Is a PFA Radio anecdote corroboration of a leak in Druff's NL tourney game?

[MumblesBadly]

I recently listened to Druff's anecdote of losing his car at Bally's in the 6/5/14 PFA Radio arCHive episode, and when he revealed that when he found his car one floor up from the range he expected it to be within, I was struck by how this surprise was similar to being surprised by the Asian guy having QQ in his recent WSOP Main Event bust-out hand. In both cases, he had too narrow a range of possibilities when contemplating a course of action under pressure. Were there flukes in his behavior, or evidence of an undiagnosed pattern in his analytical approach to uncertainty that results in a leak in his NL game?

Here is a link to the PFA Radio episode:
http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sho...-Island-Breeze

Here is the link to the forum post discussing the potential mistake in analysis during the bust-out hand in thia year's WSOP Main Event:
http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sho...l=1#post453158

Also, Druff may have made a similar mistake (although he *sensed* it was a mistake but acted anyway) in the crippling 2nd to last hand in the very disappointing 2013 Main Event when he was short-stack trapped by another short stack with AA. Here is a link to the thread on that hand:
http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sho...urnament-Poker

Please know that I being this up to spur discussion of this matter so that if it is seems reasonable, Druff is motivated to might take steps to address it and practice plugging that leak in preparation for next year's WSOP NL games.

[ShadyJ]

You tried but even if QQ was in the guys range it doesnt make it a fold. Thats pretty basic thinking. Are we going back 10 years and putting him on that specific hand?

[Dan Druff]

The bustout hand in 2013 was a mistake.

The one from this year was not. The QQ was a very unexpected hand, and there were too many hands behind my AT for me to fold that flop. Had the guy shown down 78, hearts, or JT/QT/KT, I would have been patted on the back for my great read.

[thesparten]

our skills are so underappreciated druff. I know what u mean...

[MumblesBadly]

Let me provide more detailed analysis to illustrate my point.

Per Druff's remarks about what he likely faced, here is a likely breakdown of the villain's hands, with counts and the probability Druff wins if calling the shove.

Because Duff described this villain as 'fairly tight', I'll assume the villain pre-flop folded the unsuited "trouble cards", as well as unsuited connectors, and very low connectors (43).

Hand - Count ... pr(Druff wins)

Superior hands:
66 or 55 - 6 ... 5%
65 suited not h - 3 ... 29%

Top pair/weaker kicker hands:
KT-JT and T9 suited not h - 12 ... 88%

Top pair/weaker kicker flush draw hands
KTh-JTh and T9h - 4 ... Avg 59%

No-pair straight & flush draw
87h - 1 ... 52%
98h - 1 ... 57%

No-pair open-ended straight draw
87 suited not h - 3 ... 67%

No-pair flush draw
KQh, KJh, QJh - 3 ... 51%

Lastly, any AT other than Druffs:
AT not AhTd, no Tc - 6 ... 52%

Per the weighted average probabilities for this hand range, Druff wins about 56% of the time.

But what if we ALSO consider that the villain slow played AA-TT to trap the short-stacked big blind? Here are the additional hands:

Hand - Count ... pr(Druff wins)
AA - 3 .. 12%
KK, QQ, JJ - 18 ... 24%
TT - 1 ... 4%

With this extended range, Druff's win rate drops to 44%.

But what if we assume the villain would smooth call with a draw to lure the big blind to come along for the ride? In this case, the villain's shove isn't consistent with the villain having these drawing hands. This drop's Druff's win rate to 41%.

And lastly, what if the villain would have only called the flop with a non-Ace kicker pair of tens to see what Druff does on the turn? Now, Druff's win rate facing a shove by the villain is only 24%.

If these alternative hand ranges are legitimate possibilities, Druff's original guestimate that he had the equivalent of an overpair seems to be based on a much too specific range of villain hands. Just like how he too specifically assumed his car was on floors 3 through 6 at Bally's.

Granted, this doesn't mean that calling the shove wasn't optimal -- it still could have been given the need to get chips and avoid too short a stack. But Druff didn't seem to consider how the villain trapping him OR also playing to bring in the big blind while on a draw, nor if the villain didn't want to overcommit on the flop, would have affected his probability of winning facing the villain's shove. Because 44%, 41%, nor 24% aren't "equivalent to an overpair in this spot."

