Phil Ivey Folds the Best Hand in this High Stakes Poker Cash Game.

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Phil Ivey Folds the Best Hand in this High Stakes Poker Cash Game.

Thursday, November 20th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

Brad Booth makes the most of this nothing hand against one of the best high-stakes, cash-game players in the world. In a big cash game like this, the pots are seldom below $5,000.

There are tight aggressive players and loose aggressives at this table and just one slip you could be down about the cost of a new home. David Williams makes a standard open raise 1800 but is reraised by Brad Booth to 5800.Williams is more apt to be making this play, but it seems Booth had it in mind no matter what he was dealt? He’s sitting on 24s and coming out like he’s on a power pair. Maybe he’s just looking to take the pot but for this small amount when they are sitting with 100’s of 1,000’s in cash behind it just doesn’t seem worth risking any for the return. On the other hand, he knows the opponents he is up against and knows this hand is going to be make or break post flop.

He walks right into a monster though because Phil Ivey is sitting on KK or “Cowboys”. So Ivey quickly reraises to 14,000 and of course David folds out the way.

Brad Booth bravely asks Phil how much money he has left at the table, while realizing he himself is behind in the hand.Since Ivey has more than $200,000 at the table, Booth is simply calling for a huge odds situations here.Phil Ivey is one player that brad knows he can get off a big pocket pair.

The flop shows 3 of diamonds, 7 of spades and 6 of diamonds not giving much to either player.In terms of hand strength Booth is nowhere at all. Phil is first to act and he bets out 23k. Now here, Brad does a lot of thinking about what Phil ivey has and how should he play this hand.Hitting the gutshot or some lucky 4th and 5th street cards he may very well land a monster pot, but that is a wild long shot.

Instead he uses his position and stack size and comes over the top hard with a monster raise of $300,000 cash! He knows that Phil cannot call him if he has a big pp like AA or KK because Phil can put him on a small pp that just hit a set for him or even a 45s which though a radical choice is quite conceivable with these players on this level. Phil made his move, put out the chips and got his answer.Just like in the old western days, Booth is saying you are going to have to kill me to win this pot.

Phil Ivey isn’t willing to risk that, but I have a feeling Gus Hansen just might have.

Brad gives us a perfect example of using position, stack size and opponent read coupled with selective aggression in poker to win a pot he would otherwise have lost. Now this isn’t a move you can make in low stakes games as you already know some of the junk your opponents are willing to call your all in reraise with. They can’t put you on a hand and most don’t care, they only care about the hand they hold.When the competition is this tough, but also - this thoughtful - this is how you might go about it!

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