The Shark Tank

The discussion of the hand where Darus busted on 2+2 is putting me on serious tilt.  Our hero was on the Button and the action folded around to Scott Montgomery who raised on the CO to 1.5 million.  The blinds and antes are worth another million and Darus has a stack of 8.5 million (or about 16 big blinds).

There are several important factors at work here and the least of them is the actua hand that Darus holds.  One is that 16 BBs is a perfect resteal shove size.  He can not call 1.5 million here (like 18% of his stack) and no raise is reasonable other than all-in.  So we can start with the understanding that he is in push/fold territory here.

The next factor is to assess Scott’s opening range.  In the opinion of our group, Scott would open a very wide collection of hands here.  I would guess it was nearly 40% of his hands and I’d bet anything it is more than 20% of his hands.  This is a huge factor in favor of a resteal.  In fact, with Chino gone I’d say that Scott was by far the loosest opener at the table.  With Darus on the button, Scott assumes that even if he gets called by the blinds, he can play with position.  His range might be wider than 40%, in fact.

The final factor is what image Darus has and accordingly, what range Scott will call a push with.  I’m going to guess that Scott will call somewhere in the neighborhood of TT+/AQ+.  Darus is the tightest player at the table and Darus has yet to resteal shove once against Scott.  He has to give this move tremendous respect.  This means he will call with a bit less than 5% or so of his hands.  If the 20% open range is right, he will fold to the shove 75% of the time.  If the 40% open range is right, he will fold 88% of his hands.

Given the huge fold equity and the chance to add 2.5 million to his stack of 8.5 million, Darus should really be shoving something very close to any two cards here.  As it turns out, he found A8 and shoved it.  In truth, he would much rather have JTs here since it holds up sp much better when he is called, but he can’t be choosy in this spot.

In my mind, it was a perfectly standard play and the exact right thing for a player with his image to do here.  Most of the time, Scott folds, you never see the hand and you assume Darus had some huge hand and his image is unscathed and he can return to waiting for the next spot.  It was a perfect example of where a guy like Darus gets to use his nitty image — it just didn’t work out this time.

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