KTU analysis: When luck becomes a habit
Today KTU reviews a controversial hand played by Mustapha Kanit. Was his mega bluff the move of a genius or a luckbox?
Mustapha Kanit: Genius or luckbox?
The results are in his favour: Live tournament winnings of $4.25 million and another $4 million in online profit. On top of that, he recently was able to win the prestigious Sunday Million, the flagship tourney at PokerStars.
On a regular basis experts are baffled and confused by Mustapha's moves at the tables, though. Therefore, our coach will take a very close look at one of these controversial hands, answering the oldest question in poker: Is Kanit a genius or simply a luckbox? Take a look at the hand in question:
The hand in detail
Until the flop is dealt, the hand follows the theoretical state of play. In this spot, it's considered strong to 3-bet a depolarised range of 15% from the small blind without playing any calls before the flop. Q9s is part of the best 15% of hands.
All these hands are strong enough in order to call a small 4-bet. Therefore, Bertilsson can't really expect any folds when 4-betting and should consequently only think about which hands are still strong enough for a so-called value bet.
This should be the answer:
Now the crazy part begins. With these assumptions Kanit's move would be nothing less than suicidal.
The player on the button has an ace in 65% of the cases (marked in red) and a pair in only 35% of the cases (marked in yellow). Continuing the fight with Q9s under these premises would be a very unprofitable undertaking.
Thus, Kanit has to make very different assumptions in this spot, based on information that we simply don't have. This information has to be very precise, though. Because the more a play appears to be completely off the track, the more precise the reads have to be on your opponent to justify it.
Which reads could justify the play?
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The button plays a very unbalanced strategy, only conti-betting with TT to KK. In this case, the involved ranges would look totally different than expected. An unbalanced range like that is always the result of a play that's tailored to a specific opponent. Involved players don't try to play particularly precise in such a spot but rather try to anticipate the opponent's actions and adjust their strategy specifically to these predictions. If both players follow this "I think that you're thinking that I think that you're thinking..." approach, things can go crazy pretty quickly.
Because of the state the tourney is in, Bertilsson could just be calling with AQ and AJ while bluffing with some unexpected hands. He could just be checking the flop when hitting an ace because he assumes this could induce some moves by Kanit. In turn, he could be betting TT to KK because he wants to conclude these hands right on the flop. However, such a weak strategy from a theoretical perspective is something you would rather expect in a $15 tourney than a $25,000 High Roller.
- The second explanation is that Kanit was able to pick up some form of physical read on the flop. Maybe he noticed some frustration in his opponent when the flop was dealt, leading to him being able to put him on exactly the hands that would fold?
Of course, that question can't be answered from an objective perspective. It's definitely possible, though. Still, I don't really feel comfortable praising this hand. If it had been played online, it definitely would have been a huge mistake.
Overall, Kanit is going very far off the beaten path in this spot and that's rarely a good sign. For us there's nothing left to do but to analyse more of his hands because only when luck becomes a habit, it has to be skill.
What do you think about this hand? Do you have seen other crazy hands by Mustapha that you would like us to discuss? Let us know in the comments!