Again, I bring this up to challenge Druff to consider how he might have a leak in his NL tourney game by putting villains on too narrow of a range of hands in these kinds of multiway short-stack spots. And I hope this analysis brought some light on that possibility.

[Dan Druff]

I think you are missing that the lack of 3-bet of an overpair pre was very unusual here. This wasn't someone flatting an UTG raise with QQ because he was scared, or someone smooth calling from the BB with QQ because he wanted to deceive a single late position opponent.

This was a guy in late position against a middle position raiser and a flatter to his immediate right. It is very nonstandard to "trap" with a high pair in that spot, aside from maybe AA (which still doesn't happen too often).

I was down to 21k after my flop bet. The average was about 60k. I needed chips. I wouldn't have called off a big stack with this AT, but 21k when I needed chips, yes I felt it was right to call off because there were so many hands I was leading, and not that many likely holdings way ahead of me.

That's the bottom line.

[MumblesBadly]

I think you are missing that the lack of 3-bet of an overpair pre was very unusual here. This wasn't someone flatting an UTG raise with QQ because he was scared, or someone smooth calling from the BB with QQ because he wanted to deceive a single late position opponent.

This was a guy in late position against a middle position raiser and a flatter to his immediate right. *It is very nonstandard to "trap" with a high pair in that spot, aside from maybe AA (which still doesn't happen too often).

I was down to 21k after my flop bet. *The average was about 60k. *I needed chips. *I wouldn't have called off a big stack with this AT, but 21k when I needed chips, yes I felt it was right to call off because there were so many hands I was leading, and not that many likely holdings way ahead of me.

That's the bottom line.

I didn't miss this, but I don't think button flatting in this particular case was so unexpected. Meaning, if you had mentally stepped aside from putting so much confidence on the button making a "...standard" play here, you reasonable would have seen how the situation wasn't so standard. In fact, it was a bit oppotunistic for the button:

(1) The BB was short stacked and might shove with many inferior hands, which would allow the button to trap against most of the BB's hands, and...

(2) the pre-flop raiser was semi-short stacked and had recently doubled-up the short stack BB, and might spew some chips by firing at the pot with air, or even overcommit to a raise on the flop with much weaker hand than his QQ.

And while it was a small mistake for Asian to smooth with QQ pre-flop, as long as he would have disciplined to not challenge scare cards on the flop (A or K), he had the potential to score a big pot if his opponent (you) made a bigger mistake post-flop. AND Asian had a large enough stack to take that risk pre-flop.

Related to this matter, I think that you made a mistake in your THINKING by not materially altering your expectaction of Asian's pre-flop play AFTER seeing him shove on you. In terms of Bayesian probabilities, you didn't alter you expectations of his pre-flop play even though you had information (his shove) that was consistent with him making a "nonstandard" pre-flop limp with a monster pair.

And this pattern of thinking (failing to Bayesian update expectations) is consistent with how when you reacted to not finding your car on floors 3-6 after walking around and checking those floors. Meaning, when you didn't find your car on those floors, you failed to reconsider that you had parked on the 7th floor until much later and after much frustration. And because you also thought that you had parked close to the elevator, how much effort would it have been to take the elevator to the 7th floor to check out the possibility that you had parked on, to paraphrase, a "nonstandard" floor?

But don't feel bad. Overconfidence in one's beliefs is a well-known cognitive bias that humans exhibit. Especially confident smart ones.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect

Again, I am not saying that calling the shove necessarily was a mistake. I am trying to call attention to how you reasonably should not have surprised by Asian having QQ, and how your surprise is consistent with you being overconfident about how to analyze tricky spots like that in NL.*

Perhaps nonstandard pre-flop play is much more costly in Limit tourneys, so it is much more reasonable to expect opponents to not make nonstandard plays pre-flop in that game. *But NL provides a number of opportunities for non-standard pre-flop play to be very profitably for disciplined and observant players. And perhaps Asian was one of them.

To close, I wouldn't have pressed this matter if in your original post you had said something like "After thinking of why Asian might have made slowplayed a big pair against me pre-flop, I guestimated that I was about a 40% favorite against his range. But given pot odds, and how my stack would be if I folded (M of about 10), I felt it was positive EV overall to call and risk get bounced." But instead, you expressed shock at seeing his overpair, and couldn't see why he would do that. And I think that such thinking will only get you so far in NL tourneys.