In 2023 WSOP, a seeming statement of relief when a shove wasn't snap-called

Final hand from that year's Main Event has some interesting verbal behavior

I stumbled across a hand that had some interesting behavior; it was the final hand from the 2023 WSOP Main Event. You can watch it in the video below with some analysis by Alex Duvall. The hand starts at 4:00: I recommend starting there.

In my book Verbal Poker Tells, I have a several-page section on this pattern, with several examples from the show High Stakes Poker and some I witnessed myself.

Here’s one example of this from the book:

$2-5 NLHE cash game, witnessed by author

On a turn board of 8♦ 6♦ 2♥ 9♦, a player goes all-in for $400 into a $230 pot. His opponent considers.

The bettor says, “Yikes! I was so sure you had the flush.”

Opponent: “You got the straight?”

Bettor: “Maybe. Flush is definitely good, though. Please don’t slowroll me.”

Results: The bet is called. The bettor had 8♠ 8♥, for a set. His opponent lost with 9♠ 8♣: top two pair.

This is how many of these types of statements show up. The bettor believes he should value-bet but is also afraid of a snap-call from the top of his opponent’s hand range. When he doesn’t get immediately called he expresses some genuine relief.

The hand from the WSOP Main Event at top is kind of interesting though. It strikes me as quite an unlikely thing for a decent player to be saying in such a spot. For one thing, it’s a bit below the hand strength you’d expect such a statement to show up with. I’d more expect to see it with AJ or better, just because there are quite a few hands that beat him that his opponent would consider with, so you’d think he’d instinctually not want to say this. Usually such statements of relief are reserved for spots where they just instinctually have a feeling that no snap call means they’re good, but this seems like an unlikely spot where he’d have such an instinct.

For another thing, such loose verbal statements are very rare in high stakes tournament situations like this. It’s just a very huge spot and most people are focused on being stoic and giving nothing away. People do give stuff away verbally sometimes, even experienced players, but combined with the previous point this really stands out as unusual to me.

When I shared this on Instagram, someone proposed that maybe they’d made an agreement to chop the money equally. This would make a lot of sense to me; it would help explain why he would be so relaxed in such a spot and not care about giving something away.

Another explanation might be that he was trying to get verbally tricky in some way; maybe to either induce his opponent to fold a better hand or to call with a worse hand. Also, even apart from having some specific plan, sometimes people just desperately try things if they’re nervous, even if they haven’t thought through the implications of what they’re saying/doing.

I will say that I’ve hardly ever seen this behavior done as a reverse, tricky tell. It almost always is genuine in nature. And when it is done as a reverse tell it’s always been someone doing it with a very strong hand to fake having a less strong hand to get a call. For example, an example of it as a reverse-tell in my book is from High Stakes Poker where Antonio Esfandiari shoved with KK pre-flop and, after his opponent considered and complained verbally, Esfandiari said, “That’s a good sign.” But again, that kind of trickiness is quite rare in my experience finding this pattern.

All in all, if I had to bet on what happened, I think it was a genuine statement of relief caused by them making a behind-the-scenes deal to chop the money evenly.

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