Doug Polk's Bluff Against Tom Dwan's Boat (PioSolver analysis)

Introduction

Hustler Casino Live had one of the most exciting poker streams of all time with the million dollar buyin cash game involving Tom Dwan and Doug Polk. I already wrote a post about Doug Polk getting bluffed by LSG Hank. I wanted to review this hand especially because at the end, Dwan is faced with a huge river bet from Doug holding the middle full house. He tanked for a long time, which some people interpreted as a nitroll, but Dwan said he was debating calling or going all-in. I wanted to look at what the solver does holding the middle boat against a aggressive turn raise and huge river bet.

Hand Summary

Quick hand summary, with 1M effective, Doug raises to 3k from the CO with 54s of spades. Dwan 3bets 77 to 14k from the SB, Doug calls. Flop is Kd7d2s, Dwan flops middle set, neither player has a diamond but Doug has backdoor spade draw. Dwan bets 15k (half pot), Doug calls, turn Doug picks up an open ended straight draw with the 6 of hearts. Dwan bets half pot again of 30k, Doug makes a pot-sized raise to 120k, Dwan tank-calls. River pairs the board with the 6 of spades, Dwan checks, overbets 420k with 5 high, Dwan tanks with his boat and another 600k effective behind but just calls. You can watch it here.

Note On Live Reads

I think Doug did himself a disservice talking up how he was “coming to battle”. Dwan was the big winner of the night and he made almost all of his money with check-call lines. I think Doug wanted to impress fans, Wes wanted to shake the nit reputation, and both of them had reasonable hands to bluff with but also reasonable hands to slow down with with and they both went with the more aggro line and I suspect Dwan was ready for that to happen.

In this hand Wes also saw Doug’s hand and said “I like that hand” which sounds like something someone would say for a cute suited connector, not pocket Kings. Doug wants to shake the image of a try-hard pro and be a fun business guy who's good for the game but he may have paid a price to do that in this game.

Dwan is not a solver player but he's an extremely analytical players who understands how to beat "the meta" and I think he had both individual live reads in this session but also some ideas on how to adjust to the general attitudes of the players coming into this game.

The Ranges

Dwan 3bet from the SB so we are giving him a wide range with all the good hands plus lots of suited big cards, and some suited connectors some offsuit broadways.

Doug just calls in position, he was ready to battle plus standup may be on so we give him all the pairs, most suited connectors and some suited one-gappers, lots of broadway hand and some suited gappers.

I gave Doug 10% KK but I have such a hard time imagining ever flatting KK here. Of course KK ends up being a highly relevant combo later in the hand.

The Flop

On the flop Dwan is checking about half the time and betting about half the time, the smaller sizing is preferred by the solver. His sets of sevens leans towards preferring a bet as plenty of top pair and flush draws can call it, and Dwan does bet it.

Doug’s response here I found to be highly sensitive to the specific ranges and bet sizes we allow. In almost all of them, fold, call, or raise are all reasonable options (appropriate for Doug).

In my favorite configuration, he mostly just calls. Some people are really surprised by these loose flop calls. There’s two things people are missing. First, if you give up to small flop bets too easily, you can be run over since they have way too good a price to just bluff with any two cards. This is part of the reason small bets are so effective live is many players don’t know how to adjust against different bet sizes.

The other big factor to consider is that when you’re super deep, it matters less if you have a strong hand now and more if you will have a very strong hand on the river. If Doug made a sneaky backdoor straight against Dwan’s set, he could have coolered him for a massive pot.

Both the Hank vs Doug hand and the Doug vs Dwan hand have boards where there just wasn’t that much going on, it’s difficult for players to be nutted, so you want to make sure you have the nuts in various lines, especially so you can end up on the river coolering them. That’s a key aspect of deep stack play and part of the reason some flop strategies seem loose compared to 100BB.

The Turn - Doug's Decision to Bluff Raise

On the turn, Dwan is again mixing mostly bets and checks and his sevens is a that hand can go either way. The point of checking is mostly because you have a lot of one pair of Kings weak kicker, that want to get to showdown. To protect those hands from being bluffed, you check-raise some sets. Dwan decided to lead again for half pot though. The solver does size up more often but half pot is ok and the same EV.

For Doug, once again I want to emphasize this spot is highly sensitive to configuration but in the one I thought was best, his open ended is a pure call and his combo draw is a raise.

