Dropping out of college is highly discouraged in most cases, but when you’re a 23-year-old college dropout with $1.5 million in tournament winnings and even more in your bank account from high-stakes cash games, it’s hard to look back on that decision as a mistake.
That’s where poker pro Steve Sung stands right now in his life. He’s made some huge cashes in major tournaments, including a runner-up finish in the 2008 Bay 101 Shooting Star championship event ($585,000) and a final table at the 2007 World Poker Tour Spanish Championship (fourth, for $167,000). He hasn’t snagged a single major win in his career, as of yet, but he is still very young and has plenty of time to clinch a title.
Sung also plays poker online under his eponymous (albeit one-worded) screen name on Full Tilt, and he’s known to have dragged down some humongous pots in pot-limit Omaha cash games. Sung recently went over three of those hands with us in depth. Actually, he went over two in depth, and the third … well, that’s another story.
Heads-up $200-$400 pot-limit Omaha
Steve Sung ($150,190) vs. David Benyamine ($331,122)
SteveSung: A
K K
4
Benyamine raises to $1,200 on the button in the small blind
Steve Sung: This match had been going on for a long time, and he was pretty much beating me up pretty good. I was on semi-tilt … well, I was on tilt.
Shawn Patrick Green: [Laughs] Yeah, just say it, you were on tilt.
SS: Yeah, I was on tilt [laughs]. I was reraising a lot out of the big blind, out of position, so this was a standard hand for me to reraise.
SPG: When you’re playing pot-limit Omaha, though, aren’t your preflop edges usually pretty thin, no matter how good of a hand you have?
SS: Yeah, but I had a hand with which, if I flopped a flush draw, I would have overcards with a flush draw, which would be a huge favorite against two pair and hands like that. So, I wanted to build a huge pot. I wanted to win a big pot to get back to even [laughs].
Sung reraises to $3,600 in the big blind
Benyamine calls
Flop: K
6 5
Sung bets the pot, $7,200
SS: Even when I was bluffing, I just potted every time on the flop, and he would make plays at me.
SPG: As far as pot-sized bets are concerned, I’ve noticed that in a lot of hands people generally make pot-sized bets and then the next card comes and it’s another pot-bet. You wouldn’t see that kind of thing in no-limit hold’em; you don’t see pot-sized bets that often, so why does it happen so much in pot-limit games?
SS: Potting shows so much strength; you can’t go all in, so that’s the most that you can do.
SPG: So you’re basically saying, “I’m willing to commit as many chips as I can.”
SS: Right. So, when the flop game, I potted it. It was a pretty scary board with two spades; there were a lot of draws out there. He could have had a wrap flush draw, like 8-7-4 with two spades. I’m pretty much even money against that hand.
SPG: So what’s your thought process behind potting it, then? Because if you pot it and he has something like that, he’s usually going to call, but if he has something worse, he’s usually going to fold to your strong hand — you flopped the mortal nuts.
SS: I potted it because, with the way the match was going, it didn’t matter if I bet small or big, because if he was going to float me, he was going to float me either way. Plus, I wanted to make a bigger pot because I had such a strong hand.
Benyamine raises to $28,800
SS: When he re-pots me, I could have re-re-potted, and he still would have put it in, but I really wanted to see whether a spade came on the turn, so I just called.
Sung calls
Turn: 6
SS: That’s the perfect card. So, I check, and he checks behind. I was pretty sure that he had a flush.
Sung checks
Benyamine checks
River: 8
Sung checks
SPG: It’s a pretty standard move to check when you have, basically, the nuts, as you did on the turn — you had the second nuts in the hand at that point — but what was the thinking behind checking again on the river?
SS: When the match was going on, I made some really questionable calls against this guy. He knew that I was making those questionable calls, so if he had made a flush on the turn and I had aces in this spot, he thought I was going to call him, with the way the match was going. He thought I was going to donk off chips to him. So, I checked because I put him on the nut-flush draw on the flop, a flush draw with a straight draw. He checked behind on the turn [when he’d made the flush that I thought he was drawing to], so I think he just wanted to play a smaller pot.
And he also thought I had a really weak hand with which I’d fire the river so that he could call my bluff, pretty much. So, on the river, when the 8 came, I decided that there was already $64,800 in the pot, and instead of value-betting, I wanted to get it all in. If he had a flush, he wasn’t going to raise me if I bet.
SPG: And, with $118,000 behind, you couldn’t get it all in unless there was a bet to come over the top of.
SS: Right, and he knows that I’m willing to make sick bluffs. I’m willing to stick it in on a bluff. So, I figured that was the optimal way to get it all in, because I knew he would value-bet. I knew that he was one of the best players at value-betting, so I knew he’d value-bet the river.
