A few weeks ago, FTR brought you the first installment of the Top 10 Hero Calls with 10 of the sickest televised hero calls ever made. Well, hero calls look amazing when they work, but it’s fair to say that most of the time they don’t. So this week, let’s take a look at the top 10 misreads when making a hero call.
10. Eli Elezra vs Lex Veldhuis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jFYFGJiUus
Perhaps it’s Lex’s reputation as a compulsive bluffer that prompted Elezra to make this call. However, it just seems that he was lost all the way throughout the hand. In the end, Gabe Kaplan sums up Eli’s thoughts pretty well.
9. Phil Ivey vs Tom Dwan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRxccHLxeXQ&t=49m33s
The actual hand starts at 49:33. The fact that Dwan’s turn raise and huge river bet got through is truly a testament to how well he is able to balance his ranges. When you get Ivey to pay off $50K with Ace high, that is a truly world class level of play. It’s also hard to judge Ivey for making this call knowing who he is up against, but in the end, it did go horribly wrong for him.
8. Phil Hellmuth vs Phil Ivey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyvaHWPY-gM
There’s an old saying in poker – “What Tow Dwan can do to Phil Ivey, Ivey can certainly do to Phil Hellmuth.” Balancing ranges is something that Ivey can do just as well as Dwan and this time it was Hellmuth who was on the receiving end of three barrels. He should really stick to collecting those WSOP bracelets and avoid sitting between Dwan and Ivey in high stakes cash games.
7. Phil Hellmuth vs Donny Stern
Another example of why Hellmuth should avoid cash games came at the PokerStars Big Game, where Phil was already having a bad day up to that point. When his flopped two pair went up in flames, Phil just couldn’t help but to pay off the river on a very ugly board (not before giving a speech about how unlucky he is, obviously). After that, the day just got worse for him.
6. Ilarie Sahamies vs David Benyamine
Norman Chad has always warned everyone about playing AQ. Apparently, David Benyamine forgot that at the Million Dollar Cash Game. It’s hard to imagine a worse way he could have played this hand and it’s even harder to imagine how Zigmund’s huge river over bet got paid off.
5. Tom Dwan vs Doyle Brunson
Dwan may be a cash game specialist, but calling Doyle Brunson’s preflop 3-bet and then calling off three barrel’s with an under pair to the board just seems wrong.
4. Tom Dwan vs Patrick Antonius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-ga8YUNRpg
If Tom’s last call seemed wrong, this call against Antonius on Poker After Dark looks even uglier. Running it twice did not get any of Dwan’s $143k back either.
3. Bertrand Grospellier vs Tom Dwan
Dwan seemed to have much more luck with people throwing chips at him on High Stakes Poker rather than on Poker After Dark. The strangest part is probably the fact that Dwan allowed Elky to choose the number of times he wanted to run the river and he chose to run it once as a 25 to 1 underdog.
2. Kresten Nielsen vs Benoit Gury
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQkAM_7r5KA
It’s not often that you get to see bad hero calls with 13 players left at an event as big as the EPT Barcelona. Not only did Benoit Gury make a bad hero call, he also managed to completely miss the Oscar-winning performance of Kresten Nielsen that screamed “strong hand” throughout the hand.
1. Jonathan Hilton vs Max Steinberg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCSxZJfLnQ4
Even though Max Steinberg is an accomplished tournament player with nearly two million in cashes, he still made one of the most horrible hero calls ever. Putting your opponent squarely on a missed straight draw and calling with Jack high doesn’t usually end well.
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