WSOP Hand Review: Did Vanessa Selbst make a mistake vs Ryan Fee?
We review a controversial hand from Vanessa Selbt's victory in the $25,000 Mixed Max event.
Last week Vanessa Selbst won her third WSOP bracelet in the $25,000 Mixed Max event. The event itself featured a little bit of controversy when her final opponent, Jason Mo, took to Twitter to proclaim she was 'so bad' after she eliminated Ryan Fee in 7th place.
This is the hand in question. It took place during her first Heads-Up match in the final phase of the Mixed Max event.
Is this a super standard 4-bet bluff, or was it a mistake? Should she have put Fee on a stronger hand because of the fact that he didn't just shove with his relatively short stack, and instead made a small 3-bet, which could be perceived as an attempt to induce a shove?
Chip counts are estimations based on how the hand was reported at the time.
Never bluffing - Fitzinator18
If Fee had around 28bbs, he probably has some range that's 3-betting light. But against a 20bb stack, most 3-bets are 3-bet shoves he actually had more like 18bb. So I think his small 3-betting range is weighted pretty heavily towards value. too heavily to make a 4-bet shove light profitable. |
Personally vs a 20bb stack heads-up I don't think they're 3-bet/folding often at all, if ever. So I think it's a pretty standard fold or flat. I would probably be okay with flatting with the intentions on getting it in on boards where we flop decent equity, but I'd prefer to have 98s for that.
Fitzinator18
It depends on the dynamics - Asaban
Personally I don't think the 4-bet is always a bad play. If Vanessa thinks she has some fold equity it is a decent enough spot. Even if she is called she has a solid equity against her opponents range, even having live cards most of the time. Since she is way ahead in chips she can take some risks as well. The fact, that her opponent didn't push shouldn't be a key argument, because it's not very uncommon in heads-up games. Especially in matches between high level opponents fold equity can not be excluded. It is obvious that you would not want to play a hand like this all the time. Especially in low and mid stakes tournaments a straight forward game would be beneficial. |
It's very hard to say anything really. The dynamics in a heads-up match can be very important when analysing such a spot. In addition we know nothing about Vanessa's history with Ryan.What do you think?
Do you think this bluff by Selbst was spewey? Or under the right conditions was it perfectly fine? Let us know in the comments box.
