WSOP Hand of the Day: Eric Froehlich vs. Mikhail Yakovlev

/ Short-Stacked Shamus / 02 July 2011 / Leave a Comment

Event #50 final table (Photo credit: PokerNews / WSOP.com)

Lots of action and excitement at the WSOP yesterday. While many are looking ahead to the $50K Player's Championship (starting today) and the Main Event (starting Thursday), the last of the preliminary events have been providing poker fans a lot of thrills in the meantime. Among those final prelims is Event #50, the $5,000 Triple Chance No-Limit Hold'em event that played down to four players late last night. It was a hand between two-time WSOP bracelet winner Eric Froehlich and Mikhail Yakovlev from that event that provides us Friday's WSOP Hand of the Day.

I nearly picked another hand from Event #51, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better event (a.k.a. "the most misunderstood game on the planet") for today's Hand of the Day. It was a high-drama hand involving David "Doc" Sands and Alex Wice in which Sands led each street, then shoved the river on a 4c-10c-Jd-10h-Ks board. Wice ended up folding after several minutes of agonizing deliberation, briefly flashing an ace and a queen as he did. It was a momentum-shifting hand, after which Wice -- who had been among the leaders -- failed to recover, going out in 11th. Meanwhile, Sands returns today as the big chip leader among the final ten.

While that hand would have provided a lot to analyze, I've instead chosen a no-limit hold'em hand from Event #50 that is perhaps more about spectacle than strategy, although it, too, involves a couple of key post-flop decisions.

Eight players remained in Event No. 50, with Mikhail Yakovlev of Russia the chip leader with about 2.8 million chips, while Virginia resident Eric "E-Fro" Froehlich was in the middle of the pack in fifth with a little over 1.25 million. As Cory Dowd of PokerNews reported, the blinds were 20,000/40,000 (ante 5,000) when Yakovlev opened with a raise to 95,000 from middle position. It folded to Froehlich who reraised to 250,000 from the cutoff seat, forcing out the button and blinds. Yakovlev paused, then called the raise, meaning there was 600,000 in the middle when the flop came 5s-4s-10d.

Yakovlev checked to Froehlich, who moved all in for just over 1 million chips. Making sure Froehlich had indeed declared he was all in, Yakovlev quickly called, tabling 10h-10c for a flopped set of tens. Meanwhile, Froehlich was in desperate shape with his Qs-Qh.

In some ways, this might be considered one of those hands that "played itself," with Froehlich the unfortunate victim of happenstance. The preflop raise-reraise-call sequence was standard, and while Yakovlev might've led the flop he knew that Froehlich's having taken the initiative before meant a c-bet was likely to come, especially on such a flop.

Froehlich's decision to shove isn't necessarily automatic here, either. However, even if that board might seem innocuous at first glance, it is coordinated enough to make it understandable to think that Froehlich didn't care to see a spade or potential straight-maker on the turn. In any case, the likelihood of all E-Fro's chips getting in the middle is very high here, regardless of how exactly the betting were to go.

Okay, enough strategy. Now for the spectacle.

The dealer burned a card and dealt the turn -- the Qd! One of Froehlich's two outs had arrived, and the crowd went wild. The river was the 6s, and suddenly Froehlich had gone from near-elimination to taking the chip lead from Yakovlev.

Yakovlev would soon be eliminated in seventh, while Froehlich survived to make today's Day 4. When play resumes this afternoon, E-Fro will be fourth of four behind leader Adam Geyer, Antonin Teisseire, and Darryl Ronconi.

Check over at PokerNews' live reporting to see how Event #50 concludes and how today's other final tables play out as well. And remember you can watch those final tables streamed live over at WSOP.com, too.