Dwan vs Greenstein
High Stakes Poker, Season 5, 2009 · Three Players See the Flop
A very big pot on television
The Hand
Barry Greenstein, Tom Dwan and Peter Eastgate. Blinds 400 / 800, ante 200.
Before the Flop
- Blinds 400 and 800. Greenstein has the button.
- Four other players fold.
- Eastgate raises to 3.5K.
- Greenstein raises to 15K.
- Dwan calls.
- Another player folds.
- Eastgate calls.
The Flop
Dwan bets 28.7K. Why
Dwan. Top pair with a flush draw is strong against almost everything, and it still has plenty of chances against aces. Leading builds the pot.
- Eastgate folds.
Greenstein raises to 100K. Why
Greenstein. An overpair against a lead from the blind: charge the draws.
Dwan raises to 244.6K. Why
Dwan. With this much equity, getting all the chips in is fine. Re-raising also wins whenever Greenstein’s raise was a bluff.
- Greenstein raises to 436.1K. The famous decision
- Dwan calls.
The Turn
The River
Play Dwan vs Greenstein, decision by decision
Play This Hand
The flop
The Famous Decision
Greenstein. The pot is already huge. Aces against a lead and a re-raise are often still ahead of a draw or a weaker queen.
Both players got their chips in with a good hand. The turn queen decided it, and nobody made a mistake.
The Result
Dwan wins at the showdown with Three of a kind, Queens.
- GreensteinA♦A♣
- DwanK♠Q♠Wins
Why It Is Famous
Barry Greenstein got his aces all in against Tom Dwan’s top pair with a flush draw, and Dwan’s queen on the turn made trips. The $919,600 pot was then the biggest in televised poker. Two episodes earlier Greenstein had refused to run it twice and cracked Dwan’s aces in a $548,700 pot.
What to Take from It
Big draws plus a pair are hands to get all in with. Neither player made a mistake here; the turn decided it.
Sources
What the sources do not say. The big blind is not identified, and the table has eight players, worked out from the pot. Only the players named in the sources are drawn. Greenstein’s all in was for Dwan’s entire stack of $436,100 (CardPlayer), so Dwan’s stack is worked out from it, and Greenstein’s is only known to cover it. One source gives the blinds as $500/$1,000, but those do not add up to the reported pot.
Make all four decisions, then see what really happened
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