Youth is Served — With a “False Tell”

Date: 2008.02.18 | Category: Hand Of The Week | By: Phil Hellmuth   

This week, I’m staying in London playing in, and commentating for, the European Open IV. Since I finished second in my six-player heat, I found myself in the booth doing the commentary for the final. I needed a win to make the championship round. The six-player EO IV final included 19-year-old sensation Annette Obrestad (who won the World Series of Poker Europe and $2 million at age 18), Nick “The Detective” Slade, 2007 Premier League winner Juha Helppi, Craig Burgess, Ian “The Raiser” Frazer and Josh Tyler. In this format, each arrived at the finals with their chip count from the semis, and Frazer had more than $400,000, compared to $100,000 for Slade and Burgess.

Slade played an aggressive final, and moved up in chips quickly. Slade looked brilliant and idiotic with A-8. First, he looked smart when he raised it up with A-8. Obrestad reraised with J-4, and Slade moved all-in and won the pot uncontested. An hour later, however, Slade looked foolish when he raised it up with A-8. Tyler reraised with Q-Q, and Slade moved all-in for a huge amount. Although Slade put it all-in as a two-and-a-half-to-one underdog, he came out smelling like a rose when the board came down 8-6-4-A-K. In fact, that was Slade’s only bad play of the day. I think Slade realized he had made a mistake, and afterward, he played brilliantly.