In No Limit Hold’em, a big fold can often be more gratifying than winning a massive pot. Just ask Galen Hall.
With a first-place prize of $2.3 million on the line at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event last month, Hall made a mind-boggling laydown against Chris “Gettin Daize” Oliver that kept him in the tournament and allowed him to come back and win the score of a lifetime. Had he called Oliver’s all-in during that crucial moment during heads-up play, the title would have slipped through his fingertips.
Hall sat down with Poker News Daily and discussed the fold that both Daniel Negreanu and David Williams called one of the best they’d ever seen.
Hand Setup
Chris Oliver – 33.5 million chips
Galen Hall – 13 million chips
Blinds are 100K/200K with a 20K ante
Poker News Daily: First, talk a little bit about the dynamics of this table. It was being aired live on ESPN2, so viewers were able to witness the action in real-time. Were the bright lights and cameras affecting your play at all?
Galen Hall: Not really. I was nervous for maybe one orbit and then after that it was just poker. Since I didn’t have a phone, I didn’t realize that hundreds of my friends and family were watching at home at various viewing parties and were really into it, so that didn’t affect me at all. I just figured a couple of people might watch and most would get bored and turn it off within an hour or so.
PND: You’ve said that you had played quite a bit with Chris Oliver online in the past. He was showing no mercy at this final table and eliminating players left and right. How did you plan to combat his reckless style once you got heads-up?
Galen Hall: He didn’t really play that aggressively heads-up. He was folding some buttons and, for the first hour or two, wasn’t three-betting me at all. He flipped a switch midway through the match and started three-betting and four-betting a ton and it was pretty apparent that he wasn’t going to fold to any of my four-bets, so I just started opening a little less wide and decided to only four-bet for value knowing that he would get it in super light against me whenever that happened.
He also wasn’t getting out of line that much post-flop all day, so we were actually playing a pretty tame post-flop game compared to some matches I’ve played online.
Cards are dealt: Galen Hall raises the button to 450K with [8c][4h]. Chris Oliver calls with [Ad][2s].
PND: You open in position. Standard stuff. But he’d been three-betting freely throughout this final table. Were you intending to put in a four-bet here?
Galen Hall: No, I would just fold and move on if he three-bet. I wasn’t going to be four-betting light at this point since I knew it was going to get five-bet a lot and I would have to fold. Also, if my memory serves correctly, he hadn’t been three-betting that much at this point in the match.
PND: What do you think his calling range is out of position?
Galen Hall: Pretty much anything that looked like a playable hand. I felt like he was going to call 30% to 40% of hands here, but opening the button is still profitable.
Flop: [5d][3d][2c]. Oliver checks. Hall bets 575K. Oliver calls.
PND: You flopped a straight draw and started building a pot. What do you think he’s check-calling with and what’s your plan on the turn?
Galen Hall: Pretty standard flop. When he check-calls, most of his range consists of one-pair hands, of which there are tons of different combos. He can also check-call with a four or a gutter like 6-7 or 6-8 here. He’s also going to have weak ace-highs like A-6/A-9 or like K-5/K-9.
I feel like he check-raises a flush draw almost 100%, so I discounted that pretty hard. He might have like 6-6 or 7-7, but I feel like he check-raises those as well and any higher pairs three-bet pre-flop.
Turn: [2h]. (Board is [5d][3d][2c][2h]). Both players check.
PND: Explain your thought process up to this point. Why check the turn?
Galen Hall: Pretty terrible card to double-barrel. It doesn’t change the board at all and doesn’t hit my range much, if at all. So, he is still going to call with all of his one-pair hands, it’s going to give him trips some reasonable percentage of the time, and also he can put me in a tough spot by check-raising here with these stack sizes.
Betting here would be pretty bad. I am pretty much going to check back 8-4 here 100% of the time to realize my equity. I’ve got an open-ender and I think that the 8 is going to be good a huge percentage of the time here too if I hit it.
River: As. (Board is [5d][3d][2c][2h][As]). Oliver now has Twos full of Aces, and Hall has a five-high straight.
Oliver checks. Hall bets 2 million.
Galen Hall: A lot of people value bet like 1.1 million here and have to call off a raise to 3 to 4 million, but I chose to bet full pot for two reasons. First, it’s a much better value bet because I think his calling range is pretty inelastic. If he has an ace, he’s calling no matter what and definitely has a lot of aces in his range. Also, knowing Chris, he’s probably going to call all of his pairs for 2 million just as quickly as 1.1 million, so might as well get max value.
The second reason that 2 million is better is that it really polarizes his check-raising range. If I bet 1.1 million, he might put me on an ace or a four a lot and choose to raise to 4 to 5 million with all of his fours, his 4-6, and boats, which is a range that crushes me, but that I might be forced to call for frequent chops.
Oliver check-raises all-in, having Hall’s remaining 10 million chips covered.
PND: This has to make you sick to your stomach. Talk about his line and what was running through your mind after he shoved.
Galen Hall: At the time, I thought I might be able to chop with some of his value, but after thinking about it for a couple of minutes, I basically knew I was dead to almost all of his value range. The next thing I thought about was that since I was so polarized here, it’s just absolutely unnecessary to overbet jam 10 million more into this pot to blow me off of bluffs or marginal value that I was turning into a bluff.
If he had any equity, he would just call and if he had like 7-high but thought I was bluffing, all he’d really have to do to blow me off of it is make it 4 to 6 million. Jamming is just so unnecessary and risky because I still might call with a boat or something. Chris is aggressive, but at this point he actually hadn’t “turned it on” yet and wasn’t playing super out of line or crazy, so that pushed me even further towards a fold.
Boats, and especially A-2, make a lot of sense. Flat pre-flop, check-call flop, check turn intending to check-raise or hoping I pick up a pair or something to value bet, and then checking turn because he knows I am going to bet river a lot since it’s a good spot to bluff and also it really often gives me equity by either pairing an ace or hitting my straight.
So, while the absolute value of my hand, a straight against a hyper-aggressive player heads-up, makes it pretty tough to fold, it basically boiled down to the fact that his jam had to be for value and that my hand couldn’t beat any of his value, so I have to sigh and fold.
PND: Is he ever bluffing in this spot?
Galen Hall: I doubt he ever has a busted flush draw for reasons I outlined earlier. I’m so polarized that he is never turning weak pairs – like K-3 or K-5 – into a bluff since he can just call those and beat my bluffs anyway. The only hands he might be bluffing with are 6-7 or 6-8 or something where he missed his gutter/pair draw, but he thinks I am bluffing, but he can’t beat my bluffs, so he has to raise to get me off of them. But, there are just so few hands that he bluffs with, and if he does bluff, he almost never uses this size.
Hall folds, and now trails Oliver almost 4-1 in chips.
PND: Obviously knowing what you know now, it was a brilliant fold. Is this a fold you could have made in the same spot against Oliver online? Was it a live tell that gave you the information you needed to lay it down?
Galen Hall: There was one small live tell that I picked up that indicated strength. It wasn’t something that was a make or break factor, but it did help me in my decision. If I were not playing that many tables, I think I could still have made this fold and honestly I think that a lot of other good regulars could make it too.
The only thing that makes it tougher online is that people just find it a lot easier to bluff online than they do live, so he has air more frequently, but I still don’t think I beat any of his value there.
