as other high-stakes pots between the two, in the PokerListings.com MarketPulse section. Track all the latest high-stakes action and see the Top 10 list of biggest pots online over the last day, week and month.

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