WSOP Hand of the Day: Sebastian Ruthenberg vs. Evan McNiff

World Series of Poker / Short-Stacked Shamus / 17 July 2011 / Leave a Comment

The crafty Sebastian Ruthenberg is poised to make a deep run at this year's 2011 WSOP Main Event (Photo credit: PokerNews / WSOP.com)

Yesterday's Day 5 of the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event saw more exciting hands and rising drama as the field shrunk and the prize money increased. Your humble scribbler was stationed over at the feature tables yesterday, racing back and forth between the two to catch hands. Of the many interesting ones occurring on those tables, I've chosen one played late in the day between Sebastian Ruthenberg and Evan McNiff as Saturday's WSOP Hand of the Day.

The main feature table began with Jean-Robert Bellande and Daniel Negreanu sporting both the biggest names and the biggest stacks of the nine players seated there, although Negreanu was only a bit above the average at the time. Bellande would maintain his stack throughout the day, and ended pretty close to where he started with 1.23 million. Negreanu, however, lost about half of his chips in the first few hands of Day 5, then battled with the short stack for most of the day before being eliminated in 211st.

As players were eliminated at the main feature table, new ones came to fill the empty seats. Among those who came over were five-time WSOP bracelet winner Allen Cunningham and Ruthenberg. The German pro has won one WSOP bracelet himself as well as an EPT title (2008 Barcelona Open), so the level of play at the table remained fairly high from start to finish.

Ruthenberg only arrived near night's end, bringing a top 20 stack of chips over when he did. He would manage to play several interesting hands during his short stay, constantly pressuring his opponents and perhaps helping inspire Bellande's tweet afterwards that this was the "Toughest wsop nl tbl ever for me."

Among those interesting hands was one Ruthenberg played with McNiff, another top player from California. At the start of the hand (reported on over at PokerNews), Ruthenberg was sitting at about 2.5 million while McNiff was close to 1.6 million. The blinds were 10,000/20,000 (ante 3,000) when it folded around to McNiff on the button who raised to 42,000, and Ruthenberg called from the big blind -- a fairly standard sequence at the table, with a late position open and a BB defense.

The pot was around 120,000, then, when the flop came Js-9d-9s. Ruthenberg led with a bet of 50,000, and McNiff called. Again, Ruthenberg wasn't the only player leading postflop from out of position like this at the main feature table -- Bellande, in fact, had been doing it frequently, too. The turn brought the 2h and another bet from Ruthenberg, this one for 86,000 (just over a third of the pot). McNiff again called.

The Kh fell on the river, and this time Ruthenberg checked. McNiff waited just a bit, then bet 192,000 into the 400,000-ish pot. Ruthenberg thought about the situation for some time -- at least a couple of minutes -- before acting. "Tankers always fold," is a maxim a colleague of mine, a fellow tourney reporter, is fond of saying. Indeed, it usually is the case that when we watch a player spend a long time contemplating calling an opponent's river bet, the player more often than not will fold.

But not this time. Ruthenberg finally made the call, and turned over 5s-5c for fives and nines. McNiff mucked, and Ruthenberg scooped the nearly 800,000-chip pot to move closer to the 3 million-chip mark.

"Amazing call," said my colleague Remko Rinkema, a reporter for the Dutch PokerNews site, after we saw Ruthenberg's fives.

The pair on the flop -- making the flop marginally less likely to have hit McNiff's hand -- perhaps inspired Ruthenberg to lead with his small pocket pair. The deuce on the turn was also unlikely to have helped his opponent, and so the situation on that street was quite similar, leading to another bet from the German.

The king on the river, however, made things less certain for Ruthenberg. The card could easily have paired McNiff, although Ruthenberg probably thought it more likely for McNiff to check behind in such a case given the board. The same could be said for most other hands that beat Ruthenberg here.

In the end, it was one of those situations in which McNiff's river bet signaled his range was likely polarized -- either he had a huge hand or nothing -- and after thinking it through Ruthenberg correctly decided McNiff didn't have it. Ruthenberg returns to day to a stack of 3.354 million (7th overall), while McNiff will start with a slightly below average 1.319 million.

It's getting tense now. Just 142 players are coming back for today's Day 6. Check over at PokerNews' live reporting for reports throughout the day, and do look in on that coverage (if you can) on ESPN2 and ESPN3 which I'm hearing is terrific.