A Play You Wouldn't Make

NAPT Mohegan Sun is over for me. The $25,000 bounty shootout started today but I skipped that for a little R&R in New York City. The $5,000 Main Event finished last night with a lesbian (Vanessa Selbst) battling a strip club owner (Mike Beasley) heads-up for the title. Selbst won. Never underestimate the power of the V.

There were some curious hands played during the course of the tournament. One that particularly stands out is Phil Ivey's elimination hand. It occurred late on Day 3, when 29 players remained out of the 716 starters.

Ivey's stack had been all over the place during the day but after a series of damaging hands he was one of the shortest stacks in the room. He had 115k with blinds at 6k/12k/1k, giving him fewer than 10 BBs and an M of 4.42. Most players in that spot would only make one move if they decided to play a hand. They would raise all in.

Ivey is not "most players". He limped into the pot from under the gun for 12k with, we would later discover, Kh-10h. The remaining specifics of the hand aren't important. What puzzled me was this limp, from one of the worst positions at the table, with a marginal hand and a very short stack. What could Ivey have been hoping to accomplish?

I ran through some theories. I considered the fact that with a short stack and the blinds coming, Ivey may have been unwilling to throw away even a medium strength hand like Kh-10h. But Kh-10h is not the type of hand to shove from early position with seven people yet to act.

The under-the-gun limp looks very strong. When you add the Ivey Intimidation Factor and the fact that Ivey appeared committed to the hand if anyone else re-raised, is it possible that nobody else at the table would raise without a very solid holding? That would allow Ivey to limp with a hand that he otherwise might not be able to limp with. If the raise comes, he can fold and preserve his stack at 8.5 BBs. If it doesn't, he at least has a shot at hitting a flop and doubling.

So far that's the most plausible theory I've come up with. There are plenty of others. He might simply have gotten frisky; he might have made a mistake; he might have been operating at a level beyond which my poker comprehension can reach, planning some play or some line that would never even occur to me.

One of the perqs of tournament coverage is that there's almost always something that makes me stop and think about "the game". I'll be noodling on this one for quite a while.