Benyamine bets $34,000
Sung pushes all in for $117,790
Benyamine calls
Benyamine mucks
Sung wins a pot of $300,379 with a full house, kings full of sixes
SS: I actually talked to him about this hand. He really hated himself for calling the river check-raise. I saw what he had; he had As 9s for the nut flush.
Five-handed $200-$400 pot-limit Omaha
Steve Sung ($80,000) vs. Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond ($86,396)
SteveSung: 9 7 5 5
patatino calls in the cutoff
Baisti calls on the button
Sung calls in the small blind
OMGClayAiken checks his option in the big blind
Flop: K 8 5
SS: It was a limped pot, and since it was a limped pot, it’s really hard for me to put someone on kings. I flopped bottom set with a straight draw, so I decided to pot, expecting a raise. Instead, OMGClayAiken just smooth called me from the big blind, and patatino called, as well.
Sung bets the pot, $1,600
OMGClayAiken calls
patatino calls
Baisti folds
SPG: Why were you hoping that someone would raise you? You have a strong hand, obviously, but there’s a flush draw out there.
SS: I wanted to make the pot big, and I wanted to make the other guy commit all of his chips on a draw, because it’s hard for someone else to have a set here. I also have the redraw to a straight.
Turn: 5
Sung bets the pot, $6,400
SS: The turn gives me the nuts. When I bet out the pot on the flop, it doesn’t look like I have a set, it looks like I have a draw. On the turn, I decided to just pot it, because if someone turns quads, they don’t want to get the better player out of the pot, you know? And I know that OMGClayAiken is a good enough player that he could make moves on me on the turn, putting me on a draw.
SPG: Well, and it’s also the case that he likely wouldn’t put you on kings, either, because of the limped preflop action, so the only hands that he can put you on that are monsters are K-5, pocket eights, or an unlikely pocket fives.
SS: He had pocket eights, actually.
SPG: So, he’s realistically putting you on K-5 at best, which still loses to his eights full of fives.
SS: Right. So I decided to bet the pot on the turn to make it look like a bluff, to make it seem like I have a draw and am trying to get him off of his draw, supposedly. But I’ve played with him long enough that I’m pretty sure that’s what he thinks. He’s seen me pot three times with nothing many times, so I know he doesn’t give me that much credit.
OMGClayAiken raises to $14,800
patatino folds
SS: He basically min-raise me, and I had the nuts, so that made me think … I don’t put him on kings full, and I didn’t really put him on eights full, either, and I knew that he didn’t put me on that big of a hand. So, I decided to make a small reraise to make it seem like I’m trying to re-bluff him but get it off for cheap. At the same time, I’m really trying to get him to reraise me all in.
Sung reraises to $35,200
OMGClayAiken calls
River: 4
SS: He tanked for a long time before calling me on the turn. When he called me on the turn, I was pretty sure he was going to call me on the river. And then, on the river, I insta-push and he insta-calls.
Sung pushes all in for $42,800
OMGClayAiken calls
Sung wins a pot of $162,398 with quad fives
Five-handed $200-$400 pot-limit Omaha
Steve Sung ($78,291) vs. Brian “tsarrast” Rast ($181,433) vs. Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond ($67,141) vs. “ICallSoWhat” ($40,000)
SteveSung: 8 7 4 3
tsarrast raises to $1,200 under the gun
OMGClayAiken reraises to $5,200 on the button
ICallSoWhat calls in the small blind
Sung calls in the big blind
tsarrast calls
Flop: 9 7 3
ICallSoWhat bets the pot, $20,800
Sung moves all in for $73,091
tsarrast calls
OMGClayAiken calls all in for $61,941
ICallSoWhat calls all in for $34,800 (total)
Turn: 10
River: 6
ICallSoWhat: 9 7 6 5
OMGClayAiken: J 9 7 6
tsarrast: 5 4 3 3
Sung wins a pot of $263,723 with a 10-high straight
SS: While I was playing this hand, I was playing two tables, one of which was heads up Omaha eight-or-better with Daniel Alaei. I actually minimized the table [in this hand] because I saw the flop and I saw everyone’s hands, and I’m like, “I’m drawing dead.” So, it’s minimized, and the next thing I know, it pops back up [laughing].
SPG: [Laughing] I was going to say, after you saw their hands once all of the money had gone in, you had to have been like, “Ugh. OK, my flush draw is dead, my two pair is bad ...”
SS: Yep, it was like, “I can’t do anything about this hand.” And the next thing I know, Daniel Alaei types in the chatbox at my heads-up table, “You sick f---.” I was like, “What the … ?” Yeah, it was pretty crazy.
SPG: There’s probably not much else to say about that hand, is there? [Laughs]
SS: Yeah, that was a gift from Full Tilt, I guess.
