WSOP Hand of the Day: Ryan Lenaghan vs. Bryan Follain

World Series of Poker / Short-Stacked Shamus / 18 July 2011 / Leave a Comment

Ryan Lenaghan enters Day 7 of the WSOP Main Event as chip leader (Photo credit: PokerNews / WSOP.com)

Yet another exciting day at the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event, as the field has now shrunk to 57 players. After starting Day 6 with only 750,000 chips (102nd of 142), Ryan Lenaghan enjoyed a day full of big hands and huge pots to end as the chip leader with 12.865 million. It was a hand from late in the day between Lenaghan and Bryan Follain that sent Lenaghan into the chip lead that serves as Sunday's WSOP Hand of the Day.

As Eric Ramsey reported for PokerNews, play had reached the last level of the night (Level 26), where the blinds had risen to 25,000/50,000 with a 5,000 ante. Just 68 players remained, with Lenaghan having already begun to contend for the lead by building a stack of more than 8 million. Meanwhile, Bryan Follain had a bit over 4 million, an above-average stack at the time.

Follain, by the way, had cheekily registered a new Twitter account a short time ago -- @2011wsopchamp -- a fact which began to gain some notice once the field had shrunk below 100 players and Follain's name continued to appear among the upper half of the counts.

Lenaghan got things going with a slightly-more-than-2x raise to 110,000 from middle position. Then Follain reraised to 355,000 from late position. It folded back around, and before Lenaghan acted he asked what Follain had left behind (4 million), then four-bet to 865,000.

Undeterred, Follain quickly reraised again 1.2 million more, or 2.065 million total. Lenaghan then took another look at his hole cards, and also without much delay announced he was pushing all in even before Follain had finished stacking up and pushing forward the chips from his previous reraise.

To that point both Lenaghan and Follain were sending loud signals both with their bets and the rhythm of play that each held especially strong hands. But when Lenaghan made the all-in shove, Follain hesitated. He'd already committed about half his starting stack in this hand, and would end up tanking for several minutes before deciding to go ahead and send in the rest, saying "All right, I had fun" as he did.

The pot had reached over 8 million, and some were surprised to see neither player table aces, kings, ace-king, or even queens. Rather Lenaghan showed Jc-Jd and Follain Ah-Qd.

As it turned out, the players were essentially flipping (with Lenaghan about a 56% favorite to win). The community cards came 9d-2d-6c-4d-10c, Lenaghan took down the massive pot, and Follain hit the rail in 68th place.

It is hard to analyze such a hand without fuller context. History between the two at the table, particularly the patterns of three- and even four-bets they'd displayed previously, would likely help explain how both managed to get as far as they did here with these less-than-premium starters.

It's worth noting, though, that this stage of the WSOP Main Event -- when the field gets below 100 players, but has yet to approach the last two or three tables -- often features just this sort of high-risk gambles by players. Even though the stacks are still relatively deep (e.g., in this hand Lenaghan began with more than 160 big blinds and Follain more than 80), we often see preflop all-ins involving players with hands other than aces or kings.

There are many reasons why this is the case, but Follain's last utterance before calling -- "All right, I had fun" -- suggests one possible cause. For some, the stress of six days' worth of intense play encourages players to seek relief by ending the decision-making preflop, even if it wouldn't otherwise be recommended to do so with such deep stacks and hands like ace-queen or pocket jacks. It is almost as though after making hundreds of decisions over the course of many days, they become possessed with a desire to find some respite -- that is, to step back from the table and let the cards decide their fate.

Whatever the causes, such confrontations certainly create some high drama and memorable WSOP moments.

Follow along with PokerNews' live reporting today where there will likely be more such moments as they play down from 57 to 27. Also, check in on the cool, almost-live coverage over on ESPN2 if you can, and perhaps look in at the WSOP site, too, as I believe they are featuring some live streaming as well.