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#524 – London 2008 #31 – Million Dollar Cash Game – Trials of Tom Dwan
It’s just before 9 PM here but I wanted to tell you about some of the hands between 8 and 8:30 that give you a real flavor of what’s going on here.
Eli Elezra raised with J-J and Mike Matusow flat-called with A-T. Tom Dwan, in the big blind with 8-5o, tried a squeeze play, reraising.
Not sure if Tom knew his customer here. Eli plays, as far as I’ve heard, a pretty open style and doesn’t give up hands easily. Of course, with J-J, no one’s going anyplace. [I should say ALMOST, because I heard that earlier, Dwan three-bet with Q-Q and Ivey four-bet with J-9 ... and Tom folded.]
Eli reraised and Tom quickly folded.
On the next hand, Dwan raised with A-Q and David Benyamine called with 3-3. They both checked the flop of T-K-8 and on the turn. [Sorry, missed the turn card - it was low.] Dwan made a straight with a jack on the river but, of course, Benjamine folded to his bet at this not-very-big-anyway pot.
On the next hand, David Benyamine straddled for 2,400 and Tom, under the gun, raised with J-8o. Chris Ferguson had queens and reraised. Benyamine, the straddler, woke up with Ah-Th and called. Dwan, probably figuring he was priced in, called in a pretty bad spot. There’s a chance that Chris flat-called and David re-raised and then tom called, but I think I got it right. Anyway, there was $80,000 in the pot before the flop, which was 7c-2d-2s.
David Benyamine led out and bet $38,000. Tom, of course, folded, and Chris did what Chris does. Very deliberately, with no emotion and almost no movement … thought it over … and made it $125,000. David pretended to agonize before folding.
Here’s my theory about Tom’s struggles so far, which mirror the problems Brian Townsend had last year. I think it’s easy for an internet player to be thrown off by the pace of the game. And I don’t mean that the way you probably think I do. I don’t mean that Tom needs to play a bunch of hands an hour. But I think by playing a bunch of hands an hour, he develops and incredibly fine sense of how his opponents play based on betting patterns. It’s just my theory but his instinct for when to make a move, when to value bet a marginal hand, when to throw away a good hand is remarkably good because his brain picks up and synthesizes all the information from all those hands played in fast succession. In five hours here, these guys don’t play the hands he sees in one hour online. Even playing against the same opponents, maybe there’s a chance that this source of his edge over even great players isn’t really there. Because several of these guys are also internet studs, they’re probably the same way, but they’ve played a lot live so they also have the experience to pick up patterns in that fashion. Tom, on the other hand, is relatively new to that part of the game. And maybe he could kick my ass in a live game, it’s hard to argue that guys like Phil Ivey and Eli Elezra haven’t picked up some things live that Tom Dwan’s still learning.
Maybe I’m completely wrong about this. I’m certainly not saying that Dwan’s helpless here. But the same moves that work online – maybe even against the same opponents – have seemed ill-timed today. I think his timing is a little off.
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