Doug already has a lot of bluffs with diamond draws. However if you only bluff with flush draws, you have no bluffs on a flush-completing river so, I originally thought his raise makes sense. But, he also needs some bluffs on diamond river when he just calls. For raising on this turn as a bluff, most of the bluffs that piosolver likes are actually turning a mid-pair 7 into a bluff with hands like 87 and 97, which do block 77 and Dwan’s good straight draws. Pio also bluffs with pair + flush draw hands (which turns out to be relevant for Dwan's river deisions).

Doug also just calls with some diamonds draw with the good price , so 54 of spades can be a river bluff after a just-call when the diamonds arrive.

Overall, I think Doug has plenty of bluffs on this turn and this was not the ideal combo choice since there were better options and it plays fine as a just-call.

A lot of subtle details can effect the mechanics of the solver’s favorite combos to bluff with. So I’m not saying was wrong to raise here. But, he has a really strong, sneaky draw and if he just calls and hits a gin straight on the river, it would be really hard for Dwan to not pay Doug off. Dwan also gave Doug good enough odds to just call. But instead of taking a good price for a river card, he bloated the pot while still a big dog. So I do think there’s better combos to bluff with and I agree with piosolver this is better as a call.

Either way, Dwan has to decide whether to slowplay and let Doug keep bluffing on river, or to raise now and price out Doug’s draws. The solver mostly just calls. My interpretation is that Dwan has a lot of bluff catchers like AA, KQ here and by calling with sets you protect your one pair hands against river bluffs. Because the solver almost never raises any hand here.

It's interesting to me that the solver never wants to protect its hands against all the draws, but I think Doug's sizing is just so big, and Dwan has so many good one pair hands and so few sets, that Dwan has a strong incentive to work the sets into the call line to protect the one pair hands from the river bluffs.

The River

Now to the fun part of the hand. Dwan has a pure check on the river with mostly bluffcatchers and some traps.

The river 6s is also a much better card for Doug’s range who is raising the 76, 77, and 66 a lot on the turn. Now given Dwan’s exact hand Doug can never have any 76s or 77 here, but I’m speaking range vs range, Dwan is pure checking. Doug has a full house on this river a whopping 21% of the time vs 10% of the time for Dwan.

Now because the solver pure calls on the turn with Doug’s 54 of spades, he doesn’t have it on the river in this configuration so we don’t know if he should bluff with it. However, having played with various configurations, every single time Doug does have this hand he pure bets river with it, mostly big sizing or all in. He has 5 high, he’s bottom of range, he matches hands like 65s, it’s close to a mandatory bluff unless you have a read on reasons not to So while I don't like the turn raise, I do think once this turn raise was put in, you have to go for it on river so credit to Doug for doing so.

Now onto the big question of Dwan’s tank. I think part of the reason people thought he might be nitrolling was Dwan’s body language became very negative, which I think was interpreted as considering a fold when really he was frustrated between deciding between a call and a raise.

I watched the hand live, and while I see the merits of a jam, it seemed like an easy just-call because Doug was so polarized with the big turn raise and big river overbet, it’s not worth jamming into quad 6s for a huge amount of money. However, in every configuration I looked at the solver pure jams so Dwan was right to think about it.

One incredibly important thing to note is that it’s extremely hard for Doug to have KK. I personally think Doug’s always 4-betting it pre. But even if you give it to him, piosolver actually never makes the turn raise with Kings in Doug's spot. Instead he slowplays it. Why? Because KK is such a strong hand and they’re so deep it’s a great hand to slowplay and try to cooler a bottom set or two pair, or try to cooler a flush with a boat. Plus you block your opponent's top pair calls.

Now if Doug did slowplay KK pre, does he fast play it on turn trying to get money in vs draws? I suppose it’s possible, but overall, Doug does not have much KK. He also doesn’t have much 66, not only is it one combo but 66 sometimes slowplays the turn as well meaning by river its less than one combo.

But of course Doug does have 22, maybe K6s, and even some plain trips that had a pair and flush draw on the turn that became trips on the river. Trips are supposed to bet for value against Dwan's one pair hands, and then sometimes call off vs a raise, otherwise Dwan can run him over with check-raise bluffs. Now, does even durrr himself have the balls to check-raise this river with a bluff at the correct frequency? If not, can Doug fold trip 6s, maybe his underboats, in which case there's mimimal value in Dwan jamming. It’s really hard to say. That’s why it’s a genuinely extremely difficult spot for Dwan and not a nitroll. Sure , a call is “safe”, but if Doug has 22 Dwan might be leaving half a million on the table by not jamming.

Final verdict: not a nitroll. Mostly well-played by both players, though Doug probably could have simplified his life by just calling turn and hoping to get there, and Dwan probably should have jammed river but it's hard to fault him for not doing so.