SuperStars of Poker Clash with Gus Hansen and Phil Ivey in stack play.

The Superstars of poker tournament awards points for high place finishers in a round robin series of tournaments featuring some of the best players in the world.  You advance by collecting points and get eliminated in subsequent rounds if you don't collect enough with points in these games.  The sit and go format itself will is much like an online Turbo came in that the blinds rise quickly.  Sadly that contributed to a lot of pushing and shoving, and not a lot of skill play that could've been the feature of these great players.

In this hand however, the stack size and the finishing point values still have enough at stake whereby someone can fold and get out of hand.  Two of the game's greatest stars in Phil Ivey and Gus Hansen clashed here and Gus Hansen shows not only how aggression can went pots, but how to effectively use a big stack to push your opponent on hand.

There are three players left in this tournament including Phil Ivey with $544,000 (the intro on this program shows Phil Ivey at $244,000 in chips, which is in error) in chips Johnny Chan with $934,000 in chips, and of course Gus Hansen with $2,022,000 in chips and a commanding chip lead.  Phil Ivey is on the button with ace jack suited and no stat hand is well above Gus Hansen's range of hands to call with and thus puts in a raise to $60,000, but Gus Hansen in the small blind has a potential hand of ace deuce suited, so he calls the raise while Johnny Chan holds his hand and gets out of the way.  While Gus Hansen does have Phil Ivey out stacked in a big way, there is the plausible play that Gus could come over top of Ivey and put them all in.  But I think Gus's call here is quite crafty since he could assume Phil Ivey wouldn't come in this hand with out a quality hand. It is likely that Gus Hansen knows he is dominated here because if Phil Ivey in fact was holding a pair that he might very well have shoved pre-flop.

It is inconceivable then, that Gus Hansen called this hand knowing he was dominated by Phil Ivey, with a plan to take Ivey off the hand if no big cards came on the flop. So after Gus calls the pot is hundred and $149,000 pot.

The flop is 883.  No help to either player but Gus has to be thinking there is an opportunity to take this pot down now because reasonable even though he's behind Phil Ivey that this flop was nowhere near Phil Ivey's hand either.  Stacked play has to be considered here now.  So Gus bets $75,000 and Phil Ivey really has a couple of choices here all of which are risky.  He can fold the best hand.  He can call with the best hand.  Or he can move all in here with the best hand.  However he does not know he has the best hand.  He chooses to call the $75,000 making the pot $299,000.

The turn brings the 10 of hearts which now gives Gus a flush draw and the confidence now to back $200,000 essentially pot committing Phil Ivey if Phil Ivey decides to play.  The 10 was somewhat risky in that one of the conceivable hands that Phil Ivey could've been holding would be ace 10.  But Gus took that chance anyhow going with the odds that none of these cards hit the Phil Ivey's hole cards and really turn this hand around by adding stack pressure on Phil Ivey, threatening his tournament survival.

This is excellent stack pressure exerted by Gus Hansen, even though he could reasonably assume he was still dominated and none of these cards in the community helped either of their hole cards.  Phil Ivey on the other hand might assume that he is actually a hat in his hand however it is not inconceivable that Gus Hansen actually hit an eight or three and is only representing a bluff that here.  He just can't guess wrong at this stage of the tournament and for what's at stake so Phil Ivey, is stuck to fold here.

These are two of the best players in the world and they both show it here in this clever hand of ace high versus ace high.