Interesting situation on 2+2 regarding Mason Malmuth, the 2+2 (online) Magazine, and limit holdem.
First, read this article by Mason Malmuth in the November 2017 "2+2 Magazine" (an online publication), where he discusses a $20/$40 Limit Holdem hand he played: https://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/...talk-about.php
The title of the article was, "Hand to Talk About".
You can read it yourself in the link above.
It is unclear if the hand took place recently or a long time ago, as Mason has played limit holdem for decades.
You may not be very familiar with limit holdem, so perhaps the strategy discussed there isn't very meaningful to you.
However, as a longtime winning limit holdem player, I can confidently state that I disagree with most of Mason's play and analysis. While I think the hand was indeed discussion-worthy, I don't like the conclusions derived from it, nor do I feel he played the hand correctly.
I will state that he did approach part of the hand with the correct concept -- to play in a fashion to force out opponents with an overpair to the board, rather than attempt to extract more money from them. However, there were several mistakes made in the way he played this hand (in my opinion, of course).
This was just brought to my attention yesterday. Weeks ago, discussion of this hand came up on 2+2's Medium-High Stakes Limit Holdem forum, and just about everyone disagreed with Mason's play and analysis, including some longtime winning limit holdem players on the site.
One of them, John_Locke (not sure of his real-life identity), was temporarily banned after a heated debate with Mason, where Mason felt that John had twisted his words in order to intentionally make him look bad. John is now back on the site.
I won't get involved in the banning drama, since it doesn't really involve me, but I will discuss the limit holdem hand.
In the hand under discussion, Mason was dealt TT in the SB, and a multiway pot was limped to him. He chose just to complete, rather than raise, with the belief that he didn't want to pump up the pot pre-flop just to get crushed immediately on the flop against many players. He decided to just limp and see what happens, but conceded that a raise there is also correct. Then an overaggressive player in the BB raised anyway, and Mason chose to just call.
This was incorrect on two fronts.
First, TT is a very strong hand, and it is almost surely the best one when the pot is limped around to you. Since you cannot charge your opponents much compared to the pot postflop, it is important to raise preflop whenever you feel you have the best hand, except in rare cases where it's for deception purposes (such as flatting AA from the BB against one opponent). Raising TT from the SB is super-standard here, and even Mason concedes that it's not incorrect.
But then he was given a gift -- an aggromonkey in the BB popped it up anyway. Now Mason had the opportunity to make everyone behind his TT pay THREE bets, but oddly he chose to just call.
The flop, incidentally, came a favorable 644.
After not raising at any point pre, the standard play is to check-raise this flop. However, Mason bet out, and the aggromonkey in the BB raised him. Everyone else folded.
Now, there actually is a good reason to fire out the flop if you believe the BB will raise, and that's to clear out anyone who might want to chase at that point. In limit holdem, people will chase the flop for 1 bet with lots of speculative hands, but they will typically fold when faced with 2 bets. At this point, the pot is big enough to where you just want to get opponents out and win with your TT. That was Mason's reasoning for his play.
However, the problem with betting out is that your opponent in the BB isn't guaranteed to raise, so that's why you're still better off check-raising, unless he's such a maniac to where you know he's auto-raising your donk-bet on the flop.
So everyone else folded, and it was back to Mason. Did he 3-bet? For reasons unknown, he did not.
A queen hit the turn. At this point, Mason fired out again, and the BB just called.
Mason stated that he didn't want to check-raise and give a free card, and at the same time, would be happy with a fold if he were to bet and not get called, given the vulnerability of his TT to overcards. That reasoning is correct.
However, the problem here is that Mason could have done the exact same thing by 3-betting the flop and then firing any non-ace turn, yet derived one more small bet from it.
River came 9. No straight or flush possible. Mason checked, hoping to induce a bluff. Indeed, the BB bluff-bet at him, Mason called, the BB showed KJ for king high, and Mason scooped the nice pot.
This worked out perfectly, but in reality the river play was also incorrect. Most players, including over-aggro ones, will check-back any ace or king high at this point, given the way they play went down. At the same time, they will almost surely call with any ace or king high, given the pot size. Therefore, checking only induces bluffs from J high or worse, and that's much less likely than this overaggro fellow holding K high/A high/worse pair. In this case, the guy did bluff with KJ high, but that doesn't happen too often nowadays, whereas a call from KJ high is very common.
Of course, the above is all my opinion. However, almost all winning players in the ensuing discussion thread agreed that Mason did not play this hand correctly.
This hand actually is discussion-worthy, because it shows how even longtime players like Mason might play it vastly differently than you'd expect, and it touches upon various important modern limit holdem concepts:
1) Pounding it with the best hand. This is important in limit holdem, as it's a game of value-betting, not a game of trapping. If you feel you have the best hand preflop, then it's important to make everyone put money in while behind. The one exception would be a hand like 77 in a multiway pot where you're in the SB or BB. You may be ahead, but there's such a high chance that you will be outflopped that it's reasonable to just complete. However, TT is strong enough to where it will still be the best hand on many flops.
2) Pounding it out of position on the flop when you think you have the best hand, including against overaggro players. This is especially true because overaggro players won't give you credit on the flop, assuming you would wait til the turn to check-raise a strong hand, so they will give you more action.
3) Wanting people to fold when you have a good but vulnerable hand. This is different than NL, where you are happy to get action from inferior hands. In limit holdem, you can't bet big enough to price people out in many cases, so using an overaggro player to force others out is actually smart -- but only if you know he's so aggressive that he will indeed raise your unusual donk bet on the flop. In this case, Mason did not describe the payer as a maniac (just loose-aggro), so I would not have donk bet that flop, even though Mason's thinking regarding getting other players out was correct.
4) Value betting even when an overcard hits against one opponent. You will lose too much value if you don't do this, and you will end up a net loser in limit holdem.
5) Betting for value on the river against a likely A high or K high hand, and only attempting to induce a bluff from what you believe to be a non-showdownable hand. So if you think your opponent has K high or better, you're far better value betting than attempting to make him bluff.
I am not as hard on Mason here as others, as I do understand his thinking. He tried to use an over-aggro player to clear out a multiway field postflop, and it worked. Many limit holdem players don't think of that. I have done this before myself, but again, this only works with a maniac to your left, not just a loose-aggro guy. But okay... since you gain a lot from the aggro guy raising, perhaps this was worth a shot. I wouldn't do it, but I can see the merit in that play.
However, I feel that he did mess up the rest of the hand pretty badly,. Not raising preflop was a mistake. Not 3-betting preflop was a mistake. Not 3-betting postflop was a mistake. Attempting to get a river bluff from a hand likely to call a value bet (but often check back) was a mistake.
If anyone cares, here are the relevant posts on 2+2 where the arguing took place: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/5...9/index54.html
Start reading from post #1344, and go from there.
Here's another thread where a poster named dead..money got banned for discussing the same thing: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/5...about-1694503/
Mason claims in another thread that john_locke and dead..money are the same person, which is probably true.
BTW, I am not posting this to bash or insult Mason. I think the hand itself (and the ensuing controversy) are interesting, and felt it was worth reporting out here.
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Originally Posted by Jayjami
