WSOP Hand of the Day: Minh Ly, Justin Smith, and Michael Binger

World Series of Poker / Short-Stacked Shamus / 05 July 2011 / Leave a Comment

Minh Ly at Event #55 (Photo credit: PokerNews / WSOP.com)

There were a number of intriguing hands from Day 3 of Event #55, the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship in which players rotate through a mix of eight different games until they reach the no-limit hold'em-only final table. By day's end Josh Arieh had emerged as the leader with more than 1.8 million chips, with Brian Rast, George Lind III, Vladimir Shchemelev, Phil Hellmuth, and Scott Seiver all ending the day with more than a million as well.

As the field was whittled down from 74 to 29 yesterday, those of us covering the event witnessed several "Hand of the Day" candidates.

There was an Omaha/8 hand between Matt Glantz and Dario Alioto in which a series of bets on the turn saw Alioto all in with the board showing 10h-Kd-Qd-8h. Both players had flopped Broadway, and after the turn card both had nut flush redraws, Alioto with diamonds and Glantz with hearts. A heart fell on the river, and Alioto was eliminated.

There was a NLHE hand between Hellmuth and Seiver in which the Poker Brat called a half-pot sized river bet from Seiver with the board showing 8s-3h-9s-8c-9h and won holding only Jd-3d for jack-high. (No shinola!)

And there was a five-way razz hand involving a short-stacked Jeffrey Lisandro who was all in by fourth street, then won the main pot to quintuple up!

But the hand I've chosen to share was a pot-limit Omaha hand that took place just after dinner break involving Minh Ly, Justin "Boosted J" Smith, and Michael Binger. The tourney had moved into Level 14, where the blinds were 3,000/6,000 for PLO. After heading to dinner with a slightly above average stack, Smith had had a rocky start to the level to fall to around 120,000, while Ly was sitting with about 250,000. With about 40 players left, that meant both Ly and Smith were well below the average at the time.

As Rich Ryan reported on PokerNews, Binger started things by limping from under the gun, then Smith, sitting to Binger's left, raised the pot to 27,000. It folded around to Ly in the hijack seat who reraised again to 96,000. The button and blinds got out, then Binger -- who had an above-average stack at the time -- called Ly's reraise. Smith then reraised all in for 119,500 total, and both Ly and Binger called the extra 23,500.

That meant the pot was in the neighborhood of 370,000 when the flop came 4d-Ah-Ad. As Rich explains, things got "murky" at this point although it seems clear that four things occurred: Binger checked, Ly bet, tablemate Matt Glantz made some sort of comment either before or after Ly's bet, and Binger folded.

With Binger's fold, the betting action was concluded, and it was time for Smith and Ly to table their hands. But the usually reserved Ly had become quite angry with Glantz regarding his comment, and spent a couple of minutes talking about the side pot and telling Glantz he'd bet him $100,000 that he had quad aces.

Eventually the furor died down and Ly tabled his hand -- Ac-As-Jc-6s. Indeed, as he had insisted, he'd flopped quad aces. Smith, meanwhile, had Kd-Ks-10s-5d and was drawing dead. The no-longer-meaningful turn and river were dutifully delivered, Smith was eliminated, and Ly came away with about 500,000. (Ly returns to Day 4 today 12th of 29.)

Both players had been dealt PLO monsters -- double-suited, big pair hands -- and with their relatively short stacks were pretty much destined to get their chips in the middle. Whether or not Ly might have gotten more from Binger on the hand is impossible to say. Ly seemed to think Glantz's comment might've affected the action, but Binger would likely have been wary to commit any more chips on such a flop unless perhaps he happened to hold pocket fours.

The action continues today in Event #55. They'll likely reach the top 16 and the cash today, and might even make it down to a final table. Head over to PokerNews' live reporting to follow it all, and tune into WSOP.com where there may be some live streaming available to watch today as well.