Isaac Haxton vs Ryan Daut

Firstly I would just like to say how happy I am to be writing articles for The Hendon Mob again after more than two years. The thread that Barny Boatman started regarding the hand played by Tom Dwan against Barry Greenstein and Peter Eastgate kind of led me to get carried away as a few of you probably noticed. But I love discussing high stakes poker hands and one such hand here features one of my favourite players Isaac Haxton. I even love this dude’s croaky voice but this hand against Ryan Daut is worthy of a mention.

It was played some time ago but I would be very interested to hear your thoughts here on this hand. Mainly would you have shown the bluff on the end like Haxton did? I think that the situation of the match largely dictated Haxton’s play here. He started the hand with a 2/1 chip inferiority.

But the fact that he started the heads up encounter with a 3/1 chip lead could mean that his head isn’t right. Obviously there is a lot of game history here that we don’t know but Haxton is a very aggressive player in many instances and that comes across in his tournament play and also when you watch his coaching videos. So for him to go from a 3/1 superiority to a 2/1 inferiority either indicates that Daut has been hitting hands or running over him. When Daut bets the flop of Ac-Qh-4h then here is where I think Haxton knew that Daut didn’t have an ace.

The fact that Daut limped pre flop lowered the chance of an ace and Haxton has the wheel draw and the possible equity of a repped flush as a potential fall back. It is possible to raise the flop if you are Haxton but that is dangerous if your opponent plays along or three bets and you have started the hand 2/1 behind in chips. When Haxton calls the flop then he is looking to move Daut from the hand.

When Daut checks the turn back then this is an indication of weakness and Haxton clearly knows now that he has to bet the river whatever comes. I think Haxton’s 700k river bet is a bit on the quick side and I like Daut’s play of jumping all over it. But just how many hands in Daut’s range can he raise the river with here? His river raise looks so polarised although very gutsy but what a move by Haxton to back up your read by moving in. However I would be interested to hear other thoughts here and if you think his line is over the top and unnecessary or even tilty. Maybe he just felt that he had to play back at a guy who was pushing him around… maybe the showing of the hand at the hand basically said… “I’ve had enough of this”… any thoughts?