Discussion Hand 2 - "Multi-Million Dollar Laydown" Arieh v Murphy 2004
Background
We have 16 players remaining in the WSOP 2004 Main Event. On the feature table John Murphy is about to put Josh Arieh to a huge decision. Arieh, by this stage, had already forged a successful poker career, including a 1999 Limit Holdem bracelet and several WPT and WSOP final table appearances. Murphy is a WSOP rookie who has played fearlessly all tournament. Notably, he overslept the previous day when one of the chipleaders, and his vacation in the Land of Nod cost him $160k if you convert chips to dollars.
At present Murphy has 1.8m in chips, placing him 4th. The Atlantan Arieh has almost 3 million and is in 2nd, some way behind Greg Raymer. Blinds are 20k/40k with a 5k ante. Murphy is in the cutoff, Arieh is on the button.
Pre-Flop - Murphy perspective
The action is folded round to Murphy in the cutoff who looks down at pocket 2s. There is 100k in the pot already, so Murphy is entitled to raise here with many cards, and the pocket pair makes this play even more valid. He raises to 80k however, just double the big blind. This is a mistake in my opinion as few flops will look good with his holding, so I would be tempted to make it 4 times the blind, due to the 40k in antes in the middle. Otherwise the blinds are getting huge odds to call here.
Pre-Flop - Arieh perspective
Arieh is clearly not entralled with his hand - . He does have position on Murphy, but with the two blinds to act after him this is a marginal call at best. Poor decision in my opinion, but Arieh makes the call. Both blinds fold.
Flop - 6c 2h Jh
Post-Flop - Murphy perspective
Bingo. Murphy didn’t want a call but now he has flopped a set. Some players would check here, but perhaps slightly concerned about the 2 hearts on the board, Murphy elects to lead for 150k. This is a good bet - he has taken away the flush draw odds if Arieh holds the hearts, and has disguised his set by betting strong. If Arieh has a hand like AJ for example, he might come over the top here and Murphy would be in a great position.
Post-Flop - Arieh perspective
So we are playing K4 suited and have flopped 2 of our suit. We couldn’t really have wanted much more here. However, Arieh gets caught up in the moment and does not think the odds through. Murphy’s bet has given Arieh about 2.2-1 on the pot, and Arieh needs 2.8-1 to justify a call with the certainty of seeing two more cards. Add to the fact Murphy is likely to fire again on the turn and he can’t really justify it. The only reasoning which could be offered is that he has implied odds if he hits the heart on the turn, and because both players are deep-stacked, this could be significant. However, balance this with the fact Arieh is not even drawing to the nut flush and this argument struggles to hold water.
Turn - Qd
Post-Turn - Murphy perspective
A good card for Murphy. The heart hasn’t arrived, and unless he faces the nightmare of set over set, he is good. He bets 300k, c.60% pot, which again seems sensible with one more card to come.
Post-Turn - Arieh perspective
A brick for Arieh. Unless he thinks that King high is good, he needs to determine the pot odds again to fish for another heart. The pot is offering him 2.6-1. His odds of hitting the heart are only about 18% and, even then, he can’t know that this will be good anyway. So this is mathematically another bad call from Arieh, unless he plans to take it away on the river with an elaborate bluff.
Action River - Qh
Post-River - Murphy perspective
On the face of it this is a great result. The 2nd Queen completes the full house. Not only that, it completes a flush draw and also an AQ/KQ type hand if Arieh had put Murphy on a bluffing continuation bet on the flop, both of which Murphy can beat. If Arieh has set over set Murphy was destined to go bust anyway, and the only other hand which he loses to which makes sense with the betting is QJ. (Preflop call in late position, calling with top pair, flat calling with top 2 pair).
He has to assume he is ahead here - Arieh has played this hand pretty passively, so he could easily be hunting for the flush and now he has it. The question is - what to bet? The pot stands at 1.16m, Murphy has 1.34m, Arieh has about 2.5m. I’d keep the betting consistent with the rest of the hand here and bet about 600k. This will get called if Arieh has the flush - if Arieh goes over the top then it’s a tricky decision, but would be very hard to fold.
Murphy decides to overbet push. It’s not a bad play if he puts Arieh on a strong flush - the overbet clearly looks weaker than the smaller bet - but with so much money on the line, and with a call making such a huge difference to Arieh’s tournament standing, I feel that this bet lets him get away. Still a good pot for Murphy, but I can’t help feel he could have got more here.
The other alternative, the check, would have been too risky in terms of lack of payoff if Arieh had a hand like a weak flush.
Post-River - Arieh perspective
The final card looks great but the paired board will immediately strike caution into a player of Arieh’s calibre. Fortunately he has position on Murphy so can assess his options. Murphy stuns him by going all in for 1.3m and it’s now a huge dilemna. If he calls and loses he drops from 2.5m (after the money gone into this pot) to a little over a million. If he folds here he is still comfortably in second place, but if he calls and loses he is down to about 10th so it’s a massive decision.
He has to ask questions - “what has Murphy been betting with?” and more importantly “what am I beating?” Clearly he is worried about the house with the paired board, but also the nut flush as well. It’s extremely unlikely Murphy would do this with just a queen in his hand due to the flushing board (i.e. he’d only get called if behind). When Arieh pieces it together I think he believes the only thing he can beat which would induce a river bet like this is a stone cold bluff.
Arieh has seen Murphy show down strong hands before, and decides it’s not worth the chip stack hammering which would occur if he has got this one wrong. A great fold, but understandable in the circumstances.
Jimbo’s Summary
This hand has gone down in the annals of poker history as one of the greatest folds ever. However, when the hand is picked apart, Arieh, until the “wonder fold”, plays it pretty badly on every street. Murphy’s overbet on the river is risky given the strength of his hand and unfortunately doesn’t come off. It would probably have worked against a shorter stacked opponent - we must bear in mind Arieh wasn’t pot comitted in this hand.
A vital fold for Arieh - as he went on to finish 3rd behind David Williams and Greg Raymer for his biggest career payday. Link below: